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On Thursday, General Motors announced an alert system under development that would instruct the Chevy Volt to charge only when a relatively high percentage of renewable energy was available. Being plugged in at those times would further minimize the carbon footprint of the plug-in hybrid. When a substantial percentage of the energy transmitted to the grid came from a renewable source like wind power, OnStar would receive a signal from P.J.M. Interconnection, a company that manages the electric-power transmission grid for numerous utility companies. The telematics system would then cue the vehicle to begin charging. “This demonstration shows that in...

With NHTSA's closure of the investigation into the Chevy Volt, General Motors is now trying to rebuild the plug-in hybrid's image . But a new stumbling block has appeared on the road to higher sales — dealers turning down Volts from GM. General Motors sold only 7,671 Volts in the United States in 2011, well short of its 10,000-unit target for the first year. GM spokespeople have attributed weakness in demand to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation into the risk of fires in the car's battery pack. But I'm not entirely certain that can all be blamed...

General Motors Co will cut production of its Chevrolet Volt if sales of the plug-in hybrid fall short of estimates in the first half of the year, GM vice chairman Steve Girsky said on Tuesday.

There are some ideas that, no matter how often they rise and how spectacularly they fail, just won't go away. Perpetual motion machines, for example. Passive exercise machines. Diets that work. These technologies sound great in theory, but don't seem to pan out in practice. Add to the list, electric (or largely electric) cars. People who have looked into the history of automobiles have noted that while electric cars have never managed to rival internal combustion cars for their performance, comfort, reliability, or customer-attractiveness, they persist in inspiring a small segment of the public. And would-be social engineers have always...

Hybrid offspring of coyotes and wolves have spread south along the eastern seaboard, a new DNA study confirms. Scientists already knew that some coyotes, which have been gradually expanding their range eastward, mated with wolves in the Great Lakes (map) region. The pairings created viable hybrid offspring—identified by their DNA and skulls—that have been found in mid-Atlantic states such as New York and Pennsylvania. Now, new DNA analysis of coyote poop shows for the first time that some coyotes in the state of Virginia are also part wolf. Scientists think these animals are coyote-wolf hybrids that traveled south from...

The city is promoting two new plug-in hybrid electric cars available for use by members of the Hourcar vehicle-sharing organization in St. Paul and Minneapolis. This fall and next spring, St. Paul will install 20 public stations where drivers can charge the vehicles. The two new hybrid cars were bought with a $30,000 contribution from Xcel Energy. Hourcar is run by the Neighborhood Energy Connection, a St. Paul nonprofit. The vehicles are in the Lawson and Lowertown parking ramps in downtown St. Paul. There are 13 Hourcars at nine locations throughout the city. Charging station locations, rates and details can...

Sorry, Prius owners. Starting Friday, your yellow sticker no longer works in California's car pool lanes while driving solo. The car pool privileges, originally allowed as an incentive for people to buy low-emission vehicles, have expired. The change affects 85,000 hybrid car owners -- about a third of them in Los Angeles. Bruce Yonemoto, 60, a professor of studio art at UC Irvine who commutes from downtown Los Angeles several times a week, said he often saves more than an hour during choked traffic because the yellow sticker on the rear bumper of his Prius gave him the right to...

Obama in Indianapolis Friday to talk about hybrid buses, reducing oil imports by Eric Loveday (RSS feed) on May 4th 2011 at 7:53AM President Obama will visit Indianapolis, IN on Friday, rescheduling a trip to Allison Transmission, a global provider of commercial-duty automatic transmissions and hybrid-propulsion systems, that was delayed due to budget negotiations. The White House says that the President will tour Allison's facilities before speaking to workers about the importance of slashing oil imports, while also addressing the immediate need for a cleaner and more secure energy future.

U.S. hybrid sales rose 39% in February vs. a year earlier to 23,263, noted autobloggreen.com. However, the bulk of that reflects Toyota (TM) Prius sales, which surged 70% vs. a year earlier. But in February 2010, Toyota was knee-deep in the sudden acceleration media circus. Prius sales rose just 10% vs. February 2009, near the bottom of the recession and bear market, and with gas prices low. Prius sales dived 34% in February 2009 vs. a year earlier. As for other hybrids, they rose a more modest 11% vs. a year earlier to 9,724.

Peruse Chevrolet's February sales release, and you'll notice one number that's blatantly missing: the number of Chevy Volts sold. The number – a very modest 281 – is available in the company's detailed data (PDF), but it certainly isn't something that GM wants to highlight, apparently. Keeping the number quiet is a bit understandable, since it's lower than the 321 that Chevy sold in January. Nissan doesn't have anything to brag about here, either (and it didn't avoiding any mention of the Leaf sales in its press release). Why? Well, back in January, the company sold 87 Leafs. In February?...

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...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - California policies aimed at reducing electricity use and curbing greenhouse gas emissions have the unintended consequence of making new plug-in hybrid vehicles uneconomical, according to a Purdue University economist. Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, said California's tiered electricity pricing system means Californians will pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country to recharge plug-in hybrid vehicles. States with flat electricity rates or those that vary price based on the time of use are more economical, according to Tyner's study. In tiered systems, consumers pay a higher rate for...

(CNSNews.com) – Automakers beware! Hybrid cars may dominate at the Detroit Auto Show, but fewer Americans said they purchased a hybrid car in 2010 than in 2009, according to a new Harris Interactive Poll.In fact, only 8 percent of those surveyed said they "purchased a hybrid or more fuel efficient car" in 2010. That compares with 13 percent who said they had in 2009.Only 1 percent of Americans said they bought a hybrid car -- down from 2 percent the year before.The poll, released on Monday,  also shows that fewer Americans overall are "going green," as compared to 2009. In addition to purchasing a...

The luxury automobile maker, Cadillac has noted the potential of small cars and has now come out with a concept car for urban driving. It will still be a spewing with luxury from all angles, including scissor doors and a very spacious cabin. Which brings me to one very troublesome fact - the small Cadillac isn’t very small. In fact it is only a couple of inches shorter than a sedan! As far as specifications go, the small Cadillac, Urban Luxury, will have a 1.0 litre petrol engine with 3 cylinders and an electric motor. It will be equipped with...

As the world heats up and polar ice melts, different types of bears, whales and seals could meet and mate — but these unions may be far from happy, researchers said Wednesday........ At least 22 species are at risk of hybridizing in 34 different combinations, according to a team led by Brendan Kelly, an Alaska-based evolutionary biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The pairings include polar bears and grizzlies, narwhals and beluga whales, and various assortments of seals. Some of those species are listed as endangered or threatened. Kelly said the report "is sort of a call-to-arms to...

First Nissan Leaf delivery happening today, but are there major delays nationwide? The first Nissan Leaf destined for a customer's driveway will be delivered today in California. If you can't be there, you can participate digitally by tuning in to the Nissan Leaf page on Facebook at 1:30 p.m. PST (4:30 EST) today and watch the press conference live from San Francisco. Twitter fans can also get updates from @NissanLEAF and the hashtag #firstLEAF. By the looks of things, the owner has arrived and has checked out the car already. This doesn't mean that everything is going according to plan...

<p>If more than a dozen years of uninspiring hybrid car sales are any predictor, a new generation of even more expensive plug-in electric models now coming on the market, such as General Motors' (NYSE:GM - News) Chevy Volt and Nissan's Leaf, will be a tough sell with consumers.</p>

President Obama's administration has bought almost a fourth of the Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. hybrid vehicles sold since he took office, accelerating federal purchases as consumer demand wanes. The General Services Administration, which runs the government fleet, bought at least 14,584 GM and Ford hybrids since Obama became president in 2009, according to sales data obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request. And all told, the companies sold 63,434 of those vehicles during that period, according to data compiled by Autodata Corp. "At some point, the reality is that for this technology to be...

President Barack Obama's administration has bought almost a fourth of the Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. hybrid vehicles sold since he took office, accelerating federal purchases as consumer demand wanes. The U.S. General Services Administration, which runs the government fleet, bought at least 14,584 hybrid vehicles in the past two fiscal years, or about 10 percent of 145,473 vehicles the agency purchased in that period, according to sales data obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request. In fiscal 2008, hybrids accounted for less than 1 percent of government purchases, the data showed.

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...

Volkswagen sold its first diesel in America in 1977. A lot has changed in the last thirty-three years, but one thing remains: If you want a cheeky, refined fuel miser, you call on the people who gave us the Beetle. Whereas most inexpensive diesels feel like the rolling equivalent of sensible shoes, the 140-hp Volkswagen Golf TDI makes no bones about its sporting bent. A whopping 236 pound-feet of torque at 1,750 rpm means you'll rarely want for tire-chirping thrust, and a small, nimble frame lets you chase down sports cars in the curves. At 42 mpg, the V-dub makes...

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...

Alex Severinsky, a Soviet emigrant who began his career developing antitank-warfare instrumentation, patented a system for powering gas-electric hybrids in 1994. Toyota used his system for the Prius without permission or payment. Until this week. Alex Severinsky recieved his master's degree in electrical engineering from the Kharkov College of Radioelectronics, in Kharkov, Ukraine, in 1967. Eight years later, he earned his Ph.D. in the same discipline from Moscow's Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics. Three years after that, he emigrated to the United States as a refugee. On September 6, 1994, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued...

In the new movie "Splice," a human-animal hybrid terrorizes people. In real life, scientists argue mixing human and animal cells could save lives.Dren, the half-human, half-animal hybrid set to terrorize Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley in the new movie "Splice," is pure science fiction, but politicians across the country aren't taking any chances. In the last month Ohio and Arizona have both passed laws forbidding research of animal human hybrids. Proponents of the laws fear Dren-like creations and object morally to the combining human and animal cells. But scientists say the research could lead to cure for AIDS, immunize people...

Arizona is joining Louisiana in prohibiting scientists from creating "human-animal" hybrids. Louisiana enacted its law last year, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed the Arizona legislation into law on Friday. The Arizona statute effect in July. It prohibits human cloning through various means, including fertilizing human eggs with nonhuman sperm and vice versa. It also makes it a crime to knowingly destroy human embryonic stem cells during research. As in Louisiana, supporters of the Arizona legislation said it would prohibit human cloning and protect the dignity of human life at its earliest stages. Critics variously ridiculed the bill and said it...

Electric cars and green technology dominate at this year's Geneva Motor Show, which opened its doors on Tuesday, but no one expected a hybrid Ferrari. This Kermit-green Ferrari 599 hybrid is one of the stars of the show and a sure sign that even supercar makers are beginning to address their environmental impact. Called HY-KERS, the hybrid two-seater uses Ferrari's Formula One Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) to recover the braking and decelerating energy in a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery. That electrical energy is converted into about 650 volts, which gives an additional 100 horsepower that is used to supplement the...

Detroit — What if the vehicles of the future don’t make money? General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz continued his habit of talking truth to power last week — despite the fact that his company is now a subsidiary of the U.S. government. GM owners Barack Oama and Nancy Pelosi routinely claim that America is transitioning to a green transportation future, but Lutz stepped all over their lines at an industry event Friday when he said that hybrids will never comprise more than 10 percent of the U.S. market. Lutz was only expressing an industry consensus that hybrid-electrics are niche...

Toyota USA says it is evaluating brake problems with the 2010 Prius gas-electric hybrid, but no decision has been made about a recall. Company spokesman Brian Lyons says it's too soon to talk about a recall. He says the automaker is cooperating fully with a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration probe into the brake troubles. The government is investigating reports that antilock brakes can fail momentarily on some 2010 Prius models in slippery conditions or on rough roads. The company says it made a change in the 2010 braking system last month to correct cars in production. The company has...

TORRANCE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Honda today began operation of a next generation solar hydrogen station prototype at the Los Angeles Center of Honda R&D Americas, Inc., intended for ultimate use as a home refueling appliance capable of an overnight refill of fuel cell electric vehicles. Designed as a single, integrated unit to fit in the user's garage, Honda's next generation Solar Hydrogen Station reduces the size of the system, while producing enough hydrogen (0.5kg) via an 8-hour overnight fill for daily commuting (10,000 miles per year) for a fuel cell electric vehicle. The previous solar hydrogen station system required both an electrolyzer...

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.

Acceptance video of Ford winning both car and truck of the year awards at the North American International Auto Show Monday for its 2010 Fusion Hybrid and Transit Connect models. Personally, I can't believe they beat out Toyota's hybrid. Yet being an American myself, I'm proud if them for doing so! Kudos Ford!

THE FOLLOWING IS A TYPICAL QUIX PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT. Most key phrases (of the last 3rd of the segments) are close to verbatim--but not 100%. Certainly the essence was captured quite accurately. Many sentences which were not key sentences, were left out. Also, I did not transcribe much from the first 8-9 segments. Those mostly included information which was not new to me. Many folks who are not well read on the topic would likely find those first segments quite interesting and informative. Some well read folks would find the first segments a great recap and may find out some details...

Many on the right view the Toyota Prius as a tree-hugger's feel-good car. They are much more expensive than non-tree-hugger cars of the same size, and while the mileage is better, the added cost of the vehicle will never equal the gas savings over the life of the car. But the enviro-buyers don't really care about the cost savings (if they did, why would they overpay for the car?). It is really only about one thing: showing the world that they care more about saving the planet than you or I do. To those of us in the global warming...

  Cryonics. Neural implants. Designer babies. Welcome to the future of transhumanism. This energetic movement, comprising thousands of adherents, actively promotes the enhancement of humans via cybernetics, genetics, medicine, surgery, nanotechnology, and a full panoply of other scientific advancements. This enhancement would, according to Nick Bostrom's "Transhumanist Declaration," seek to advocate "the moral right for those who wish to do so to extend their mental and physical (including reproductive) capacities and to improve their control over their own lives. [They] seek personal growth beyond [their] current biological limitations" (see www.transhumanism.org).   This may sound like science fiction, but the...

"It sounds yucky, but it may be well worth doing if it's going to lead to a cure for something horrible," said Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the group conducting the study. At a media briefing in London, Lovell-Badge said there were two main types of experiments: altering an animal's genes by adding human DNA or replacing a specific animal sequence with its human counterpart. Several years ago, human genes were added to a mouse to create a model of Down's syndrome for scientists to study how the...

(See all these news nuggets and more by clicking the excerpt link below): 1. BBC News: “Darwin Teaching ‘Divides Opinion’” Darwinism is a controversial topic, and many believe creation should be taught in the classroom. But why is that news? 2. ScienceDaily: “Junk DNA Mechanism that Prevents Two Species from Reproducing Discovered” Has the U.S. government finally supported creationist research? Alas, no, but the results of a National Institutes of Health study fit squarely within the young-earth creation framework. 3. PhysOrg: “Charles Darwin Really Did Have Advanced Ideas about the Origin of Life” Charles Darwin was convinced that life’s origin...

Green Car of the Year Finalists Announced Posted: Oct. 08, 2009 10:10 a.m. Steady gas prices have made Kermit's words come true: It's not easy being green. Still, despite American car buyers not exactly being red-hot for green cars, automakers are rolling them out, determined to meet government deadlines for fuel economy standards and emissions -- as well as being prepared for the next time gas prices spike and car shoppers start clamoring for the latest in alternative fuel and ultra-efficient cars. The L.A.Times says "diesels and hybrids dominate the roster of finalists for the 2010 Green Car of the...

Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan By JOSH MITCHELL and STEPHEN POWER WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000. The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla, like Fisker, is a California startup focusing on high-end hybrids, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that...

America, are you ready for Rush Limbaugh in an electric car? The conservative talk show host has agreed to take Jay Leno's "Green Car Challenge." In the segment airing next Thursday on NBC's "Jay Leno Show," Limbaugh will race an electric Ford Focus around a custom-built track beside Leno's studio, the show's representative confirmed. The "Green Car Challenge" segment makes its debut on the primetime show tomorrow night. Celebrities who participate drive two times around the twisty track, which takes a little less than a minute to complete. By the time Rush gets behind the wheel of the zero-emission vehicle,...

Van Jones, former Green Job commissar for the Obama Administration, was tossed under a green hybrid bus, the President's spokesman said today. The hybrid bus runs on a mixture of hydrogen and hype. The two substances are then converted into energy, which is then distributed to the wheels, which are guided by the media. "We didn't just want to chuck Van under any old carbon-spewing bus," said Robert Barry Gibbs. "We wanted to make sure that it would suit his environmental awareness." Jones, a communist and professional rioter, was tossed under the bus after revealing the Obama administration's actual intent...

Kids in Napa won't hear the usual "clackety clack" of a diesel engine when district bus HY-2 lumbers up to their stop next month. In fact, when the bus is sitting still, they won't hear anything at all. Within a week or two, Napa Valley Unified School District will premiere one of the first small hybrid buses in the nation, thanks to state grants aimed at curbing school bus emissions and a transportation manager's aggressive campaign to green his fleet. "I just got tired of seeing the commercials with the big puff of black smoke coming out of the tailpipe...

Audi President: Chevy Volt Is a “Car for Idiots… the Intellectual Elite Who Want to Show What Enlightened Souls They Are.” Few consumers will be willing to pay $40,000 base price for a car that competes with $25,000 hybrids... “So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.” The Audi of America president ended with a bold prediction: The Volt will fall flat. And the federal government, having publicly forced GM to develop electric cars, will subsidize the Volt to save face and boost sales. CNET recently reported GM’s astronomical claim of the Volt’s 230 mpg are false, and...

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?"...

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...

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."

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. John McCain officially got the keys to his 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid on Tuesday, and promptly took it for a spin around the Russell Senate office building in Washington — but not before accidentially tripping the car alarm. Before jumping in, McCain was overheard remarking that his new ride features a voice-activated navigation system and Sirius satellite radio. Riding shotgun was McCain's buddy Lindsey Graham, who joked as he got into the passenger seat: "I hope I live to tell about this."

You worry a lot about the environment and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint -- the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive dangerous climate change. So you always prefer to take the train or the bus rather than a plane, and avoid using a car whenever you can, faithful to the belief that this inflicts less harm to the planet. Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study. SNIP These are hidden or displaced emissions that...

I'm thinking that Bob Lutz, truthteller, is not long for the payroll of General Motors. After all, he is a Global Warming Denier, who, if this were the time of Henry VIII, would be burned at the stake as a heretic. But for now, it is nice to see at least one auto executive call BS on the Enviro-kooks.

UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia - a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily. Japanese and European companies are busily trying to strike deals to tap the resource, but a nationalist sentiment is building quickly in the government of President Evo Morales, an ardent critic of the United States who has already...

Much has been written about the Insight, Honda's new low-priced hybrid. So far, though, you have not been told what it's like as a car; as a tool for moving you, your friends and your things from place to place. So here it comes. It's terrible. Biblically terrible. It doesn't work. Acceleration is poor. And the sound is worse. So you're sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, and your ears bleeding, and you're doing only 23 mph and you're thinking things can't get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of...