Ford News - 3,300 Americans try out for the Fiesta Movement, 140 cars now in the U.S.

3,300 Americans try out for the Fiesta Movement, 140 cars now in the U.S.

Filed under: Ford, Green Daily

Well, now we know what the competition is. Earlier this week, Ford stopped taking applications for the Fiesta Movement project, and we were one of the applicants. Turns out, there were 3,300 other people or groups who want one of the 100 Fiestas that Ford is giving away (for six months). 140 of these cars arrived in the U.S. today (they were put together in Cologne, Germany). The Fiesta doesn’t go on sale in America until early next year, but the car is currently the No. 2 selling car in Europe and is doing well in Asia, Ford says.

What’s interesting is that the Fiesta Movement vehicles are Euro-spec models that Ford needed special permission from the EPA for to let Americans drive. The German-language instrument panel bits were translated into English and the cars talk miles instead of kilometers. Ford will weed through the 3,300 applications to find the 100 Fiesta Movement agent by late spring. May we suggest they ease their load a little by setting our application aside and just looking for 99 more?

[Source: Ford]

Continue reading 3,300 Americans try out for the Fiesta Movement, 140 cars now in the U.S.

3,300 Americans try out for the Fiesta Movement, 140 cars now in the U.S. originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[tags]ford cars, ford news, ford models, ford[/tags]

Mazda News - Mazda’s first Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid leases start in Japan

Mazda’s first Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid leases start in Japan

Filed under: Hybrid, Hydrogen, Mazda

The first Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrids available to the public will soon be in the hands of the first lessees. Mazda announced today that it has started commercial leasing of the vehicles, which will be delivered later this year. Unlike the fuel cell-powered Honda FCX Clarity (leases for them started last July), the Premacy uses a hydrogen rotary engine in series configuration with lithium-ion batteries and an electric motor. When the 35 MPa high-pressure tank is filled with H₂, the Premacy has a range of about 200 km (124 miles). For drivers worried about range, there’s safety in knowing that the rotary engine can burn both hydrogen and gasoline.

The Premacy Hydrogen RE has been road testing since last fall. Mazda has been working hydrogen rotary engines since 1991, when it developed the HR-X engine. In 2006, Mazda began leasing an earlier hydrogen rotary vehicle, the RX-8 Hydrogen RE. More details after the jump.

[Source: Mazda]

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Mazda’s first Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid leases start in Japan originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[tags]mazda cars, mazda news, mazda models[/tags]

Mercedes-Benz News - Mercedes-Benz unveils retrofuturistic F-Cell Roadster built by trainees

[tags]mercedes benz news, mercedes benz reviews, mercedes benz, daimler chrysler[/tags] -

Mercedes-Benz unveils retrofuturistic F-Cell Roadster built by trainees

Filed under: Etc., Hydrogen, Mercedes Benz, Green Daily

Times may be tough, but that isn’t stopping Daimler from having a bit of expensive-looking fun with its trainees… so long as there’s an educational bent to it. What you see before you isn’t an artful series of renderings, it’s an actual time-warping fuel cell concept dubbed “F-CELL Roadster.”

It took a year and more than 150 trainees to create, but the entire project involved using “junior employees,” giving the company’s up-and-coming employees a creative way to learn how alternative-fuel systems come together.

The F-CELL Roadster marries Benz Patent Motor Car stylings with 21st century tech wonderfully, including that legendary vehicle’s general aesthetic and proportions, along with old-meets-new technologies like carbon-fiber buckets capped in hand-stitched leather and a drive-by-wire central control joystick.

The centerpiece, of course, is the Roadster’s fuel cell powertrain, which has a power rating of 1.2 kilowatts, a top speed of 25 kilometers-per-hour, and a range of 350 kilometers. That means you’ll have a long, slow trip, just like those adventuring motorists back at the turn of the century. Official press release posted after the jump.

[Source: Mercedes]

Continue reading Mercedes-Benz unveils retrofuturistic F-Cell Roadster built by trainees

Mercedes-Benz unveils retrofuturistic F-Cell Roadster built by trainees originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Honda News - Honda Insight will be top prize for Xbox “Play and Win” gamers, everyone else just gets ads

Honda Insight will be top prize for Xbox “Play and Win” gamers, everyone else just gets ads

Filed under: Etc., Hybrid, Honda, Green Daily

The everyone in Honda’s “Hybrid for Everyone” advertising campaign for the new Honda Insight apparently includes Xbox players. Honda will be the only sponsor of the upcoming “Play and Win” interactive quiz game that will kick off on Xbox Live Primetime May 15. The three-month free quiz show style game, part of Microsoft’s delayed interactive online network, will use the 1-vs-100 method. Video ads for the Insight will be shown to people in the game’s “waiting room” and during gameplay intermission. It’s not simply Insight ads that players will be thinking of when they sit down for a game: the overall winner of “Play and Win” will be given a 2010 Insight.

Other parts of the new Insight’s advertising campaign include something called “homepage takeovers,” online video, interactive tours of the car and “branded canvases” on ABC, CBS and NBC. What language is it that advertising agencies speak these days, anyway?

[Source: AdAge]

Honda Insight will be top prize for Xbox “Play and Win” gamers, everyone else just gets ads originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[tags]honda cars, honda news, honda models, honda[/tags]

Chevrolet News - First Chevy Volt Integration Vehicle to be completed June 1st

First Chevy Volt Integration Vehicle to be completed June 1st

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Chevrolet, GM, Green Daily

General Motors is reportedly closing in on an important milestone in its development of the Chevy Volt. To date, GM has built over 30 mules based on the Chevy Cruze, which will share the Volt’s Delta chassis underpinnings, but none of these cars look like Volts inside or out. Starting on the first day of June, that’s all set to change as the first so-called Integration Vehicles are scheduled for assembly then. This means that there will be real Volts running around GM’s testing grounds, albeit not in final form.

Andrew Farah, lead engineer for the Volt program, says, “my goal is by Fourth of July to be out driving several of them.” A total of 80 Integration Vehicles are slated for production before the car enters the next stage of development, which will see more and more final production methods perfected. Assuming all goes according to plan, the first salable Volts are scheduled for assembly in November of 2010.

[Source: GM-Volt]

First Chevy Volt Integration Vehicle to be completed June 1st originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[tags]chevrolet cars, chevolet news, chevrolet models[/tags]