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]

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]

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

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 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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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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Source: www.autobloggreen.com

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

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]

Filed under: Hybrid, Toyota, Green Daily

The speculation can finally end. After weeks of hearing rumors regarding an impending low-cost hybrid from Toyota, reports are now coming out of Japan that the automaker is working on getting a hybrid drivetrain installed in the Yaris platform. The new car will use the same Hybrid Synergy Drive technology as the Prius but will cost considerably less when it goes on sale, possibly as early as 2011.

This new development is a direct response to the new Honda Insight, a hybrid hatchback that ostensibly competes with the Toyota Prius but costs thousands less due to its slightly smaller size, including a downsized engine and battery pack. When Toyota’s Insight-fighter hits the market, we’d expect it to carry an engine that roughly matches the Insight’s 1.3 liters, a full half-liter smaller than the powerplant in the 2010 Prius.

[Source: Automotive News - sub. req'd]

Toyota’s low-cost hybrid to be based on Yaris originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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[tags]toyota cars, toyota news, toyota suv, toyota[/tags]

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Ford

Magna International’s contract manufacturing unit, Magna Steyr, used the Geneva Motor Show to unveiled its Mila EV concept (read more here) last month. The parent company’s strong work in the electric vehicle field helped Ford recently unveil its Focus EV mule - and it helps everyone. These concept vehicles have a new home of sorts, a place where Magna will centralize its work on electric and hybrid drive vehicles.

Magna recently announced plans to expand in Rochester Hills, Michigan (near Detroit) in order to keep working on the Ford electric vehicle program. The $20 million expansion will move people into a new company HQ next month, including 90 new employees over the next five years, and continues the work that Magna’s new acquisition BluWav is doing on electric drive systems. Magna officials also said that an announcement would be coming from Ford about the Focus EV’s li-ion batteries.

[Source: MLive]

Magna International gets new Michigan HQ for electric vehicles, hybrids originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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

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]

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

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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Source: www.autobloggreen.com

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

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Hybrid, Honda

Honda and the GS Yuasa Corporation have agreed on a joint venture contract for the “manufacturing, sales and R&D of Lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles.” Called Blue Energy (apparently, the Japanese have taken to the European shift of the eco-defining color word?), the new company is the result of last December’s announcement and months of discussions on how to bring li-ion vehicle batteries to market. Hybrids will be the “central focus” of the JV, which makes sense given Honda’s distaste for plug-in vehicles. Even though the planned establishment date is April 1st, Blue Energy doesn’t smell foolish at all to me.

GS Yuasa, a battery supplier, announced in 2007 that it would work with Mitsubishi on lithium batteries.

[Source: Honda]

Continue reading Blue Energy is GS Yuasa and Honda’s lithium-ion batter JV company

Blue Energy is GS Yuasa and Honda’s lithium-ion batter JV company originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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

Filed under: Diesel, MPG, Chrysler, Jeep, Fiat, USA

When Chrysler and Fiat announced that they were planning to join forces to better attack the worldwide auto market, the first question on all of our minds was which vehicles from Fiat the American side would import to the States? Much of the attention was focused on the little Fiat 500, and deservedly so. Small cars like the smart fortwo and MINI Cooper have proven that Americans will buy little machines as long as they are stylish, loaded with features and fun to drive.

Another vehicle that many enthusiasts are keenly interested in is the Fiat Panda, especially in its jacked-up off-road Cross trim. The overactive internet rumormill is now working on the idea that there’s a possibility that the Panda Cross may make it Stateside wearing a Jeep badge. As long as we’re dreaming, how ’bout throwing in the little 1.3L turbocharged diesel engine that powers it in Europe?

Chrysler’s viability plan did include the introduction of a new Jeep in 2011, and the timing would be perfect to help the SUV maker meet looming fuel economy requirements. Before any of that can happen, though, the automaker has until the end of the month to prove it can survive as a viable company that’s capable of repaying taxpayer-funded loans.

[Source: Motor Authority]

Could Jeep introduce new model based on Fiat Panda Cross? originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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