Green Vehicle Roundup

Electric Volvo

The Volvo C 30 is hot hatch thats pretty darn nice to look at, and quite frankly I love Volvo’s clean sparse interiors.  The standard 5 banger producing 227 ponies isn’t so shabby for a car of that stature either.  Coming soon though, through a partnership with Siemans, Volvo looks to use the C 30 platform for a future electric car model.  

Retread Batteries

The New York Times recently published this piece about the possibilities of lithium ion battery recycling.  Its an interesting conundrum as the type of folks who might purchase an electric vehicle trend toward the environmentally conscious.  What though, of the life cycle of these batteries?  Those buyers might worry about the environmental issues regarding disposal of the battery pack.  Anticipating this, EV manufacturers are hard at work planning reuse options beyond recycling it into its salvageable components.  G.M. And Nissan are looking at how battery packs can be used to provide power to homes.

Uh Makes Cents Dont it?

Tesla Motors has a record earnings statement of 58 million for the second quarter, then it’s stock prices take a crap because they lost 58.9 million in the second quarter.  Really though, that has to be a good sign for company looking toward the end of the year, huh business school people?  Autoblog

Nissan Leaf Sells Out Canada

40 units of the Nissan Leaf are purchased in the span of two hours by our neighbors to the north.  That makes the entire model year for 2011.  A whopping 40 for the Canadian market.  Expect 600 for 2012, canucks.

More Mr. Fusion

The Detroit News reports that scientists at Tulane University have created a biofuel by unleashing a bacterial strain on old newspapers.  The bacteria go to town on cellulose in the fishwrap and voila a biofuel called butanol.  The process being similar to the reaction that makes ethanol.  Butanol reportedly is superior to ethanol because it would not require modification to properly run in current engines as it is more chemically like unleaded gas.  Moreover it is recycling a product that already exist in huge quantities like newspaper.  I’ve never though it wise to turn a food source like corn to a fuel source.   

Mr. Fusion

I ran across this article over the weekend.  I'd never heard of plastic to oil conversion before.  I was intrigued by what sounds like a very cool technology.  I like anything that could potentially be a non foreign source of oil as well as recycling something that is so abundant like plastic.  Upon a quick Google search there are a number of companies that are involved in the plastic to oil conversion business.

The process as outlined visually here is seemingly simple.  Take old plastic, shred it down to manageable pellets.  Next heat it up.  It goes from solid to liquid to gas.  The gasses are then separated out where they are then cooled allowing them to re-liquify where, voila, you have a synthetic crude oil.  This crude is then stored until it can be processed by a refinery into types of fuel we, the fuel consuming public, need.  Some scientist can read that and vomit at its simplicity but more or less that seems to be how the whole thing goes down.

The drawbacks about plastic to oil conversion have to do with the waste produced, as well as if it can feasibly produce enough oil to be profitable.  Look at how small the converter is in this video though.  Maybe the cars of the future wont be plug-ins but equipped with their own Doc Brown style garbage converter.

"a vow of poverty on wheels"

And to my point of my last post...

The New York Times automotive section ran this article today about BMW's new i8 concept vehicle.  Said to be distinctly BMW in is driving experience the i8 (or whatever iteration of the concept comes to market) will posses all the characteristics that make BMW the ultimate driving machine.  It has all the fixin's of a supercar.  The styling, the 0-60 time of around 4 seconds, and an expected six figure pricetag.

Cool Alt Fuel

The lamentations were heard far and wide across the internet.  Porsche was to build a hybrid 911 race car.  Among purists, this was met with the same forehead slapping expletive laced hell in a hand-basket reaction as when the Cayenne was announced.  The storied sports car brand has, in recent years, shifted their focus away from manufacturing a small model range of sports cars to becoming a full on luxury brand with all the offerings there of.  “But a hybrid Porsche?  I can tolerate the S.U.V. and wagon but a hybrid is where I draw the line!” is the typical gearhead response.  

Its no secret that the automotive world as we know it is changing at a yearly rate with new model offerings by multiple manufacturers representing hybrid and full on E.V. technology.  Coupled with constantly rising gas prices which fluctuate with the worlds turmoil as well the aggressive push to expand fuel economy in vehicles, what Porsche is doing right now is just downright essential.  As the famed quote from the good ‘old boys of NASCAR will tell you, its “race on Sunday, sell on Monday”.  The technology that goes into racing teams, for whatever series or style of racing, is definitely above and beyond what is available for passenger cars.  However what is gleaned from these types of cars definitely informs and shapes new models. 

What’s most important about all this is bringing some fucking cool to the hybrid world.  Something that someone who actually likes cars can take a bite out of.  The Prius following is a cool dictated by L.A. celeb taste-makers.  “Like I’m totally saving the world, man.”  Yes, you’ve saved on gas and reduced your carbon footprint but for those of us who enjoy the action of driving its lack of power and nimble handling simply won’t do. 

There’s a big BUT coming.  Dinosaur fuels are on their way out.  There’s no getting around it.  The pain at the pump is evident each time you fill up.  It’s clear to everyone who’s paying at least a little bit of attention that it is a finite resource that will one day disappear.  Until recently car manufacturers seemed to put their heads in the sand regarding this fact.  While automakers have stepped up their alternative fuel offerings, the gearhead has been left out of this equation.  This is American, damn it.  We’ve been raised on muscle.  We like shit that goes fast and burns tires.  In a Prius, you simply will not do these things. 

We’ve been thrown a bone or two.  Sort of.  If you love cars, you of course dream about rides beyond your means.  Most alt fuel vehicle come a decently sticky price tag.  The Chevy Volt MSRP is right at $41,000.  Its nice that you’re saving on gas and can run completely on electrical power if you choose to do so, but its design is not particularly appealing to the eye, nor is it particularly roomy nor is it a powerhouse.  It just carts your ass around, which is fine for most people but will not do for automotive enthusiasts.  Compare with the Tesla Roadster which will do 0-60 in under 4 seconds, looks like a dream and runs entirely on an electric charge...and will run you $109,000 to start.  Tesla is offering a pretty sexy sedan called the Model S starting at about half that for the 2012 model year.  Mercedes gorgeous gull-winged SLS E-Cell is planned for 2013 and I’ll even give an attaboy for Honda’s sporty styled if not particularly sporty driving CR-Z for being the first hybrid to have a manual gearbox option.  While the options are certainly growing, I can’t wait for those go fast technologies to trickle down the pipeline into some rides that don’t necessarily fall into the supercar range.  

A common theme in getting folks to adapt to a more environmentally friendly way of doing just about anything is to make it seem as though they’re not doing without.  The current crop of alt fuel vehicles is akin to rolling around in a household appliance.  I’d hate for the car to become just another thing you have around and does it job and nobody thinks too much about it otherwise. This is why the enthusiast holds the hybrid in such disdain.  The technology is fast approaching and the demand is already here for something that saves gas, hauls ass and can do it in style.  The manufacturer that can bring it to market first is going to have a hit.  

In its racing debut at the 24 hours of Nurburgring, the Porsche 911 GT-3 R Hybrid, ran for 22 hours and at a fast enough clip to lead for 8 of those hours.  With but less than two hours remaining before the finish its day was over.  The combustion engine portion of the power-train had failed.  

Go green.