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.

Green Cars and Green Claims - Part 3

This is the final part of a three-part series. For the first part go here, or follow this link for all Detroit Auto Show 2008 articles.

Chrysler

Chrysler had a nice big sign up for their Aspen two mode hybrid but very little information on it. Their Global Electric Motorcars company had several vehicles on display, including the e2 pictured here. It’s under $7,000 and while a rear window and right side mirror are optional extras it does have a smog rating of 0.00.

BMW

BMW presented the BMW Hydrogen 7, the world’s first hydrogen-powered luxury saloon virtually free of emissions in everyday use. Currently 100 vehicles are on test drive, where the engine can be switched between hydrogen mode (200km/125miles range) or gasoline (another 500km/310 miles) to increase range. The advantage of hydrogen engines of course are they emit only water vapour. however, how green they are depends on how the hydrogen is manufactured.

Mini focused on lower fuel consumption as a unique selling point. With Brake Energy Regeneration they convert engine power into drive power for the wheels and electric power being generated only when moving or braking. With the Auto Start Stop function means that for all manual gearbox versions the engine no longer idles when stopped. When the gearshift is in neutral and the clutch isn’t pressed the engine switches off. Once the clutch pedal is pressed again the engine restarts. Finally they have a simple device called “the gearshift point indicator” that literally points to which gear you should be in for maximum engine (and therefore fuel) efficiency. Interesting!

Fisker Automotive

Fisker launched their $80,000 “eco-chic” car, which looks pretty nice as you can see from the photo below (or after the ‘Read more’ link if you’re reading this on our homepage). And yes, they are solar panels on the roof. Clearly aimed at the eco-conscious rich and celebrities, the vehicle is a plug-in hybrid that gets 50 miles from an overnight charge, and then a combustion engine takes over. 0-60 in 5.8 seconds is not bad at all, so if you can afford it (though you could get two Chevy Volts for the price) you can pre-order one for $5,000 now… The company was one of the few who printed their press kit on recycled paper with soy-based vegetable inks so get the thumbs up there.
[Read more]

Green Cars and Green Claims - Part 2

This is part two of a three-part series. For the first part go here, or follow this link for all Detroit Auto Show 2008 articles.

Toyota

Toyota is well known for their Prius, but this is a purpose built hybrid, not an exisiting model with a hybrid option. They hope to have all models with a hybrid option by 2020, however seem to be falling behind the competition in this respect, perhaps as a result of resting on the success of the Prius. They will have 400 demonstration plug-in hybrids by 2010 but not models for sale. It plans to offer diesel engines on the Tundra and Sequioa, though these are still pretty inefficient vehicles.

Their stand was made of eco-friendly materials and incorporated energy efficient elements such as using LEDs. They also unveiled the Toyota A-BAT concept runs on the same hybrid powertrain as the Prius (below left), and had an excellent cutaway of a fuel cell hybrid, demonstrating how it worked (below right).

Lexus didn’t have much of a green angle (like most of the luxury manufacturers) with only their RX 400 SUV on show, to my eye at least.

Ferrari

Yes, even the great gas guzzler Ferrari had a F430 Spider bio fuel vehicle on display, even though it’s just a concept. It runs on E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline for those who don’t know), and has actually slightly more horsepower than the current version.

Honda

Honda have the Accord ES is a “near zero” emission vehicle yet I don’t know whether it was because I was tired or they hadn’t yet put all the vehicles out for the public show, but I couldn’t find one on display.
[Read more]

Green Cars and Green Claims - Part 1

This is part one of a three-part series. Follow this link for all Detroit Auto Show 2008 articles.

At the Detroit Auto Show I’ve seen many claims and examples of cleaner vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles. As a guest of GM I had the closest look at their vehicles, but there were plenty of unveilings and new technologies from most auto manufacturers. In this three-part series I’ll take a look at some of the major green announcements and vehicles from the show.

GM

Most of GM’s brands had a green announcement in one sort or another, even Hummer. Under their banner of “gas friendly to gas free”, GM unveiled five different programs to reduce gasoline usage. These were:

- Fuel efficiency
- Ethanol E85 (see my Coskata announcement)
- Hybrid
- Electric (such as the Chevy Volt)
- Fuel cell (hydrogen)

In fact, most of the talk with any GM employee turned to green issues whether in press conferences, group interviews or one-on-one talks. The wind seems to have truly shifted firmly in the belief that in order to sell more cars in the future, the reliance on (mainly) foreign oil needs to be broken - see my interview with Bob Lutz, GM’s Vice Chairman.

Saturn extended their commitment to the Green Line of the Vue and Aura, positioning Saturn as the green brand for GM. The 2009 Vue Two mode hybrid uses a system that has been used in buses since 2003 in over 1,000 vehicles in 70 cities. Apparently it is 50% more fuel efficient than it’s non-hybrid version, and can get 500 miles on one tank. The engine turns off when idling, it uses electric only at low speed, and has seamless regenerative braking. They also showed their Flextreme concept vehicle that can drive for 30 miles on electric power only.
[Read more]

US Carbon Footprint Map

Just a quick post, I received an email from Ed regarding a US Carbon Footprint Map, an interactive United States Carbon Footprint Map, illustrating the greenest states & cities. The site has all sorts of stats on individual state & city energy consumptions, demographics and state energy offices, state taxes and more down to the local US city level.

The interactive map itself is further down the page, tables explaining the data are at the top. When clicking on the map you can click through to further details, such as for California that contains an impressive level of data. Worth a look, especially if you live in the US.

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