Rocker Neil Young has managed to create his own electric car out of an old Lincoln convertible. That's awesome, and we congratulate Young on the amazing accomplishment. But as far as his ideas on how to fix Detroit, it seems that the singer's plan has a few loose screws. Mr. Young suggests that the Feds give Detroit the money it needs to survive on the condition that the three remaining automakers stop building cars with gas-powered engines... right now. This, as you would imagine, presents a problem, considering that cars aren't all that useful if they can't provide actual transportation. Young's got a solution to that problem too: each automaker must convert one plant to assemble "re-power kits" that would allow these cars to be retrofitted as "self charging electric vehicles."
That sounds nice, doesn't it? The only problem is that "self charging" EVs don't exist. Batteries need power from somewhere, generally an outlet that gets its juice from the electrical grid. Furthermore, Young's plan doesn't actually account for how the car's would be charged or where all the "transitional rollers'" batteries would come from. It's a nice thought, but one that is entirely impossible at the moment.
Click above for hi-res gallery of the Dodge EV in the wild
While a lot of the legwork was done for them by Lotus, we still have to give Chrysler a little credit for getting an electric vehicle prototype on the road so quickly. When we first saw the Dodge EV a couple of months ago, it looked like it was ready to roll, with a Tesla-like blend of Lotus platform and electric powerpack. Soon after we heard that the car was likely to make it to production, with a delivery date that would challenge the Chevrolet Volt. While it had appeared that Chrysler was way behind its domestic rivals in developing an electric car, we know that through their GEM subsidiary, Chrysler has actually accumulated a lot of EV expertise and become the nation's leading electric car seller in the process.
The Dodge EV is essentially a Lotus Europa, but uses lithium batteries and a 268 hp electric motor in place of the standard 2.0L four cylinder engine and transmission. It promises a range of 150-200 miles and a 0-60 time of under 5 seconds. It's a full-blown, plug-in EV, just like the Tesla Roadster, and should require a 4-hour recharge from a 220V outlet or 8 hours on a 110. To help launch Chrysler's new ENVI electric car division, the Dodge EV has been traveling the show circuit, but today we spotted it at one of our favorite local cruise-ins.
It attracted quite a crowd. Not surprisingly, many folks at the show mistook it for a Lotus until they saw the Dodge badges. Even then a lot of people figured it was some type of joint venture between the two firms. Most were amazed to learn the car might be in Dodge showrooms by 2010. Try as we might we couldn't wrestle the keys from the Chrysler reps. Hopefully the car and the company make it through our current economic crisis so we can sample one when they hit the streets.
Back when GM rolled out the Volt concept, there was less discussion about its design than there was about its underlying technology. Sure, it looked ok, but with gas prices at the time headed straight up, its promise of cheaper driving overshadowed its sports car roofline.
Upon introduction of the more aerodynamic production Volt, there seemed to be a re-Volt. Our Hot or Not poll showed 65% of readers responded negatively to the dramatic redesign. You gotta wonder how that makes the Volt's designers feel.
Two members of the Volt design team are from Ohio, and Cleveland's "Plain Dealer" newspaper asked them what they think of the Volt's new look. Apparently they either disagree and/or just really like being able to cash GM's checks at the end of the week.
"There were probably a small number of people expecting the electric Camaro," Volt design team director Bob Boniface (in photo above) told the newspaper. "I'm more proud of this car than I am of the concept car," he says later in the story.
Many people saw the production Volt and wondered why GM couldn't come up with something that didn't look so "Prius-y." GM aerodynamics engineer Ken Karbon has an explanation: "The laws of aerodynamics are the same if it's a Toyota or a Chevy." Maybe Chery should have tried that line in court.
Long ago (last month for example) when fuel prices were high and looked likely to get even higher, it seemed everyone had an idea to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions. While some aftermarket companies played with magnets, it looked like the major OEMs were looking at some form of electric propulsion. Toyota has taken a mostly hybrid route, while GM looks to be investing in plug-in, rechargeable vehicles and Honda likes hydrogen fuel cells. In the end, they're all different ways to create electricity.
But none of those methods are as efficient as an engine design invented in 1928. It's called a free-piston engine, and until now it's been less than ideal for transportation use but could prove to be 50% more efficient than fuel cells at generating electricity.
Basically the engine is two opposed pistons pushing each other back and forth. One past use of the design was as an air compressor where each piston was connected to a compressor cylinder.
But researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory have come up with a new use for this decades-old tech. They have attached magnets to the two opposing pistons that move back and forth past metal coils, thereby creating electricity. The researches claim the free-piston design can easily be modified to run on almost any liquid fuel including hydrogen, ethanol and diesel.
One major problem they'll need to tackle to make the design successful, though, is how very loud the engine operates. The engine also will require a computerized, active control system to keep the piston movement in check.
Trust us, it's explained much better and in much more detail here as well as in a PDF here.
This isn't the first time we've heard that Toyota might spin off the Prius as a separate brand much like Scion. But we now have the most concrete news about the automaker's plans we've seen yet.
Micheline Maynard of The New York Times talked with James E. Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. recently who said he was actively lobbying Toyota for the Prius brand spinoff and that the company was working on future models to expand the lineup. Lentz said he was pushing for a Yaris-sized Prius and a "Prius on steroids." He wouldn't comment on rumors of a Prius crossover, however. Lentz also said the new line would be sold alongside Toyota vehicles instead of separately like the company's Lexus brand.
When might this new Prius brand be approved by Toyota? Lentz would only say that he has a meeting in Japan next month.
Maynard writes that in all her years covering Toyota, "...I can say that executives rarely talk this much about an idea unless it is under active discussion, so the chances of a Prius brand are probably pretty good."
Chinese battery manufacturer BYD can now be mentioned in the same breath as Goldman Sachs: both have recently been given the blue-chip imprimatur by U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffet. The Oracle of Omaha's MidAmerican Energy Holdings has bought a 10-percent stake in BYD for $230 million.
BYD has big plans for its lithium-ion battery work and its automotive division. The company's automaking arm builds – or clones, depending on your viewpoint – cars that it intends to eventually export around the world, including America. Its ultimate aim is create its own cars that run on its own batteries, like the e6. Assuming that BYD gets the batteries to work, and then can sell them to other automakers, the company will have a huge competitive advantage. If it can sell its cars, that is.
Buffett's investment will help BYD achieve that, and should help Buffett make even more money. BYD says another planned use of that $230 million is to accelerate its move into the U.S. market, which was planned for 2010. When they finally do arrive, we'll see if Buffett has as much faith in their vehicles as he does in their batteries.
At a press conference on Thursday, shortly after announcing plans for a new engine plant in Flint, Michigan, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner said his employer, "should be able to put to good use its portion of a $25 billion government loan package."
Wagoner goes on to say he's concerned about the details of the plan but hopes the package is expanded to include all gas-saving technologies, not just electric cars. Which is understandable, considering GM has already invested a great deal of money into the Volt and would logically welcome financial assistance in investigating other fuel-saving methods. Then again, the Volt may just yet turn out to be classified as an electric car by the EPA, as the California Air Resources Board just did.
Wagoner was also pleased to hear about the Senate's approval of a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles. The tax break is something the company has been lobbying for since May, and would certainly help to get the Volt's price tag closer to the original $30k estimate and hopefully allowing the General to sell the estimated 60,000 units we once heard.
Click above for more hi-res images of the Dodge Zeo concept
While everyone is aware of what GM, Honda and Toyota have been up to when it comes to fuel-saving technology, Chrysler has been playing it close to the chest. The Auburn Hills-based automaker, however, will show its dealers three new all-electric cars at the end of this month that are said to be production capable. Jim Press, the Chrysler exec who came from rival and current hybrid-leader Toyota, added that Chrysler's future platforms were being designed with electrification in mind and that is still has access to technology from its previous owner, Daimler.
Like General Motors, Chrysler seems convinced that its EVs need to have plug-in capability. The goal, says Press, is 300 miles of range. To make that a reality, a very good set of batteries will be necessary – likely lithium-ions – and Press assures us that his company is working with multiple suppliers. Will any of the production-ready models be anything like the concepts shown off last year in Detroit? We'll see.
The Chevy Volt is unique in that its engine is really just a generator that produces electricity for the batteries, which then power an electric motor that turns the front wheels for propulsion. While the Volt powertrain is pretty spectacular, it may not be unique for long. British car site AutoCar is reporting that Mazda is not only interested in a similar setup for a future plug-in hybrid, but it already has a working prototype on the road. Mazda engineers told AutoCar that a battery pack charged by a rotary engine is already being used in a Mazda5 mule, and that management is encouraged by the early results but wants to see battery costs go down before proceeding.
If Mazda is working on a series hybrid like the Chevy Volt, that means its owner, Ford, would have direct access to the same technology. We do, however, find it odd that Mazda would use a rotary engine in this setup. While the Wankel engine is very compact and light, it's not very efficient and sucks oil, at least in the RX-8. When it comes to plug-in hybrids, though, we're with AutoblogGreen in saying the more the merrier.
Lovers of good car design: avert your eyes! The Sunmotor Group, an EV hopeful based in Boston, has announced plans to release its first all-electric vehicle before the end of the year. We wish they wouldn't because this sucker is über-ugly. Obviously based on a smart fortwo clone, major modifications were required to allow the use of a large solar array on the misshapen roof, which has created a textbook case of function punching form in the mouth. The windshield has been disfigured along the way in an effort to meet up with the excessively long canopy, while the upper rear probiscis could easily behead someone standing behind this thing when it's backing up. Last joke: SsangYong called, they want their designers back.
Despite looking like a Scion that swallowed a canoe, the specifications of Sunmotor's EV sound decent for a low-speed EV. The company believes it can get 160 miles per charge, though only with a top speed of 25 miles per hour. Plus, with 10 horsepower pushing around 2,600 pounds of mass, the supposed acceleration of 0-25 in 5 seconds sounds rather optimistic.
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