Green Performance Cars News & Blogs

Feds Greenlight Funding Aid For Mileage-Maxing Three-Wheelers

This week, President Obama signed a bill that makes fuel-efficient three-wheeled vehicles eligible for supplemental development assistance through loans from the Department of Energy (DOE). Prior to its passage, only manufacturers of four-wheeled vehicles qualified for consideration to get a chunk of the $25 billion available under provisions of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program (ATVMIP). Terms of this new legislation -- which specifically came in the form of an amendment authored by Representative Brian Bilbray (R-California) and Representative Adam Schiff (D-California) attached to a previously passed energy appropriations bill -- extend consideration to include all "fully enclosed vehicles that are capable of...
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Volkswagen Teams With Stanford on a $5.75-Million Auto Think Tank

Not to be outdone by Lamborghini's recent investment in an advanced composites lab at the University of Washington, Volkswagen has announced its own $5.75 million outlay to underwrite a new joint effort at Stanford University aimed at accelerating all types of automotive-related technologies. Officially the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory (VAIL), it will complement VW's Electronics Research Laboratory, which also is located in Palo Alto, California. Volkswagen has been working with Stanford since 2005 when the two created an autonomous Touareg called "Stanley" that went on to win the DARPA Grand Challenge and followed it up in 2007 with a hands-free Passat entry dubbed "Junior" that took second spot in the annual Defense Advanced...
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Fisker Buys Ex-GM Plant, Will Build Affordable Plug-In Hybrid

Joined by Vice President Joe Biden and Delaware's Governor Jack Markell, fledgling plug-in hybrid entrepreneur Henrik Fisker announced that his firm has signed a letter of intent to purchase the shuttered GM assembly plant in Wilmington for $18 million and turn it into the new home of Fisker Automotive's Project NINA. When an additional $175 million in modifications and upgrades are completed, the facility will turn out a new line of more affordable mainstream plug-in hybrid sedans to complement the high-profile Karma luxury model that will be made by Valmet in Finland and go on sale here next summer. Fisker says the still-unnamed Project NINA vehicle, which is due to start production sometime in 2012, will cost under $40,000 after federal tax...
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Fraunhofer Foresees a Quick-Charge Future in Liquid-Filled Batteries

While Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery chemistry has become the emerging favorite among automakers, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal, Germany are making a case for an alternative in the form of a new strain of enhanced-capacity redox flow batteries they are now developing. According to ICT engineer Jens Noack, "These batteries are based on fluid electrolytes. They can therefore be recharged at the gas station in a few minutes. The discharged electrolyte is simply pumped out and replaced with recharged fluid, for example, using a wind turbine or solar plant." Redox flow batteries in one form or another have been around for some time. Physically, they consist of two charged fluids that flow through...
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Audi Confirms e-tron is a Go -- And That Other EVs are on the Way

Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen recently told Automotive News that a version of the stunning e-tron electric supercar it presented last month in Frankfurt is heading to production. The anticipated arrival will likely be sometime within the next two years, although another Audi source told Kelley Blue Book that the timing of its U.S. introduction is still under discussion and that the car could go on sale in other world markets before we see it here. Nysschen offered no other details about how a production version of the e-tron might differ from the showcar, which wraps its aluminum space frame in composite body panels and uses a Lithium-ion battery pack to energize four individual motors that turn out 313 horsepower and a...
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