tagged w/ Fuel Efficiency
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At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opens to the public this weekend, advances in fuel economy are taking center stage. Thanks to aggressive leadership by the Obama administration, working in concert with the state of California and the unions and carmakers of the American auto industry, fuel economy standards are zooming toward an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. A Detroit Free Press editorial reports that the "new fuel economy standards have breathed new life into American automobile manufacturers, spurring them to innovate new technologies and new styles. Their new cars — which reduce our vulnerability to the whims of Big Oil and lessen dangerous pollution — will be able to compete on the international stage, which has much higher standards for fuel efficiency:
“Against the backdrop of the North American International Auto Show, which opens to the public Saturday, anything seems possible, including fuel efficiencies that seemed out of reach just a few years ago. The stylish introductions focused as much on engine and power configurations (hybrid, plug-in, turbocharged, direct injection, etc.) and weight-savings as they did on appearance.”
“This year’s auto show proves beyond all doubt that fuel efficiency is no longer just a euphemism for ‘econobox,’” writes the Detroit Free Press. “With the long-term planning horizon offered by the new fuel efficiency rules, automakers can do far more than survive. They can thrive, they can do it with style and — most important to everyone around here — build the cars that people want to buy.”
Links at websiteAt the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opens to the public... more
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http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/News-and-Views/Archives/2011/Efficient-Vehicles.aspx
October/November 2011 National Wildlife Federation Magazine
IN A TRULY SIGNIFICANT national commitment to curb greenhouse gases, the Obama administration, a labor union and key auto manufacturers including Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai have joined with the state of California to reach a critical deal requiring passenger vehicles to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Also announced—and broadly agreed upon—were the first ever standards for heavy duty trucks that will reduce their fuel use by 10 to 20 percent by 2018. Currently, more than 30 percent of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions in this country come from petroleum that is used mainly by the transportation sector.
NWF supports these agreements because they mean passenger cars and light trucks built in 2025 will emit about 50 percent less carbon pollution than cars today and heavy trucks will reduce their carbon emissions significantly. These landmark White House agreements came about through responsible negotiations with automakers, environmentalists and labor unions. While we did not get the full 60 mpg for which we had called these standards will make a very significant dent in tailpipe pollution. And we will continue to work with all the parties to speed innovation in cars and trucks.
According to the Union of Concern Scientists, the latest passenger vehicle agreement will cut carbon pollution by more than 308 million tons in 2030—the equivalent to shutting down 72 coal-fired power plants. The group also predicts "lower fuel expenditures at the pump by over $80 billion in 2030—even after paying for the cost of the necessary technology, consumers will still clear $50 billion in savings that year alone." These savings mean billions more being spent at home, boosting our economy locally and improving our serious trade deficit. They also will reduce our dependence on Middle East oil by saving as much as 23 billion gallons of gasoline annually by 2030, which is equal to the total current annual imports from both Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
The many hybrid models now in the market have certainly contributed to improving the nation's overall fuel efficiency. As an owner of a hybrid, I can assure you that I enjoy passing gas stations that I once stopped at to fill up. But standards that cover all cars and trucks mean that we will see innovation and fuel savings in all types of vehiclesÑfrom semi-trailers and school buses to pickup trucks, minivans, family sedans and electric cars.
The final rule for heavy duty trucks was adopted in August. The handshake agreement for passenger vehicles will be proposed formally as a draft regulation open for public comment and input by the end of September. A final rule, if adopted, will be published in July 2012.
Leave it to the U.S. House of Representatives to oppose the passenger vehicle agreement and try to block any responsible solution to a serious environmental and economic problem. In a three-page letter sent to the CEOs of nine major automakers, Representative Darrell Issa (R-California), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the committee "has begun an investigation into the nature of the negotiations." He added that the deal appears "to have been negotiated in secret, outside the scope of law, with potentially significant negative impacts for consumers."
The Obama administration has estimated that, under the plan, consumers will save $1.7 trillion at the pump. It appears that the only "significant negative impact" will be to big oil interests that have made record profits in recent years and pocketed many billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidizes, and their Middle East suppliers who will sell a lot less oil to the United States. The legislative backlash should be expected, since oil interests are making huge contributions to lawmakers who watch out for their interests and protect their tax subsidies.
We commend the Obama administration for working in a spirit of cooperation with affected interests to forge a reasonable compromise with major benefits for the public, the economy and wildlife. We are saddened by all attacks on our landmark environmental and conservation laws, including the Clean Air Act, that underpin these standards. As this passenger vehicle agreement (as in previous fuel-efficiency agreements) will be submitted to a formal rule-making process in which all U.S. citizens will have a chance to voice their opinions, we encourage NWF members to actively participate as it moves forward.
By Larry J. Schweiger, President and Chief Executive Officerhttp://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/News-and-Views/Archives/2011/Ef... more
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The T.25 is an innovative concept in car design. With an average operation cost 50% less than the average consumer vehicle and 40% less emissions, it would be the most cost and fuel efficient car on the market. However, design is not the most important aspect of creating a futuristic car. Improved efficiency in production and shipping are also taken into account when turning the world of car manufacturing on its head.
Now that you've seen one concept of car design, tell us what does your car of the future look like?
Be sure to check out current.com/urbanmobility for more news, community discussions and upcoming videos about Urban Mobility.The T.25 is an innovative concept in car design. With an average operation cost 50%... more
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600 million cars on the planet equals a lot of traffic. When you consider how much fossil fuel is required run these cars, in addition to the energy used to create them, it becomes clear that developing more efficient ways to build cars can be as important as reducing vehicle emissions.
In this week’s Urban Mobility segment, Gordon Murray, a former Formula One racecar designer, uses his knowledge of lightweight materials to construct a prototype road car that would drastically reduce the energy required for vehicle production by 60%.
After seeing Gordon’s factory design and concept car, what kinds of features would you like to see in the Car of the Future?600 million cars on the planet equals a lot of traffic. When you consider how much... more
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600 million cars on the planet equals a lot of traffic. When you consider how much fossil fuel is required run these cars, in addition to the energy used to create them, it becomes clear that developing more efficient ways to build cars can be as important as reducing vehicle emissions.
In this week’s Urban Mobility segment, Gordon Murray, a former Formula One racecar designer, uses his knowledge of lightweight materials to construct a prototype road car that would drastically reduce the energy required for vehicle production by 60%.[insert video segment]After seeing Gordon’s factory design and concept car, what kinds of features would you like to see in the Car of the Future?
600 million cars on the planet equals a lot of traffic. When you consider how much... more
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Highest Speed limit in the USA is 75 mph and we have car companies making cars that can go 200 mph Why?? Fuel efficiency of something that can go that fast is horrible We don't need faster we need farther
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3601/Highest Speed limit in the USA is 75 mph and we have car companies making cars that... more
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TDK729
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added this
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8 months ago
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It is ironic that considering the advanced technologies and computers we have today, auto companies are yet to achieve 100% fuel efficiency in automobiles. Almost two thirds of the energy contained in gasoline...
http://bit.ly/iGlCVnIt is ironic that considering the advanced technologies and computers we have today,... more
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When you operate over 70,000 delivery vehicles worldwide, as UPS does, increasing the miles per gallon of your vehicles is an economically motivated endeavor with some welcome environmental side benefits. Over the years, UPS has tested various vehicle propulsion technologies, including natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, electric vehicles, and hybrids, to squeeze out ever greater fuel efficiency. However, the announcement that they have started testing a plastic prototype truck, shows that significant improvements can be made without the use of new or elaborate drive train technologies – instead, worthwhile gains can be achieved merely by saving weight.
In fact, 1,000 lbs of weight has been saved by UPS – in collaboration with Utilimaster – on it’s prototype CV-23 truck, which uses lighter ABS plastic, instead of sheet aluminum for it’s body panels. The reduced heft allows a smaller Isuzu 4-cylinder diesel engine to be used, together resulting in a vehicle which achieves 40% better fuel economy as compared with one of their regular package delivery trucks.
This fact sheet from UPS details the particulars of the new CV-23 prototype vehicle, which could possibly replace the current P70 package truck if testing through the remainder of this year is successful. Assuming it stands up to the rigors of the real world, 40% improved fuel efficiency sounds like something worth taking advantage of. So let’s, put it into perspective.
What exactly does an existing P70 truck achieve by way of fuel efficiency? Green Car Congress reported in 2009, that a 12 month test of a P70 hybrid, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), achieved 29% greater fuel efficiency as compared with the non-hybrid P70 diesel. The diesel averaged 10.2 mpg, so it seems reasonable to use this figure to extrapolate the 40% increase in fuel efficiency of the CV-23. A quick calculation suggests the new vehicle should get something like 14.28 mpg (in excess of a 4 mpg improvement) and it’s worth noting that this betters the efficiency of the hybrid, which was rated at 13.1 mpg in the study. These aren’t UPS’s figures, but any error should be small.
Post Continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/ups-prototype-plastic-delivery-vehicles-40-fuel-efficient/When you operate over 70,000 delivery vehicles worldwide, as UPS does, increasing the... more
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Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? What if he's right here in America?
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How many laps can a 2011 Ford Mustang V6 complete on one tank of gas? http://MPGomatic.com reports from "the World's Fastest 1/2 Mile," Bristol Motor Speedway. While the test was completed at just a fraction of NASCAR speeds, the new V6 packs plenty of punch, with 305 horsepower and low five-second 0-60 MPH times.
It's important to note that this test was performed under controlled conditions. With the automatic transmission in sixth gear, the Mustang loafed happily around the track at slightly above idle.
Mustang Vehicle Engineering Manager, Tom Barnes explains how the Mustang engineering team was able to achieve both excellent performance and fuel economy.How many laps can a 2011 Ford Mustang V6 complete on one tank of gas?... more
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WASHINGTON — Looking to a day when cars and trucks use far less gasoline or none at all, President Barack Obama plans to order the government to prepare fuel efficiency standards for many years from now and renew its focus on electric-powered vehicles.
Obama is also asking federal agencies to extend a national fuel-efficiency program to big rig and work trucks for the first time, beginning in 2014.
Under a presidential memorandum Obama is expected to sign Friday, agencies would develop fuel efficiency and emissions standards for cars and light trucks beyond 2016.
Obama last month brought out new standards for cars and light trucks for the 2012-2016 model years that aimed at reaching a fleet average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, nearly 10 miles per gallon more than now.
Now additional standards will be developed further into the future, and heavy trucks would also be regulated, something environmentalists have long sought. A White House official previewed the announcement on condition of anonymity because it was not yet public.
Obama is not expected to announce specific new mileage goals, but rather initiate steps toward developing them without help from Congress, and call for progress on next-generation and electric vehicles.
For future consumers, it could mean cars and trucks that go much farther on a tank of gas, though perhaps with a higher upfront cost.
For the auto industry, uniform national standards are preferable to a state-by-state approach that has been a threat ever since California started pushing years ago to be allowed more stringent standards than the federal government imposes.
California agreed last year not to adopt its own standards through 2016.WASHINGTON — Looking to a day when cars and trucks use far less gasoline or none... more
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Many people out there need their morning cup of coffee before they can even begin to think about moving. If this Carpuccino design catches on, the same could definitely be said of our cars, which is both good and bad news. The good: Eco-friendly transportation. The bad: They’ll be grumpy and impossible to live with in the mornings. All stupidity aside, the Carpuccino is a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco that has been retro-fitted to run on coffee grounds.
Read more: http://www.whitespace.bz/ws/web/forms/pulse/PulseMainArticle.aspx?id=449Many people out there need their morning cup of coffee before they can even begin to... more
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I’ll admit it, my iPhone has taken over my life and I’m not complaining. I may have spent more time searching through the staggering number of amazing applications for it than actually using them. My recent search for apps to help keep me green-minded yielded so many results that I decided to cruise some of the several free applications before spending time and money on others. Green Gas Saver caught my eye for a couple reasons.
Green Gas Saver first caught my eye because of the recent upward tick in gasoline prices (which always seem conveniently timed for the oncoming spring-summer driving season). It also caught me because of a personal situation. A recent medical incident left me unable to drive, so I’m always getting rides from friends and I’m constantly shocked at how little most people seem to know about how driving habits affect fuel consumption. The rate at which you accelerate, turn and decelerate your car has drastic effects on fuel consumption as well as wear and tear on many car parts (especially brake pads — which may also contain asbestos).
The simple Green Gas Saver app shows you when you are accelerating or turning too fast for optimal gas mileage. Keeping a ball in the center of a meter on the screen yields a higher resulting score, so the application also helps challenge you to drive better by making a bit of a game out of it. When you accelerate too quickly, the diameter of the ball increases and an alarm sounds to warn you that you’ve accelerated to quickly.
The cornering meter also works by making a ball increase with acceleration and moving to the side to indicate I when you’ve taken a turn too quickly. The app gives a total score at the end of a trip so you can measure how “green” your drive was which helps you squeeze more mileage out of that personally and environmentally costly tank of gas.
The obvious danger of this app is that you’ll be paying more attention to the feedback your phone is giving you about your driving than your driving, so please use a copilot to monitor the app for you while driving or just check your score when at your destination.
In closing (warning: editorial sentences forthcoming), as a Floridian, I urge you to check out Green Gas Saver to see how you score so we can consume as little gasoline as possible and hopefully help thwart Obama’s new push for drilling off our coast. What about that whole “Hope” and “Change” platform you ran on Mr. Obama? I hardly call going back to the same old push for more oil and tax subsidized nuclear power plants “Change”. Going back to old, dirty technology is not “change” and I guess I’m supposed to “hope” you can figure that out before you force another one of your plans on “We the people”. I hope you change your mind and get a clue. Maybe you can figure out what to do about the stockpile of nuclear waste we already have before you give more taxpayer money to private industries that will add to it while making a nice little profit for them.
(Read the rest on the original post)I’ll admit it, my iPhone has taken over my life and I’m not complaining. I... more
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Electric vehicles got a powerful boost today as the EPA and U.S. Department of Transportation announced their new rules for fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions standards, but it won’t last forever.
The key phrase is “zero emissions.”
Counting only tailpipe emissions, EVs clock in at zero emissions. That’s great news for automakers, who under the new rules will have to meet a fleetwide average greenhouse gas standard of 250 grams per mile by 2016 (roughly equivalent to 35.5 miles per gallon).
But that’s not the whole story, as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson explained:
Electric vehicles are frequently advertised as zero emissions, but “we all know that that’s not entirely true, because when you plug in, there’s some emissions from the source." Currently in the U.S., that source is often burning coal, and that means greenhouse gas emissions.
The EPA suggested in the new rule that it intends to eventually take power source emissions into account when calculating electric vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions.
It isn't a number that can be easily ignored. According to the EPA’s calculations, for a midsize car, electricity’s upstream emissions are about three times higher than gasoline’s upstream emissions. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100401/electric-vehicles-losing-their-zero-emissions-claim-u-sElectric vehicles got a powerful boost today as the EPA and U.S. Department of... more
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Alright, I’ll be honest here, I’m not really a “car person” per se (though I have a great appreciation for Top Gear) but when I see something this sexy and eco-friendly, it definitely grabs my attention.
During the Geneva Auto Show last week, Porsche debuted this green beauty: The Spyder 918 – a plug-in hybrid sports car with more than 700 horsepower, gets 78 mpg, runs 15.5 miles on a lithium-ion battery pack before a powerful 500-horsepower V-8 kicks in, and emits only 70 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per mile – and built in only 7 months. The best part? There’s a very good chance you’ll be seeing it on the market soon(ish).
Porsche went for a green theme for the first annual Geneva Auto Show, focusing on more power for less fuel and efficiency. (See the video on the original post.) It seems that Europe is taking the initiative to greatly reduce their carbon emissions in the very near future and they’re putting a lot of focus on reducing vehicle emissions as part of this effort.
(Read more and see the video on the original post.)Alright, I’ll be honest here, I’m not really a “car person”... more
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The last ten years have been rife with concerns about global warming, water conservation, the lack of sustainable or renewable energy sources, and many more “going green” issues. Significant advancements have been made in energy conservation, as well as future climate control solutions.The last ten years have been rife with concerns about global warming, water... more
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While some folks were put off by Audi's Superbowl ad for their clean diesel-powered A3 TDI, for those who know, the punchline was clear.
Fuhgettabout the armchair reactions to the controversial ad. It wasn't about the aardvark.
We spent the week leading up to the Superbowl rolling up 800 miles in the A3 TDI (in winter temperatures, no less). Unlike a great many vehicles currently bathed in a green light, the A3 TDI is punchy fun to drive ... whether you're stomping on it, or driving with a light foot.While some folks were put off by Audi's Superbowl ad for their clean... more
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NEW YORK (AFP) – US aerospace giant Boeing said Wednesday it had fueled its new 787 Dreamliner in preparation for a first test flight planned this month.
"We've already put the fuel into the airplane," Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach told AFP, adding that the operation occurred in recent days.
A static test of the fuselage was completed Monday and an analysis of the results could take about 10 days, she said.
Boeing reaffirmed two weeks ago that its delay-plagued 787 Dreamliner remained on track for its first test flight by the end of the year.
It had announced on June 23 a fifth delay in the 787 Dreamliner program to fix a structural problem.
Dow Jones Newswires reported Wednesday the first test flight could come between December 14-22, but Leach and one of her colleagues refused to provide any date.
"We're not being schedule-driven. We do need to make sure that the testing is done carefully," said spokeswoman Mary Hanson.
Both spokeswomen confirmed that the flight would take place this month, according to a calendar set in August.
Boeing launched the Dreamliner program in April 2004 and initially had planned to deliver the first airplane to Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways in the first half of 2008.
Delivery of the first 787 to ANA has been pushed back to late 2010.
The highly anticipated long-haul 787 aircraft is seen as key to the US aerospace giant's future.
The company says it will use 20 percent less fuel than today's airplanes of comparable size.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091203/bs_afp/usaerospacecompanyboeing787_20091203003204
http://online.simmarket.com/halycon/b787/b787_01.jpgNEW YORK (AFP) – US aerospace giant Boeing said Wednesday it had fueled its new... more
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