A Cheap Electric Sports Car?

Well, not exactly cheap, but it’s not $100,000 like the Tesla Roadster. Wired reports that the electric ZAP Alias will retail for around $30,000 in mid-2009.

What may not be immediately obvious is that it has three wheels. Unlike the famous Robin Reliant, the single wheel is at the back, and not the front. A projected range of 100 miles is promised with a top speed of 120mph. 2009 looks a little ambitious looking at the video - which is a computer model.

[Via: Wired]

How Cars Are Recycled

I’ve never really thought about it, but apparently cars are the most recycled consumer item in the US. This must be by size, not number as they beat newspapers and cans with 15m vehicles recycled every year. On average 84% of a vehicle can be recycled, and whilst re-use is the first option, the amount a vehicle can be recycled is impressive.

The Vehicle Recycling Partnership is a program of the United States Council for Automotive Research - a consortium of Chrysler, Ford and GM. Founded in 1992, it is “dedicated to finding vehicle recycling solutions that are sustainable, are environmentally friendly and fit within the current recycling infrastructure”.

The remaining 16% that cannot be recycled is mainly foam, rubber, fabric and certain plastics. Some of this is reused, but most of it is waste. They also look at the lifecycle of components, such as the waste created producing parts and assembling them. New car technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries present new problems for the team to address, not only in manufacture, but at end-of-life disposal. Currently 95% of all car batteries on the market are recycled from old batteries.

I was also impressed that they look at the energy use during the recycling process. As one GM Technical Fellow from GM’s Chemical and Environmental Sciences Research and Development department put it to me “There’s no point spending 10 minutes washing a glass jar in hot water just in order to recycle it - let’s minimise the energy cost and maximise the benefit”.

Solar Powered Car From University Of Michigan

Besides the glitzy car manufacturers, one of the most interesting parts of the Detroit Auto Show 2008 were the solar cars from the University of Michigan.

The University of Michigan Solar Car Team is a non-profit, entirely student run organisation whose purpose is to design, finance, build, and race a solar-powered vehicle. They displayed two of their vehicles, the Momentum 2005 (1st place North American Solar Challenge, and 3rd place World Solar Challenge), and the Continuum 2007 (7th place World Solar Challenge - partly due to a crash).

The North American Solar Challenge was founded in 1989 and is now a 2,400 mile race between Dallas, Texas and Calgary, Alberta. The World Solar Challenge is the premiere solar car race in the world and takes place in Australia for 1,800 miles. Changes in the rules, such as the number of solar cells allowed and the driver having to sit upright necessitated changes in design from the 2005 Momentum to the 2007 Continuum. You can see the new solar cells that use parabolic mirrors in the 2007 design below.

Traveling on public highways, the vehicles can reach up to 87mph, converting solar energy to electricity through triple-junction cells, structured in three layers to maximise sunlight. The power captured is stored in high capacity lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery packs.

For more informations, check out the University of Michigan Solar team website.

Tesla Electric Supercar To Arrive In March 08

Absent from the Detroit Auto Show, Tesla’s electric sportscar will go on sale in March 2008. At $100,000 it’s too rich for my blood, but for those who are going to buy a sportscar anyway (yeah, right), and want to do it in a more environmentally friendly way then this will soon be a reality.

[Via: EcoGeek]

Automotive X-Prize

The X PRIZE Foundation was created by Dr. Peter H. Diamandis who strongly believes that focused and talented teams in pursuit of a prize and acclaim can change the world. It’s an educational nonprofit prize institution whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.

You’ve probably heard of it before, when the first private vehicle went into space to win the $10m Ansari X PRIZE. The foundation now has the $10m Archon X PRIZE for Genomics and the $30m Google Lunar X PRIZE and the Automotive X PRIZE.

It has the goal of designing viable, clean and super-efficient cars that (and this is important) people want to buy. Beginning in 2009, with the final round in 2010 teams will compete to build cars that meet strict emissions guidelines (including the construction of the vehicle), fuel efficiency targets using a new measure called Miles Per Gallon Equivalent, and they must be capable of producing a minimum of 10,000 vehicles.

An example entrant is a man who gets 130mpg [via gas2.0]:

Chat Live With GM About The Environment

A great opportunity to chat to an executive from the automotive world, on Wednesday February 6th GM executive Brent Dewar (North America Vice President of Field Sales, Service and Parts) will be online answering questions regarding GM’s environmental programs and positions.

“Since the environment is a hot topic in today’s world, GM wants to set the record straights on its policies and initiatives. The chats are your exclusive chance to ask questions about the company and how it impacts the environment. ”

The first chat will take place Wednesday, February 6 from:
6pm to 7pm GMT
12pm to 1pm EST (time zone where chat takes place)
10am to 11am PST

Follow this link to ask a question at the time above. The chats are open to everyone.

This video of Brent Dewar below talking about environmentalism will give you an idea of what to expect.

Win With The Super Cars Shout Out Competition

What if you could be rewarded by thanking other people who, by driving less polluting cars, are doing a small part to help the environment? Well, with the Super Cars Shout Out Competition from PlanetThoughts.org you can.

This contest allows you to place a simple, colourful flier on high mileage cars that you encounter, showing the vehicle owner that she or he has done something worthy. Optionally you can re-use a copy of the flier on multiple vehicles to avoid paper waste, but then the car owner never knows that he/she was recognized, so we don’t recommend that. Printing fliers on recycled paper with high post-consumer content is recommended.

Of course, we would still prefer it if everyone could all walk, bicycle, car pool and car share, or use mass transit rather than driving individually-owned vehicles. Using more efficient cars simply makes this habit or need less damaging to our environment by reducing global warming gases, and saving fuel as well. Hopefully these cars are part of a transition to a better set of solutions.

The prize for this competition is at least $500 guaranteed. So if you are not in it for the fun and the mission, there is another reason to join in. And to make this fun for the wise car buyers, they will give $50 per month to one randomly selected car owner who contacts them that month and who has a valid photo of their of car uploaded on our site by any other entrant. Note: no individual or their family can win more than one secondary prize (the $50), but such winners are still eligible for the grand prize.

How to enter
1. Download and print one or more of the cool looking fliers (recycled paper obviously prefered and possibly two per page).
2. Find a 40+ mpg US (16.74 kmpl) car from the list.
3. Place the flier under the windshield wiper.
4. Use a digital camera or good cell phone to photograph it (and either take the flier with you to reuse or leave it for the car owner).
5. Upload the image(s) to the PlanetThoughts.org website.
6. Repeat

There are, of course, some simple rules to stop people rigging the competition, but nothing difficult.

It really is a great actionable idea that can win you some cash, so take a look.

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