The Green LiterGoing the extra mile with electric vehicles, hybrid cars, fuel efficient cars, biofuels and alternative energy sources

Hybrids may have become all the rage in recent years, but you certainly don’t need to own a hybrid vehicle in order to see greater fuel efficiency on the road. From replacements to add-on parts, there are plentiful ways to address higher gas prices right now, no matter the vehicle you own. So if you want to substantially reduce your fuel expenditure, either for environmental reasons are because you want to put less of a drain on your wallet, you can try utilizing one or several of the fuel economy-improving upgrades.

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With the Toyota Prius outselling all other green car competitors with annual sales of approximately400,000 units sold annually worldwide, the Prius has become the face of the green car revolution whileleaving its competitors out of the limelight. This lack of attention from the general public has leadmanufacturers to develop new innovations in electric and hybrid technology that have the means to dethrone Toyota as the new breakout green vehicle.

In a new green car comparison, manufacturers like Nissan with the Leaf and SMART with the ForTwo Coupe have surpassed Toyota’s Prius when put in a side by side comparison. From this comparison, it isclear to see that these new competitors in the green car market are gaining headway on Toyota as theyhave been ranked higher than the Prius in categories such as Air Pollution score, MPG, and overall greenrating.

Although the sales numbers for the Leaf and the ForTwo Coupe are abysmal in when compared to thatof the Prius, they are growing rapidly with cars like the Nissan Leaf selling over 10,000 units worldwidein its very first year of production. With these cars scoring higher in green testing, it is only a matter oftime before we see a new powerhouse in the green car market.

According to German Media, Volkswagen and its subsidiary Audi is planning a package where when one buys a green car, he or she has the option to buy the fuel that comes with it as well.

Audi announced on Thursday evening it would invest in four large wind turbines at a cost of tens of millions of euros. The company declined to say who its partner would be, but the FTD reported that talks were underway with Bard, which runs the Borkum offshore wind farm.

I think this is a good plan for Volkswagen as it not only becomes a car manufacturer but also a possible alternative fuel seller.

Article via The Local | Image By Wolfgang Pehlemann (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

Google and Ford, two of the biggest names in their industries have decided to join forces to create the best green car possible.

The deal was first announced at the recently held Google I/O Developers conference. Ford said that it is keen on applying the Google Prediction API in its own research to predict drivers’ behaviour on the street.

The reason behind it was that by predicting driver habits, Ford can find ways to optimize engine functions that would result into better hybrid or electric cars.

The result of all this planning and predicting may come to fruition in four to eight years from now.

Article via IT Pro Portal | Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

What’s better than using an electric car and not paying anything for the high price of gas? Using an electric car and not paying for any recharge at all!

The electric car owners of San Francisco should be rejoicing now as Mayor Ed Lee will be announcing today that the city-owned garages with the almost 90 newly built plugins will be available for free until 2013.

The one to foot the $300,000 bill will mostly be coming from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s $3.9 Million that they were supposed to pay rebates to people with personal chargers and to build charging stations with.

Article via: Bay Citizen | Image via Franco Folini CC by-SA 2.0

General Motors is looking to the future by sponsoring the 2011 Alternative Clean Transportation Expo (ACT).

This 2011 ACT brings together stakeholders of alternative fuel and clean vehicles. Besides being the Gold Sponsor, GM also brought their plans that will make GM as THE car manufacturers for alternative fuels.

Several plans, like the Hawaii Hydrogen Initiative, point to the fact that GM will not focus its green efforts on only one technology. The car maker is working of several planes of this new industry, launching the Volt plug-in hybrid vehicles, announcing plans to make fuel cell cars a reality as well and focusing on alternative fuels like LPG.

Plans are good, but the real thing is even better. We’ll see if GM goes through with these plans.
[Article via: Autoevolution | Image By CoolKid1993 at en.wikipedia. (Transferred from en.wikipedia ([1])) [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons]

Despite all the potential savings a green car driver will have, there’s still one thing that keeps most Americans from buying one: the price of the car.

According to Mike VanNieuwkuyk, executive director of global vehicle research at J.D. Power and Associates, their study show that people won’t put up with the car price if it’s too expensive:

“As concerns about the functionality and performance of hybrid vehicles have abated, vehicle price has become more prevalent as the primary purchase impediment. Without a tax credit to offset the price premium, consumers must absorb all of this additional cost. Furthermore, aggressive government subsidies are unlikely to be sustainable over the long term. Ultimately, the true cost of the technology needs to come down substantially.”

Another issue that concerns them is the availability of fuel/charge resources. With charging stations still not that common in the US, the potential buyers fear that they’ll be forced to use gasoline anyway.

Based on the report, it says that interest for green cars will remain below 10 percent of the US Market until 2016.

[Article via: Press Release | Image via: Wikimedia Commons (CC By 2.0)]

Electric cars not only allow you to save money by not buying gas, not only does it reduce the carbon emissions around you, it may also save your life.

According to some crash tests don on both the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, they performed really well. The reason for their performance? Weight.

“They behave like heavier cars, and in a crash that can be a good thing,” Wiesenfelder told FOX Business Network’s Jeff Flock. “All other things being equal, heavier cars fare better in crashes.”

Specifically, the battery is so heavy that the roof strength needs to be reinforced. This results in the roofs not buckling as much during crashes.

[Article via: Fox Business | Image via: Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]

The hybrid car is not a recent concept as the The Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus shows. It’s a car that was originally designed and created in 1900.

The Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus uses a gas engine to run a small generator, which in turn provides power to a pair of electric hub motors built inside the front wheels. A battery can run the car if you run out of fuel, which was kind of a problem back in 1900 when there wasn’t a gas station on every corner.

An additional trivia is that this car has also inspired NASA’s drive system of its Lunar Rover. Hopefully it will also serve as inspiration to other car manufacturers to go green.

[Article via: DVice | Image via: Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]

Chicago is a readying itself for a more “greener” future as it has been installing more and more charging stations to service electric cars. This in turn has landed them on Ford Motor Co.’s list of Top 25 Cities Most Ready for Electric Vehicles.

Proof that they’re heading towards the green car movement:

• A Chicago based company called Carbon Day has installed at least 100 charging stations and plans on installing 150 or more within the year.
• Chicago’s signed up with 350Green for $1.9 Million to install 280 more charging stations.
• General Electric Co., Siemens AG and other well-known companies have plans to build more electric stations this year.

Let’s just hope that their electric consumption won’t go overboard…

[Article via: Chicago Sun Times | Image via: Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]