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The wife and I Purchased an electric car about a month ago. I'm as far as a tree hugger as you can get but we needed a vehicle. Our son will be starting collage soon so a another vehicle was needed. Her total commute is close to 6 miles, the car had 2,560 miles when we bought it. it's a 2012, fairly well equipped with air, power windows, mirrors, power locks, heated seats, etc. Since the range is only an estimated 62 miles it works for us.My Car is not restricted on distance since it's petroleum powered so it should...

For more than a century, the CSS Hunley rested at the bottom of the ocean just outside Charleston harbor, its crew entombed, its hull gradually encased in hardening encrustations. When it was raised 15 years ago off South Carolina, it looked more like a barnacled sea monster than the world's first operational submarine, sunk in battle during the winter of 1864. The remains of its eight sailors were removed in 2001, but research has continued, and Thursday, a conservation team announced that experts have now removed more than half a ton of the encrustations. The result: the Hunley has...

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Roofs made of carbon fiber. Plastic windshields. Bumpers fashioned out of aluminum foam. What sounds like a science experiment could be your next car. While hybrids and electrics may grab the headlines, the real frontier in fuel economy is the switch to lighter materials. Automakers have been experimenting for decades with lightweighting, as the practice is known, but the effort is gaining urgency with the adoption of tougher gas mileage standards. To meet the government's goal of nearly doubling average fuel economy to 45 mpg by 2025, cars need to lose some serious pounds.

NASA Managers: It's a "Go" for LaunchAt today's pre-launch news conference NASA's mission management team have given their unanimous approval for space shuttle Discovery's launch tomorrow at 4:50 p.m. EST. "Everything is on track and going beautifully with the countdown," said Mike Moses, mission management team chair. "We're really looking forward to a very action-packed, successful mission and everything is on track." Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director, agreed that everything is going extremely well with the launch countdown. He also acknowledged the processing teams who worked on Discovery, its flight systems and ground elements. "As we're powering up (the systems)...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After a four-month grounding of the space shuttle fleet, NASA's countdown clocks started ticking again Monday for Discovery's final ride into orbit. Discovery is scheduled to blast off Thursday afternoon to the International Space Station. Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 80 percent. When NASA tried to launch Discovery in early November with supplies and a humanoid robot for the space station, the countdown never got past the fueling phase. A hydrogen gas leak halted everything, then a more insidious problem cropped up: cracks in the external fuel tank.

Car-rental giant Hertz Corp. said it planned to offer the Smart fortwo electric vehicle as part of a car-sharing program in three metropolitan areas starting later this month. Hertz will make the tiny vehicle -– a two-seater smaller than a Mini or even the new Fiat 500 that’s about to hit the U.S. auto market -– as part of the Connect by Hertz car-sharing program in New York later this month. It is part of an effort by Hertz to offer a variety of electric and plug-in hybrids worldwide.

When you build a skyscraper, you must heavily insulate the steel beams. This prevents them from melting in case of fire, or at least delays the melting long enough for people to escape the building. When the Empire State Building was built, its steel beams were insulated with concrete. That was a very expensive and difficult process. In the late 1940s, a man named Herbert Levine invented a spray fireproofing composed of asbestos and mineral wool. The World Trade Center was designed to have this asbestos insulation on its steel beams. The contractors completed the first 64 floors using this ...

The Obvio! 828 Obvio! Automotoveiculos S.A., the Brazilian automaker building microsports cars that run on gasoline, natural gas, or ethanol, or any combination of the three as well as an electric model (earlier post), will contribute a portion of each car’s purchase price to a fund to offset its carbon footprint. Obvio! is working with CantorCO2e to establish the carbon fund. With CantorCO2e’s counsel, Obvio! will also tailor its manufacturing operation to reduce carbon and other pollutants through waste recycling, water conservation, and renewable energy to power the company’s manufacturing plant. Obvio! has committed that the fund will contribute...

The Reva G-Wiz. The UK’s GoinGreen has introduced the first of the new, improved performance Reva G-Wiz AC drive electric cars. Launched at the British Motor Show in the summer, the G-Wiz AC replaces the current G-Wiz DC. Cost is the same (£8,299 inc VAT), but the AC offers enhanced features including an increased top speed of 45 mph and a range of up to 48 miles under UK test conditions (40 miles on mixed roads). GoinGreen introduced G-Wiz DC drive to London in 2004, and the car is still the only electric 2+2 seater available there. There are...

DaimlerChrysler's smart brand has, at long last, ripped the relatively small cover off its new fortwo minicar. The new smart, which will come to theU.S. next year as a 2008 model through the UnitedAutoGroup chain, has been revamped for more safety features and for a little more room. Styling has been updated as well, and the new smart offers either a three-cylinder engine with 61, 71, or 84 horsepower or a diesel with 45 hp. All engine variants come with a five-speed transmission. Smart says that the new version will earn four stars in the European safety tests and...

Christian County commuters traveling into Springfield's east side can look forward to three levels of highway driving if a proposed redesign of the U.S. Highway 60/65 interchange north of Ozark is approved. The Missouri Dept. of Transportation released its plans for the redesigned interchange at a public meeting July 13 at its offices in Springfield. Visitors were able to view numerous conceptual designs for the project and discuss the work with MoDOT planners. The preferred plan introduced at the meeting features two directional fly-over ramps which will replace two of the ramps in the current cloverleaf pattern. The older pattern...

11/4/2005 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- The Air Force’s second CV-22 Osprey arrived here Oct. 27. -- two months earlier than the contract’s due date. The first Air Force CV-22 was delivered for electromagnetic testing to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., Sept. 16 and will arrive at Edwards in December. The third CV-22 will be delivered in February 2006. The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center will use these three aircraft to conduct an operational utility evaluation next summer. If the CV-22 completes the evaluation successfully it will be certified for use in training operations...

Washington October 25, 2005 - An Air Force version of the V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft last week experienced a compressor stall of both engines after flying into a cloud at 18,000 feet, presumably because of icing problems, sources have told the Project On Government Oversight. The aircraft, CV-22 #6, was on a routine flight to Edwards Air Force base in California. It did not recover from the stall until it had descended to warmer air at about 10,000 feet, the sources said. As a precaution the aircraft landed in Prescott, Arizona. "This is very disturbing. Only last month the Pentagon...

Tired of all those three-point turns? Nissan Motor Co. could have a solution. Japan's second-biggest auto manufacturer has developed a concept car featuring an egg-shaped cabin atop a wheeled platform that can swivel 360 degrees, doing away with the need to reverse when emerging from narrow spaces. "With this feature, parking in tight spots is a cinch," chief designer Masato Inoue told reporters at a sneak preview of the bubble-shaped, three-seater electric car this week. The car, named Pivo after the word "pivot," operates on an experimental system called drive-by-wire, which eliminates the mechanical linkages between cabin and chassis to...

Battaan sailors break ground with experimental aircraft Story Identification #: 20056207230 Story by - Seaman Joanne De Vera ATLANTIC OCEAN (June 12, 2005) -- USS Bataan (LHD 5) took on eight of the experimental MV-22 Ospreys and two AV-8B Harriers for training and testing while steaming in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina this week. For this final operational test phase, Bataan has the largest number of Ospreys on any ship at one time. Along with the aircraft, 185 Marines, including Marine Tiltrotor Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron Twenty-Two (VMX-22) personnel, representatives from Boeing and Naval Air...

JERUSALEM -- A Hamas official was killed yesterday when his sport-utility vehicle exploded in a neighborhood of Damascus seconds after he started the engine...[ snip ] ''Our official position is we don't comment," said Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official. He added: ''Hamas immediately blames Israel ..... They will always blame us." [ snip ] ''Israel and Mossad are behind it," said Mushir Masri, a spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. ''They assassinated him." [ snip ] Khalil died instantly .... Witnesses said he was speaking on his mobile phone and had put his Mitsubishi SUV in...

... Spokane electric car aimed at narrow niche SPOKANE — Congestion, oil dependency and pollution are broad concerns for Rick Woodbury. But when the Spokane resident thought about a solution, he decided to narrow it down — 39 inches narrow, to be exact. That’s the width of the Tango, the extremely compact, emissions-free electric car he’s invented with his son, Bryan. Despite its looks, this car is no golf cart. It can accelerate like a sports car, going from 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds. The Woodburys have started a company, Commuter Cars. The prototype’s ready for replication. And...