Jay Leno Show to Feature Green Celebrity Car Races

A new time slot isn’t the only change coming this fall as Jay Leno takes the helm of his own late night show after leaving The Tonight Show. MNN spoke to Leno, who’s a major car buff, about one cool (and somewhat strange) addition to his new show: an eco racetrack, where celebrity guests will face off a couple times a week in the Green Car Challenge.

From MNN:

Ford is supplying electric Focus models outfitted with in-car cameras and microphones.

“All celebrities talk about being green. We want to see who is green and fast,” Leno tells MNN. He got the idea from the attention he’d get — especially from women — whenever he drove one of his electric or hydrogen-cell vehicles (which he parks in a solar-paneled garage) to work.

“It’ll be fun to see if Shaquille O’Neal is faster than Cameron Diaz,” says Leno, noting that Tom Cruise requested a practice run — and was denied. “Nobody gets to practice,” he warns. Drew Barrymore has already accepted the challenge, and Leno would love to get race enthusiast Patrick Dempsey. No word yet on whether first guest Jerry Seinfeld will get behind the wheel.

Hey, it’s a slight deviation from the standard late night older-white-dude-behind-a-desk schtick, so it just might draw in some extra viewers. And Leno knows a thing or two about green cars. Though his huge car collection may not exactly qualify as eco-friendly, a number of those vehicles are ultra-efficient and/or powered with renewable energy. He also co-designed the EcoJet concept, which runs on biodiesel.

“The Jay Leno Show” debuts tonight, September 14th, at 10pm EST on NBC.

Link [MNN]
Photo credit: GM

Solar Electric Vehicle Company Provides Free Green Rides

Colleges, parks, museums and other institutions now have a green way to shuttle people around – for free! – thanks to the Solar Electric Vehicle Company. The company provides emissions-free, solar-powered people movers that are paid for by corporate sponsors so that more people will be able to breathe cleaner air, creating a healthier environment.

From SolarEVco.com:

For every solar electric vehicle in a community, citizens will have access to pollution-free transportation. For every vehicle at a university campus, more students will be able to cut down on their gas bills, as well as feel more secure traveling on campus. For every vehicle at any park, museum, garden, or zoo, there will be one less dirty, costly, petrol burning vehicle which keeps us dependent on foreign oil, and which keeps our economy inescapably tied to the price of a barrel of oil.

At the same time, while every solar electric vehicle is creating cleaner, greener, and better communities and institutions, they are also creating cleaner, greener, and better exposure for advertisers and sponsors. This allows them to connect more intimately and highlight their green commitment to their target markets. This is truly a model in which everyone wins.

Each Solar Electric People Mover is topped with two solar panels, which charge six 8-volt batteries. This enables the electric vehicle to go longer between charges, increasing the range by up to 33%.

It’s a pretty rad concept. Imagine how much cleaner the air would be in cities around America if even a fraction of universities and tourist attractions used these vehicles instead of traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles. It could make a huge difference!

Link [SolarEVco.com]

Stackable Electric Paris City Cars Save Energy and Space

Small electric cars could transform the world’s big cities from pollution factories to clean, green, efficient metropolises. But one electric vehicle idea takes that concept even further, making a fleet of rental EVs stackable to eliminate the need for vast parking lots, increasing the availability of green space for urban residents.

Designer Taylor Manuilow created the City Car with Paris in mind, imagining an all-electric vehicle that would be available to rent in at all metro stations and other areas around the city.

From Ecofriend:

The cars will be stacked along with a kiosk, which will be used by the commuter to enter the details of his or her commute. New users will have to sign up for using the service initially after which all their commutes will be charged on their credit cards.

Once the details are entered in the kiosk, the system will allow the user to drive one car. On entering the car the user will have the option to change the colors of the interiors or the position of the seats according to his or her requirements. At the end of the commute the user will have to leave the car at the closest kiosk, where the car’s onboard batteries will automatically be recharged, gearing it up for the next user.

For most urban residents and visitors, this sort of transportation – in addition to walking, bicycling and public transportation – is all that is needed to get around. Imagine how much more pleasant cities would be if personal vehicles were limited and almost everyone used a system like this.  It would be like breathing in crisp, clean country air in comparison to the gritty, polluted air that we deal with now.

Link [Ecofriend]

Cops Can’t Stop California Electric Carmaker

California is in the midst of a major budget crisis. Crime is out of control, and prisons are bursting at the seams. You’d think cops would have more important things to do than bug an eco-entrepreneur who’s working on important clean energy tech. Apparently, they still find the time.

The Santa Monica Police began a sting operation against Paul Pearson, the man behind the hot Lola EV (pictured above) in December that resulted in two citations, one for allegedly remanufacturing cars without a state license and the other for not getting a business license from the City of Santa Monica.

From Autoblog Green:

As part of the sting, two undercover officers discussed converting a gas-only Ford Thunderbird to electric power with Pearson, Pearson agreed, which led to over a dozen local law enforcement officers storming his garage. Pearson is willing to admit he operated without a license, but will fight against the remanufacturing claim, telling the paper (and the police) that the vehicle, a small one-seater, is “legally manufactured as a specially constructed vehicle.” The City contends the charges result from the Thunderbird conversion.

Pearson told AutoblogGreen that the complaint that was issued to him lists the serial number of the single seater. The Thunderbird is “an iffy issue” because it doesn’t exactly exist. Pearson said that the California Highway Patrol told him that he would not need to recertify the fictitious Thunderbird if all he did was add and electric motor and batteries. Smog certification places can certify EVs as pure electric vehicles. “That is our defense on the Thunderbird charge.” The single-seater was certified, insured and has been so for two years. “We’ll beat them in court in a matter of seconds.”

Absurd. I know a lot of people are sticklers for black-and-white application of the law, but this is just ridiculous. Homebrew electric vehicle communities across America – and particularly in this area of California – are making headway on clean auto tech that Detroit won’t be catching up on for years. We need these guys. Luckily, Pearson has no plans of stopping. He’s still working on electric cars while waiting for his case to go to court.

Link [Autoblog Green]

Segway and GM Debut 2-Wheeled ‘PUMA’ Vehicle

General Motors is under a lot of pressure to come up with green transportation solutions, and they’ve apparently decided that the way of the future is the Segway. Well, sort of. GM and Segway debuted a prototype of a 2-wheeled, 2-seat electric vehicle that’s like a sitting version of the traditional Segway design. It’s called the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (PUMA) project, and it’s part of a larger plan that could revolutionize urban transportation.

From The Huffington Post:

The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.

The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway’s characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It’s designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge.

Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.

A projected cost hasn’t been released, but the companies said it would likely be between one-fourth and one-third the cost of the average traditional vehicle. There’s no time line for production and GM concedes that it would take a while to get that kind of communications infrastructure in place, but it hopes that they can start out in places like college campuses.

Hopefully they’ll make a few changes to the design – there needs to be at least a little room for groceries or luggage, and it should be enclosed or offer that option. This kind of vehicle would dramatically change how traffic works in urban environments – can you imagine how much cleaner and more efficient it would be? And it would probably appeal to people who aren’t normally into riding bicycles for safety and comfort reasons.

It’s a good start, but perhaps GM should also work on technology that could apply to the entire nation, not just urban areas – and create vehicles that A) have a hope of selling within the near future and B) aren’t as expensive as the Chevy Volt.

Link [The Huffington Post]

Obama Puts $2.4B into Grants for Electric Vehicles

President Obama has announced $2.4 billion dollars in new grants for electric vehicle development. The funds are included in the $787 billion dollar stimulus plan. The plan will also give a $7,500 tax credit to people who buy plug-in vehicles. Obama has vowed to compete with foreign nations in the race to be world leader on renewable energy.

From The Huffington Post:

“We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad or we can create them here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity,” Obama said on the second day of a campaign-style swing in California.

He set a target of putting a million of the environmentally friendly vehicles on US roads by 2015.

But that doesn’t compare favorably to plans by some other, smaller countries. Here at HuffPost Green, we marveled at Spain’s electric vehicle program just yesterday — that country, whose population isn’t quite one-sixth the size of ours — is shooting for a million electric vehicles by 2012, in addition to pilot infrastructure programs in three major cities.

We are definitely way behind, but who do we have to thank for that? 8 years of profits-over-people-and-environment Republican “leadership”. The Bush Administration was all about maintaining the environmentally unfriendly status quo for their buddies in industry, and Obama has done an admirable job thus far helping to make up for lost time.

Is $2.4 billion for electric vehicles enough? Maybe not, but it’s a thrilling start, and at least we’re finally getting somewhere.

Link [The Huffington Post]

The World’s First Garbage Truck Powered by Trash

Now this is sustainable: a garbage truck that runs on the trash it collects. The British borough of Huddersfield adapted their Smith Edison municipal garbage truck to run on electricity, which is created at the Energy from Waste power station that processes the trash and turns it into energy. The truck also has a 40kWh lithium-ion battery that provides the truck with a max speed of 50mph and a range of 100 miles.

From Register Hardware, via Inhabitat:

The van … will glide around central Huddersfield collecting rubbish from 25 newly installed “split bins” and take said trash to the Energy from Waste (EfW) power station-cum-recycling centre just down the road. There, the rubbish will be burnt to generate electricity that will be used to charge the van for the next days collection runs.

Of course, powering ‘leccy vehicles is not the Emerald Street EfW’s main role – on a good day it pumps around ten megawatts into the National Grid, all generated from fire-consumed rubbish that has been collected locally.

Right now, there’s only one recharge point for Kirklees Council’s single electric vehicle, but some form of electric car recharge infrastructure may well grow out of it. It’s a small start, but it’s exciting all the same.

Link [Register Hardware] via [Inhabitat]

GreenWheel Transforms Bikes from Pedal-Powered to Electric

For those times when your old pedal bike isn’t quite fast enough on its own, a new invention by MIT could help you get the juice you need simply by switching out the back wheel. The ‘GreenWheel’ can make any bicycle electric with an estimated range of 25 miles. Pedaling the bike doubles the range under electric power, as long as you don’t travel at the nearly top speed of 30mph.

From The Discovery Channel:

“Just take the wheel off, put a GreenWheel equipped wheel on in its place, plug it in and it should work just fine,” said Ryan Chin, one of the GreenWheel designers. “The whole thing has been designed so all the parts except the throttle are enclosed in the wheel.”

From the outside, the GreenWheel has the radius of a small dinner plate and is about 2 inches thick. Inside the aluminum frame sits the three major GreenWheel components: an electric generator, batteries and an electric motor.

A GreenWheel equipped bike is a smooth ride, as Discovery News found out during a recent afternoon test ride around MIT’s campus. Turning the handle mounted throttle, like any motorcycle, just a few small degrees produces a noticeable increase in power and a light electric hum. The handle-mounted throttle is connected wirelessly to the electric motor in the wheel.

It’s also long-lasting and durable. Michael Chia-Liang Lin, a master’s student at MIT developing the GreenWheel, says you’ll have to replace your bike before needing to replace the batteries. The team estimates the GreenWheel’s range at about 40,000 miles – which adds up to about 20 miles a day, every business day, for 8 years.

The GreenWheel, though still in development stage, is already attracting a lot of attention. Copenhagen and South Africa have expressed interest in adding GreenWheel-equipped bikes to their public transportation systems in advance of the 2010 World Cup.

An exact cost hasn’t been determined yet, but Ryan Chin expects a privately purchased GreenWheel to cost several hundred dollars. Compare that to the $1,200 price tag of many other electric bike converters, which also require running wires to and from the battery to the handlebars. Better yet, the GreenWheel is made using environmentally friendly processes.

Link [Discovery Channel]

Will Consumers Kill the Electric Car?

Are consumers the biggest threat to the rise of electric vehicles? That’s what Bill Vlasic of The New York Times is exploring, as we reach a crucial point in determining the future of American automobiles. Cost is the biggest hurdle – the Chevy Volt has a price tag of $40,000, too high for many people.

Ford has bet the farm on the Volt, and other automakers are turning toward the electric car concept as well. The American auto industry realizes that drastic changes are necessary to survive and they’re pouring billions into the technology in a gamble that consumers will bite.

From The New York Times:

These are risky bets. There are no guarantees that consumers — for all their stated concerns about global warming, dependence on foreign oil and unpredictable gas prices — will buy enough of them. They may balk, for example, at the limits on how far they can drive on a single charge.

So far, consumers have proved to be fickle about how much they care about fuel economy. When gas prices soared above $4 a gallon last year, sales of the market-leading Prius hybrid surged so quickly that Toyota could not build them fast enough. But demand sagged when gas prices dropped below $2 a gallon.

Industry analysts also note that electric models could be a harder sell than hybrids, which have a gasoline engine to assist and recharge battery packs, freeing them from the need to be plugged in.

Since many people seem apprehensive about the idea of running out of juice while traveling, the NYT suggests that car companies allow customers to change their batteries on the fly, setting up stations to allow quick battery changes or plug-in charging outlets.

The more people buy electric cars, the more demand there will be for batteries to be produced in mass quantities right here in the States, which would substantially reduce costs. Car companies will have to make a big manufacturing investment in order to improve the chances of success for their electric models.

It’s tough to say right now, with the state of the economy, whether there will be real demand for electric vehicles priced at almost double the cost of a hybrid. Gas prices will inevitably go back up, though, and people will once again become concerned about the daily costs of running a gas-powered vehicle, so there’s hope.

Link [The New York Times] via [Dot Earth]
Photo credit: Flickr user McPig