Jesse Field wants your input. The designer of the Xrayfrankenstein, a "revolutionary high-tech ultra-light 3-wheel EV" wrote in to say that the website for the snub-nosed trike is now up and running and ready for critics to take a look. Field wrote:

This vehicle was develop by (myself) a former big 3 automotive engineer, and is completely unique from anything else being proposed out there. The web site contains lots of product info because the vehicle is very unique -- including features such as a pressure absorbing impact body shell. [...] I am eagerly looking for feedback and insight as well as exposure--the website is brand new.

The basic idea for the Xrayfrankenstein is that the technology to make more efficient vehicles exists, but it really needs to be mashed together – like Frankenstein's monster – in the most efficient vehicle possible. Currently, the trike only exists in rough renderings on the site, but the concept is a superlight, four-person vehicle. The Xrayfrankenstein can handle a variety of powertrains but is designed to be all-electric. Aside from the mashed-up quality of the vehicle, Field says that this car is well-named because of its attitude:

No mechanismo is hidden, just as bolts sticking out of its neck, or stitches in flesh, motors and attachments become an integral part of its character. And yet it is a monster with a human side, as opposed to today's unholy steel exoskeleton insect-bodies. The Xray is an endoskeleton structure, with an impact absorbing shell, making it less susceptible to dings and scratches, and unsightly, undesired incidental damage.

Thought?

[Source: X Ray Frankenstein]

Further cementing its worldwide distribution plans, Fisker Automotive CEO Henrik Fisker said today that his company has selected "a large distributor" for European sales of its Karma plug-in hybrid and is also investigating a similar deal with "several importers" in China. The unnamed dealer has over 100 dealerships in Europe, Fisker told Reuters, adding that the distributor would be named soon, possibly tomorrow at the Zurich Auto Show. For more on Fisker's dealership strategy, especially in comparison to Tesla's, read this.

Fisker's future plans include making the $87,000 Karma in Finland and selling about 15,000 a year, half in the U.S. and half in other markets. The first Karmas should be delivered by mid-2010. The company recently purchased an unused GM plant in Delaware to build their next model, a $39,000 PHEV. The company also announced that a deal with the UAW regarding that plant should be in place before the end of the year. Thanks to Roy B. for the tip!


[Source: Reuters]

One of the reasons that a vehicle powered by something other than gasoline is such a popular idea in the U.S. is that it helps us become less reliant on other countries for our transportation needs. To this end, biofuels and electric vehicles offer great potential to use local sources of energy in our vehicles. To get a handle on how much green electricity – wind, geothermal, solar, etc. – is available in the U.S., the Insitute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) has conducted a study on renewable energy potential and came away with some amazing figures. The Energy Self-Reliant States study found that 31 states have the potential to produce more renewable energy in-state than they currently use and that another ten could make more than 75 of the amount. The state with the worst potential, Kentucky, could still meet 24 percent of its electricity needs using renewable energy.

The big problem with all of this potential is the cost of setting up the renewable energy production devices. Solar panels are not cheap, and wind farms have their own opponents. While no one expects Texas, for example, to make 533 percent more energy than it needs using renewable sources, ILSR shows that it's at least possible, and that should give hope to EV proponents (no more coal-powered grid!) and hydrogen vehicle fans (electrolyze water with green energy!) alike. Download the PDF of the study and see for yourself.

[Source: ISLR via Treehugger]

While the Automotive X Prize's raison d'être is to give out money to the best high-mileage vehicles and business plans in the $10 million contest, as the saying goes, it takes money to give out money. To that end, the AXP announced today that it has received $5.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy. The funding is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is intended to "to support the X PRIZE Foundation's work to inspire a new generation of energy efficient vehicles" through technical assistance and outreach efforts. President Obama has a plan called "Strategy for American Innovation" that asks federal agencies "to increase their use of prizes as a tool for promoting technological advances." This announcement seems like a perfect fit for that plan. To be clear, the AXP's $10 million prize purse is still being offered by Progressive Casualty Insurance.

In other AXP news, 12 team vehicles will be on display at SEMA this week. We'll try to track some of them down while we're in town.

[Source: EERE]

There's no debate that batteries for electric cars remain absurdly expensive and one of the main hurdles to widespread EV acceptance. A team of electric vehicle converters at the ChargeCar project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania is trying to solve the puzzle by using low-cost lead acid batteries coupled with a supercapacitor and four electric motors. The powerplant was installed in some sort of Scion model in order to prove that the team's goal – expressed by team leader Illah Nourbakhsh to "use the cheapest hardware possible by making the smartest possible management software" – can work in real life.

The real life implications of cheaper conversions like ChargeCar are important to the group. Nourbakhsh (pictured) says that getting energy back from regenerative braking will likely be much higher than people who rely on the U.S. Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule standard may expect. The UDDS suggest six percent of the energy could be recouped, Nourbakhsh thinks it's more like 40 percent. To get a better idea if he's right, ChargeCar is asking for people to submit GPS logs, anonymously, in order to see how cars on the road actually perform. The ChargeCar team will use this data to write better software for EVs to "prepare for hills, junctions or other features that will affect its energy use."

There's a video of Nourbakhsh talking about the project after the jump.

[Source: New Scientist]

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Asia and Michigan, watch out. It's a long-term goal, but Bolivia is looking to capitalize on its large in-ground lithium supply by producing li-ion batteries by 2018. While lithium might not ever be in short supply, Bolivia certainly has the advantage of not needing to import the valuable material. The country's deputy minister of Science and Technology, Roger Carvajal, said this week that the basic outline of the government strategy to commercialize the lithium deposits (estimated to be about half of the world's supply) have been decided on. They include making lithium carbonate on a commercial scale in 2013 and possibly an electric car factory after that.

[Source: Latin American Herald Tribune]

NASCAR has already gone solar and wants to help you (not themselves) use less fuel, but the cold hard reality is that those ovals are being made in cars that get around five miles per gallon. Not exactly hybrid SUV territory there. So, to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used in each race, race organizers are looking to maybe – maybe – using alternative fuels in the some of the cars.

Before NASCAR gets that ca-razy, though, there are other ways the series might use fewer resources, but at least NASCAR's first director of green innovation, Mike Lynch, makes it clear that, "We're not attempting to take any high ground. [...] This is a pragmatic approach to green, and what we're doing now is just the beginning."

Part of the problem is that NASCAR fans don't want to give up what they've become accustomed to. Lee White, president of Toyota Racing Development, told USAToday that, "Doubling fuel mileage means half the horsepower, and putting fans in the stands requires a show." Driver Sam Hornish, Jr. added, "No one is going to come watch us run battery-powered cars. I don't see anyone making enough electric power to go 200 mph."

Driver Brian Vickers is also more than willing to take the let's-all-do-something-but-you-go-first approach, said that, "Do our cars need to be more fuel efficient? Absolutely. But I think as a whole there's a lot bigger low-hanging fruit we can go after as a sport. There are a lot of fans that come to these races, and there's a lot we don't recycle that we could."

Some of that low-hanging fruit is carbon offsets, maybe replacing carburetors with fuel injection and Coke's race-side display that "highlight(s) its recycling businesses and has placed more than 2,600 recycling bins at a dozen tracks that have collected more than 65,000 pounds of recyclable material." When you have such a history of going in circles, maybe progress isn't your forte.

[Source: USAToday via Domestic Fuel]
Photo by pocketwiley. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

One of the main men working to get the Chevy Volt out the door on time, Frank Weber, has announced he will leave General Motors on December 1 for a senior leadership post at Opel. This is the first high-ranking member of the Volt team to leave and told Bloomberg that GM remains strongly committed to the program. He also gave this quote, which we can see getting repeated in the future: "The entire organization [GM] has inhaled what we [the Volt team] do here."

GM is trying to sell the European brand. Weber is currently the global vehicle line executive and chief vehicle engineer for GM's electric vehicle development program and also worked on the Opel Insignia and the Buick Regal. Replacing Weber will be Doug Parks, currently GM's chief engineer of compact-car architecture in Europe.


[Source: Bloomberg]

New GM CEO Fritz Henderson has some good words for his competitors. Surprised? It's all in an effort to make sure that plug-in vehicles get the help they need to become cost competitive. Henderson spoke with the Washington Post and said that costs are the big problem holding back electric cars. To bring costs down, he said:

The more companies that actually develop technologies around electric, the more the supply structure will develop, the better off we'll be. . . . We can't carry the load ourselves. GM can't. No way. We need to have more companies. We source most of these things. We don't do them. We're not in the chemistry business.

On the more comment-generating side of things, Henderson also discussed GM's current hydrogen vehicle status. He said that GM isn't putting as many resources into the H₂ program as was before. Adding:

We spent through the mid part of this decade a reasonably high portion of our research and our development money on hydrogen fuel cells. We put 100 vehicles into the market. Consumers have tested them . . . We've learned a lot. The vehicles work. The issue is always cost, 100 percent cost. It's still a ways away from commercialization. No question.

Finally, some numbers. Henderson said the Volt will likely cost around $40,000 while a hydrogen vehicle would cost around $400,000. So, comment much?


[Source: Washington Post]

Want to give your public pronouncement a little zing? Try throwing in the words Hummer and Prius and imply that the SUV is better for the earth than the Prius. CNW sure knows the value of making the false claim. Last week, author Michael Pollan tried a similar trick when he said at the 2009 Poptech conference that, "A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius." Guess who's had to issue a mea culpa?

Pollan, who wrote The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma and other books, was blasted by people armed with facts. Specifically, Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin from the University of Chicago found that shifting from eating meat to veganism saved about 2 tons of CO₂ equivalent per person per year. A Hummer driver, on the other hand, emits 4.76 tons more per year than a Prius. Pollan later said that:

After digging into it further, and consulting Gidon Eschel, I don't feel comfortable defending [my earlier statement]. It's much more important to keep the focus on the central thrust of the environmental case against eating industrial meat, which is not in dispute and certainly does not stand or fall on the case of the vegan Hummer driver.

We're not against people making attention-getting statements for effect, but what's with constantly attacking the Prius? Can't a car just get 50 MPG in peace?

[Source: HybridCars]