November 17, 2006, 11:02 AM PST
Paris to Beijing on only 40,000 liters of diesel
Posted by: Kevin Massy

We might not have heard a peep out of Mercedes if its Paris-to-Beijing diesel rally hadn't been completed, but as it is, the press wires are abuzz with news of the completion of the "greatest diesel marathon of all time." The rally involved 36 Mercedes-Benz E-Class cars, all of which drove the 8,750-mile course on diesel to showcase the reliability and fuel economy of Mercedes's diesel engines.

According to Mercedes, the winning team managed an average fuel economy on the route of 7.19 liters per 100km (about 33mpg in old money), which is pretty impressive considering that the vehicles were driving on a variety of terrains, including frozen and unpaved roads. In any event, it is a vast improvement over the gasoline-powered E550 that we had in for review recently, and which demonstrated an average fuel economy of just more than 20mpg.

Curiously, Mercedes said that the rally was also a means of demonstrating the "outstanding performance of the diesel cars in terms of emissions." Call me an envirofundamentalist, but burning 40,000 liters of diesel (the total consumption of the entire fleet) is a strange way of demonstrating your green credentials.

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November 13, 2006, 10:17 AM PST
Hydrogen to help with my commute
Posted by: Kevin Massy

It looks as if I'll soon be coming to work with the assistance of hydrogen fuel-cell technology. The Federal Transit Administration announced today that it has selected British defense contractor BAE Systems as the recipient of a $5.35 million grant for the integration of hydrogen fuel cells in hybrid-electric transit buses.

For the program, DaimlerChrysler is supplying its Orion VII hybrid transit buses, which will use hydrogen fuel cells to power the buses' auxiliary electrical systems such as air conditioning, air compressors, power steering, cooling fans and pumps, and a 28-volt electric power generator. The project will be coordinated by WestStart CALSTART, a nonprofit consortium specializing in clean-air transportation technology. And best of all, the test market for the buses is going to be right here in San Francisco as the city's Municipal Railway has agreed to facilitate a yearlong revenue-service test of the new system.

But, while the SF hydrogen-enabled buses are an exciting development, they're not particularly groundbreaking. Chicago conducted a pilot hydrogen bus scheme in 1998, and hydrogen-powered buses have been a common sight on the streets of Europe for the last three years as 10 major cities including London, Madrid, and Reykjavik, have participated in a pilot program to test the viability of hydrogen technology in public transit applications.

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November 10, 2006, 9:51 AM PST
GM's PHEV likely to debut in Detroit
Posted by: Kevin Massy

Following yesterday's Los Angeles Times article on GM's development of a new kind of gasoline-electric hybrid, Reuters is reporting this morning that the car is likely to make its first appearance at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit next January. The unveiling will come exactly 10 years after the launch of the ill-fated EV1 electric car, which GM discontinued in 2002 citing lack of public interest. Since then, GM has taken a hammering at the hands of overseas automakers who have been early adopters of hybrid technology.

Recent initiatives such as the unveiling of the Chevrolet Sequel hydrogen fuel cell concept car, and a confirmed timetable for rollout of the Equinox Fuel Cell have signaled GM's reemergence on the alternative-fuel scene, with the new plug-in vehicle (the EV2..?) the first sign of a "full" or series hybrid. (While the Saturn Vue Green Line and certain Chevy Silverados and GMC Sierras are nominally hybrids, they cannot run solely on electric power).

GM boss Rick Wagoner recently said that discontinuing the EV1 program was his biggest mistake in the job: it is unlikely he will be so quick to pull the plug on this latest car, which will arguably justify the costs of its development in terms of positive, environmentally-friendly PR alone.

Source: Reuters

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November 09, 2006, 11:28 AM PST
Who resurrected the electric car?
Posted by: Kevin Massy

General Motors is planning to mix up another combination of the gasoline-electric hybrid-powertrain cocktail. The Los Angeles Times is reporting today that GM has developed a prototype of a new kind of electric car that uses an internal combustion engine solely as an electric generator. Scheduled to be unveiled early next year, the car will run on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that will be supplemented by electricity generated from an onboard gasoline- or diesel-powered motor when the charge runs low. According to the Times, the car would require charging on a daily basis, with each charge delivering a range of 20 to 30 miles, after which the IC engine would come to the rescue. No details have been released on what the prototype electric vehicle might look like, but it's within the realm of possibility that it will share some parts with the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell that we saw earlier this year, which also converts an onboard fuel source into electricity to power an electric motor.

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October 27, 2006, 8:41 PM PDT
Vodafone, TomTom partner on a collective wisdom traffic service
Posted by: Kevin Massy

Participatory traffic navigation moved up another gear today with the announcement from TomTom and UK-based wireless operator Vodafone that they have developed a traffic data service for the Netherlands that relies on data transmitted in real time from Vodafone cell phone handsets to static base stations. This collective wisdom, which gives a continuously updated stream of information on the approximate locations (and therefore speeds) of the handsets, is then used by TomTom to alert drivers to probable traffic jams and congestion areas.

The partnership is the latest in a trend of devices and applications that rely on cars as individual nodes that communicate with each other and/or a central network location to pool information on traffic and other travel-related topics. Other recent examples of "navigation 2.0" include: the Dash Express, a navigation system that enables cars with equipped with the system to anonymously report their traffic conditions to other devices in the area; Honda's Internavi Premium club, a service rolled out earlier this month that lets drivers tag points of interest with comments for other drivers to read; and Nissan's partnership with Japanese wireless operator NTT DoCoMo on a trial "intelligent transportation system", which lets cars communicate with each other to deliver real-time traffic maps to in-car navigation screens.

Source: Reuters

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October 24, 2006, 3:23 PM PDT
BP opens hydrogen fueling station in Michigan
Posted by: Kevin Massy

Hydrogen fuel cell cars still may be years away from the mainstream, but BP and DaimlerChrysler took another step toward the hydrogen economy yesterday by opening a dedicated hydrogen fueling station in southeast Michigan. The station, which will be used to fill up DCX fuel cell vehicles with hydrogen, is part of a Department of Energy field test of a hydrogen fueling infrastructure. According to H2stations.org, the Detroit area is already home to five operable hydrogen filling stations, with four more (in addition to the BP station) planned.

Source: Yahoo news

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October 11, 2006, 5:20 PM PDT
Ride-along with the Pioneer AVIC Z-1
Posted by: Kevin Massy

The nice people at Pioneer just took us out for a spin on wild streets of San Francisco to try to generate some more buzz around their now 10-month-old AVIC Z-1 navigation unit. While this kind of hands-on demo would have been more useful prior to our test-bench review of the unit earlier in the year, the chance to see the touch-screen double-DIN nav system working in a real-world situation was worth the ride. Aside from its plentiful entertainment and communications functions (10GB of hard drive media storage, Bluetooth interface, iPod adapter, MP3 and WMA playback, XM and Sirius Satellite Radio prewiring), the AVIC Z-1 does have a couple of advanced navigation features that we haven't seen anywhere else.

Most impressive was its level of map detail, which not only showed streets, points of interest (11 million in total), and real-time traffic information, but also the individual outlines of the buildings and landmarks that we were driving past. This feature is available for only 50 downtown metro areas nationwide, but it hints at the shape of the next generation of GPS maps. Also built into the base AVIC Z-1 hard drive database are 7,000 unique pictograms of freeway on and off ramps to help drivers to make the right choice from multiple options in close proximity. The Pioneer rep did reveal that it costs a hefty $200 annually to keep the navigation database up-to-date (in addition to the $1,600 or so that you'll drop on the unit itself), but for those who want a slice of Google Earth in their dashboard, it may be worth the cost.

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October 10, 2006, 4:23 PM PDT
Inside Toyota's magic kingdom
Posted by: Kevin Massy

Toyota's über-efficient manufacturing practices have attracted a lot of interest over the past few years. Concepts such as 'just in time' supply-chain management and bottom-up innovation, together with the success of the Prius hybrid have helped the Japanese automaker maintain consistent growth at a time when many of its rivals are struggling with decreasing sales.

CNET's Michael Kanellos recently visited one of Toyota's 10 factories in its eponymous Toyota City to see how it all works in practice: what he found was a stranger-than-fiction high-tech industrial utopia, complete with motorized tool trays that follow workers around, ceiling-mounted people-movers, and a trumpet-playing robot. He also got a close-up look at some of the weird and wonderful concept vehicles that Toyota is working on. Check out his article and slide show here.

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October 09, 2006, 4:46 PM PDT
Mitsubishi to charge into the States with an all-electric compact
Posted by: Kevin Massy

It looks like Mitsubishi is planning to bring an all-electric compact car to the United States. According to Automotive News, Mitsubishi president Osamu Masuko made the announcement last week in Las Vegas, saying that the lithium-ion battery-powered, zero-emissions car would be launched first in Japan and then shipped eastward to the U.S. market. We got an insight into Mitsubishi's vision of an all-electric sporty hatchback at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show, where it showed off its MIEV concept, which is driven by hub-mounted electric motors--a propulsion system that we also saw recently in GM's Sequel Fuel Cell vehicle.

There is no word from Mitsubishi on whether its production version will resemble the MIEV (which stands for Mitsubishi In-wheel motor Electric Vehicle), but Automotive News says that more details are expected shortly. The Mitsubishi news is the latest in a recent resurgence of activity surrounding the electric car. This summer, California-based Tesla Motors said it would begin sales of a production version of its all-electric Tesla Roadster in late 2007, while last month, Zap, another electric car manufacturer, commenced delivery of its three-wheeled electric Xebra sedans to dealerships across the country.

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October 06, 2006, 12:02 PM PDT
Five million dollars up for grabs for inventor of 'ultimate iDrive'
Posted by: Kevin Massy

In a rare insight into the minds of venture capitalists, Business 2.0 has published a list of the 20 design ideas that the tech investment community would like to see become a reality--and one of them is an advanced driver interface that will make use of heads-up display technology.

According to the article, VC veterans Howard Schulz (founder of Starbucks) and Jonathan Fram want to develop an in-car communications system incorporating a steering wheel-mounted keyboard, a projected heads-up display, and voice-to-text capabilities that would allow drivers to check e-mail without taking their hands from the wheel.

Fram apparently thinks that carmakers have been "too slow and risk averse" to develop this technology themselves. There's $5 million on the table for any budding entreprenuers who can develop a commercial prototype within three years. Any takers?

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