Free Republic

A pair of Australian inventors have developed a concept for a retrofitted electric drive unit to convert conventional heavy-duty transport vehicles to plug-in hybrids. The retrofit concept uses a bogie axle drive to create a through-the-road hybrid drive that can reduce fuel consumption up to 25%, by the inventors’s estimates. This would fast track the introduction of hybrid vehicles onto our roads by utilizing the existing fleet...We expect the conversion unit to pay for itself in the first year of use by way of the reduced fuel consumption. We have secured a patent pending to entice investors so as to...

A tractor-trailer that was stolen while the driver took a break has been recovered, but authorities were still searching Monday for the five tons of fertilizer it was carrying. Sheriff's deputies recovered the empty big-rig just before midnight Sunday, less than 12 hours after it was taken from a stretch of road used as a popular rest stop for truckers. The driver had parked in the industrial area near Griffith Park Sunday afternoon. When he returned about five hours later, the truck was gone, said Lt. David Young of the Los Angeles Police Department's Northeast Division. The truck turned up...

An 11-year-old girl was apparently the driver of an 18-wheeler that crashed into a highway overpass guardrail, burst into flames and fell onto the road below, police said.