General Motors made a big splash this month when it announced its new electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, will go an astounding 230 miles per gallon (more than 97 kilometers per liter).

Company CEO Fritz Henderson believes the new line of gas-electric hybrids is the company’s ticket back to profitability.

“A car that gets triple digit fuel economy, we believe, can and will be, a game changer for us,” said Henderson.

Now in production, the Chevy Volt is expected to launch in 2010. Industry analyst Rebecca Lindland says there’s a lot riding on the new car.”

“It is very important that it be a homerun for them because they have put a lot of their reputation into this vehicle,” said Rebecca Lindland.

But GM will have plenty of competition. Nissan is set to unveil its new, all-electric Leaf next year, and Honda is expected to roll out a new hybrid gas-electric called Insight.

Although they can’t compete with the Volt’s fuel efficiency, the price tag – between $10,000 to $15,000 less – could win converts.

And there’s also homegrown competition.

Coda, a new company based in Colorado, is promoting a new vehicle that can maintain speeds of 130 kilometers per hour for more than 160 kilometers without using gasoline.

The company has received $45 million in stimulus funds to jump start production.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter was among the first to test drive the prototype.

“This is the first Colorado company the Department of Energy has provided loan guarantee money,” said Bill Ritter. “It means they believe in the concept.”

Company officials hope to put 20,000 of the battery-powered cars into production this year.

At about $35,000 apiece, Governor Ritter says the Coda produces no emissions and takes only six hours to charge.

“You take that car and it goes to someone’s garage,” he said. “That person plugs it in, their energy’s delivered to their home through solar or wind or geothermal, and there’s zero emissions as part of operating that vehicle.”

But with so many fuel-efficient vehicles vying for attention, analysts say green vehicles are just part of the solution for the ailing auto industry.

After the worst sales slump in decades, General Motors is targeting another emerging market with plans to build a compact car that will sell for about $4,000.

No word yet if the low-cost vehicles will be sold in the U.S.

By Mil Arcega VAONews.com

The Original Post is Located Here: Competition Heats Up for Electric Vehicles

2010 Toyota Prius

The 2010 Toyota Prius adopts a theme from a revered song: “I’m going to change the way I strut my stuff.”

In less than a decade, the Prius hybrid automobile has gone from an oddity to an icon. With 1.2 million on the roads world-wide — 700,000 of them in the United States — it is far and away the most successful and innovative of a new breed of vehicles that combine gasoline engines and electric motors to substantially improve fuel economy and reduce air pollution.

The first Prius was introduced in the U.S. in 2000 as a 2001 model. It was re-designed for the 2004 model year.

With the introduction this year of the third-generation 2010 model, the Prius is strutting its stuff as a more mainstream mid-sized car that could appeal to buyers who now gravitate toward the Honda Accord, Chevrolet Malibu, Nissan Altima, Chrysler Sebring, Hyundai Sonata, Mazda 6, Kia Optima, Volkswagen Passat, Ford Fusion and, yes, the best-selling Toyota Camry.

By the government’s definition, which is based on interior volume, the current Prius is classified as a mid-size car. But with its tidy exterior dimensions and hybrid power train, it has been perceived as a compact, albeit environmentally friendly, economy car.

The 2010 model, though its exterior dimensions are within fractions of an inch of its predecessor, picks up five cubic feet of interior space, placing it solidly in the mid-size category. It has 94 cubic feet of passenger space and 22 cubic feet for cargo.

That, combined with an enviable reliability record, even for the expensive battery pack, and a 90 percent new hybrid drive system that delivers better fuel economy, gives the Prius the bones to be accepted as a mainstream family car.

“It’s an everyday car for everyday use,” says Bob Carter, Toyota’s U.S. general manager.

The gravy is that new Prius has an EPA fuel consumption rating, for combined city and highway driving, of 50 miles to the gallon. You can do even better than that with fussbudget driving. This reviewer managed 75.1 miles to the gallon over a 39-mile course that included city and highway driving.

It entailed some extreme (read: slow) driving and fancy footwork to keep it moving in purely electric mode as much as possible. But even competitors who drove more normally, though carefully, recorded mileage in the neighborhood of 65 miles to the gallon.

Unless you’re a feather foot who is not in a hurry and not worried about angering your fellow motorists, you should not expect such results. But without much effort, you should be able to duplicate the EPA number.

A host of innovations have gone into the Prius’s new hybrid system, starting with a new 1.8-liter gasoline engine linked to an electric motor and a continuously-variable automatic transmission. The combination produces 134 horsepower to drive the front wheels.

It’s not the fastest off the line. Acceleration from zero to 60 miles an hour happens in a leisurely 9.8 seconds, according to Toyota’s test figures. But it is not embarrassed in stoplight sprints.

With a fully-charged battery pack, the Prius can be driven on purely electric power at speeds up to 25 miles an hour for anywhere from half a mile to several miles, depending on the speed. Helping out is a .25 coefficient of drag, a measure of how slippery the Prius is through the wind. It is close to the best on the planet, including those of most six-figure exotic cars.

On the road, the Prius is quiet and comfortable, with plenty of space for five passengers. Even the center-rear seating position, which is punishing in most mid-size cars, is almost reasonable because of decent seat padding and a nearly flat floor. Moreover, the hatchback design, with folding rear seatbacks, offers practicality similar to that of a small station wagon.

The only place where the Prius designers regressed is in the newly designed shrouded instrument cluster, which now crams into a narrow, dark slit a multitude of small hybrid information displays that wash out and are difficult to read in bright sunlight, when the driver’s eyes have to quickly adjust to the dimmer digital readouts.

There are five 2010 Prius models, designated I, II, III, IV and V. The price for the base car is $21,750. Each successive model adds equipment such as upgraded audio, satellite radio, Bluetooth communications, leather upholstery, garage-door opener and bigger wheels and tires.

But the Prius also can be ordered with an array of high-tech option packages that can drive the price as high as $32,520. Toyota officials say these are aimed at loyal customers who are attracted to high technology, of which the Prius has plenty.

Among them are dynamic radar cruise control, which automatically maintains a distance from a car ahead; voice-activated navigation; so-called lane-keep assist to prevent an inattentive driver from wandering on the road; solar ventilation; remote-controlled air conditioning, and even a Lexus-like “intelligent parking assist,” which automatically parks the car while the driver takes his hands off the steering wheel.

By FRANK A. AUKOFER. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. For more columns, go to scrippsnews.com

The Original Post is Located Here: 2010 Toyota Prius Struts Its Stuff

Airbus is said to be keen to accelerate the project and it is hoped that new wings could be ready for trial as early as 2012

A team of British researchers reckon they have hit on a way of cutting airline fuel bills by up to a fifth by harnessing the same principle that applies when you blow across the top of a bottle to make a sound.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Dr Duncan Lockerby, from the University of Warwick, who is leading the project, explained that placing tens or even hundreds of thousands of tiny holes in the surface of a plane’s wing should dramatically reduce mid-flight drag, cutting fuel bills and carbon emissions by up to 20 per cent in the process.

“Around half the drag a plane experiences is the result of skin friction, so anything that reduces that will deliver big savings in fuel use,” he said, adding that the research team was still not entirely clear how the phenomenon worked, but that early test results from wind tunnels had been encouraging.

Lockerby explained that the innovation is based on the Helmholtz resonance principle – the same principle that applies to blowing over a bottletop whereby air is forced into a cavity increasing the pressure and forcing air out of the space, creating an oscillation.

By perforating a plane’s wing with tiny holes with chambers underneath, the research team believes an additional layer of air can be created around the wing that limits drag.

Simon Crook, senior manager for aerospace and defence at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which co-funded the research aviation giant Airbus, said that the breakthrough could help “drastically reduce the environmental cost of flying”.

The team is now working on prototypes designed to get a better understanding of the process and ensure that the perforations can be added without compromising the structural integrity of the aircraft.

Airbus is said to be keen to accelerate the project and it is hoped that new wings could be ready for trial as early as 2012.

EPSRC said that if tests prove successful the technology could also be used to improve the fuel efficiency of cars, boats and trains.

BusinessGreen.com

The Original Post is Located Here: Weird Wings could cut aircraft emissions by 20 percent

Electric Car Schematic

When it comes to the development of electric cars – the facts are plentiful and easy to find. This new alternative to regular gas powered motor vehicles has many people excited about having a reliable form of transportation that doesn’t damage the environment. So what are the facts about electric cars?

Firstly, there are many types of electric cars available for you to choose from, but they all share the same basic structure, ie. they all use an electric motor that runs on batteries that can be recharged. Generally, the more batteries there are, the further you can drive the car. Electric cars are now available in all different sizes and with different performance capacities. They are usually aerodynamically more efficient than gasoline powered cars as they are generally much lighter in weight.

Another advantage oft electric cars is that they emit virtually no greenhouse gases at all and therefore run much, much cleaner than most other vehicles. As Everyone is now well aware that greenhouse gases are contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer that has in turn led to global warming. Electric cars that run on batteries alone produce absolutely no pollution at all and therefore are probably THE most environmentally friendly option.

How far can you drive with a fully charged electric car? In general, ignoring size and performance, electric cars can usually travel for about a hundred miles before requiring a charge. There is a gauge that shows you how much power you have left and the batteries usually need to be charged overnight to attain full capacity. They are great for city driving and for people who don’t have to drive long distances on a regular basis.

Most people believe that an electric car can’t go very fast, but the fact is that some electric cars have been clocked at over one hundred miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) and can go from zero to that in less than nine seconds! This is because electric motors can have a very high torque which allows them to accelerate very quickly and travel faster.

There are many more facts about electric cars related to their price, their range, their availability, and their many benefits. There is plenty of information available on electric cars and we will endeavour to present more of it in following articles. If you are interested in buying an electric car, do your research and find one that fits your needs and lifestyle. Most of the major car companies produce at the very least a hybrid type of electric car that runs on both gasoline and electricity, but you can also find completely electric cars if you know where to look. Just do your homework and then get on the electric car bandwagon – you will find out you like it there!
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The Original Post is Located Here: Facts & Misconceptions About Electric Cars