After a flurry of activity over the past several weeks, the Solar Impulse team have finally taken their first steps towards solar flight. The prototype of the aircraft designed to be the first to fly around the world powered only by the sun, has completed the first taxi tests down the runway at its home airport in Switzerland.
With the four electric motors running on sunlight, these first tests were slow, only getting up to about 10 knots. Initially the team used safety gear to protect the aircraft in case of a failure of the landing gear. But eventually the aircraft was able to taxi without the use of safety gear, just as it would for a normal takeoff.
At ground level, electric cars like GM's Chevrolet Volt -- due to be launched in November 2010 -- are pretty much everything the U.S. economy is banking on. The cars promise innovative engineering and a resurgence of the American auto industry. They mean an America that is manufacturing things rather than just bundling financial instruments. Cosmically, electric cars mean green technologies that will migrate to China, India, and Brazil, where they will allow for Western styles of personal freedom yet not threaten to overheat the earth.
CANBERRA, Australia - A solar car made by students from Japan's Tokai University was on Wednesday named the winner of a 1,900-mile race across the Australian outback that aimed to show that green cars can also be mean.
The Tokai Challenger crossed the finish line just north of Adelaide on Wednesday afternoon after a smooth run, with one flat tire the only issue along the way.
Have you pulled your car up to the gas pump lately and been shocked by the high price of gasoline? As the pump clicked past $20, $30, $40 or even $50, maybe you thought about trading in your car for something that gets better mileage. Or maybe you're worried that your car is contributing to the greenhouse effect.
The auto industry has the technology to address these concerns. It's the hybrid car. There are a lot of hybrid models on the market these days, and most automobile manufacturers have announced plans to manufacture their own versions.
BERLIN - Germany launched a campaign Wednesday to put 1 million electric cars on the road by 2020, making battery research a priority as it tries to position the country as a market leader.
The program, which draws on $705 million set aside in an economic stimulus package earlier this year but leaves many financing details up to the next government, drew criticism for being too vague.
DETROIT - General Motors Corp. said Tuesday its Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car should get 230 miles per gallon of gasoline in city driving, more than four times the mileage of the current champion, the Toyota Prius.
GM came up with the figure in early tests using draft guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for calculating the mileage of extended range electric vehicles, said Tony Posawatz, GM's vehicle line director for the Volt.
It would be easy to paint Nissan as late to the burgeoning U.S. green party, as the company essentially only counts the Altima Hybrid to sell among its alt-fuel offerings and that sedan utilizes technology borrowed from Toyota, and it's only sold in a few states in small volumes. While that may be the case, Nissan says their near-term prospects are really quite different.
In the next year or so, after only a century or so of trying, the electric car may break free of the lunatic fringe and become a mainstream transportation option for everyday drivers.
The next step forward for electric cars will come on Aug. 2, when Nissan is expected to unveil the first of three electric models in three vehicle segments that the automaker will reportedly sell en masse by 2013 in the United States, Japan and Europe.
Its a sign of a bike's success when companies in the Far East start producing cut-price copies of it and thats just whats happened with the classic Dutch bakfiets design.
At this year's China International Bicycle & Motor Fair Show in Shanghai, Ningbo Nanyang Vehicle Co. displayed a complete range of carrier cycles which were difficult to tell apart from their made-in-Holland counterparts.
WASHINGTON Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles development.
