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Neil Young company sued over warehouse fireSaturday, January 21, 2012 SAN CARLOS, Calif. -- A company founded by Neil Young is facing a lawsuit over a fire in the San Francisco Bay Area that authorities say started in a vintage car the rocker had converted into a hybrid vehicle. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Unigard Insurance Co. sued LincVolt LLC this week, accusing the company of negligence for converting the 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on electricity and a biodiesel-powered generator.

Fisker Automotive is recalling all 239 of its 2012 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid cars because of a fire hazard, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Prices on the 2012 model start at $103,000, including the destination charge. In a report filed recently on the agency’s Web site, Fisker said some hose clamps were not properly positioned, which could allow a coolant leak. “If coolant enters the battery compartment an electrical short could possibly occur, causing a thermal event within the battery, including a possible fire in the worse case,” the company told the safety...

Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for...

A gallery of electric and hybrid vehicles on display at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Prototype and production hybrids and electric cars debuted this week at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany. Car manufacturers showed off sportier designs—and some outlandish models. The i8, shown here, is BMW's first plug-in hybrid sports car. It can reach 62 miles per hour in 4.6 seconds, has a top speed of 155 mph, and can achieve 87 miles per gallon. It weighs 3,200 pounds. A version of the car will probably be on sale by the end of 2013. Credit: Internationale...

NASHUA — Three reserved parking spaces for hybrid and low-emission cars at the new $3.3 million state liquor store are located closer to the store’s main entrance than the handicapped parking spots, causing at least one lawmaker to call the design a slap in the face to the disabled.

Toyota Motor Corp announced July 19, 2011, that it will equip the Prius with a function to provide electricity from its rechargeable battery to external equipment. The function enables to power, for example, home electric appliances in the case of power outage. Toyota plans to release it as an option for the Prius in 2012. Its price has not been determined yet. The company intends to make the function available to other hybrid electric vehicles, too. Toyota has already equipped the hybrid electric version of the Estima with a power supply function. "(After the Tohoku Earthquake,) users in the afflicted...

GM and Nissan tout systems to reuse the expensive battery packs. At $10,000 a piece, electric-car batteries are too expensive to throw out or recycle into scrap materials. And even after a decade of use, when they can't perform well enough to meet the vehicle's demands, they could still be valuable for other uses. Nissan and GM have both recently announced ways they might make some money from them. Many issues remain unresolved, not the least of which is whether the automakers would need to buy back the batteries from car owners, or whether dealers would simply lease the battery...

Everywhere I look, I see hybrids. Chevrolet’s new Volt, a “plug-in hybrid,” is in sufficient demand that some dealers are adding a $4,300 “market availability adjustment” charge, bringing these cars up to $49,000. Can’t anyone do math?I like the idea of an electric car — and I especially like the idea of the Chevy Volt. It is mechanically simpler than the Toyota Prius. Recharging from house current is very economical for those who are going to primarily use the Volt for commuting. But there is no economic sense to these cars.Buy a Chevy Volt at the suggested retail price...

A fire apparently reignited inside the battery of a new Chevrolet Volt car early Monday, less than five days after the Volt, an electric hybrid, was involved in a blaze that destroyed a Barkhamsted garage where it had been plugged in for recharging.Local authorities have been investigating whether Thursday's blaze was sparked by the Volt, but had not yet determined a cause when the fire rekindled."The rekindle this morning really adds to the mystery," Barkhamsted Fire Marshal Bill Baldwin said today.Representatives from General Motors, the vehicle's manufacturer plan, are scheduled to arrive in Barkhamsted this evening to examine the car,...

New types of restricted slots are popping up in local parking lots, but not everyone's a fan. When confronted with politically correct parking, Alyson Yaman was fed up. "It's pretentious," Yaman said after lugging her 18-month-old daughter past several empty parking spaces reserved for "fuel efficient" cars and "car pools." What, for example, does "fuel efficient" mean?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co's mostly electric Chevy Volt turned in a lackluster performance for efficiency in its first series of road tests by product raters at Consumer Reports. "We would have really liked to have loved it," David Champion, director of Consumer Reports auto test center told Reuters on Monday after announcing the organization's top picks for 2011. "It was fun to drive and the ride quality was pretty good. But when you look at the finances, for us it doesn't make any sense," Champion said. He said consumers seeking value and top fuel efficiency would be better...

While grocery shopping a few weeks ago, I ran across this sign in the parking lot of a well-known grocery store: “Reserved Parking For Low Emissions and Fuel Efficient Hybrid Vehicles.” As can be expected, the sign designated a spot near the entrance of the store, right next to the handicapped spots.

There’s a chance, albeit slight, that the environmentally-conscious celebrities who push these “green” vehicles will loan the Queensland police some of their SUVs, Hummers and limousines so they can have enough room for their equipment, but I’m not counting on it: Queensland Police have been left red-faced over its choice of new “green” patrol cars. The service boasts it is going green, taking delivery of 100 hybrid Toyota Camrys. Shame no one checked the boot size. Frontline officers say the boots of the new patrol cars are too small to carry all their essential equipment, including flak jackets and emergency...

So far, the F-22 and F-35 have been developed along parallel paths. Except for one of the F-35's engines, the direct links between Lockheed's two "fifth-generation fighters" are surprisingly thin. It seems both Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force like it that way. If an official -- or even unofficial -- photo exists showing both aircraft together in flight, I've never seen it. The disconnect extends deep beneath the titanium and steel skin. Major subsystems for both aircraft are based on different computing architectures. So improving hardware or software on the F-35 yields no benefit for the F-22, and...

The three-alarm blaze that caused $1.1 million in damage to a warehouse filled with rock legend Neil Young's music equipment and memorabilia appears to have started in a one-of-a-kind hybrid car stored at the site, a fire official said Monday. Flames began in a 1959 Lincoln Continental dubbed LincVolt, which runs on electric batteries and a biodiesel-powered generator, and then spread to the warehouse at 593 Quarry Road in the early morning of Nov. 9, according to Belmont-San Carlos Fire Marshal Jim Palisi and a website devoted to the car. Young assembled a team of workers in 2008 to convert...

Green Technology: Government Motors' all-electric car isn't all-electric and doesn't get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like "shovel-ready" jobs, maybe there's no such thing as "plug-ready" cars either. The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it's already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we're all being taken for a ride. When President Obama visited a GM plant in Hamtramck near Detroit a few months ago to drive a Chevy Volt 10 feet off...

Interesting news from General Motors today that's resulted in some puzzled expressions at Engadget HQ. We've learned that the Volt, which Chevrolet has been making quite a fuss about calling an "extended range electric vehicle," is actually just a traditional hybrid with some... potentially misleading marketing behind it. Since the concept stage the company has been saying how the onboard internal combustion engine was just to charge the batteries, that only the electric motors (there are two) are actually connected to the drivetrain. Indeed that's what we were told in person when we test drove the thing back in March....

Want pigs to fly, Brussels sprouts to taste like Twinkies, and Justin Bieber to get a haircut? By the government’s logic, just make a rule mandating that it must be so and…voila! All of a sudden beachfront property can now to be purchased in Kansas! The Transportation Department and Environmental Protection Agency suggested Friday that by 2025 new vehicle fleets would need to meet a high gas mileage standard of between 47 mpg and 62 mpg. The administration’s plans for the country’s future fuel efficiency standards are extremely aggressive — so aggressive that some experts wonder whether the mandates are...

Hybrid cars and those fuelled by natural gas produce significantly less carbon dioxide (CO2) than equivalent vehicles running on gasoline. In the course of a study undertaken on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the results of which were recently published, Empa has investigated the CO2 emission behavior of current hybrid cars. A comparison with gasoline and natural gas fuelled vehicles concludes that hybrid vehicles are the cleanest during inner-city driving whilst natural gas fuelled cars do best on the motorway. When driven in rural areas, both types do equally well. Under mixed conditions (that is...

U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-11, was in Old Forge on Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of a small-business lending program. But his mention of a hybrid automobile manufacturer considering Northeast Pennsylvania had the crowd buzzing like an electric motor. The automaker, which was not named, is looking for a home for its national headquarters and factory and would employ 1,000 to start and 4,000 when fully operational, he said. "They came to us," the Nanticoke Democrat said, expounding on reasons he is optimistic for the area's economy. Mr. Kanjorski did not name the company, and it may be too...

SYNOPSIS: Reason may be location related due to heavy concentration in urban settings. Hybrid vehicles overall have higher collision claim frequencies and a 6.5 percent, or $182, higher average claim severity than gas-powered vehicles, according to a Mitchell International Inc. study.The study

As everyone knows by now, GM’s entry into the electric car market--the Chevy Volt--costs $41,000 before tax breaks. After the tax breaks, you can happily drive one off the lot for $33,000 ... if you can ignore those guilt pangs knowing your fellow Americans have chipped in $8,000 to your new ride. Welfare for the sanctimonious? Meanwhile, back in the real world, there are plenty of great cars you can buy for less than $41,000 or even less than $33,000--and honestly. Here are my picks (in alphabetical order).

Industrial Policy: The administration's electric car represents both the genius of American technology and the stupidity of its government. Imagine Rube Goldberg with $50 billion. Buy now and get a free 40-mile-long extension cord. It wasn't exactly Michael Dukakis riding in a tank wearing a Snoopy helmet, but it was close. President Obama, who reportedly hasn't driven an inch himself since taking office, visited a GM plant in Hamtramck near Detroit on Friday to drive a Chevy Volt 10 feet off an assembly line. It was a perfect image, as the American economy is being driven off a cliff by...

The baby animal above is not a zebra. And it's not a donkey. It's a zedonk. With a zebra father and a donkey mother, the animal has clear black and white stripes on its legs and the brown-haired body of a donkey. The eye-catching filly was born last Wednesday night at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega, Georgia, about 60 miles north of Atlanta. "She's absolutely beautiful," said Alison Womack, a volunteer at the preserve, adding that the foal is "fabulous, healthy, doing well." "We think we're going to name her Pippi, for Pippi Longstocking," said C.W. Wathen, the founder...

Heads up Michigan Freepers. Why President Obama is betting big on battery plants in Michigan, Updated: Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 11:57 AM Rick Haglund . HOLLAND -- Michigan might seem to be the last place a beleaguered president looking for a positive economic bounce would visit. After all, the state is known for having the worst-performing economy in the U.S. during the past decade. And although Michigan no longer is tagged with the highest unemployment rate in the nation -- Nevada now holds that distinction -- joblessness here still stands at an unacceptable 13.6 percent. But President Barack Obama will...

Mich. Gov: Electric Cars to Create 62, 000 Jobs July 14, 2010 Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm says the next generation of electric cars and their batteries will create 62,000 jobs in the state over the next decade. Granholm made the prediction Wednesday, a day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit a groundbreaking ceremony for a battery plant outside Grand Rapids. Granholm says the new jobs demonstrate the need for federal and state investment in private industry. She says the partnership with federal government is the key to manufacturing in the U.S. The Alliance for American Manufacturing says more...

When politicians and environmental activists hammer the table about the need to break our so-called “addiction to oil” — as they are doing with increased fervor in response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — they seldom spend much time explaining exactly how we should go about doing so. About 70 percent of the oil we consume goes into the transportation sector, so wind, solar, and nuclear power plants are of little help. Ethanol, methanol, compressed natural gas, all-electric vehicles, and hydrogen-powered fuel cells might someday do the trick, but at present, those fuels and technologies are...

President Obama's limo is a basically a diesel-powered tank. When he came into office, the new President asked if he could get one with a hybrid drivetrain for his Presidential Topkick Cadillac to go along with his push for greener vehicles across the board. During a recent stop at a North Carolina manufacturing facility that builds battery components for hybrid cars, Obama was asked about the status of his hybrid limo hopes, and admitted that this isn't going to happen. The reason, the President said, was that the Secret Service rejected his idea "because the cars that I'm in are...

Transonic Combustion, based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a gasoline fuel injection system that can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by 50 to 75 percent, beating the fuel economy of hybrid vehicles. A test vehicle the size and weight of a Toyota Prius (but without hybrid propulsion) showed 64 miles per gallon for highway driving. The company says the system can work with existing engines, and costs about as much as existing high-end fuel injection.

Porsche unveiled its new 918 Spyder concept that not only brings sleek styling to the table, but also a wealth of high-tech powertrain goodness. Looking somewhat like a gorgeous mashup up of a Ferrari F430, Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche Boxster, and Porsche 911 GT1, the 918 Spyder concept features a mid-engine layout, seating for two people, and all-wheel drive. The roadster also features dual side-exiting exhaust pipes on either side of the vehicle along with a nod to the past with an intriguing "disk" wheel design. Being that this is a Porsche first and foremost, this vehicle is all about...

Is it just me, or does this Audi "Green Police" ad succinctly summarize Obama's dream for America? It's a perfect melding of enviro-soviets and police state fascism.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 4, 2010 — An advancement in hybrid electric vehicle technology is providing powerful benefits beyond transportation. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed, fabricated and demonstrated a PHEV traction drive power electronics system that provides significant mobile power generation and vehicle-to-grid support capabilities. "The new technology eliminates the separate charging mechanism typically used in PHEVs, reducing both cost and volume under the hood," said Gui-Jia Su of ORNL's Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Research Center. "The PHEV's traction drive system is used to charge the battery, power the vehicle and enable...

Warren Buffett's Chinese Cars Will Start Killing The US Auto Industry As Soon As This Year Vincent Fernando Jan. 13, 2010, 7:12 AM BYD, the upstart Chinese electric car maker Warren Buffett famously has an investment in, is planning enter the U.S. market as soon as the second half of this year. Considering the U.S. market entrance by multiple new auto players (from Chinese firms BYD and Geely, to India's Tata and even U.S. upstart Tesla Motors) expect auto industry competition to get far more intense than it already is. BYD just showed off their latest e6 model and while...

You know this is gonna be a good car for the environment! It's the one the government wants to build! NOTE: The author of this comic requests that you visit his web site and please refrain from copying the cartoon within this thread. Thanks!

UPS and its competitors at FedEx and DHL have all been testing a variety of hybrid drive delivery vans for several years now. Recently, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory completed a twelve-month evaluation of six hybrid vans being used by UPS in the Phoenix, Arizona area and the results were good. Very good, in fact. After twelve months of operation, the hybrid vans averaged 28.9 percent lower fuel consumption than similar conventional diesel vans. Even with the extra cost of the hybrid vehicles, the overall cost per mile was cut by 15 percent.

Hybrid gasoline-electric and all-electric cars will continue to cost more than vehicles with a conventional internal combustion engine for the foreseeable future, putting the new technology beyond the reach of many car buyers. Sales of hybrid and all-electric cars therefore may be limited to affluent buyers who can afford to make an environmental statement and the vast majority of vehicles will continue to be powered by gasoline or diesel engines. While promising, the new lithium-ion battery technology won’t significantly reduce pollution or dependence on foreign oil by 2030.

Toyota Motor said Monday that it planned a widespread release of its plug-in hybrid car in 2011 as the company scrambled to gain the upper hand in an increasingly crowded battle over next-generation “green” technology. Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, dominates the current generation of gas-electric hybrid vehicles, but it has refrained from rushing lower-emission cars like the plug-in hybrid to market. Instead, Toyota has focused on plans to introduce regular hybrid technology to all its models by 2020. But Toyota’s rivals are surging ahead. General Motors plans to build as many as 60,000 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrids a year,...

The world’s cheapest car is about to get greener and sportier. A hybrid version of the tiny Tata Nano has been confirmed by Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors, according to South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper. The current gasoline-powered Nano — on sale in India since April — is hardly a gas guzzler. Powered by a tiny, 35-horsepower 2-cylinder gas engine, the Nano is capable of approximately 50 miles per gallon. A greener variant of this engine (or the larger 3-cylinder motor planned for export markets) could make the Nano the world’s cheapest hybrid.

BMW's EfficientDynamics Vision concept car combines the best of all worlds with incredible fuel efficiency, breaktaking performance, and sensational looks. It's powered by a three-cylinder turbo-diesel engine, lithium polymer batteries, and electric motors front and rear. The BMW Vision gets a U.S. unveiling next week at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Dec. 4-13. The only bad news: The BMW Vision is more vision than production-ready concept car. What you'd most likely see on sale would be the key components such as the drivetrain and battery technology transplanted to a more mainstream body. On a stopover from Europe en route to...

For some people, hybrid wolf dogs are pets. For others, they're predators. Gary Schukantz said he last saw his three small dogs in his backyard ... "I didn't see any of my dogs, and I heard a yelp," . Schukantz said a hybrid wolf-dog came out of the woods and took off with his beloved pets. Shortly after the wolf ran off, Schukantz came across his youngest pet, a tiny Yorkshire terrier ..."We found his body and got him back," . Schukantz would have tried going after his pets, he said, but the wolf-dog turned on him and backed him...

Innovation: A New Rooftop Wind TurbineThe WindTronics turbine can generate energy at low speeds. By Nicole Marie Richardson Oct 1, 2009 The answer is blowing in the (very gentle) wind Generally, rooftop turbines can't produce electricity unless the wind is blowing six or eight miles per hour. This turbine is different. Developed by WindTronics, based in Muskegon, Michigan, it's only 6 feet in diameter and can generate energy at wind speeds of just two miles per hour. WindTronics moved the power-generating parts to the outside of the wheel, where the blades turn faster. Reducing the bulk in the center also...

An energy analyst is outraged that taxpayer dollars are being used for a bailout of the bus industry that's comparable to the now defunct "cash for clunkers" program. National Journal reports the Transportation Department's Transit Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER) program has spent nearly half its $100-million grant budget to replace diesel buses with hybrid-electric and fully electric models. The "TIGGER" grants are part of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus program and are designed to serve two purposes: stimulate the economy and clean the environment.

For decades, automakers have been on a quest to make cars quieter: an auto that purrs, and glides almost silently in traffic. They have finally succeeded. Plug-in hybrid and electric cars, it turns out, not only reduce air pollution, they cut noise pollution as well with their whisper-quiet motors. But that has created a different problem. They aren’t noisy enough.

Could the Prius and other Toyota hybrids be banned from the U.S.? It seems unthinkable, but that's one possible ending to a patent investigation launched this week. This case centers around Paice, a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car's wheels from the electric motor or the internal combustion engine.

It seems Al Gore's ambitions are limitless. After inventing the Internet, saving the planet from global warming, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize and an Academy Award, he now has ventured into green transportation. "Honest Al" has secured $529 million in taxpayer money for Fisker Automotive, a small car company he is backing to build a hybrid sports car. The price tag? Only a mere $89,000. That's not exactly affordable to the average American. Al knows that only the wealthy can afford to go green when it comes to cars. Judging by the early release photos it will be a sharp...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells. Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless...

The push for conversion to plug-in electric cars will do nothing to stop carbon emissions, a report by the GAO warns, throwing cold water on a push by Democrats to get more plug-ins on the road. In fact, the problem could be made worse as demand goes up at coal-fired electrical plants. Plus, the need for batteries may just have the US changing the dictators to which we’re chained, as IBD reports...

Conservation: The Chevy Volt is said to be able to get 230 miles per gallon. That's if it's continually plugged into a fragile and overburdened power grid. Where will you be when the lights go out? Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The "widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions," it observes. "If you are using coal-fired power plants and half the country's electricity comes from coal powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?"...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.It's a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else. "If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading...

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."