"... the big automakers have many billions of dollars invested in factories and infrastructure for making cars the old-fashioned way. They couldn't walk away from that if they wanted to. This is something that only a new company can do, and that's where we come in. We are going to disrupt the status quo. We're very serious about this. We're going to produce and sell these cars ..." Read more Link ... *330 MPG hybrid car with 3 wheels for under 20K!
Nissan’s Pivo concept car is a zero emissions three - seater powered by a lithium battery. Instead of reversing this midget into a tight city space, the entire cabin revolves to let you see and drive forward.
A hybrid vehicle's engine is a lot like a normal car's engine. But it has a special electric-hybrid side. On deceleration, the electric motor actually turns into a generator that recharges the batteries for the next acceleration. The vehicle is as close as you can get to zero emissions. In fact, the Toyota Prius, a popular hybrid, is exempt from emissions testing.
Toyota intends to have a hybrid version of every one of their models available by the year 2010. With other brands such as Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Fiat, Peugeot, Audi and even Porsche, all licensed to use Toyota’s Hybrid technology in future vehicles, it’s clear that Toyota are onto a winning formula.
It's design is brilliant and minimal, it has no more than is absolutely necessary. It grips the road with absurd tenacity, and accelerates from 0-60 at a a ludicrous 2.9 seconds, assuming you can shift through its six gears fast enough. It weighs 500kg (about 1,100 lbs), it sits atop a sophisticated race car suspension system, and it is powered by a 300hp supercharged Honda engine. This gives it a weight/horsepower ratio of about 600hp/ton.
The iconic G-Wiz was designed in California, is manufactured by Indo-US Reva Electric Car Company and is the best selling electric car in the UK - and worldwide. It has just been updated with a new AC Drive option (see below) to offer a choice of performance and finishes.
The G-Wiz is emission free and carbon neutral. It uses only a quarter as much energy as a similar size petrol car, making it the most energy efficient car on the road. Read more Link ... *Driving down pollution
EV’s, or Electric Vehicles, to give them their full name, are cars and vans powered by electricity. They do not have petrol or diesel engines but instead are propelled by electric motors. AVT electric cars and vans use batteries to provide the electric power for the motors.
Now you can have an EV with really useful range which is capable of traveling over 200 miles.
BMW has developed a BMW H2R Hydrogen Car 7 Series that runs Hydrogen powered 6-litre V12. In typical BMW style and just to prove there needn’t be a compromise in performance when using alternative fuels, BMW have also produced a 285hp car dubbed the H2R that can accelerate from 0-100kph in just 6 seconds. This car recently set a land speed record of just under 300kph!
Mazda also favors internal combustion engines over the fuel cell technology. Mazda has converted one of their rotary powered vehicles, the Mazda RX8, to run on Hydrogen. The rotary engine has long been recognised as a good engine to burn hydrogen and just like their fuel cell counterparts the only emissions you get from an internal combustion engine burning Hydrogen is H2O.
Who’s going to buy a hydrogen powered car when there are no hydrogen fill stations and who’s going to set up a hydrogen fuel station when there are no hydrogen powered cars on the road. The other problem with hydrogen is that although it is easy to extract from water using existing technology, unfortunately this process requires a lot of electricity. Most of the world’s electricity comes from burning fossil fuels or coal so although we would be removing one pollution problem
by introducing hydrogen cars, we would, in our current situation, just be replacing it with another potentially worse pollution problem.
First there needs to be the political will to set up Hydrogen fill stations before the cars can hit the market on any kind of commercial level. Then more non-polluting power generators like wind farms or solar power stations, need to be built to cope with
the inevitable increase in demand for electricity from producing Hydrogen. After this has happened there will be a transition period where people will be slowly replacing their current vehicle with the Hydrogen ones.
Whether we move to Hydrogen cars or not only time will tell but what is fairly certain is that hybrid cars are here to stay. It makes sense really; whether you're filling up with hydrogen
or petrol, either way it’s nice to only have to use half as much, especially considering there is no compromise in performance.
So if you’re worried about the environment. Or maybe you are just worried about oil running low and the accompanying increases in petrol prices. What can you do about it today? The answer of course is Hybrid cars. Hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, use half the petrol and
produce up to 90% less noxious emissions when compared to an equivalent non-hybrid car. The best thing is that you don’t have to wait. Hybrid cars are available right now!
Name: EuroYank - Virginia Hoge Home: United States About Me: Euro Yank is an internationally famous blogger, an American born in Germany that left for the USA with family at age six and has lived in Luxembourg for the past ten years. He is a committed anti-fascist and a student of history who is politically progressive and believes in the ideals of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights for all Americans. He is also an American war veteran. He was active on American Talk Radio, and has been prominent online with 26 blogs with over 25 million hits. His investigative journalism has exposed top international news stories no one else has reported on. He is also a well-known political commentator. He has been repeatedly censored and banned, but despite these setback continues nonstop. Virginia Olive Hoge is an artist and writer living in Pasadena, California. As a progressive whistle-blower, she conducts investigations into corrupt media and outs the harm it causes to the poor and important social services. She is has been conducting an 11-month investigation of Topix.com, she is the first one in the nation to do so. See my complete profile E-Mail
