Volkswagen AG. has started testing a new electricity-powered car engine and expects to launch the first cars fitted with it by 2010, chief executive Martin Winterkorn said.

VW said the technology allows cars to run on purely electricity powered engine for a distance of up to 50 kilometers (31 miles). hemscott.com

"While the e-motor on a typical hybrid model just supplements the combustion engine, the exact opposite is true on Twin Drive," Winterkorn said during the car's unveiling in Berlin. "Here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor." Start-stop technology will save power and regenerative braking will help generate it. wired.com

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It has a 100 cc engine, zips smoothly through traffic, can cruise up to 55mph, gets close to 100 mpg and has a price point under $3000. It has the support network of Harley dealerships in most every major town and people want to buy it because it's a domestically produced scooter that is designed by us to help us get ourselves out of a fuel crisis.

Ok, I know this doesn't exist and people will tell me labor costs are too high here to build something that cheap and it doesn't fit the Harley image... but Harley has made everything from golf carts to bomb casings and Holiday Rambler recreational vehicles.

A flag waving on a domestically produced, super-economy machine would bring a new found smile to many.

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Toyota has developed a new fuel cell hybrid, powered by hydrogen, that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up, the automaker said today.

The improved model's maximum cruising range is 516 miles compared with 205 miles. Fuel efficiency in the FCHV-adv was improved 25 percent. The new fuel cell vehicle can also start and run in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold temperatures are a big technological hurdle for fuel cells.

The vehicle will be available for leasing in Japan later this year. Rival Honda Motor Co.'s revamped fuel cell vehicle for leasing in California is rolling off a Japanese factory floor later this month.
(AP)

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The internal combustion engine driving your car is a pretty inefficient method of converting energy into motion. Friction from air resistance and motion along with heat dissipated from burning fuel all take your money in exchange for nothing. That car heater sure feels great in January, but most of the time that engine heat is lost to the atmosphere while we all do our part heating the outdoors.

Loughborough University and the University of Sussex, both in the UK, has concluded that using waste heat from light-duty vehicle engines in a steam power cycle could deliver fuel economy advantages of between 6.3% and 31.7% greencarcongress.com

The idea of pushing energy into water and creating steam is nothing new. Railroads built this nation with the steam engine, however paying a premium for energy has reawakened this old trick.

Clean Power Technologies claims to have successfully achieved a 40% reduction in vehicle fuel consumption.

Other uses for exhaust energy recovery is truck refrigeration. Traditionally, a small combustion engine uses fuel to cool the trailer during transport. A steam hybrid system would take wasted heat from exhaust gas and created steam that would power refrigeration.

Abdul Mitha, CEO, and Mike Burns, CTO, of CPT demonstrated a steam engine running on the free energy recovered from the exhaust of a Caterpillar truck engine and explained the 80% fuel savings achievable in refrigerated trailer applications. tradingmarkets.com

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Honda Motor Co said today that it will launch its planned dedicated hybrid sedan in Japan, North America and Europe in early 2009.

The dedicated hybrid body design will likely look like the hydrogen fueled Honda Clarity. Chief Executive Takeo Fukui also said that a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the Honda Fit is expected. Honda has been working to drastically reduce production costs of their hybrid drive systems to narrow the premium difference between a gas only powered vehicle. reuters.com

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I headed down to Durham, North Carolina for a graduation over the weekend. I was trying to squeeze the most mileage I could out of a 2005 Civic Hybrid with a manual transmission with 65,000 miles on it. I think 56.7 miles per gallon might be a record for me.

My secret formula: Use cruise control and set it to 65. I did have the impossible to recreate advantage of no traffic jams on Interstate 95.

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Interesting New York Times story about people questioning the electromagnetic fields in a hybrid car. (Fear, but Few Facts, on Hybrid Risk 4/27) The underlying premise of the story is that some people are using hand held meters that read electromagnetic fields and are worried, while manufactures say that the vehicles clear their own tests. Scientists say that they don't have any data that suggests any ill effects.

Hybrid cars move around huge blocks of electrical energy that create electrical fields when active. There is a motor with windings and thick cables that run under your seat. The electrical energy is the vehicle's torque. To define if electromagnetic fields are a problem is a difficult task.

A magnetic field is generated when power is flowing. So during hard acceleration and braking in a hybrid, electrons are flowing rapidly. During cruising when the batteries have been topped off, there is little current flow. So even if magnetic fields were a problem, everyone has different driving habits and routines and is subject to different amounts of electromagnetic fields.

We live around all kinds of magnetic fields. Sit on an electric train above the traction motor and you are sitting on an a big magnetic field. A heated seat, like an electric blanket, creates a constant low energy field and cell phone create fields inches from your brain that vary by the distance to a tower and the amount a person talks on the phone.

It's hard to quantify and analyze new hazards when our world is filled with existing chemical and electromagnetic interventions that are all contaminating our bodies more than if we lived in the virgin forest and hunted rabbits.

We can enjoy spending a few less dollars on gas and send a few less dollars to oil producing countries that don't like us until someone comes up with some evidence that hybrid cars kill us faster than everything else we have created.

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Hyundai Motor Co. said it will enter the hybrid market in 2010.

Hyundai is expected to begin its first mass production with the compact-sized LPG model, the Avante, or Elantra Liquefied Petroleum Injection hybrid (UPI)

LPG or Liquefied Petroleum Gas is the same stuff that is bottled for stoves. It is manufactured during oil refining process or as a gas stream from the ground. It is a vapor at room temperature and therefore is stored as a compressed liquid. The storage ratio is about 250:1 so it offers a more efficient storage profile than compressed natural gas (CNG). It burns more cleanly and is non-toxic as compared to gasoline.

it may run at a higher fuel consumption than gasoline, because it has a lower energy density, but because of the tax structure of gasoline it may be more competitive.

Though not common for use in cars LPG is available in most communities and has an entrenched infrastructure nationally. It's an interesting niche innovation to spread out energy demand among resources and reduce demand on oil.

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RechargeIT.org: A Google.org Project has been running a long-term test on their fleet of Toyota Prius and Toyota Prius retrofitted as a plug-in hybrid, comparing expense, C02, pay-back, etc.

They provide a calculator to compare your own mileage.

The U.S. fleet of automobiles currently averages 19 mpg !

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Plug-in hybrids have been touted as a short-term squeeze on foreign oil. The concept is that you plug into your home outlet and run on the energy grid for a 100 miles or so until the batteries deplete before a gasoline engine needs to fire.

Electrical generation likes consistency and using non-fossil fuel sources during low demand that are already in place like nuclear, hydro and wind could cut oil use.

However, consider if everyone had a plug-in hybrid and started plugging them in during peak energy demand on a hot summer day. More power plants and peak demand plants that run on natural gas and oil would have to be built and fired up to meet the demand. Humans by nature seek convenience.

For plug-in hybrids to become part of the short-term energy solution incentives for time-of-day metering and consumer education need to be part of the sales pitch, otherwise, we will just have another ethanol quandary to sort out.

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