Tesla, whose production of slick and sexy electric cars has earned them a name as an emerging power in the motoring industry, have seen that growing reputation rewarded with news of a partnership with car giants Toyota.

The two companies have made a commitment to work closely in developing further solutions for the design and production of electric vehicles, with the hope that continued research – not to mention the coming together of two reputable innovators – will yield greater opportunities for the advancement of an exciting and important industry.

The news represents an important development indeed, with Toyota pledging $50 million in Tesla’s public stock; it is hoped that such an investment can buoy Tesla’s eye for continued technological development with the security that comes with the support that comes with one of the world’s biggest and most well known car manufacturers.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk welcomed the partnership, stating as follows:

“Toyota is a company founded on innovation, quality, and commitment to sustainable mobility. It is an honor and a powerful endorsement of our technology that Toyota would choose to invest in and partner with Tesla…We look forward to learning and benefiting from Toyota’s legendary engineering, manufacturing, and production expertise”.

For the environmentally minded, the Toyato-Tesla commitment represents an exciting prospect indeed: to date, Tesla’s car manufacture and distribution has entered the thousands, but Toyota’s power of PR reaches far and wide, so that Tesla’s work looks set to reach a much wider audience.

And deservedly so. With Tesla continuing their production and innovation in green cars, and given the extra support of such a heavyweight manufacturer, electric cars could well get the exposure that has long been needed.

Given that cars contribute greatly to annual CO2 emissions worldwide, development of alternative means for transport are of grave importance; the joint work now beginning between Tesla and Toyota will help development of those alternative means now becoming a tangible and practical reality.

Posted under Cars & Transport

If you’ve been walking the streets of London recently, you might have seen more and more silver Toyotas tucked in amongst the ranks of parked motors. It’s pleasing to see the Prius hybrid, along with other dual and fully-electric cars, infiltrate the transport norms of urban and sub-urban society.  But while the hawk-eyed may have seen these slowly multiplying series-parallel hybrids, they might not have heard them.

For the electric motors used in these cars are notoriously silent; stealthy, in fact. Indeed it is often touted in associated marketing as a good reason to buy one- less noise pollution for your street when starting the car at 6am, lighter on your eardrums, etc.

But just as speedy cyclists can slice into oblivious pedestrians who cross the road without looking, hybrid and electric cars can be a danger. Cyclists at least have the option of a bell; these cars, at present, have nothing. The silence of electric and hybrid cars has in this way been called into question.

Hybrid cars, running on their electric motors when travelling at low speeds, generally don’t make use of their louder internal combustion engines until a higher speed has been reached (this engine is what charges the internal battery).

The United States Congress is already considering legislation that would require an audible warning being built into electric cars to alert pedestrians of their approach. The English Ministry of Transport is also addressing the issue, drawing up a report to be published by the end of the year. The issue of blind persons, who often use their ears to listen out for approaching traffic before crossing a road, is one of the key concerns. The car manufacturing industry, however, is split on how to approach the issue; Nissan, for example, have been developing a range of sounds that could be added to the vehicle (including a ‘chime’, a melody, and a ‘whir’), whilst other engineers are reluctant to spoil the accumulated development of specialised engineering, decades in the making, which has finally seen the results of their ideal made manifest: a silent and smooth car engine.

One possible solution is the inclusion of a sound-emitting device, stimulated ‘on demand’- a built-in noise-maker that emits a personalised sound (perhaps even one recorded by the driver) when a button is pressed: thus allowing drivers to alert oblivious pedestrians if necessary but without creating an uncontrollable, unstoppable noise for the car that might counteract the benefits of a quieter engine.
A ringtone for your car? Let’s hope that instead we’ll be hearing simulated warp-speed and the soft bleeps, hums and clicks of docking spaceships.

Posted under Cars & Transport, Environmental News, Product Innovations, Uncategorized

As stereotypes and archetypes go, environmentalists are not those quickly associated with glamour, sex appeal, or even fun.

A lot of people, companies and products are quite rightly looking to try and change that image, and shed the outdated image of the fusty and pious hippy, or the holier-than-thou sourpuss; two stereotypes that are certainly unfair, and certainly do the idea of the modern, more mainstream environmentally friendly contingent far more harm than good.

One such product, tackles that problem directly. It contributes nicely to an image change. That item, the Horizon Hracer Hydrogen Fuel Cell Toy Car, is a fun and glamorous little gadget that can match other radio controlled cars just as well as its bigger brothers rival real gas guzzlers to the hilt.

Green and Easy, who stock the product, outline as follows:

The sleek and stylish H-racer is a futuristic toy car based on exciting 21st century technology which is widely forecast by many to be the future of clean, green transport. The H-racer will not only appeal to the young as it is a fully working miniature implementation of technology that is being proto-typed in full-sized cars in the development laboratories of leading motor manufacturers including Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda, and Daimler-Chrysler. Like these larger scale implementations, the H-racer operates on 100% clean fuel produced by a miniature solar-powered hydrogen refuelling station that uses the sun’s energy to convert water to hydrogen.

This palm-size hydrogen fuel cell car contains an onboard hydrogen storage tank, a fuel cell system connected to the car’s electric motor and a hydrogen refuelling system linking the car’s storage tank to the external hydrogen refuelling station. Equally importantly as a result of it’s small size, the H-racer requires and generates only tiny quantities of hydrogen so is completely safe.

No combustion occurs inside a fuel cell. The only exhaust resulting from hydrogen fuel cell cars is pure water. Fuel cell cars that use hydrogen as a fuel are also known as “zero emission vehicles.”

Like its bigger brothers too, the H-Racer, as it is fashionably known, iz zero emissions, so budding eco friendly Jeremy Clarkson’s can impress people with a cool toy car and a clean conscience.

A perfect gadget for the image concious eco warrior, then. One of the few eco gadgets on the market that is without practical purpose but isn’t so niche that it has almost no audience, the Horizon Hracer Hydrogen Fuel Cell Toy Car is a steal, and is as good as any radio controlled car already out there.

For anyone who likes their cars and can’t afford a proper hydrogen car – let’s face it, that’s the only reason ever buys a radio controlled car – the H-Racer is perfect.

To buy, visit Green and Easy.

Posted under Articles, Product Innovations

Green Car: The New All-Electric Tesla Model S. Family sedan – range 300 miles

EVERY day, as I wake up, I see a layer of brown smog hanging over London. We are not alone. Every big city with a million or more people (we have six) has a pollution problem. It affects the quality of the air we breath and motivates us to fly more at this time of year – many of us trying to soak up fresh Alpine Air (if we are lucky).

We all know pollution, air quality problems, increasing CO2 levels and Climate Change are caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. One of the biggest contributors to Climate Change is the transport sector and the Government have now recognised this. Not only has Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently said that EV’s would be one of the key cornerstones of his economic recovery plan, but Mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled a plan to introduce 100,000 Electric Vehicles (EVs) and back the technology with the introduction of 25,000 charging stations in the capital.

The Government’s wholehearted backing of green car technologies comes at a historic and exciting time for green car companies in the U.K. And there are several green electric car manufacturers now that you should know about – if you care about the environment as much as we do!

TESLA MOTORS – LAUNCH OF ROADSTER, NOW THE SEDAN (pictured above)

In the two weeks following the launch of Tesla Motors new Model S – an all-electric family sedan that carries up to seven people and travels up to 300 miles per charge – over 700 reservations have been taken. Credit crunch or no credit crunch, people are flocking and backing green car technologies like never seen before. And the performance of the Model S is not just encouraging, but astounding – 0-60 mph in 5.6 seconds and an electronically limited top speed of 130 mph. Yes it could go faster! To make your journey more comfortable, there is an inbuilt 17-inch touch screen with in-car 3G connectivity – meaning you consult Google Maps, listen to Pandora Radio or check the car’s state of charge remotely on your iPhone. The Model S can be recharged from any 120V, 208V or 240V outlet or quick-charged from an external direct current supply in only 45 minutes.

Two other cars, the Nice Megacity and the Reva L-Ion, both ‘city’ cars with a top speed of 50mph, are also proving popular.

REVA – L-Ion

Since 2001, India based Reva have sold over 2000 units according the New York Times. Initially, there were problems with the Reva after Jeremy Clarkson did a crash test and labelled it the ‘worst car in Britain’! Reva have now strengthened the car and have introduced new Lithium Ion technology that allows the car to travel 75 miles and reach a top speed of 50mph. The price tag varies between £7995 for the Reva I which uses lead battery technology and the latest Reva Lithium Ion which retails for £15,795. It is marketed through GoinGreen based here in Britain.

NICE Megacity

Similarly, the Nice Megacity is proving very popular. Not only does it sound amazing with its all electric sound, but it is manufactured in Europe (France) and is distributed from Nice Car Company’s Notting Hill base. The price tag on the nice range of cars is £8995-£14,000, so not unreasonable for the latest cutting edge technology. You can now book your test drive of the Nice Car at the Westfield shopping centre in London or if you live outside London, you contact them for alternative arrangements.

THE WAY FORWARD – WHAT SHOULD I DO?

I urge each one of us to do our bit and there is still time. Many people feel hopeless given the enormity of the Global Warming Problem but there is good news. At the recent Sustainability Summit at the Dorchester in London (which EcoSwitch attended), David Nussbaum, CEO of WWF UK, said it definitely wasn’t too late. If we all do our bit now – and many of us are warming up to the idea of tacking pollution and Climate Change – then we will mitigate the impact of Global Warming. We did it with aerosols and the Ozone Layer and we can do it again with Climate Change.

We can start with a switch to a greener car. If you can’t afford it yet, please save a bit each month so you can.

In the meantime, you can still do simple things which have a very positive effect on our environment, such as switching to a green electricity provider. Did you know that Power Stations in this country are responsible for an estimated 33% of all CO2 emissions? You can cut your individual 33% by switching to one of the genuine green energy companies – Ecotricity, Good Energy or Green Energy. You will then be ready to order your green car – remember electric cars are only as green as the electricity you put into them. So it is important to find a genuine provider as there are lots of ‘Green’ tariffs but they vary enormously in quality.

EcoSwitch.com will shortly be launching a comparison of the most genuine green companies (links above) to help you with the switch – and it should only take 5 minutes to apply.

Posted under Cars & Transport, Climate, Corporate, Gas & Electricity, Renewable Energy

UNITED KINGDOM

How about it if we could harness all that energy spent at the gym? Making standstill exercise biking become energise biking? This exists already. But this one then, green speed bumps that will generate electricity as cars drive over them? The hi-tech ‘sleeping policemen’ in London will power street lights, traffic lights and road signs in a pilot scheme that could be rolled out nationwide. A bit like regenerative breaking systems used in electric cars, these will capture the kinetic energy of vehicles, showing that there is such a thing as thinking a little bit harder. Which is what Peter Hughes, the designer behind the idea, has done? He says to The Guardian, ‘They are speed bumps, but they are not like conventional speed bumps. They don’t damage your car or waste petrol when you drive over them – and they have the added advantage that they produce energy free of charge.’ Hughes has on occasion been advising the United Nations on renewable energy issues.

Ealing council in west London has confirmed that £150,000 of funding had been secured for the scheme: ‘The money is there for the scheme in 2009-10. The details -how many speed bumps there will be and where they will be- still need to be finalised. It is an innovative idea. We are excited to be part of it.’ More than 200 councils have already expressed interest in introducing the system, and supermarket chain Morrison’s want to install a flat version of the ramp at its Sittingbourne depot in Kent.

So how much do you get for £150,000? The ‘electro-kinetic road ramp’ system can either be raised to act as a speed bump or laid flat, without drivers realising they are passing over it. Each ramp -consisting of a series of panels set in a pad- will cost between £20,000 and £55,000 depending on size. As the traffic passes over it, the panels go up and down, which produces mechanical energy, not unlike wave power generators. A steady stream of traffic passing over the bump can generate 10-36kW of power. One of there can produce -at today’s prices- between £1 and £3.60 of electricity an hour for up to 16 hours a day, or between £5,840 and £21,024 a year. Hughes claims that 10 ramps could generate the same power as one large wind turbine:

With a steady flow of traffic, four of the ramps used as speed bumps would be enough to power all the street lights, traffic lights and road signs for a mile-long stretch of street. The ramp is silent, comfortable and safe for vehicles. It is not only green energy; it is free energy, once you have paid for the capital cost of the equipment. The full potential of this is absolutely enormous.

Speaking of gyms powered by their athletic customers. A nightclub powered partly on energy generated by people dancing -which is usually the case however in Rotterdam, Holland it is literally generating electricity as well.

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Posted under Environmental News, Gas & Electricity

Posted under Cars & Transport, Environmental News

The concretisation of the idea of going green for GoinGreen, retailer of Indian car manufacturer Reva, consists in selling the G-Wiz i electric vehicle in Britain. Technically a quadricycle but more a bicycle-motorized with four wheels and a car look-alike capsule to substitute rather than be a car.

From first glance it is clear that the G-Wiz is characterised by simplicity and an ecologic profile. Indeed, it produces no emission if renewable energy is used to charge the batteries; otherwise, using normal energy it cuts down one third of the emission of the most efficient fuel conventional car. Moreover, one has to bear in mind that -since it does not even technically belong to any category of ‘cars’ it has not done a real crash test and it has no airbags (It passed a 25mph test whereas a normal car has to undergo a 35 mph test). On the other hand, the battery situated in the bottom of the seats provides stability to the vehicle and gives the driver a view positively higher than a normal car. Regarding safety it has to be said that the new version includes disc brakes which is a significant step towards safe driving.

The inside space is tiny, so tight that sitting in the driver seat you can open the passenger side door without stretching. In practice there is not any tunnel in the middle and the rear seats are for decoration or very,very small people. The style is overall low cost and the optional leather inside seems pretty pointless in this context where fixture and fitting overall are devoid of stylish design. When it comes to comfort the seats are no exception, as far away as possible from the cupped, sports car – in the G-Wiz they are simply flat.

The controls are easy enough to operate but often feel a little flimsy and sometimes not all that intuitive. The ‘gears’ are controlled by a rotary knob on the dashboard with 4 commands: reverse, neutral, forward and boost. So, there is neither any clutch nor park position while an umbrella handle shaped handbrake comes up from the dashboard.

A ‘smallcar’ it is, in almost every respect. Regarding speed performance it reaches 0-30mph in 6 seconds, with top speeds up to 45-50 mph. But, in comparison, this is slightly better results than some competitors, for example Nice Car company’s Mega City. The producers discourage the overuse of the boost command in order to avoid premature draining of the batteries and is primarily for use in situations where quickness is necessary, like entering in a roundabout.

There are of course some obvious strong points in its small dimension: parking situations or tackling with the traffic jam. In short, don’t expect an ecologically perfect substitution for the conventional runabout; but if you are looking for an alternative to walking or riding, this is a fair option. Remember that it needs an overnight recharge which entails a private parking close to an outlet and this is not so common in metropolis like for example London. This of course is not a good thing, London is just the market for G-Wiz type transport, partly due to incentives like free parking and congestion charge exemption when it comes to accessing centre of London. What companies like the G-Wiz retailer GoinGreen hope for is an extension of the range of incentives, in other cities and towards other types like access in the bus line for examples. And now the same incentives G-Wiz rely on have been given to other vehicle like VW Polo Bluemotion, an eco-diesel, which is not good news for the producers of electric car. And it is understandable that many people are waiting for the cost implications to be clearer before purchasing it.

Something to remember. Henry Ford once said, ‘if I had listened to what people wanted I would be making faster horses.’ Today people want to the product of Mr Ford’s legacy: speed, range, freedom and horsepower. Electric mini cars like the G-Wiz will become a more common sight on our roads, there are some things we will not be able to negotiate such as petrol prices and pollution. A small, efficient transportation like the G-Wiz to get to work has become a viable alternative as our needs and wants adapt to a post fossil fuel economy. Period.

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G-Wiz by Reva and GoinGreen : Specification

Purchase price : From £9,240 on the road including VAT
Insurance group : 1
VED (road tax) : None
24-hour roadside recovery free for the first year, £90 thereafter. Service interval 6 months; a standard workshop service costs £395; a visit from GoinGreen’s mobile service team costs £575.

Battery life expectancy : 2 to 3 years. A replacement battery pack costs £1,695 including labour and VAT
Warranty period : 2 years or 16,000 miles

Running costs : Fully charging the G-Wiz from the mains takes 8 hours and costs about 40p off-peak. The batteries can be topped up from a partial discharge without harm.

Leif Ahnland leif ahnland

Posted under Cars & Transport, Companies, Gas & Electricity

The Lightning Car Company Limited is combining retro/classic British sports car design with cutting edge technology to produce the Lightning, an EV is powered by four electric motors. It has been developed for performance, elegance and exclusivity. It is to be launched initially as the GT followed by a lightweight GTS and finally a longer range, more equipped GTSE model. The car is built from a carbon fibre/aluminium honeycomb composite monocoque chassis making it light and safe with a sleek, beautiful carbon fibre body.

The computer-controlled four in-wheel 120kw motors utilising Hi-Pa Drive technology and lets the car fine tune power allocation individually to each wheel making it highly efficient. Therefore, no gearbox, no differential, no drive shaft or prop shaft to contend with, meaning that as it eliminates transmission, it minimises power loss. As most top-notch electric motors, these provide phenomenal torque and power capability, all of which is generated at the wheels, the point at which it is required. This eliminates mechanical complexity and power losses experienced with standard ICE cars. For car specification fetishists this translates to 700+ bhp and 0-60 in 5 seconds for the GT and an estimated 4 seconds for the lighter GTS. Unlike a petrol engine, full power is available from zero rpm. This is of course an interesting twist to the efficiency argument, are we supposed to save power in order to spend it immediately?

The Lighting can be charged from a conventional mains power supply overnight but with access to a 3 phase, high power charging station, it takes approximately 10 minutes to reach full charge. This delivers 200-250miles of motoring which is rather impressive and takes the edge off the old EV=short range. Full regenerative braking makes use of energy when decelerating, possibly steching the figures even more. According the manufacturer, powering the car on a domestic power supply will cost approximately 2.2p per mile, a tenth of the price of a petrol car. The batteries are centrally located allowing for greater balance while still leaving space for necessities like golf clubs or rural England essentials such as hunting equipment and rubber boots. This is a car to be parked in a mansion drive way.

The irony is that the most important headline grabbers among electric cars, like the Tesla Roadster and the Lightning under scrutiny here, are not in themselves anything at all like a solution, nor do they really make the case for electric cars that much stronger. While The Lightning Car Company does nothing really decisive to change the state of the nation, its role is perhaps more like that Formula One, to be a boundary pusher from which associated technological breakthroughs will trickle down to the plug-in minicar we will actually afford.

Petrol prototypes utilising a Mustang Cobra V8 are already in use however the Lightning Car Company are now focusing on the electric emission free GT which is available for pre-order. Presented at the British Motor Show in July last year and scheduled for a late 2008 delivery there are no signs of the £120,000 Lightning being any closer to customers. To be sure, even when it does become available, it will stay far from most consumers with a price tag like that.

Leif Ahnland leif ahnland

Posted under Cars & Transport

For more than a century, internal combustion engine cars have throned as a symbol of personal freedom, fashioned after an American post-war ideal born out of the wealth of cheap oil. Even in the face of the environmental consequences such as air pollution, climate change, peak oil and having our habitat poisoned by thronged highways filled with suburban sprawl commuters, we have continued to buy into this ideal. Therefore, instead of trying to amend the root of a problem which stems from overuse of finite resources for our comfort and enjoyment, we are now trying to find alternatives that will permit us to continue down this ultimately failed path. One of the proffered substitutes is hydrogen, not in itself a source but a carrier of energy.

Honda is readying their hydrogen clean car flagship the for small scale market introduction in… 2010. Too few, too late. The fact that it is happening at a ridiculously slow pace adds to the fuel-cell-as-silver-bullet-charade interpretation. Michael Graham Richard, in the Treehugger Blog article on the FCX, says:

While fuel cell hydrogen cars are impressive technological marvels and we can dream about a world where most transportation only emits water, we should be realistic about the obstacles that need to be overcome before that world is a reality.*

First of all, try to imagine the time it will take to replace all the cars already out there. Secondly, the most common and sensible objection to this technology is the enormous investment required, in both money and energy, to set up an infrastructure for large scale production and widespread distribution of hydrogen. The electric car manufacturing competitors have, with plug-in EVs are mass produced (which is happening right now) and widely accepted(which is coming), an already up and running grid. (Ecotricity’s founder Dale Vince is having a wind powered car built by a team from Lotus. It could have been a vehicle literally propulsed by wind using sails, but it is, logically, his company’s wind turbines providing the fuel. Electricity. He could have had the turbines power hydrogen production plants but that feels, in all honesty, pretty stupid.) Another thing in favor of the EV scenario is that, even if it represents a staggering amount of work and financial investment, conventional cars could actually be ‘upgraded’ by changing the combustion engine to an electric motor. A similar hydrogen ‘upgrade’ is technically all but impossible, mainly due to security issues.

In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal, Honda Motor Co. Chief Executive Takeo Fukui explains why his company is neglecting EVs in favour of hybrids and hydrogen cars:

We feel the practical feasibility of the electric vehicle is very limited. The biggest issue is driving distance. The other issue is the recharging time. The FCX Clarity can be recharged in one minute. With the electric vehicle, it can take several hours. However, this is not to deny the possibility of battery electric vehicles. It’s very useful for vehicles with restricted applications, like golf carts.**

This comment is not in tune with reality. Much of our future transportation is liable to be restricted in any case and if there are no hydrogen fuelling stations in place, the recharging time of the FCX is irrelevant. In reference to the argument that hydrogen cars would allow us the same amount of independence that its gasoline ancestor have it must be said that it is encouraging an unsustainable way of life. When Fukui is asked what went wrong with Honda’s hybrid the Insight which was introduced in the US before the Toyota Prius, he say:

Well, I don’t think anything was wrong. Our intention was not to try to make Insight a mass seller. The significance of the Insight was that at the time, we wanted to establish the best record for fuel efficiency, and we did.**

The research the went into bringing forth record breaking hybrid was not dropped. Why it was not more aggresively pursued is a mystery, Toyota’s best seller came along and became synonomous with green cars. Is the Clarity another in Insight or is it smoke screen? Fukui continues, ‘We have to make strategic choices. The hybrid will be the core product, and after that comes fuel cell and clean diesel.’

The intention with this article was to make a critical analysis of the actual car. What remains is criticism. Not of the car as such -which is to all appearance an engineering masterpiece- but of hydrogen cars in general. For a long time, the industry has promised but not delivered and there is, in January 2009, too much still to be solved and not enough clarity. Sorry Honda.

As EcoSwitch is not able to offer any truly convincing arguments for full scale hydrogen car technology as a solution, look for them here. Best of luck.

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* Blog article ‘Top Gear LOVES Honda’s Hydrogen Car, But…’ by Mike Graham Richard on Treehugger.com, read it here.

** Article ‘Honda CEO Vies For Green Mantle’ by John Murphy in Wall Street Journal Online, read it here.

Leif Ahnland leif ahnland

Posted under Cars & Transport, Companies

In the 1990′s, when any given Sunday morning people would wake up realising that what they really needed was a very big jeep, Toyota decided to go down another path. Or yet another path, they were also down to the armpit in the SUV cookie jar like most of the automotive industry. Actually, they still are, ready for 2009 they have eight different models in their SUV-line: Venza, FJ Cruiser, 4Runner, Land Cruiser, RAV4, Sequoia, Highlander and, added for effect, the Highlander Hybrid. It may be said at this point that a well designed and efficient SUV in some cases matches emissions of much smaller cars and, on occasion, passes severe tests as well. But still.

Nevertheless, those early years of R&D on hybrid solutions assured what is today a healthy lead on a market that has a future; whereas in the US Ford and General Motors are struggling to stay in business. Interestingly, in the mid-nineties with the EV1[Electric Vehicle 1], GM had an excellent opportunity to show the way. Tough regulations in California prompted a new take on emissions and for a while the EV1 looked like the answer to that. When GM, for reasons still open to speculation, suddenly stopped renewing the lease agreements (the car was not sold but leased) and subsequently destroying the popular vehicles, they lost not only an enormous investment but also their place in the hot seat.

Toyota did go ahead with research and development, ultimately by putting mass-produced cars on the market. Today the Toyota Prius is still by far the most sold ‘clean car’ and has become a beacon, not so much because of its efficiency but more due to the fact that is actually there. Or here, wherever we go we come across it. In 2008 the company saw sales increase by about 30% for their line of hybrids, the Prius accounting for a large part of the 1 600 000 total. Calling hybrids clean is of course an inaccuracy; they still run partly on petrol derivatives. But still.

All Toyota hybrids have an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, linked by a generator. The two alternate or run simultaneously, depending on how the vehicle is driven. Slightly simplified, it goes something like this:

* Start-up: Only electric motor, from start to mid-range speeds (city)

* Normal: At cruising speeds, both engine and motor runs, the engine partly used for propulsion, partly for generating electricity. Power allocation is computer controlled for maximum efficiency. The generator also recharges the battery with surplus engine power

* Hard acceleration: The battery supplies additional power to the total output of motor and engine

* Deceleration/Braking: Called Regenerative braking system recovers kinetic energy, the generator transforming it to electric energy which is stored in the battery.

The last being an inherent but clever aspect of electrical propulsion is that when braking so that energy can be harnessed where in traditional cars is simply lost. A principal sales argument for hybrids are their self-reliance, equal or surpassing those of both petrol driven and all-out electric vehicles with one system compensating for the shortcomings of the other. Toyota are not seeing their hybrid technology as a stepping stone to fuel-cells or another system, but as the core in what they claim will become the “ultimate eco-car”* due to this flexibility and that it can tap into an existing infrastructure. Fuel cells powered vehicles on the other hand, are by many not considered feasible for full-scale implementation for a couple decades, the technology is for now simply too expensive. Additionally, in reference to the smooth shift to hybrids, today there are 8 hydrogen filling stations in Europe. With the following article featuring Honda’s FCX Clarity, we take will take a closer look at hydrogen.

* For a comprehensive explanation Toyota’s hybrid technology, download a PDF here.

Posted under Articles, Cars & Transport, Companies