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1. Old Subaru video: hybrids are not worth the investment, buy a Subaru Legacy instead
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2. Westfield to hold student design competition for electric race car
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3. Already have everything? How about a bicycle-mounted rear-view camera and display
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4. Can't wait for a Tesla? You can still get some electric cars this holiday season
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5. High gas prices send scooter sales up 400% in Australia
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6. Tesla's Roadster wins Autopia's Car of the Year award
Old Subaru video: hybrids are not worth the investment, buy a Subaru...
Lascelles Linton - Accord
Filed under: Hybrid, Honda, Subaru, Toyota
In Subaru's probably several-year-old video above (I'm basing the age on changes in car availability, fuel and mileage), the Subaru Legacy is compared to its "very direct competitors" the Toyota Camry hybrid and Honda Accord hybrid when it comes to the price of the car, fuel use costs and time of payback for the price hybrid price premium. Subaru presents the price and mileage as showing a "pretty big advantage to the Camry and Accord. Right? But wait, lets look at what these numbers really mean." After some number crunching, we find it will take 10.8 years ("that's a long time") and 32.4 years ("that's certainly no bargain") to make up for the "cost penalty" of buying these hybrids and not the Subaru Legacy.
The video also points out hybrids can go "at very low speeds" on electric power alone but "it is no easy task to coordinate the efforts of the electric motor and the gasoline engine." Batteries, the video notes, are "heavy and expensive" and hybrids require "complex systems" to shut off at stop lights. Subaru says they "are not trying to make light of the fuel economy achievements of the these hybrids vehicles. But we are also not convinced that they are worth the price premium as these numbers illustrate."
Has this video convinced you the Subaru Legacy is better than the Toyota Camry hybrid and Honda Accord hybrid? How will today's arguments for and against hybrids look in five years?
Related:
- Diesel Subies to beat hybrids to market
- Geneva Motor Show: Subaru will bring Justy back, is considering all-electric small car
- Subaru announces diesel engine for 2008
- Subaru aims for diesel cars by end of 2007
- Subaru sells 100,000 PZEVs and sends nothing to the dump for three years
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Westfield to hold student design competition for electric race car
Sam Abuelsamid - westfield-electric-race-car
Filed under: EV/Plug-in
With the Tesla Roadster being derived from the platform of the Lotus Elise, it's worth remembering that the Elise itself was developed as a modern successor to the original minimalist Lotus 7. Colin Chapman originally started building 7s fifty years ago and eventually sold the tooling to Caterham cars who continue building cars based on the design to this day. Over the years, a number of other companies have come and gone building sports cars inspired by Chapman's original. Aside from Caterham, the most successful has been Westfield. Westfield is currently developing a battery-powered race car to be used for a single make club racing series. The 600kg racers will be equipped with lithium ion batteries with enough capacity for a typical fifteen lap club race. On Jan. 10, 2008 at the AutoSport International Show in the UK, Westfield will launch a design competition where high school and college students can compete to design the body work for this new racer. The winning design will be developed by Westfield and displayed at the 2009 AutoSport show. The race series could start in 2010.
[Source: Westfield, thanks to Domenick for the tip]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Already have everything? How about a bicycle-mounted rear-view camera...
Lascelles Linton - bicycle
Filed under: Emerging Technologies, On Two Wheels
I don't know why, but Cerevellum plans to make a rear view video camera with video monitor for bikes. Bikes have no blind spots because, well, it's a bike, so the bicycle rear view monitor only saves you from turning your head and body slightly. If tipping you head or glancing down at the monitor on the handle bar is too much trouble, there is also a head mounted display unit. Only prototypes of the system exist but production version is expected to have GPS, measure your heart and cost $200. Would you buy it?
Related:
[Source: Engadget]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Can't wait for a Tesla? You can still get some electric cars this...
Sam Abuelsamid - Scalextric
Filed under: Etc., EV/Plug-in, Holidash
We all know that electric cars are nothing new. I was driving electric cars three decades ago. I even had a whole fleet of them. Of course, they were each only a few inches long and could only run as long as the electricity supply stayed connected. They were, of course, slot cars. Scale model cars with a tracking pin that followed a slot on a closed course, as a pair of spring loaded contacts followed the electricity-charged rails on the track.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the original slot car system, the Scalextric. Scalextric was created in Britain by Fred Francis. The company spawned numerous imitators over the years and went through numerous financial difficulties but they are still around today. If you're in the mood for an electric car this Christmas, slot cars may be your most reasonable option.
[Source: The Telegraph]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
High gas prices send scooter sales up 400% in Australia
Lascelles Linton - Australia
Filed under: On Two Wheels, Pacific Region
Australia's The Age newspaper reports a 400 percent increase, since 2003, in Scooter sales in Victoria, Australia due to the rising cost of gas and city parking fees. Australia-wide, 15,000 scooters were sold last year, a 300 percent increase since 2003. The Collingwood's Vespa House has seen sales go from two a month to fifteen a month and other scooter suppliers have seen similar increases.The increase in sales is prompting changes, according to The Age: In October, the city of Melbourne's policy of allowing scooters on footpaths is under review and groups like the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce are pushing for more scooter rights like scooters being allowed to ride in bike paths.
Below the fold is a video of the scooter in the movie Roman Holiday.
Related:
- Video: Scooters invade Chicago!
- The Scooter Scoop hosts the first Genuine Rattler Buck Ten review
- Schwinn makes scooters too, sort of
- Vespa (or any other) scooters in New York: good idea or bad idea?
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
Tesla's Roadster wins Autopia's Car of the Year award
Jeremy Korzeniewski - autopia
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors
In a somewhat surprising move (especially given this), Wired.com's Autopia blog has chosen the Tesla Roadster as their Car of the Year. The runner-up was the Fiat 500. Many people are fed-up hearing all of the hype about the Tesla, but that is part of the reason that the machine won this particular award. The general consensus around AutoblogGreen is that the Tesla is awesome and that it will indeed make a big difference in the automotive world, despite some of the bad press (mostly deservedly) that it has gotten as of late. Here are a few quotes from the article:
The Tesla is our pick for two reasons. First, it's easily the coolest alternative fuel vehicle ever made, one that proves electric cars can be every bit as breathtaking as the finest fossil-fuel guzzling super cars... But more importantly, the Tesla best represents the direction the auto industry must go. Too many automakers have churned out the same old cars year after year, growing fat and lazy on the profit margins offered by SUVs and pickup trucks. That won't work anymore, and they know it. It's time for new thinking and new ideas. It's time for innovation. The Tesla has those things in spades, and there's a reason Silicon Valley is emerging as a leader in electric vehicle technology.
So, there you have it. Now... what do you think about it?
Related:
[Source: Wired's Autopia]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.
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