Author: Christopher DeMorro

Well Jag has taken the plunge—making yet another luxury auto maker to jump on the electric bandwagon. It really makes you wonder… what were all these knuckleheads doing five years ago?

Anyway, Jaguar has supposedly come up with an electric version of its new XJ sedan. The rumor mill seems pretty specific as far as rumors go, painting a picture of a car with almost 300 ft-lbs of torque and a supposed range of 600 miles in a luxury-laden sedan that weighs nearly two tons in petrol motor configuration. Since this is supposed to be an extended-range EV, it also has an on-board, petrol-powered generator motor, plus the electric motor, plus battery pack, and all that high tech stuff is gonna suck up a lot of electricity. Needless to say, I’m skeptical.

Don’t get me wrong, it is great that more automakers are throwing their hats into the electric car ring. The more ideas and talent we have, the better, but I’ve learned to temper my expectations until I see some actual proof. Supposedly this electric Jaguar has Lotus’s 47 hp, 1.2 liter three-cylinder hooked up to a lithium ion battery pack and a 145 kw electric motor. Basically, it is a British Volt, where the gas engine recharges a battery pack, and power is put to the ground through an electric motor. And a range of 600 miles mean you can do a whole lot of driving between fill-ups. While diesel Jag’s have been known to get great gas mileage, just like petrol vehicles, it is all about how you drive them. And Jaguars tend to lend themselves to a more “spirited” type of driving than your average Prius.

With the generator going, fuel economy is supposed to be around 57 mpg, while attaining a top speed of 112 mph and maintaining the agility of Jaguars that has made them so desirable in recent years. It all sounds a little too good to be true, and it probably is. Still, if Jaguar can do it, it sounds like a pretty awesome (and expensive) car.

Source: AutoCar | Image: Jaguar

Turbine cars have long been a pipe dream since the dawn of the jet age that first spurred imaginations all over the world some sixty years ago. But practically speaking, turbine cars have never really taken off. They were either incredibly dangerous or prohibitively expensive (or both, like the Chrysler Patriot). They have also been beset by noise issues in the past.

But British luxury car maker Jaguar is giving it another go—and the British government is bankrolling the project. Rather than using a turbine to turn a driveshaft (which required a huge flywheel), Jag plans to use the turbine engine to power electric motors. Brilliant!

Jaguar has teamed up with Bladon Jets to produce a small, super-efficient turbine engine that will fit into a car body while maintaining the car’s profile. The British government has awarded the project $24 million after the Technology Strategy Board was convinced by a presentation that the project was feasible. SR Drives will also be working on the project to produce what it calls an Ultra Lightweight Range Extender.

There is a long history of British turbine cars, starting with Rover back in the 1950’s. In 1951 the Rover Jet-1 roadster went 152 mph during one test, and they even entered a turbine car into the 1963 24 Hours of LeMans. Alas, jet cars never made it to production (though one fellow installed a jet engine into his Beetle). Will a gas-turbine-electric-hybrid work? We’ll have to wait and see, though the concept shows some promise.

Still waiting for my flying car though.

Source: Wired | Image: Rover Jet-1

Tesla has been making a lot of news lately. First, the spunky electric car maker announced the completion of its 1,000th Roadster. Then they filed papers taking the first steps in an Initial Public Offering to make anyone with the money a part-owner in Tesla. Buried in that paperwork though, it was revealed that Tesla would be ceasing production of its Roadster next year.

That means a lot of hopes are pinned to the Model S, a $50,000 sedan which won’t debut until 2012. But word on the street is that Tesla plans to spin off at least two other models from the S sedan, including a coupe and a crossover. But will it be enough?

Tesla is hoping that the more moderately priced Model S will appeal to a wider consumer base. At $110,000 the Tesla Roadster isn’t cheap, and fits just two people. CEO Elon Musk is putting BMW square in his sights, hoping to steal away some 3-series customers with an all-electric sedan and coupe. Tesla eventually hopes to reach an annual volume of 200,000 cars, which would allow it to rival some of the bigger auto makers on the block. Tesla also plans to build the Model S sedan on its own, rather than relying on an outside supplier to make their bodies (in the case of the Roadster they relied upon Lotus).

Moving down market will be a huge boon for Tesla as well, and a $30,000 all-electric coupe or sedan could allow it to compete for customers with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. Still, Tesla will not have any cars to sell in 2011, so that IPO better go a long way during 12 months of no sales. A lot is hinging on the success of the Model S. But Tesla has already overcome plenty of troubles, so what is another bump in the road?

Source: AutoCar | Image: Tesla

When BMW unveiled its awkwardly-named Vision EfficientDynamics concept car, audiences were enthralled. The plug-in hybrid combined sleek, futuristic styling with a lithium-ion battery stack and two electric motors to produce 356 horsepower and 590 ft-lbs of torque. That is a lot of power for a hybrid. But as cool as the concept was, few of us expected it would ever come to production.

But apparently enough positive press and remarkable response from the public has convinced BMW to actually build the Vision EfficientDynamics. It just needs a shorter, better name (BMW VED?).

Rarely do concept cars make it to production unscathed, and the VED is a little to wild to ever actually make it to roads the way it looks right now. Nevertheless, Inside Line is reporting that the basic sub-3,000 lb body and electric powertrain are all planned for limited production. By limited, BMW probably means less than 10,000 units annually. While the German automaker has a rich racing history, it has only ever produced one other “supercar”—the M1. The M1 was built for just three years, and just over 450 of these cars were ever made. Certainly its 270 horsepower engine hardly made it the fastest car around.

Still, the VED with its high power hybrid drivetrain could set a new benchmark for supercars. With a drag coefficient of just .22 the car slips through the air quite well, and achieves 0-62 mph in just under five seconds. But how far can it go on hybrid power? How much will it cost? Does it really matter? I for one am looking forward to a production VED, though we probably have a while to wait.

Source: Inside Line | Image: BMW

Trains are an integral part of American history, and, until the turn of the 20th century, they were the main mode of long distance transportation for most people… hence the reason why owning all four railroads in a Monopoly game is awesome. But trains aren’t what they used to be, at least in this country. We lack a real, innovative, high speed train system.

That might just change though as the Obama administration announced $8 billion in grants to over a dozen states to build, upgrade, and otherwise improve rail systems. But is it going to be enough?

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Last week I talked about how fast is fast enough, and that one of the easiest ways to save fuel was by simply going slower. Well rejoice! Apparently all of America heeded my advice, and American drivers, on average, drive below the posted speed limit.

Ok, obviously this has nothing to do with me. According to Tele Atlas, the mapping unit of GPS maker TomTom, anonymously collected data from millions of GPS devices shows that most Americans are driving under the speed limit. So why don’t I get that feeling when I am on the highway?

According to an Autocar UK story, Tele Atlas says that no state tops 70 mph as an average highway speed. The fastest highway in the country is the stretch of I-15 between Utah and Nevada, with average speeds of 77.67 mph, even though the speed limit is 80 mph. This baffles me. I-15 is a road that pretty much runs through mostly desert. Why wouldn’t you go the speed limit?

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The United States Postal service is the second largest civilian employer in the country, after Wal-Mart. Over 650,000 are employed by the USPS, which utilizes some 260,000 vehicles. While 43,000 of these vehicles run on E85 fuel, they still manage to get an average of just 9 mpg. Pretty terrible gas mileage, and E85 made with today’s methods isn’t all that much better when it comes to carbon emissions anyway.

Perhaps that is why the government is considering granting the USPS $2 billion to electrify 20,000 delivery vehicles. And if there is any government agency that could benefit from electric vehicles, it is definitely the USPS.

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Anyone who has ever had to wait in line at most DMVs can attest that the government isn’t always exactly… efficient. It is full of red tape and bureaucracy and filling out form after form after form after form. Ever wonder where all of those forms go? Probably not files, not in today’s computerized world. No, they probably end up in the circular file.

Imagine if all of that paper waste could be turned into fuel? Well two vehicles, a Chevy HHR and a Ford F-150, have been converted by a company called Novozymes to use recycled waste-paper as fuel.

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Rarely do we take the time to stop and consider just how complex and amazing our bodies are. It is understandable after all, as the busy world around us can be quite distracting. But the record breaking times set by Usain Bolt this past summer have piqued the interests of scientists in the perceived limits of the human body.

Where once the maximum top speed of a human being was thought to be around 28 mph, a new study suggests that a trained runner could achieve speeds of 40 mph, or perhaps even more. If true, it could mean that human-powered mobility might be more practical than previously thought.

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General Motors has been accused of a lot of things in the past year, and personally, I feel like that horse is dead, beaten, and buried. For all intents and purposes, it is a new company now. Or at least that is what we are being told.

One very important aspect of the new GM is its commitment to electric vehicles. The Chevy Volt is due out later this year, and the Cadillac Converj is also on the table. Today GM has announced that it was launching a program to start building its own electric motors in house, improving quality while cutting costs. And even better, GM says that the first vehicle to get a GM electric motor will come in 2013, and will be rear-wheel drive.

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According to a CNN poll released yesterday, almost 3 out of every 4 Americans think at least half of the money in last years $787 billion stimulus bill is being wasted. A nationwide unemployment rate of 10% probably is part of the reason why people have such a poor perception of how effective the stimulus has been. But according to a recent study, that stimulus money could have created a lot more jobs, had it just been spent on public transportation rather than improving existing highway infrastructure.

A study by Smart Growth America found that every billion dollars spent on public transportation projects created over 16,000 months of employment, almost twice as much work as those created by simple highway expansion and renewal projects.

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We’ve talked a lot about electric motorcycles here at Gas 2.0. But what about biodiesel? Once the darling of many eco-modders, the fuel has largely fallen out of favor. But not with everyone.

Meet the Metalback motorcycle concept. Designed by Jordan Meadows, a man with plenty of street cred when it comes to vehicular design. The Metalback concept combines alternative fuels and recycled materials in a missle-shaped machine drawn straight from some science fiction dystopian future. And it just plain old looks cool.

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This is car news, and it isn’t. But it is definitely…interesting.

Detroit was once the 4th largest city in America and it held the title of Motor City because most of America’s cars came from there. Flash forward 40 years, and Detroit’s population has dwindled from a high of 2 million people to just over 800,000. The average price for a home in Detroit is $15,000, the lowest in the country. With so many empty spaces, criminals have no shortage of hideouts and drug factories. And with America’s auto industry still reeling from the recession, as well as having outsourced many jobs to other states (or countries), the future looks bleak for Detroit’s long-deferred recovery.

Unless one millionaire gets his way, and turns the city into farms. Yes, farms.

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Hyundai/Kia is one of my favorite automakers right now, probably because they used to be one of my most hated. But both brands have come a long way in terms of style and quality, and are now poised to take a bigger role on the world automotive stage.

Kia in particular seems to be branding itself the more thrilling cousin of Hyundai, as some of their recent concept cars have shown. This latest teaser of the plug-in hybrid “Ray”, as it is being called, doesn’t reveal much, but certainly makes me want to see more.

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There are lots of ways to save money, even though human brains seem hard wired to waste as much of it as possible. According to a report from the American Public Transportation Association, if you live in New York City you could save almost $14,000 a year just by using public transportation.

In fact, if APTA is to be believed, Americans living in 20 of the nations largest cities could save an average of $9,242 a year if they ditched the car, and just rode public transportation. Sounds pretty good, right?

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There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of small niche-market car makers across the globe. Some cater to the extremely wealthy, while others are more dedicated to the pursuit of performance. But as the global market shifts away from petrol and towards electric cars even these smaller shops are considering EV projects.

Take Caterham for example. Well known in racing circles, this company has essentially survived for decades by building variants on just one type of car, the Series 3 Lotus Seven. Traditionally powered by English-built Ford Kent or Cosworth engines, head honcho Ansar Ali suggested in an interview with Autocar that they maybe, possibly, could-be adding an electric variant to their lineup.

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I love going fast, and I make no apologies for it.

Ok that’s a lie. Sometimes, I feel guilty about going fast, guzzling gas, drooling over 5 mile per gallon muscle cars. I know the world is in a bad way, mostly because of cars. Yet I still love them, especially fast ones, because in my opinion life is too short for a 0-60 mph time of 7 seconds or more.

Still though, the easiest way to increase fuel efficiency is to make everyone go a lot slower. Instead of pursuing billions of dollars in new technologies, if everyone would just let off the accelerator, we would save a lot of gas every year. One such way would be to (again) lower the interstate speed limit 55 mph. Yet that didn’t work too well the first time around. What if we went even further, what if new cars were capped at 200 horsepower, and had a top speed of only 60 mph?

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I loved LEGOS back in “the day”. I would spend hours upon hours building and looking for just the right pieces to complete my architectural nightmare. Then I would always knock it down in my terrifying rendition of Godzilla, just ’cause. LEGOS are still awesome, but you can’t exactly live in a house made of them as James May of Top Gear proved.

Anyway, the whole LEGOS analogy is the first thing I thought of when I read about the Trexa EV platform. It is basically a completely integrated, all-wheel drive electric skateboard that you can build your own kind of car upon. Pretty freakin’ cool, right?

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