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Hydrogen gas offers one of the most promising sustainable energy alternatives to limited fossil fuels. But traditional methods of producing pure hydrogen face significant challenges in unlocking its full potential, either by releasing harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or requiring rare and expensive chemical elements such as platinum. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new electrocatalyst that addresses one of these problems by generating hydrogen gas from water cleanly and with much more affordable materials. The novel form of catalytic nickel-molybdenum-nitride – described in a paper published online May 8,...

NASA is clearly looking far into the future for a way to handle both human waste and a need for fuel on either long space flights or when attempting to colonize another planet. To that end, they’ve assigned life support engineer Jonathan Trent the task of coming up with a way to use algae to solve both problems at once. His solution is to use plastic bags floating in seawater as small bioreactors, containing wastewater, sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow algae that can be used as a means to create biofuel. The whole thing is called Offshore Membrane Enclosures...

Drivers hoping to slip the surly -- and traffic congested -- bonds of Earth moved a step closer to realizing their dream, as a US firm said it had successfully tested a street-legal plane. Massachusetts-based firm Terrafugia said their production prototype "Transition" car-plane had completed an eight-minute test flight, clearing the way for it to hit the market within a year. "With this flight, the team demonstrated an ability to accomplish what had been called an impossible dream," said founder Carl Dietrich. The two-seater craft, which has the rounded features of a Fiat 500 and collapsible wings, is on presale...

Is it a flying car or a driving aircraft? Either way, the Personal Air and Land Vehicle, or PAL-V for short, has just proved it can handle the skies as well as the highway, both at up to 180 kilometres (112 miles) per hour, its Dutch developers said Tuesday. The PAL-V is a gyrocopter that can fly as far as 500 kilometres (315 miles) at an altitude of up to 4,000 feet (1,200 metres). When it lands, it tucks away its rotor-blades and turns into a road-legal three-wheeled vehicle with a range of 1,200 kilometres. "In future, you will be...

Web giant Google has already changed the way we search the internet, watch video and navigate. But the firm's latest breakthrough could be its biggest innovation yet, reports the Daily Mail. The company promises that its self-driving car will enable blind people to drive, as the vehicle takes over nearly all the functions of the car currently controlled by humans. The project has been several years in the making, and was officially unveiled in October 2010. But recently it has taken a further step forward, after putting blind people in the driving seat and inviting them to test the technology...

John P. Holdren, the White House science adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote in a book he co-authored with population control advocates Paul and Anne Ehrlich that “ways must be found to control advertising” and that possible means for doing so would be banning utility companies from promoting the use of energy and prohibiting “references to size, power or sexual potency” in automobile advertising. “Advertising now functions in large part to keep the economy growing by creating demand for a wide variety of often useless, dangerous or environmentally destructive products,” Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.

What's the value of a car used by Barack Obama? Apparently not $1 million. An eBay auction for a gray 2005 Chrysler 300C leased by Obama before he became president closed late Wednesday with no bids meeting that minimum asking price, after which the listing agent hinted that $1 million might have been too much to expect.

The new "Hours of Service" Rules are a drop in the bucket. We think of the world of transportation -- especially trucking and automobile manufacturing -- as being one of the most fundamental of Democratic Party constituencies. Detroit has long been a party stronghold, with the UAW and Teamsters among Democrats' most powerful union supporters. From the worker at the DMV to the driver he licenses, this is one solid chain of Democrats. But is this political loyalty deserved today, if indeed it ever was? Since the Democratic Party was taken over by environmental extremists a generation ago, there has...

Driving a car with disappearing doors will definitely grab everyone's attention. http://www.flixxy.com/high-tech-car-door.htm

Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided an Oklahoma car dealership that the government suspects may be one of about 30 such businesses in the U.S. involved in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah. DEA agents say the car lot of Ace Auto Leasing in Tulsa is part of a huge network that is selling cars and drugs -- and then using the money to support terrorism against the U.S., myfoxphoenix.com reports. During Friday's raid, agents could be seen carryout out filing cabinets and other items. They also questioned employees and took inventory. "They're making big time money and it's going right...

Car maker Saab ran out of time Monday when its Dutch owner filed for bankruptcy, calling time on a nine-month battle to rescue the struggling Swedish marque.....

When it comes to making biodiesel cheaply and efficiently enough to be commercially feasible, E. coli may prove to be "the little bacterial engine that could," say Stanford researchers. Biodiesel can be made from plant oil or animal fat – usually the former. Used cooking oil from restaurants is common, but for biodiesel to contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel use, there needs to be a way to mass produce it from plant-derived raw materials. The problem is that synthesizing biodiesel is complicated. That is where E. coli comes in. The bacteria, often discussed in terms of the human digestive...

Since FR has alot of smart and knowledgable people, I thought I pose this question in hopes of getting a few answers. I have a 1996 Chevy S10 4X4 (automatic tran) with the Vortec 4.3L engine. Yesterday I went away on an all day trip that's 1.5hrs each way and the only thing I noticed a couple while cruising the highway was it felt like the truck jerked a couple times but I wasn't really sure. Well, I got home last night, parked my truck, and went inside for the night. Well, woke up this morning to go grab a...

GM demonstrated its EN-V concept vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year. The small, maneuverable electric vehicles ride on two wheels, like the Segway. They can also be networked and drive themselves. In one demonstration, the vehicles dropped off the driver, and then made their way to a parking spot on their own. GM intends the vehicle especially for megacities such as Shanghai, which is where it unveiled the first slick concept version of the cars. Several automakers are developing technology to let cars drive themselves, mainly as a way to make driving more convenient and...

This is great, if you haven't seen it... A few years back a television commercial was produced by Honda's UK ad agency, working in concert with company engineers who painstakingly took apart two special hand-assembled Accords to create this incredible Rube Goldberg-style contraption... This (real/no effects) two-minute spot actually required 606 takes- the first few hundred didn't go all to plan. They therefore had to re-install the set-up repeatedly over several weeks, working shifts day-and-night to achieve this effect. In the end,  it took three full months and $6M to capture a perfect run. All you see in the sequence...

A team from the National University of Singapore's Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI), led by principle investigator Dr Xie Xian Ning, has developed the world's first energy-storage membrane. Electrical energy storage and its management is becoming an urgent issue due to climate change and energy shortage. Existing technologies such as rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors are based on complicated configurations including liquid electrolytes, and suffer from difficulties in scaling-up and high fabrication costs. There is also growing public concern and awareness of the impact of traditional energy sources on the environment, spurring a continued search for alternative, green, sustainable energy sources....

WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) - Several major automakers on Friday embraced the Obama administration's proposal to push the industry further away from once-dominant gas guzzlers to more lean and efficient vehicles. The proposal, which is the result of months of negotiations between the Obama administration and automakers, would require automakers to reach an average fuel efficiency across their fleets of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

Just when you think the People's State of California couldn't possibly inflict more damage on its own economy, out comes a regulatory proposal so astonishing you have to wonder whether the destruction of an entire industry is its actual intent. So-called zero emissions vehicles, which could more accurately be labeled coal burning cars given the source of most of our nation's electricity, are part of a troika of green fetishes that have captured the fevered imaginations of central planners. Not content with the incentives provided by a $7,500 federal tax rebate attached to cars like Government Motors' Chevy Volt, California...

I noticed that a co-worker had gotten a new car while seeing each other in the parking lot and congratulated the person. The co-worker said "thank you", but stated that I shouldn't tell anyone else. The co-worker in my opinion felt they had a Scarlett Letter attached to them for buying not only a new car but an import model.

BARRIE, Ont. - Police blame some serious distracted driving for a chain-reaction crash that caused more than $100,000 in damage after a teenager struck a parked car in this city north of Toronto. Police said the driver was texting and trying to pick up her cat when the collision happened. Cops said the teenager was speeding when she lost control of the car, left the roadway and struck a car parked in a driveway. It was pushed into a boat, which was also in the driveway. The boat was then pushed into the house and a neighbour's vehicle. The driver...

New thermoelectric materials will be tested in BMW, Ford, and Chevrolet vehicles by the end of summer. At least two-thirds of the energy in gasoline used in cars and trucks is wasted as heat. Thermoelectrics, semiconductor materials that convert heat into electricity, could capture this waste heat, reducing the fuel needs of the vehicle and improving fuel economy by at least 5 percent. But the low efficiency and high cost of existing thermoelectric materials has kept such devices from becoming practical in vehicles. Now researchers are assembling the first prototype thermoelectric generators for tests in commercial cars and SUVs. The...

A startup hopes to commercialize a novel design that features fluid electrodes. Last year, the battery startup A123 Systems spun out another company, called 24M, to develop a new kind of battery meant to make electric vehicles go farther and cost less. Now a research paper published in Advanced Energy Materials reveals the first details about how that battery would work. It also addresses the challenges in bringing the battery to market. A big problem with the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids is that only about 25 percent of the battery's volume is taken up by...

New energy-storage technology could surpass today's batteries in capacity and durability. A startup called Nanotune says its ultracapacitor technology could make electric cars cheaper and extend their range. The company, based in Mountain View, California, has developed a way to make electrodes that results in ultracapacitors with five to seven times as much storage capacity as conventional ones. Conventional ultracapacitors, which have the advantage of delivering fast bursts of power and can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times without losing much capacity, are too expensive and store too little energy to replace batteries. Nanotune, however, which has raised $3...

Porsche Japan KK will start accepting orders for its "918 Spyder" plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) May 13, 2011, in Japan. It will start production of the PHEV Sept 18, 2013, and shipment in November 2013. The company will produce 918 units of the vehicle and ship them in the order of orders received. The vehicle will be completed at the Zuffenhausen Plant in Stuttgart, Germany. The 918 Spyder is a two-seated vehicle having a monocoque structure made of CFRP (carbon fiber reinforced plastic) and will be sold at a price of 684,800 euro (approx US$997,548). The displacement of its V-8...

This is a picture of the Chery QQ. It is made in CHINA. There is one on a USED CAR LOT near my house in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. Price: $2400. They have no dealerships or distribution network in the USA. They had proposed to sell these cars here back in 2005. They had deals with Chrysler and later Nissan, but since the 2008 crash and subsequent government takeover of Chrysler, that deal has died. As far as I know, this model has not passed any EPA or NHSTA tests in order to be allowed to be imported. They...

When the bright red muscle car rumbled up, Bill Morey's eyes twinkled. He had waited weeks for the chance to ride shotgun in such a car. The throaty sound of the 1970 Pontiac LeMans arriving outside his assisted living facility got his attention. "Listen at that," Morey said Sunday morning with a smile. Nearly deafened three decades ago by the roar of artillery fire in World War II, and more recently laid up by a blood clot that initially paralyzed him, Morey, 87, had a wish come true Sunday, thanks to an enterprising counselor and a willing volunteer.

Medford police Officer Jason Montalbano loves his Crown Victoria, its bulk, its toughness, its engine’s quiet purr. He takes his police cruiser to the car wash at least three times a week. He dangles a yellow “Vanillaroma’’ scent tree from the console to mask the stench of stogies smoked by the overnight patrol officers. And sometimes, late at night when the city is quiet, Montalbano, the son of a cop, will take the 250-horsepower sedan out onto Interstate 93 and hit the gas until he is flying down the open road. Like his father and thousands of other officers across...

John Dingell Jr. has represented Michigan’s 15th congressional district for 55 years. His father held the same seat for 22 years before that. Dingell has lived his entire life in Washington, D.C., never in the southwest suburbs of Detroit where his constituents live. For perhaps the first time in his life, Dingell is actually in a political battle. The Detroit Free Press published the results of a poll that showed him 4% down to his challenger, Dr. Rob Steele, a cardiologist from Ann Arbor, with just three weeks to go before the election.

Listening to the Bill Bennett radio show this AM, and someone called in with an interesting claim. They had been researching Obama's background, and couldn't find any evidence that he had ever driven a car. He found plenty of evidence that Obama had ridden bicycles; busses; public transportation; and been driven places by others, but no evidence that Obama himself had ever driven a car.

It's not uncommon for people to use the wrong fluids in their cars, and the results of doing so can vary from irritating to deadly. For example, adding antifreeze to the windshield-washer reservoir might just create a slimy mess. But filling it with only water creates a good breeding ground for the bacterium that causes Legionnaires' disease, according to a study conducted by the British Health Protection Agency. This can increase your chances of becoming ill...

Investment bankers handling the upcoming General Motors Co. stock sale are expected to court foreign investors as well as those in North America... GM and the Treasury Department would not comment Sunday on reports that the automaker is in talks with its current partner in China, SAIC, about buying a stake in the Detroit company. SAIC is owned by the Chinese government... The U.S. Treasury loaned GM about $50 billion to help it through bankruptcy protection last year. GM has repaid $6.7 billion. The rest of the bailout money was converted to a 61 percent government stake in the company....

Vanity Post - I have a question about automobile liability for the state of Texas. I have a step daughter who had her license suspended for a month for a probation violation. But, she also got a speeding ticket that she has not yet gone to court for. She was driving 70mph in a 45. I do not want her driving any of my vehicles ever again. The auto insurance company tells me I can sign a waiver that absolves them from all liability if she were to ever get behind the wheel of any of my cars. My question...

Yesterday I posted YouTube part 1 of the recent Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance/Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. Today I made a new YouTube video, showing more cars, and added a political twist. You'll see sport cars, hot-rods, Formula 1 cars, and extreeeme luxury sedans. This freep is still dazed, as he attended all 5 days of the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion which just finished. A key part of that is the Concours d'Elegance --the biggest and most fancy in all the world. My photos are from all over the different recent gatherings on the Peninsula; the YouTube slide music video link...

This freep is still dazed, as he attended all 5 days of the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion which just finished. A key part of that is the Concours d'Elegance --the biggest and most fancy in all the world. My photos are from all over the different recent gatherings on the Peninsula; the YouTube slide music video link below represents about 2% or so of my photos; I took over 2,000 of them..! I might make another couple videos in the near future after I get over my sunburn and get some rest. I'll just lay down some track and blast...

A sports car once owned by the late British actress Diana Dors has sold for $3 million (£1.9m) at a California auction. The 1949 Delahaye Roadster, which some have dubbed the most beautiful car in the world, was given to Dors when she was 17. The sky blue car has been described by auctioneers as "extravagant and outrageous - a rolling sculpture". Dors, who was seen as the British Marilyn Monroe, died in 1984 aged 52

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford Motor earned $2.7 billion in the second quarter, reversing from an operating loss in the prior year's quarter and easily topping estimates. The automaker earned 68 cents a share, excluding special items. That compares to a loss of $638 million, or 21 cents a share, on the same basis in the year earlier quarter. The consensus forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters was for earnings of 40 cents a share. Ford easily topped even the most bullish forecast of a 48 cent a share profit.

1936 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic is one of two known to exist. An undisclosed buyer has purchased a prized 1936 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic belonging to the late car collector Dr. Peter D. Williamson for between $30 and $40 million, The Wall Street Journal reports.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday its new electric car will cost just over $25,000 in the U.S., a move that could force rivals to lower prices on similar vehicles.

DETROIT (AP) -- More than any auto show in recent memory, the new cars rolled out this week out at the Detroit auto show will redefine what we drive in the future.

Okay, I need some advice from you guys who know about cars. I always have had Sears Die-Hard batteries, but this time last year, my battery (which was a couple of years past its warranty) died and I called AAA to come rescue me. They sold me a new battery, I think it cost about $100, and installed it on the spot. Today when I tried to start my car, after the DC blizzard of 2009, the battery would turn over, very slowly, but the car wouldn't start. So I had to call AAA again, and now I am sitting...

Workers assembling vehicles at the SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co production line in Liuzhou, Guangxi. GM and SAIC together operate eight joint ventures in the country. [Agencies] General Motors Co on Friday said it has set up a $100 million joint venture in Hong Kong along with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp Group (SAIC) to focus on the Asian markets. As part of this, the new venture would bring under its umbrella all the Indian operations of GM including the two vehicle manufacturing facilities, a power train unit and the nationwide distribution network. GM would also produce and sell small cars and mini-commercial...

SINDELFINGEN, Germany — Thousands of workers at carmaker Daimler AG's Sinelfingen plant in southern Germany protested for a second day Tuesday against possible plans to move some production of the Mercedes C-Class line of cars to a plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A decision on the matter, which threatens about 3,000 jobs in Germany, could come later in the day. "We will not let our jobs vanish to Nirvana without a fight," Erich Klemm, the workers' council president told about 12,000 protesters. Daimler, based in Stuttgart, is considering the move to take advantage of lower production costs in the U.S. and...

Mainland passenger car sales are speeding up and look set to break new records under Beijing's "cars down to the village" policy, with General Motors Corp's operations in the country already posting monthly growth of more than 70 per cent. Troubled GM, which relies on China for growth, said July sales would be about 140,000 vehicles, thanks to robust sales of the minivan made by the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture in Guangxi. The final figure will be announced next week. GM China sold a record 841,442 cars in the first half, 38 per cent more than the year-earlier period. Volkswagen China...

THE world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano, hit the streets today. The first customer was handed the keys to the vehicle its makers hope will transform travel for millions of Indians. The head of Tata Motors, Ratan Tata, delivered the car in person at a central Mumbai dealership. No details were immediately available about the recipient or the type of Nano being delivered. But analysts said the delivery was a positive step. If follows a land dispute which forced the company to produce the cars in eastern India, delaying its production. "I think it's very significant," the associate editor of...

No national grocery chain operates a store here.

WAUSEON - The man who drove his 20-year-old Mustang from Napoleon, Ohio, to Las Vegas and back last year on 39 gallons of fuel will open his first manufacturing facility Monday to allow others to get 110 miles per gallon. Doug Pelmear, owner of Horse Power Sales.net Inc. and Hp2G LLC, will hold an open house Monday morning in the idle 100,000-square-foot factory he has leased in Wauseon to begin manufacturing his revolutionary engine. The factory, on the Fulton Industries Inc. campus in Wauseon, will be tooled to initially turn out 20 of Mr. Pelmear's custom engines per day with...

Cohda intelligent transport system allows cars to communicate mph or kph and location and BMW/Car 2 Care are researching A device that could dramatically reduce the number of collisions by eliminating driver error is to be tested in Europe. The system uses technology similar to wi-fi to enable vehicles to communicate with each other, sharing information about their speed and location, to determine when a crash is imminent. It can then warn the driver or take over the controls. Cohda Wireless, an Australian technology start-up, will announce this month that it has signed a multi-million-pound contract with a partnership of...

BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Sales of China's domestically made auto set a record high of 1.153 million units in April, up 25 percent from a year earlier, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Friday. This represents an increase of 3.91 percent from March. In March, sales rose 5 percent year-on-year to 1.11 million units.

General Motors has announced that it will be eliminating the Pontiac brand as part of an accelerated restructuring plan aimed at avoiding bankruptcy and keeping Detroit's largest automaker viable in the years to come. Along with the nameplate, GM says it will cut 21,000 hourly workers by the end of 2010, a 34 percent reduction, and reduce the number of manufacturing facilities it owns from 47 to 34. The company will also be trimming the number of dealerships that sell its vehicles to 3,605 from a high of 6,246 in 2008, a reduction of 42 percent that reflects the recent...

A Grand Prix car driven by one of Hitler's favourite racers is expected to fetch at least £5.5 million ($8 million) when it is auctioned later this year.Described as the motorsport equivalent of the "Holy Grail", the 1939 Auto Union D-Type is the only example of its kind to survive intact. Capable of exceeding 200mph, the 485bhp supercar was driven by Hans Stuck, one of an elite group of racers revered by many in Germany under Hitler. Related Articles 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed launched As war loomed over Europe in 1939, Stuck drove the car to place finishes in...