tagged w/ Cars and Automobiles
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Honda's fuel cell electric car, the FCX Clarity, can go about 240 miles on a tank of hydrogen fuel. Compared with gasoline, that's about 60 miles to the gallon. The only emission is water so pure you could drink it.
The company has been building a limited number of these cars since 2005, so Honda was surprised when Secretary of Energy Steven Chu claimed it would take four technological miracles to make fuel cell cars viable in the marketplace.
"Simply put, he's wrong on those points. He has bad advice," Honda's Steve Ellis said at one of southeast Michigan's few hydrogen fueling stations. "Automakers are not foolish. We're not going to invest in technology that we see as a dead end."
The Clarity costs $600 a month to lease, but if you add in all of Honda's research and development costs, each one is probably worth tens of millions of dollars. Ellis says the costs are coming down, though — from the hydrogen fuel, which is made from natural gas, to the cost of the fuel cells. Producing them in volume will really bring the costs down, he says.
"Ten years ago, if we were looking under this hood, it would be like duct tape and baling wires," he says. "So it was all an engineering exercise. This car, we're handing the keys to customers, saying, 'Here's your car, see you in six months. Nothing to see here folks.' "
But the keys are being given only to people in southern California, where there's a cluster of hydrogen fueling stations, built with the help of state subsidies. Even if Chu changes his mind about the miracles, the price tag remains a problem.
Oliver Hazimeh of the management consulting firm PRTM says battery electric cars like the Volt and the Leaf are getting cheaper faster, which is why batteries are getting the nod from the government.
"By 2015, even five years from now, you will probably get a Nissan Leaf-type vehicle on the battery side for probably $25,000," he says. "That same vehicle in the fuel cell configuration will probably still be $45,000 to $50,000."
But fuel cell proponents say that's not a fair competition. The government spent more on battery electrics in just the past two years than it did on fuel cells over the past decade. James Warner, director of policy at the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, says cutting funding sends the wrong message to car companies developing fuel cell cars like Honda, GM, Toyota, Daimler and Hyundai.
"By all accounts, they are ready to commercialize these vehicles by 2015," he says.
Warner has a bigger worry than less federal funding. Under a continuing budget resolution, Chu has no mandate to spend anything at all on fuel cell technology.
"The secretary if he so chose could end these programs today," he says.
A statement from Chu suggests he is likely to stick with President Obama's proposed budget, which cuts research and development by about half, but eliminates funding for the commercialization of fuel cell cars. That means it could take even longer for people who don't live in southern California to get a hydrogen fuel cell car to drive.Honda's fuel cell electric car, the FCX Clarity, can go about 240 miles on a tank... more
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Reprising their characters from the hit series, "Mad Men," actors Vincent Kartheiser and Rich Sommer have teamed up with U.S. PIRG and Funny Or Die to voice their support for high-speed rail in America.
Ensconced in their usual roles of 1960's ad men, Kartheiser begins pitching his ideas for selling high-speed rail to Americans, and more specifically how to wean them off their cars.
But despite President Obama's proposal for a 6-year, $53 billion spending plan toward high-speed rail, numerous politicians aren't on board. Some have made dramatic protests against the measures, like Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who rejected a last-ditch move by the Obama Administration to build a portion of a national high-speed rail system in his state, though California has said they would be more than happy to take the money that was allotted to the state.
According to the Environmental Law & Policy Center, high-speed trains through the Midwest would be three times as energy efficient as cars, and six times more efficient than planes, meaning cleaner air and less sprawl in addition to new jobs. A study on California's high-speed rail project by the Center for Urban Infrastructure estimated that it would reduce CO2 by half a billion pounds annually by 2035, in addition to adding 127,000 permanent jobs to southern California.
As Time's Bryan Walsh puts it, the U.S.'s outdated rail system is "a laughingstock compared with those in most other developed nations." China, for example, is investing over $300 billion to create more than 16,000 miles of high-speed rail by 2020.
See how the advertising gurus of "Mad Men" propose selling high-speed rail to America below, and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/mad-men-high-speed-rail-trains_n_833369.html#commentsReprising their characters from the hit series, "Mad Men," actors Vincent... more
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The future is here, or so it feels like watching these researchers at AutoNOMOS Labs in Germany who are driving cars with their minds only!!!
They have developed a system that drives a vehicle by reading a person's brain waves.
Yes mum, NO HANDS!!!The future is here, or so it feels like watching these researchers at AutoNOMOS Labs... more
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well,.....not MY Christmas, not in THIS lifetime ,......but if you can pony up the American Express - - -
[ The World's Most Expensive Cars ]
Got a load of cash to blow through? Here are your top driving options.
The Bentley Mulsanne has a deceptively smooth 505-horsepower engine and enough hand-stitched leather to outfit a motorcycle gang. It costs $285,000 to buy even the base model. But like the $285,000 McLaren MP4-12C and the $214,990 Spyker C8 Aileron, Mulsanne doesn't even come close to qualifying for this year's list of the most expensive cars in the world.
That distinction belongs to an even more extreme range: Think along the lines of the $1.4 million Maybach Landaulet, the $1.5 million Koenigsegg Agera, and the $2.6 million Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport.
These cars have the über-engineered carbon fiber bodies, obscene amounts of horsepower and excessive creature comforts (silver champagne flutes and lambswool carpeting, anyone?) that draw big price tags. And for more than a million dollars apiece, they'd better get them all exactly right.
GO AHEAD,..........WINDOW SHOP,.......
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http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1647/the-worlds-most-expensive-cars/well,.....not MY Christmas, not in THIS lifetime ,......but if you can pony up the... more
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A look at the hottest models. And also, cars.
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2011 Automotive Hot List: The Departed...
--If there’s one constant in this world, it’s this: We live in a world of constant flux. In the automotive world, however, we’ve all grown accustomed to seeing the same group of manufacturers introduce new models each year. You know the names. But for the 2011 model year—thanks largely to the huge economic downturn that began in late 2008—four well-known American nameplates have gone the way of the Edsel, so to speak.
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http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1526/2011-automotive-hot-list-the-departed/2011 Automotive Hot List: The Departed...
--If there’s one constant in this... more
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Generation Y Giving Cars a Pass-
--Selling cars to young adults under 30 is proving to be a real challenge for automakers. Unlike their elders, Generation Yers own fewer cars and don’t drive much. They’re likely to see autos as a source of pollution, not as a sex or status symbol.
Motorists aged 21 to 30 now account for 14% of miles driven, down from 21% in 1995.
They’re more apt to ride mass transit to work and use car sharing services -- pioneered by Zipcar -- for longer trips. And car sharing choices are expanding, with car rental firms moving into the market, making it convenient for young folks to rent with hourly rates and easy insurance. Connect by Hertz, for example, is rolling out its car sharing services in the New York metropolitan area, with plans to eventually expand them to around 40 college campuses nationwide.
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http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1523/generation-y-giving-cars-a-pass/Generation Y Giving Cars a Pass-
--Selling cars to young adults under 30 is proving... more
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Is that Christina Aguilera's car?
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A massive traffic jam in China has slowed vehicles to a crawl for nine days near Beijing, local media say.
Vehicles, mostly lorries bound for Beijing, are in a queue for about 100km (62 miles) because of heavy traffic, road works and breakdowns.
The drivers have complained that locals were over-charging them for food and drink while they were stuck.
The situation has now "basically returned to normal," state television said on Monday.
There has been a boom in road building in China in recent years but vehicle use has soared at the same time.
The stalled traffic stretched between Jining in Inner Mongolia and Huai'an in Hebei province, north-west of Beijing, said the Global Times.
The road works which were obstructing traffic are necessary to repair damage caused by an increase in cargo lorries using the highway, the state-run newspaper said.
They are not expected to be finished until mid-September.
The motorway, part of the Beijing-Tibet expressway, is heavily used by lorries carrying coal from Inner Mongolia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11062708A massive traffic jam in China has slowed vehicles to a crawl for nine days near... more
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With every passing model year the list of safety features – either standard or optional – continues to grow substantially across brands. Things are no different for Nissan, and its luxury division Infiniti, and this year they have two new technologies aimed at providing added safety for both occupants and others around the vehicle.
The first new technology is one that would almost certainly resonate with drivers in areas known to have regular stop and go traffic that tends to pick up too much speed before very quickly coming back to a halt. Nissan’s technology, known as “Forward Collision Avoidance Assist Concept,” is intended to help drivers avoid hitting vehicles ahead of them that may have come to a stop or are traveling significantly slower, while also helping to reduce the chance of a rear-end collision by helping to avoid sudden braking.
This technology works by utilizing a sensitive radar that monitors the distance from the vehicle being driven to the vehicle in front, as well as its speed. Should the system detect a situation that could lead to a collision, a warning will sound audibly, as well as on a screen display. Simultaneously, the system will also slightly – yet forcibly – ease pressure on the accelerator, while also lightly applying braking.
The system will continue to monitor the vehicle in front, adding additional stopping power as necessary, as well as tightening the driver’s seatbelt pretensioner.
Moving Object Detection
The second technology unveiled by Nissan is intended to give drivers assistance in identifying moving objects around the vehicle at lower speeds. The technology, known as “Moving Object Detection,” utilizes sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles. The system will then notify the driver of the object’s presence with an audible warning, as well as with the screen display.
Nissan says this technology is aimed at avoiding driver’s hitting small children that are hard or impossible to see in some environments, as well as to help avoid accidents – particularly in parking structures.
Nissan did not indicate which exact models or model years will first receive this technology.With every passing model year the list of safety features – either standard or... more
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A British study, the results of which were released this morning, suggests that more than half of all women go at least six months between washing their cars.
The study, conducted by Autoquake, found that about 56 percent of the United Kingdom women surveyed let their cars go unwashed for more than six months. By comparison, 44 percent of the men surveyed were willing to go that long between washings.
The survey of over 1,000 U.K. drivers found that just 34 percent of all drivers washed their cars inside and out every six months, while only 13 percent do a full inside and outside wash once a year. On the bright side, just 4 percent of those surveyed claim that they never wash their vehicles. Women – at 5 percent – were slightly more likely to never wash their cars than men – at 3 percent.
http://www.leftlanenews.com/study-women-less-likely-to-keep-cars-clean.htmlA British study, the results of which were released this morning, suggests that more... more
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--Buyers report the fewest defects in these new car models.
Porsche is having a bang-up year. Last week it earned the highest rating of any carmaker in J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Survey--and that's the fourth time they've done so in five years. Earlier this spring Porsche also won top honors in JD Power's prestigious vehicle dependability study.
But that doesn't mean the Stuttgart, Germany-based manufacturer is resting on its laurels. Instead, it's deliberately calculating every move and hoping to uphold standards when it launches the new 911 Carrera Turbo S, Cayenne Hybrid, V6 Panamera and Boxster Spyder in the next year.
"I think everybody's a bit tentative and, especially in the luxury market, you have to be very tentative, you have to be very competitive," says Tony Fouladpour, a spokesman for Porsche. "You have to basically not slip up."
It's no big surprise that Porsche is receiving accolades for its high quality. But it may be shocking to hear that in 2010 the world's most reliable cars don't come from Europe: They're straight out of Detroit, Mich. For the first time ever, domestic brands as a whole earned higher initial quality scores than imports in JD Power's 2010 vehicle dependability study.
J.D. Power compiled its 2010 Initial Quality Study by surveying 82,000 buyers and lessees of new, 2010 model-year vehicles, asking them what problems they've had with their cars. The study was conducted from February to May of this year, and cars were scored based on how many problems were reported per 100 vehicles. The industry average score this year is 109, up slightly from 108 last year.
In our list of highest-quality cars we include only those cars that earned the very highest marks for quality.
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http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1468/highest-quality-cars-of-2010/--Buyers report the fewest defects in these new car models.
Porsche is having a... more
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A great reputation for safety doesn’t count for much if your car crashes during a demonstration of its crash-avoidance technology.
That’s exactly what happened to Volvo this week as it showed off the collision-avoidance system in the new S60 sedan. With auto journos — including our mates at Wired UK — watching, a new S60 with a test dummy was fired out of the safety tunnel at Volvo’s safety center at 30 mph.
It was aimed straight at the back of a parked truck. The collision-avoidance system was supposed to bring the car to a stop safely.
It didn’t.
Acccording to Wired UK’s Nate Lanxon, it wasn’t the car that screwed up, it was the engineer preparing it. Volvo attributes the blunder to a battery problem caused by human error. And to be fair, Lanxon says, the system worked flawlessly the day before.
That doesn’t make the snafu any less ironic. Or entertaining.
Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/05/doh-volvo-crashes-during-crash-avoidance-demo/#ixzz0nTg2eTibA great reputation for safety doesn’t count for much if your car crashes during... more
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The gang at RoAb approaches automotive news from a more light-hearted, entertaining angle, so when we were asked to appear on this week’s episode speaking about the “unique” (read: bad) automotive design at the recent Geneva Motor Show we couldn’t say no.The gang at RoAb approaches automotive news from a more light-hearted, entertaining... more
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Unintended acceleration problems that put Toyota in headlines have cut across the auto industry, according to complaints consumers have filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. An NPR News investigation finds that companies such as Volkswagen, Volvo and Honda have had high rates of complaints in some model years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124276771Unintended acceleration problems that put Toyota in headlines have cut across the auto... more
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Toyota recall
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The coupon codes on their order form page gives you up to a 40% discount if you order 3 or more!The coupon codes on their order form page gives you up to a 40% discount if you order... more
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Famous for it's role in Back to the Future the Delorean is and 80's classic - but did you know you can buy a new one today?Famous for it's role in Back to the Future the Delorean is and 80's classic... more
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