Of the 60+ teams that have signed a letter of intent to participate in the Progressive Automotive X Prize, about 15 were on hand at the New York Auto Show. With only four cars on stage, it's easy to calculate that some teams arrived sans vehicle. The group from Motive Industries had just a little folded flyer to show
The Automotive X Prize announcer used it. We've been using if forever. And, until recently, MDI and Zero Pollution Motors were still calling their vehicles the Air Car. Now, though, to avoid confusion as much as possible, the preferred term is "Compressed Air Vehicle" (don't look now, but the ZPM website still says Air Car). At the New York Auto Show this week, we finally had a chance to sit down with Guy Negre, the creator of the CAV, and his partner Shiva Vencat (Vencat also provided translati
In the general hub-bub before the Automotive X-Prize kick-off event yesterday, we cornered Progressive Insurance's President and CEO Glenn Renwick for a few brief moments to get his thoughts on the prize. I mean, it's his company that is putting up the ten million dollars in prize money, so you can bet he's thought long and hard about paying someone that much for a freakin' car. Wh
When the U.S. Congress passes or is about to pass some legislation relating to issues of automobile safety or vehicles' ecological impact, the Auto Alliance speaks up. Why do we only hear from the group on these issues? The Alliance's Charles Territo sat down with us at the New York Auto Show to explain how ten large automakers - BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes Benz USA, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen - work together. The short answer is that, when it comes to sa
When we first encountered the Milner Motors ElectriCar yesterday, we just did a quick flyby with out cameras and then headed off to other events. Later in the afternoon, we returned for a 15 minute chat with Chris Milner, the AirCar inventor's son and a partner in the company. He talked about the design of the car, the potential roadmap from this early prototype stage to a production vehi
The other day, Dr. Prabhakar Patil of Compact Power, Inc. was up in Vancouver, BC for the Auto FutureTech Summit. While AutoblogGreen wasn't able to attend the show, we did get a hold of Dr. Patil on the phone for about 15 minutes to talk about CPI's lithium ion batteries and get Dr. Patil's perspective on what the future holds for electric drive cars. As many readers probably know, CPI is one of the companies delivering batteries to GM for the Chevy
At the Chicago Auto Show ABG had the chance to sit down with Toyota's Bob Carter and Jaycie Chitwood. Bob is currently the Group VP for the Toyota Division and Jaycie is the Senior Strategic Planner. We talked about a range of issues including hybrid marketing, diesel, ethanol, hydrogen and weight reduction.
The other day I had the opportunity to talk with Peter Savagian of General Motors about a study that he and his colleagues E.D. Tate and Michael Harpster completed. They used real-world driving data recorded from over 600 drivers and ran simulations with different combinations of hybrid and extended range electric powertrains. They have written a technical paper for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). As this post is being published, Savagian is presenting some of the results at an
I came across the Bridgestone booth at the Chicago Auto Show while they were rehearsing for an upcoming press conference. Ex-NFL player Eddie George was running through the script and Bridgestone was showing off its Super Bowl commercials, but I was more interested in the booth's "One Team, One Planet" display. I got a chance to speak about the environmental efforts that Bridgestone and Firestone have done and are doing with Dan MacDon
To get a little more information out of Coskata about this morning's announcement of a partnership with ICM to build the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant using Coskata's proprietary process (past details on Coskata are here), we tracked down Wes Bolsen, chie
Prior to the kick-off of frenzy of press conferences at the Detroit Auto Show, ABG had the opportunity to talk with BMW-North America CEO Tom Purves and another BMW representative. We discussed the company's diesel announcement along with their hybrid and hydrogen plans.
During the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, ABG sat down to chat with Malcolm Bricklin about his latest project Visionary Vehicles. Mr. Bricklin has been involved in the car business for four decades and could be described as a serial entrepenuer. Over the years his projects have had varying degrees of success including being the original U.S. importer of Subarus as well as importing Fiats in the eighties after the Italian company pulled out th
In the latest AutoblogGreen podcast, we featured an interview with Coskata president and CEO Bill Roe. This is a transcription of that interview. For a way-too detailed look at the GM-Coskata cellulosic ethanol partnership discussed in this chat, check out this post.
Well, here's at least one neat vehicle that Europeans currently have that Americans will soon be able to buy: the Modec all-electric truck. You might be familiar with the Modec from our previous posts (see below) but the short story is that this is a delivery van specifically designed for modern city parcel delivery. You can see in the photo above and in the gallery below that the Modec does not have any doo
Just before EVS23 kicked off, Valence Technology announced a new, large-format lithium battery called Epoch.
