hybrid

66: Hyundai and Microsoft team up

Hyundai seeks to one-up Ford SYNC, the cheapest car with standard GPS nav, who makes the best engine in the world, and a ride in the new 1 Series. Listen now: Download today's podcast

Mix of gas and hybrid cars to slash fossil fuel use: MIT study

The United States can slash its use of petroleum dramatically by 2035 by adding a heavy dose of hybrids to the market, according to a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

To return U.S. fuel use to pre-2000 levels, however, carmakers would have to improve efficiency and consumers would have to learn to love hybrids, trading features like increased speed and size for higher fuel efficiency.

"There's all this fascination with vehicle technology--more hybrids, more diesels, and so on," said study author Anup Bandivadekar, an analyst at the International Council on Clean Transportation, in a … Read more

It's official: The future of Sun/MySQL is open...and closed

The Sun faithful who attended the CommunityOne Conference this morning may not have noticed, but Sun and its MySQL executives were very clear about Sun's open-source strategy going forward, despite news reports that seem to have missed the nuances:

The core will always be 100 percent open source. The periphery...will not. Or might not. It depends.

In response to my first question of the CommunityOne panel Marten Mickos, Senior Vice President of Sun's Database Group, declared, "I just want to say that the core of MySQL will always be 100 percent free and open source." The crowd loved it. Ian Murdock said roughly the same thing: The core will be open....

The periphery? Marten indicated that this would be subject to a corporate calculus designed to determine how much peripheral, closed extensions the company can make to encourage purchases without alienating its community.

Sun's future (and according to some, all of our futures) is hybrid. Is this a bad thing? … Read more

Tiny fuel cell promises 14 hours of phone video

Granted it's still in prototype stage, but Sony's latest micro-sized hybrid fuel cell nevertheless offers a sneak peek at what to expect of batteries in mobile devices in coming years.

The tiny fuel cell measures roughly 2 x 1.2 inches, thanks to its combination of a lithium polymer battery, fuel cell, and control circuit, with methanol as the fuel, according to Tech-On Nikkei. A pump regulates the fuel supply to cater to the device's power needs.

Sony says one-third of an ounce of methanol can provide almost 14 hours of 1seg TV viewing on mobile phones, … Read more

Want a plug-in hybrid? Get in line for a battery

A123 Systems has created a Web site where Toyota Prius owners can preorder a battery to convert their cars to plug-in hybrids capable of getting well over 100 miles per gallon.

The switch from hybrid to plug-in hybrid doesn't come cheap, though. The battery and installation costs $9,995, plus an extra $400 "destination fee" and taxes.

The battery, called Hymotion 5, is designed to fit into the spare tire slot underneath the trunk of Prius model years 2004 to 2008. The company didn't say when the batteries would be available.

A123 Systems said the extended-life … Read more

New Prius to be bigger, better

The Truth About Cars blog posted commentary on the next generation Toyota Prius today. The car is supposed to debut at the 2009 Detroit auto show, but a few details have come out in Edmund's Auto Observer. The new Prius will be 3 inches to 4 inches longer than the current model and it will get a 50 horsepower boost. Along with all that, it will get better fuel economy than the current model. The last update was in 2004, so this new version is definitely due. There's also talk of another model in the Prius line, and … Read more

'E+' bike may have trouble making the grade

With so many electric and hybrid bikes come out, it's hard to imagine where one such as the "E+" from Electric Motion Systems will fit in. There's already a broad range of competing products that are trying everything to distinguish themselves, from Yamaha's iPod-dock-equipped "EC-02" that glows in the dark to Brammo's ultra-lightweight "Enertia" on the high end that can hit 50 miles per hour (not to mention $15,000).

The E+ does have an LCD instrument gauge and "regenerative braking" that recharges the battery, as Engadget says, … Read more

GE takes giant hybrid dump truck for a ride

Hybrids aren't just for eco-conscious soccer moms.

General Electric on Tuesday said that it has tested a hybrid version of a haul truck, the kind of giant dump truck that's used at a mine or to haul away mountains of dirt.

The system works just like a Toyota Prius, more or less. The engine feeds electricity to a battery that runs the drivetrain. During braking, the spinning wheels act as a generator for the battery.

The batteries in the hybrid off-highway truck is the same sodium-based battery used in GE's locomotives, according to the GE Research blog. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 703: No doughnuts, no peace

If Flickr's not buying doughnuts for the world, then Tom's not buying. But he's in San Francisco, so he won't have to buy his own doughnut anyway. It's a doughnut paradox. Also, Psystar lays down the smack on Apple's Mac OS X EULA and really, we only care about one thing today: rocket racing. For real. Rockets. Racing. Awesome. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 703

Psystar: Apple's terms violate U.S. monopoly laws http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1685

Elusive 'Twitter ads' spotted in the wild http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9919041-36.html… Read more