AutoBlogGreen speculates that one likely
candidate is a hybrid version of the Honda Fit (pictured above). This
diminutive automobile would be able to provide great fuel efficiency based on
its compact design. And with a rumoured price of just $15,800 it would be one
of the most affordable hybrids on the planet. Such a move, it is hoped, would
mark the beginning of an affordable, entry-level hybrid market, one that both
cash-strapped citizens and environmentally conscious drivers are in dire need
of (the all electric market, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter).

The second model Takeo Fukui referred to
could be the CR-Z hatchback (pictured below). This hybrid coup is speculated to sport a 2.5-liter
four cylinder engine with direct injection and is currently slated to join the
Honda line up in 2011. However, it would be difficult to believe that such a
sleek, sporty vehicle would fall into the under-$20,000 range. That being said,
few other hybrids are in the system at Honda, at least that we know about.

Either way, this has the potential to be a
watershed moment, not just for those waiting for affordable hybrids but for the
environment as a whole. It’s time to divest the words ‘hybrid’ and ‘status
symbol’ once and for all, lest the two get too comfortable with one another.

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This spiffy looking EV relies on a 200-kilowatt electric
motor, backed by lithium-ion battery system. With 268 horsepower and the
ability to go from zero to 60 in less than 5 seconds, Dodge maintains the latest
trend from automakers; just because it doesn’t burn gas, doesn’t mean it
shouldn’t be able to burn through energy. Those stats mimic the Dodge
Challenger SRT’s 6.1-litre V8 Hemi, putting the Circuit’s into the echelon of
high-end sports car.

The Circuit is one of the projects to roll out of Chrysler’s
ENVI department, which specializes in electrically driven vehicles, and has
recently been dubbed golden-boy status as Chrysler looks to make the Circuit
the first graduate from the ENVI department into commercial production.

Recently the guys over at AutoblogGreen went for a test ride
and they’ve reported some interesting quirks in the early prototype model. For
instance, due in part to the hard-working regenerative braking system, there’s
no coasting with the vehicle. This means that you’re either going or stopping,
but it’s an issue that’s being looked into. There’s also an ever-present hum to
the vehicle and though it’s not as bad as you ’83 Tercel, it’s an undeniably
unique and potentially annoying sound. Though, once again, it’s on the list of
things to do before production. One troublesome and perhaps insurmountable
issue with the Circuit is that although it’s eye catching design may attract
some of the fairer sex, you’d best hope she’s petite. The interior is cozy and
that’s as potent a euphemism as you’ll get. A more blunt individual would call
it cramped.

But all in all AutoblogGreen sums up the Circuit poignantly:
“Small size. New technology. An (expected) high price tag. A troubled company.
Can these things add up to make a car that people want to buy?” Indeed, one has
to question the economic acumen of a company that’s pouring money into high-end
vehicles (in a recession no less) while the much more profitable market of EVs
for the average consumer remains unserved. Nevertheless, Chrysler will
undoubtedly be speeding forward with their high-end electric exploits, and that
includes the Circuit which may see the market in 2010. Just don’t ask them what
it costs. With Chrysler’s silent on the price, it may not be exactly
recession-defying.

Source

Back in 2002 a little movie was released
about a floundering college student who spent the bulk of his time attending
parties and accruing popularity rather than fastidiously studying away in some
‘nerd’ like manner. This beacon of cool, a true pillar of the college
community, had a golf cart as his primary mode of transportation. Now, just
seven years later, that short-distance, eco-friendly mode is being reinvented
as: the Peapod!

Sporting a grinning grill that looks
tailored for Herbie, the Peapod is part of a burgeoning field of Neighbourhood
Electric Vehicles. Much like its 2nd cousin, the Segway, the Peapod
is intended for short travels, such as cross campus jaunts, or a quick trip to
the store. These short travels, once relegated to the bicycle, removes the
unnecessary physical propulsion we all loath so much. Instead, this diminutive
electrical wunderkind means you only have to get up five minutes before Spanish
class as it will bolt you across campus at a top speed of 25 mph.

The manufacturers of the Peapod, Peapod
Mobility, are themselves an off-shoot of a Chrysler subsidiary GEM. And they’ve
been making electric vehicles for 10 years, relying heavily on the retirement
and campus communities.

But don’t let the geriatric-connection fool
you because the Peapod has been designed with pizzazz from the ground up. As
the director of the company relates, the NEV was inspired
by “Japanese bullet trains, storm troopers from the film Star Wars, space
helmets and turtles.” Somewhere there’s a list of cool things and said
inspirations top it off.

The whole package starts at $12,500, which
is fairly steep. Though it does have some nice on-board features such as
reporting the carbon and gas-cost savings after each trip (no word if it will
report the amount of calories burned if you’d simply taken a bike).

Preorders start Today! So if you want to be
jetty about at 40 kmh when they ship in October, you’d best sign-up today. Or
you could purchase, like, fifty new mountain bikes. Either way, the environment
(and the economy) wins!

Source

Don’t forget: It’s Earth Day! Learn More

Students at the University of Saskatchewan have
developed some relatively straightforward technology to jury rig a remote
shutdown for your car using your cell phone. The technology is based on the
same principals upon which an automobile’s heat sensor functions.  In the case that your engine overheats the car
will detect the temperature surge and decrease the automobiles speed,
eventually rendering the entire contraption inert. The only difference is
rather than your fluid levels being in control, you are.

Installation is rather straightforward as
the small device snugs up with the motor in order to tap into the heat sensor,
which is already a staple of modern cars. Once installed, jilted car owners can
simply text the device which will then trip the sensor and activate the gradual
slow down. Such a method ensures the vehicle still has power and brakes so that
the thief and by extension your car can get safely off the road. Once stopped the
device will then (smartly) text you the location of your automobile.

Since the device makes use of a standard,
factory installed shut-down method and 99.9% of all people everywhere have a
cell phone the students hope that they can create a commercial version simple
enough to be installed by your average consumer.

While similar services exist, such as On-Star,
they are nevertheless services and
require fees and by extension operators to such down your stolen vehicle, by
which time it’s already loaded onto a freighter and Nic Cage has already fought
and killed that Russian dude.

For more creative ideas, be sure to visit
your local Saskatchewan university.

Source

Driving injuries could go down by a twenty-five percent and
the air could be cleaner for it, if two transportation advisory bodies have their way
with the implementation of speed limiters in the UK.

Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) utilizes satellite position
and in-vehicle instruments to monitor a car’s speed and keep it in tune with
the accompanying speed limit of the area. A feat accomplished either through
autonomous braking or an in-car warning system that could then be overridden by
the driver.

A requisite for such technology would be digital speed maps
that consist of speed limits for any given road. Thus, the Commission for
Integrated Transport and the Motorists’ Forum, who is pushing for the
implementation of speed limiters, is urging both automakers and governments to
get onboard with the project.

The purported benefits of such technology is stated to be
increased safety, fuel consumption, and a reduction of pollution. The
recommendation follows trials backed by the Department of Transportation in the
UK.

The groups state that with overridable ISA system, road
injuries could be reduced by as much as 12%. With mandatory ISA, that number
would be more than doubled, with a 30% reduction of driving related injuries.

“ISA can have a large impact on future accident numbers,
particularly on the more severe crashes,” the groups said.

In terms of reducing the environmental impact of carbon
dioxide emissions, the report notes “not very significant” reduction outside of
the expressway, which would itself mark a 5.8% reduction when mandatory ISA is
in place.

The project on the whole faces a number of immediate
hurdles, perhaps most cumbersome of which comes in the form of consumer demand.
One would expect that without widespread adoption of such technology, those automakers
on-board early would suffer a consumer-backlash at the notion of an essentially
handicapped automobile. Others are concerned with driver-complacency behind the
wheel, which the automakers themselves are concerned with legal ramifications.

Public opinion in the UK on the issue of ISA is said to be equally
divided between those that are “extremely hostile” to the concept, and those
that would be open to the reform and those that would need some sort of incentive
(such as insurance rebates) in order to get behind the project.

However, in a country that consistently produces cases of
drivers blissfully following their GPS devices into no-man’s land, would it be
wise to put technology that in all likelihood will have a hiccup or two, in
control of the speed of your vehicle?

Source

Going green ain’t easy. Especially so if
you’ve got $10,000+ tied up in a gas-guzzler. But imagine the sweet Xmas
presents you could buy for your loved ones if your car got an extra, oh let’s
say, 25mpg. Why, the difference could be that between a red sock stuffed with
cotton balls and an actual Tickle-Me Elmo! But alas, you’re still making
payments on that sporty [insert any North American automobile here] while the
Johnsons are yukking it up in their Prius, with the latest animatronics to
gyrate out of Sesame Street strapped into the car seat alongside them. If only
there was a way to make the old new again…Enter: The Poulsen Hybrid.

This nifty bit of engineering ingenuity looks
rather like an immobilizer boot strapped onto the wheels of your car (either
both on the front or back, depending on front or rear-wheel drive). The ‘boots’
are in fact electric motors that are bolted onto the wheels, with an
accompanying 4.5-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack (or lead acid,
depending on the model) that gets stored in the host vehicle’s trunk. According
to Jim Motavalli, writer for The Daily Green and recent visitor of the Bridgeport
Magnetics Group’s hybrid-housing warehouse, “the motors do not drive the car,
but kick in to provide a power boost between 15 and 60 miles per hour. [While]
regenerative braking helps keep the batteries charged.” The design comes from
Ulrik Poulsen (hence the Poulsen Hybrid), founder and CEO of Connecticut-based
Bridgeport Magnetics Group.

According to Motavalli “If the system works
as advertised, a 30-mile-per-gallon car will be raised to 55 mpg.” The Poulsen
method increases efficiency for 25 to 30 miles, at which point the car will
revert back to full reliance on gasoline. Certainly one issue that crops up
when discussing hybrids is how much it actually costs to recharge these bad
boys. It wouldn’t make a whole lot of financial sense if your hydro bill is
going to skyrocket. But, as far as the Poulsen Hybrid is concerned, the cost is
quite negligible; from a household outlet, the process registers at barely $1
for a full recharge.

Sounds almost too good to be true, right?
Well, Poulsen’s position as a startup is certainly going to handicap the deployment
of his hybrid method. The kits have to be installed professionally and can cost
as much as $8,600 for the lithium-ion model. A lead-acid model (we’re talking
batteries here) is anticipated to cost nearly half that price. What’s more,
being a startup, Poulsen can only realistically realize a relatively small customer
base; with an expectation of merely 50 cars equipped with the setup by January.
However, Poulsen is anticipating production to ramp up to 100 units a day by
mid-2009.

Should the Poulsen method become popular,
the limelight would certainly go a long way towards expansion and hopefully a
decrease in cost.

Nevertheless, it’s one giant leap forward towards
salvaging those oil-addicts of yonder years that we’re all so indebted to.

Source via Source

The naming scheme for this little device
continues the individualistic trend (see iPod et al) with the moniker MyKey.
Presumably this is so that when you hand them off you can tell your son or
daughter ‘So long as they’re MyKeys, I get to pick MySpeed and MyVolume.’
Parents can set a maximum speed of 129 kilometres an hour (80mph) and a volume
setting that is half that of the systems full force. The speed was chosen based
on certain states having an 80mph speed limit. However the conversion into
Canadian-speed has it higher than any provincial limits.

The new MyKey program is set to be a standard
feature on the 2010 Focus.

Ford, being the wiley folks that they are, anticipated a backlash from that
ineligible voting demographic ‘teenagers.’ They found a 63% disapproval rating
among teens in respect to the MyKey system. Tough love for some. And incessant
beeping for the adventurous, as apparently the system can be set to ‘chime’
when different speeds are reached, so as to caution drivers of their
acceleration techniques.

Ah the future…

Source and Source

*And no, I’m not referring to young goats,
see link 

On the surface, this technology sounds like a great idea. After all, there have been attempts to ban iPods, cell phones and other handhelds while crossing the street in some areas. Why? Because, apparently, some people are too stupid to look up from their handheld long enough to see cars heading right at them (let’s not discuss the idiot drivers who can’t spot the slow-moving tech-obssessed fools, not looking up from their handhelds). Carrying a cell phone that is capable of alerting you of oncoming traffic with a ringtone or by vibrating would stop gadget-banning legislation in it’s tracks by solving the problem the hopeful new law tries to address.

However, there’s a big catch with this kind of technology.

The catch is that both the mobile phone or motorvehicle must contain special technology that would effectively do the alerting. This isn’t a case of an ingeniously designed phone that can sense when large objects are moving toward it. This is simply a phone with a transmitter/receiver in it that connects with another transmitter/receiver in a car that then says to it “YO! LOOK OUT!”

The technology that OKI has put into a cell phone could easily be added to any other kind of handheld or any other kind of device or vehicle at all. You could put it in tains to help cut down on train/car collisions. But again, that’s the catch. In order for the scheme to work, everyone has to be playing along. It’s probably a bit easier if you just think for yourself and look up from your video iPod or cell phone when you reach the curb. Don’t worry, you can look back down as soon as you get across the street.

Just watch out for those lamp posts.

…and sign posts.

…and other people.

Just put the handheld away, OK?

While providing the world’s first internet connected GPS device, Dash has seen fit to open up the, uh, Dash-board of its veritable Dash Express to 3rd party developers. These 3rd party applications are called DashApps and they offer web based content on the go. So what could Dash Inc. cook-up with some 3rd party developers for the launch of DashApps?

Coldwell Banker: House hunting? Look up available locales on the web than create a route to their location *But first, ask yourself why you are looking up available homes while you are aimlessly driving around the city? Seriously. Why?

WeatherBug: Access live local weather with MyWeatherBug.

Trapster: Ever wished you could avoid speed traps? Ever wish you knew which stoplights had red light sensors so you could blow through the ones that didn’t? Meet your new friend Trapster’s ‘Find Traps Now.’ Now you can safely speed and comfortably fly though those pesky red lights…ah the future…

Funambol: Link up with nearly any online calendar (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Outlook) and find the best route to your next meeting or hot date!

Mediaguide: Just what was that crazy pop tune you just heard on the radio that you can’t get out of your head? Use Mediaguide’s ‘BakTraxRadio’ function to list the last three songs played on any FM or AM station!

Well, there you have it. What may very well be the future of in-car computer systems.

(I really think the slogan for this launch should be: Because you don’t have enough occupying your attention while you drive….)

Source

Thanks to Telsa’s main competitor for AC being Thomas Edison (who believed DC was the way to go) most folks tend to never hear about Tesla in the first place. People point to the rock band from the 1980s with the same name and now they have Tesla Motors to be confused about. So, why name a car company after a guy who’s barely known for the invention of the most commonly used form of electricity?

It’s that last word that is the key…

The Tesla Roadster is an electric car. Most believe that the no sports car can be very fast, but according to the official site, TeslaMotors.com, the TR can go from zero to sixty in 3.9 seconds. Not too shabby, huh?

The site also claims that it can go 220 miles on a single charge, which apparently works out, in cost, to just 2¢ per mile and the equivalent mileage of 135 miles-per-gallon. Yeah, that’s about five times any other sports car. It’s also a gorgeous vehicle, looking like a bit like the Ferrari Magnum PI drove.

While the green aspects of the car are appealing, it’s not immediately obvious on their website just how energy efficient the process of making the thing is. The site claims that it’s one-tenth as polluting as other sports cars and twice as efficient as popular hybrids, which sure sounds nice. However, no mention is given to how polluting the Tesla Roadster production process is, nor does it explain how polluting it is to charge that thing every night is. After all, the electricity from your wall socket comes from somewhere. Even Nikola Tesla knew that.

If your electricity comes from a coal plant, you might be doing much more damage to the environment than you think.

Ah, there’s always a catch with gadgets of all sizes aren’t there? Another one would be the price of the Tesla Roadster. It’ll run you $100,000–more, if you want any extras. Also, there’s a 15-month wait time. However, you can swing by the new Tesla Motors showroom in Los Angeles, on the corner of Santa Monica and Sepulveda. Who knows? Maybe they’ll let you take a test drive!