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Fiat has just shown that you don't have to be huge to win a car body award. The company just won the Eurocarbody award, which is defined as "the annual Innovation Prize and the worldwide highest accolade of Automotive Circle International awarded for trailblazing engineering contributions to series developments in car body lightweight design and manufacturing," for the Fiat 500. The award was given during an event in Bad Nauheim/Frankfurt, Germany from 16 to 18 October, attended by 600 experts in the development of the design, materials, processes and manufacturing of car bodies.
This means that the 3.5 meter-long car (11 ft 8 in) has proved itself not only beautiful, but also safe (it got a Euro NCAP 5-star rating) and of high quality. To see how stiff the competition was, view the full list of awardees after the jump.
So, I am watching the History Channel and a TV commercial comes on with a car driving down a country road. The voice over says "what can a car that gets 50 miles per gallon do for the environment?" It's not a Honda or a Toyota, so my interest is piqued. What can it do? "Not as much as the car that carries it" explains the voiceover as the car drives into the back of a train, somehow in the middle of a road. The voice over then says CSX trains can carry a ton of freight 426 miles on one gallon of fuel. Thanks for getting my hopes up, CSX. You can watch the dissapointing ad at CSX's website.
Neil Young drives the car that a lot of people wish they could. First, it's a diesel car, running on biodiesel. Second, it's a plug-in hybrid. Third, it's a 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV. Grunge has been good to Neil.
Nicknamed Linc-Volt, Young's car actually isn't a PHEV yet. It's undergoing a conversion this fall. Neil says the car will embody, "Classic Americana from then meeting the Americana of now." Details on who and where should be more available when the Linc-Volt documentary film is released.
Oh, and as an aside to Ecorazzi's Michael, where I first read about Young Neil's badassmobile: you criticize Pearl Jam once more and, and, ... well, nothing, but I heartily disagree that the Neil Young/Pearl Jam partnership is a bad thing. Sure, Mirror Ball was neither Young's nor Pearl Jam's finest record, but "Act of Love" and "I'm The Ocean" are wonderful songs. Anyone who's heard what the boys from Seattle do with "Rockin' in the Free World" - or knows that PJ regularly performs at Young's Bridge School benefit shows - knows that the Canadian is more than happy with the team-up.
It looks like the German automakers may be getting at least some of what they were looking for in the new European CO2 regulations. Car-makers like Porsche, Mercedes, and Audi have been pushing for scaled-back limits on CO2 emissions based on vehicle size, a change that would allow them to continue making big, powerful cars.
The European government is split in two parts. The European Commission is the regulatory arm while the European Union is the legislative body. The Commission is pushing for a 120 g//km fleet average limit by 2012, something that French and Italian companies are content with since they make a lot of smaller, diesel-powered cars. To appease the Germans, the EU wants to make the limit 125 g/km with a 2015 deadline. Apparently the politicians who comprise the EU parliament have decided that at least the German automakers need more time to meet the new requirements. Once the EC and EU do reach agreement on new regulations, it could be another two years before they are implemented.
C-NET's Michael Kanellos did a little thinking out loud this week when he tried to list all of the electric car start-up companies (not major automakers working on EVs). He counted 16 small companies. The names on this list will be familiar to just about anyone who reads AutoblogGreen, but I thought it was interesting to see them all gathered in one place:
Tesla Motors (sports cars), Wrightspeed (sports cars and plug-in drivetrains for trucks), Fisker Automotive (electric sedans), Zap (low-speed and sports cars), Miles Automotive (low speed), Zenn Motors (low speed), AC Propulsion (retrofitting Scions for electric), Phoenix Motorcars (SUVs), Aptera (three-wheelers), Porteon (low speed electrics), Lightning (sports cars in England), Reva (economy cars), Ultramotor (electric trishaws), Myers Motors (freakish three-wheelers featured in Goldmember), Think (electric economy cars) and Venture Vehicles (three-wheeled electric cars.).
I'd say the only "major" player that Kanellos missed is GEM, which has been making glorified golf carts for ages. Other contenders not on his list include Universal Electric Vehicle, American Electric Vehicle, G-Wiz and Hybrid Technologies. I'm sure there's at least a couple more we're missing, but we're already got over 20 small EV companies. Pretty soon, he figures, this list will be much easier to calculate: "History shows that most of these companies will be wiped out." So it goes, as my favorite author would write.
It looks the new 3.0L V-6 clean diesel that Nissan is working up with corporate partner Renault for 2010 will find it's way into a wide variety of vehicles from the company, including the upscale Infiniti brand. Back in mid-August Nissan filed several new trademarks including EX30D, G30D, FX30D, and M30D. These names all fit Infiniti's standard nomenclature with a 3.0L engine and the D designating a diesel. The attractive G30D would be a particularly appealing combination in the mid-sized sport sedan market. Hopefully the diesel V-6 that Honda is developing for vehicles like the Ridgeline and Odyssey will also wind up under the hood of some Acura sedans like the next generation TL. We're looking forward to a comparison test of the TL Type-D, G30D, BMW 330d and hopefully a Cadillac CTS 2.9D around the turn of the decade. Between all these mid-sized diesels and range-extended EVs as well as straight battery electrics, it looks like driving efficiently in the near future won't mean giving up driving enjoyment.
On Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food (that sounds like a good job) Jean Ziegler presented his annual report to the General Assembly. In it, Ziegler called for a five-year moratorium on building biofuel manufacturing plants that use food feedstocks (i.e., corn, palm oil). Biopact has all the details.
Ziegler also calls the idea that agrofuels (what we usually term biofuels around here) will provide us with enough energy so we don't have to reduce consumption a "false promise." It's important that we move quickly to second-generation biofuels (made from cellulosic and waste sources), Ziegler says - and pretty much everyone but those invested in corn ethanol or palm biodiesel agrees.
You can download the report from the UN (it's report A/62/289) or read the pertinent sections after the break. As the Energy Blog points out, a UN special rapporteurs are independent experts and do not receive any financial compensation for their work.
Zap! doesn't actually manufacture any of the vehicles they sell. They are basically just a marketing organization for Chinese built three-wheelers. The Xebra and an assortment of other models are built by Shandong Jindalu Vehicle Co. The company started off by selling gasoline-powered versions of these vehicles and later added battery editions.
These vehicles are pretty common in some parts of China and gas-powered versions sell for prices as low as $1,500. Interestingly they offer a number body variants including the Baoma, pictured, which bears some design hints of a certain hybrid sedan. Ironically the FL150/200ZK-2 has front end styling that closely mimics the Chery QQ, which is of course a duplicate of the Daewoo Matiz. It's unclear how much the electric versions cost in China or how many are sold there.
[Source: Shandong Jindalu Vehicle Co., thanks to Darryl for the tip]
For every major auto show these days, Honda presents a gallery of images and videos on its corporate website. For the 40th Tokyo Motor Show, which is now taking place, Honda is highlighting not just the CR-Z hybrid and FCX and Puyo, but also the good old Civic hybrid and wheelchair accessibility.
You can watch a video of the new CR-Z hybrid concept here (although I'll admit I wasn't able to watch the whole thing. It's supposed to be a minute long, but it kept stalling after 15 seconds when I tried to watch). The full speech by Honda president and CEO Takeo Fukui can be seen (well, I had the same hanging video problem) and read here. Hm, stalling video and no high-res images? I think Autoblog does it better.
Below the fold are three videos from the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show. The first video includes many green cars like the Toyota Nissan Pivo 2, Audi Metroproject, Honda CR-Z and Toyota Hi-CT. The most interesting part of that video is a tour of the Hi-CT which shows the ignition on the ceiling and mini Segway-like vehicles on the back. The plug being pulled out of the hybrid Metroproject was also very interesting as well. The second video is just the hybrid Metroproject with shots of the interior. The third video shows the strange, Mazda's wind-inspired concept car, the Taiki. It seems green has taken over yet another major auto show this year.
France's flag is no longer red, white and blue, it's green. President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced a set of measures to make the country advance towards sustainable development. The initiatives were announced after the conclusion of the Grenelle de l'environment negotiations. The Grenelle (a word that comes from the students' revolution in Paris in May '68) was a set of conversations among government, industry, environmental groups and unions.
In a few words: France is going to tax fossil fuels and will promote energy saving, increased railway transport, a halt in the construction of new highways, the development of renewable energies (without stopping nuclear power, something that will become "transparent") and changes in the Penal Code to punish harder for all kinds of environmental crimes and products.
All fossil fuels will have a new "carbon tax." In order to ease the burden for companies, other taxes will in some cases be reduced.
During the official announcement, Sarkozy was supported by Al Gore and José Durao Barrosso (the EU Comission President).
The Chevy Volt is still at least three years from Job 1 but there are almost surely parts of it prowling the streets of Southeast Michigan. Whenever a new vehicle is developed there are components that are ready for testing out of sequence. Long before all the necessary parts to build full prototypes are ready, the bits that are available will be bolted onto other existing vehicles so they can be evaluated. When GM first showed us Volt at the end of last year they told us that parts such as electric motor would be derived from other programs already in progress such as the fuel cell Equinox which are already out and about.
Other parts, like the electrically-assisted steering and the electric air conditioning compressor, will most likely be shared with current hybrid programs such as the Two-Mode hybrid Saturn Vue. The E-Flex platform is derived from the Global Compact Car architecture which under-pins the Chevy Cobalt and Opel/Saturn Astra. Since the next generation of these cars are already in development, suspension components and other pieces are being tested on those vehicles.
In the next couple of months, prototype battery packs will begin arriving in GM's labs for integration testing and then installation into the first mules. Those initial mules are expected to be based on Malibu body shells to provide extra space for prototype components and tons of instrumentation. GM has promised us an early ride in these mules sometime next spring. Stay tuned.
[Source: Blogging Stocks, thanks to CTGentelman for the tip]
Below the fold are two more videos from yesterday's Green the Capitol Office Expo. The first video is Electro Energy telling me about their battery which has a structure that takes up less space and weighs less than your average battery. Electro Energy showed a Prius hybrid with extra batteries added where the spare tire would usually go. The second video is a Prius converted by Hymotion for the Department of Energy. Hymotion, which was bought by A123Systems, adds lithium-ion batteries to the Prius extending the electric-powered range.
Thanks to years of poor planning and an increasingly lazy (sorry, "busy") population, the U.S. federal government, through the Department of Transportation, is spending $612 million for a program called Safe Routes to School in about 20 states. This program sets out to "help build sidewalks, post traffic signs and find ways to make it easier for students to bike or walk to school."
While I like the result - parents and children biking to school together, kids tromping together in a little pack called a "walking bus" - it speaks volumes that we need to spend so much money to provide communities with sidewalks so it's safe for small children to walk to school. The AP's article on this program says that only 15 percent of kids "travel to school under their own power," so there's certainly a lot of improvement that's possible. While school buses make sense for kids who live far away from school, it's simply common sense to have kids in town get a little exercise at the start and end of each school day. Nobody tell Chris Goodall.
I am totally in love with this scooter! The translation from Japanese is a little problematic, but I can definitely discern that this machine started life as a Japanese market Honda Forza scooter. The team removed all of the plastic body panels and made their own body from fiberglass, or fiber reinforced plastic (FRP). The end result manages to look both retro and futuristic at the same time and reminds me of the old Salisbury scooters. Again, I love it. It appears that the scooter was shown at the 28th annual Tokyo Motor Show and was then used in a movie. Another was made in a different color for a customer to be used as a commuter. Great work, and nobody would ever mistake it for a stock Honda!
France's flag is no longer red, white and blue, it's green. President Nicolas Sarkozy has 
