CARazed

One of the most promising green car concepts out there actually comes from the designer of the McLaren F1, but it seems to be taking an extremely long time to get this little car baked and out of the oven. For example journalist Nancy Durham recently visited Gordon Murray and wasn’t even permitted to see the car. Instead she got to grope it through the cloth cover. Read about that at CBCNews.ca.

His concept is super simple, literally. Instead of building a complex hybrid or fuel cell monstrosity he’s taking his experience as an ultralight super car designer and creating the simplest tiny car he can. It will use a efficient gasoline engine and will be designed for easy low-impact manufacturing. It is promised to be revolutionary in construction and concept, which is the whole reason he’s being so secretive about every little detail.

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The folks at AutoblogGreen have the scoop on the this little electric Spyder built by BRUSA. I agree with them it has a strong family resemblance to the old Porsche 550 Spyder. Beck Spyders make great electric conversions. They sell these replica cars with or without motors and the layout is perfect for placing batteries front and rear. The original 550 Spyders are extremely rare, collectible, and very expensive so building one from a replica like a Beck makes a lot of sense.

BRUSA Spyder (above) Continue Reading »

The greenest car is a bicycle. In fact when you consider all the energy that goes into the production of a car from the mining, to manufacture, to transportation, to marketing, to infrastructure, and of course the final energy requirements it’s kind of ironic that any car could be considered green.

But many of us need our cars for some situations. What we often forget is that we don’t need them for every little errand. Even if you don’t decide to divorce your car like my friends at RowdyKittens, you still may want to consider using your bike more and car less to save money, reduce your carbon footprint, and dependence on fossil fuels.

Here is a good article in the New York Times on what a carfree life is like.

Photo credit lambertwm.

I just spotted this short write-up in the New York Times on Gordon Murray’s T25. Departing from super exotic super cars Murray has taken himself into the world of ultra green micro cars. Only the T25′s tiny shape has been revealed so far, along with some general themes that guide it’s creation like… it has to be cool to drive, safe, inexpensive, easily recycled, and easily produced.

I don’t think any more news about the drive train has been released but the last work I heard was that it would be an small ultra efficient gasoline motor. I personally can’t wait to see what rolls out of his top secret workshop next year. Murray is an amazing designer, its great to see him applying his talents to an ultra green project. Photo credit New York Times.

By the way… the little green things in the photo represent the T25 and show the scale compared to much larger cars like the smart fortwo. It’s smaller than a Mini and a smart fortwo. It’s even smaller than the original Mini Cooper.

Aptera, the company with the futuristic electric car pictured here, and ActaCell, a company working on a cheap and safe battery technology, both became the first recipients of Google’s RechargeIT’s green car investment program. Each company has received $2.75 million.

RechargeIT promotes companies that are driving toward plug-in hybrid technology, which is very different from current hybrid technology. It’s far more efficient, especially in normal local driving. The Aptera Typ-1 whill get about 230 miles per gallon. A Toyota Prius with plug-in hybrid technology gets about twice the fuel efficiency of a normal Prius.

Aptera hopes to ship its first car before the end of 2009 and AptaCell is shooting for 2010 for full production release of their battery technology. Photo credit Aptera. Also see VentureBeat for more details.

Lotus, the sports car company in the UK, who was hired to build the electric Tesla Roadster, has a very active engineering division focused of developing green cars. The latest projects are a hydrogen taxi and hybrid limo. Lotus is one of the leading auto makers participating in a project to bring 50 to 100 zero emissions taxis to London by 2012. Logically the project is called the Zero Emission London Taxi Commercialization Project and it’s backed by Britain’s Government Technology Strategy Board, who is investing $45.3 million.

“Zero emission London taxi commercialization – This project will initiate and accelerate the introduction of commercial fleets of zero-emission fuel cell hybrid taxis primarily for London by 2012 and for other cities by 2014. The project will develop and integrate PEM fuel cell hybrid powertrains into LTI TX4 taxis. The arduous duty cycle of the London taxi will be utilized to provide a platform for accelerated fuel cell vehicle lifecycle testing.” [Source]

The limo will probably be based on a Jaguar XJ or XK but will be powered by a hybrid system not much less efficient than a Toyota Prius. “Limo Green” should have a small electric drive motor, battery pack, and a small petroleum powered generator to propel the car when the power in the batteries runs low. This sounds liek the perfect combination to also permit a plug-in option. Photo is a conventional London taxi from Wikipedia Commons.