Thu.Jul 05, 2012

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Ford projects C-MAX Hybrid will deliver 47 mpg city, 44 mpg highway; expected payback of hybrid premium in two years

Green Car Congress

2013 Ford C-MAX Hybrid. Click to enlarge. Ford projects that its upcoming C-MAX Hybrid ( earlier post ) will achieve an EPA-rated 47 mpg city (5.0 L/100km) and 44 mpg highway (5.3 L/100km)—higher fuel economy than the Toyota Prius v (44 mpg / 5.3 L/100km city and 40 mpg / 5.9 L/100km highway) and at a $1,300-lower base price. The vehicle can be driven 500-plus miles with total system output of 188 hp (140 kW), compared to the 134 hp (100 kW) from Toyota Prius v and Prius.

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Electric-Car Accident? What Your Insurance Company MUST Let You Do

Green Car Reports

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been driving, what type of car you have or how it happened: having a car accident isn’t nice. Normally, post-accident, your insurance company may help you find a local repairer to get your car looking good as new again. But if you have an electric car, letting them do that could damage your.

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London adds 300th hybrid bus introduced to fleet

Green Car Congress

London has introduced its 300 th hybrid bus into its fleet; 1,000 hybrid buses are set to be introduced in the next four years as part of the Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s plans to improve air quality. The 300th hybrid bus is now in service on route 211 between Waterloo and Hammersmith. A further 104 hybrid buses are on order using £5 million (US$7.8 million) funding from the Department for Transport.

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Oregon Joins Long Trail Of Pacific Coast Electric Car Charge Stations

Green Car Reports

It may not be long before electric car owners on America's Pacific coast can drive all the way from Canada to Mexico--using quick-charge stations. Thanks to Oregon's new 'electric highway', it's now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5. That, says NBC News, makes it the longest stretch of.

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How serious is Norway about climate change? So much that its streetlights self-dim

emissions global warming Norway climate change carbon dioxide youtube lighting

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Ford sells 89 Focus Electrics in US in June

Green Car Congress

Ford reported selling 89 Focus Electric vehicles in the US in June, bringing the total sold year-to-date to 97 (6 in May and 2 in January). The company also reported that it has produced 763 units of the battery-electric vehicle Jan-Jun 2012. The company sold 1,265 hybrids in June—mostly the Ford Fusion hybrid (797 units), followed by the Lincoln MKZ (451).

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Toyota Prius Popularity Continues To Soar, Boosting Hybrid Sales

Green Car Reports

At the end of every month, major automakers participate in the age-old tradition of reporting their sales figures for the previous month. Frankly, those figures aren’t normally that exciting, but this month’s sales returns from Toyota caught our attention for one simple reason. During June 2012, sales of the 2012 Toyota Prius family --.

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More Trending

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Two Electric Cars, One Planet To Race Around: Who Will Win?

Green Car Reports

Remember the two French guys in their Mitsubishi i (well, Citroen C-Zero)? Their eight-month, 15,500-mile journey in the tiny electric car is just one of many long-distance EV publicity drives we've seen, but certainly one of the longest. Naturally, they're not the only people to have thought of circumnavigating the globe on in a production.

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Volvo Trucks introducing new Euro 6 engine

Green Car Congress

Volvo D13 Euro 6 with EGR and aftertreatment system. Click to enlarge. Volvo Trucks is introducing a Euro-6-compliant heavy-duty engine, with NO x emissions lowered by 77% and PM emissions halved compared to Euro 5. The first implementation of the new engine is the D13 460 hp (343 kW) unit. The Volvo D13 for Euro 6 is based on Volvo’s Euro 5 engine.

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BMW i Electric Cars To Tour The World Before Launch

Green Car Reports

Before the 2014 BMW i3 is officially launched as a production model, the innovative all-electric minicar is going on a whirlwind world tour--chaperoned by its more powerful, sexy, and sleek i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe sibling. The pair of concept cars just completed the first of seven stops they will make over the next year for what the maker.

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Audi sets new first half sales record in China

Green Car Congress

Audi increased its unit sales in China and Hong Kong in the first half of the year by 37.8% to 193,871 automobiles, achieving new record results. In June, the company increased its unit sales by 20.4% year-on-year to 33,309 automobiles. This success in the first half of the year was due in particular to the models produced in Changchun, with sales of 157,441 units and growth of 38.8%.

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Faurecia and Accenture partner on products and services for connected and autonomous vehicles

Brief

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Charging Your Electric Car At Home? You’re 20 Feet From Power (Probably)

Green Car Reports

While many car buyers today are interested in making the switch from gasoline to plug-in cars, they often worry that they have nowhere to charge it at night. That worry can lead to consumers ignoring plug-in options, but a new study from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (via GreenTechMedia) has proven that nearly half of all U.S.

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Pike Research forecasts China plug-in market to reach 152,000 units/year by 2017, falling short of government targets; BEVs to dominate

Green Car Congress

PEV Sales in China by segment: 2012-2017. Source: Pike Research. Click to enlarge. The government of China—now the world’s largest automotive market—has made vehicle electrification central to its plan for growing the automotive market both domestically and internationally, and accordingly has created many national and local incentives for plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) purchases.

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Electric Mercedes Galore Competing In Austrian E-Car Rally

Green Car Reports

Daimler might only have one full production electric car at the moment, in the shape of the 2013 smart fortwo electric drive, but the company has been experimenting with several other electric vehicles over the past few years. Many of these are set to compete in the third Silvretta E-Car Rallye, a three-day run through the scenic mountains of.

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Volkswagen and Porsche moving up full integration to August

Green Car Congress

Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft and Porsche Automobil Holding SE (Porsche SE) are accelerating the creation of an integrated automotive group through the contribution in full of Porsche’s automotive business to the Volkswagen Group, with the move expected to take effect as of 1 August 2012. The move will allow the integrated automotive group consisting of Volkswagen and Porsche to become reality some two years earlier than would have been economically feasible under the put/call options provided f

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ExxonMobil announces 6th oil discovery offshore Guyana with Ranger-1; Guyana may move from non-producer to regional powerhouse

Oil

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2013 Lexus RX 450h: 750-Mile Gas Mileage Test

Green Car Reports

The Lexus RX luxury crossover line is the mainstay of Toyota's luxury line in the U.S., representing fully 42 percent of the brand's total 2011 sales. And the hybrid Lexus RX 450h model finds many buyers among progressive, affluent suburban families. There's just one problem: Its real-world gas mileage doesn't appear to match its EPA ratings.

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California ARB posts LCFS pathway for biomethane from dry fermentation; -15.29 g CO2e/MJ, compared to +95.86 and +94.71 for gasoline and diesel

Green Car Congress

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has posted a new Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) internal pathway for biomethane produced from the high solids anaerobic digestion (HSAD) (dry fermentation) of organic (food and green) wastes—with accommodations for small proportions of food-contaminated, non-recyclable (soiled) paper, and fats, oils, and greases (FOG) in the feedstock.

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2013 Fiat 500X: Previewed On Video, Full Details Soon?

Green Car Reports

It's just 18 seconds of video, but a clip from Italy appears to show the first clear details of yet another upcoming Fiat model to help the brand return to volume sales in the U.S. market. Posted on Tuesday, the video shows what is almost surely a Fiat 500X crossover. This new model is the all-wheel drive version that will be derived from the.

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One-step hydrotreatment process for vegetable oil to produce high quality diesel-range alkanes

Green Car Congress

Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences have devised a one-step hydrotreatment process for vegetable oil that combines deoxygenation and isomerization directly to produce low cloud point, high quality diesel. A paper on their work is published in the journal ChemSusChem. The process uses Pt/zeolite bifunctional catalysts with SAPO-11 and ZSM-22 zeolites as supports.

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Report: Europe to boast more than 4.1million electric vehicle charging stations by 2020

Green Cars News

Europe is set to make massive advancements in its use of electric vehicles – and it should have 4.1million electric vehicle charging stations in place by 2020. That’s the verdict of a new report by Pike Research entitled Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment in Europe. However, while it suggests that the movements for the electric vehicle [.].

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UMTRI: average fuel economy of new vehicles sold in US in June edging downward from previous months

Green Car Congress

The average fuel economy (window-sticker value) of new vehicles sold in the US in June was 23.6 mpg (9.97 L/100km), according to figures from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). This represents an improvement of 3.5 mpg (17%) from the value in October 2007 (the first month of UMTRI monitoring). However, the fuel economy in June was down 0.1 mpg from May (and down 0.5 mpg from the peak in March), likely reflecting the continuing reduction in the price of gasoline

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Electric trolleybus system approved for Leeds

Green Cars News

A scheme to reintroduce trolleybuses to Leeds has been granted approval for a new £250 million loan, Transport Secretary Justine Greening announced today. It is expected that the state-of-the art transport system would generate as many as 4,000 new jobs and provide an important boost to the economy of West Yorkshire. The New Generation Transport [.].

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Researchers use shape memory alloy to address capacity fading of tin anodes for Li-ion batteries

Green Car Congress

Researchers from the South China University of Technology are proposing the use of NiTi shape memory alloys as a simple approach to solving the long-standing problem of capacity fade with tin (Sn)—and other high-capacity metallic—anodes for Li-ion batteries. Tin (like silicon) has a high theoretical specific capacity (992 mAh g -1 for Li 22 Sn 5 ) and is one of the more attractive materials for potential negative electrodes in lithium-ion batteries.

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Electric cars head to the Alps for eco rallye’s return

Green Cars News

The Silvretta E-Car Rallye returns today to challenge electric cars to test their metal across the unforgiving terrain of the Austrian Alps. The three days rallye takes contestants through the Montafon region of the Alps, covering 330 kilometres (205 miles) at gradients as steep as 15.2 per cent and height differentials of as much as [.].

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Companies plug into electric car power

Green Cars News

Twenty leading organisations based across England are set to lead by example in cutting road vehicle emissions after being selected to take part in the Energy Saving Trust’s Plugged-in Fleets initiative. Boots UK, London Fire Brigade, Network Rail, Surrey County Council, Southwark Council, Tristar, the University of Cumbria, Wm Morrisons PLC, York City Council, and [.].

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And the top-selling plug-in hybrid or electric car is…

Green Cars News

The Nissan LEAF? The Toyota Prius Plug-in? Which of the new breed of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles do you think is leading the way in the sales charts? Well, the answer is… The Chevrolet Volt (pictured)! According to new statistics for vehicle sales in the USA during June, the Chevrolet Volt was the top-selling [.].

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Renault embarks on Z.E. Test Drive Tour

Green Cars News

Renault’s Z.E. Test Drive Tour will kick off at London’s Covent Garden this weekend and it wants to make you dance. Setting up camp at the iconic London location from July 6 to 8, the event will aim to promote the numerous benefits of electric motoring by offering accompanied test drives of its Z.E. models [.].

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Volkswagen and Porsche expand partnership

Green Cars News

German carmakers Volkswagen and Porsche are furthering their links by accelerating the creation of an integrated automotive group – with Porsche’s automotive business to become a complete part of the Volkswagen Group by August 1, 2012. The completion of the move will mean that Porsche will receive around €4.46billion as well as one Volkswagen ordinary [.].

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Suzuki splashes some new touches

Green Cars News

Suzuki has launched a new revised and refreshed Splash model this week, which boasts emissions as low as 109g/km CO2. Displaying design revisions to both the exterior and interior, the new Splash mini-MPV model also comes with no price increases over its predecessor and is available with the carmaker’s popular VAT free offer. Prices start [.].

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Ford C-MAX Hybrid to beat Toyota Prius V for fuel economy

Green Cars News

The hybrid car market is becoming increasingly competitive – as is emphasised by Ford openly boasting that it’s new C-MAX Hybrid (pictured) will topple the Toyota Prius V in terms of fuel economy and will come with a lower price. The Ford C-MAX Hybrid is set to return 47mpg highway, compared to the Toyota Prius [.].

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University of Exeter makes car parts breakthrough

Green Cars News

Those studious minds at the University of Exeter (logo, pictured) have made a significant breakthrough with aluminium that could result in the creation of lightweight, complex parts for car manufacturing that are drastically less expensive than existing materials. Their development is a new method for creating three-dimensional reinforced aluminium composite parts and makes use of [.].