We didn't do much coverage of the L.A. Auto Show, because we don't have the resources WE CONDEMN THE DECADENT LEMMING CARBURBAN FANTASIA!
But I just read a bunch of stuff about it over on CNet's CarTech blog, and some it it was quite cool.
Probably the biggest news -- something I may devote a post to soon -- is Hyundai's new battery concept: lithium polymer, which Hyundai says is far more robust, performs better, and weighs less than even the most advanced lithium ion batteries. (More on the battery from Autoblog Green.) Here's a video:
Here's a video of the new Honda Insight:
Here's some video of the new all-electric Mini:
In other news, Ford is going to offer a hybrid version of its popular Fusion sedan. Video:
Also, Honda is showing off a concept "21st century supercar" that runs on hydrogen. Expect to see it in your local showroom ... never.
Unrelated to the auto show (I think), the CNet dudes also recently test drove the Tesla 1.5. They were impressed.
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
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Pangolin Posted 10:51 am
30 Nov 2008
I keep getting the feeling that the cost of the roads is killing our carburban fantasies faster than the cost of gasoline.
Put the Carbon Back
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human power Posted 12:01 pm
30 Nov 2008
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:38 pm
30 Nov 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 3:53 pm
30 Nov 2008
That power plant in a carbon fiber SUV like the Lovins hypercar would solve our economic problems due to imperted oil and get a good start on our GHG problems.
The lighter hypercar design allows that smaller drivetrain for the economy Mini to power the larger, safer hypercar.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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JMG Posted 4:34 pm
30 Nov 2008
The 5% Project
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.
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Pangolin Posted 5:30 pm
30 Nov 2008
The reliability of EV's has made PHEVs a threat to the standard motor vehicle industry. Insisting on extended range EV's has been a stalling tactic to milk the old cow one last time.
Put the Carbon Back
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amazingdrx Posted 11:32 pm
30 Nov 2008
Exactly, just like the marvelous hydrogen fuel cell car, or the flex fuel chip, delay tactics to facilitate gas guzzling.
Oh no, can't mass produce plugin vehicles until batteries charge in 5 minutes and go 200 miles on a charge. until that ultimate battery technology is invented and mass produced, how can the auto industry build electric cars?
It's just more lame diversion from the real problems that plugin hybrids are ready to solve right now. Economic uncertainty and oil wars due to manipulated markets in imported oil and GHG climate change.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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archigeek Posted 11:44 pm
30 Nov 2008
The mellotron is your friend.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:23 am
01 Dec 2008
The Lovins hypercar design would use this process for mass production.
This would revive and revolutionize the US auto industry, government needs to force their hand with WW2 like war production contracts, for government fleet vehicles, specifying the new hypercar and plugin hybrid technology. Let the individual auto companies add their own style, but the basic technology needs to change.
Cancel the 18 billion dollars per year in oil industry subsidies and use the savings to order up a million of these cars per year for government use, federal, state, and local. The gas savings will help repair deficits in every level of government.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:40 am
01 Dec 2008
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:18 am
01 Dec 2008
Bolt two tandem versions of my vehicle side by side and you would have a vehicle with four wheels capable of carrying four people. Wrap that in a light weight weather envelope and what have you got? I don't know but you don't have to call it a car if you don't want to :-/
Where exactly is the cutoff? Anything called a car? That would be easy to fix, just stop calling personal transport "cars."
As a solution, asking people to volunteer to give up personal transport won't scale. People give it up in New York with the exception of cabs but that is only because not owning and driving a car in New York City is less painful than trying to park and drive one there.
Before cars, most people in NYC took a horse and buggy to the train. The streets were pretty wild and smelly.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:31 pm
01 Dec 2008
And now, just to attempt -- just an attempt -- to clear up some confusion about New York City, since I lived there for a couple of decades (and you can't take total swipes at it since 9/11, remember?) --
First of all, lots of people who live in Manhattan -- maybe most -- prefer not to have to drive. Sure, it's convenient to get out of the city since everywhere this side of the Atlantic outside of NYC assumes that you have an automobile, but it's sort of nice -- just think, no worries about parking, someone else drives (remember that old Greyhound commercial?), no worrying about traffic (and if you're in a bus or subway, you can read, which is why there are still newspapers in NYC).
Second, in some ways it's actually better for kids to be in a place like NYC than a suburb. there, I said it. Some families prefer the city You can stroll for miles. You can go to world class museums. You can go to lots of things, with a 10-minute easy subway ride. And in addition, you don't have to worry about getting killed while driving(except by cars hitting pedestrians, of course).
Third, (and this is from something Bob Wallace said), it's actually easier to shop when you can walk to the store. Honest. You don't have to get in the car, drive, park, do it in reverse, you just go out the door and a few minutes later you're walking out of the store and back to your...yes, apartment. The one big problem, which leads to,
Four, according to Chris Leinberger at the Brookings Institute, about 30% of the public wants to live in walkable communities, but only about 5% at most can. Could it be the trillions in subsidies provided to highways, parking spots, parking garages, right-of-ways, gas stations, trucks, SUVs....in other words, there are people who want to be in an NYC type environment, and it would be nice if there were more and bigger (not huge, just reasonable, say 500square feet per person) apartments at a reasonable price.
Oh, yeah, then there's that little itty-bitty number five, cars pollute, so since we're on an environmental site, I would remiss if I didn't mention things like climate change. or that our society is going to have to bend over backwards to keep everyone in their single family homes that depend on cars, by trying to develop a technology that does not exist on a mass scale, electric and plug-in hybrids, rather than go with a technology that is decades old, trains, and we'll have to figure out all kinds of ways of keeping millions of inefficient single family homes going that are spread out far away from shopping and work instead of going with technologies that were invented 10,000 years ago at Catal Huyuk, that is, make living patterns dense and mixed.
Oh that was fun! But I swear I will never, ever advocate taking away anybody's car, I promise!
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:28 pm
01 Dec 2008
Bikes are the most efficient transportational machinery because they are (normally) lighter than the person they are carrying, or at least close to it, they take up little space, and what makes them more civilized than cars is that they improve the health of rider; and most importantly they are a transportational device that doesn't go above 30mph, or even above 20 mph, because at least at 20mph 97% of people in accidents aren't killed. In other words, a transportational system that kills with the regularity that our car-centric one kills is much more barbaric.
In other words, I think a society based on electric trains and bikes (electric or otherwise) would be much more civilized than one in which over 40,000 people per year are brutally killed.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:56 pm
01 Dec 2008
I would say go 80% car-free though? Plugin bikes, three wheeled and covered for comfort for the less adventurous could eliminate most car travel. With good bike lanes and trails, it would be a healthy pleasure.
You could rent a super safe, GHG free plugin hybrid car/truck when you really needed one.
Really a great job of cultural ethics though, thanks.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 3:01 pm
01 Dec 2008
I need 4wd to get in and out during parts of the year. I am building my house so I need to haul in building materials, fencing for the garden and orchard, loads of horse poop.... I need to haul in lots of groceries so that I don't need to go to the store more than 2-3 times per month.
The rest of the year I live in Asia, some of it in Bangkok.
I have never driven a car in Asia. Public transportation is great there, convenient and inexpensive. But I never seldom find myself wanting to move much more than me and a small backpack. I walk as much as I can, only climb on board something when distances are great.
I pretty much tag down both ends of the continuum.
Both ends of the continuum and all lifestyles in between are reasonable, in my humble opinion.
Those of us who live outside of cities generally do so because of a love of places not city. We won't readily move into dense urban areas. We'll probably only do so under duress.
We, all of us, need to change our way of life. We cannot continue to rely on affordable petroleum. We cannot continue to burn fossil fuel and pump carbon into the atmosphere.
A few of us, a very few, will make the needed changes voluntarily. Others, most of us, will have be willing to make the changes only if they involve very modest amounts of personal pain.
Bottom line? Forget about, absolutely forget about trying to get people to give up their cars. It just ain't going to happen within the paradigm of today's world.
We have to find ways for people to get around where they want to go on their own schedules. We can probably get lots of them to use public transportation for longer journeys as long as it is convenient, rapid, and perceived as inexpensive. But once they get home/to their destination they are going to demand "their car".
If we want to get things carbon turned around we've got to come up with acceptable person vehicles that don't burn fossil fuel.
I can't see any alternative....
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stinkycheese Posted 10:02 pm
01 Dec 2008
> Forget about carbon or graphite fiber cars
> coming to a showroom near you anytime soon...
> or ever.
Just because carbon fiber F1 cars cost $1M+ doesn't mean that carbon fiber cars can't be less than $1M. Teslas are carbon fiber and while I'm not going to claim they're inexpensive, they're $100k in relatively low volume production (and of course, you're getting more than just a carbon fiber skin when you buy a Tesla). I'm not saying that CF is ready for primetime but I think it is at least possible.
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:44 am
02 Dec 2008
Second, I don't believe in guilt-tripping about cars. Most people are trying to get by the best they can. Certainly rural life was transformed by the automobile, as where whole regions like the South, which makes it even more critical to figure out electric-based modes of transportation. I'm trying to convince people that a transit-oriented lifestyle is better, not force them into it.
There may be an interesting categorization of people vis-a-vis cars: there are those who would prefer society be carless,there are those who might want central cities to be carless, there are those who would like to be in walkable communities and either not have to use a car or only use it occasionally, there are those who might prefer a suburb but would move to a walkable community without too much incentive, and on and on.
Where those dividing lines are, we don't know, because walkable communities are far and few between, and housing in them tend to range from expensive to very expensive. It doesn't have to be that way -- in fact, it seems to me that if the market was operating in any kind of efficient manner, there wouldn't be much difference between walkable and suburbs, because capital should be flowing to the higher priced areas.
Chris Leinberger at Brookings thinks this will straighten itself out via the private market as developers get more comfortable building near transit, in particular. Which means that transit needs to be part of the solution.
So let's say 30% of the public actually wanted to live in walkable communities, that 25% of the population who don't currently could drastically reduce their driving miles by moving to one. That would be a good start, no? I haven't seen much in the way of proposals to accomplish this, and it's very tricky because it involves changes to areas that are already built up -- one of the reasons developers prefer farmland. But considering the hundreds of billions devoted to expandingn suburbia, I think it's called for, particularly in light of the climate crisis and peak oil.
I think once people visit places like NYC (or Bangkok), they can see that there are advantages, and you might see a much larger percentage of the population preferring something close to urban life. At the very least, maybe they would be more open to small EV's that can get them from their home to a possibly "in-filled" suburban town center, and from there by train to a city. So it's possible a "demonstration effect" might also make a difference. People now are so used to a car-centered lifestyle, they need to see and experience something different.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:30 am
02 Dec 2008
You can walk around the block on the tops of Priuses when the parents come to pick up their kids from their private schools in my town. These are status sensitive people trying to "outgreen" each other. That is how it will happen if it is going to happen.
The Insight will usher in the next level of competition. One day someone will pull up to school in an 80 mile range all electric car like this and watch the scramble:
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/mitsu.jpg
It could all happen very rapidly.
You don't need NYC densities to have walkable cities. It's an extreme example with enough negatives to go with its positives to keep many from wanting to live in such a densely populated environment. Jamming that many people into one place has its ramifications. We are not as evolved as the social insects to thrive in a hive.
Our address here in Seattle has a walk score of 89: http://www.walkscore.com/
I use less fossil fuel than my neighbors who diligently sprint to catch a bus every morning. Our cars get better mileage per person than the bus they ride. I agree with DrX that we need electrified personal transport and dedicated 20 mph rights of way for them but people must want them to go with better mass transport for longer distances. They can't be forced upon the populace. To want them, they need something more than my electric bike but something less than a Prius.
About 50 town house units were built this year just a few blocks from me thanks to government zoning changes that encourage density and the free market meeting consumer demand. So, it's happening, but I sure can't say it is happening fast enough to make a difference. Time will tell.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:09 am
02 Dec 2008
The only problem with this is it replaces the whole car every few years. That's a lot of consumption. A carbon fiber car won't rust itself to death. I know a Honda engine will go 300k miles or more, but electric motors can go a million miles.
So why not go electric carbon fiber design, the first wave with a 30 mile battery range and backup generator. When batteries improve, replace the batteries every few years, not the whole car. Then eventually as batteries that quick charge and allow 200 mile range become affordable, get rid of the backup generator.
Of course urban drivers and very careful (to not run out of charge) drivers could go pure electric with only a 60 mile range, for instance, and rent a plugin backup generator from the dealer if/when they go on a longer trip.
The original car could last for 10 or 20 years. of course the trend setters could still get a new car every few years, the rest of us could drive their trade-ins. I like used cars myself.
Would it ever become trendy to drive a 20 year old car with the latest batteries? Hehey. I think so.
Really though, couldn't we make three wheeled, covered, plugin bikes trendy? That would be a good replacement for maybe half the cars we now use.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:18 am
02 Dec 2008
Why not bike at 20 mph instead? It really puts the whole car issue in another light, any alien observor would definitely spot the insanity.
The Walmart stampede killed one person and it was on the news constantly. The Hadj stampedes in Mecca regularly kill hundreds.
40,000 per year and maybe 200,000 serious injuries? And we go on driving like maniacs? Yow. Collective insanity rules the roads.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:34 am
02 Dec 2008
For instance, here in Evanston, Illinois, population under 100,000, there is a downtown which must total less than a third of the total population, and it supports a supermarket (whole foods), a drugstore, barnes and noble, YMCA, library, health offices, etc. etc. and it has two rail lines. There are many towns similar to this (it would be nice to have a full inventory), although it helps that it's a college town.
I think most cities in the U.S. have pockets of walkability similar to NYC -- actually, let me make that more rigorous, there are pockets where you can be fairly comfortable being carless -- but for instance, Chicago is set up rather strangely in that it seems to have enough density but the commercial areas are separate from the residential ones in most of the city (and I would probably be happy to have a 20mph electric car, or something similar, maybe depending on where it was legal to drive it)
Anyway, before I run on about urban planning, I like your idea about dedicated 20mph lanes -- would that include bikes and electric cars? Maybe make them too narrow for ICE cars.
And after having said all that I've said, if someone came up with a way for suburbanites to do their happy motoring by just shifting to an all-electric engine instead of an ICE, I'd be joyous because it would be a huge step toward solving the climate crisis.
Amazin', I think the serious injuries are near 200,000, I thought I once saw a statistic on serious, disabling injuries, but I can't find it now.
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