Super Green: The New Wave Of Environmentally Conscious Exotic Supercars

It's not that easy being green, least of all if you're a builder of exotic, high performance supercars or uberluxury sedans. Recently however, there has been a move towards improving fuel economy and reducing emissions by many of the world's biggest and most well known luxury and performance brands.

Take Ferrari's stop-start equipped California HELE or Mercedes-Benz's SLS AMG E-Cell concept, for instance. And there's more on the horizon, including the plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder from Porsche and BMW's Vision EfficientDynamics, the latter of which allegedly will offer M3 performance with a CO2 emissions rating of just 99 grams per kilometer.

And it's not just these four who are in it for the environmental crowd cred: other makers including Lotus, Audi, Lamborghini, Jaguar and Bentley are also looking to green up their model ranges.

This comes as no surprise to Christoph Stuermer, an analyst at IHS Automotive in Frankfurt:

"These upper-end, high-performance cars have always been examples of the best car technology out here, and being green is now part of being technologically advanced They have to come up with something so as not to be seen as technical dinosaurs."

Enrico Galliera, the commercial and marketing senior VP at Ferrari, agrees that it's definitely something that the company's customers are all for:

"When you consider buying a Ferrari, you're considering it for the performance. At the same time, when we approached customers and said, 'Here's a way you can still have that and be greener,' the reaction was extremely positive."

So there you have it. Now you can have your cake and eat it too, though you'll have to pay for the cake part first. And with prices around €180,000 (US$252,376) for the California HELE and an expected €500,000 (US$682,260) for the 918 Spyder that is one expensive, green frosted cake.

PS: Metaphors aren't my strong point...

By Tristan Hankins

Via: WSJ

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Philadelphia High School Students Build Automotive X Prize Contender [with Videos]

Some people are just meant to go places. In the case of 16-year old Azeem Hill and the rest of Simon Hauger's West Philadelphia-based high-school hybrid team, that place is somewhere into the vastly expanding world of alternative fuel technology.

The West Philly Hybrid X Team, builders of the EVX GT and EVX Focus, is the result of an after-school program at the Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering meant to educate youth about the future of hybrid tech and transportation. What's more impressive is that this young underdog team was in the running for this year's Automotive X Prize.

After besting some really heavy hitters (like MIT, for one), the EVX team was eventually disqualified. Still, let's give a digital round of applause to these guys for going out there and doing the damn thing with the big boys.

Azeem and other members of the program started out at ground level and learned everything necessary in order to create a hybrid car with the goal of returning 100 mpg in the city, 70 mpg on the highway, and still being able 60 in under 5 seconds. Check out the vids below to learn a little more about the program and its goals.

By Phil Alex

Link: EVXTeam , Via: Green.Autoblog & Treehugger

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Volvo wants in on the EV Business, Starts Developing C30 DRIVe Electric with Fuel-Cell Range Extender

With even the likes of Porsche going green – not to mention the Chevrolet Volt or the Nissan Leaf, it's no surprise that Volvo wants a piece of the "Look at me, I'm saving the planet!" action.

They partnered up with Powercell Sweden AB (with backing from the Swedish Energy Agency) and hope that the Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric will be ready for testing on the road by 2012.

"This is an exciting expansion of our focus on electrification. Battery cost and size means that all-electric cars still have a relatively limited operating range. Fuel cells may be one way of extending the distance these cars can cover before they need to be recharged" Volvo Cars President and CEO Stefan Jacoby said. "What is more, the project gives us increased knowledge about fuel cells and hydrogen gas".

The project is in its early stages, the focus being on the range of the car. And it's no surprise, as no EV can stand a chance these days if it can't go at least 40-60 miles on one charge.

To achieve this, Volvo is cooking up -wait for it- a Range Extender. A reformer, tasked with breaking down liquid fuel and creating hydrogen gas. This gas then goes into the fuel cell and gets converted to electrical energy powering the motor.

The advantage of the process is that it's creating electricity without any emissions of carbon oxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and particles whatsoever. On other thing is that the reformer can just as easily break down renewable fuels, like ethanol.

Volvo expects the Range Extender to, well, extend the range of the car by up to 250 kilometers (155 miles), in addition to the range provided by the battery pack.

By Csaba Daradics

Motive Releases First Images of Composite Bodied Kestrel EV

In response to numerous media requests (or so the company claims), small-scale Canadian automaker Motive has released the first official images of its hemp-bodied EV city car, the Kestrel. The car was unveiled at the EV 2010 VÉ Conference and Tradeshow in Vancouver recently.

As previously reported by Carscoop, the Kestrel is a cab-forward design that seats four. It is made of a bio-fibre (hemp) based composite that is said to reduce weight, resist rust and increase impact absorption.

Along with the images, Motive has released further details of the upcoming EV. Weighing in at 1,874 lbs (850 kg), the company optimistically states that the Kestrel will be good for a top speed of 84 mph (135 km/h) and a driving range of 100 miles (160 kilometers) on its lithium-ion battery power.

The Kestrel is said to be just one of the cars in the Project Eve line-up. Project Eve is a consortium of Canadian companies who want to bring electric mobility to Canada, a noble cause. Motive is one of the Project's co-founders.Nathan Armstrong, Motive's President states, "We believe this is an important step for Canada and are extremely happy to be a part of such an innovative group of companies."

A working prototype of the Kestrel is planned for mid-2011, and with full scale production and commercial sales starting in late-2012.

By Tristan Hankins