That’s right, twenty million dollars in tax credits went from the beleaguered former auto giant state into the hands of a US-French partnership set up to build lithium-ion batteries for Ford.

The twenty million in tax credits will be handed out over the course of three years to Johnson Controls, a subsidiary of Parisian firm Saft Advanced Power Solutions.

But this cash isn’t just going to be lost–Saft et al intend to invest about eleven times that figure in the state and add just under eleven hundred jobs to the sagging state of Michigan by hiring at a plant in Holland.

Electric batteries, folks…seems more and more we’re getting away from the gas car and getting closer to a day without gas.  Hopefully, also, we won’t be surrendering a speed anywhere near fifty five miles per hour, either.

Tags: Ford, johnson controls, Paris, saft, us-french partnership

The world wide auto industry is making the push towards greener and more fuel efficient vehicles. One of the key components currently used in these green vehicles are lithium-ion batteries which are currently manufcatured all over the world.

Today, a country that you probably wouldn’t expect to be a key player in the game has announced that they will be producing their own lithium-ion batteries by 2018. That country is none other than Bolivia.

The purpose of producing their own lithium-ion batteries is so they could bypass the costly expenses of imported batteries made elsewhere. Smart, huh?

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Tags: batteries, bolivia, lithium ion

Today, a new world record has been made for fastest speed for a battery-powered vehicle: 313 miles on a single charge. The drivers were Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas, and the car was a 2008 Tesla Roadster.

The place was Austrailia as part of the Global Green Challenge. By the way, there was 3 miles left on the battery at the end of the run.

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It doesn’t really look good to win your own sponsored race, but at the same time, if you can’t manage to win the race you set up you end up looking pretty incompetent.

Thus, it’s not exactly a huge surprise that the Suzuki Alto is out in front and looking pretty good on its fuel consumption.

The Alto Green Challenge is sort of, from what I can tell anyway, a hybrid car race.  Both a race for hybrid cars and a two-pronged car race.  Cars are not only trying to clear the track first, but they’re also trying to do it with the least amount of fuel consumed.

For instance, that Suzuki Alto?  It’s burning through about a gallon of fuel for every fifty miles it travels, or 3.99 liters per one hundred kilometers.

I don’t care what country you’re in–fifty miles per gallon is pretty sweet.  So here’s to the Alto, the current frontrunner in its own contest.

Tags: Alto, Alto Green Challenge, car race, hybrid, hybrid car race, Suzuki Alto

What you see there is the concept 2009 Honda Skydeck, which we may never see. Something that we might see is some more hybrids from Honda. Supposedly the company is working on “developing its proprietary Integrated Motor Assist hybrid platform so that it can once again be used to power larger vehicles like the Accord”.

There is even a rumor saying that Honda wants to put this hybrid power into a minivan before 2011. We will see.

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For those who don’t know about California’s “cool cars” regulations, itis a policy that requires auto manufacturers to install windows that prevent 45 percent of the sun’s energy from entering a vehicle by 2014, and then 60 percent by 2016. Yeah, you got to love Calli-forn-ia (how the governor says it) and its stringent environmental laws.

Oddly enough, the Jeep Wrangler soft-top is exempt from this rule because it has flexible plastic windows. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be allowed to sell it in the great state of California. Nice.

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It’s a strange dilemma China has on its hands.  And most Chinese will probably never even see this blog due to the massive censorship on its hands.

We all know that China’s so polluted that their air makes Los Angeles smog taste like a crisp mountain stream.  So naturally, they’re really putting the push on to go green and get some more electric cars on the market.

Well, they’re not the only ones there, but China’s got a SERIOUS problem.  Where most of us have been driving cars for a long time, and are starting to seriously think about going green just by ourselves, the Chinese have not had cars all that long.  Well, not INDIVIDUAL Chinese, anyway.  Individual Chinese haven’t had cars all that long and now that they’ve got them, they mean to keep them.

Now along comes the government telling them, oh, yeah, I know you’ve had this car like all of six weeks but we need you to give it back to the state.  Oh, don’t worry–we have electric cars coming out.  When?  Um…soon.  And they’ll only cost as much as what you paid for the last car!  Subsidies?  Um…look…just get back to work, okay?  Or we’ll kill your children.  You know how this works by now.

It’s a tough road China’s got to drive to get its citizens to go green, and there are plenty of ruts and bumps in it.

Tags: china, Chinese, electric cars, Gas, gas cars, going green, green cars

From the Much Ado About Nothing department, the Progressive Automotive Insurance X Prize committee has announced that the next round of competitors for the big ten million dollar prize has moved on to the next rank.

Only forty three out of the original one hundred eleven teams are still in the running for this title, in which teams are competing to develop a mass production capable car that gets a hundred and ten miles per gallon.  Turns out that this isn’t the only X Prize out there, but this is the one we care about.

Check out some of the project’s goals for winning that ten million:

Safety, Emissions: Vehicles must be designed so that a production vehicle would likely be able to meet U.S. safety standards and U.S. emissions standards.

Manufacturability, Cost: Vehicles must be capable of being manufactured in quantities of 10,000 per year, with vehicle production costs within levels consistent with historical examples of comparable vehicles.

Features: Vehicles must be desirable, addressing the most important features and factors consumers consider when purchasing an automobile.

Business Plan: There must be a credible plan to manufacture, sell, and service 10,000 vehicles (or conversions) per year by 2014. The plan must show that the national fuel infrastructure will support the vehicles, especially if any non-standard fuels or fueling-methods are to be used.

We’ve got a ways to go yet, so keep it here for all the latest X Prize news.

Tags: auto insurance, progressive, progressive insurance, ten million, X Prize

How can I tell?  Well, considering that they’re planning a massive new set of tax initiatives targeting anyone who buys or operates a vehicle, it sure SEEMS like they don’t want you driving anywhere.

How massive, you ask?  Well, in terms of US dollars, you can figure that they’re planning to add roughly FIVE GRAND in taxes to the cost of every new car.  Of course, that particular tax is being phased in in installments over the course of the next eleven years, but still, five grand?  That’s no small feat.

And as if that weren’t horrendous enough, they’re also planning an increase in the gas tax, which will make gas cost, roughly, three pounds per liter, or in US money, roughly thirteen bucks a gallon.

This egregious push is being dubbed “essential” in order for Great Britain to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets, but critics, not surprisingly, are saying that this is all a push to treat drivers like the government’s own personal piggy bank.

This is, of course, nightmarish in its extremity, and hopefully will drive Brits into the streets to protest this sickening abuse of power.

Tags: Engalnd, gas prices, great britain, Law, taxes

I don’t know if this comes as any surprise, but the Toyota Prius has won the car of the year at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show. Considering that this is the 30th anniversary of the show, the Prius was lined up with the winners from all previous years including last year’s winner, the Toyota IQ.

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I was actually reading about this idea elsewhere, and frankly, it’s too good not to bring up here.  See, solar power fans are going to be jumping for joy over this one, but even if you don’t happen to drive an electric car, chances are you’re still going to love what Dell did to its parking lot, which you can see at right.

Dell put in a bunch of solar panel structures in its parking lot, which serve two basic functions:  one, it provides free electricity to the parked cars.  If you ever needed a jump and couldn’t find another car, well, the Dell lot’s got you covered.  And of course, anyone who drives a plug-in hybrid or full electric vehicle is also covered.

But what most gas car drivers will get out of this is one very rare thing in a parking lot: shade.

We’ve all suffered through a hot car in summertime, sitting in that boiling heat box until the air conditioner can finally overcome the  stifling heat in your car.  But with shaded structures like this, you can park underneath them and keep your car cool.  Meanwhile, free electricity!

That’s a win-win for everybody no matter what kind of car they drive.

Tags: Parking, parking lot, shaded parking, solar panels, solar power

Here’s an awesome question for all you green motor enthusiasts out there:  which car is more green, an electric Tesla roadster or a car powered by bioethanol?  Here are two points to consider by way of the Biofuels Institute:

*  The Tesla gets its juice from a power plant that is burning coal, which means it has 2.095 pounds of CO2 per kWh and can go 3.12 miles per kWh.

* The theoretical corn-ethanol E85-burning vehicle puts out CO2 according to the GREET model (Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation) for lifecycle emissions and is operating at the proposed new CAFE standards.

These facts by themselves don’t mean a whole lot, but when you follow them to their logical conclusion what you get is a downright shocker: as it turns out, the E85 car is actually THIRTY PERCENT GREENER (in that it generates thirty percent fewer CO2 emissions over the course of both vehicles’ hundred and forty five thousand mile life spans) than the Tesla Roadster.

I was pretty shocked to hear that myself.  Now the next time someone looks all smug in their electric car while you’re filling up on flexfuel, just look at them, shake your head sadly, and know that you’re greener than thou.

Tags: e85 flex fuel, e85 vehicles, Ethanol, Tesla, tesla motors, tesla roadster

…it’s the government’s fault.

Okay, I know, it’s something of a non sequitur to launch right into blaming the government with absolutely no preamble, but that’s cool.  Because I’ve got the backing to support it.  It’s not ALL the government’s fault, of course, but there’s blame enough for everybody.

One, a huge problem is regulation.  As it turns out, most of those “good, small diesels” I reference above are too small for most American markets.  They have really slow zero to sixty times, which doesn’t work out too well for Americans who actually NEED rapid acceleration for things like merging and making left turns in congested areas.  So the power on most diesel over here is ramped up accordingly and from there, boom.  There are also problems with the various filter systems and a surprising difference between United States and European emissions laws.

Suddenly the emissions are too nasty, and the model is useless here.

Two, there’s a huge cost problem.  Diesel engines are, by their very nature, more expensive to build than regular gas or flex-fuel vehicles, and then when you have to add that power boost, there’s an extra cost tacked on besides.

So between these two factors, good, small diesels are downright hard to come by out here in the States.

Tags: cost, diesel, emissions, emissions standards, government, regulation, small diesel

Yes, things on two wheels are also on show at the Tokyo Motor Show. Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha had their green cycles on display, and this particular one, with the Xbox colors, is the EC-f from Yamaha. It is only a concept for now.

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In the past Honda has pointed towards fuel cell powered vehicles as the future — Today at the Tokyo Motor Show, Honda CEO Takanobu Ito has again stated his company’s stance on the fuel cells saying that hydrogen energy is the best long term strategy for the auto industry.

Sure, Honda has some electric vehicles in the works such as the Honda EV-N and the Honda CR-Z but Ito says once the industry realizes the limits of batteries they too will turn to hydrogen.

What do you guys think? Is hydrogen the future or will we be seeing batteries stick around for a bit longer?

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Tags: ceo, fuel cells, Honda, Hydrogen, takanobu ito, tokyo motor show