Biodiesel technology is low on the list of priorities for auto industry research, according to a global survey of 200 senior auto executives conducted by KPMG that was released Thursday.

When asked to rate which were the most important alternative fuel technologies to the auto industry over the next five years, hybrid systems were ranked first followed by battery electric power, fuel cell electric power, and biodiesel, respectively.

Fuel efficiency was ranked as the feature auto executives believed makes the biggest impact on customers’ purchasing decisions, while “environmental friendliness” was second followed by safety innovation in third.

A car’s style and looks came in last on the list of factors auto executives thought customers looked at these days when deciding which car to buy. They’re likely right. The information follows news that Ford Motor announced in December it saw record sales for its hybrid cars in 2009 compared to hybrid car sales in other years.

“Automotive manufacturers are in the challenging position of being asked to compete on both technology and cost. With global consumers still feeling the pinch of the recession, those OEMs who can deliver on this equation will be in the driver’s seat,” Gary Silberg, national automotive industry leader for KPMG, said in a statement.

The survey was conducted September through November 2009.

SOURCE: Cnet

Volvo has now released more details of the all-electric C30 concept car it will launch at next week’s 2010 Detroit Auto Show. We covered early details a couple of weeks ago; here’s the rest of the story on the little electric hatchback with no tailpipe.

The electric C30 concept car will let the Swedish automaker assess the viability of a limited-range all-electric vehicle, and how it’s used under real-world driving conditions.

Volvo expects to release 50 of the cars to consumers around the world, starting late this year. Its plan follows the pattern used by BMW for its Mini E, which it plans to replicate with the ActiveE concept, an electric model of the 1-Series sedan it will show in Detroit as well.

90-mile range

Volvo quotes an eight-hour recharging time for its 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, assuming standard European 230-Volt power. (That time could double using U.S. 110-Volt current; U.S. drivers will likely have to install a 240-Volt circuit, like those used for electric stoves and clothes driers.)

The pack is located in the tunnel between the seats and in the space formerly occupied by the gasoline tank. It powers an electric motor under the hood that drives the front wheels, just as on the standard 2010 Volvo C30.

Volvo quotes acceleration of “less than 11 seconds” from 0 to 62 mph. Top speed is limited to roughly 80 mph, and the range is approximately 90 miles–a distance that fewer than 10 percent of vehicles in Europe and the U.S. travel each day.

Plug-in hybrids to be “main track”

Lennart Stegland, Director of Volvo Cars Special Vehicles, says, the company expects electric cars “primarily to be used in and around cities and for daily commuting.”

Volvo also plans to introduce diesel and hybrid models that will be sold starting in 2012, although likely in small numbers at first. But it calls plug-in hybrids its “main electrification track” rather than battery electric vehicles.

From its point of view, plug-in hybrids offer long range and good environmental performance, but lower battery cost. The pack in the plug-in hybrid, says Volvo, will be just 12 kilowatt-hours.

SOURCE: Green Car Reports

Toyota will introduce a new hybrid next month that is smaller and more affordable than the Prius, reports the Detroit News. The hybrid-only subcompact is expected to go into production in 2011 and be in US showrooms by early 2012.

Toyota, which will offer a peek Jan. 11 at the North American International Auto Show, expects it to be a big seller. Prius currently rules the market: With a starting price of $22,400, about 417,000 had been sold through October.

“It’ll be interesting to see what they name it,” said an analyst at Edmunds.com. “The Prius name has such cachet in the marketplace.”

AFTER 12 YEARS of speculation and the odd jibe from cynics, Toyota’s Prius is finally getting a plug.

The car that brought hybrid technology to the attention of the mainstream masses has always offered a mix of petrol engine and battery electric power. However, the electric charge has always been created from either spare energy in the engine or recouped through gathering the brake-force energy.

Now, with the third generation of the car – in full family guise – on our roads, Toyota has finally added the option of recharging the battery directly from the mains.

While the additional power source will be available only on 500 prototypes at first, all signs are that Toyota is preparing to roll out the plug-in option to the general public once electricity suppliers and governments get their acts together on providing recharging points.

Of the initial batch, 150 will come to Europe, with 20 destined for the British market. These will be leased to people who will then feed back their views and reports to the development team in Japan.

So what is different from the current Prius? Well, nothing much in terms of the appearance, except for what looks like a secondary filling cap on the front left wing. This is the plug-point for the car. Bootspace is also slightly compromised by the larger battery. And it’s here, under the boot floor, that the most significant changes have been made, with Toyota finally moving to a 5kW/h Panasonic lithium-ion unit.

Lithium is regarded as the future saviour of battery technology for electric cars, allowing more power to be stored for less weight. While this new battery does add 110kg to the car, it’s a worthwhile trade-off in terms of power.

Where the regular hybrid Prius with its nickel-hydride battery can power the car up to 50km/h on electric power for short bursts, the plug-in lithium battery version can reach speeds of 100km/h without needing to call on the petrol engine for support, and the car can run on battery power alone for between 12km and 20km.

Combine the extended speed range and distance and you see that for city or urban driving, this plug-in Prius is effectively an electric car. The big difference is because it’s hybrid, it also offers the chance to call upon a petrol engine for extended range. While we await batteries that can challenge combustion engines for range and the introduction of a proper recharging infrastructure, it’s the best combination on offer.

On a brief test drive we cruised along at 80km/h completely on electric mode and it was only when we floored the accelerator on the test track that the petrol engine kicked in. Lift off slightly and the engine gives way again to electric power.

On the most gentle of obstacle courses we also got the chance to test the car’s handling and though the Prius has never been dynamically enthralling, the added weight of the battery at the back made little difference to its ability.

In terms of recharging, Toyota promises it will fully recharge from the mains in 100 minutes. With a 12km range if you are pushing the car on, you can expect it to cut your fuel bill, particularly for short commuter runs.

If you take that away from an average journey and run the rest of the time on a mix of regular engine and Prius’s current hybrid system, it’s not unrealistic to suggest you could achieve figures in the realms of 70-80mpg. The estimated emissions level of 65g/km will certainly reap rewards in terms of motor tax.

It has been long overdue and admittedly Toyota lost some of the electric buzz to the likes of Opel’s Ampera, which for all the media attention is still a couple of years from delivery.

Mitsubishi will have its fully electric plug-in city car, the i-Miev, on sale in Ireland next year. For now we’ll have to wait and see if any of these plug-in Priuses make it to Ireland under the test programme.

First impressions behind the wheel suggest it will be another string to the Prius’s bow, making a car that remains something of an icon of green motoring even more attractive.

After several months of bad news about recalls and the loss of its leadership in electric car development, it could offer a much-needed boost to the brand, if they can get it into showrooms.

SOURCE: Irish Times

Take a look at that gas-guzzler in the driveway. Are you ready to wave goodbye in favor of something cleaner, greener and plugged in?

At the end of 2009, there’s no turning back: We’re going to electrify the world’s auto fleet, and soon. I know, I know — besides hybrids, there aren’t a lot of green cars on your radar right now. Today, 100 percent zero-emission battery-powered cars are scarce on the ground — there’s a motley assemblage of 3,000 of them registered. You can buy a Tesla Roadster if you have a spare $109,000 lying around. Wheego will sell you a Whip, which is a battery-powered “neighborhood” car that can be used locally on roads with speed limits below 35 mph. And there are a few highway-worthy cars on the international market, including the Indian-made Reva, the Chinese-made BYD E6 and the Norwegian Think City.

But despite all this, your next car (or maybe the one after that) will be electric: a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or battery car. That’s where the auto industry is going, where the world is going. By this time next year, the picture will be dramatically different, with a host of consumer choices, from the sexy Fisker Karma and the versatile Volt to the ultra-cool Coda.

Gas cars won’t disappear overnight, but they will do a slow fade. And here’s five reasons why:

1. Feeling the heat. The imperatives of climate change mean we’ll have to stop burning fossil fuels, especially coal and oil. The Copenhagen talks did not produce a binding agreement, but trust me on this — one is coming. The successor to the Kyoto talks will be much tougher, and we won’t make the numbers without putting millions of zero-emission cars on the road.
2. Oil peaking. We may or may not have already reached global oil peak — the point where oil demand exceeds oil supply. The worldwide recession suppressed demand and gave us something of a breather, but the numbers on oil demand (especially from China and India) in the next decade are completely unsustainable, and everybody knows it.
3. The smart grid. We’re just starting to optimize our antiquated electric system, but the way forward is clear. Utilities are partnering with automakers to enable the easy charging of millions of EVs at night without adding new plants. Off-peak electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel the daily commutes of 73 percent percent of all cars, light trucks, SUVs and vans on the road today if they were plug-in hybrids, a 2007 study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found. What’s more, solar car charging is becoming a reality, and that means a 100 percent zero-emissions loop — the answer to any critic who says that EVs get all their power from dirty coal plants. Even today, with 52 percent of U.S. electricity generated by coal-fired power plants, Plug-in America reports that EVs reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and most other pollutants compared with conventional gas or hybrid vehicles.
4. The better mousetrap. EVs, on the road starting next year, will be better than gas cars in every way. Forget the idea that they’re slow, or that you won’t be able to get where you’re going. I’ve driven every EV, and all of them were exciting on the road. Every carmaker is building one, and they know it will be a very competitive market demanding excellence in engineering. BMW tells me that the consumers test-driving its Mini E plug-in quickly got over their “range anxiety.”
5. Plugging in. You’ll have a charging station at home, at work and at play. Starbucks and McDonald’s will have them, and so will the big-box store down the street. Car charging will become ubiquitous — offering you $3 and $4 electrical fill-ups. Some retailers will even offer 15-minute fast charging free to get you in the door.

For all these reasons and more, your next car will have a plug. And it will be fine, trust me on this.

SOURCE: Mother Nature Network

Sales of fuel-efficient gas-electric hybrids are expected to rise next year, outpacing the U.S. auto market’s overall growth, according to a new forecast.

Automotive research firm Edmunds.com predicted U.S. auto sales would recover modestly next year, to 11.5 million cars and light trucks from an estimated 10.3 million this year.

Its forecasters expect hybrids to outperform the market, even though they cost more, on average, than comparable gas-powered models.

Hybrids are expected to increase their share of the market to 3.2 percent in 2010 from around 2.8 percent this year, according to Edmunds. It expects the market share for hybrids to grow by about half a percentage point a year for the foreseeable future.

The share of diesel-powered light vehicles is expected to dip next year to 2.1 percent, from 2.2 percent this year, reflecting a reduction in the availability of diesel models due to more stringent emission rules coming into force.

The high point in the past decade for diesels was in 2006, when they accounted for 4.1 percent of total sales.

Pure electric vehicles will hit the market next year but will account for less than 1 percent of total sales, Edmunds estimated.

On the basis of past alternative-fuel trends, early adopters will snap up zero-emission electric cars right away, “but it will take some time before significant market share builds for the segment,” said Zhenwei Zhou, Edmunds’ senior statistician.

A poll conducted last month by Kelley Blue Book, the car pricing specialist, found that diesels topped the list of alternative technologies that consumers would consider.

Asked what type of alternative-fuel or alternative-powertrain vehicle they would be most likely to buy, 34 percent of respondents said diesel, 31 percent said hybrid, 21 percent replied electric, and 8 percent said compressed natural gas.

KBB said demand for hybrids and other fuel-efficient models would be underpinned next year by rising gasoline prices.

Consumers have several new hybrids to choose from, including gas-electric versions of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan, Toyota’s redesigned Prius, a premium Lexus HS 250h and an all-new Insight from Honda Motor Co.

SOURCE: DetNews.com

German automakers Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are selling their newest “clean” diesel vehicles nationally, including in California—home of the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show—a state that, historically, with its air pollution regulations, has been hostile to diesel cars.

But even the auto companies with umlauts on their computer keyboards are making plug-in electrics and hybrids a major part of their U.S. future. The Germans keep plugging away to make their case for diesel to Americans. At the same time, BMW showed a hybrid, and Audi showed its fully electric e-Tron Concept at the LA show.

Speaking of plugging in, one of the biggest rivals to diesel in terms of grabbing the green spotlight is Chevrolet’s Volt extended-range electric plug-in, which we drove recently. The car promises to go around 40 miles on a charge before the gas-powered motor kicks in to power the battery.

At an estimated $40,000-plus before government tax credits whittle the price down, one wonders why GM wouldn’t consider opting to bring a diesel over from Europe. “A lot of it is marketing,” says independent marketing consultant Dennis Keene. “An extended-range electric is greener, cleaner and whiz-bang technology that could vault Chevrolet’s image ahead by light years if they pull it off, and a diesel Malibu that gets 40 mpg just isn’t going to do that.”

Chevrolet chief Brent Dewar agrees. “Diesel presents a big hurdle in terms of marketing to American consumers,” he says. Plus, “we [GM] aren’t convinced the cost of meeting future clean-air regulations is going to make diesel cars and light trucks too tough a business case to sustain,” Dewar says. GM had several separate events touting the Volt this week, including a panel to discuss electric infrastructure in California and the rest of the U.S. to support what Chevy hopes is an onslaught of interest in extended-range EVs and straight EVs.

Toyota has avoided diesels in the U.S. as well, instead focusing on plug-ins and hybrids. Toyota not only showed its Lexus LF-Ch hybrid concept, but also the plug-in Prius that will challenge the Volt for attention. When fully charged, the Prius is targeted to achieve a maximum electric-only range of approximately 13 miles and will be capable of achieving highway speeds up to 60 mph in electric-only mode. The Lexus offering, in the meantime, is a slick, brawny-looking hatchback. Finally, Toyota put some styling mojo into a hybrid.

“One of the things hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles have going for them is that two behemoths like Chevrolet and Toyota are invested in making these vehicles successful and are spending big money to market them as the best technology,” says Peter Sullivan, a Los Angeles–based consultant specializing in green marketing. “What diesel has been in Europe, hybrids and EVs are in the U.S. And that train has left the station.”

Indeed, Chevrolet and Toyota seem to be in a cage match over which company seizes the plug-in-hybrid limelight. Toyota is putting 150 U.S. drivers into PHEVs starting early next year for real-world driving evaluation and, of course, social-networking fodder. That’s 50 more cars than GM is planning. The battle between automakers used to be about horsepower, and now it is kilowatt-hours and the number of vehicles you can get into the field with the Twitter and Facebook crowd.

Volkswagen, on the other hand, is the diesel leader in the U.S. with its TDI technology. About 40 percent of Jetta sales today are running diesel, and 90 percent of Jetta Sport Wagons are TDIs. But VW is grappling with an interest in hybrids too—unveiling a concept at this show that has the best of both worlds, according to the German automaker; diesel and hybrid. The Up Lite is a diesel hybrid capable of up to 70 mpg on the highway, with room for four adults. It’s powered by a 0.8-liter two-cylinder TDI clean diesel engine, and an electric motor that acts as the vehicle’s starter, alternator, and e-drive unit. “Hybrid technology is uniquely popular in the U.S., but we think there is definitely an opportunity to combine the best of our diesel technology with hybrid to set new standards in fuel economy,” says VW U.S. chief Stefan Jacoby.

Audi, along with sibling company Volkswagen, perhaps the biggest booster of diesel in the industry when it comes to marketing spending, showed the e-Tron electric sports car in North America for the first time, trying to prove it too is ready to play both sides of the green street. But the company is far from abandoning diesel. Audi this year funded an ad campaign to promote clean diesel as a flanker effort to the Q7 and A3 TDI launches. The campaign—whose tag line is “Diesel: It’s No Longer a Dirty Word”—has been aired on TV and the Web, specifically all over Facebook. “We have a great advantage in diesel technology that other automakers do not have,” says Audi executive director of powertrain Wolfgang Hatz. “We have enormous economies of scale for diesel, and the experience of selling it on multiple continents for decades.” The TDI moniker is 20 years old.

Is the campaign working? Audi is finding that 40 percent of its Q7 sales are TDI, above expectations of about 15 percent. Those are the kind of numbers that encourage Indian automaker Mahindra, which plans to enter the U.S. in 2010 with a midsize pickup offered with only a diesel engine. Mahindra is not represented at the Los Angeles show, and is not expected to be at the Detroit Auto Show either. “It could be they will stand out for being the first Indian brand and for having the uniqueness of an all-clean-diesel lineup,” says green marketing consultant Sullivan, “but they would definitely have an easier time of it if it was a hybrid.”

SOURCE: Popular Mechanics

Ferrari will come out with its first hybrid system on the upcoming replacement for its 612 Scaglietti grand touring car. Britain’s Autocar magazine quoted unnamed Ferrari sources confirming that the Italian exotic car company is working on a hybrid system that will see electric power going to the front wheels, giving the car all-wheel-drive capability. The system reportedly won’t be available before 2014.

Although Ferrari has not officially confirmed the report on the magazine’s site, Ferrari CEO Amadeo Felisa confirmed at the most recent Frankfurt Auto show that the first Ferrari hybrid was “likely to be” a V12 model.

Spy shots have since appeared suggesting that the 612’s replacement will be the next all-new V12 car from the home of the Prancing Horse. The hybrid system would not be available at that car’s launch, but debut closer to the 2015 model year, said the latest report, released last week.

The current 612 offers a massive 5.7-litre V12 engine driving the rear wheels, but this hybrid system would focus more on improving handling and acceleration than fuel economy, according to the company insiders.

But Ferrari is nevertheless interested in reducing fuel consumption and lowering the emissions produced by its products, even though they and exotic car fans in general have long maintained that the limited numbers of these cars sold and the relatively low mileage they accumulate account for a tiny blip in the overall carbon footprint of the global auto industry.

Felisa confirmed that Ferrari’s new-for-2009 California hardtop convertible would receive a start-stop system in 2010, which automatically turns off the engine at red lights and restarts it instantly upon letting go of the brakes, which is the system that accounts for the majority of real world fuel savings in most gas-electric hybrid vehicles.

Ferrari is not the only Italian car maker going the planet-friendlier route, while still maintaining its focus on high horsepower performance. Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann also admitted in August that the Volkswagen-controlled company will launch a hybrid model by 2015, likely in the Gallardo, he suggested to a German auto trade journal in August. Winkelmann said Lamborghini was not planning to go the all-electric route, which Mercedes-Benz will pioneer among supercars with its upcoming SLS eDrive, and which Lambo’s sister company Audi has recently confirmed it will pursue with an all-electric version of its mid-engine R8.

SOURCE: Globe and Mail

The Honda CR-Z, when it first appeared at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2007 as a concept car, caused quite a stir, both good and bad.

Readers were reminded of the Honda CRX of the 1980s and the fond memories it evoked. At the same time, few admired the styling, especially the big-mouth front end.

On Monday, Honda announced that the CR-Z would move from concept to reality and that it would go on sale in the United States next year.

It will be a gas-electric hybrid, using the current Integrated Motor Assist that is found in the new Insight and Civic Hybrid. Honda said it was also working on a new hybrid system for midsize and large cars.

Details were still sketchy, but according to a news release, sales of the CR-Z will start in Japan in February 2010. The Fit Hybrid will be available in Japan by the end of 2010. While Honda has not announced the availability of the Fit Hybrid outside of Japan, the CR-Z has its own American micro site, where consumers can register for e-mail updates.

Honda said the letters CR-Z stand for Compact Renaissance Zero. Many people will think of the Honda CRX, which continues to be one of the more beloved cars from the 1980s.

SOURCE: New York Times

There has been Internet chatter that Volvo, which has already said it will make a plug-in hybrid vehicle, will also produce an electric version of its C30. Then the other day, a source who is pretty high up in the electric car industry and who has done some work with Volvo, told me that the electric C30 was more than a rumor.

“Am I reasonably confident that the battery E.V. is a go? Yes,” said the source, who asked not to be identified out of concern that it would harm future business dealings with Volvo. The source estimated that initial volumes of the two vehicles together could total 5,000 to 10,000.

When asked about the E.V., Daniel Johnston, a spokesman for Volvo, said: “I can’t talk about it. Volvo is looking at quite a few alternatives.”

In July, Volvo said it was working with Ener1, an American lithium-ion battery supplier, on three plug-in hybrid demonstrator cars based on the V70. Ener1 is also a battery supplier to the Fisker plug-in hybrid sports car (to be built in Finland) and to the Think Global EV company (based in Norway).

The Volvo plug-in hybrids will be “put through their paces across Europe this fall as part of a rigorous development program leading up to the planned 2012 commercial launch of a production plug-in model,” Ener1 said in a press release. The company also said that the production cars will “feature somewhat different technology” from the demonstrators.

Rachel Carroll, a spokeswoman for Ener1, said it had been working with Volvo for three years and hoped that the company would be chosen to equip the 2012 production plug-in hybrid car.

A battery-only vehicle, based on the small C30 coupe, could presumably share some technology with the plug-in hybrid.

Since 2007, Volvo has had a joint venture partnership with one of Scandinavia’s largest utilities, Vattenfall, which is designing both home-based and public fast-charging systems. Lars G. Josefsson, president and chief executive of Vattenfall, said in a press statement that his company and Volvo were “developing the next-generation technology based on plug-in cars and various charging alternatives.”

That charging research would also benefit a Volvo battery-only car, if indeed one were in the works.

SOURCE: New York Times

On paper, Michio Shinohara has few reasons to be cheerful. He works in the car business, the manufacturing sector hardest hit by the downturn. His company, Honda, halted production at its Swindon plant for four months this year and ditched plans for a sexy new NSX sports car. It pulled out of Formula One, only to see its driver, Jenson Button, win race after race for his new team, Brawn.

Yet on a muggy afternoon in Tokyo last month, Shinohara threw back his head and laughed: “It seems that we have been incredibly brilliant.”

The car he launched in February, the petrol-electric Insight, stole the title of best-selling hybrid in Japan from Toyota’s Prius and became Japan’s top-selling vehicle overall in April, the first time a hybrid had topped national sales rankings. More than 1,000 have been sold in Britain, and 5,000 across Europe.

The Insight is so popular that Shinohara, Honda’s head of environment planning, can’t get one himself. “The factory can’t make enough for the orders we already have.”

Petrolheads may mock the Insight’s basic interior and the anaemic performance of its small petrol and electric motors, but Shinohara’s creation is proving to be an ideal product for its time. It’s cheap and green, two qualities car buyers prize more than ever.

“We launched this vehicle at a very lucky time,” he said. “It was not important to us to have the car with top performance. We wanted an eco-friendly car that is accessible to the greatest number of people. Price is key.”

The Insight costs up to 18% less than the Prius, its main rival, and returns similar fuel economy of about 60mpg but the Prius has lower carbon emissions.

Shinohara’s excitement is matched by a sense of relief. The Insight is a car that simply had to work. Although Honda led the way with hybrids — it launched the first, also called Insight, in the late 1990s — it quickly fell behind Toyota. Gawky styling — it looked like an upside-down bathtub — killed the first Insight. A hybrid Accord followed but it failed to sell and was soon scrapped. The hybrid Civic has been a moderate success but Toyota has become the de facto green car brand, thanks to the Prius.

Buoyed by the success of the Insight, Shinohara is leading Honda’s new push into the hybrid market. Next will be a sports car, the CR-Z, due to go on sale next year. New hybrid versions of the Civic and the Jazz will follow.

In a decade, Honda expects to follow Toyota and become the second car company to have a hybrid version of all its models. On sales, however, Honda has fallen so far behind Toyota that it cannot hope to match its rival soon. It expects to sell 250,000 hybrids a year by 2015 and double that by 2020, more than 10% of its current total output. Toyota already sells 400,000 Priuses a year and that figure is expected to rise with the release of new models, including a plug-in version that will extend the car’s electric-only range.

Given the Insight’s success, you would expect Shinohara to be an evangelist for hybrid technology. He regards it, though, as a sticking plaster solution until someone — he hopes it will be him — perfects the hydrogen fuel cell car.

Honda is working up the technology in the FCX Clarity and as Shinohara drove the car around Tokyo, he explained why it, not the Insight, is the future.

Electricity in the Insight comes from a battery that is charged by “recycling” excess energy normally lost during driving, for example when braking. The battery powers an electric motor that works with the car’s 1.3 litre petrol engine, giving it a range of 500 miles.

Carmakers have experimented with vehicles powered entirely by battery but Shinohara said they were “not very customer-friendly” because their range is too short and the battery recharge time too long. A few years ago he tried to persuade Californian motorists to go fully electric with a prototype called the EV Plus, which had a range of about 100 miles. He could hardly give them away. “It was very difficult,” he said. Hydrogen fuel cells are, he believes, the best green car technology because they have the potential to offer the power and range of a conventional petrol engine with water as the only by-product.

The Clarity has several hundred fuel cells creating electricity from an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. It powers the engine. The 171-litre hydrogen tank gives it a range of 300 miles.

A conventional battery-powered car would require a battery weighing two tons to match the range and performance of the Clarity, and it would take hours to charge fully.

The Clarity is undergoing testing in Japan, Europe and America. A few have been released to customers in locations where there are hydrogen refuelling stations, notably California. The actress Jamie Lee Curtis drives one.

Shinohara admitted hydrogen technology is problematic. The Clarity is so expensive to make that it is, for now, sold at a colossal loss. Consumers are “scared” of hydrogen, he said, because it is explosive. It is, at present, expensive to produce and, most importantly, persuading energy companies and governments to construct a network of hydrogen refuelling stations will be a challenge.

Shinohara is undeterred. Honda is experimenting with installing domestic hydrogen stations at homes in California. Natural gas, supplied to the homes using existing pipelines, runs into a converter where it is separated into its various elements, one of which is hydrogen, which can be stored and used as necessary.

Shinohara’s dream is that one day soon motorists will fill the Clarity with hydrogen at home, drive to their remote country cabin emitting no carbon, use the car as a clean generator to power the house, and use the water and steam it produces to make a cappuccino. Truly a car for life.

SOURCE: Times Online

The maker of some of the world’s safest vehicles will soon be the maker of one of the world’s most fuel-efficient vehicles. Volvo announced today plans to produce a plug-in hybrid vehicle that will be available in 2012.

“Most car journeys are short trips, for instance to and from work. We will be able to offer a product that fulfills this transportation need. In order to cover longer distances as well, the car will also be equipped with one of Volvo’s fuel-efficient diesel engines,” Volvo President and CEO Stephen Odell said in a press statement.

The new development will be a joint venture between Volvo and Swedish energy company Vattenfall. Volvo plans to create a plug-in version of an existing model rather than create a new one, and its charging systems will be developed and supplied by Vattenfall.

Volvo has previously stated its plans for a fleet of 10 plug-in hybrids. The Swedish car company did not name which of its existing cars will be the first to go plug-in, but last year Volvo road-tested the ReCharge Plug-in Hybrid, which is based on the C30 coupe platform and uses a diesel engine to power the lithium ion batteries.

A video on YouTube.com (posted by thecarfanatic.com) shows interviews with Volvo and Vattenhall executives explaining the partnership and features a diesel plug-in hybrid Volvo V70 that can travel up to 50 km (31 miles) on a single charge and be charged from a standard wall socket, which would cost Swedish owners approximately 3 euros per 100 kilometer (60 miles). Based on current currency exchange, that works out to approximately 7 cents per mile. The diesel engine uses 2 liters per 100 kilometer m (.5 gallon per 60 miles), according to the video.

Volvo also announced plans to debut three demonstration plug-in Volvo V70s this summer that will be used to gather information on customer driving habits and technology preferences. Vattenfall will be testing various concepts for high-speed home charging and developing a public charging and billing system infrastructure. The power company is also tasked with accelerating the vehicle’s charging time. The video shows a 8 kw battery being charged in 5 hours from a standard wall socket.

Source: CNET

General Motors offers an immense lineup of mainstream and performance-oriented models all across the globe. Cars like the Corvette, Camaro and CTS-V might make North American hearts go aflutter, but elsewhere VXR and SS V-Series stir the souls of young and old.

But a new day has dawned, when even young enthusiasts are more interested in a vehicles’ impact on the planet than they are about zero to sixty times, slalom speeds or skid pad results, which has resulted in a bevy of low and even zero-emissions vehicles that target an entirely different kind of performance enthusiast. GM is at the forefront of this new wave of performance, with vehicles like its new Chevy Volt, Opel Ampera and, now that it’s official, Converj.

According to Motor Trend magazine, the upscale Cadillac Converj, a spinoff of the Volt, will be built in 2011, a year after the four-door Chevy bows. Will the production Cadillac look the same, or change as much as the Volt did from concept to reality? The Volt, initially shown in concept form with two doors and a very different overall shape, got a thorough redesign that included a more practical four-door configuration. Most applauded GM’s decision, and most like the looks of the new car. Such a move, especially considering Cadillac will bring the CTS Coupe to market the year prior, would be smart.

Whatever Cadillac finally shows for production, the Converj will ride on the same Voltec architecture as the Volt and Ampera, which is also a smart move by GM as it will need to recoup as much research and development costs from its unique plug-in series hybrid chassis as possible, and there’s no better way to do that than via a higher end, pricier model. It is also possible that, while the shared powertrain will be identical, it may be calibrated to offer a little more performance in the premium Cadillac offering.

While Cadillac may be celebrating this news, there is still the hurdle of funding the operation. Volt will be built, says GM’s executive team, which is currently lobbying the US Treasury and Energy Departments to allow access to ATVM loans and will no doubt drop another project in order to fund the series hybrid if necessary, but if money is tight it’s possible the Converj could be delayed. It would be unlikely to get cancelled altogether, however, as the money for Volt will have been spent and GM will need to take advantage of the economies of scale possible by a Cadillac version.

SOURCE: Canada.com

In all of the statements released by General Motors, the now bankrupt automaker said that its new products and technologies are on track. It said that that the New GM will continue with key vehicle launches in 2009 and 2010 including the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, 2010 Buick LaCrosse, 2010 Cadillac SRX and CTS Sport Wagon, the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox, Cruze and Volt along with the 2010 GMC Terrain.

“Our products are our future, and our lineup of new cars and crossovers are a great foundation for success,” said CEO Fritz Henderson. “The New GM is here to stay, and our brands position us to compete well in profitable segments with vehicles that are second-to-none.”

GM said that it will launch the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid by the end of 2010 and expects to have 14 hybrid models in production by 2012. It said that 65 percent of its vehicles will be alternative-fuel capable by 2014.

“The New GM will become a long-term global leader in the development of fuel-efficient and advanced-technology vehicles,” said Henderson. “In doing so, the New GM will contribute to the development of advanced engineering and manufacturing capabilities in the United States, which are critical to the future of the U.S. economy.”

SOURCE: AutoSpies

Honda Motor Co plans to roll out a gas-electric hybrid version of its Fit subcompact car in the autumn of 2010, about a year and a half ahead of the original schedule, to tap growing demand for low-emission vehicles, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday.

Japan’s No.2 automaker, which introduced the Insight hybrid in February, has said it plans to launch three more low-cost gasoline-electric cars by 2012, starting with the CR-Z sports car next year. It has not officially disclosed the timing of the launch of the Fit and Civic hybrids which will follow.

Amid the devastating global slump in demand for cars, fuel-sipping hybrid cars have become a bright spot for the industry with Honda and Toyota Motor Corp seeing robust demand for their latest models.

Honda’s new Insight, priced from 1.89 million yen ($19,960), became the first hybrid ever to top the best-seller list in Japan last month.

Toyota plans to resume overtime at its factory in Aichi, central Japan, next month in response to strong demand for its new Prius hybrid, public broadcaster NHK said on Wednesday.

Toyota has received orders for more than 110,000 vehicles and plans to raise monthly output of the model by 20 percent from the original schedule to about 50,000 cars, NHK said.

The Nikkei, without citing sources, said Honda aims to sell the hybrid Fit subcompact for about 1.5 million yen ($15,800) and expects annual sales of over 50,000 vehicles.

Honda spokeswoman Akemi Ando said the automaker has not decided the timing of release, price or sales target for the Fit hybrid.

Honda Motor shares rose 1.5 percent to 2,725 yen, in line with the benchmark Nikkei average .N225, while Toyota Motor gained 2.2 percent to 3,680 yen.

SOURCE: Reuters