The car industry is slowly getting healthy again (except in Europe.) Worldwide sales are up 6.8 percent so far, and it looks like 81 million units could be sold worldwide this year, as data by LMC Automotive show. This has the Worldwatch Institute up in arms. Basically, it wants us to buy fewer cars and drive them less. Read More >
Producing the most fuel-sipping cars will have no impact on environment or oil reserves unless people buy those cars and carmakers sell them. This should be a truism, but too often it is ignored. Some cars are built with green halos, but with little regard for marketability. Who’s cars really are the greenest? Read More >
GM loses around $49,000 on each Volt it builds says Reuters. GM sold a record 2,831 Volts in August, but that may “have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce,” says Reuters after a deep data dive into the elusive profitability of GM’s green halo car. Read More >
Volkswagen launched its seventh generation Golf to high acclaim yesterday, but there are people who think it is not good enough. Greenpeace picketed its premiere in Berlin last night, “accusing the German carmaker of doing too little to reduce fuel consumption and tarnishing the most important model launch in the group’s calendar,” as Reuters writes . Read More >
Electric cars haven’t taken the market by storm, despite a hurricane of propaganda, and despite of tsunamis of government subsidies. Now, India is joining the fray. India will spend some money to entice its citizens to go electric. Like the U.S. and China, India expects them to do so by the droves. Read More >
Honda says it is the world’s first car maker to disclose the totals of all greenhouse gas emissions caused globally during production and use of its products. In the fiscal year that ended March 31, 225.06 million tons of greenhouse gases were produced while making, using, an even disposing of Honda products, including motorcycles, power products, and cars. Read More >
The Nikkei [sub] detected a brand-new trend: Cars with an internal combustion engine. In Japan, 20 percent of new cars sold are hybrids. Elsewhere, especially in China and Europe, hybrid cars have a bit of a hard time. “Although being environmentally friendly is important, saving money is tops,” an unnamed Nissan exec told the Tokyo wire, and added that consumers in these markets look more closely at how much they can save on fuel costs in relation to vehicle prices. Now this trend is reaching Japan. Read More >
Starting with the redesigned 2013 Accord, Honda will introduce its new, ultra-efficient/more powerful Earth Dreams engine lineup. And it’s far from the most silly moniker attached to automotive technology.
As we reported back on July 17th, there were reports of Nissan LEAFs “bricking” themselves while connected to GE’s WattStation home charging stations. Over the last 10 days, I have been on a number of conference calls, spoken with a number of Leaf owners, electrical engineers and battery charging gurus. As it turns out, the problem was exactly as I had surmised: bad utility power damaged the LEAF. The only involvement the GE WattStation had, was that it was merely the connection between the LEAF’s on-board charger and the utility.
The irrational electrification exuberance claims another victim: Battery maker A123 Systems Inc is running out of money. A lot of it is your money. Says Reuters: Read More >
Gasoline prices are falling in Japan, not only due to lower crude oil prices, “but also because the widespread popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles has lowered demand for gasoline,” The Nikkei [sub].
The Tokyo paper predicts … Read More >
Associated Press writes (via the Clarion Ledger) that a company called GreenTech will today roll out a “two-seat neighborhood electric vehicle, a cross between a golf cart and conventional car, with a 115-mile range.” It won’t do more than 35 mph, and will cost around $10,000. The “car” might be unremarkable, the guest list of today’s event is not. The party in Horn Lake, Mississippi,will be attended by a lot of formers. Former President Bill Clinton and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour will attend, with former Democratic National Committee Chairman and now chairman of GreenTech, Terry McAuliffe, doing the honors. The CEO is Chinese businessman Xiaolin “Charles X” Wang. Read More >
The intensified alliance between Toyota and BMW shines a new light on a technology that has been discussed for decades, but that never quite made it: Hydrogen fuel cells. BMW will get access to Toyota’s fuel cell technologies. This most likely spells the end of the fuel cell cooperation between BMW and GM. Let’s take another look. Read More >
Westport Innovations has just signed a second deal with General Motors to produce light duty natural gas engines, and it’s probably not the last time we’ll be seeing these kind of partnerships forming. Natural gas vehicles have been explored previously on TTAC, but the technology hasn’t been fully explored in-depth, aside from some well-informed comments in various articles.
Rattled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and reminded by smaller quakes that are a daily occurrence in Japan, every large Japanese automaker entered the smart home business. We have seen smart homes from Toyota and from Nissan. Today, we went all the way to Minamiyono in Saitama to visit the smart home from Honda. Read More >
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