At first glance, race cars and electric go-karts have nothing in common except for a vaguely similar shape. Both are open-cockpit vehicles with wide wheels, and they both thrive on sharp turns—and that appears to be it. 

What many don’t realize is that go-karts are often the entry point for future Indy 500 drivers, and competitors also practice in the tiny vehicles to develop muscle memory. Several companies manufacture karts, and the most recent iteration of Honda’s version is the eGX go-kart concept, which is equipped with two 10-kilo (about 23 pounds) swappable battery packs good for about 45 minutes at a time. This battery technology allows the brand to test the dynamics of electric vehicles on a smaller scale before rolling it out to the much pricier race cars (and eventually apply this insight to passenger vehicles as well). 

Honda Accord, Civic, CR-V, and Odyssey owners might not realize it, but Honda’s passion starts with racing, and passenger cars reap the research benefits. Only two manufacturers make IndyCar engines, and Honda is one of them. In the last 30 years, Honda has claimed 18 IndyCar championships and 15 Indianapolis 500 wins. 

PopSci had a chance to pilot one of these eGX karts in the Indianapolis area over Indy 500 weekend. It was heart-pounding, arm-muscle-straining excitement, like a taste of the race itself (minus the yellow and red flags). We also got to speak with engineers to better understand Honda’s strategy for its entire product lineup, from power tools to cars. Here’s what we learned.  

Battery packs offer modularity and continuity

Kids interested in racing start with small go-karts and work their way up. If they have enough skill and a little luck, they’ll find themselves behind the wheel of a high-performance IndyCar or F1 machine. As they develop, drivers keep practicing with karts—albeit increasingly high-powered versions—that twist and squeal and mimic the experience of a road course race. 

“Karts are closer to the open-wheel experience than anything else,” says John Whiteman, commercial motorsports manager at Honda Performance Development. (In case you were wondering, an open-wheel car is one that has its wheels outside of the car versus underneath, like a passenger car.)

Honda Performance Development, or HPD for short, was founded in 1993 for the purpose of designing and developing racing engines along with chassis and performance parts for motorsports. HPD has a history of repurposing small engines to make gas-powered karts and quarter midgets (small racers that are about one-quarter scale of a full-size midget race car).

If you’ve ever been to an outdoor recreational karting track with friends and family, you’re familiar with the whine and buzz of the gas-powered version. Gas-powered kart engines are often shared with lawn mowers, made by other companies like Briggs and Stratton as well as HPD, and indoor tracks use electric karts so they’re not filling the air with toxic fumes. 

The eGX takes a typical electric go kart to the next level, employing two saddle packs on either side of the seat to house the lithium-ion batteries that power the kart. That way, the kart is balanced and maintains its grip with the road without adding rear bias or tip-over potential by loading the battery on one side. 

Whiteman says the swappable battery packs offer many upsides, including reduced maintenance costs and environmental benefits. Through this technology, HPD has learned more about energy storage, heat management, and vehicle weights and balances. These battery packs are already in use for small construction equipment like cordless rammers and compact excavators.

Along with reduced emissions and noise pollution, battery-pack-powered vehicles keep the equipment in commission continuously if you have a bank of these batteries that can be charging up while the others are in use. 

How race car research benefits Honda’s passenger cars

Ultimately, Honda and its HPD division are testing new ideas to find out how that translates to performance and customer satisfaction. Rebecca Johnson, HPD director of production and senior manager, says exploring electrification and sharing each division’s findings throughout the company creates opportunities to improve across the board. 

“We’re trying to train ourselves to be better at hybrids and battery packs for electrified racing,” Johnson says. “Let’s build something. Let’s make a car and let’s call it our laboratory, if you will, and let people ‘play’ and iterate on the design or technology. As we strive forward, we can put that together with what customers want.”

In 2024, the IndyCar series will run with hybrid units with 2.2-liter engines; currently, the power is all supplied by renewable race fuel. Honda is getting ready for this change by testing battery packs and a custom concept hybrid built with a tubular cage and sheet metal copied from a production CR-V crossover. It’s mind-boggling to ride in the Beast, as Honda calls it internally, as it looks like an SUV with a giant wing and sounds like a screaming hurricane inside. This is the future, and it’s pretty exciting. 

Johnson is steeped in racing culture, and she has her eyes trained forward as HPD works to maintain the visceral appeal of IndyCar and Formula One races while moving toward drastically reducing emissions.   

“We’re a racing company that happens to sell cars,” Johnson says. “Racing is in our DNA. If we can prove out tough things on a race track, we can surely make a good Civic. If you can do it at [IndyCar] level, then you should be very good at performance for a Civic owner. They want all the things that we want [for race cars] but on a different level.”

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These days, it seems like every carmaker—from those focused on luxury options to those with an eye more toward the economical—is getting into electric vehicles. And with new US policies around purchasing incentives and infrastructure improvements, consumers might be more on board as well. But many people are still concerned about whether electric vehicles are truly better for the environment overall, considering certain questions surrounding their production process. 

Despite concerns about the pollution generated from mining materials for batteries and the manufacturing process for the EVs themselves, the environmental and energy experts PopSci spoke to say that across the board, electric vehicles are still better for the environment than similar gasoline or diesel-powered models. 

When comparing a typical commercial electric vehicle to a gasoline vehicle of the same size, there are benefits across many different dimensions. 

“We do know, for instance, if we’re looking at carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, that electric vehicles operating on the typical electric grid can end up with fewer greenhouse gas emissions over the life of their vehicle,” says Dave Gohlke, an energy and environmental analyst at Argonne National Lab. “The fuel consumption (using electricity to generate the fuel as opposed to burning petroleum) ends up releasing fewer emissions per mile and over the course of the vehicle’s expected lifetime.”

[Related: An electrified car isn’t the same thing as an electric one. Here’s the difference.]

EVs also produce no tailpipe emissions, which means reductions in particulate matter or in smog precursors that contribute to local air pollution.

“The latest best evidence right now indicates that in almost everywhere in the US, electric vehicles are better for the environment than conventional vehicles,” says Kenneth Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics at Yale School of the Environment. “How much better for the environment depends on where you charge and what time you charge.”

Electric motors tend to be more efficient compared to the spark ignition engine used in gasoline cars or the compression ignition engine used in diesel cars, where there’s usually a lot of waste heat and wasted energy.

Creating an EV produces pollution during the manufacturing process. “Greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing an electric vehicle are almost twice that of an internal combustion vehicle…that is due primarily to the battery. You’re actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions to produce the vehicle, but there’s a net overall lifecycle benefit or reduction because of the significant savings in the use of the vehicle,” says Gregory Keoleian, the director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. “We found in terms of the overall lifecycle, on average, across the United States, taking into account temperature effects, grid effects, there was 57 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for a new electric vehicle compared to a new combustion engine vehicle.” 

In terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with operating the vehicles, fully battery-powered electric vehicles were the best, followed by plug-in hybrids, and then hybrids, with internal combustion engine vehicles faring the worst, Keoleian notes. Range anxiety might still be top of mind for some drivers, but he adds that households with more than one vehicle can consider diversifying their fleet to add an EV for everyday use, when appropriate, and save the gas vehicle (or the gas feature on their hybrids) for longer trips.

The breakeven point at which the cost of producing and operating an electric vehicle starts to gain an edge over a gasoline vehicle of similar make and model occurs at around two years in, or around 20,000 to 50,000 miles. But when that happens can vary slightly on a case-by-case basis. “If you have almost no carbon electricity, and you’re charging off solar panels on your own roof almost exclusively, that breakeven point will be sooner,” says Gohlke. “If you’re somewhere with a very carbon intensive grid, that breakeven point will be a little bit later. It depends on the style of your vehicle as well because of the materials that go into it.” 

[Related: Why solid-state batteries are the next frontier for EV makers]

For context, Gohlke notes that the average EV age right now is around 12 years old based on registration data. And these vehicles are expected to drive approximately 200,000 miles over their lifetime. 

“Obviously if you drive off your dealer’s lot and you drive right into a light pole and that car never takes more than a single mile, that single vehicle will have had more embedded emissions than if you had wrecked a gasoline car on your first drive,” says Gohlke. “But if you look at the entire fleet of vehicles, all 200-plus-million vehicles that are out there and how long we expect them to survive, over the life of the vehicle, each of those electric vehicles is expected to consume less energy and emit lower emissions than the corresponding gas vehicle would’ve been.”

To put things in perspective, Gillingham says that extracting and transporting fossil fuels like oil is energy intensive as well. When you weigh those factors, electric vehicle production doesn’t appear that much worse than the production of gasoline vehicles, he says. “Increasingly, they’re actually looking better depending on the battery chemistry and where the batteries are made.” 

And while it’s true that there are issues with mines, the petrol economy has damaged a lot of the environment and continues to do so. That’s why improving individual vehicle efficiency needs to be paired with reducing overall consumption.

EV batteries are getting better

Mined materials like rare metals can have harmful social and environmental effects, but that’s an economy-wide problem. There are many metals that are being used in batteries, but the use of metals is nothing new, says Trancik. Metals can be found in a range of household products and appliances that many people use in their daily lives. 

Plus, there have been dramatic improvements in battery technology and the engineering of the vehicle itself in the past decade. The batteries have become cheaper, safer, more durable, faster charging, and longer lasting. 

“There’s still a lot of room to improve further. There’s room for improved chemistry of the batteries and improved packaging and improved coolant systems and software that manages the batteries,” says Gillingham.

The two primary batteries used in electric vehicles today are NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) and LFP (lithium-ferrous-phosphate). NMC batteries tend to use more precious metals like cobalt from the Congo, but they are also more energy dense. LFP uses more abundant metals. And although the technology is improving fast, it’s still in an early stage, sensitive to cold weather, and not quite as energy dense. LFP tends to be good for utility scale cases, like for storing electricity on the grid. 

[Related: Could swappable EV batteries replace charging stations?]

Electric vehicles also offer an advantage when it comes to fewer trips to the mechanic; conventional vehicles have more moving parts that can break down. “You’re more likely to be doing maintenance on a conventional vehicle,” says Gillingham. He says that there have been Teslas in his studies that are around eight years old, with 300,000 miles on them, which means that even though the battery does tend to degrade a little every year, that degradation is fairly modest.

Eventually, if the electric vehicle markets grow substantially, and there’s many of these vehicles in circulation, reusing the metals in the cars can increase their benefits. “This is something that you can’t really do with the fossil fuels that have already been combusted in an internal combustion engine,” says Trancik. “There is a potential to set up that circularity in the supply chain of those metals that’s not readily done with fossil fuels.”

Since batteries are fairly environmentally costly, the best case is for consumers who are interested in EVs to get a car with a small battery, or a plug-in hybrid electric car that runs on battery power most of the time. “A Toyota Corolla-sized car, maybe with some hybridization, could in many cases, be better for the environment than a gigantic Hummer-sized electric vehicle,” says Gillingham. (The charts in this New York Times article help visualize that distinction.) 

Where policies could help

Electric vehicles are already better for the environment and becoming increasingly better for the environment. 

The biggest factor that could make EVs even better is if the electrical grid goes fully carbon free. Policies that provide subsidies for carbon-free power, or carbon taxes to incentivize cleaner power, could help in this respect. 

The other aspect that would make a difference is to encourage more efficient electric vehicles and to discourage the production of enormous electric vehicles. “Some people may need a pickup truck for work. But if you don’t need a large car for an actual activity, it’s certainly better to have a more reasonably sized car,” Gillingham says.  

Plus, electrifying public transportation, buses, and vehicles like the fleet of trucks run by the USPS can have a big impact because of how often they’re used. Making these vehicles electric can reduce air pollution from idling, and routes can be designed so that they don’t need as large of a battery.  

“The rollout of EVs in general has been slower than demand would support…There’s potentially a larger market for EVs,” Gillingham says. The holdup is due mainly to supply chain problems. 

Switching over completely to EVs is, of course, not the end-all solution for the world’s environmental woes. Currently, car culture is very deeply embedded in American culture and consumerism in general, Gillingham says, and that’s not easy to change. When it comes to climate policy around transportation, it needs to address all the different modes of transportation that people use and the industrial energy services to bring down greenhouse gas emissions across the board. 

The greenest form of transportation is walking, followed by biking, followed by using public transit. Electrifying the vehicles that can be electrified is great, but policies should also consider the ways cities are designed—are they walkable, livable, and have a reliable public transit system connecting communities to where they need to go? 

“There’s definitely a number of different modes of transport that need to be addressed and green modes of transport that need to be supported,” says Trancik. “We really need to be thinking holistically about all these ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

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Rejoice, Tacoma fans: The fourth generation of the beloved pickup is finally here, and there’s a lot to like. The midsize truck was redesigned from the ground up, retaining its off-road-capable bones and getting new skin, more power, and more options that should please truck buyers of all types. The last time the Taco, as it’s affectionately known, had a full workup was for model year 2016, so this has been a long-awaited update. 

In its popular TRD Pro trim, the new Tacoma includes brand-new seats for the driver and front passenger that ride on a shock absorber system. The purpose of these so-called IsoDynamic Performance Seats is to keep your head—and in turn, your eyes—steady and focused while driving (or riding in the right seat) on rugged terrain. If you’ve ever ridden a horse or performed in a marching band, you understand how important it is to keep your vision intact while moving. 

Let’s take a closer look at this and some of the Tacoma’s other new features. 

Shock-absorbing seats

When driving off-road, your entire body gets bounced around. Depending on the quality of your suspension system, you could be shaken like a James Bond martini. But wouldn’t it be better to float as though you’re moving in tune with the vehicle? Sheldon Brown, the chief engineer for the Tacoma, says the team started by plumping up the bolsters (the narrow pillows that surround your seat) in the seat and seat back, which snugs the occupant into the vehicle securely and comfortably. 

“We were looking to do something and provide better stabilization of the driver and the occupant in those high-speed or even some of the tactical off-road driving scenarios,” Brown told The Drive, which is owned by Recurrent Ventures, PopSci’s parent company. “If you think about, for example, a downhill skier or even if you look to the wild you see a cheetah chasing its prey. The eyes are focused and fixed, the body is moving but the head and the eyes are staying stable, so the goal here is to stabilize the upper torso, particularly the head.”

The Toyota engineering team started with a hot-formed steel tube to create the superstructure of the seats, and surrounded it with a lightweight reinforced resin for the seat pan and back frame. A swivel joint, spring-loaded ball joint, and articulation structure provides the flexibility and movement. The human body’s bone structure works closely with tendons and muscles for full range of motion; the new IsoDynamic Performance Seat is designed to move with those elements for a much less bone-jarring ride. 

Most notably, the seat can be customized to your liking. Airing it up is as simple as using a bicycle tire pump to achieve the level of pressure you like, and Toyota provides a set of recommended pressures based on your unique body mass. From there, you can tweak the comfort as desired. And, of course, you can turn off the adjustments entirely and it becomes a plain old truck seat. 

More power, more torque—and the manual remains

Available in a whopping eight variants—SR, SR5, TRD PreRunner, TRD Sport, TRD Off Road, Limited, TRD Pro, and Trailhunter—the 2024 Tacoma is offered with two different powertrains and myriad shiny new accessories straight from the factory. 

Starting with the base SR, the Tacoma gets a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine making 228 horsepower and 243 pound-feet of torque. Moving up to the SR5 and above, the same engine is tuned for 278 hp and 317 pound-feet of torque. Automatic and manual transmissions are available, and the manual option is largely attributed to Brown’s influence, as he is not just the engineer but a major Tacoma enthusiast. 

The star of the lineup is the i-Force Max hybrid powertrain. Engineers paired the turbo 2.4-liter engine with an electric motor and 1.87-kilowatt-hour battery for 326 horsepower and an impressive 465 pound-feet of torque. Standard on the TRD Pro and Trailhunter models and available on TRD Sport, TRD Off-Road, Limited variants, the i-Force Max is the most potent power combination ever offered on the Tacoma. 

“The great part about the hybrid system, which is what we just launched in the Tundra (and the motor and battery are identical, by the way) is instantaneous torque,” Brown told PopSci. “While we’re waiting for those turbos to spin up, which isn’t too long, it can really supplement the overall drive experience with an instant burst of power, especially when you’re towing or heavily laden.” 

With the i-Force Max, the truck has nearly double the torque numbers of the previous generation’s V6 capabilities. Gas mileage ranges from 19 miles per gallon to 21 miles per gallon for that model year. While we don’t know the EPA mileage ratings for the new Tacoma, Toyota has definitely made efforts to improve those numbers with a massive air dam in front that creates better aerodynamics. Don’t fret, though, off-roaders: it can be removed to increase ground clearance as necessary. 

Trailhunter vs TRD Pro

New for 2024 is the Trailhunter trim, designed for the ever-increasing overlanding population. Since 2020, the popularity of overlanding (in basic terms, camping in or near your car over long distances) has exploded, and Toyota is making the most of that trend with the Trailhunter. 

Before this trim debuted this year, the TRD Pro was the top of the line for ruggedness, but it’s built more for driving fast in the desert. The Trailhunter fills a need for go-everywhere adventurers with a whole catalog of accessories available straight from the factory, all of which can be rolled into a monthly payment versus purchasing piece by piece. Two years ago, the Trailhunter was teased at the Specialty Equipment Market Association annual trade show as a concept, and enthusiasts will be excited to see it in production. 

Toyota chose custom shocks from an Australian company called Old Man Emu to cushion the ride for both on- and off-road comfort. It’s also key for carrying a heavy load with lots of gear, which is what overlanders tend to do with on-board refrigerators from Dometic, rooftop tents, hydraulic lifts, and spare tires. For the uninitiated, Old Man Emu shocks were created Down Under, and are a popular choice to replace factored suspension components for other outdoors-focused brands like Land Rover

“In the Australian outback, Old Man Emu is the OG of overlanding,” Brown says. “They have a reputation for building good, reliable solutions for the aftermarket and we wanted to partner with them to work on the development together. This is a custom-tuned set that you can’t buy off the shelf.” 

The Trailhunter also boasts an onboard air compressor for airing up tires after an off-roading session, plus a fuel tank protector, mid-body skid plate, front bash plate, and rock sliders all designed to safeguard the truck from damage. 

Stay tuned, because the 2024 Toyota Tacoma is scheduled for dealerships later this year. As soon as we can get behind the wheel, we’ll tell you more about how it performs. 

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Dressed in a glorious shade of green called Verde Fangio Metallic, the all-new Alfa Romeo Tonale slalomed through the city streets of Milan. After dodging pedestrians and cyclists in a dance that seemed natural to Italians and startling to visitors, we drove it onto country roads leading to Alfa Romeo’s prime proving grounds at the Circuito di Balocco test track. It was time to test out the brand’s first hybrid and its first compact crossover: the Tonale.

Alfa Romeo has a 113-year history of building beautiful, powerful cars with an abundance of style. Can its new hybrid pass the test with both established and new fans of the brand? We drove one in Alfa Romeo’s homeland to find out.

The two-tone Tonale: one engine, one motor

The brand’s first all-new vehicle in five years, the Tonale is a follow-up to the popular Stelvio SUV. Situated squarely in the popular compact SUV class, the Tonale competes with gas-powered luxury models like the BMW X1 and Mercedes-Benz GLA as well as the Volvo XC40 plug-in hybrid.

Equipped with a 1.3-liter gas engine up front and a 90-kilowatt electric motor at the rear, the Tonale boasts 285 horsepower and 347 pound-feet of torque. Whether driving on twisty roads or straightaways, I found the Tonale has plenty of vigor, and the responsive steering made for a great drive. The crossover also has a generous sprinkling of Italian charm, which sets it apart from others in the category. 

Drive mode selections include Alfa Romeo’s traditional D, N, and A options, which stands for Dynamic, Natural, and Advanced. Each has its own distinctive personality. Spin the dial to Dynamic for access to the full suite of power and to the highest level of brake regeneration, which sends juice to the battery. Natural is the middle-of-the-road option for daily driving, and Advanced offers a more fuel-efficient choice by running the Tonale in battery-only mode for about 30 miles.

The driver can drill down even further for more options to customize the ride. Choosing Comfort is the default suspension partner to Natural and Advanced mode, providing a softer feel. Sport mode (the preset calibration for Dynamic mode) stiffens the ride, meaning better control when you want more of a track-like experience. Alfa Romeo calls it a “dual stage valve electronic suspension” and says it’s intended to offer the driver a choice between performance and comfort.

On the track, I put it through its paces myself, and also slid into the passenger seat with a professional driver behind the wheel. That’s an unusual twist; most crossovers are marketed for staid comfort, not necessarily adventurous, quick turns and acceleration. 

Maximizing energy from the Tonale’s battery 

Driving the Tonale, I noticed that it was regenerating the battery quickly as I coasted downhill from the mountain passes on the drive route in Dynamic mode. Domenico Bagnasco, head of high-performance vehicles for Alfa Romeo, told me that the vehicle never depletes the battery completely. When the battery starts to run low, the Tonale automatically defaults to Natural mode to recharge it. If you start in Advanced to experience the all-electric range, it will switch over silently and seamlessly. Also, a touch of the e-Save button under the gear shifter helps preserve the battery’s energy by prioritizing the gas engine. 

Bagnasco has a history in performance and engineering for both Fiat and Alfa Romeo, serving as the Abarth racing model chief engineer and product development manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. That means he had a hand in the delightful Fiat 124 Spider Abarth, a Miata look-alike with a spunky ride. With the Tonale, he’s putting that experience to use and expanding upon what he’s learned from previous iterations of a long list of Italian models. 

He also shared the details of the Tonale’s brake-by-wire system, which means stepping on the brake pedal triggers an electronic signal that activates a microprocessor. Brake-by-wire systems utilize electronic sensors and actuators instead of the mechanical and hydraulic components of traditional braking setups. As a result, braking is designed to be smoother and more predictable instead of predicated solely on the uneven pressure of your foot. For the Tonale, brake action also helps recapture energy. 

Brake-by-wire systems are fairly standard fare, especially on hybrid vehicles like the Audi e-Tron and Porsche Taycan. This technology takes stopping power to the next level, compiling input from your surroundings and anticipating braking needs. For instance, if the car senses that you’re headed for a collision based on your speed and that of the car in front of you, the brake-by-wire system can apply maximum braking power for you. And it’s lighter: Dominique says the electronic brake saves 10 pounds overall.

The serpent is a plug

The crossover also includes a generous suite of driver-assist features, including adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane departure assist, and more. It’s also equipped with over-the-air software update capacity, Amazon Alexa, and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. All of that gilds the performance aspects of this new plug-in hybrid. Even the storied Alfa Romeo logo tells the tale in a version that’s etched onto the driver’s side rear window; the head of the biscione serpent has been stylized into a plug. 

Starting at $44,590 (including destination charges) and ranging up to nearly $60,000 with all the options on the top-level Veloce trim, the Tonale is available in dealerships now. 

The Tonale, up against its competitors, feels like the difference between a pony ride at a county fair and a pedigreed mare at a steeplechase. Sure, the Tonale could be just another compact crossover on the market. But it’s an Alfa Romeo, and there is something magical about it.

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Jeep established its roots back in the 1940s, and the brand quickly established itself as a 4×4 expert. Rugged and utilitarian, Jeep has been an icon of off-roading ever since. For its next act, the automaker is getting electrified. Jim Morrison, senior vice president and head of the Jeep brand in North America, says it has established its line in the sand. 

“We’ve said we will be the greenest SUV brand and by 2025 all of our vehicles will be electrified,” Morrison says. “We expect half our sales to be electrified by 2030.”

Jeep’s plan includes four all-electric SUVs in North America and in Europe by 2025. The automaker debuted sneak peeks of two of those vehicles—the Jeep Recon EV and Wagoneer EV (code name Wagoneer S)—via its YouTube channel back in September of last year.

Remember, electrified in an automotive context is different from fully electric: Electrified refers to using motors to enhance and support gas-powered models for better efficiency and fewer emissions, while fully electric is a pure EV, with no internal combustion engine whatsoever. Jeep will offer both types, at least for now. Stellantis, Jeep’s parent company, has ranked at the bottom of the EPA’s 2022 rankings [PDF] for fuel efficiency and carbon emissions between 2016 and 2021; Stellantis includes brands like Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, and Dodge. Each of these brands is finally getting a hybrid version—Dodge unveiled the hybrid Hornet in March and Alfa Romeo is about to launch its first electrified model, the Tonale—so improvement is on the table. 

The electrified plans are well on its way: the Wrangler 4xe, Jeep’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle, made its debut for model year 2021 and the Grand Cherokee was offered as a PHEV for 2022. Since then, both have registered impressive sales, with the Wrangler 4xe taking the crown as America’s best-selling PHEV for 2022. How will the electrification of Jeep affect its off-roading credibility? 

Here’s how it’s working in the real world. 

The Jeep Magneto concept

At its 57th Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah this March, the brand showed off its newest batch of concepts intended to inspire Jeep owners to enhance and accessorize, and to entice non-Jeep owners to dream. (The Easter Jeep Safari is typically a nine-day event with day-long 4×4 trail rides throughout—basically, it’s like summer camp for off-roaders.) One of those was the Magneto 3.0 concept, a fully-electric variant of the popular Wrangler SUV. The Magneto name sounds like a superhero badge, and it’s definitely a way for the automaker to see how far it can go. 

“Magneto has been our test bed and pushed the extremes for 4×4 capability and electrification,” Morrison tells PopSci. “Over these years, we have been learning more and more about how electrification is accepted by our customers. Magneto 3.0 is exponentially better than 1.0; we learned that instant torque is cool with 1.0, then we learned you can modify it with 2.0, adding 40-inch tires and Dana 60 axles. This year, we took it up to 900 hp with Magneto 3.0, and it’s an absolute beast off road.” 

The automaker says the third time’s the charm with this version, as it expands upon the improbable combination of a six-speed manual transmission with a battery-electric powertrain. I got behind the wheel of Magneto 2.0 in Moab last year with Morrison in the passenger seat, and was impressed by the concept’s rock crawling ability; it held up to the capability everyone expects of a Jeep. 

The sounds of (off-roading) silence

Driving a Magneto and a 4xe, what I noticed most of all was the quiet. In the Magneto, of course, the vehicle is nearly silent, but it’s just a concept at this point and not available to the masses. Details on the upcoming Jeep Recon EV are slim so far, and we’ll be waiting to see what features and range it will include.

Unlike an all-electric Jeep, the Wrangler 4xe or Grand Cherokee 4xe are available now. The vehicles default to the hybrid system, and operating it in E-Save mode on the asphalt conserves the electric capacity for the trails. In the Wrangler 4xe or Grand Cherokee 4xe (those two models boast 21 all-electric miles for the Wrangler 4xe and 26 all-electric miles in the Grand Cherokee), drivers can run nearly the entire Rubicon Trail in California if they want to. 

Off-roading competitor and owner of Barlow Adventures in Arizona, Nena Barlow, has led Jeep tours at the Easter Jeep Safari and tested all three versions of the Magneto on the trails. She’s also a six-time Rebelle Rally competitor, and won the last two years in a Wrangler 4xe. Barlow also cited silence as a key benefit to driving an electrified off-roader, not just for the reduction in noise pollution but for the driving advantages, being more in tune with her vehicle. 

“The power with electric motors is just amazing in terms of the torque, the control, and the quiet,” says Barlow. “Even in the 4xe, being able to run obstacles in electric mode has spoiled me. I kind of get irritated by engine noise now; I want to hear what my tires are doing.”

When tackling challenging terrain, it’s a huge advantage to be able to hear your tires. Drivers can hear if they’re slipping off a rock and evaluate how well the rubber is connecting to the road. There’s a crunching sound on loose terrain, and a different noise when you’re at that threshold of losing adhesion, Barlow says. 

Morrison’s daily driver is a 4xe, and he says the wildlife near his home pay him no mind. “You’re just driving around and suddenly you’re face to face with a deer,” he says. “It’s fun to go off road and connect with nature.” 

Does an electrified Jeep provide enough power?

Some have asked Barlow why she would choose the Wrangler 4xe and not the beastly 6.4-liter V8-carrying Wrangler Rubicon 392 for the Rebelle Rally. The 4xe has the same amount of torque (470 pound-feet) but less horsepower (270 hp versus 470 hp) than the 392, but the 4xe gets twice the range out of one tank of gas. 

Those worried about scraping up the battery pack needn’t fret, because the bellies are well protected. In fact, Barlow has been renting out Wrangler 4xe models to tourists for the past couple of years, and she says if renters can’t find a weak spot, no one can. 

What you’ll notice while off-roading in an electrified Jeep is the pure power to take on big hills with no hesitation. In electric mode, the vehicle pushes forward smoothly and without lag, holding on an ascent without much effort. The bigger challenge may be the charging infrastructure, which Jeep is addressing with solar-powered charging stations at its Badge of Honor trailheads.

“I believe the 4xe is the future,” Barlow says. “It has all the power and great range, and that’s the way we need to be going.” 

Correction on April 25, 2023: This article has been updated to clarify Jeep’s plans for all-electric vehicles, including the Recon EV and Wagoneer EV.

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In August of last year, Toyota announced an additional investment of $2.5 billion in its new battery plant in Liberty, North Carolina. That’s on top of the $1.29 billion the company started with in November of 2021 when the new facility was established. And it’s well before the first battery is made on site, with production scheduled for 2025. It’s Toyota’s first-ever battery plant in North America and will qualify the brand’s vehicles for the $7,500 federal rebate for EVs.

Toyota isn’t waiting on its US battery timeline before pushing its newest plug-in hybrid to the market: the 2023 Prius Prime. Now sporting a larger 13.6 kilowatt-hour battery and a giant boost in all-electric range over the previous generation, the 2023 Prius Prime is the best version the brand has ever launched. And, in our opinion, the best in the Prius lineup.

Here’s what we know about Toyota’s newest plug-in hybrid.

Launched in 1997, the original Prius was touted as the world’s first mass-produced hybrid passenger vehicle. Over the last two decades or so, the Prius’ status has held steady, attracting celebrity fans and making a name for itself as a pioneer. Toyota has taken its learnings from the Prius and created a whole family of hybrid vehicles, boasting fuel efficiency while allaying range anxiety for those who want electrification but don’t wish to go all electric.

The Prius Prime, which was introduced in 2012, is the plug-in version of the popular hybrid. The Prime offers a key advantage over the typical Prius: it offers all-electric driving. For 2023, the Prius Prime SE now comes with up to 44 miles of all-electric range, a whopping 75 percent more than the 2022 offers. The XSE and XSE Premium models are boosted to up to 39 miles, as they are a bit heavier than the SE version.

The 44-mile number is notable because it exceeds the average number of miles Americans commute every day. According to research from AAA, people in the US drove about 33 miles per day in 2021, but the US Department of Transportation says that number was closer to 37 per day as of May of 2022 as the pandemic effect started to abate.

[Related: Hyundai’s new Ioniq 6 is a long-range EV with Art Deco vibes]

Toyota says it takes about 11 hours to recharge the Prius Prime with a household 120-volt outlet. Practically, you could plug in your car and a coffee maker at the same time. For faster charging, it takes four hours using a 240-volt outlet or home charger. And, of course, once the all-electric range runs out, the hybrid kicks in and you’ll enjoy fuel efficiency of about 52 miles per gallon in the SE trim or 48 mpg in the XSE and XSE Premium versions. 

The automaker launched its reborn 2023 Prius hybrid at the end of 2022. It has significantly more power – Toyota increased the horsepower by 60 percent, from 121 to 194, and the Prius is showing off its improvements in a sleek new body. As a follow up, the Prius Prime takes that a step further. Using the same 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine as the regular Prius, the Prime squeezes out 220 horsepower. 

Aside from the power surge, why would anyone choose the Prius Prime over a regular Prius? By the numbers,  the latter offers more overall range (644 miles versus 600 miles) and a lower price tag (the Prius is $28,545 versus the Prius Prime at $33,445). Plus,  the Prime is available only with front-wheel drive while the Prius is offered with electric all-wheel drive. Aside from that 44-mile all-electric range, the Prime’s advantage comes down to speed. 

With an all-electric battery pack pushing the Prius Prime, the car can zoom from zero to 60 miles per hour in a swift 6.6 seconds. For reference, that’s 0.4 seconds faster than a Prius and only slightly slower than Toyota’s GR86 sports car. Consider that the manufacturer’s RAV4 Prime, which has a 0-60 time of 5.7 seconds, is second only to the Supra sports car in Toyota’s lineup. That may explain why dealerships have a hard time keeping RAV4 Prime models on the lot, and the same is likely to be true for the Prius Prime. 

The post Toyota Prius Prime upgrades make the famous hybrid go faster, for longer appeared first on Popular Science.

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For decades, Automobili Lamborghini has built its reputation on creating supercars with large-displacement engines. Mid-mounted naturally aspirated V12 combustion engines have been its signature since the debut of the classically stunning Miura in 1966.

But change is on the horizon, and Lamborghini’s rivals at Ferrari and McLaren have already begun the shift toward turbocharged smaller-displacement engines to maximize efficiency. Characteristically, Lamborghini is plotting a different course. Battery-electric Lamborghinis are on the CAD screens of the company’s engineers, but before they debut, Lamborghini aims to give its naturally aspirated V12 models a fitting send-off with a hybrid-electric assist.

The Revuelto is that V12 tribute model. As is customary, the car’s name comes from a traditional Spanish fighting bull. Revuelto was famous in 1880, so you’re forgiven if you haven’t heard of him. The word means “mixed up,” and it was chosen in reference to the Revuelto’s combination of combustion and electric power. The bull was said to be mixed up because eight different times he leapt out of the ring into the crowd in the stands.

The Revuelto is a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle

In a step toward the electric future, Lamborghini has for the first time ever added a plug-in hybrid drivetrain that boosts efficiency and, crucially, lets the Revuelto drive into the fashionable city centers of Europe, where there are often prohibitions on combustion power. This is only the first from Lamborghini, which will electrify its entire portfolio in coming years, states chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann during my visit to Lamborghini’s Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy headquarters to view the Revuelto.

“The Miura and Countach established the V12 engine as an icon of Lamborghini,” notes Winkelmann. 

“However, things change and we have new challenges in front of us right here and right now,” he continues. “Geopolitics are a constant companion to all of our planning.” 

The company will roll out a hybrid-electric Huracan by the end of 2024, with the first battery-electric cars arriving in 2028 or 2029. Considering the likely finite lifespan of the Revuelto, one might expect that Lamborghini would make the vehicle simply an evolutionary development, but instead they went the extra mile with a full redesign. 

The Revuelto features an all-new carbon fiber platform, an all-new combustion engine, an all-new transmission, and even a new drivetrain layout in the chassis. The chassis is 10 percent lighter and 25 percent stiffer than before, and employs a new carbon fiber front impact structure in place of the Aventador’s aluminum structure.

The Revuelto’s V12 engine, explained 

The new 814-horsepower, 6.5-liter, L545 V12 engine still rides behind the cockpit, nestled in an all-aluminum rear subframe that is where the rear suspension attaches. At a time when rivals’ engines are muted by turbochargers, you’ll hear the Revuelto’s song better than ever, because the L545 now spins to a 9,500-rpm rev limit and explodes each combustion stroke with the force of a 12.6:1 compression ratio rather than the Aventador’s 11.8:1 ratio.

This 12-cylinder beast is even 37 pounds lighter than the Aventador’s power plant. As the Revuelto contains the last Lamborghini V12, we can chart the progress from the original engine in the Miura, which displaced 3.5 liters, spun to 6,500 rpm and churned out 280 horsepower under the more optimistic rating system of that era.

The Miura’s V12 rode side saddle, bolted transversely across the back of the cockpit, with its transaxle behind it. Its replacement, the Countach, rotated the V12 90 degrees into a longitudinal position and routed power to a transmission installed ahead of the engine. This “Longitudinale Posteriore” location was the source of the Countach’s LP500 designation, and the layout has remained that way ever since.

Until now. The Revuelto’s 8-speed dual-clutch paddle-shifted transmission was designed by Lamborgini’s engineers and is built by Graziano, the same company that built the Aventador’s transmission and also supplies them to McLaren for that company’s sports cars like the Artura, which is also a plug-in hybrid. The Aventador’s single-clutch automated manual transmission was consistently criticized for clunky shifts, so the buttery smooth action of the new dual clutch should be a dramatic improvement, especially in urban driving.

The gearbox contains a 147.5-hp electric motor from Germany’s Mahle that boosts the power going to the road. The electric motor also serves as the V12’s starter, and provides the Revuelto’s reverse function, eliminating the need for a reverse gear in the transmission. This motor can also work as a generator, letting the combustion engine recharge the battery pack when driving in Recharge mode.

This gearbox is a transverse design, mounted behind the longitudinal engine, which provides abundant packaging benefits. But crucially for the hybrid-electric Revuelto, this location leaves the car’s center tunnel vacant, so there is space there now for the car’s 3.8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack.

The Revuelto’s battery and electric motors 

Yes, 3.8 kWh is a tiny battery. Lamborghini engineers wanted to minimize the amount of mass the battery would add to the car, and the short six miles of electric-only driving range should be enough to get the Revuelto to the trendy urban club’s valet parking line on electric power. 

The Revuelto is all-wheel drive thanks to a pair of 147.5-hp electric motors under the front hood. These are Yasa axial flux motors from Britain, another similarity to the McLaren Artura, which also employs compact pancake-shaped axial-flux motors.

The V12 and trio of electric motors produce a combined 1,000 horsepower. Remember that combustion engines and electric motors produce their peak power at different speeds, so you can’t just add up the peak power of all the motors in a hybrid system to calculate the actual horsepower total. They combine to push the Revuelto to 60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds and to a top speed of more than 219 mph.

Revuelto’s performance also benefits from advanced aerodynamics in a body shell that incorporates extra space for improved comfort. There’s an extra inch of headroom to make it easier to operate while wearing a helmet for track driving and the added 3.3 inches of legroom is a blessing, as the front wheel wells intrude into the footwell of mid-engine cars like the Revuelto.

Despite the added size, the Revuelto optimizes the balance between drag and downforce using adaptive aerodynamics, such as a rear wing that can lie flat for less drag or stand up for traction-boosting downforce. The transverse transmission leaves more space under the car’s rear, so the diffuser ramps upward at a steeper angle, contributing to the 74 percent increase in rear downforce.

At the front, downforce is increased by 33 percent thanks to a complex front splitter. That’s the chin jutting out from beneath the front bumper, and on the Revuelto it has a radial leading edge in the center between the headlights and slanted outer edges that provide downforce and create vortices (like the ones you might see off airplane wing tips in humid air) to push airflow away from the drag-inducing front tires.

The engine is exposed (kind of) 

Revuelto’s coolest styling detail is its exposed engine. While typical cars have their engines covered with sheet metal hoods, and exhibitionist supercars have recently showcased their power plants beneath glass covers, the Revuelto’s combustion V12 is on proud display through an opening in the engine cover. At least, it appears to be. That’s because the engine wears a plastic cover that looks like a crinkle-finish intake plenum, so that is what is actually visible from outside the car. 

The engine’s exhaust note is authentic, even if the engine itself is wearing a mask. Since this is the final V12, and to draw a contrast with turbocharged rivals with fewer cylinders, Lamborghini engineers prioritized Revuelto’s sound, says chief technical officer Rouven Mohr. “It is not only about the numbers,” he says, referring to the car’s impressive performance. “It is also about the heart. The sound. And the Revuelto is the best-sounding Lamborghini ever.”

Engineers specifically targeted the sharp frequencies in the engine’s exhaust note to cultivate a mellower bellow, he explains. And in an unprecedented Lamborghini capability, the car’s six miles of pure electric driving range means that you can also drive completely silently when exiting your neighborhood in the morning. Your neighbors will surely think this combination of roar and snore is the best kind of “mixed up” at 6 am.

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The Dodge brand leans heavily into performance, with commercials talking about “the brotherhood of muscle” and cars with names like “Demon” and “Hellcat.” So it’s no surprise that when releasing its first electrified vehicle, Dodge came up with a crossover to meet the market demand for family-friendly vehicles that includes a concession to in-your-face swagger. The new vehicle is called the Hornet, and it’s available in both a gas-only (GT) and a plug-in hybrid version (R/T).

Chris Piscitelli, one of the designers of the all-new Hornet, says the vehicle’s stinging-insect namesake is “a nasty little thing.” He says that with a mischievous grin, clearly happy with the association; the five-seater exudes intentional personality. In both drive and looks, the Hornet exhibits the Dodge legacy in the form of a small SUV that feels more like a hot hatch than a family car. 

The Hornet R/T (that stands for road/track) offers a unique feature called PowerShot. When the driver chooses Sport mode and pulls both paddle shifters (for changing gears in manual mode) simultaneously, the system tacks on a bonus 30 horsepower. Then, stepping on the accelerator and mashing it down through a palpable click triggers a mechanism called a detent that tells the car to get moving. Pronto.

Dodge’s first electrified vehicle

This is Dodge’s first foray into electrification, and the brand is not taking any chances with its reputation. In its base iteration, the Hornet G/T is propelled by a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine that Dodge labeled the Hurricane4. As a plug-in hybrid, the Hornet R/T combines a turbo four-cylinder 1.3-liter engine and a single electric motor mounted to the rear axle, and together it’s good for 288 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque. During the presentation, Dodge representatives said the Hornet’s closest competitor is the Mazda CX-5, which gets 256 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque.

Dodge vehicle synthesis senior manager Brian Del Pup has worked with the automotive companies under the Stellantis umbrella (including Dodge and Chrysler) for the last two decades or so. He says the team pushed the Hornet to be as true to the brand as possible, stretching the limits of what a typical crossover—like a Subaru Outback or a Honda HR-V—might be.

“A lot of [crossovers] are appliances, and people buy them to get from point A to point B and that’s it,” Del Pup tells PopSci. “There’s a lot of things that we did with this vehicle to make it fun and make it stick out. It’s a plug-in hybrid, but that wasn’t the focus. The focus was, ‘Hey, how much performance can we get out of this architecture?’ And ‘How can we make it perform like a sports car?’ It had to feel and drive like a Dodge.”

Part of that vision included the PowerShot for the Hornet PHEV, complete with the detent that requires mashing the pedal to the floor. Other vehicles use that type of tactile click to indicate the pedal is near the end of travel, and it announces the initiation of a more aggressive maneuver. 

During testing, Del Pup was sitting in the passenger seat and encouraged me to press the accelerator more firmly until I could feel it; soon we were traveling at a much higher rate of speed as though we were experiencing a tiny wrinkle in time. 

Boosting the power, 15 seconds at a time

In the Hornet R/T, a PowerShot activation shaves 1.5 seconds from the 0-to-60 time for a total of 5.6 seconds from a dead stop. That said, the feature doesn’t offer a never-ending buffet of power boosts. Depending on the battery health and state of charge, the actual boost will vary, and it lasts for about 15 seconds. 

“[PowerShot works best] at a higher state of charge and when the battery is at temperatures that high-voltage batteries like, which is around 72 degrees,” Del Pup explains. “When you deviate from that, it will still allow a PowerShot, but it may take some away based on where the system is.”

It also requires a 15-second cooldown period between activations. Unlike a video game, however, it doesn’t limit the total number of PowerShots per drive. 

Plugging the Hornet R/T into a Level 2 charger fills up the battery in about 2.5 hours, Dodge says. The 15.5-kilowatt-hour battery pack is capable of 30 miles of all-electric driving under ideal conditions, which is about three miles short of the average American commute (according to AAA). The EPA hasn’t released fuel economy numbers for the R/T, but we expect those to beat the 21 miles per gallon city/29 miles per gallon highway numbers from the Hornet GT. 

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It’s hard to go faster on the road than in a Formula One car, which can reach top speeds of 220 miles per hour. The so-called pinnacle of motorsport races takes place around the world, from Australia to Sao Paulo. And after an exciting week of preseason testing, the 2023 season got underway at the Bahrain International Circuit on March 5. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen won for Red Bull Racing, with his teammate Sergio Perez in second. There are 20 drivers across 10 teams in F1, and none of the other 18 drivers finished within 30 seconds of Verstappen. Only time will tell if the other teams will be able to catch up.

Below F1 are Formula Two and Formula Three, which are called the feeder series, and function in a similar fashion to baseball’s minor leagues. They’re mostly young drivers attempting to prove their worth by competing against each other for a spot in the big leagues. It’s how most drivers gain one of the 20 seats currently available in F1. (All three F1 rookies this season, Nyck DeVries, Oscar Piastri, and Logan Sargeant, drove at least one season in F2.)

But like any other vehicle with an internal combustion engine, Formula One vehicles burn fossil fuels, which is a problem in a world that must decarbonize to combat climate change. Beyond the 20 Formula One cars racing on tracks every other weekend, there are the massive transportation costs to move the teams and drivers across the globe and the millions of fans traveling to and from the racing circuits.

The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), Formula One’s governing body, realizes that. In November 2019, F1 and the FIA announced plans to become fully carbon neutral by the end of 2030, and the plans to make that transition are already underway. 

Formula One currently uses a hybrid fuel that’s 10% biofuel and will make the transition to fully renewable fuels in 2026, meaning all carbon output by the cars will be offset by the production of the fuel. There will be other regulatory changes as well. 

Now, F1 has announced that their feeder series will be following along. Starting with the opening sprint race of the 2023 season at Bahrain last weekend, F2 and F3 cars will use a blend consisting of 55% “Advanced Sustainable Fuel.” And by 2027, according to The Race, the feeder series aim to use a type of sustainable, carbon-captured fuel called e-fuel.

What are sustainable fuels?

“Sustainable fuel” is a catch-all term for a bunch of different alternative ways of producing fuels for planes and cars with the goal of reducing their carbon footprint. It includes biofuels, which recycle organic materials into fuel (this is what F1’s hybrid fuel is) but also carbon-capturing e-fuels that are made by taking carbon from the air, which is what F2 and F3 plan to switch to in 2027. But what all sustainable fuels have in common are their low net carbon emissions.

When it comes to e-fuels created by carbon capture, Nikita Pavlenko, the fuel program lead at the International Council on Clean Transportation, says there are two different sources—getting it directly from the atmosphere, or getting it from smokestacks: “You have a fuel that is pretty close to zero carbon, just produced from renewable electricity and carbon dioxide captured from the air or from a smokestack.” While F1 is allowed to source their carbon from so-called point sources (Pavlenko says this is almost always taken from smokestacks), F2 and F3’s fuel must be fully sourced by direct-air carbon capture technology.

That strict direct-air carbon capturing is what differentiates e-fuel from biofuels and other sustainable power sources, and according to Pavlenko, it’s a very new technology. The F2 and F3 experiments will be one of the first large-scale applications of e-fuel, which has implications for the future of transportation. Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, the chief technology officer at Aramco, who will supply the e-fuel, tells The Race that the FIA understands this is a hard goal to reach because of how underdeveloped carbon capture technologies are but is committed to setting the course. 

Pavlenko says he’s excited that F1 is pursuing e-fuels, because of their very prohibitive cost. “F1 would be one of the use cases that’s best able to support the cost difference,” he says. “It’s a relatively small quantity [in relation to the quantity of non-sustainable fuels] and I assume there’s a high willingness to pay.”

Even better: EVs

There are some concerns, however. The FIA will have to ensure that its e-fuel is made using renewable energy sources. Much like electric cars, producing e-fuel using electricity created by fossil fuels simply moves the source of emissions rather than limits it. In addition, Palvenko says that e-fuel generally has more applications in aviation than on the road, where using electric vehicles is the generally best way to go.

In the past 20 years, F1 has exploded in popularity, thanks to new ownership and a series on Netflix. But as it’s gone global, it’s come under increasing scrutiny for its sustainability, or lack thereof. The FIA is making an effort, however. Even before the fuel changes, F1’s sister electric-only series Formula E launched in 2014. Only time will tell if the two series will eventually merge, but anyone who’s watched Formula E can confirm that the racing is just as electric as the cars are.

The post How the Formula races plan to power their cars with more sustainable fuel appeared first on Popular Science.

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You can barely throw a rock in America without hitting a Honda Accord. More than 12.5 million Accords have been sold in North America since 1982, and Honda says 98 percent of those were built in the USA. The latest iteration of Honda’s Accord is now available, and it packs in some new tech upgrades along with improvements to the hybrid powertrain.

Here’s what’s new under the hood, and what it’s like to drive it.

Solid lines, subtle updates

There have been ten previous generations of Accords, and this model kicks off its eleventh. The 2023 Accord is a product of Honda’s intention to amp up its hybrid sales. Honda is actively chasing a 50 percent sales target for the hybrid versions of the Accord, and of its six trims, only the two lowest of the bunch are offered with a gas-only, no-electric-motor option. It’s clear that Honda is checking a box for gas-only fans as a transition, while gently steering its customers away from the lesser trim levels.

And for good reason: While it looks and feels very familiar, the newest Accord hybrid has been to the gym. It’s pumped up with a strengthened core and tweaked powertrain that’s more efficient.

The freshest Accord in the stable is longer and broader than the previous generation, giving Honda’s cash-cow sedan a sleeker profile and a livelier front end that one might attribute to a sportier vehicle. That’s due, in part, to structural updates to the chassis with new brace bars that increase the rigidity of the ride; the result is a smoother ride that absorbs mild bumps in the road like a member of a top-tier college marching band glides across the football field at halftime.  

The lineup starts at $28,390 for the gas-only Accord LX model. Then, the first hybrid skips over the EX (also a gas-only model) up to the Sport for $32,990. At the top of the lineup, the Touring trim is decked out with all the goodies, along with the hybrid powertrain, for $38,985 and up.

Engineered with electrification in mind

Behind the wheel, I expected a pleasant ride, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Accord hasn’t lasted for 11 generations for nothing, after all. It’s an all-around favorite, with solid fuel economy figures (44-48 mpg combined for the hybrid and 32 mpg combined for the gas-only trims) and plenty of value packed in for the price.

Testing out the new Accord Touring in each of its three main drive modes (Normal, Eco, and Sport), I found that Normal makes the most sense for the majority of the time. Reserve the Eco mode only for long highway drives when you’re already moving at a good clip, because the stunted acceleration is a bummer otherwise. Sport mode was the most exciting, with a zip that made it easy to pass and merge from highway ramps onto the freeway. It also adds a weightier feel to the steering, which firms up the driving experience.

[Related: Pete Buttigieg on how to improve the deadly track record of US drivers]

Honda opted to equip the hybrid models (Sport, EX-L, Sport-L, and Touring) with an all-new 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine paired with the same two-motor hybrid-electric system that debuted in the 2023 Honda CR-V. Together, the Accord hybrid is good for 204 horsepower and 247 pound-feet of torque. Gas-only models may be cheaper, but they sacrifice horsepower, torque, and fuel efficiency in the exchange.

The two-motor hybrid system includes an electric generator motor, which supplies power to the battery; an electric propulsion motor to drive the front wheels; an Atkinson-cycle gas engine that feeds power to the battery and propulsion motor; a new, smaller intelligent power unit that protects and controls the battery; and a power control unit that acts as the brains of the hybrid system. 

There’s a prominent button on the console with an “e” printed on it in stylized script, and pushing it notifies the Accord to maximize your electric drive mode as much as possible, defaulting to electric over gas.

“[Pressing the button] doesn’t necessarily make the vehicle more efficient,” says Chris Martin, a communications manager with American Honda. “Let’s say you are trying to pull quietly out of your driveway or out of your neighborhood. You have to manage the throttle carefully to avoid activating the gas engine, and by pushing this button the car is going to require you to give it a little bit more throttle before it engages the gas engine. Kind of like a quiet mode.”

What’s different about the 2023 Accord hybrid system?

Previously, Honda situated the two motors in-line longitudinally, with the generator motor connected directly to the engine and the propulsion motor connected to the front wheels. Engineers for the new Accord hybrid nestled the two electric motors side-by-side instead (in the same configuration used in the new CR-V) allowing for the propulsion motor to be bigger and stronger. Honda eschewed heavy rare-earth metals for this system, which contributes to a higher top speed. The new 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine brings a promise of reduced emissions, with 22 percent less nitrogen oxides and 24 percent less total hydrocarbon emissions.

Martin says the entire core package has been improved in many ways, with an eye on improving handling and making the car quieter, smoother, and safer. The Accord chassis itself is responsible for many of the improvements that improve the drive versus the prior model. 

While Honda’s hybrids don’t claim one-pedal driving—the brand calls it “one-pedal like”—the Accord hybrid comes close. (One-pedal driving allows the driver to use just the accelerator without moving their foot to the brake, as the car slows or even stops as soon as they lift their foot off the accelerator. That’s a big benefit in stop-and-go traffic, when a light tap to the accelerator is all you need to move forward.) The new Accord features paddle shifters on the left and right side that control the amount of braking regeneration up to six levels; on the maximum regeneration setting the vehicle will slow considerably when you take your foot off the accelerator. The four-wheel disc brakes are slightly squishy, so prepare to press down a little further than expected.

On the technology front, the new Accord receives over-the-air software updates, making it easy for Honda to push out updates and plug any potential problems. Honda gifted its sedan with a camera offering a 90-degree field of view in the front, which is nearly double the amount on the previous Accord. And the radar was relocated behind the Honda logo on the grille, which bumped up its field of detection from 50 degrees to an astonishing 120 degrees. This, combined with updated driver-assist technology, helps to avoid collisions and more easily discerns objects from people and signs, for example. 

Honda uses a Google built-in system that’s standard on the top Touring trim, including Google Maps and Google Play enhanced by a speech-to-text service that also controls interior functions like climate control. 

Tip-toeing into the EV age

Much like Toyota has been saying for several years, as well as supercar makers like Lamborghini, Honda is not rushing headlong into the EV age with the purpose of being first. The brand seems content to take it slow. Honda has said publicly that it’s committed to 100 percent electric vehicles by 2040. The pathway to get them there, though, is not just to start selling all EVs right now, Martin says. Their first EV will be the Prologue in 2024, which Martin refers to as a “toe in the water for the next generation of EVs.”

Last year, Honda launched the CR-V hybrid and hoped to incentivize customers to make the switch with attractive two-year lease deals. That stopgap allows the brand to hold onto electric-hungry customers, marking time until the all-electric Prologue SUV is ready for its debut. 

“We’ve got more than the Prologue coming,” Martin says with a wink in his voice. “We haven’t announced a lot of things, but obviously as we’re going to be selling a hundred percent [EVs] by 2040 there are a lot of other products in the pipeline.”

In the meantime, car buyers can climb into the muscular 2023 Accord and enjoy both the legacy this sedan offers plus all of the new technology and engineering Honda brought to the table.

The post Honda’s newest Accord hybrid is a sleek, brawny beast appeared first on Popular Science.

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The name Lamborghini evokes powerful acceleration and large engines, with oodles of cylinders and a sound to match. But the supercar builder isn’t blind to the electrification movement. And while Lamborghini is not yet phasing out its thundering herd of combustion engines, the brand is moving towards a compromise that feels true to itself: internal combustion plus an electric motor. 

In 2019, Italy’s Raging Bull automaker teased its future with a hybrid, the V12 Sián FKP 37. The vehicle went above and beyond with 819 horsepower, the company’s most powerful model ever. However, with a $3.5 million price tag, it wasn’t made for the masses (nor even an average Lamborghini buyer). Only 63 were made in honor of the year Lamborghini was founded, and collectors snapped them up quickly. The Sián, which means “lightning” in Italian, contains a 48-volt electric motor that adds 34 horsepower to V12; it was made to showcase the brand’s capabilities and show a hint of what’s to come. Here’s what’s next.

Vitamin V12 deficient

The leadership team is making it clear that it’s not the right time for the Raging Bull to go all electric. All in due time, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann says.

“If you would have asked me five or six years ago, I would have been convinced that hybridization would happen, but I’d have my doubts on the execution and acceptance,” Winkelmann told PopSci. “Now, it’s a generational issue. We have a lot of young fans who are telling us we’re on the right path in terms of sustainability.”

While an all-electric vehicle is slated to be revealed in 2028, Lamborghini is first launching a hybrid-powertrain successor to its top-of-the-line Lamborghini Aventador sports car before the end of Q1 2023. 

[Related: Behind the wheel of the thunderous Lamborghini Aventador]

“We have to take care that we have this kind of emotional attachment, but always the technology will find a way,” Lamborghini chief technical officer Rouven Mohr told PopSci. “Even if I personally like the combustion [engine], it would be a mistake to think that there will be no tipping point.”

Mohr says they are not following the engine-downsizing trend, pairing a smaller powerplant with an electric motor to compensate for power. The plan is to take existing internal-combustion vehicles and add power in the form of electricity, so the electric motor isn’t a replacement but an enhancement, with the benefit of hopefully fewer CO2 emissions.  

Rumors hold that the follow up to the Huracán, which is more compact and less expensive than the Aventador, will be a V8 hybrid, which is a smaller engine than the current V10. Whether or not the whispers are true, Lamborghini isn’t yet willing to say. It’s too soon to talk about that, Winkelmann told PopSci.

The heart of the bull

In the last couple of years, the automotive market has flipped inside out. The pandemic affected the supply chain in ways no one anticipated, but even more surprising to Lamborghini was the uptake of luxury products in the aftermath. Lamborghini broke its own sales records for 2022, delivering 9,233 vehicles worldwide: that’s a stunning ten percent over the sales figures for 2021. Lamborghini launched its SUV, the Urus, in 2017, which has been an explosive seller for the brand. Winkelmann says 80 percent of its new customers are Urus buyers; breaking into the SUV segment also helps attract more female buyers.

In the meantime, in 2021 Lamborghini shared the details of its Direzione Cor Tauri (“Heart of the Bull”) program, which lays out a roadmap for a nearly two billion dollar cash infusion. This, the highest-ever investment in the company’s history, translates directly to the development of hybrid and all-electric cars to get the Italian automaker primed for the switch to EVs in the next few years. That funding will be welcome as the automaker shifts its design and production to include electrification. Software and its upkeep will be another significant line item as driver-assist technology advances.

[Related: Behind the wheel of McLaren’s hot new hybrid supercar, the Artura]

Machine learning, for example, will allow engineers to do new things. Imagine there’s a kind of algorithm Lamborghini could use to train its motorsports teams to be better drivers on the track. “You can have an intelligent stability control, for example, that understands exactly your driving style, analyzes it, and helps you enter the corners [more efficiently],” Mohr said.

It may seem incongruous to tie advanced driver-assist tech to a supercar for people who love to geek out on cars and live to drive. What’s the attraction of a car that takes over for you when a car like a Lamborghini Huracan—or even the Urus SUV—is designed for the sheer pleasure of driving it? The technologies Lamborghini is looking at can enable a driver to improve their driving skills and enjoy the limits of the car, Mohr says.

The sounds of silence

For the 2023 Rolex 24 endurance race at Daytona International Speedway this month, Lamborghini fielded five teams: four in the GT Daytona class and one in the GT Daytona Pro category. The distinctive sound of the Raging Bull Huracáns echoed across the lanes, its voice calling out clearly. One of those teams was the only all-female lineup, the Iron Dames, piloting a can’t-miss-it hot pink Huracán. 

Motorsports like this endurance race give manufacturers a chance for research and development in high-stress situations for the cars. It also gives them an ear to the ground to listen to the fan base and get more insight on what’s needed to improve. 

What Lamborghini is hearing now is that the younger generation is demanding more sustainability, and they want to see change. The other is an open question about a personality crisis for supercars when EVs take over. EVs are much quieter than combustion engines, and that will affect not just motorsports events but everyday satisfaction while driving the cars. 

Mohr, who grew up admiring a poster of a purple Lamborghini Diablo on his wall, says he’s not about to let the brand lose its grip on the super sports car community. While both he and Winkelmann say they don’t have an answer to the sound question quite yet, they know it’s going to be uniquely Lamborghini. 

Mohr says people often suggest to him that he might have enjoyed working for Lamborghini 20 years ago instead of today, but he disagrees. “I say no, because from the engineering perspective, you now have much more freedom,” Mohr says. “To influence this kind of new generation of cars, this is a good change. I want to ensure that in 20 years I still like to buy cars, and if they are only boring cars, it will be really a mess. Because at the moment, to be honest, there are a lot of boring cars on the market that I will not buy. And I can see that in the electric world the dream of Lamborghini is continuing on. It’s pretty exciting.” 

The Huracán and other models by the Bull remain a touchstone goal for many, and Mohr welcomes the challenge to make sure it lives up to its reputation as it shifts into hybrid, and eventually all-electric, mode. 

“The favorite part of my job is the fact that I can influence the dream cars,” Mohr tells PopSci. “Because at the end of the day, every Lamborghini is a dream. It’s not like [with] volume manufacturers, they [launch] a kind of icon of the brand every 20 years. In our case, you work permanently with dreams.”

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Since the launch of its unfortunately named MP4-12C sports car in 2011, McLaren Automotive has built every vehicle using a version of the same carbon fiber chassis and V8 engine. A decade later, McLaren is launching version 2.0 of the company’s product line, with a new hybrid-electric V6 powertrain bolted into an all-new carbon fiber chassis tub structure. 

The vehicle embodying this change is called the Artura. It is McLaren’s first production hybrid and it signals the direction for the rest of the company’s products. Their very first hybrid was the limited-production P1 hypercar, and the Artura shows how this technology has trickled down to more mass-produced models.

Shredding the curves and catapulting down the straights of the infield road course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the $289,000 (as tested; base price is $233,000) Artura convincingly upholds the legends of Mika Hakkinen, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Emerson Fittipaldi, and other famous drivers who’ve piloted McLaren Formula 1 cars to world championships.

The howling turbocharged V6 engine would have been right at home in Prost and Senna’s ‘80s turbo-era McLarens, though at 3.0 liters, the Artura’s engine is double the size of the power plants in those old race cars. Senna would have envied the alacrity of the Artura’s shifts in comparison to the H-pattern transmission of his F1 car at that time.

Impressively, despite the wholesale change of hardware, McLaren has managed to preserve the feel that the Artura is still a McLaren. The bodywork is born of the same family as existing models like the 720S, the cockpit feels similar, and the driving dynamics put me right into a McLaren frame of mind.

Like legos 

This new carbon fiber platform is even stiffer and lighter than the one the company has used previously in vehicles like the 600LT or 720S, thanks to an additional decade of know-how. More importantly, it is made from 72 pre-formed sections of carbon fiber rather than the 500 separate pieces used by technicians previously. This reduces the variability and accelerates the manufacturing process. “We’ve had a big reduction in the hours needed to make it,” reports chief engineer Geoff Grose. “It is a more consistent process than with human intervention.”

The Artura’s new M360 engine is a V6 arranged with 120 degrees between the two banks of three cylinders. Sixty degrees is the norm for clean-sheet V6s. (V6s created by slicing two cylinders off a V8 are 90-degree engines, but those require balance shafts to offset their inherent imbalance.) For the next generation of its engines, McLaren has gone to a much flatter 120-degree V-shape that mounts the turbochargers inside that shallow valley atop the engine rather than on the outside as is normal practice. This contributes to a lower center of gravity for the Artura, which lets the car change direction more easily.

This engine is made as small as possible by the use of 3D printing to create the sand cores used to cast its block and heads. The features inside this engine are too small to create by conventional techniques, according to Grose. “It allows the shortest possible gaps between the cylinder bores, just 2mm,” he says. “That is a really tight, thin core. This 3D printing technology is really good for enabling that.”

It’s electric

Computer optimization modeling apparently points to this 120-degree turbo V6 engine layout, as it is the same arrangement Ferrari reached for the 296GTB, that company’s analog to the Artura. This combustion engine churns out 577 horsepower and 431-lb.ft. of torque. 

But wait, there’s more! The Artura also includes a compact, lightweight electric motor bolted between the M360 engine and the Artura’s new dual-clutch transmission.

[Related: Why plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles are worth a look right now]

This electric motor produces 94 horsepower and 166 lb.-ft. of torque, with the e-motor’s torque contribution coming at the lower end of the combustion’s torque curve. The result is a peak of 671 hp and 531 lb.-ft. in combined output. More importantly, the duo’s combined torque delivery is nearly constant from low rpm, so the Artura accelerates out of turns more like an electric car.

Together, the electric and gas motors push the Artura to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds and across the quarter mile in 10.7 seconds. The EPA Miles Per Gallon Equivalent rating is 39 MPGe, thanks to the plug-in hybrid’s battery. The big improvement over the Artura’s 18 mpg when running on gas only illustrates how the plug-in system not only fortifies low-speed power for acceleration, but also delivers fuel-sipping efficiency.

Getting in gear

The Artura clicks up through the gears seamlessly thanks to its eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. The computer can do these shifts for you, or you can click the steering wheel-mounted shift paddles. Ferrari and Lamborghini fix the paddles to the steering column so that they are always where the driver expects them. In McLarens they turn with the steering wheel, like they do in race cars. 

However, the steering wheels on race cars never turn so far that the driver has to reposition their hands, so they can always click up with the right paddle and down with the left.  Street car steering wheels, on the other hand, crank through a couple turns from one side to the other, leaving the driver with no idea where the shift paddles are when turning. However, it is unusual to do much shifting while turning so much, so maybe this quirk doesn’t really matter.

[Related: Anyone can drive a supercar, but truly tapping its potential is another matter]

The transmission is all-new, with eight speeds in place of the previous seven. Some of the extra space for the added gear came from the elimination of the reverse gear. Now, the Artura just spins its electric motor the other direction to move the car backwards. The car has an electric-only top speed of 81 mph, so in theory, the Artura would be able to go up through the gears to reach that same speed while going backwards, but I did not test this theory. The EPA says it will go 11 miles on electric power alone.

Overall top speed is 205 mph, which also went untested because there is no space for such velocity at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and no permission for such speed on the wide-open desert roads in Nevada where the car could actually achieve terminal velocity. Hunter S. Thompson would likely have pumped the Artura’s tires up to 80 psi and given it a go (as he claimed to have done with his Cadillac in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), but I have a stronger aversion to breaking the law than he apparently did.

Under pressure

You’ll know all about the Artura’s tire pressure because the car’s new Pirelli P-Zero Corsa tires have pressure sensors embedded into the tires themselves rather than mounted on the wheel at the fill valve. This allows a more accurate measurement, according to McLaren, letting the car understand when the driver has intentionally reduced tire pressure for more grip while driving at the racetrack. This prevents the computer from giving low-pressure warnings when the driver has intentionally lowered the pressure.

McLaren has preserved its hydraulic power steering system for the Artura, eschewing the electric power steering others use for the superior steering feel provided by a hydraulic system. Because the combustion engine switches off at times, the hydraulic pump is electric-powered so the steering doesn’t care what the engine is doing.

Speaking of turning, you’ll need to slow the Artura down from time to time, and McLaren continues to set the industry standard in brakes. While Lamborghini’s carbon ceramic brakes are comfortable to drive on the street, they get vague and imprecise on the track. Other brands like Ferrari and Porsche deliver on the track, but their carbon ceramics are grabby and squeak embarrassingly in street driving. 

In contrast, McLaren’s carbon ceramics are angelic on the streets and devilishly good in the brake zones where you hammer the brake pedal just for turns, exhibiting exemplary behavior in everyday driving and delivering the confidence-inspiring precision and consistency needed to light up the front rotors on my Flux Green track test car. Truly, the best performance in both situations.

McLarens are also known for their ability to deliver both an unexpectedly posh ride in street driving with crisp handling response in mountain switchbacks and the race track. That’s courtesy of the company’s Proactive Chassis Control system of cross-linked hydraulics that uses wheel motion on one side of the car to help manage what happens on the other side.

Instead of that Proactive Chassis Control system, the Artura features Tenneco’s Proactive Damping Control shock absorbers, which are like the computer-controlled active shock absorbers everyone else uses. The Artura is the starting point of McLaren 2.0, so look for Proactive Chassis Control to appear on other models built on the Artura’s new chassis and drivetrain in the future. The Artura’s more commonplace shocks don’t deliver the best-of-both-world’s experience of smooth ride and crisp handling that we’ve come to expect from other McLarens, but pricier future variants surely will.

While the exterior bears a family resemblance to other McLarens, the aluminum skin is “superformed” with a blast of hot air rather than stamped by conventional dies. This permits the car’s crisp character lines and the precise body gaps. My street test car was sprayed in a striking shade called Ember Orange, which was challenging to make practical for mass production, according to Head of Colour and Materials Design, Jo Lewis. It was worth the effort she put into getting Ember Orange from her computer screen to the production line.

Likewise, all of the McLaren 2.0 upgrades are clear successes. The Artura shows that it is possible to preserve continuity without being stuck in the past, as this car delivers the contemporary technology and performance supercar buyers demand.

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A curious phenomenon took hold in the criminal world over the past years, and it has left Toyota Prius hybrids all over the country with a missing underside piece. Thieves have been sliding under the cars with cordless reciprocating saws to slice off the catalytic converter, a key part of the vehicle’s emissions management system.

Prius models from 2004-2009 have become big targets. Green Car Reports says the theft rate for Prius models from those years were more than 40 times higher in 2020 than it was four years earlier, based on information from the Highway Loss Data Institute. But there is a reason that criminals are absconding with this particular component. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) stated in a 2021 release that reduced mining production in recent years have caused prices for rare metals (like those used in catalytic converters) to skyrocket.

What is a catalytic converter and why steal it? 

If your catalytic converter (or cat, for short) is missing, you’ll know pretty quickly. Once you start up the car, it will sound and smell different than usual, as the exhaust gasses will be pushed out straight into the air with no filter. Don’t mistake a cat for a muffler, though. Mufflers and cats are both exhaust system components, but mufflers reduce the pressure of exhaust gasses and catalytic converters convert fumes into less-harmful gasses. 

Inside a catalytic converter, metals like platinum, rhodium, palladium, and a ceramic honeycomb structure work together to break down carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide contained in emissions directly from the engine. Then it traps the harmful molecules and releases outputs like hydrogen, water, and carbon dioxide. 

Theft rings know they can slice-and-grab a cat in a few minutes and sell the part for $1,000 or more. Just last month, federal, state, and local law enforcement partners busted a ring of thieves, dealers, and processors who profited by tens of millions of dollars on stolen catalytic converters. 

Advantages of the new Prius

The new Prius will come with a bigger engine and better, faster-charging batteries. The engine in the 2023 Prius has been upgraded from a 1.8-liter to a 2.0-liter version, and it’s paired to a new lithium-ion battery pack that replaces last year’s nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) version. Lithium-ion batteries are known to charge faster, perform better across various temperature changes, and hold their charges longer than NiMH batteries. Toyota says that this 2023 Prius battery in particular is 14 percent more powerful compared to their previous NiMH battery. Plus, the car’s body style has been improved drastically, featuring a lower roofline, a wider stance, and larger wheels. The 2023 model got a full refresh inside and out. It offers a 60 percent increase in horsepower, 16 percent increase in torque, and a frame that is reinforced for rigidity, which improves the ride quality.  

Should we be concerned about cat theft in the newest generation of the Prius? The brand didn’t say no, but Toyota Prius Chief Engineer Satoki Oya told PopSci that a reduced quantity of rare metals in the newest generation catalytic converter might make it less appealing to thieves. Although looks-wise, it wouldn’t appear too different.

Automotive journalist Amelia Dalgaard reported that the Prius “is particularly attractive to thieves because the cleaner the exhaust, the cleaner the converter, and the more valuable the metals.” It may be tricky to completely cut down on all cat thefts, so automakers will have to continue finding new ways to utilize fewer rare metals. In the meantime, etch your VIN on your catalytic converter to give it a fighting chance for tracking, or consider putting a sensitive alarm on it. 

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Sarah “Bogi” Lateiner’s latest vehicle creation, called “Iron Maven,” made its debut at an automotive trade show last week in all its purple-hued glory. Starting with a 1961 Volvo PV544, Lateiner’s team retrofitted the build with the powertrain from a 2021 Volvo S60 T8 Recharge Polestar Engineered sedan, along with various parts and components from the newer car. 

The result is a vehicle that looks like a 1961 Volvo, but under the vintage hood is a modern Volvo S60. Now completed, the Maven is a feat of mechanical prowess by Lateiner and her leadership. 

“We took the S60 and we cut everything off of the outside of it, keeping the floor, subframes, suspension, and engine,” she said. “Then we welded them together; it’s cut and paste. The big challenge was fitting as much of the electronics and the gadgets and the bells and whistles of the S60 hybrid into the PV544.”

Lateiner stars in MotorTrend’s show “All Girl Garage,” and launched her own laboratory, the Phoenix-based Girl Gang Garage, for special projects like the Maven. Behind the scenes is the real story: About 150 women put their hands on this project at Lateiner’s hometown facility.

Many authors 

At the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas, the air was electric as at least 50 of those women gathered around the custom vehicle filled with pride. It’s challenging enough to fuse the body of a 60-year-old car onto a new vehicle, let alone build it in bits and pieces. Girl Gang Garage welcomed women of all abilities to wrench on the car, and some of them had never worked on any kind of vehicle in the past.

Lateiner led the team each day to layer on a little work at a time toward completion. Each person was encouraged to take a look at what needed to be done and problem solve; there was no blueprint. It was like trying to write a story line by line with different authors, each of which with varying levels of expertise and time allotted.

That’s how Lateiner likes it. She’s trying to kick off a conversation. “I want to shatter the stereotypes [about female mechanics] violently,” she told PopSci with a laugh. “That’s why I choose these crazy projects.”

Iron Maven closeup

Most weird car projects involve endeavors such as swapping out an engine or boosting a 1995 Mustang with eight turbochargers. But it’s rare to see modifications to Volvo vehicles; not many aftermarket parts exist for Volvo mods, and the average enthusiast likely doesn’t think about tearing apart one of these Swedish family cars to create a hot rod. 

Many people don’t know what a Volvo PV544 is to begin with, Lateiner noted. As the Iron Maven, the car is now so heavily modified that people won’t know what it is. That curiosity leads to an exchange about the car and the people behind it.

Colorado Springs-based Volvo technician Porsha Conrad (who worked on the brake lines for Iron Maven with me when I traveled to Lateiner’s garage in June) says Volvos are typically straightforward for making repairs. This concept was technically difficult to build, however, because they had to squeeze the hybrid powertrain into a much smaller car, and the electrification itself was a bit intimidating.

To get a picture of the differences between the vintage PV544 and the S60, the older car was 10 inches shorter and 10.6 inches narrower than the S60. The PV544 had a four-cylinder engine making 40-80 horsepower and the S60 brought a new 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbocharged and supercharged engine to the party. 

In 1961, hybrid setups like what’s in the S60 weren’t even a sparkle in Volvo’s eye, and the Swedish automaker has come a long way to arrive at this power combination. Along with its electric motor, Iron Maven boasts a combined output of 415 hp and 472 pound-feet of torque.

In total, the project took 18 months to complete. Starting with old school bodywork and fabrication, the Girl Gang crafted panels from scratch and 3D-printed door handles and door lock actuators. Lateiner and friends had to accept a certain amount of cutting and welding as part of the process. They sliced open the floor of the PV544 and slashed out the firewall to essentially “fit 15 pounds into a five-pound bag,” Lateiner said. 

After a year and a half, they did it. Chemical company BASF provided the custom Rebelberry paint to get it ready for its appearance at SEMA. Only some of the professional and amateur mechanics, welders, and painters got to see the final build in person, but the results will last way past this show. This is more than a conversation starter.

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Iconic Italian automaker Alfa Romeo is all in on the electrification train, claiming its spot as the first brand under the Stellantis umbrella (created through the merger of car companies Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot S.A.) to go all electric by 2027. 

Alfa Romeo revealed its ambitious plan to release five new vehicles in the next six years, and the first model on that list will be an electrified crossover, the Tonale. This new plug-in hybrid will be available to customers in the US in early 2023 as part of Alfa Romeo’s transition to an EV brand.

With its Dare Forward 2030 strategy, which it announced on March 1, Stellantis committed to selling more than 75 different kinds of battery-electric vehicles, or BEVs. That includes Jeep’s first fully battery-electric SUV launching in early 2023, followed by the Ram ProMaster BEV later next year and the Ram 1500 BEV pickup truck in 2024. Stellantis is also targeting carbon net zero emissions by 2038. Even Alfa Romeo’s stablemate Dodge, famous for producing gas-guzzling muscle cars, is on board with the shift and plans to sell its first fully electric performance model in 2024. 

Some Stellantis brands have been paving the way towards full electrification by first offering a series of hybrids. For example, Jeep’s Wrangler and Grand Cherokee models are available as plug-in hybrids and have been selling quite well. Meanwhile, Americans looking for a rugged EV pickup now have a new option in GMC’s just-announced Sierra EV, competing with the upcoming Ram EV and Chevrolet Silverado EV along with Ford’s already-available F-150 Lightning. 

[Related: Carmakers are pouring billions into producing EV batteries]

The whole trajectory is leaps and bounds away from where executives thought it was heading as recently as a year ago. 

It’s an especially sharp turn for Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, who said at the start of 2022 in an interview that he felt that “electrification is a technology chosen by politicians, not by industry.” However, the industry’s race toward electrification is sweeping up everything in its path, and the pressure from policymakers, as well as the public, are mounting. Many big car makers have stated that they’re onboard, despite progress being slower than expected.

“The people have decided: we will be purely electric,” the company’s European Head Uwe Hochschurtz declared during an interview this month. 

And it seems that most are in favor of Alfa Romeo’s metamorphosis. After the global reveal of the Tonale PHEV in February, a flood of curious virtual tire-kickers made their way to the Alfa Romeo website to learn more. Surprisingly, about 82 percent of website visitors checking out the Tonale are new to Alfa Romeo. This statistic is a good sign for Senior Vice President and Head of Alfa Romeo and Fiat North America Larry Dominique, since the company’s, and industry’s, move to electric cars will require the 113-year-old brand to cater to a new buyer demographic.

Alfa Romeo is profitable and stable for the first time in several years, Dominique says, riding the success of the Giulia performance sedan and the Stelvio SUV. The brand has promised its fealty to the popular Giulia, which will become an EV at some point in the coming year or two. 

“We will still build a flagship sedan and Giulia will be electrified,” Dominique told MotorTrend’s Alissa Priddle in an interview in May. 

While the Stelvio seems to be the logical second act, it seems the production of the all-new Tonale may open the door to other innovations. Currently, Alfa Romeo’s Formula One team is running with a Ferrari V6 turbo hybrid engine in its cars, and Alfa’s production engineering team worked closely with its F1 engineers and drivers to create the Tonale from the ground up. These synergies may spawn a reimagining of the electric-vehicle course as the line between racing and mass production blurs, cross-pollinating the Italian performance brand across the board. 

Head of Alfa Romeo’s F1 group Cristiano Fiorio told PopSci at the Grand Prix in Austin that he fully supports the CO2 reduction goals Stellantis set. The future, for him, is clear. 

“It’s very easy for me because I have two kids, 7 and 11 [years old], and we owe them because we have not done our job [to reduce carbon emissions],” Fiorio said. “Now we don’t have time to wait. There is no other way.” 

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that all new vehicles purchased in the state must be zero-emission models beginning in 2035. To reach this goal, the governor said that 35 percent of new cars will need to be zero-emissions by the year 2026 and 68 percent by 2030. Additionally, all new school buses purchased will have to be zero-emissions by 2027, with the entire fleet meeting these standards by 2035.

“We’re really putting our foot down on the accelerator and revving up our efforts to make sure we have this transition—not someday in the future, but on a specific date, a specific year—by the year 2035,” said Hochul in yesterday’s press conference.

New York is the fourth most populous state in the United States and the second state to mandate zero-emissions vehicles by the year 2035 after California.

[Related: California poised to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars.]

Last month, The California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of gas-powered cars beginning in 13 years. Due to federal regulations, any state-led move to enforce stricter emissions rules must occur first in California. California was authorized with the ability to set its own emissions standards in 1970, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act. This ability to set emissions standards was granted to the populous western state due to smog conditions at the time.

However, the Clean Air Act does have a a provision that prevents states from setting their own emissions. So to use its emission setting power, California must first apply for a waiver with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Once that step is complete, other states can follow.

New York’s State Department of Environmental Conservation has been tasked with implementing the necessary regulations to require that all new passenger cars, pickup trucks, and sport utility vehicles (SUV) sold in New York State will be be zero-emissions by 2035. These regulations were passed last year.

[Related: Everything you need to know about EV tax credits and the Inflation Reduction Act.]

The governor also announced a $10 million investment in the state’s Drive Clean Rebate program. She said the program could “help New Yorkers purchase and drive these vehicles.” She explained that an up-to-$2,000 rebate is available in all of New York’s 62 counties.

The New York Power Authority also recently completed the installation of its 100th high-speed EV charger. The installation was part of New York’s EVolve NY statewide charging network. According to Governor Hochul, New York State will receive $175 million from The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s $5 billion allocation for EV charging networks.

“So that’s going to help over 14 interstates in New York, especially ones used by the people in this community,” Hochul said. “So you’re going to see that you have no more excuses.”

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Ford looked into its crystal ball, saw the red-hot firestorm it had created with the launch of the Maverick, and predicted it would sell out. Sure enough, it did, and as reported by The Drive, the Blue Oval opted to close orders in January of this year to keep up with customer demand. Gird your loins, because the window for Maverick orders is about to open again, and the truck has a shiny new option on tap.

The original Maverick launched in 1970 as a two-door coupe (and later, a four-door sedan) available in the US until 1977 when it was discontinued, and the name temporarily retired. The Maverick moniker bubbled back to the surface inside the Ford hive mind and burst back onto the scene as a cool new compact truck for model year 2022. Offered with either a 250-horsepower turbocharged 2.0-liter engine or a hybrid version with a 2.5-liter engine that is rated for an impressive 40+ miles per gallon, the Maverick starts at $22,490. 

When it comes to fuel economy, the Maverick is a superstar as a hybrid; to compare, its competitor the 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz truck mashup gets 23 mpg combined. Even with the gas-only engine, the Maverick fares pretty well at 25 mpg with all-wheel drive and 26 mpg with front-wheel drive. 

In truck form, the Maverick is affordable and compact, making it usable for work. Plus, it’s easy to park, unlike some of its larger compadres. Inside, Ford gave the Maverick clever storage cubbies and even spots where owners could insert 3D-printed accessories such as grocery bag hooks or cupholders as desired.

As off-road exploring continues to grow in popularity, Ford has been reading the room and came up with the new Tremor off-roading package for the Maverick. While orders were on pause, the company put together a set of features to satisfy those who want their compact truck with extra capability in the dirt.

The Tremor package includes a 1-inch lift over the Maverick’s standard 8.3 inches and improves ground clearance. One inch may not seem like much, but that matters when traversing a rocky trail and could save the underbelly of the truck from damage. An off-road-tailored front and rear suspension is also exclusive to the Tremor package, meaning your back and backside (and possibly your teeth) will appreciate the smoother ride. 

Other additions include a rear differential lock, which ensures that both wheels spin at the same rate to improve traction, and trail control, allowing the driver to choose a set speed and have the vehicle manage the throttle and braking. And the new heavy-duty transmission cooler keeps the vehicle from overheating, particularly when pushing the towing capacity or payload to the limit. 

All this is not to say that the Maverick is suddenly on par with the burly, uber-capable Bronco, which Ford re-launched for model year 2021 to great fanfare. However, the improvements will give off-road-curious buyers some leeway for slightly tougher terrain.

On the surface, the Maverick Tremor shares some aesthetic touches that match the F-150 Tremor. Orange accents lasso the Maverick’s grille with the Tremor package, etching an oval that bisects the Ford logo, and coordinating tow hooks and the fender badge are also tinged with orange. A single carrot-colored stripe adorns each wheel. Inside, the truck sports matching orange stitching and “Tremor” embroidered into the back of the seat in case you forget the name of your trim.

[Related: Ford’s electric Lightning still drives like an F-150 truck, but better]

Buyers who want just the look of the Tremor in all of its orange-accented glory can choose an appearance-only package without the off-roading goodies for $1,495. For the real-deal lift kit, upgraded shocks and springs, and the other enhancements plus the appearance, prepare to shell out $2,995 on top of the price of the Maverick, which starts at $22,490.

You’ll want to note that the Tremor package reduces the payload, which is what you can toss in the bed of the truck. A standard Maverick can haul 1,500 pounds in the bed and the Maverick Tremor capability drops to 1,200 pounds. Why? A Ford spokesperson told Popular Science that the additional Tremor Off-Road equipment (heavy items like the additional skid plate, upgraded half shafts and twin mechanical rear drive unit) reduces the payload rating. 

And really, that won’t matter to customers interested in the Tremor, as it’s geared to adventure types who are more likely to tow a pair of UTVs (it has a total towing capacity of 2,000 pounds) than hauling equipment. Also, the Tremor is only currently available with the 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine and not the hybrid. 

While the Maverick isn’t available as an EV, the hybrid version has been popular, and as the industry barrels on toward full electrification it wouldn’t be surprising to see a Maverick-E in the future. Meanwhile, Ford’s all-electric Lightning has similarly rocked the brand’s numbers, and early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

In June, Ford reported it had sold 38,753 Mavericks. That means the new compact truck outsold the Ford Ranger pickup, and the Maverick sales number was double the number of Mustang Mach-E (the brand’s all-electric crossover) units sold. With the Tremor package, expect the Maverick to keep on growing.

The post How Ford adapted one of its coolest trucks for off-roading appeared first on Popular Science.

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After nearly 15 years, Toyota is finally giving its full-size pickup a modern rework. The company unveiled the third-generation 2022 Toyota Tundra on Sunday, Sept. 19, showcasing a harder-working pickup with more modern tech inside and out—including a new hybrid powertrain.

Toyota is attempting to entice buyers of the full-size truck with a bold new design. Hard body lines, an oversized grille, and a completely reworked interior bring the truck into the 21st century. They’ve even made the off-road capable performance trim, the TRD Pro, alluring thanks to a factory-installed lightbar integrated into its front end.

It’s not all about looks, though. One of the biggest changes is under the hood, and it’s perhaps the most enticing thing that buyers will find in the updated Tundra. In addition to the traditional gasoline-powered offering, Toyota has also added a hybrid powertrain offering, melding the instant torque and efficiency of an electric motor with the raw power of the internal combustion engine. This all new “i-Force Max” setup, as Toyota calls it, has become the flagship engine choice for the higher-trimmed Tundras, and it’s not about chasing miles per gallon, either—it’s about the seamless integration of electric power.

[RELATED: Ferrari’s new plug-in hybrid supercar is an 830-horsepower beast]

The outgoing Tundra, which has been around since 2014 and slotted just above the smaller Tacoma pickup, packs a rather thirsty 5.7-liter “i-Force” V8 engine capable of 381 horsepower and 401 pound-feet of torque. While quite competent, it demands a ton of fuel to satisfy the bottomless powertrain, especially when it gets a combined EPA rating of just 14 miles per gallon.

Toyota’s new Tundra does a bit of downsizing in the engine department without sacrificing on power. Engineers have updated the pickup’s base engine by replacing two of its cylinders with turbochargers, resulting in an 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 that puts down 389 horsepower and 479 lb-ft. And while Toyota hasn’t announced the anticipated fuel economy for the new Tundra, it’s likely that nearly two decades of engineering have improved that number just a little bit.

Most interestingly, for those seeking a bit more capability, Toyota is also offering the very same 3.5-liter V6 in a hybrid configuration. Rather than touting about the Tundra’s improved fuel economy, the automaker has instead decided that it’s better to focus on power.

With its gasoline engine complemented by an electric motor mounted at the bellhousing of its 10-speed automatic transmission, the Tundra’s impressive i-Force Max powertrain gains an additional 48 horsepower and 104 lb-ft of torque. Thanks to the electric motor and twin-turbochargers, the power comes on very low in the rev range, meaning that all 437 HP and 583 lb-ft of torque are available as early as 2,400 RPM.

[Related: Ford’s 2022 Maverick pickup will rival the fuel efficiency of a Honda Civic]

Toyota says that this configuration is ideal for towing when drivers need additional power for heavy loads. It’s also likely extremely satisfying when driving around town in one of the Tundra’s “Sport” driving modes. The electric motor helps to provide instantaneous torque, especially below 18 miles per hour.

When the driver’s right foot calls for it, the twin-turbo V6 begins to take over and works together with the inline electric motor to provide power all across the rev range. Much like the all-wheel-drive equipped Toyota Prius, the Tundra uses a nickel-metal hydride battery to power its hybrid system. The Tundra does get a slightly larger battery pack, though, with the ability to store 1.87-killowatt-hours of electricity versus the Prius’ 1.2-kWh battery. However, that battery pack is stashed underneath of the rear seat, which could potentially impact the truck’s ever-so-important under-seat storage space.

Toyota appears to be directly targeting the Ford F-150 Hybrid. Both platforms use twin-turbo V6s that produce near-identical power, both have 10-speed automatic transmissions, and both have a sub-2-kWh battery pack. The Tundra, however, takes the cake in the power department by just 7 HP and 13 lb-ft of torque. It also has a battery pack with a slightly higher capacity, winning that round by just 0.37-kWh.

Power aside, there are a few areas where the Tundra will come up short. For example, it doesn’t offer an on-board generator such as what comes standard on an F-150 Hybrid. Nor does it offer an optional hands-free driver assistance feature like Super Cruise on the upcoming 2022 Chevy Silverado.

[RELATED: We’re getting closer to a world filled with self-parking cars]

The Tundra also has less towing and payload capacity when stacked up against the most brawny configurations of other half-ton pickups. The current model year Chevrolet Silverado 1500, Ford F-150 Hybrid, and Ram 1500 Hybrid can all haul more than the Tundra despite Toyota increasing the limit of both for the truck’s 2022 redesign.

That’s not to say that the Tundra is an inferior truck—it’s plenty capable, and definitely a welcomed refresh given the current generation’s nearly 15-year stay. Plus, additions like a coil-based multi-link rear suspension sacrifice a bit of towing capacity while adding increased comfort and car-like driving dynamics, something which may cater to the buyers of the Tundra and actually bolster sales for those not needing to tow heavy loads.

The new 2022 Toyota Tundra will go on sale later this year, though delivery dates, pricing, and an actual fuel economy rating have yet to be announced.

The post Toyota’s new hybrid Tundra uses an electric motor for more power appeared first on Popular Science.

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The classic Countach is perhaps the most important car ever to be made by Lamborghini. When finally approved for US sale, the car became a V12-powered sex symbol that shared the silver screen with icons like Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett. It was the car that every car-crazed person spent countless hours dreaming of owning. And most importantly, it literally saved Lamborghini from financial ruin.

Thirty-one years after the last Countach rolled off the line, its maker unveiled a modern take on the original wedge-shaped supercar with more power, more tech, and sleeker lines: the Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4.

[Related: What’s the difference between a sports car, a supercar, and a hypercar?]

The name may seem like a mouthful, but it’s easy to dissect when broken up into pieces. First, LPI is an acronym which means “Longitudinale Posteriore Ibrido,” or in English, “Longitudinal Posterior Hybrid.” This refers to the layout of the Countach’s humongous 6.5-liter V12 engine, which is mounted at the rear of the car and oriented so that the crankshaft aligns with the long axis of the vehicle.

The word “Hybrid” is quite literal. It’s a nod to the mild 48-volt hybrid setup plucked from the Lamborghini Sian that provides complimentary power to the combustion engine.

The electric setup found in the Countach and the Sian are rather unique. Instead of using lithium ion battery cells to store energy, the platform is equipped with modern supercapacitors. This allows the Countach’s “battery” pack to retain an energy-to-weight density three times higher than traditional chemical cells, meaning that the car can store more energy without increasing the pack’s overall weight and hindering the car’s performance. Another benefit to using supercapacitors over normal batteries is the ability to rapidly recharge, meaning that the car can more efficiently reclaim power from regenerative braking to power its electric motor.

[Related: Ferrari’s new plug-in hybrid supercar is an 830-horsepower beast]

Together, both the combustion engine and the Countach’s hybrid system produce 802 horsepower—769 HP from the venerable V12 and 33 HP from the electric motor—which is rounded-down to “800” to simplify the car’s name.

The 12-cylinder is rather important to the Countach’s heritage. Lamborghini knew this, and ensured that the car not only had all 12-cylinders, but also sounded and felt the part. In order to keep the V12 feeling pure, the hybrid motor was integrated with the gearbox in order to create a direct connection between the wheels and the electric motor. It can aid in bursts of power without feeling artificial, or it can help maneuver the vehicle at low speeds. 

The final number, “4”, plainly refers to how the car puts the power to the ground: at all four wheels.

From a stop, the 3,516-pound Countach can sprint from zero to 60 miles per hour in under three seconds. Feeling a bit feisty? Keep the pedal mashed and it will hit 124 MPH within nine seconds and continue to pull all the way to an eye-watering 221 MPH.

And it does this while looking rather stylish. Despite sharing a chassis with the Aventador, the Countach has a retro-inspired style all of its own. From the pointed nose with squinty headlights to the upwards-sloping tail with a Periscopio-inspired hatch, there are many styling cues directly taken from the original supercar, though dulled ever so slightly for a more modern appeal.

Just don’t call it “retrospective,” because according to CEO Stephan Winkelmann, the car is all about “looking forward” into Lamborghini’s future rather than being stuck in the past. But a little bit of homage and nostalgia is okay.

As for a price, the Italian supercar maker hasn’t yet revealed an official number just yet. And yet, all 112 examples of the Countach that it plans to build are said to have already been sold.

It’s not uncommon for a luxury performance car company like Lamborghini to offer its most coveted special editions to previous buyers before offering the cars to the public, which is more than likely what happened here. Sadly, that means the only way to buy one, at least for now, will be second-hand.

The post The iconic Lamborghini Countach has been reborn as a modern supercar appeared first on Popular Science.

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An electric automotive future is on the horizon. As more daily-use cars become battery-powered, consumers are on the fence about whether or not to accept or reject the most shocking change in decades.

Supercars aren’t exempt from the transition either, and Ferrari is the latest luxury performance automaker to look towards electrification to entice its tech-hungry customers. Its newest offering is the sharply designed 2022 Ferrari 296 GTB: a rear mid-engine hybrid supercar that offers drivers a glorious 830-horsepower engine.

It should come at no surprise that Ferrari is introducing another electrified car into its lineup. Automakers across the industry have been moving to more sustainable propulsion methods, and that includes offering a hybrid powertrain for high-horsepower vehicles like the GTB. Electrification helps to produce a more fuel efficient vehicle, though that’s not always the point with these types of supercars—it also means gobs of instant torque directly off the line (courtesy of the electric motor) without sacrificing the sounds and feel of the internal combustion engine loved by enthusiasts.

The 296 GTB is a confusing moniker compared to other vehicles in Ferrari’s lineup. Foregoing a modern branding, the Italian automaker instead chose to combine the car’s total displacement (2,992cc) with its total number of cylinders (6), and slapped on the GTB branding to signify its purpose as a Gran Turismo Berlinetta—a grand touring sports coupe. More importantly, it won’t replace any existing models in Ferrari’s lineup, but will complement it by slotting between the mid-engine F8 Tributo and the Roma grand tourer.

[Related: What’s the difference between a sports car, a supercar, and a hypercar?]

Most traditional supercars—vehicles that are coveted for their sleek design, high top speed, and exorbitant price tag—are known for their high-revving, large displacement engines. With the GBT, the automaker took a more conservative approach with its powertrain, fitting the supercar with a smaller 3.0-liter V6 that it nicknamed “little V12.”

The sobriquet was earned thanks to the V6’s unique harmonics that resemble the soundtrack produced by the Italian brand’s naturally-aspirated 12-cylinder engines. This is, in part, attributed to the steeply banked 120-degree cylinders—an engine design feature more commonly seen in the Ferraris of the 1960s, but rarely in the cars of today. Such a layout produces minimal engine vibrations, an even firing order, and the ability to fit a pair of turbochargers between the cylinder heads in a “Hot-V” configuration for quick spooling.

The engine alone outputs 663 horsepower, which is a bit less than the previously-mentioned figure. But there’s a reason behind this discrepancy; the additional power is produced by an additional compact electric motor placed between the combustion engine and the eight-speed dual clutch gearbox. Ferrari calls this a “Motor Generator Unit, Kinetic” (MGU-K), and borrows the tech from its time in the Formula 1 racing series. The supplemental motor produces an additional 167 horsepower, bringing the total system output to 830 horsepower.

[Related: Coupes, crossovers, and other car body styles, explained]

And if that seems like a lot of ponies, rest assured—it is. Thanks to the electric motor’s instantaneous torque, the Ferrari’s sprint from zero to 60 miles per hour takes just 2.9 seconds. Keep the pedal pressed and the car will continue its stampede, reaching 124 MPH in a mere 7.3 seconds. And that speedometer will keep climbing all the way past 205 MPH.

Surprisingly, the supercar can also be super efficient despite its humongous power output. When not mashing the pedal, the car can operate on battery power alone using the electric motor coupled to its 7.45 kilowatt-hour battery pack, which is relatively small when compared to, say, a Tesla Model 3, which offers 82 kWh of battery storage.

The Ferrari can still travel up to about 16 miles under battery-only power, and when depleted, the car will snap back to life with the internal combustion engine (ICE), transitioning seamlessly between electric and gasoline power using a clutch-based system it calls the Transition Manager Actuator. The ICE engine will recharge the battery pack (as will regenerative braking), or owners can simply plug the GTB into an outlet when they arrive home.

It’s not all about power though. The car’s undoubtedly saucy styling is a unique departure from Ferrari’s current design architecture. Designers drew inspiration from classic racers like the 1963 Ferrari 250 LM to sculpt the body and give the GTB a sloping Kammback tail. Large fender arches are complemented by a low-slung roofline and the entire car feels almost monolithic.

Perhaps the most noticeably intuitive feature is the active aero found between the rear tail lights. Ferrari says the 296 GTB is the first car in its lineup to use the LaFerrari-inspired movable aerodynamics to generate additional downforce in order to keep the car’s wheels planted when driven to its limits.

[Related: This Cadillac gets heavier the faster it goes—and that’s a good thing]

Inside the car are a number of smart features as well. A digital instrument cluster provides driver-focused data like the vehicle mode, state of charge, and navigation—all centralized around a large centrally-positioned rev-counter. A second display allows for a co-driving experience by replicating the tachometer and other relevant information about the car onto the dashboard, directly in front of the passenger. In standard Ferrari-fashion, all driver controls are centric to the steering wheel, including gear paddles and wheel-mounted turn signals. There are also a number of touch-sensitive surfaces to maximize the premium feel.

As for a price, Ferrari hasn’t yet announced one, though best estimates are calling for a base sticker price somewhere in the low $300,000s when it launches in 2022. The Prancing Horse doesn’t come cheap, after all.

The supercar will be competing against other high-end offerings like the upcoming Maserati MC20 and electrified McLaren Artura. But most importantly, it signals the future of Ferrari’s battery-rich portfolio.

The post Ferrari’s new plug-in hybrid supercar is an 830-horsepower beast appeared first on Popular Science.

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Pickup trucks are one of the best selling vehicles in America. It’s easy to see why—they offer excellent visibility and unmatched utility no matter where they’re driven. But trucks have gotten so bloated and expensive that many buyers have chosen to go the route of the crossover instead. But perhaps not anymore.

The 2022 Ford Maverick is the latest entry in a number of new compact utility vehicles aimed at filling the truck-sized hole between crossovers like the new Ford Bronco Sport and mid-size pickups like the Ford Ranger or Chevrolet Colorado. With a starting price of around $20,000 and a standard hybrid powertrain offering up to 40 miles per gallon, the Maverick is quickly working to secure its future home in both suburban driveways and on city streets.

It was nearly a decade ago that Ford cancelled the mid-size Ford Ranger to focus efforts on its best-selling F-150. Since then, it not only brought the Ranger back to life, but also introduced this brand new compact pickup, the Maverick, based on the Bronco Sport slotted directly below it.

The Maverick is far from a normal truck. For evidence, simply look under the hood and you’ll find a hybrid powertrain which uses an electric motor to power the truck in conjunction with its gasoline-powered 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine. The pair deliver 191 horsepower and 155 pound-feet of torque and sends power to the wheels via a continuously variable transmission (CVT). This combination isn’t something which most traditional truck buyers are rushing out to buy, yet it comes standard on the Maverick—and that’s because the Maverick isn’t meant for traditional pickup buyers. Ford says this powerplant is capable of achieving around 40 MPG in the city, a figure relatively unheard of for a truck. That’s comparable with the Honda Civic!

However, there’s a catch—the hybrid is only available in front-wheel drive, and isn’t particularly suited for towing more than 2,000 pounds due limitations from the CVT transmission.

To make their rig more capable, buyers have the option of upgrading to the optional 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine, a turbocharged engine which produces a more brawny 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque. This also outfits the truck with an eight-speed automatic transmission and gives the option for buyers to upgrade from front-wheel to all-wheel-drive. With the optional 4K Tow Package, the truck receives a transmission oil cooler, upgraded radiator, gearing changes, and more—all of which enables it to double its towing capacity up to 4,000 pounds.

All Mavericks will be offered in the same body configuration: a crew cab with a 4.5-foot bed in each of its three trims—XL, XLT, and the top-tier Lariat.

A truck of a different color

From the outside, the Maverick can be configured to blend in with the crowd or stick out like a sore thumb—a nod to the younger buyers Ford hopes to attract with the compact pickup. A total of 11 different paint jobs are available depending on the trim, including a number of fun Ford hero colors like Velocity Blue, Rapid Red, and Cyber Orange.

The bodywork stays mostly the same throughout the lineup. Design language is modern with sleek body lines throughout the entire exterior package, all while maintaining a look immediately recognizable as a Ford. However, there are some subtle design changes to the truck depending on the trim, such as changes to the grille, wheels, mirror caps, headlights, and more. Buyers who opt to equip the FX4 off-road package will see additional changes, like exposed front tow hooks and special 17-inch wheels with all-terrain tires in addition to the more hidden suspension modifications and underbody protection.

Of course, the most important part of any pickup is the cargo box, something which Ford keeps extremely practical on the Maverick. It’s called the Flexbed, and the name is fitting given how flexible it can be for just about any job.

The 4.5-foot bed isn’t the biggest pickup box on the market, and it wasn’t meant to be. Still, it can hold up to 1,500 pounds or a four-by-eight foot sheet of plywood. As an aside, the top of the bed is trimmed with plastic bed rails to avoid scratching the Maverick’s loudly-painted body as cargo is loaded and unloaded.

When folding the tailgate flat, the bed extends to six feet of usable area, and Ford has a number of extra accessories to keep kayaks and other large items fixed in place. Wider items can be a bit trickier, because the truck’s overall footprint is significantly narrower than its larger brethren and the wheelhouses still take up some room. Because of this, Ford added an additional position for the tailgate which raises the lip by resting it at an angle. This brings the resting position to the same height as the wheelhouses, meaning a large sheet of plywood can sit flat.

There are a few extra party tricks such as sliding interior bed rails, a small in-bed cubby for an extra bit of storage, a power outlet, a bed light, and a bottle opener built right into the tailgate.

The interior is also pretty snazzy. Every surface incorporates modern angles and design cues, while some contemporary material lines the cloth seats and dashboard elements. Door cards sport a neat geometric pattern, and the grab handle utilizes a floating design to look futuristic. Interior plastics are mostly a shade of blue, a flashback from classic cars, though certain add-on packages will add fun accent colors like bright orange to the mix.

Pickups traditionally suffer from a lack of dry lockable storage given the lack of a trunk. Because of this, interior storage and the organization thereof comes at a premium. Ford maximizes on this in the Maverick, adding nooks and cubbies just about everywhere blank space would have been found. Even the rear seats are used as storage devices—once the bench is flipped up, perfectly segmented under-seat storage bins are found, which are useful for securing and stashing away cargo that drivers won’t want rolling around on the floor.

[Related: The Ford F-150 Lightning is an electric vehicle for truck lovers]

This mid-size pickup market seems to be just being tapped by automakers. As of now, the only other manufacturer to announce a potential competitor is Hyundai. Its upcoming Santa Cruz is targeting similar young buyers who live in cities or other markets where a traditional full-size pickup might be desired, but simply isn’t ideal.

Ford says the Maverick will start at a base price of $19,995 before destination charges. Most buyers will likely swing for the middle-of-the-road XLT (which is priced at starting at $22,280) as it includes a myriad of basic features that the XL simply doesn’t have—power mirrors and cruise control to name two very basic ones. Even fully loaded, the top-tier Lariat can be equipped with the more powerful 2.0-liter turbocharged motor, all-wheel-drive, and every available options package for just north of $36,000. That’s still pretty affordable, especially for a pickup truck. The 2022 Ford Maverick is set to land on dealer lots beginning this fall.

The post Ford’s 2022 Maverick pickup will rival the fuel efficiency of a Honda Civic appeared first on Popular Science.

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The new hybrid Hyundai Sonata isn’t available yet in the United States, but it offers something compelling enough to make headlines here—a solar panel on its roof. While the panel can’t produce nearly enough juice to give the car’s battery all it needs for regular travel, it does occupy what the company calls a “supporting role” for the vehicle.

Hyundai notes that the solar cells could provide a boost of about 808 miles annually. In other words, if you drove this car every day for a year, you’d be getting about 2.2 miles of daily travel from the sun, on average. Unlike with plug-in charging or previous attempts at cars with photovoltaics, the solar system shunts power to the Sonata’s battery even when you’re driving.

And in October of last year, Hyundai announced that they have been working on different types of solar cells for cars, one of which is designed to juice the battery of a car with an internal-combustion engine, “thereby improving fuel efficiency,” they argue.

Hyundai follows Toyota down the solar-panels-on-a-car road; the Japanese carmaker first offered a Prius with a solar roof around a decade ago, but in 2009, the MIT Technology Review referred to it as “underwhelming.” That’s because the solar energy didn’t power the battery that drove the vehicle’s propulsion system, but just “ran a fan to ventilate the car,” they note.

Things got better in 2017, when Toyota started offering the Prius PHV with an optional solar roof in Japan. That solar system charges the main battery only when the car is parked, and can add, on average, 1.8 miles to the car’s driving distance each day, with a max of around 3.8 miles. Solar power can’t charge that main battery—called the traction battery—while the car is being driven, however. During that time, the power goes into the 12-volt auxiliary battery, which gives juice to car systems like the radio.

But earlier this summer, Toyota announced something even better: a blue and white demonstration vehicle with solar cells on the hood, roof, and rear that (unlike the Prius PHV production car in Japan) could charge the main battery while the vehicle is in motion. Not only that, but the solar cells are more efficient (clocking in at 34 percent efficiency or more for the demonstration car, compared to 22.5 percent for the Prius PHV) and they produce nearly five times as much wattage. In short, this demonstrator vehicle offers a more capable solar system than the production car. “The trials aim to assess the effectiveness of improvements in cruising range and fuel efficiency of electrified vehicles equipped with high-efficiency solar batteries,” Toyota said in its announcement.

Carmakers and others have much more affordable and more powerful solar panels to work with now than they did around ten or so years ago. “In the last decade, the prices of solar panels have dropped at least 60 percent,” says Vikram Aggarwal, the CEO of EnergySage, a company that provides people with financial quotes for installing solar power. That, plus solar panels are more energy dense—capable of producing more wattage—and more efficient now. In a nutshell: they’re packing more power, better efficiency, while costing less, Aggarwal says.

All of that means that it now makes more sense for a carmaker to throw a solar panel on the back of a car, even if it’s a far cry from powering the whole vehicle. “You can cover every inch of the car’s exterior with solar cells—the total surface area is never going to be that much [of a power source],” Aggarwal observes, meaning that the panels are just going to be supplemental.

But Parth Vaishnav, an assistant research professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, wonders if the cars themselves are truly the best place to take advantage of solar power. After all, he notes, solar energy produced at the utility level is much cheaper per watt than solar energy that comes from a person’s residential solar installation. And putting a solar panel on a car could hypothetically add financial cost to the carmaker, plus complexity, weight, and make the car more difficult to disassemble at the end of its life. Ultimately, a person interested in driving a car powered by the sun would be better served by plugging an electric vehicle into a power source that came from a large-scale solar installation. “If you wanted to deploy solar power,” he reflects, “is the roof of a car the best place to put it?

The post Does Hyundai’s rooftop solar panel change the fuel-economy equation? appeared first on Popular Science.

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Earlier this month, Japanese media reported Honda and Yamaha were each planning a line of electric motorcycles by 2010. The new bikes, which reports say can travel up to 60 miles on a charge, will use lithium-ion batteries for power. Now, word from Japan’s Mainichi news service is Honda is also planning new gas-electric hybrid motorcycles.

According to a report, the planned hybrid motos would employ a similar hybrid-drive system as the one used in Honda’s hybrid cars like the Civic and upcoming Insight sedan. The two-wheeled hybrids will reportedly come in engine displacements of between 200 cc and 1,000 cc and see fuel-efficiency gains of 50 percent over traditional motorcycles. Production cost savings would come from using common hybrid components in both cars and motorcycles.

[via Mainichi Daily News]

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Imagine a car veering off a lonely mountain road and tumbling down the embankment. Minutes later, a sleek aircraft zooms in quietly at 230 miles an hour, tilts its wings and rotors up, hovers, and sets down just feet from the wreck. The pilot and a medic load the injured driver into the aircraft and zip back to a hospital at twice the speed of a conventional helicopter ambulance.

Simon Scott, the owner of Falx Air, an aviation company based in Staffordshire, England, wants to revolutionize not just medevacs but all personal air transportation. A former communications specialist in the British Army’s Air Corps, Scott has been designing Falx Air’s hybrid-electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) craft for the past eight years. He’s currently bench-testing components in the hopes of getting a single-passenger prototype ready to be certified in January by the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s equivalent of the FAA.

The key to his design is a hybrid system that doesn’t rely on batteries to do most of the work. The engine powers two generators, which directly feed two electric motors on each wing. A battery pack stores leftover power from the generator but kicks in only to provide a power boost during takeoffs, landings and the transition to forward flying. It needs the huge burst of energy to get extra lift because the rotors on a VTOL have a smaller surface area than those on a traditional helicopter. “If you want to fly your aircraft for two hours, you cannot do that on batteries,” Scott says. “That’s the reason behind having the engine supply electricity continuously.”

The hybrid system keeps the craft small and light, and therefore fast and agile. By eliminating heavy mechanical parts like jet engines and gear boxes, Scott hopes to keep the single-passenger version under 1,000 pounds. And because an engine that only has to power generators can be smaller than one that has to drive rotors, the vehicle uses less fuel too.

Scott is finished with the design; now he just has to find parts that can make it real. Falx Air is testing a 104-horsepower, two-stroke engine, but it isn’t flight-certified yet. And although Scott is looking into lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, similar to one of the battery chemistries being tested for the Chevy Volt [see page 50], his challenge is greater because the aircraft needs a bigger jolt of power than a car does.

Given the state of the technology — and the additional $5 million Scott still needs to build the prototype — Falx’s January timeline seems unlikely. But it’s not the only team trying to build an electric whirlybird. Last fall, officials at NASA’s Ames Research Center looked into the feasibility of producing electric helicopters by using fuel cells or lithium-polymer batteries. Inderjit Chopra, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland who led the design study, found that an electric version of a two-man Robinson R-22 helicopter could theoretically fly for only 10 minutes before the batteries ran down.”I would like to see a hybrid helicopter in the next 5 to 10 years,” he says. And tilt-rotors? “They’re a lot further off, because the takeoff energy is so high.” Scott, who has sunk $500,000 of his own money into the project, is confident that his hybrid setup skirts his critics’ concerns. “They can be skeptical,” he says, “and we’ll hover outside their window.”

Falx Air Hybrid Tilt-Rotor Chopper

Dimensions: 202 in. (nose to tail); 220 in. (wingtip to wingtip)
Weight: 980 lbs. (empty); 1,212 lbs. max. (including pilot)
Cruising speed: 180 mph
Top speed: 270 mph
Range: 435 miles
Cost: $1.5 million

Police Chopper

Into the Breach

Scouting

A Sporting Model

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Dear EarthTalk: I understand that Toyota is planning to sell a plug-in Prius that will greatly improve the car’s already impressive fuel efficiency. Will I be able to convert my older (2006) Prius to make it a plug-in hybrid vehicle? — Albert D. Rich, Kamuela, Hawaii

Toyota is readying a limited run of a plug-in Prius, which can average 100 miles per gallon, for use in government and commercial fleets starting in 2009. Toyota will monitor how these cars, which will have high-efficiency lithium-ion batteries that haven’t been fully tested yet, will hold up under everyday use.

The regular Prius relies more on its gas engine, switching to (or combining) use of the electric motor in slow traffic, to maintain cruising speed, and when idling or backing up. The car doesn’t need to plug in because its battery stays charged by the gas motor and by the motion of the wheels and brakes. Essentially, a plug-in version of the Prius reverses the roles of the two motors under the hood. The plug-in will primarily use its electric motor, allowing commuters to go to and from work every day fully on the electric charge, saving the gas engine for longer trips that exceed the distance the car can go on electricity alone.

Toyota has made no announcement yet as to when consumers will be able to buy a plug-in; that depends largely on the results of the field test of the fleet version. But owners of a current or past model don’t need to wait. Those with automotive mechanical skills can convert their Priuses to plug-ins themselves.

“The conversion is an easy DIY project that you can do for about $4,000, if you choose to use sealed lead acid batteries,” says Houston-based Jim Philippi, who converted his Prius last year, using instructions he downloaded for free from the Electric Auto Association’s PriusPlus.org website. Philippi recommends that DIYers consult Google’s RechargeIT.org as well for useful background information.

For those less inclined to DIY, several companies now sell readymade kits (some also have kits for converting Ford Escape hybrid SUVs). Ontario-based Hymotion sells plug-in kits for Prius model years 2004-2008 for around $10,000 via contracted distributors/installers in San Francisco, Seattle, and elsewhere. Other providers include Plug-In Conversions Corp., Plug-In Supply, EDrive Systems, Energy Control Systems Engineering Inc., and OEMtek. All typically work with select garages that specialize.

One potential worry about conversions is whether or not Toyota will honor the warranty that came with the original vehicle. The California Cars Initiative (CCI), which has converted several hybrids to plug-ins for research and demonstration purposes (sorry, they’re not for sale), says the carmaker needs to clarify the matter, since hybrid cars typically have four or five separate warranties. There is legal precedent, CCI says, that modifications cannot completely void warranties — only the part(s) affected by a retrofit.

If you’re looking to convert, keep in mind that such a move is not about cost savings, as it will take some time for fuel savings to justify the upfront cost of even a DIY effort. Most people interested in such a conversion are doing it for the sake of the environment, not their pocketbooks.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E – The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 USA; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek ; or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

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In 2007, registrations of new hybrid vehicles jumped by 38 percent to 350,289 vehicles, according to a new report from R.L. Polk & Company. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it’s got something to do with rising prices at the pump, or climate change. Or maybe there’s something bigger at play.

R.L. Polk analyst Lonnie Miller thinks consumers are starting to trust the technology more now that it’s been on the market for a while, not to mention that buyers also had more options in 2007.

The Prius was the market leader, but newer options like the Lexus LS600h or the GMC Yukon models–which aren’t exactly the greenest things on the road–also helped sales numbers climb. But, we’ve got a long way to go before hybrids really take hold. They still only make up 2.2 percent of the market.

Via CNN

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During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the words environmental and green were hardly a blip on America’s radar. There were no catalytic converters, no smog emissions, none of the checks we have on automobiles now. Most of the vehicles on the road were powered by V-8 engines and guzzled filthy leaded gasoline. Their poor gas mileage wasn’t even a consideration.

This way of driving couldn’t be sustained forever. In 1970, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest to, as he said, “shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.”

Green Car

On April 22, 1970 the first Earth Day was celebrated, with more than 20 million Americans taking to the streets to demonstrate for a healthy and sustainable environment and increased societal awareness. Out of that successful Earth Day came the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and the Endangered Species acts.

Cut to 39 years later and the American environmental movement has come a long way. In just the past year we’ve seen oil prices fluctuate dramatically, forcing the American public become more educated about ecological issues. Yet we still have a long way to go. Look at any newspaper, website or television and you’ll hear how we are facing a catastrophic climate crisis due to global warming.

In honor of Earth Day, DriverSide put together a primer on what you can do to help, what’s being done by the automotive industry and what’s to come in the future. Of Earth Day, Nelson remarked after the first event, “It was a gamble, but it worked.”

What You Can Do?
“You can try to eat less meat, drive less, ride a bike more, walk more, take fewer trips to run useless errands and use more public transportation. Don’t drive alone, that’s the worse thing,” says Chris Paine, director of “Who Killed The Electric Car”. “It’s also important to set an example – there is nothing more powerful than setting an example. Personally, I try to use and consume much less.”

When asked about his film’s long-reaching impact, Chris says, “People are paying more attention; it you tried to kill the electric car today, there would be a huge outcry. The key is people tuning into these issues and being willing to change the way they do things.”

And change is what the environmental movement is striving for. When asked if he thinks recent popularity of green technology can have an effect on the negative changes in our atmosphere, Matt Petersen, President & CEO, Global Green, says, “The long answer is that nothing will immediately stop the heating we have set it motion – the global weather system does not react immediately to change. We need to think long-term.”

He continues, “Everyone should choose to walk, bike, or take public transit whenever possible – these are the greenest transportation options any one has. In addition to low-emission, fuel-efficient vehicles, we also need a radical increase in use of solar and wind power, green buildings, high performance schools, smart growth, and mass transit.”

What are the car manufacturers doing?

We asked an assortment of car manufacturers what they are doing to work on solutions to global warming, oil dependency and the future of green technology in automobiles.

While not fully exhaustive of the entire industry, we think the list below presents a solid foundation to build upon.

Where do you think green technology will be in 10 (or 20) years?

“Within 10 to 20 years, automobiles will continue to be predominantly powered by gasoline and diesel, but the sources of these to fuels will increasingly come from biomass and other sources. Petroleum will still be in use, but its share will decline. Ethanol will die out as a fuel, but not before a significant battle. However, since ethanol can’t be use in existing cars, its role becomes limited. Batteries continue to over-promise and under-deliver, as do fuel cells. Hybridization of the powertrain takes a dominant role.” – Bill Reinert, National Manager of Advanced Technology Vehicles, Toyota Motor Company

“As we have long noted, there is no single solution, no ‘silver bullet’, but rather an array of technologies that will become available transportation choices. Over the next ten to twenty years our focus will be on developing a plug and play kind of strategy, leveraging global vehicle platforms to handle different powertrains to build the right vehicles for the right markets on a global basis and do so in a way that makes the technology affordable for millions.” – John Viera, Director, Sustainability, Environmental, and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Company

“The internal combustion engine will most likely not disappear in the next 10 to 20 years. However, the powertrain mix is expected to shift dramatically. Smaller displacement engines and the application of direct injection, superchargers and turbochargers will grow. Hybrids powertrains will continue to play a role in the market. Diesel engines may be constrained by the difficulty of achieving NOX emission regulations. At this time, pure electric powertrains seem to offer the only viable path to zero emissions in that timeframe.
“The key will be to balance the need to push for fuel efficiency improvements while keeping the needs of consumers in mind. Ultimately, consumers will determine what technology will be successful.” – Mark Perry, Director, Product Planning, Nissan North America

Do you think the auto industry has done enough to promote green technology?

“The auto industry has done a pretty good job of responding to consumer needs. Nissan has worked developing various alternatives to internal combustion engines for over 15 years including hydrogen fuel cell, electric, diesel, and flex fuel. While the industry has become more nimble in controlling production, it is still a difficult challenge forecasting and responding to consumer shifts. A successful automaker needs a balanced portfolio of vehicles and powertrains to cover most scenarios.” – Mark Perry, Director, Product Planning, Nissan North America

“I think the automobile industry has promoted green but the definition has been changing. 3 years ago it was all about ethanol and flex-fuels, today only special interest groups support that idea. Now we’ve moved on to PHEVs and electric cars, regardless of the state of development of the battery. If anything, maybe the industry over promoted “green” and didn’t talk honestly about the problems of developing new approaches that would challenge the dominance of the internal combustion engine. We were playing defense when we should have been playing offense.” – Bill Reinert, National Manager of Advanced Technology Vehicles, Toyota Motor Company

What else do you think the industry can do?

“The big thing for the auto industry is the new development of Low Carbon Fuel Standards. With these standards in place we can begin the process of developing true replacements for petroleum derived gasoline and diesel. This will help with respect to the 250 million cars already on the road in the US (nearly a billion worldwide) and with respect to new engines and devices that can target a single fuel standard driving all
emissions towards zero.” – Bill Reinert, National Manager of Advanced Technology Vehicles, Toyota Motor Company

“The auto industry spends billions of dollars researching and developing vehicles for today and tomorrow. With our recently announced electrification strategy, we are employing a comprehensive approach that tackles all of the commercial issues including batteries, connectivity standards and infrastructures. We are doing so through strategic partnerships with suppliers, utilities and the government.

Similar collaboration will be necessary to move ahead with other alternative fuels and technologies including bio-fuels such as cellulosic ethanol, and long range, hydrogen fuel cells. In each case, we are seeking transportation solutions that are sustainable in every sense of the word, environmental, social and economic.” – John Viera, Director, Sustainability, Environmental, and Safety Engineering, Ford Motor Company

Is owning a hybrid vehicle enough?

“No. There are other deserving technologies out there – hybrids are good but not perfect, and many believe they are not cost effective in the long run. Take a wider view – don’t get so close to any technology that you believe it is a panacea and all other technologies are bad. Like everything else it all boils down to personal choices – in how we live, what we drive and what we do.” – Allen Schaeffer, Executive Director, Diesel Technology Forum.

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Today the Tesla Motor Company announced that they had begun regular production of the Roadster, the all-electric supercar that does zero-to-60 in less than four seconds.

Good news. Yet the announcement was light on other important details—like when the car would go on sale, how many the company is producing (and how often a new car rolls off the line), and how many they plan to deliver this year. One thing CEO Ze’ev Drori did say: They plan to ramp production up to over 100 Roadsters per month by early 2009. Not enough to make much of a dent in total U.S. oil consumption, for sure, but perhaps enough to push battery technology forward to the point where a mass-market plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt becomes a reality. Here’s hoping.

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The ReCharge, Volvo’s concept plug-in hybrid, could squeeze 160 miles from a gallon of gas by tossing out the power-wasting transmission. It packs a small electric motor inside each wheel, so that no power is lost in the drivetrain. Here’s a look at the next generation of fuel-efficiency

How Wheel Motors Drive the Car

Putting electric motors directly inside the wheels eliminates the transmission, which typically wastes 10 to 20 percent of the engine’s energy. An interior disc, mounted to the wheel bearings, contains a series of independently controlled electromagnets, which emit a magnetic field in response to an electrical current. Around that, an outer ring contains permanent magnets. Step on the accelerator, and a computer in the interior ring begins to rapidly switch the polarity of the electromagnets, repelling or attracting the permanent magnets. The faster the polarity changes, the faster the motor spins the wheels.

The challenge is controlling four independent motors—if one spins even slightly faster, the car could veer violently. The ReCharge team’s next big hurdle is refining the software that maintains precise control. As for performance, the car will have permanent all-wheel drive with no gearbox standing between your foot and the motors—in other words, it should go like a rocket.

Batteries power all four motors and the car’s electronics. Unlike most plug-in hybrids, the ReCharge uses a lithium-polymer (rather than lithium-ion) battery. This is not only safer—it uses sheets of plastic instead of a volatile electrolyte solution—but it also powers the car for 60 miles before the engine kicks in to recharge it. Small lithium-polymer batteries have started to show up in gadgets such as the iPhone, but Volvo gets its larger, experimental versions from an undisclosed manufacturer.

The engine charges the battery when the car isn’t plugged in. The concept design calls for either a 1.6-liter flex-fuel or turbodiesel engine, but since the engine doesn’t have to actually spin a drive shaft, a fuel cell or a second battery could do the job just as well. It would kick in to recharge the battery only after the battery was at 30 percent capacity, so the ReCharge could travel 160 miles on a single gallon of gas.

A charger feeds power to the battery when the car is plugged in at home. Eventually, the ReCharge will be equipped with an intelligent version that can automatically sense strain in your area’s electrical grid and either cut back its power consumption or feed electricity from its battery back into the system.

Tires must be as thin as possible since the motor makes each wheel bigger.The ReCharge uses specially designed Michelin tires with a soft, resilient surface that also reduces rolling resistance.

More How It Works:

• The toy dinosaur that thinks for itself
• A lightweight, fuel-sipping jet engine
• A pill camera that shoots movies of your gut
• An HD camcorder that steadies shaky hands
• A [laser cannon that melts tanks from the air
• An [earbud with a subwoofer inside
• Flash memory that can take a dropkick
• A satellite that can photograph home plate from 425 miles up

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At the Mayo Clinic, renowned for its expertise in cardiac care, a patient recently posed a question that apparently nobody had ever asked: Will the electronics in hybrid cars interfere with implanted cardiac devices? After a bunch of tests, the heart doctors found the answer is no.

A recently reported study is the first of its kind to address electromagnetic interference between implanted medical devices and electric or hybrid cars, according to the researchers. After the patient brought it up, doctors realized there were no studies that specifically addressed this question, explains Dr. Luis R. Scott, a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic’s Arizona offices. So they created one.

The researchers worked with the Toyota Prius, the most common hybrid. Patients with implanted defibrillators or pacemakers were recruited to drive a Prius in different conditions, and to sit in various locations in the car. While the car was driving, the doctors tested the amount of electromagnetic interference emitted by the electronics, and measured this against the activity of the patients’ existing implants. They found the devices were indeed exposed to electromagnetic fields inside the car, but the amount of interference wasn’t worrisome, Scott said.

“Based on our study, we found no reason to be concerned about riding or driving a hybrid automobile,” he said.

Ever cautious, however, the researchers note that the results are really only applicable to a Prius. Other cars have different electronics and could produce varying electromagnetic fields, which may or may not interfere with medical devices. The study was presented at the 2013 American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in San Francisco.

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A Toyota Prius is many things, but a convenient lawn mower isn’t one of them. Useless, right?

Luckily, it is now possible to buy a hybrid lawn mower, known as the Raven MPV-710.

In many ways, a hybrid mower makes sense. After all, if you’re making an effort to be green, you might as well try and cut down on gasoline usage in all your vehicles–even the ones that never hit the streets.

Almost a cross between ATV and mower, the Raven MPV-710 appears to be one of the highest-tech options on the market.

The hybrid tag may put you in mind of a Toyota Prius, but in reality this thing is more like a Chevy Volt–its electric motor provides the drive, while the single-cylinder 420cc gasoline engine is used to generate the electricity it uses.

Because of the electric direct drive, Raven says it transfers more power to the wheels than most mowers on the market, and it’s smoother too. Top speed is 17 mph, three times quicker than most mowers, and there’s enough torque to pull up to 500 pounds. Though to actually get any mowing done you’ll still have to slow down to 5 mph…

As with any hybrid, the MPV-710’s efficiency benefits are also important. Used as a generator, the Raven’s engine is more frugal than other mowers, so you’ll get up to 12 hours of running on a 5-gallon fill.

Some hasty math suggests economy of around 40 mpg, though that’s only if it can run for the full 12 hours at its top speed. Not that anyone uses these to make long trips anyway, so just be happy it can sip gas at a slower rate than its entirely-gasoline equivalents.

It can also be used as a generator, for users wishing to power electric tools.

The price for all this technology, after a bit of digging, is around the $3,000 mark. Which doesn’t seem excessive to us, given the technology. But hey–someone out there knows more about ride-on lawn mowers than us. What do you think of the new green option?

This article, written by Antony Ingram, was originally published on Green Car Reports, a publishing partner of Popular Science. Follow Motor Authority on Facebook and Twitter.

More from Green Car Reports and affiliates:

2013 New York Auto Show Preview

2014 Mitsubishi Outlander: First Drive

2014 Lexus IS First Drive: Video

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Hybrid cars may be a favorite among commuters looking to save fuel, but they’re yet to appear on a single driving enthusiast’s bucket list. It’s no secret why: A 2009 Prius gets from zero to 60 mph barely faster than a plumber’s van.

How do you make hybrid cars a little rougher on the adrenal glands without sacrificing the good fuel economy and low emissions? Engineers at Austrian tech firm AVL took a page from the motorsports playbook, using a turbocharger to boost the performance of a standard gas-electric hybrid.

The result is the AVL Turbo Hybrid Concept, a sneaky BMW 3-Series prototype said to turn out a 10 percent increase in fuel economy, along with an unquantified boost in overall performance. Details are few, though the company says it recently demonstrated the concept’s potential both on the test track and in real-world driving.

The point is to reduce the size and fuel consumption of the hybrid’s internal-combustion engine, while eking out higher output from its electric-drive system by way of specialized control systems. If the project succeeds, hybrid cars could find themselves closer to challenging carmakers’ latest round of torquey, efficient and powerful diesels now prevalent on European roadways.

And that means hybrid drivers on Germany’s autobahn might one day venture out of the right lane to pass a plumber’s van or two. Dare to dream.

[Source: AVL]

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**

**

[(Note the equaly hot Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid in the background.)

](/sites/popsci.com/files/import/PopSciArticles/anchors/img_0263.jpg)

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It fits into a wheel hub and can double a car’s fuel economy. That’s the claim of Dr. Charles Perry, who says his plug-in hybrid retrofit kit can save America 120 million gallons of fuel per day. Big talk. But then, inventors betting on revolutionary uphevals need to talk as big as they think. The former IBM electrical engineer designed the kit to transform existing automobiles into hybrids by placing an electric motor inside each wheel. Perry recently took first prize for his invention at a green energy competition at the Tennessee Technology Development Corp. The plan is to develop the kit into a product selling for between $3,000 and $5,000.

As part of the prize, Perry received a $50,000 grant, which will be matched by Palmer Labs LLC of Reston, Va., whose goal is to commercialize the invention.

Perry reiterates a common statistic that 80 percent of US drivers make daily trips of fewer than 30 miles at 40 miles per hour or slower. Such performance, he says, can be achieved by way of his 10-15 horsepower electric motors, which would be powered by extra batteries installed in a car’s trunk.

Perry will work with the Tennessee Technological University on a prototype, then plans to fit 30 state-owned vehicles with the kit for testing. The final stage would see the kits manufactured by Palmer Labs within three years.

[via Newswise]

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Shelby Super Cars’ SSC Ultimate Aero beat the Bugatti Veyron for the title of world’s fastest production car (the Guinness people said so). Now, the company is teaming up with a designer of high-end motor home chassis to create a hybrid RV that can travel 150 miles on electric power alone.

A design spec laid out by partner Jones & Son Chassis calls for a motorhome with a 500-mile range, with the first 150 miles achieved on battery pack alone. The second 350 will be in “hybrid mode,” during which an onboard generator will charge the battery pack. SSC Green, a subsidiary of SSC, says it can meet the requirements with its All Electric Scalable Powertrain (AESP), a version of the one it says will eventually show up in its Ultimate Aero supercar.

While releasing few details on the hybrid system’s inner workings, SSC has said the AESP powerplant can be used in a variety of vehicles, from 200 horsepower economy cars to 500-hp SUVs to 1,200-hp military trucks. The company says in the case of the RV, the battery pack will require an overnight charge via standard campground electrical service (50amp/220 volt). Its partner, Jones & Son Chassis, is best known for underpinning some of the most luxurious RVs stalking the interstates, like those from Country Coach, whose sticker prices can hit seven figures. No word on how the hybrid system might improve the fuel economy of the 42,000-pound coaches, which average around 8 mpg.

[via Shelby Super Cars via gas2.0]

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A full-size SUV with a 6.0-liter engine is Green Car of the Year? Strange but true: The 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid beat the Chevy Malibu Hybrid, Mazda Tribute Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid, and Saturn Aura Hybrid for the honor. It makes sense, though: that enormous engine is a two-mode hybrid—a second-generation hybrid powertrain that both boosts mileage at highway speeds and allows for the serious towing power a vehicle like the Tahoe needs. (Incidentally, PopSci gave the two-mode hybrid a Best of What’s New award in our December issue).

The Tahoe is the first hybrid full-size SUV, and it avoids the temptation to use that electric motor just to add horsepower while keeping fuel efficiency constant. In fact, the Tahoe gets impressive gas mileage: 21 mpg in the city, which makes it as efficient as a Toyota Camry with a 4-cylinder engine. So as odd as it may seem that a giant SUV would be anointed Green Car of the Year, the Tahoe is certainly more of a game changer than the other four finalists. That said: Here’s hoping that a truly revolutionary car—a full-fledged production plug-in hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle—comes along soon to claim this prize.—Seth Fletcher

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With GM having spent a reported $1 billion bringing the Chevrolet Volt to fruition, spreading out the risk among several models could be the key to paying down the R&D tab on its gas-electric engine. And tapping into the family-mover market wouldn’t hurt either. Enter the Chevrolet Orlando. GM unveiled the attractive minivan concept at the Detroit auto show this past January, with a target release date of 2011. The Orlando may also come with an option other than juice-box holders and Band-Aid cubbies: The Chevrolet Volt’s Voltec (formerly E-Flex) powertrain.

Ex-vice chairman and new marketing boss Bob Lutz told the GM-Volt blog that the company is studying how it might port the Volt’s drive system over to the Orlando. A hybrid vehicle with space for a large brood seems to be a logical next plateau in the rise of the gas-electric powerplant. GM is adamant about not calling the Volt a hybrid, but an “extended-range electric” vehicle, considering only the electric motor will drive the wheels (the gas engine will only charge the batteries).

Of course, car companies study lots of things, not all of which show up on dealerships’ lots. But if GM can work out the details of both getting the Volt to market and shoehorning the new engine into a minivan, the company will meet what’s likely a pent-up demand for a truly high-mileage people mover; one that can get from Long Island to Disney World with a load of DVD-addled, purple-ketchup junkies looking for an adrenaline fix.

[via GM-Volt.com]

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Toyota Prius Image 2

Toyota Prius Image 3

Toyota Prius Image 4

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This story was originally published by Flying Magazine.

As part of Siemens Innovation Day held recently in Chicago—created, in part, to highlight the company’s progress to date in the world of electric and hybrid electric aircraft—the German industrial giant offered a first U.S. look at its electric GA aircraft, a Magnus LSA fitted with a 55-kW Siemens electric motor.

Siemens vice president of electric and hybrid-electric propulsion Terry Hamlin said the company has no intention of becoming an OEM but wants to be part of the electric solution to the aviation industry by partnering with other companies to demonstrate its expertise in designing and building electric propulsion systems. Siemens is currently working closely with Airbus and Rolls-Royce on the eFan regional airplane.

Hamlin said Siemens believes “the aviation industry is on the verge of a major shift in propulsion,” focused around three main drivers. “One is a reduction in [fossil] fuel consumption. Another is a significant reduction in emissions that can only be met by really disruptive technologies. Finally, there’s the needed reduction in aircraft noise.”

Greg Bowles agrees too that a significant change is coming to aircraft propulsion. As the General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s vice president of global innovation and policy, he manages the association’s electric propulsion and innovation committee.

Siemens says electric will become an industry standard by 2050 with a move to electrification already moving along much faster than the company expected.

“We might have a market ramp-up to a certified electric system by 2021, possibly before the end of 2020. We’ll be partnering with OEMs to help them integrate and maintain these electric systems,” Hamlin said.

The Chicago event also focused on how Siemens is currently working to bring electric aircraft to the marketplace, beginning with small aircraft like the Magnus and the Extra 330LE. Siemens used the Extra in 2017 to set a world speed and climb record in electric airplanes. The electrically powered Extra achieved a top speed of 211 mph and a climb record to 9,800 feet in four minutes 22 seconds.

Siemens is also blending the cyber and the physical worlds into its production process to reduce time to market for new products like a bearing shield displayed in Chicago. The shield is used in the Extra 330LE’s electric motor. When the original bearing shield was created, Siemens team created a digital twin that allowed them to continue redesigning, testing and optimizing a new version in a virtual reality world. Results were impressive as the original part was reduced in weight from 25 pounds to just 9 pounds.

“With every R&D dollar we’re moving toward increased power density and reduce weight on battery,” Hamlin said. She spoke to one of the newest frontiers in aviation, urban mobility concepts like electrically powered air taxis where the demand is for quiet VTOL aircraft capable of spanning intra-city distances. “Battery power is also expected to change flight training, Hamlin added.

Bowles reminds the naysayers of electric power plants about earlier days in aviation when people said jet engines weren’t going to be all that useful.

“People wondered what good jet engines would be on straight wing aircraft or an aircraft that only flew at low altitudes demanded where jet power plants were quite inefficient. We simply designed aircraft that could take advantage of those new technologies. We need to think of battery power the same way. What additional advantages might electric offer us? Although electric motors become less efficient at very low speeds, they can make torque down to nearly zero RPM.”

Argon National Labs predicts a 3 to 5 percent annual improvement in battery density. While there’s only enough energy at present for an hour flight, that fuel tank will keep growing by 5 percent per year. Pipistrel’s Alpha Electro is already certified for flight training in Canada, but still faces a regulatory hurdle here in the U.S. based on the FAA’s definitions of an LSA powerplant. Until that’s changed, the Alpha can’t be used for flight training in the U.S. Bowles agreed that regulatory changes “can be a time-consuming and painful process.”

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BMW’s new experimental vehicle may get 63 miles on a gallon of diesel and can travel 31 miles in all-electric mode, but it also scores in the performance realm — with a zero-to-60-mph time in the de rigueur modern sports-car range of under five seconds.

Fans of progressive auto design will likely cock an eye at its posturing curves and layered surfaces, but the big story is the Vision’s plug-in hybrid drive system, which pairs two electric motors with a 1.5-liter, three-cylinder turbodiesel engine, together producing 356 horsepower.

The 3,000-pound Vision showcases BMW’s latest high-profile R&D efforts — including its ActiveHybrid drive technology set to arrive in its 7-Series sedan this year and its EfficientDynamics tech by which the company says it aims to cut fuel consumption without sacrificing driving dynamics. This by now-common features like automatic start-stop and brake energy regeneration. One notable example on the new concept of what BMW is calling EfficientDynamics is a new thermo-electric generator that can convert heat energy from the car’s exhaust into 200 watts of electric power. The Vision also employs BMW’s Formula 1 aerodynamics developments, by which engineers achieved a slippery drag coefficient of 0.22 (the Toyota Prius’s is 0.25).

BMW plans to unveil the Vision EfficientDynamics concept at the Frankfurt motor show in early September.

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car,

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car, Doors Up

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics, Cutaway Diagram

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car, Wheel

BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept Car, Top

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So it turns all those hybrid car owners who turn their environmentally conscious noses up have an unexpected caveat to their green-ness–their cars are sucking up rare earth metals at a disturbing rate.

Rare earth elements take up 17 slots on the periodic table, and are named not for their overall scarcity (they’re actually quite common in trace elements throughout the Earth’s core) but for the relatively uncommon minerals in which they were originally found; few rare earth elements exist in pure elemental form naturally.

Reuters spoke with commodities trader and “strategic metals expert” Jack Lifton, who claims hybrids such as the Prius uses more rare earths than any object in the world. Neodymium and lanthanum–used in allows in a hybrid’s batteries and electric motor’s magnets–could become increadibly scarce or even disappear altogether within the next several years. Each Prius uses 2.2 pounds of neodymium in its electric motor magnets, and 20-30 pounds of lanthanum in the batteries. And those amounts will only go up as the Prius’s powertrain continues to evolve for more efficiency.

Wind turbines, another green power source, also utilize rare earth metals, and when combined with increased consumption for hybrid cars, total future demand could exceed current supply by up to 40,000 tons. Reuters

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What? Hedge-fund managers, heads of surgery, corporate lawyers and their well-heeled, buttoned-up ilk don’t need plug-in hybrids too? Mercedes-Benz is keeping such an audience in mind for its latest concept car, the Vision S 500 plug-in hybrid. Similar to the S 400 hybrid currently in production, the S 500 can also travel 18.6 miles in electric-only mode and take a battery recharge by way of an electrical outlet. What ever happened to greed is good?

Based on the luxurious S-Class flagship, the Vision S 500 combines a 3.5-liter, direct-injected V6 engine with a 60-hp electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack that can take a plug-in charge. The hybrid module is similar to that in the S 400, though three times as powerful. The battery pack in the S 400 can be housed in the car’s engine compartment, but the higher-performing one in the Vision S 500 takes up room behind the rear seats normally devoted to the trunk. The Vision S 500 also has an additional clutch between the combustion engine and the electric motor, which can decouple the two components during electric-only mode.

Mercedes says the Vision S 500 takes less than 60 minutes to charge in the rapid charge cycle, or four-and-a-half hours on household power. Like other hybrids, the S 500 also gets power from regenerative braking.

All that, the company says adds up to fuel efficiency of a bank-bailout-bonus-guilt-busting 73.5 miles per gallon, and a zero-to-100kmh (62 mph) time of a very spry 5.5 seconds. No word on production yet, but Mercedes will likely share more details at the Frankfurt motor show where the Vision S 500 plug-in hybrid will be unveiled this week.

Source: Mercedes-Benz

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Boaters like spray and sun in their face, not exhaust. The first hybrid sport boat, courtesy of a co-designer of the Aptera electric car, delivers cleaner thrills.

Water resistance means that a 38mph boat requires as much power as far-speedier cars, and marine engineers have struggled to give a hybrid enough oomph. Chris Anthony and his team boosted an electric motor to 268 horsepower, partly by passing more cooling fluid over it to let it spin ultra-fast without overheating. Lithium-ion batteries (2,200 pounds of them), stored under the floor, feed the motor silently for up to three hours. When they run low, a gas generator kicks in. Even then, the system uses half the fuel (about three gallons per hour) and spews half the emissions of other wakeboard-ready motorboats, since the generator only needs to rev high enough to recharge the battery, not to move the drivetrain itself.

Shipping this month, the Epic 23e has a waiting list even at $150,000. Anthony expects the price to drop closer to gas models within two years as batteries become more common and as fuel costsand emissions limits turn the tide toward greener boating.

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It’s one of the simplest energy-storage devices known to man: The spring. Think of how a jack-in-the-box keeps hold of the mechanical energy it takes to compress that clown into the box, releasing it only when the weasel song reaches its climax. And that energy storage is a long-term proposition. The clown could likely sit, poised in that box in grandma’s attic for 100 years, until some joker comes along, cranks the handle and, POP! Now imagine millions of carbon nanotubes — tube-shaped molecules of pure carbon — all storing as much energy, pound-for-pound as a comparable lithium-ion battery, then releasing that energy to give power to a lunar rover, a silent leaf blower or even a car.

That’s the subject of two papers on the findings of Carol Livermore, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. As part of the research, Livermore presents a theoretical electric power source, which stores energy in a carbon nanotube spring, to study the potential for generating electricity from the stored mechanical energy.

Such springs can deliver the stored energy as an intense, quick burst, or slowly and steadily over a long period — imagine a mousetrap vs. a windup clock, for example. And unlike batteries, stored energy in such springs wouldn’t leak off over time. Also, Livermore says, they should be able to charge and recharge many times without a loss of performance, though more testing is still needed to make sure. Of course, converting mechanical energy to electricity will cause some of the energy to dissipate through friction and other processes that produce heat. Such is physics.

Of course, many hurdles to a usable CNT energy system still need to be vaulted, like the ability to produce highly concentrated bundles of nanotubes. So don’t expect to pick up the dry cleaning in a nanotube-powered SUV for many, many years to come.

MIT

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When the U.S. Army canceled the Airlander–a hybrid airship that borrows from both soft-bodied blimps and rigid-bodied zeppelin-style dirigibles–it looked like the dream of new airships for the 21st century went down with the funding. Then a curious thing happened: The plane stayed afloat. Thanks to crowdfunding site CrowdCube, 914 private investors just put $3,360,000 into Hybrid Air Vehicles, the company behind the hybrid.

Airlander has had a rocky development cycle. Developed as an Army surveillance tool for the war in Afghanistan, it looked super promising, and Popular Science included it in our Best of What’s New for both its efficiency and planned days-long endurance. The drawdown of war in Afghanistan deflated interest in the project. Development continued in the United Kingdom after America stopped funding it.

With support from the British government and other investors, the Airlander team launched a crowdfunding campaign. Unlike similar campaigns where people pledge at certain levels in exchange for T-shirts or early versions of a product, the contributions to Airlander are for a portion of the 5.79 percent of the company’s shares that they’re offering to the public. The campaign concludes in one day and is already at 107 percent of its original goal.

If there is to be a new age of dirigibles, Airlander will likely lead the way. It promises to carry up to 55 tons of cargo, and with human crew, it can, in theory, fly for several days at a time. The public funding is a good second wind, but earlier promised golden ages for airships have disappeared in smoke.

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Greening your lifestyle is tricky, but greening your auto is downright complex. Should you switch to electric? Is a hybrid good enough? And just where can you get biodiesel these days? It’s enough to make even the eco-friendliest heads spin. But have no fear. Popular Science knows that switching from fossil fuels requires some ingenuity, and we’ve culled some tips to make the, uh, ride smoother.

1. Run it on batteries

Say goodbye to gas altogether by converting your ride to run entirely off a hoodful of rechargeable battery power. Many different car models can be modded—check out austinev.org for instructions, help finding parts, and listings of electric vehicles for sale.

2. Veg out

Biodiesel not eco-friendly enough for you? Head to vegmyride.tv to learn how to modify your engine so that it runs purely on even cheaper and quieter-running recycled cooking oil. It’s easier, too: To fill up, just head to a fast-food joint when the fryers are being cleaned out.

3. Only drive virtually

The gearheads at realvirtualcar.blogspot.com hacked an old Renault and turned it into the ultimate driving simulator. The car’s original steering wheel and gauges all still function, but now they’re used to maneuver the driver through a virtual Nascar race.

4. Plug in your hybrid

Kick up that Prius to 100 mpg by skipping the gas tank for local driving. Calcars.org will show you how to load any hybrid with batteries and mod it to charge from a standard outlet. Keep your speed down to stay on electric, and over time you will defray much of the $5,000 cost of the project.

5. Make your own gas

Run your diesel car on homemade biodiesel fuel, which is cleaner, less expensive and better for your engine than the stuff you buy at the pump. Go to biodieselcommunity.org to get the delicious recipe of cooking oil, drain cleaner and methanol.

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The Airlander is a ponderous, bulbous giant. Made by Hybrid Air Vehicles, the airship began life as a military project, a long-lasting spy plane hovering over battlefields for weeks. When it was canceled in 2013, the dreams of a modern zeppelin rival seemed to go with it. Improbably, a crowdfunding campaign brought it back to life, and now, after months of preparation, the Airlander is about to take to the sky again.

Well, after it takes its time leaving the hangar first.

At 302 feet in length, the Airlander is the world’s longest aircraft. Borrowing design features from both blimps and zeppelins, it isn’t quite either–hence the “hybrid” in its name. With more rigid structure than a soft blimp, but less rigidity than the cigar-shaped dirigibles of ages past, the hybrid airship is light and aerodynamic, using lift as well as buoyant gasses to stay afloat in the sky. It is designed to carry up to 10 tonnes of cargo, and can stay airborne for up to five days with a human crew on board.

While it’s not terribly fast compared to other cargo aircraft, its top speed of around 90 mph is much faster than cargo ships, and the ability to fly anywhere and carry loads of stuff with it could make it a good shipping solution to otherwise inaccessible parts of the world, like extremely rural Canada.

The Airlander’s first flight since it changed from a military to a civilian project is coming up soon. This past weekend, it was gently floated outside its hangar. After the airship undergoes a series of checks while tethered to a mast–which could take days or weeks–it will be set free into the sky.

Assuming the first flight goes well, this could be the dawn of a second age of airships.

Watch it below:

Video credit: Pictures ©2016 Dean Media Ltd

Update: this post originally misstated the amount of weight the airship can carry. It has since been corrected.

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The sky is forgiving. It’s the ground that isn’t. The Airlander 10, a long and bulbous airship that borrows design features both from flexible blimps and rigid zeppelins, is trying to fill a void in the sky largely abandoned after the Hindenburg crash. It’s a large vehicle, faster than a cargo boat and slower than a cargo plane, and has a distinctive shape that calls to mind a certain human part of human anatomy, to the delight of journalists everywhere.

But is it a viable shipping vehicle? Maybe, but it has to stick the landing first. And on its second test flight earlier today in central England, the Airlander 10 encountered some difficulties on its approach to the ground.

Witnesses reported that a line hanging down from the airship snagged a wire, bringing the whole vehicle into a nosedive down.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Hybrid Air Vehicles gave this statement about the crash:

Lessons like this are the reason aircraft have test flights, so that the problems can be seen now and protected against in the future. For the world’s longest aircraft (the Airlander 10 is 302 feet from tip to toe), part of the challenge may just be finding big enough open and empty spaces to land in.

Of course, there are other theories.

Watch the landing attempt below:

Update In a statement published August 25th, 2016, Hybrid Air Vehicles “can confirm a mooring line attached to the Airlander did contact a power line outside the airfield. No damage was caused to the aircraft and this did not contribute to the heavy landing. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused to anyone.”

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If an airship is going to crash, it should do so in a test flight. The large, lumbering lighter-than-air craft are forever burned into the public’s mind as a beautiful failure of a previous age, when in 1937 the German airship Hindenburg fell to a fiery death in the fields of New Jersey. That explosion shaped the perception of airships for a century, from everything to jokes in Archer and the iconic setpiece in NBC’s upcoming time travel show Timeless, set to debut this fall.

It’s with that context that everyone watched the first flights of Hybrid Air Vehicles Airlander, a modern and massive airship originally designed for the U.S. military and now aimed at life as a commercial transport. On its second test flight, the Airlander crashed. Yet unlike the iconic airship tragedies burning into our collective memory, the Hybrid Airship appeared to bump into the ground, and then level out. No fires at all! (The Airlander is filled with helium, instead of the much more combustible hydrogen that filled the Hindenburg).

This is, largely, good news. It’s not as great as not crashing, but it’s a pretty normal and pretty safe crash, as they go. This week, Hybrid Air Vehicles released a longer statement on the crash. From that statement:

Airships may no longer be solely the domain of art and nostalgia. Making a modern airship work, especially after a crash, is the domain of science. It appears that Hybrid Air Vehicles is going to figure out how to avoid the problem in the future, methodically.

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For more on the Civic GX’s natural-gas powertrain and the innovative home-fueling station that keeps it going at a fraction of the cost of gasoline, launch the slideshow.

Behold the car that could displace the Toyota Prius as the eco-ride of choice. The new natural-gas-powered Honda Civic GX uses domestically produced fuel–the same stuff your gas stove burns–that costs as little as one third the price of gasoline. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calls it the cleanest-burning internal-combustion vehicle on Earth.

So what’s not to like? Only the scarcity of places to fuel up. Honda has sold compressed-natural-gas (CNG) Civics to fleet operators for eightyears-because they have their own CNG pumps, they don’t have to search for the rare public ones. But thanks to a new home fueling station, anyone can fill up in their driveway.

The car drives like any other, and no, it’s not a rolling bomb-CNGis actually less volatile than gas. Beyond its supply lines and fuel tank, the only difference between it and a regular Civic is a specialized fuel injector. Well, that and its gas bill.

2007 Honda GX
Price: $24,590
Horsepower: 113
Torque:109 lb.-ft.
Fuel economy: 29/39 mpg
Fuel capacity: 8 gallons (gas equivalent)

The Test
Over the next year, PopSci will drive the Civic GX and gas it up with the Phill home refueling station. It’s hard to argue with the GX’s fuel cost and environmental benefit, but is Phill enough to make the GX practical? Find out in regular updates on the following page.

Honda Civic GX Long-Term Test
Now and for the next year, PopSci is testing the new compressed-natural-gas-powered Honda Civic GX. This is the first time Honda has offered a natural-gas vehicle to the public-the lack of open-access natural-gas fueling stations has made daily use by anyone other than employees of city governments, which operate their own stations, impossible.

But the recent release of the Phill home-refueling station, manufactured by Toronto-based FuelMaker, changes things. Now people who have the station installed at their house can refuel the GX overnight, since the system taps into natural-gas lines. There are many potential benefits to using natural gas: It’s the cleanest-burning fuel available, with virtually zero emissions; it’s a domestic fuel source; and, when using the home station, fuel costs drop to approximately $1.30 per gallon.

FuelMaker, which developed the home-refueling system with support from Honda, provided a Phill unit for our year-long test and installed it at automotive editor Eric Adams’s residence in New Jersey. Honda provided the Civic GX. Although the retail cost of Phill is roughly $4,000, the final cost to consumers can be significantly lower, because (depending on where you live) state and federal tax credits can offset or even completely cover the initial purchase price. Similar tax credits can offset the incremental cost of the natural-gas technology in the Civic, bringing the $24,000 purchase price-again, depending on your state-down to below that of the entry-level Civic’s $16,000 sticker.

The benefits of natural gas are huge, but how practical is this vehicle? Over the course of the next year, our tests will answer that. Is the home-refueling system easy to use? How convenient is it to refuel during extended road trips? Staff editors will have access to the GX for road trips, vacations and just running around town, and it will be used as a commuter vehicle from New Jersey to Manhattan-a roughly 50-mile round trip.

Read on to see what our editors have to say about the vehicle on the following pages.

Eric Adams, Automotive Editor
The Civic GX was delivered to PopSci in early August, but the installation of the Phill station took several weeks to complete. This was because the FuelMaker installer had to jump through some local and state ordinance hoops to get the required permissions-it’s only the second unit installed in New Jersey, so the assorted government agencies hadn’t seen it before. Then there were electrical issues at my house that caused the unit to repeatedly trip the circuit breaker. Once that was sorted out, Phill worked like a charm. It’s incredibly easy to use: Every night I come home, plug the nozzle into the car’s receptacle (the connection is firm, and there’s a break-away feature in case someone drives off without unplugging), and hit the â€start†button. A quiet fan starts operating, and the fueling process begins.

The GX runs on gas pressurized to 3,600 pounds (the fuel tank is wrapped in carbon fiber to add strength and improve puncture resistance), and the Phill station takes about 16 hours to fill the car from empty. The reason for the length of time is that, unlike public stations, which have compressors that can fill the car in roughly two minutes, Phill does not have a compressor built in, so it relies on the slow accumulation of pressure over an extended period. A 16-hour fill-up sounds like a long time, but in daily use you would never really refuel from empty. Few people drive more than 60 miles a day, so as long as you plug in at least every other day, you’ll be able to top it off in only five to eight hours.

My own early experiences with the car suggest virtually effortless use as a daily commuter; fueling is simple and the car’s 240-mile range ensures that I always have plenty of gas to motor around my area. But extended road trips require considerable planning and an awareness that this car is a different sort of animal. You really have to buy into that fact to use it, and appreciate that you might be inconvenienced when taking trips-and that some trips may not be possible at all. Indeed, some of the editors interested in driving the car have already had to be turned away at the door because their destinations were to areas that either didn’t have public stations or the stations that were public required accounts that the magazine hasn’t yet established (few of them actually take credit cards). Stations tend to be clustered around urban areas, but there are many in relatively rural spots. You can easily drive from New York to Washington, D.C., Boston, Cape Cod or Philadelphia, for example, but trips to New Jersey’s southern beaches or, say, Pittsburgh may not be possible at all. (The car is not intended, by the way, as a road-trip car-though we are occasionally using it as such to investigate the entire natural-gas-fueling infrastructure-but rather as a commuter car that offers huge environmental and economic benefits. Most users with families would have a second car anyway, and use that for extended trips.)

As a car, the GX is virtually identical to conventional Civics, although there is very little trunk space because of the large, pressurized fuel tank. Its 113hp engine feels slightly anemic in this age of 200hp sedans, but it’s perfectly serviceable as long as you don’t have a fondness for jackrabbit starts at stoplights. From the driver’s seat, my only complaint is that there is no distance-to-empty display near the digital fuel gauge. This is, perhaps, the only car in the world that really needs one-given the fact that if you run out of fuel, you’re dead in the water-and it’s nowhere to be found. Honda tells me that this is because none of the other cars in the Civic lineup offer it, and it’s too expensive to include in a single model. Hopefully, the company will integrate one in future model-years.

Nicole Dyer, Headlines Editor
My brother and I decided to take the GX for a spin up to Bash Bish Falls in Mt. Washington, Massachusetts, a 130-mile trip from New York City. The night before, I flipped through the directory of natural-gas stations searching for filling stations along our route. Of the dozens listed, only two of them were open on weekends: one at LaGuardia Airport and another 90 miles away in Poughkeepsie, New York. Run out of gas in between, and it’d be tow-truck city.

First stop: LaGuardia. The pump at the station wasn’t so different from a traditional one, except that the nozzle delivered pressurized gas instead of liquid fuel, and it made a startling hissing noise while doing it. Total fill: 5.4 gallons. Cost: $13.53. Because the pressure at natural-gas pumps can vary depending on the health of the compressors, we left the station with the tank just 85 percent full. Not ideal, considering that our next fueling option was 90 miles away.

The ride up was smooth and uneventful-the car drives like a regular Civic-but I was hyperwatchful of the digital gas meter on the instrument panel. It’s marked by white bars, which disappear dramatically one by one as the tank empties. By the time we reached the falls, we had a scant four bars remaining. That translates to less than a quarter of a tank, just enough to get us to the next closest station, about 40 miles south in Poughkeepsie, on our way home.

After a day of hiking, it was about 7:30 p.m. before we got back on the road, and I wasn’t happy about the prospect of running out of fuel in Poughkeepsie at night. Lucky for us, our GPS unit (named Kent for his emotionless enunciation of street names) knew a shortcut and proceeded to guide us through a maze of winding backroads. With one bar left, Kent eventually led us to a lone and unlit filling station at the back of parking lot behind a nondescript municipal building. Then came a new set of worries: Would the pump work? Would it accept our credit card? Would anyone find us if we ran out of gas? Was there any salty Asian snack mix left?

Much to our relief, the pump flowed perfectly, and we made it back to the city without the aid of roadside assistance. Bottom line: Honda’s NGV Civic is an economical and environmentally friendly alternative to gas-powered cars, but if you plan to road trip in it, don’t leave home without Kent.

Kris LaManna, Photo Editor
I’ve taken the GX out on two drives so far-one to the Philadelphia area and one to Danbury, Connecticut. I had a very smooth experience with the car. I will say that not seeing exactly how many miles I had left was a bit unnerving, considering that there are only so many filling stations that I had access to. What put me at ease a bit was the fact that I knew exactly where I was headed and was able to figure out the miles beforehand. The car drove great, and having people stop me and ask about it was a unique experience. I had no problems finding or filling the tank but, of course, would love to have more options. All in all, both adventures with the car proved to be enjoyable.

by Courtesy Fuelmaker

by Paul Wootton

civictest_ss_4.jpg

by Courtesy Honda

by Eric Adams

civictest_ss_5.jpg

civictest_ss_7.jpg

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Over the past several decades, the promise of the “car of tomorrow” has remained unfulfilled, while the problems it was supposed to solve have only intensified. The average price of a gallon of gas is higher than at any time since the early 1980s. The Middle East seems more volatile than ever. And even climate skeptics are starting to admit that the carbon we´re pumping into the atmosphere might have disastrous consequences. To these circumstances, automakers have responded with a fleet of cars that averages 21 miles per gallon, about four miles per gallon worse than the Model T.

Yet hope is coming faster than that hydrogen economy you’ve been hearing about. Several small companies are developing new engine technologies and advanced automotive designs that promise to deliver 100 miles from a single gallon of gas. The proposals run from the simple-reduce weight, improve aerodynamics-to the incredible (one company wants to borrow a few tricks from jet engines).

The race should heat up further when the X Prize Foundation-the group that kick-started the space-tourism industry with its $10-million competition to produce a reusable private spacecraft-announces in the next few months a competition for the first car to break 100 miles per gallon and sell a yet-to-be-decided number of units. The prize money hadn’t been finalized at press time, but X Prize officials are discussing figures in the $25-million range as an appropriate incentive. They hope the prize will urge people to completely reconsider what a car should look like and how it should function. “We need a paradigm shift,” says Mark Goodstein, the executive director for the automotive X Prize. “We need to change the way people think about automobiles.”

Here are three technologies that auto-industry insiders we consulted think could raise the bar for automotive fuel economy-and quite possibly secure the X Prize’s huge purse.

Smaller, Better, Cheaper

By far the most obvious approach to achieving ultra-high mileage is to dramatically cut weight and wind resistance, the chief enemies of highway mileage. This is the gambit you see in student engineering competitions, in which teardrop-shaped microvehicles on bicycle wheels regularly achieve hundreds of miles to the gallon. But these vehicles are all expensive prototypes. The challenge is to make a light, highly aerodynamic vehicle that´s reliable, crash-worthy and, most important, inexpensive to mass-produce.

Steve Fambro may have tinkered his way into the solution. His Aptera, which he designed in his garage in Carlsbad, California, is a three-wheeled, bullet-shaped two-seater that minimizes drag and weighs only 850 pounds (the Toyota Prius weighs 2,890 pounds). He cut bulk by using a carbon composite frame, a race-inspired solution that should help with crash absorption.

Fambro´s company, Accelerated Composites, is drawing the attention of several venture capitalists, and he hopes to have the Aptera on the market in less than two years. “Everything I had been doing was with an eye toward manufacturability,” he says. By using novel composite-construction techniques, includinginexpensive molds and automated fabrication processes, Fambro says he can keep the cost per vehicle under $20,000. And when combined with a hybrid engine that burns diesel, the Aptera could break 300 mpg.

For more on the race to build the 100-MPG car, listen in to Episode 13 of the PopSci Podcast. Subscribe below via iTunes or RSS, or download the MP3 file.

Hybrids without Batteries

The hybrid drivetrain has been the great success story of the high-mileage movement. Cars like the Prius get up to twice the mileage of the industry average partially by recovering energy that´s lost as heat during braking, storing that energy in a battery, and reusing it later on. Yet today´s most efficient hybrids can recover only 30 percent of that energy for reuse.

One radical solution under development at the Environmental Protection Agency´s Advanced Technology Division is to get rid of the heavy batteries altogether. The EPA has built a modified hybrid that uses a hydraulic system, not a battery, to store braking energy. When you press the brakes, the wheels drive a pump that compresses nitrogen gas, which is inexpensive and inert. When you accelerate again, that compressed gas runs the pump in reverse to help power the vehicle [see illustration, below].

The hydraulic-hybrid system, scheduled to begin testing in two UPS trucks this month, with another to follow next year, promises to return at least 70 percent of the braking energy back to the wheels, which would lead to a 60 to 70 percent jump in fuel economy and a 40 percent reduction in emissions. Perhaps that´s why Charles Gray, the director of the Advanced Technology Division and one of the developers of the hydraulic hybrid, can´t contain his excitement about its potential. “This is going to be the biggest revolution in automotive history,” he declares. “Bigger than the assembly line.”

That’s yet to be seen, of course, but the hydraulic hybrid is also smaller and cheaper than conventional hybrids. “I can hold a 500-horsepower hydraulic pump motor in my hand, and I’m not a big guy,” Gray says. Because the technology would eliminate the need for a transmission-the engine merely pressurizes the hydraulic system, while the hydraulic motors power the wheels-and several other parts, it could be installed in a small car for almost no additional cost. Ford, the U.S. Army and others are investigating the technology, yet UPS-with its fleet of vehicles that constantly suffer through stop-and-go driving-is its only committed customer so far.

For more on the race to build the 100-MPG car, listen in to Episode 13 of the PopSci Podcast. Subscribe below via iTunes or RSS, or download the MP3 file.

**Jet-Engine Inspiration
**
Another potential player in the race to 100 mpg is the StarRotor, which began life as an air conditioner at Texas A&M University. Chemical-engineering professor Mark Holtzapple and his colleague Andrew Rabroker were attempting to build a better compressor for an air conditioner when they hit on the idea that became the StarRotor engine’s basic architecture. Once they made the connection to car engines, “we quickly forgot about air conditioners,” Rabroker says. They have since formed a business (also called StarRotor) to commercialize the technology.

The StarRotor uses the same thermodynamic process as jet engines to recuperate some of the heat normally lost to exhaust, something that the design of a piston engine doesn’t allow. The exhaust heat warms the air that comes into the engine before the fuel is added [see illustration, below]. This hot air leads to more powerful combustion, which means the StarRotor can extract more energy from a given amount of fuel than a conventional engine could.

Based on data from compressor prototypes, Rabroker believes the StarRotor will convert between 45 and 65 percent of the chemical energy in its fuel to mechanical energy, irrespective of the engine’s operating speed or power. In contrast, a typical gasoline engine has a peak efficiency of about 30 percent at full throttle and operates at a much lower efficiency during typical driving conditions. “Double is a gimme,” Rabroker says of the StarRotor’s potential. “I think we can ultimately triple the fuel mileage.”

Double or triple, though, what´s important is that innovators are developing solutions to our oil predicament-solutions that could have a huge influence before the first hydrogen-powered car ever leaves the lot.

When Billy Baker isn´t writing about the automotive industry, he´s working on a book about the juggling subculture.

For more on the race to build the 100-MPG car, listen in to Episode 13 of the PopSci Podcast. Subscribe below via iTunes or RSS, or download the MP3 file.

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At last year’s show, it was far from certain that Detroit’s Big Three would still exist in early 2010; they’re still with us. Ford and GM are building impressive new cars. Chrysler, which essentially had nothing but repainted versions of existing models on display, is another story. And this year it became obvious that the growing call to electrification won’t fade away anytime soon; nearly every automaker has now announced plans (some credible, some less so) for the launch of hybrid or pure-electric vehicles in the coming years. Altogether, the show gave the impression of a shaken industry thrilled for the chance at a fresh start.

See the gallery for a look at the highlights

2011 Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet

2011 Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet AIRCAP

Audi e-Tron Coupe

BMW Concept ActiveE

Buick Regal GS Concept

BYD e6

Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept

Chevy Aveo RS Show Car

Ford Focus

GMC Granite Concept

Commuter Cars Tango

Honda CR-Z

Hyundai Blue-Will

Lexus LF-Ch Concept

Elon Musk

Tesla Model S

Charging the Model S

Model S From the Front

Dirt-covered Tesla Roadster

Tesla Battery Pack

Nancy Pelosi

Mystery Robot

Nissan Mixim Concept

Toyota FT_EVII Interior

Volkswagen New Compact Coupe

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Citron C3 Pluriel Latte

Saab 9-3 Convertible BioPower Hybrid

Mazda MX-5 Miata Power Hard Top

Connaught Type D GT Syracuse

Ford Focus FFV

Lotus Europa

Citron C-P1NK

Cadillac BLS TurboDiesel

Opel Trixx

Land-Rover LR2

NICE Mega City

Carver One

Morgan Aero 8

Peugeot 207 GT HDi

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by Tyson Mangelsdorf

The short answer: Why bother? The shorter answer: Why not?

Toyota says the Prius is neat because you don’t have to plug it in–it charges itself when running on gas. But what if you could plug it in? If you could fully charge a set of supplementary batteries overnight from household current and do the next day’s errands purely on volts? (The gas engine will stay off under 35 mph if you have enough battery life and you’re gentle on the throttle.)

CalCars, a California eco-car consortium that has converted a handful of Priuses to plug-in models, is about to issue a free do-it-yourself instruction dossier with photos, a video and a shopping list of all the components you need. The hardware will cost you about $3,000, a third of it for a trunkload of lead-acid electric-bike batteries (so Costco runs are out). It´s not a weekend project, but anyone comfortable working with high voltages can do it. The mod won´t void your car´s warranty entirely, but don´t expect the dealer to help if you screw it up.

So for the price of a perfectly good used Corolla (plus the Prius´s $22,000 price tag), you have a plug-in hybrid that can take a trip of less than 10 miles on electricity alone. But you can still
go as far as your gas engine will take you-averaging as much as 75 mpg, according to CalCars. Is it worth the bother? That´s up to you.

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Hyundai chose Detroit to debut its first-ever plug-in hybrid, the 2016 Hyundai Sonata PHEV. It’s expected to travel 22 miles per charge using electricity alone, or a bit farther than other PHEVs on the market right now, including the Toyota Prius PHEV and the Ford C-Max Energi.

That edge in electric-only distance comes thanks to a 9.8 kWh lithium polymer battery. The battery powers a 50 kW electric motor, which Hyundai has deemed the “Transmission-Mounted Electric Device,” or TMED. As with other plug-in hybrid vehicles, the motor works in concert with a gasoline combustion engine—in this case a 2.0-liter four-cylinder model. The new Sonata PHEV can drive faster on electric than traditional, non–plug-in hybrids already on the market. (As the PHEV approaches highway speeds, its gasoline-powered engine kicks in to create the power necessary to accelerate.)

The Sonata PHEV will also have a “Level 2” charger—the same type used to replenish electric-only vehicles—so it can recharge in about two and a half hours. Plugged into a regular household outlet, it might take about five hours. But not to worry: The beauty of the PHEV is that when that charge is depleted, the car operates like all the hybrid vehicles we’ve come to know and sort of love, with the motor and engine working together. In the Sonata PHEV’s case, that adds up to 202 horsepower while getting 40 mpg (combined city and highway).

Like everything else on the planet, the 2016 Sonata PHEV will have an app when it arrives at dealerships in 10 states later this year. Blue Link, as it’s called, allows you to manage charging and take advantage of variable electricity rates in your city—that way, if electricity is cheaper at 2 a.m., you can instruct the car to power up then. You can also check your car’s battery state, how long it will take to fully charge, and get a fuel range estimate before you even step behind the wheel.

Popular Science is trawling the 2015 North American International Auto Show floors for the sexiest, most exciting new auto advancements and car concepts. Follow our complete Detroit auto show coverage all week long.

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Nissan can officially start its engines for its all-electric car, Leaf. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has finalized a $1.4 billion loan to the car manufacturer that should help it retool a Smyrna, Tennessee factory to build electric cars, and also revamp an advanced battery manufacturing center. Nissan’s projects are expected to create up to 1,300 American jobs.

The 2011 Nissan Leaf won one of PopSci’s “Best of What’s New” awards last year, and for good reason. Nissan’s vehicle may is the first truly mass-market electric car aimed at commuters, with a 100-mile range on its lithium-ion batteries and a price tag supposedly under $30,000. A PopSci test drive showed that the small car is surprisingly highway-worthy. And Nissan plans to eventually ramp up production to 150,000 electric vehicles annually.

Nissan represents the third vehicle manufacturer to sign a DOE loan agreement — Ford and Tesla Motors each received $5.9 billion and $465 million, respectively. Ford has its electric Focus lined up for next year, and Tesla has also been working on its Model S electric sedan for a 2011 debut.

The DOE also throws in the fun fact that Nissan’s loan-backed efforts should save 65.4 million gallons of gas per year, or about six times the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez back in 1989. But somehow that leaves us just feeling mildly angrier about the oil spill rather than inspired by the fuel savings … at least until we can ditch the hybrids.

The Leaf: Front View

The Leaf: Side View

The Leaf: Rear View

The Leaf: On the Road

The Leaf: The Dashboard

The Leaf: Looking Good

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Today the world’s most fuel-efficient car, the Volkswagen XL1, made its first U.S. appearance at the 23rd Annual Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The vehicle is the third-generation model in the company’s strategy to build a 1-liter car, but unlike the two previous prototypes that premiered in 2002 and 2009, the XL1 is the first available for consumer purchase.

The vehicle is currently considered a limited edition, with only 250 cars produced in Germany to gauge consumer interest. The plug-in hybrid has the look of a sports car and features a pair of scissor doors. It comes equipped with a 35kW two-cylinder Turbocharged Direct Injection engine, 27-horsepower electric motor, a seven-speed Dual-Shift Gearbox dual-clutch automatic transmission, and a lithium-ion battery. Thanks to their facility in Chattanooga, Tenn., Volkswagen holds the title for the first and only car factory worldwide with a LEED Platinum certification.

Volkswagen XL1 with scissor doors

The XL1 accelerates from 0 to 62 mph in 12.7 seconds and tops out at 99 mph. The XL1 gets a record-setting 261 miles per gallons based on the European driving cycle, which translates to an estimated 200-plus miles per gallon on the U.S. cycle. Running on a 27-horsepower electric motor, the XL1 can cover up to 32 miles while producing zero emissions. The battery requires 0.16 kWh to cover a mile in electric mode, the equivalent of 209 miles per gallon of gasoline.

With a sports car design, the XL1 is extremely aerodynamic, rivaling GM’s EV-1 with the lowest-ever coefficient of drag in a production vehicle (Cd 0.19). The vehicle is exceptionally light at 1,753 pounds—quite a feat, since hybrids usually weigh 10 percent more than standard cars due to having to carry the weight of the electric motor, generator, gasoline tank, and batteries. Volkswagen reduced the XL1’s weight by developing and patenting a new system for manufacturing the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer parts of the car. The vehicle also makes use of lightweight materials such as magnesium for the wheels, ceramics for the brake discs, and aluminum for the dampers, steering system, and brake calipers.

The Volkswagen XL1

Because of its lightweight design, the XL1 emits just 33.8 grams of CO2 per mile. Comparatively, the Chevy Volt emits 81 grams and the Toyota Prius emits 133 grams of CO2 per mile. The XL1 measures 153.1 inches long, 65.6 inches wide, and just 45.5 inches tall—5.1 inches shorter than the Porsche Boxster. Previous 1-liter cars required the driver and passenger to sit in tandem for optimal aerodynamics, but in the XL1 the occupants sit side by side.

U.S. production dates and sticker prices are not yet released for the XL1.

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Cars could shed their image as energy hogs and become mobile storage points for the electric grid, if engineers backed by the National Science Foundation get their way. Hybrid electric vehicles might even feed unused electricity back into the grid and earn money for their owners, not unlike how some homeowners who create renewable energy can sell back electricity to utility companies.

The concept of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration would do away with simply considering hybrid electric cars as energy consumers that require stations or places to plug into the electric grid and recharge their batteries.

“Cars sit most of the time,” said Jeff Stein, a mechanical engineer at the University of Michigan who leads the NSF-funded effort. “What if it could work for you while it sits there?”

Such future vehicles would essentially double as mobile holding tanks for electricity while sitting unused in their garages. That could prove especially useful if the electric grid begins to rely more on renewable sources of energy such as solar or wind power, which provide intermittent energy that requires storage.

But major challenges lie ahead for this vision. Stein’s team has made some progress in understanding how battery health and life is affected by constant charging and recharging, because “what’s good for the battery isn’t necessarily good for the grid,” and vice versa.

The engineers also want to understand how future ownership of hybrid electric vehicles affects the electric grid, and specifically the reliability and stability of the grid. Our advice — take a look at Google’s project to create “smart charging” software for electric cars.

[via ScienceDaily]

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It may not be the first thing you think of when you’re filling your SUV’s 20-gallon tank with $100 worth of gas every week, but the skyrocketing price of oil might actually be good for us—eventually.

This week, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that because of increasing gas prices, 54 percent of Americans would seriously consider purchasing a hybrid vehicle for their next car were it not for one major barrier: price. Currently, hybrid versions of existing models (Honda’s Civic and Accord, Ford’s Escape SUV) are priced much higher—anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 more—while lower-cost hybrids like Toyota’s Prius still come with significant performance tradeoffs in comparison with similarly-priced conventional cars. The big automakers have taken their sweet time pushing hybrid technology into the mainstream, but as the survey shows, there is real demand. Hopefully this demand won’t have to wait much longer for an adequately economical supply. —John Mahoney

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With Detroit reeling and Toyota busy trying to explain away some rather egregious design flaws, it might seem like a ripe time for an innovative car company to introduce a mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting idea to the automotive world. This is not that idea. Hungarian car company Antro’s ambitious reinvention of the modern auto involves creating a six-seat hybrid-solar car that splits into two three-seater cars. Or a pair of three-seater cars that combine into six-seaters, depending on how you look at it.

Without a doubt it’s an interesting idea, and as such the company has poured 1.5 million euros into developing the concept into a working prototype. According to the company, solar panels on the roof could deliver enough power to propel a single three-seater 12.5 miles before the other power source needs to kick in, and its small design would certainly make it no less viable a city car than the Smart Cars that dot the curbs of many European burgs. But a car that docks with other cars? The benefits are dubious, to say the least.

To answer (or not) a few of your questions: we’re not really sure exactly how this automotive merging is supposed to take place (nose-to-tail? side-by-side?). And we’re not really sure if the car will be sold as a set of two or as individual three-seater units. But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves; we’d actually be pretty surprised to see something like this go to market, Voltron-esque style points notwithstanding.

Autopia UK

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Lawmakers in Nevada made a pretty forward-thinking move a couple weeks ago when they passed a measure ordering new regulations for driverless cars. Many vehicles already participate in once-human-driven activities like parking and skid control, and it’s not long until they’ll be able to navigate, make decisions and drive totally by themselves.

But in some ways, the world of self-governing cars is already upon us. Using relatively simple software and adjustments to existing hardware, major automakers in the U.S. and Europe are making cars work smarter and greener in a way that has nothing to do with hybrid engines or alternative fuels.

Connected to each other and to the cloud, cars will be able to make their own decisions — so the future of driving, put simply, will be largely out of human hands.

Algorithms and analytics will predict driver behavior and forecast future commutes, studying the future from a few seconds to several hours down the road. Radar-equipped sedans will sense their surroundings, and road trains and car-to-car networks will be reducing congestion, preventing fatalities and improving fuel economy.

“A lot of the interactions we have today are to help the driver do their work, but what we’re tying to do is help the car, to make the car smart,” says Ryan McGee, an engineer at Ford Research and Innovation in Dearborn, Mich. “When you take a car and connect it to the cloud, there are so many possibilities.” Here are just a few of them.

Your Car Will Predict Where You’ll Drive

If you don’t use mass transit, odds are your drives to and from work or school follow a typical routine — in the morning, you go from home to the coffee shop to the office; in the evening, you leave the office, maybe make a grocery store pit stop, and go back home. Ford would like its cars to take advantage of your predictability, and guess where you’re going when you turn the ignition.

Researchers are feeding driving history into a Google software service called the Prediction API, which uses a machine-learning algorithm to generate a model of predicted behavior — in this case, a particular driver’s habits.

“The question we ask the model is, ‘Where is this person going to go next?'” said McGee, who is working on the model. “The model would say, it’s Wednesday at 5:00, so you’re pretty likely going to go home, and it sends that data back to the car.”

The current system connects to the Internet and records where the car is at what time and on what day. The algorithm computes a list of likely trips for that place and time. Based on the trip possibilities, the car can shift its power consumption to run on a battery instead of gasoline — which will be useful for plug-in hybrid cars, McGee explained. Ford has been testing it in an Escape SUV plug-in hybrid.

Ford Escape Plug-In Hybrid

In the future, governments might enforce low-emissions zones near a school or a park, or build battery-only lanes. McGee usually picks up his son from soccer practice on his way home from work, he said. If his car knows his habits, and knows there’s a low-emissions zone in the area, the car will save some battery juice for that portion of his day.

“It will make sure I save enough energy so when I get to that area, I can drive electric,” he said. “If we know more about how people are going to use the car, we can optimize their performance.”

But all routines can be broken — what if you want a burrito on Wednesday but crave a cheeseburger on Thursday? The car will have no idea where you’ll go come lunchtime. Because of randomness and drivers’ fickle nature, motorists will be able to make additions and corrections to the system if it’s ever installed in mass-market vehicles, McGee said.

Your Car Will Predict What Traffic Will Do

Once a car knows its driver’s own habits, it can incorporate other data from the cloud to make more informed suggestions. If traffic forecasters have enough data, and they have good enough models to interpret it, they should be able to tell you at lunchtime what your 5 p.m. commute home is going to look like. IBM made a smartphone app to do this.

IBM says the app can learn a driver’s patterns, predict what the traffic will look like 30 minutes or more in the future, and send the forecast to the driver before he or she gets behind the wheel. Big Blue has been testing the system in the San Francisco Bay area, according to John Day, Program Manager for IBM Smarter Traffic.

The app uses a phone’s GPS capability to track a driver’s movements during various times of day, learning his or her routines. It also connects to a system of 700 road sensors previously installed by the California Department of Transportation. The sensors track how fast cars are going and the flow of traffic, counting cars per minute. The sensors collect data every 30 seconds, but IBM aggregates that into a 5-minute set and feeds it into an algorithm. The algorithm makes correlations among the data to pull out patterns, Day said.

“The tool is good at discovering and learning the signature of slowdowns,” he said. “It will notice at a particular area or especially an interchange, when traffic slows down, then 83 percent of the time, or whatever it is, you get a much bigger problem.”

Using those signatures, the system analyzes real-time data to build a constantly updating model of the traffic situation, changing every 5 minutes. While existing prediction systems base their forecasts on current conditions, predicting what traffic will look like if nothing changes, the algorithm can recognize and account for the ripple effects of single actions.

Users can log in to the app from a computer to see “journey history,” and can add or delete routes as they choose to control how much information is stored, Day said. He even envisions the app offering coupons for businesses the driver frequents.

“If you have the capability to recognize that somebody drives by a coffee shop so often, that would be valuable information. It has to be used carefully, and managed such that the user has full control over whether they want to have that data shared, but yes, there are certainly capabilities there,” he said.

IBM Smarter Traveler

But the app’s real strength will be in helping a driver avoid traffic, he said. It can suggest alternate routes and even check web-based transit timetables. So if a driver normally leaves for work at 8:30 a.m., he might get a text message at 8 a.m. with the day’s forecast — “your normal commute looks bad today, but this train leaves at 8:30, and there are 48 parking spaces available at the park-and-ride.”

Day said the system could conceivably work anywhere there are road sensors and drivers with GPS-enabled smartphones.

“Go to any city and watch the news, and you usually see a heat map when somebody is talking about traffic, just like the weather person,” he said. “[Cities] almost all have some sort of road sensor network in place.”

Your Car Will Predict Pedestrians’ and Other Drivers’ Next Moves

Now that your car knows what you’re going to do, and what the masses are going to do, it needs to know what the car 20 feet ahead is about to do. Car-to-car networks and advanced control algorithms can ensure there are no surprises, and hopefully someday no accidents. They can also improve engine efficiency and reduce emissions by preventing stop-and-go traffic.

Just this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a pilot program that will let drivers test future connected car capabilities. Systems will enable cars to communicate with each other and with road infrastructure like traffic lights and railroad crossings, but drivers have to get used to it first. Clinics in a half-dozen cities will let humans test wirelessly connected car technology to see how well we can adapt.

If we don’t adapt well, cars will soon be equipped to deal with it. Researchers at MIT are developing new algorithms that incorporate models of human behavior to warn drivers of potential collisions, and assume control of the car to prevent a crash.

For the purposes of the system, driving is boiled down into two actions: braking and accelerating. Depending on which action the driver is taking at a given point in time, there are only so many possible outcomes for where the car will be next, according to MIT News, which featured the new algorithm last month. Domitilla Del Vecchio, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, also incorporated models that predict human behavior, such as when drivers slow down or speed up at an intersection.

The resulting system can determine the points in an intersection where vehicles are in danger of colliding, according to MIT. A car equipped with this algorithm will try to predict what the other car will do — also consulting traffic lights and its own onboard sensors — and act accordingly to avoid a crash.

Connected Car Collision Avoidance

For a future involving no human drivers at all, algorithms will have to account for variable numbers of cars acting in concert, accounting for the ripple effects of one action. For instance, if one car slows to avoid a crash, other cars must alter their behavior, too. A distributed control system would control acceleration, braking, lane changes and highway exits for all the cars in a given group.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University built a simulation that can prove such a system’s safety, even with multiple cars performing multiple complicated tasks. A team led by Andre Platzer, an assistant professor of computer science, started with just two cars in one lane. Then they added more cars to show it can work with an arbitrary number of vehicles, and added more lanes to show that number can vary, too. Ultimately, the system remains crash-proof regardless of the vehicles or lanes involved — on a straight highway, that is. Future simulations will have to account for variables like curved roads, Platzer said in a CMU release.

Control systems for autonomous car fleets are slightly farther in the future, however. Cars don’t need advanced algorithms to work in concert to cut congestion and prevent collisions — European researchers are already doing this, simply by allowing cars to communicate with each other. Systems like this can reduce emissions and improve engine efficiency by letting cars travel in a slipstream.

Swedish automaker Volvo has been testing “road trains,” which involve convoys of cars led by a professional driver. Cars can hook up to the train and connect via a wireless link, and an adaptive cruise control system will match the leader’s speed. Sensors in the cars will ensure everyone keeps a safe distance from each other. Earlier this year, Volvo tested a road train with a single car and a semitrailer.

The goal is to cut fuel use, cut congestion and make driving safer. The automaker hopes to deploy the technology by 2020.

And last month, German researchers found that just five cars communicating out of every 1,000 is enough to reduce congestion. Sensors in the cars can collect data and exchange it with other cars via local wireless networks, as well as relay it to a central traffic command center. Preliminary data from a one-year test showed that a minimum of five cars was sufficient to make an impact on congestion. The test was part of the European Union’s Dynamic Information and Application for Mobility with Adaptive Networks and Telematics Infrastructure (DIAMANT) project.

Your Car Won’t Change That Much — Its Computers Will

For automakers and for consumers, the good news is that most of these technologies can be implemented with a few simple codes and algorithmic changes — cars don’t have to reinvent the wheel to enable major improvements. With updates like these, driving could become much safer and much less frustrating within the next few years. Now if humans would just drive smarter, too…

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by Courtesy Toyota Motor USA

Small streets and pricey fuel have shaped the European car market to favor smaller cars. In fact, what we call a compact car is a midsize on the continent. But now that Ameri- cans are feeling the burn of expensive gas, automakers have responded by bringing a fleet of smaller-than-subcompact vehicles to our shores. Unlike previous stripped-down econoboxes, these will be equipped to appeal to both the budget-minded and the car-savvy consumer.

The Trend
A new crop of well-equipped sub-$14,000 cars that are even smaller than last year´s entry-level model

Why Now?

Gasoline prices are on the rise, and these cars are fuel-sippers-making them an inexpensive alternative to hybrids.

How You´ll Benefit

They´re small and cheap but by no means low-rent. These cars will sport premium features such as Bluetooth, satellite radio, MP3 jacks, elegant interiors, a full range of airbags, and sophisticated engines.

MOST POWERFUL

The burliest and most spacious of the three, this Nissan sub-Sentra entry offers an optional continuously variable transmission to squeeze even more mileage out of the fuel-sipping 1.8-liter engine. Arriving this May.

Dimensions: 169 x 67 x 60 in.

Weight: 2,800 lbs. (est.)

Fuel Economy: 38 mpg (hwy)

Engine: 1.8-liter 4-cylinder

Power: 120 hp; 125 lb.-ft. torque

MOST COMPACT

Replacing the ho-hum Echo in the U.S., the diminutive Yaris will come here this spring as a three-door hatch and four-door sedan-a complete redesign of the first-generation car that has been by far Toyota´s best seller in Europe.

Dimensions: 150 x 67 x 60 in.

Weight: 2,326 lbs.

Fuel Economy: 39 mpg (hwy)

Engine: 1.5-liter 4-cylinder

Power: 106 hp; 103 lb.-ft. torque

MOST FIT TO BE TUNED

Called the Jazz in Europe (which hints at Honda´s youth-directed approach), the five-door Fit is already a tuner favorite and has its own enthusiast Web site, fitfreak.net. Though smaller than a Civic, it has more interior room and versatile seats that fold into the floor to form a bed. On sale this spring.

Dimensions: 157 x 66 x 60 in.

Weight: 2,514 lbs.

Fuel Economy: 38 mpg (hwy)

Engine: 1.5-liter 4-cylinder

Power: 109hp; 105 lb.-ft. torque

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BMW TurboSteamer

Certain parts of a car´s engine can reach temperatures in excess of 1,500

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2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid

Most hybrid-auto makers have the efficiency thing down, but they still can’t build a high-performance car that’s both fun to drive and efficient. At least, not until now. To create the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid engineers married a supercharged V6 with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. The car’s three driving modes—electric, hybrid, and recharge—give drivers the flexibility they need to scream down the highway and then flip to electric power for short-range cruising.

Electric

A 9.4-kilowatt-hour battery powers the 95-horsepower electric motor, which delivers its full 229 foot-pounds of torque the instant the driver hits the throttle. Porsche says the battery will run for 22 miles (we clocked 33 on our test drive) before dipping below a 15 percent charge, at which point the gas engine kicks in. The engine will also fire up if the driver throttles past a certain threshhold, allowing him to blast from 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds.

Hybrid

The motor and engine connect to the same eight-speed automatic transmission, and a computer determines when to draw power from which source. When the car is coasting, for example, the transmission will decouple from the gas engine to save fuel. As with most hybrids, the Panamera’s brakes recoup energy to keep the battery charged.

Recharge

When the driver activates E-Charge mode, the 333-horsepower V6 engine engages and turns the electric motor, which then acts as a generator. In our test drive, it took 30 to 40 miles for the motor to fully recharge the depleted battery.

#

PLUG IN

2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid

Price: $99,975
Top speed: 167 mph hybrid; 83 mph electric
Horsepower: 416 mph hybrid 95 mph electric

_This article originally appeared in the November 2013 issue of _Popular Science.

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All those hybrid and electric cars, wind turbines and similar clean tech innovations may count for nothing if the U.S. cannot secure a supply of rare earth minerals. Ditto for other advanced telecommunications or defense technologies, scientists told a U.S. House subcommittee.

China has supplied 91 percent of U.S. consumption of rare earths between 2005 and 2008, and continues to represent the world’s largest rare earth exporter. But the Chinese have warned that their own domestic industry appetite for rare earths may eventually force them to stop exporting — an action that would leave the U.S. high-tech industries crippled without other readily available supplies.

“The United States, not so long ago, was the world leader in producing and exporting rare earths,” said Brad Miller, the Democratic Representative from North Carolina and chairman of the subcommittee. “Today, China is the world’s leader.”

Experts testified that China’s state-owned mines had set artificially low prices for the rare earth market, and that Chinese manufacturers had also forced most U.S. rare earth and permanent magnet manufacturers out of business. Rare earth magnets represent a major component in Toyota’s Prius hybrid and other clean tech.

Companies such as IBM have also begun investing in new solar cells and other technologies that don’t require rare earths, partly because of the dangers of relying too much upon foreign suppliers.

But there’s also opportunity from investing in rare earths, besides avoiding a supply chain problem. Karl Gschneidner Jr., a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory in Iowa, called for the creation of a National Research Center on Rare Earths and Energy as well as a National Research Center for Magnetic Cooling.

Magnetic refrigeration is a hot new area for energy-efficient, green technology that can handle cooling and climate control. Cooling below room temperature currently takes up 15 percent of all the energy consumed in the U.S., but the rise of magnetic refrigeration could slash that by 5 percent.

Given all the energy problems with keeping massive data centers cool in the Information Age, we also imagine that Google and other companies might welcome magnetic refrigeration with open arms. That is, as long as the U.S. can secure its own domestic rare earth supply or find new overseas suppliers.

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For its new Civic Hybrid, Honda engineered a gasoline-electric powerplant that’s more powerful (110 horsepower, up from 93) and fuel-efficient (50 mpg city/highway). To increase the torque and horsepower from the 2.8-inch-thick electric motor, engineers cleverly swapped the round wire in the motor’s armature for a flat one. That switch let them cram more wire in, increasing the power density. During deceleration, when the electric motor becomes a battery-charging generator, the variable-valve-timing system seals the gas engine’s cylinders. This minimizes resistance, allowing the motor to generate more electricity as the primary engine-slowing force.

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With twin 5.7-liter Hemi V8 engines and a super-stiff carbon-fiber body, the Jeep Hurricane concept truck is the boldest, most fearsome rock crawler ever built. But the real achievement lies underneath. A central transfer case called the T-Box receives the opposing engines’ driveshafts and apportions a combined 700 horsepower and 750 pound-feet of torque to all four independently sprung wheels. Each wheel can deflect up to 45 degrees off-center, enabling the Hurricane to scoot diagonally like a beach crab or, when coupled with the gearbox’s ability to turn the wheels in opposite directions, spin in place like, well, a hurricane.
Of course, the Hurricane goes forward and backward, too-and fast. It’ll blast to 60 mph in an estimated five seconds, hit a projected 120 mph, and, thanks to 14.3 inches of ground clearance, scramble over just about anything the unpaved world can throw at it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Hurricane to blow into your local Jeep dealership, but the company is looking to bring elements of the concept into production trucks.

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Michelin aims to eliminate flats and blowouts with its remarkable Tweel concept, an airless one-piece wheel-and-tire combo that could soon enter production. The Tweel’s hub connects to polyurethane spokes that assume the shock-absorbing role of a traditional tire’s sidewall. The spokes are bonded to a reinforced rubber tread band that can be as specialized as today’s tires. By varying the thickness and size of the spokes, Michelin can generate a wide array of ride and handling qualities.

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Dropping the top on the new Volvo C70 doesn’t mean sacrificing safety. Side-curtain airbags, previously found only in fixed-roof vehicles, typically deploy downward from the roof. The C70, available this spring, shoots them upward from the doors, using vertically oriented air chambers like inflatable beams, so it doesn’t matter if the roof is up or down. And they stay inflated longer, keeping your head and limbs inside the car during a rollover.

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Now available in Europe in the sporty Golf GT, Volkswagen’s Twincharger system consists of a highly economical 1.4-liter direct-injection four-cylinder engine equipped with both a supercharger and a turbocharger. The supercharger, belt-driven off the crankshaft, compensates for the engine’s small displacement by forcing air into the cylinders at low revs to bolster torque. As the tachometer climbs, an exhaust-gas-driven turbocharger further boosts the horsepower. The GT hits 62 mph in 7.9 seconds and goes on to 136 mph, while returning an impressive average of 39 mpg.

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by Courtesy Volkswagen

How’s this for a hybrid? Volkswagen’s first-of-its-kind Twincharger engine, arriving this fall in the Europe-only Golf GT, marries a diminutive 1.4-liter, four-cylinder engine to both a supercharger and a turbocharger. The pint-size power plant gobbles oxygen, not gas, cranking out commendable performance and outstanding fuel economy.

Both ‘chargers work on the same principle: Force air into the engine to generate more power. At low rpms, the super-charger-driven by a belt connected to the engine’s crankshaft-blasts fresh air into the cylinders to enhance low-end torque. At high revs, the exhaust gas brings the turbocharger up to speed to bolster top-end performance.

VW won’t say if it plans to bring the Twincharger to North America, but if $3 for a gallon of gas becomes routine, the company just might find a market for a sporty 48mpg hatchback.

VW Golf GT

Engine … 1.4 liter, 4 cyl.

Power … 168 hp

Torque … 177 lb. -ft

0-62 MPH … 7.9 sec.

Top Speed … 136 mph

MPG … 30 (city); 48 (highway)

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Long, wide and low-slung, the car looks exotic, unplaceable. “It’s the length of a Mercedes CLS, the width of a BMW 7-series, and the height of a Porsche 911,” says the corporate spokesman at the wheel. The front end is so long that it must hold at least a V8, but in fact there is no discernible engine noise, only the quiet whine of electric motors. Instead, a pair of external speakers emits—for effect—a sound somewhere between a Formula One car and a starship.

The car is a racy four-door, with two more roomy seats behind us and trunk enough for two sets of golf clubs. Above us stretches a solar panel, built into the roof. And the whole thing is controlled by a cutting-edge touchscreen in the dash. As we wheel into a fancy shopping center, I feel like James Bond arriving at MI6.

Or at least, that’s what I imagine it’s like to ride in the Fisker Karma. It’s the long-awaited plug-in hybrid supercar that is supposed to usher in a new era of upscale, luxurious green transportation—and hopefully at the same time revive the American automotive industry. Backed by a $529-million U.S. government loan, plus another $300-odd million in venture capital, Fisker Automotive aims to do what Tucker and DeLorean could not: create a new, big, successful American carmaker. “This car is more sexy and exciting than any other car you’ve seen,” boasts designer Henrik Fisker. Maybe it is. But I haven’t driven one.

I’d tried for weeks to snag a rare Karma test drive, but no dice. So right now the flack and I are sitting in his black Audi wagon, with a purple baby seat in the rear. No head-snapping torque, no starship noises, no revolution on wheels. “We’re just not ready to show it yet,” he says as we pull into the mall to pick up lunch.Almost no one outside the company has ever driven the Karma. The lone exception is the Crown Prince of Denmark (well, his chauffeur), who arrived at December’s Copenhagen global-warming summit in one. Apart from car shows and a handful of low-speed public appearances, the seven working prototypes have been off-limits to outsiders. Even now, seven months before working cars are supposed to arrive in Fisker’s 45 dealerships, the company has yet to allow a journalist to ride in a Karma. Even the Fisker sound, meant to alert pedestrians, is under wraps. “We’re not releasing that yet,” the spokesman tells me. “We don’t want to give away the secret sauce.”

Power Lines

THE ROAR OF SILENCE

Perhaps Fisker’s secrecy is strategic. After all, 1,600 paying customers have preordered the $88,000 Karma without even a test drive. His reputation is what does it. Fisker created the BMW Z8 roadster featured in the 1999 Bond film The World Is Not Enough and then, at Aston Martin, updated the beloved Vantage V8. He’s a god of car design. But the secrecy has also fueled skepticism about the company. The Karma’s delivery date has slipped from the fourth quarter of 2009 to September 2010 to “later this year.” Customers placing new orders, meanwhile, supposedly won’t receive a Karma before next spring.

This is supposed to be the year of the electric car, the beginning of the New Age of the automobile. A handful of electric vehicles (EVs) and next-generation hybrids are set to reach the market over the next 12 months.

The theme among most of these cars is practicality. Last month, customers began to reserve the eco-chic Nissan Leaf, a roomy, airy runabout, said to be priced like a Honda Civic, that looks to be this decade’s answer to the Prius. This fall is the scheduled debut of the much-anticipated Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that General Motors hopes will save its bacon. And the fourth quarter will see the first shipments of the all-electric Coda, a functional $30,000-something sedan manufactured in China and sold here by a Santa Monica–based start-up.

But some green-car buyers don’t want to give up sex appeal. Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley start-up that is perhaps Fisker’s closest competitor, has sold about 1,000 of its ultra-sporty, electric Roadster (0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds) at $109,000. Audi, Mercedes and BMW all have EVs or hybrids in the works, and Porsche recently unveiled its 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid concept.

Karmic Ancestor

But the most anticipated debut of all—the one that has inspired real curiosity among the diehards who like their cars throaty and powerful—will be the Karma, unveiled as a concept car a little more than two years ago and scheduled for production late this year. The car represents a nearly billion-dollar bet on the future of American automaking. It’s an attempt to create, from scratch, an American car company that will defy history merely by surviving. Not only that, the company actually plans to export cars to Europe and Asia. And it all stems from the outsize ambition of Henrik Fisker. “He’s become very important to this industry,” says an executive involved in the electric-car business. “I don’t even think he realizes how important he is.”

The federal government believes in Fisker. Last September, the Department of Energy awarded Fisker Automotive a $529-million loan to finish the Karma and begin work on its next car, the more affordable four-door code-named Nina. Fisker hopes to sell 15,000 Karmas, and then a whopping 100,000 Ninas. Last June, Henrik Fisker made the cover of Forbes, which dubbed his company “The Next Detroit.”

But this isn’t just a product release. It’s the company’s first ever, incorporating technology that no one, including the giants of automotive engineering, has perfected yet. Which is why Fisker’s secrecy is worrisome. Some are leery of Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, a little-known company that created the powertrain with Fisker. And Fisker is on its third battery supplier in three years. A mishap in a Fisker—or any other EV—could cripple the whole segment, pushing buyers and investors away. “There are 750 gas-car fires every day,” an EV engineer told me. But with battery-powered cars like the Karma, “one single failure will be headline news.”

The company has a highly respected founder, attractive prototypes and a half-billion-dollar government loan. But is Fisker’s sleek, expensive vision of an electric vehicle a forecast of the future, or the kind of rarefied concept that litters the past?

“Anybody can draw a f- -king box,” says a car-company executive who has observed Fisker closely. “What matters is what’s inside, the powertrain that makes the thing go. And nobody has seen that yet.”

Sunroof

NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER

Fisker’s offices in Irvine, California, seem very quiet for a company trying to put vehicles on the road in less than a year. I count only about a dozen employees, and about the same number of cars in the parking lot (a spokesman says 28 employees work there, with another 30 on the way from Fisker’s just-closed Michigan office). Upstairs, there are vast expanses of empty, carpeted office space. But when I meet the 46-year-old Fisker, his unlined face and deep intonation betray no feelings of doubt whatsoever. And then I see why. It’s the car.

The Karma concept prototype sits in the lobby. It’s beautiful, like a long-limbed woman lying on her side. I linger for a moment before being ushered past a fingerprint-identifying security system to a back room filled with clay models, prototypes and disembodied chassis. In one corner sits a newer, shorter version of the Karma, the Sunset hardtop convertible, which Fisker announced last year. I get to sit inside it for a luxurious few minutes. The other six Karmas are off at various car shows or test labs, but I spot a prototype of yet another new model, a follow-up version of the Karma, hidden beneath a tarp. It looks to be some sort of crossover or quasi-SUV, but my queries go nowhere and the tarp stays on. “Whenever we reveal something, other car companies copy us,” Fisker says later. “Why should we give them a head start?”

Fisker Sketches

Despite its Zen moniker, the Karma is a product of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004, Quantum created a hybrid “stealth” military vehicle called the Aggressor, designed for high-risk Special Forces missions. A battery- and hydrogen-hybrid runabout, like a drag-racing green jeep, the Aggressor could be dropped behind enemy lines, zoom into action on silent electric power, with a minimal thermal footprint—and then get the hell out of there in hydrogen or electric mode.

Quantum built a single prototype for the Army, on a $1-million contract. “They loved it so much, they wouldn’t give the vehicle back to us,” says Quantum CEO Alan Niedzwiecki. But the Aggressor never went into production. Its propulsion system married an electric motor to a sizable battery pack, plus a backup hybrid engine that powered an electric generator to extend the range (the powertrain of the Chevy Volt is similar). Later christened Q-Drive, the system delivered a whiplash-inducing 1,700 pound-feet of torque yet got 80 miles per gallon. Someone had to want it.

In 2007, Niedzwiecki met Fisker, just past 40 and already, after his stints at BMW and Aston Martin, an automotive legend. Fisker and his partner Bernhard Koehler had formed Fisker Coachbuild, a boutique shop that designed and re-skinned high-end luxury cars, but that business was drying up and they were looking for something new.

At Quantum’s Orange County offices, Niedzwiecki showed Koehler and Fisker a video of the Aggressor ripping donuts—with no engine noise. They were impressed. “It could go in quietly, blow everything up, and then use hydrogen to get out,” Koehler recalls.

Without Compromise

Long, low and wide, the Q-Drive was perfectly suited to Henrik Fisker’s own design sensibilities, which formed early in his childhood in Denmark. His family was once tootling along in their pokey Saab when a Maserati Bora whooshed past. The incident made a huge impression on him. “In primary school, I was always drawing cars instead of taking notes,” Fisker says. He went to design school in Switzerland and spent his career designing exotic sports cars.

But soon he started thinking about hybrids—and the threat they posed. He found it astounding that Leonardo di Caprio was driving a Prius. (“Here’s a guy who could drive any car he wanted to!”) He still winces at a snub by Prince Albert II of Monaco, who refused to be photographed with one of Fisker’s six-figure, ultra-limited-edition luxury machines. From now on, the prince announced, he would be photographed only with “green” cars. Fisker worried that gas prices and global warming were about to consign his work to history.

“I started thinking, what are my children going to be driving in 10 or 20 years?” Fisker says. “Some little three-wheeler commuter cars that are all the same color, they all have 20 horsepower, they all have a speed limiter of 40 miles an hour, and they all have a number? I don’t want to do that. I still want to drive a cool car that’s full of power and having fun. I don’t want to have a number that’s trying to be a car.”

The Fisker Karma debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2008, and although it was just a shell with no motor and fake buttons on the dash, it made big news. One of the industry’s most storied figures was aiming to be the next major American car company. And the Karma did not fit anybody’s idea of an electric car. It wasn’t small or meek. “I’m not interested in saying, here’s a car that’s smaller and slower and doesn’t go as far, and it’s green,” Fisker says. “On the road, they won’t mistake it for anything else. People will wonder what sort of supercar is going by.”

In building the prototype, the company had spent its initial $5 million in funding and needed more. Fisker found its angel in Ray Lane, a former COO of Oracle and now a managing partner at the Silicon Valley venture-capital powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Lane was looking for an electric-vehicle investment, and Fisker made him a believer. “I looked at all the projects out there,” Lane says, including Tesla, Coda and Aptera Motors, a California-based company that hopes to sell an aerodynamic three-wheeler to the U.S. market. For all their differences, those electric vehicles have to be small and lightweight in order to have a useful range. The Fisker design, with its range-extending engine, was both useful and possessed over-the-top sex appeal. “I tried to find where the compromise was in owning an EV called Fisker,” Lane says. “There wasn’t one. I haven’t met a human being yet who didn’t want to own one.”

Stealth Mode

UNDER THE HOOD

The company is tight-lipped about specifics, but it’s possible to piece together a pretty good picture of what will be inside the production-model Karma. From its appearances at auto shows, we know it’s big: 196.7 inches end-to-end, and a strapping 5,800 pounds, a bit more than a Rolls-Royce Ghost. In part this is because of its dual drive system, with the twin electric motors in the rear and the auxiliary gas engine up front. A heavy-duty lithium-ion battery array, crammed into the large hump running down the center of the passenger compartment, packs enough juice to move the metal 50 miles under normal driving conditions—which is about as far as most Americans drive in a typical day. After that, the two-liter GM Ecotec engine kicks in, not to power the wheels, as in a conventional hybrid, but to generate electricity that feeds the twin electric motors in the rear. So unlike an all-electric car, which has limited range, the Karma can drive essentially forever, with occasional stops at a gas station (it averages about 300 miles between fill-ups).

Although they add weight, the dual drive systems help balance the car’s front and rear. The small gas tank means the rear end can be shorter and sportier, a proportion Fisker favors. And the direct connection between electric motor and rear differential means it can accelerate from 0 to its top electric speed of 95 mph (125 under gas power) as if in one gear. “You’ll feel the instant power, the smooth power,” Fisker raves.

A paddle to the left of the steering wheel lets the driver shift from all-electric “Stealth” mode (a vestige of its military origins) to gas-hybrid “Sport” mode, which affords the car’s full power for hills. In Stealth mode, the Karma could be allowed to drive in sections of certain European cities, like Munich, that have imposed low-emission zones. This is a key factor, Koehler says, in making the Karma export-friendly. “We expect to export 60 percent of our vehicles,” he says. “We don’t just design for the American market.”

Another paddle on the right side of the wheel lets the driver operate the three-level regenerative braking system, with one setting for normal city driving, a second level for hilly areas, and a third—which can recharge the battery in as few as 10 miles—for long descents.

Fisker’s business model depends largely on outsourcing parts, even the seats. “You can go and engineer a new seat, and it will cost you $20 million,” Koehler says. “We didn’t do that.” The air-conditioning system comes straight from GM, along with roughly 200 other miscellaneous parts that Fisker purchases at cost under a special agreement. Valmet Automotive, a contract manufacturer that also makes the Porsche Cayman, will assemble the Karma in Finland.

Yet nothing about the car feels mass-produced. It’s an indulgence. It offers silent electronic door latches and a solar-panel roof that helps run the AC fans and fill the battery (adding 200 charge-free miles per year). The most expensive trim level is called Eco-Chic, with natural-fabric seats, ultrasuede on the dash, and wood trim recovered from California forest fires—not a single square inch of leather. “It’s for the vegans,” Koehler says, and it will set you back roughly an extra $7,500 above base price.

Bi-Xenon Headlights

The cockpit is remarkably simple. The dash consists of a 10.2-inch touchscreen that controls everything in the car. There are only three actual buttons, for the glove box, hazard lights and door locks. A small knob switches between drive, neutral and reverse. The seats are roomy, and the passenger compartment big enough for four real adults (although the battery hump somewhat limits rear-seat make-out potential). And for all its muscular good looks, the Karma’s drag coefficient comes in at just 0.31, only a tad less slippery than the Prius’s 0.25.

The Karma is exciting—just standing in front of the prototype fires up something primal. But it’s also not for everyone. I’m 5’11”, and when I sink into the driver’s seat, it’s like drowning in a sea of hood. For me, raised on a steady diet of Volkswagens and Hondas, it’s too low, too long, too wide. It’s an open question, then, whether it will attract 15,000 buyers with a spare $87,900 (less a $7,500 federal tax credit) and whether that will, in turn, lead to mass-market success. “High-priced electric vehicles have a limited market,” says former GM chairman Robert Stempel. “To make EVs practical, we need affordable vehicles.”

“I don’t know who made a rule saying you can only appeal to a mass market if you are boring,” Fisker counters. His next model, in fact, is a four-door, roughly $47,000 jazzed-up family sedan, to be made at a GM plant in Delaware that Fisker is buying for a mere $18 million and will retool with the Department of Energy loan. Fisker spent more than $250,000 on lobbying in 2008 and 2009, money that turned out to be well spent, even if Vice President Joe Biden did say more than he should have at the signing ceremony. Biden revealed that Fisker hoped to sell 100,000 per year, and that crossovers and coupes were next; 100,000 is about the number of BMW 3-Series, a popular model from an established brand, sold last year in the U.S.

Mean But Not Lean

FIGHTING FOR THE HIGH END

Fisker is not going to have the luxury green-car market to itself. A few months before the company won its federal loan, the Department of Energy announced a $465-million loan to its main competitor, Tesla, to build its own four-door family sedan, the Model S. A billion dollars in taxpayer money is now riding on whether two competing EV start-ups can find traction at the high end of the car market. (The Obama administration, meanwhile, gave Nissan another $1.4 billion in loan guarantees to build the Leaf in Tennessee.)

The high-end EV industry is small. So small that Tesla once hired Fisker Coachbuild, in 2007, to design the Model S. Fisker showed up at Detroit a few months later, in 2008, with a green car of his own, the concept Karma. Tesla executives were stunned. “When they pulled the sheet off, all the Tesla people went running for their phones,” says an observer. “It looked exactly like what Fisker had designed for Tesla’s Model S.”

Tesla sued Fisker, accusing him of stealing trade secrets. The case settled in late 2008, with Fisker awarded more than $1 million in fees and costs. “That lawsuit was all about executive egos,” a Tesla official says. A Fisker insider is less diplomatic: Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, he says, “is just a brat.” Tesla, for its part, went out and hired star designer Franz van Holzhausen from Mazda, in a clear attempt to compete with Fisker.

But Tesla and Fisker, though fiercely competitive, want to create an industry between them. They share a business model that owes more to Silicon Valley than Detroit. And with none of Detroit’s legacy costs, they are both far leaner than GM could ever be. “We want them to succeed,” a Tesla exec told me. The Fisker people expressed similar sentiments.

Can a new market support not just one but two start-ups selling high-priced electric cars? Both Fisker and Tesla are relying on a kind of trickle-down progression, where high-end buyers lead the way, creating economies of scale that ultimately bring prices down. “It’s like plasma TVs,” Koehler says. They started out expensive, and now everyone has one.

But the new TVs were introduced by established, stable companies, not start-ups gambling on a single product and living investor-to-investor. One condition of Fisker’s DOE loan was that the company had to raise roughly another $150 million in matching funds. Fisker propositioned its own suppliers for investment, tapping battery maker A123 Systems for $23 million; A123 became Fisker’s lead battery supplier around the same time. A competing battery maker, EnerDel, declined to invest. “We just couldn’t get there, as far as the valuation of the company was concerned,” Charles Gassenheimer, the CEO of EnerDel’s parent, Ener1, told a panel at a Washington, D.C., electric-vehicle conference in January. Then he hushed the room by warning that a “high-profile bankruptcy” could kill the EV sector.

There are also serious questions about Quantum, Fisker’s development partner, which created the Q-Drive and is responsible for the vital software system that synchronizes the Karma’s batteries, inverters, motors and braking system. A Fisker insider hints that once the Nina goes into production in 2012, Quantum may no longer be necessary as a development partner, and the two companies will part ways.

Perhaps it will all work out. The Q-Drive, it turns out, has in fact been operating for more than a year now—in two GM pickup trucks secretly tooling around Southern California. “We’ve put thousands of miles on them without anybody knowing,” Koehler says. But my requests for a test drive in a secret pickup were turned down.

TWO WAYS TO GET THERE

Late in the day, I leave Fisker and make my way up the 405 to Santa Monica, to visit a very different electric-car start-up. Housed in a former Saturn dealership on Wilshire Boulevard, the offices of Coda Automotive are a hive of activity compared with the hushed, empty spaces at Fisker. Young, casually dressed engineers are everywhere. Although it’s almost 5 p.m., nobody shows any sign of going home anytime soon.

I prepare to be refused a ride in their product, but within minutes, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a prototype Coda sedan, whizzing up a side street with CEO Kevin Czinger at the wheel. Built on a reengineered Mitsubishi chassis, it looks like my rental. I don’t feel like James Bond. And then Czinger says words that would make Henrik Fisker fling his Gucci shoes. “It’s a car,” he says with a shrug. “Except it’s quiet, it uses zero gas, and it’s safe and affordable.”

Perhaps the least-known EV start-up, Coda will sell this modest sedan for approximately $30,000. The Coda was created from the inside out—it’s an engineer’s car—starting with a high-energy-density lithium battery system that Coda engineers created with components from Saturn Electronics in Michigan. “In an accident, these will not smoke, much less explode or burn,” says Czinger, brandishing an aluminum-sheathed battery cell at a conference table in his office. There are no trophies here, no fancy suits, just a Bob Marley poster on the wall. Czinger uses the phrase “safe and affordable” as often as possible.

Compared with Fisker and Tesla, the company is a shoestring operation, with a scant $80 million in venture capital and no government loans. Yet the Coda sedan is almost finished, Czinger says, except for fine-tuning the traction-control and airbag systems. The car itself will be assembled by one of China’s biggest automakers, but Czinger estimates that about a third of the Coda’s price tag will pay for U.S.-made components. Between the fourth quarter of this year and the end of next year, he plans to produce 16,000 cars, which the company will sell out of small dealerships in at least four affluent California counties. If all goes well, by the time Fisker and Tesla come out with their mid-priced models, Coda will have been on the market for almost two years. “It’s a pretty plain car,” Kleiner Perkins’s Ray Lane, who once considered investing in the company, told me. Then again, maybe that’s the point.

Will the future of the automobile look more like the Coda, or the Karma? Will the next generation of cars tap into our fantasies, like the Karma, or will those bloated designs simply wither away—along with their role as a totem of sex and success—in the shiny, silent EV Age?

I keep coming back to something I heard from Tesla designer Franz van Holzhausen. Consider that with no engine, no exhaust and no gas tank, an electric vehicle doesn’t even really need to look like a car at all. The battery and motor drive of the Tesla Model S all fit into the floor of the vehicle; instead of an engine under the hood, there’s a trunk. “It’s like a skateboard,” van Holzhausen said. “All the rest of the car is opportunity space.”

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Imported Spirits, Sir?

With all the buzz about hybrids, it´s easy to ignore our homegrown alternative fuel: ethanol. Clean-burning and infinitely renewable-we´re talking grain alcohol-ethanol is dear to environmentalists and economists alike. The standard 85/15-percent ethanol/gasoline blend (E85) is widely used in Sweden, but there are only 313 E85 fueling stations in the U.S. And motorheads aren´t clamoring for more, because E85 typically delivers inferior fuel economy; it has about 75 percent of the potential energy of gasoline, so it takes up to 20 percent more hooch to keep horsepower on par. But E85 also has a high octane rating (around 110), and Saab realized that a turbocharger could harness it. Turbos push extra air into the cylinder, and higher octane allows a fuel to better endure the increased pressure.
So Saab cranked up its fans and created the BioPower engine, the first commercially available ethanol turbo. A computer samples the fuel mixture and adjusts boost pressure-from 5.8 psi for pure gasoline to 13.8 psi for E85. Running straight gasoline, the engine produces 148 horsepower, but E85 jacks it up to 184, with no penalty in fuel economy.

**STATS

THE NUMBERS THAT COUNT**

Number of E85 REFUELING STATIONs, By state*

How much more you’ll have to pay for a flexible-fuel Vehicle
Zero

Average price per gallon in the U.S.*

Corn used for fuel produces about:

Effect of federal taxes on Ethanol in cents per gallon
-51.0

Effect o federal taxes on gas, in cents per gallon
+18.4

Based on information from: National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition; U.S. Department of Energy; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Internal Revenue Service

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PopSci’s own senior editor (and senior car expert) Seth Fletcher has a great op-ed in the New York Times today, giving an overview of the Obama administration’s plan to put a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015–a plan he says is vitally important, highly ambitious, and totally possible.

Seth glances on the history and near future of electric cars, a subject he explores at length in his book, Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy. You can check out an excerpt of the book here–it’s a great read–and more from Seth about lithium battery tech here.

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It wasn’t that long ago that every major sports car manufacturer scoffed at the idea of inserting hybrid-electric powertrains into their track-tuned road-rockets. They reasoned electric motors simply don’t light anybody’s fire. Even if you don’t particularly like that argument, it’s a fair one. There really isn’t anything like the sensation of unleashing a howling V8 on the open road, or near a gaggle of awestruck teens in the neighborhood. Performance cars exist to arouse a multitude of senses. Their engines sound amazing.

The car I’m riding in today—BMW’s fast, edgy 2015 i8 plug-in hybrid coupe—sounds, well, amazing. It has a puny-by-sports-car-standards three-cylinder, turbocharged engine that produces a modest 228 horsepower, but its exhaust note has been tuned to sound growly and menacing. (That’s helped along by a synthesized audio boost, but alas.) The car’s electric motor coughs up another 129 hp, for a very healthy 357 hp combined. That may not be Ferrari turf, but the BMW’s lightweight, carbon-fiber construction and its high-torque electric motor helps ensure that every horse is put to good use. It’ll get you to 60 mph in a perfectly spry 4.2 seconds.

But back to the big picture. Another reason electrification sat so low on the priority scale was the implicit, and largely unspoken, belief that some cars simply get a pass on the epic buzzkill that is “fuel economy.” Their drivers are wealthy enough to not really sweat gas prices, and the cars are sold in such modest numbers and driven so rarely that their impact on pollution and global warming was negligible. The world could tolerate a few thousand Lamborghinis and Ferraris shredding twisty back roads on Sunday mornings, but a few million 12 mpg Ford F-150s and Volkswagen Touaregs was a different matter altogether.

Electrification sat so low on the priority scale due to to the belief that some cars simply get a pass on the epic buzzkill that is “fuel economy.”

This, too, is a reasonable argument, even if that particular reality makes your eye twitch. But it’s reasonable only up to a point, and that point is the one where supercars become daily drivers, as they increasingly are. Porsches got there years ago, and the advanced engineering and infinitely adjustable ride characteristics of, for instance, Lamborghini’s new Huracan and the Ferrari 428 generate perfectly comfortable, docile touring cars that will nevertheless wake up at a moment’s notice so you can unleash the Kraken on that poor Camaro at the stoplight.

But thankfully, times do indeed change, as evidenced by the smooth multi-mode Jekyll/Hyde thing this i8 has going. The tiny engine (remember, three cylinders!) sits behind the two passenger seats, and the electric motor sits forward. The car switches seamlessly, or manually, depending on your preferences, between occasional all-electric use and a combination of engine and motor. If your battery has enough juice, it’ll go up to 75 mph for 23 miles on electricity alone—smooth, silent propulsion—or it will inject some turbocharged energy into your ride if you start smashing the pedal. Under normal driving, the engine jumps back and forth between charging the 7.1 kWh lithium-ion battery and driving the rear wheels, with assistance from the electric motor connected to the front wheels. Combined, it’s essentially a rear-biased all-wheel-drive system. It’s quick, responsive, and an absolute thrill to drive.

Throw in a low vehicle weight of 3,247 pounds and a drag coefficient on only 0.26, and you have stellar fuel economy. Depending on how you drive and how much charge you put into the car at your residence or public charging stations, you can score up to 78 MPG-equivalent, or 28 mpg if your mostly burning gasoline. The end result is a certifiable milestone in automotive engineering. This is easily the most important car of the year—and easily the edgiest, most sharply styled car on the road, as well. With trick scissor doors, appealing multihued coloring, assorted elevated panels, and surprising moments of non-linear design, it’s unbelievably cool.

BMW i8

But the BMW i8 has company in this hybrid sports car turf—as it should. Even before the i8 arrived, technology had improved to the point that hybridization was recognized as much as a performance enhancement as an ecological benefit, something seen most notably in early hybrid sport-sedans such as the 2010 Infiniti M35h.

In the gradual acceptance of sports car electrification, however, is the growing recognition that managing public perceptions need to supersede baser corporate impulses. The science continues stacking up on the impact of our fossil fuel habits—not just the burning of it, but the extracting of it, as well. Carmakers can no longer be the least bit cavalier about fuel efficiency.

So now, nearly every major sports car manufacturer has a hybrid-electric. Ferrari released the LaFerrari last year with a 6.3-liter V12 engine mated to 160 hp electric motor that produces a combined 950 hp. It uses its motor in a similar fashion to the KERS system in Formula One cars—for added boost under hard driving. The McLaren P1, out this year, cranks out 903 hp from its V8 and electric motor. It can drive up to 19 miles on electricity alone. Porsche’s new 918 combines two electric motors with its 4.6-liter V8 to produce 887 hp total. It’ll go 12 miles on electricity alone—or a hot lap around a big racetrack. (But oh what a lap that would be—swift, silent, thrilling.) Lamborghini, as well, just unveiled its concept plug-in hybrid, the Asterion LPI 910-4, at the Paris Auto Show. That car will also produce more the 900 horsepower, but it could trump all others in terms of efficiency, with a claimed equivalent of 282 mpg and a 32-mile electric range.

The problem with all of these cars—and where the i8 has the keen advantage—is that each hovers in the $600,000 to $1.5 million range. They’re halo supercars. The i8 starts at a relatively modest $136,000, and it’s the only sports car in that range to deploy hybrid tech, let alone a system as innovative as this one. Tesla’s fully electric Model S is certainly lurking in this corner, as well, but while it does have sensational handling and acceleration, that’s compared to other performance sedans. It’s still a four-seater and it weighs nearly 1,000 pounds more than the i8.

So while it’s clear that the supercar makers are now fully on board with electrification, none of them have truly put their money where their mouths are and produced a “mid-range” electrified sports car. When the next round of sub-$250,000 sports cars comes out—from Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche, and Ferrari—they absolutely need to be as competitive as the i8. The same is true of the cars below it, the Corvettes and Mustangs of the world. The bar has been set, and there’s no bringing it back down.

BMW i8

BMW i8

BMW i8

BMW i8

BMW i8

BMW i8

BMW i8

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It’s been a brutal few years for the auto industry. But at this year’s New York International Auto Show, the world felt right again. The crowds were thick, the parties were plentiful, and the cars were appropriately flashy. Here are some of the highlights.
Click here to explore the latest, coolest cars.

Audi A7 (Front)

Audi A7 (Back)

BMW ActiveE

2013 Chevy Malibu

Ford Focus Electric

Hyundai Accent

Hyundai Veloster

Jaguar XF-R

Lexus LF-Gh

Mercedes A Class Concept

Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Prototype

Porsche Panamera S Hybrid

Saab PhoeniX Concept

Toyota Prius C

Volvo C30 Electric

2012 Volkswagen Beetle

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Sliding Scale
Extreme fuel efficiency is largely a matter of reducing weight and drag. Less power will be needed to push cars down the road, bringing triple-digit fuel economy within reach. Making the GreenCar lighter will require a transition to structural carbon composites, which will be used to make both frame and body. Significant advances in production techniques and technology will be necessary. Composites have already appeared in a few car parts, but making an entire body out of them is currently too expensive for a mass-market vehicle. Aerodynamic improvements will come out of computerized wind tunnels, which will squeeze out drag.

Greased Lightning
A Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell powers the GreenCar and all its systems. Compressed hydrogen gas reacts with oxygen to form water, generating electricity in the process. When the car is parked, it doubles as a generator. Electricity produced by the fuel cell and regenerative braking is shunted to ultracapacitors, which collect charge and, with their faster release capabilities, make high-demand activities such as starting the car much easier than with a standard battery. The energy is stored by building up an electrostatic charge between the two plates and then transferred to the vehicle system through conduits.

Space
Fuel cells replace conventional engine and powertrain, freeing space
for storage or
other uses

Aerodynamics
Windshield is highly sloped and the tail end tapered to create a low-pressure zone behind the car, reducing turbulent (drag-inducing) airflow

Tires
Low-rolling-resistance tires reduce friction but not traction

Windows
Plastic windows on sides and rear weigh less than glass and help block ultraviolet radiation

Power
Most accessories–vent fans, radios–are powered by solar panels on roof

Drag
Wheel covers, a panel on the car’s belly that makes air flow more smoothly across the underbody, and the use of cameras instead of side-view mirrors further improve aerodynamics.

Greased Lightning

by mckibillo; Patrick Moran

Sliding Scale

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For more than a century, air cars have remained a quixotic quest of engineers—an idealistic exercise with little long-term likelihood of entering mass production. As fuels go, air has obvious upsides: It’s ubiquitous, clean, and, best of all, free. But air requires energy to store energy because it must be compressed, limiting the utility of an all-air car. Two engineers from French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën thought they could overcome that problem by pairing two tried-and-true technologies: a gasoline engine and hydraulics. To test the concept, they formed the Hybrid Air Program in 2010 and connected the engine of a subcompact car to a commercial airplane’s hydraulic system. “We were trying to push the project against a lot of people who didn’t trust the fact that we would succeed,” says engineer Karim Mokaddem.

The Hybrid Air powertrain, which Mokaddem designed with Andrés Yarce, uses a hydraulic pump and a piston to compress the nitrogen gas in a tank called the high-pressure accumulator. Hitting the accelerator releases the pressurized gas, which then moves hydraulic fluid through the same pump in reverse. The pump acts as a motor to power the wheels and the hydraulic fluid ends up in a second tank.

During normal driving, the system will switch between gas and air power, says Yarce. Much like with hybrid-electric vehicles, the gasoline engine provides a boost up steep hills and on the highway, and it repressurizes the nitrogen tank if the regenerative-braking system hasn’t done so. Yarce and Mokaddem predict that, for urban driving less than 43 miles per hour, between 60 and 80 percent of drive time will be under air power alone. Compared with gasoline-electrics, the Hybrid Air powertrain is lighter and cheaper, and there are no bulky batteries that wear out or intrude on passenger and trunk space. “The system is designed to live for the life of the vehicle,” says Yarce. “The only possible [maintenance] will be an air recharge.”

Yarce and Mokaddem’s prototype was so successful that PSA Peugeot Citroën has decided to manufacture production vehicles. The Hybrid Air powertrain will appear in all Citroën and Peugeot subcompacts as an option in Europe and possibly other international markets in 2016. The company hasn’t yet released a price, but it says that its air cars will cost around the same amount as other gasoline hybrids.

The Air Car

1. The Hybrid Air Car uses compressed nitrogen, which is held in a tank called the high-pressure accumulator.

2. A hydraulic pump and piston compress nitrogen in the accumulator. When the nitrogen is released (by pressing the accelerator), the pump runs in reverse. Acting now as a motor, it harnesses the energy of the moving hydraulic fluid to send power to the wheels.

3. After the hydraulic fluid passes through the motor, it flows to the low-pressure accumulator, where it is stored for later use.

4. A gasoline engine supplements the air power when accelerating or going up hills. This could be an 82-hp 1.2 L I3 for subcompacts and a 110-hp 1.6 L I4 for compacts.

This article originally appeared in the March 2014 issue of Popular Science.

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It’s shaping up to be a big year for electric cars, with Chevrolet’s Volt and Nissan’s Leaf due before 2010 draws to a close.

Which makes it as good a time as ever to remind ourselves that the idea of an electric car is far from novel; in fact, it’s been a persistent, tantalizing puzzle for automotive engineers hoping to eliminate gasoline from the equation for over a century. And there’s no better place to track the history of the electric car than in the complete [

The First Hybrid: August 1916

Recharging On-The-Go: January 1920

A Cheap Alternative: August 1920

The Electric Street-Car: October 1921

The First DIY Electric Car: August 1937

The Charles Town-About: February 1959

GM Hybrid Stirling Engine: December 1968

The ElectroBus and Wood Paneled Car: April 1973

Fiat X1/23: June 1974

South Australian Concepts: November 1974

The Turbine Electric Car: September 1975

The Generator Towing Luxury Car: November 1975

GM Impact: April 1990

L.A’s Electric Car Initiative: May 1991

BMW’s E1: December 1991

Test-Driving the EV1, The World’s Best Electric Car: January 1994

The Rebirth of the Electric Car: November 2008

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When the Chevy Volt concept first materialized a few years back, there were a lot of questions surrounding America’s first mass-market electric car. While answers to most of those questions dribbled out over the last few years, GM remained mum on one critical aspect: price. But today it’s official: the Chevy Volt will cost $41,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit, and the cars will arrive in driveways later this year.

Only 600 dealerships in Chevy’s “launch markets” – California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan and Washington, D.C. – will start taking orders for the Volt today, thought the first cars won’t roll off the lot until November. But that hasn’t stopped the GM PR machine from swinging into action, calling this a “historic day.” We’ll see. The Volt has competition arriving later this year in the form of Nissan’s Leaf, a full-blown EV that gets 100 miles to the charge and costs just $25,280 after the tax credit, compared with $33,500 for the Volt.

But Volt has its selling points. Though it only gets 40 miles from a single charge on its 16-kilowatt-hour Li-ion battery, GM boasts that the Volt performs beyond the competition because it contains a gasoline engine that can assist the battery for another 300 miles, arguably a very clutch feature to include on a car that is supposed to bridge the technological gap between the carbon fuels of the present and the all-electric future.

Considering most Americans keep their daily driving under the 40-mile mark, that might not make such a huge difference. The price, however, probably will. Even after the tax credit the Volt is one of Chevy’s more expensive offerings, not too far shy of an entry-level luxury car. As the NYT points out today, while there are 52,464 people across the globe signed up for an unofficial waiting list at the non-GM-affiliated gm-volt.com, those people on average are looking to pay about $31, 400 for the car. Hopefully cost won’t end up as the Achilles heel of a seemingly good idea.

GM plans to roll 10,000 Volts off its Detroit production lines by the end of next year, with 30,000 following in 2012. For those not interested in buying a car in that time frame, the Volt will lease for $350 per month with $2,500 cash down.

[Autopia, NY Times]

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Volkswagen’s latest eye-catching creation, the ultra-efficient diesel-hybrid XL1, debuted at the Qatar Auto Show, immediately garnering attention both for its looks and its specs. But according to German publication Automobilwoche (warning: German), VW actually intends to bring the XL1 to market, albeit in a (very) limited run.

The XL1 boasts both a teeny two-cylinder diesel and a teeny plug-in electric engine–the diesel engine puts out 48hp and the electric only 27hp–so though it may look like an electric supercar (its body shape was inspired by a dolphin’s), it’s far less super in the muscle department. Early impressions from drivers seems positive–Autocar liked the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and the gull-wing doors, though wished the engine had a bit more oomph behind it.

But that lack of power is responsible for maybe the most impressive spec VW’s been circulating: An astronomical 261 MPG fuel efficiency. Hopefully VW will be able to retain that spec while it goes through the process of making the XL1 street-legal, even though it seems like the car is not destined for a large release. Automobilwoche reports that a limited run of 100 cars is being produced, destined first for Germany and then for the States and China. No word on the other essentials, like price, but we’re definitely excited for the prospect of such a gorgeous and efficient car on the streets.

[Autoblog Green via Engadget]

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One of the most common criticisms of the Chevy Volt has nothing to do with the car itself—it’s that there are so few of them available. General Motors shipped the first 360 Volts to dealers last month, but for the first quarter of this year you can only buy a Volt in six states and Washington, D.C. GM has obviously been hearing the same complaints. Today the company announced that it would make the Volt available in all 50 states by the end of this year—six months earlier than the original plan.

This is the second piece of news in less than a week that suggests GM is seeing greater demand for its plug-in than anticipated. Last week, two unnamed sources told Bloomberg Businessweek that GM CEO Dan Akerson wanted to increase production of the Volt to 120,000 cars next year. To put that number in context, GM plans to build 10,000 Volts this year. GM’s original 2012 target was 30,000 Volts; last July, apparently feeling feisty, they bumped that number to 45,000. So 120,000 Volts would be a major jump, and we’re particularly curious how LG Chem, the Korean company that builds the car’s lithium-ion battery cells, will handle the demand.

Chevy Volt Nationwide Map

Whether the 120,000 number is true or not, expect the accelerated arrival of Volts (not to mention the Nissan Leaf, which is also rolling out nationwide by the end of the year) to focus attention on the current lack of public charging infrastructure. Nissan, whose all-electric Leaf will also be available in all 50 states by the end of the year, likes to point out that while charging spots are scarce now, by this time next year there should be some 13,000 public chargers installed nationwide. We hope that happens. If not, cities dense with apartment dwellers are going to be challenging for these cars, as Mike Spinelli’s quest to charge a Volt in New York City, posted over at Jalopnik, makes clear.

Bottled Lightning is a blog series by Seth Fletcher, Senior Associate Editor at PopSci and author of Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy,_ to be published in May 2011 by Hill & Wang/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The book is about lithium, the rechargeable lithium battery, and the technological transformations it has helped (or will help) make possible—the wireless revolution; the burgeoning electric-car revival; the coming spread of clean energy. Seth also posts off-the-cuff observations on these and other subjects on Twitter._

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The Detroit Auto Show is kicking off this morning, and the first big news from the showroom is the Porsche 918 RSR, a hybrid supercar that not only takes design cues from sexy predecessors like the 911, the 908, and of course the 918 Spyder, but that churns out a whopping 767 horsepower between its gasoline and electric-powered motors.

The reinforced carbon fiber body of the 918 RSR hides some interesting tricks behind its muscular wheel-wells and aerodynamic curvature. Under the hood, a 10,300 RPM direct injected V8 provides the 918 RSR with its primary thrust to the tune of 563 horsepower. But each of the front wheels contributes an additional 75 kW of electric power to the racer, resulting in a total accumulated 767 horsepower at peak drive.

Then there’s the flywheel accumulator: located next to the driver where the passenger seat would sit, the flywheel stores up energy captured when the vehicle brakes. That energy can be accessed by the two 102-horsepower electric engines with the touch of a botton, providing a burst of acceleration when needed.

When might that power be necessary? Porsche isn’t saying exactly when or where the 918 RSR hybrid will race, but it is designed for events like the LeMans 24-hour race, and in road rallies like that an extra burst of stored energy would facilitate passing maneuvers as well as provide a means to give drivers trying to pass the RSR the symbolic middle finger.

We’ve included renders from Porsche above and below, but Inhabitat has a fantastic gallery of the car on the showroom floor in Detroit.

The Porsche 918 RSR, Interior

[Porsche via Inhabitat]

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Happy 75th birthday to British automaker Jaguar! As a birthday present, they’ve actually given us something new to drool over: A 780 hp mostly-electric supercar capable of hitting 250 mph with a whopping 500-mile range, all wrapped in a body inspired by the 1966 XJ13, the car the chief designer calls “possibly the most beautiful Jaguar ever made.”

Unveiled at this year’s Paris Auto Show, the Jaguar C-X75 is a vision of the future, perhaps a decade or two from now, when high-efficiency, ridiculously high-powered electric cars are possible. The C-X75 is a hybrid, relying on four electric motors (one per wheel) rated at 195 hp each. Powered by a (one assumes absolutely massive) lithium ion battery pack, Jaguar says the two-seater car can get to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds, with a range of about 68 miles.

The battery works in pretty much the same way as other mostly-electric vehicles like Chevy’s upcoming Volt. The car is powered exclusively by battery for the first 68 miles (the Volt gets about 40 miles, for comparison) and is then boosted by two small gas turbines. These turbines provide about 94 hp each, for a range of about 500 additional miles (the Volt’s teeny gas engine nets about 300 extra miles). Those turbines work independently and can refill the electric batteries as well.

Jaguar C-X75 at Paris Auto Show

The interior is luxurious as well, featuring a new series of touchscreens and a speaker system that relies on transducers that line the walls and ceiling, supposedly to compete more effectively with the giant noisy engines right behind the seats.

Of course, the C-X75 is just a concept–I doubt the quoted stats are even possible with today’s tech, considering they outpace by a large margin the capabilities of modern hybrids and EVs–but usable, practical ideas could absolutely spring from it. Here’s hoping we get to drive something like this one of these days.

Jalopnik

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Modern electric cars are still in their infancy, and one of the most onerous growing pains has to be their limited range–even the otherwise-pretty-awesome Nissan Leaf can only go about 100 miles on a charge. In answer to that issue, the Pru trailer concept offers a 700-mile boost in range, extra storage space, and sweet details like topographical analysis via Google Earth.

The Pru trailer (it stands for Power Regeneration Unit) from Electric Motors and Vehicles is more than a simple extra battery on wheels attached by trailer hitch. Powered by software called the Smart Hitch, the Pru actually measures its own speed and powers itself along at the same speed as the car, thereby making sure it doesn’t slow the EV down with its weight. It’s even equipped with a GPS sensor that syncs with Google Earth, measuring topographical details that might affect its charge cycle.

Pru Trailer (cross-section)

It’s actually a hybrid itself, boasting both a 750cc diesel motor and a substantial amount of lithium-ion batteries that combine to give about an extra 700 miles to an electric vehicle’s range. It can also be used as a standalone charging unit, just in case. It’s still a legitimate trailer, too–only about a quarter of the Pru’s six-foot length is taken up by its batteries, leaving room for storage.

The Pru is just a design for now, not even in the prototype stage, though a representative says it could be ready in the first half of 2011. It might be sort of prohibitively priced, at around $15,000. Hopefully they can find a way to bring costs down, via government subsidies or whatnot. It enables a driver to actually use a short-range electric car as a main vehicle, even allowing weekend trips. It’s definitely an interim solution, until battery efficiency and EV infrastructure is up to snuff in the States, but man, what a smart little interim solution it is.

Wired

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The Porsche 918 can make a claim that other supercars can’t: It’s a blueprint for what everyday sports cars will be like in the next few years. Unlike models in the past, they won’t have huge engines with bad fuel economy. Instead, they will rely on electric motors and quick-charging batteries supplemented by smaller gas engines.

The pitch for hybrid sports cars has been clear for some time; battery power delivers an instant jolt of acceleration—the 918, for instance, hits 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. But the 918 stands apart in its ability to fully recharge cells while driving. (Typical plug-in hybrids get only a trickle of power while the car’s in motion and need to be plugged in once depleted.) When the 918’s battery is spent, the car’s brakes and engine act as generators, recharging the cells in a matter of minutes and readying the car for another electric boost. The unique powertrain portends a future in which performance will be tied to the efficiency of a battery, not the power of an engine.

2015 Porsche 918 Spyder

Engine: 4.6-liter V8 and two electric motors

Horsepower: 887 (combined output)

Fuel economy: 22 mpg (gas only), 67 mpg-e (electric only)

Price: $845,000

Other Car News You Should Care About

1. Men really do drool over hot cars, at least when women are involved. A study at Northwestern University found that men who were shown pictures of attractive women followed by images of sports cars salivated more.

2. Too much carbon-dioxide can cause drowsiness, so engineers at Hyundai placed a CO2 sensor in the 2015 Genesis. When the level of CO2 exceeds 2,000 parts per million, the sensor triggers an infusion of fresh air into the cabin.

3. A study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy has shown that the production of biofuels from corn waste, such as stalks, releases 7 percent more greenhouse gases than gasoline emissions—too high for it to qualify as a renewable fuel source.

4. A new feature in the 2015 GMC Canyon will make it safer for children to ride in the jump seat of midsize pickups. Parents can use the headrest from the rear passenger side to extend the seat cushion and better secure a car seat.

This article originally appeared in the July 2014 issue of Popular Science.

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Honda Civic Hybrid

Mainstream sedans are ready for their gas-electric acid test. When it hits dealerships this spring, the Honda Civic will be the first to get a hybrid powertrain.

The battery package in the Civic is 42 percent smaller than that of its hybrid sibling, the Insight, which means more room inside.

In our tests near Palm Springs, California, the 1.3-liter four-cylinder powered the car to 60 in a respectable 11 seconds. Expect fuel economy in the high 40s, 10 mpg better than ordinary Civics.

Price: $20,000.

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by Popular Science, September 1975

Hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles began appearing late in the 19th century
from manufacturers such as the Compagnie Parisienne des Voitures Electriques
in France. In this country, an engineer named H. Piper applied for a patent
on a gasoline-electric motor combination on Nov. 23, 1905. By the time Piper
received his patent three years later, however, advances in gasoline engines
had begun to eclipse the performance of his and other hybrids. Among other
obstacles, electricity was costly in comparison with gas, which was also more readily available. By 1920, hybrid technology had all but disappeared.
Popular Science took its first extensive look at a gasoline-electric
automobile in 1916. We showcased a hybrid car built by an unnamed “western
manufacturer,” which had two levers on the steering column, one for the gas
engine and the other for the electric motor. The motor brought the car to 20
mph, when the gas engine kicked in for cruising. A “slight (twist) of the
electric lever” recharged the battery.

A half-century later, the oil crisis of the 1970s resurrected interest in
hybrids, and several experimental vehicles were developed. Popular Science´s
September 1975 cover story featured a turbine-electric car from electronics
engineer Harry Grepke. Grepke´s TurElec included eight Sears 12-volt truck
batteries and a Solar Aircraft 400-cycle turbine generator; it weighed 3,500
pounds and didn´t leave much room for passengers. This time around, we were
ready for a hands-on, joining the inventor for a highway ride on a prototype, amidst startled motorists near Bradenton, Florida. We expected little more than a glorified golf cart, and were way wrong.

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Have you ever thought about the carbon footprint of your money?

Everything we use has to be transported from place to place, including the cash in our wallets.

And the big, hulking diesel armored trucks that move money around are hardly the most fuel-efficient vehicles.

Hoping to temper the all-important emphasis on security with some green thinking, three companies have just unveiled a cleaner alternative to the traditional armored truck.

The 26,000-pound vehicle is a plug-in hybrid with a natural-gas internal-combustion engine, according to Autoblog.

Six trucks were converted by Efficient Drivetrains Inc. and North American Repower, and will begin hauling valuables around the Los Angeles area with Sectran Security next year.

Clean Energy Fuels natural gas refueling station Long Beach, California.

Efficient Drivetrains has already tried to market a plug-in hybrid SUV in Asia, while North American Repower specializes in natural-gas conversions.

An armored truck seemed like a good platform for the joint project because these vehicles most of their time in urban traffic, making many stops for deliveries.

During stops, a standard truck’s diesel engine is typically left idling for security purposes.

However, California regulations limit idling to 5 minutes, the partners say. The powertrain’s electric component offers a way around that issue, while the natural gas power helps to reduce emissions while running the engine.

The demonstration fleet of six trucks will conserve 31,000 gallons of diesel per year, and cut emissions by 99.9 percent, the companies claim.

Natural gas has proven to be more acceptable as a fuel for fleets than individual passenger cars.

The lack of public fueling stations makes owning a natural-gas car somewhat inconvenient, but fleet operators can secure supplies of the fuel to distribute to their vehicles.

After 15 years of selling a natural-gas powered Civic sedan, Honda has withdrawn that model for 2016 after concluding that prospects for natural gas-fueled passenger vehicles remained dim.

Since most fleet vehicles operate within confined service areas, operators count on them not straying too far from a centralized fueling source, often “back at base” every night.

The armored-truck project received a $3 million grant from the California Energy Commission, along with a matching amount of private funds.

While this project will only demonstrate these unusual vehicles, perhaps more will be built if security companies show interest.

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