Iceland is a gorgeous place. Just take a look at these Flickr submissions from the island. The country’s finances aren’t quite so pretty these days, and the reality of the financial crisis is dramatically slowing down the country’s attempted shift to a hydrogen economy . Iceland has been testing hydrogen-powered vehicles for years, and the first hydrogen fueling station opened there in late 2007. One reason for the move to hydrogen is that the island country can fairly easily use geothermal energy to make hydrogen from water. The New York Times says that the shift to get all ground transportation vehicles and some boats to hydrogen power “have been set back at least 10 years and may have to be altered to allow for electric cars.” The problem? The cost of fuel cells and the down world economy. A professor of chemistry at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik told the Times : In the past years, teams from all the big car manufacturing companies visited us and said they intended to market fuel cell-powered hydrogen cars shortly after 2010. Of course, because of the current world crisis, there will be a delay . Those of you rooting for electric vehicles to win out over H 2 , don’t forget that the Mitsubishi iMiEV is currently undergoing testing in Iceland . Of course, a busted economy can sink all ships, so don’t enjoy the schadenfreude too much. [Source: New York Times ] Photo by Neate Photos . Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0 . Filed under: Hydrogen , Europe/EU Financial crisis delays Iceland’s hydrogen transportation project originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Hydrogen cars in Vancouver - click above for high-res image gallery The U.S. Department of Energy under President Obama hasn’t been kind to hydrogen vehicles in 2009. In early May, the DOE eliminated funding for research into H 2 -powered vehicles . Since then, the hydrogen vehicle industry has taken stock of the situation, promoted itself and is now ready to fight back. Support is coming from, unsurprisingly, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which is going to bat for hydrogen cars in a big way. CARB Chairman Mary Nichols has spoken with the DOE’s Steven Chu about reinstating the funds and wants involved players to continue the “dialog and investigation,” according to Green Car Congress . An important part of the debate is what Chu called the “Four Miracles” that need to be overcome before hydrogen cars are viable. Big advances need to be made in: fuel cell durability/cost hydrogen production hydrogen storage hydrogen infrastructure Nichols’ response is that any alternative to gasoline has hurdles to overcome, so no options should be taken off the table quite yet. Heard that before? More details available over at Green Car Congress . Gallery: Vancouver 2009: Hydrogen Road Trip vehicles [Source: Green Car Congress ] Filed under: Hydrogen , Legislation and Policy , USA CARB asks DOE to restore hydrogen vehicle funds originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Mission Motors’ TTXGP race bike - Click above for image gallery Now that the TTXGP zero-emissions motorcycle race at the Isle of Man has ended with Team Agni bringing home the win , at least a few of the competitors are turning their attention towards the next step in electric motorcycle racing. According to Forrest North, Founder and CEO of Mission Motors: We’re disappointed that we weren’t on the podium, but are thrilled to have had the opportunity to compete in this historic event. We feel strongly that racing is a great way to push the technology in a direction that is consumer oriented. Essentially, we were able to do about 6 months worth of R&D in about a week, working out kinks and gathering valuable data to improve our production bike . Those kinks reportedly included the complete loss of the bike’s drivetrain on the second day of practice after qualifying for the main event. Hopefully, all those issues will have successfully been worked out before the upcoming race at the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days festival at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, scheduled to take place June 24-26. We’re not entirely sure as of yet which teams will be competing at Mid-Ohio in June, but Mission Motors, Brammo and Electric Motorsport have all reportedly signed on to participate. Gallery: Mission Motors TTXGP race bike [Source: Mission Motors ] Filed under: EV/Plug-in , On Two Wheels , Racing Mission Motors returns from TTXGP with sights set on Mid-Ohio race originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Honda FCX Clarity - Click above image for high-res gallery Joe Romm has long battled with vocal hydrogen vehicle proponent Gerg Blencoe on the value of H 2 vehicles. They’ve made bets , given suggestions , and just plain disagreed about everything when it comes to hydrogen vs. plug-in electric vehicles. I doubt Romm’s latest missive is going to change the situation. Romm has published a lengthy post over at the MIT Technology Review on the ” dead end ” of hydrogen vehicles and why the U.S. DOE was right to slash funding for future work. Most of the first piece (it’s the start of a series) is taken from Romm’s 2005 journal article called, “The car and fuel of the future,” from Energy Policy ( PDF ). As should be obvious from the headline, Romm methodically goes through and explains why hydrogen fuel cells are just not the right choice for transportation. A few highlilghts: Hydrogen is the most challenging of all alternative fuels, particularly because of the enormous effort needed to change our existing gasoline infrastructure. The most promising AFV [alternative fuel vehicle] pathway is a hybrid that can be connected to the electric grid. These so-called plug-in hybrids will likely travel three to four times as far on a kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity as fuel cell vehicles The new generation of hybrid PZEVs such as the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid have substantially raised the bar for future AFVs. These vehicles have no chicken and egg problem (since they can be fueled everywhere), no different safety concerns than other gasoline cars, a substantially lower annual fuel bill, greater range, a 30% to 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and a 90% reduction in tailpipe emissions. The vehicles do cost a little more, but that is more than offset by the current government incentive and the large reduction in gasoline costs, even ignoring the performance benefits. A push to constrain carbon dioxide emissions actually delays the introduction of hydrogen cars because sources of zero-carbon hydrogen such as renewable power can achieve emissions reductions far more cost-effectively simply replacing planned or existing coal plants . There’s much, more more here if you want to join Romm or Blencoe on the battlefield. We’ll keep an eye out for Part 2. Gallery: Tesla Model S [Source: MIT Technology Review ] Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Hydrogen , Green Daily What’s “a dead end from a technological, practical, and climate perspective”? Hydrogen fuel cell cars originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read  |  Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

It goes without saying that we’re down with battery recycling, but what about battery factory recycling? Sounds like a pretty good idea to us and, more importantly, it sounds like a good idea to Planar Energy Devices who have plans to do just that. The Orlando-based company is hoping to grab a tranche of the stimulus package pie and recycle a lithium ion battery factory vacated by Electro Energy . The company has applied for $56 million from the $2 billion in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electric Drive Vehicle Battery & Component Manufacturing Initiative. If Planar is successful, they could also land matching monies from the State of Florida for the project that could generate 200 direct and 1,000 indirect jobs by 2012. Located in the appropriately-named Phoenix Commercial Park in Gainesville, the 150,000 sq ft building was built in 1997 at a cost of $150 million. We are told that the company has customers who have already evaluated their PowerBlade product and “are anxious for Planar to move into volume production.” Read more about their plans in the press release after the break. [Source: Planar Energy Devices ] Continue reading Planar Energy Devices plans to recycle battery factory Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Manufacturing/Plants , USA Planar Energy Devices plans to recycle battery factory originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 20 May 2009 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Elon Musk and Dr. Thomas Weber in the Tesla Roadster During Tuesday’s announcement that Daimler was buying a 10 percent stake in Tesla Motors , Mercedes-Benz R&D boss Dr. Thomas Weber would only say that the company paid in the “double digit millions” for its share. That implies somewhere between $10 and 99 million. TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington specializes in digging up information on Silicon Valley startups and according to his sources, the actual amount that Daimler paid is $50 million for nine percent of Tesla. If they did pay that much, and based on Arrington’s history, there is no guarantee that the figure is correct, that puts the value of Tesla Motors at about $550 million. The benefits to Tesla are obvious: cash, a customer for some of its technology and access to engineering and supply resources. The question is, what does Daimler really get for its $50 million? While integrating battery packs and developing management systems is by no means trivial, Tesla is hardly the only source of that capability. Other integrators are already working with the new, larger format automotive lithium ion cells. Weber acknowledged that Tesla won’t be its only partner on electric drive systems. There are other possible explanations for Daimler’s move. (Note: This rest of this is pure speculation on our part). One possibility we can see is that Daimler wanted to lock up Tesla’s battery know-how for itself to prevent competitors such as BMW from tapping into it. BMW is playing catch-up in the EV space and went to AC Propulsion (from whom Tesla itself licensed some of its early technology) to build the MINI E. Another possibility is that Daimler is using the Tesla investment as a goodwill gesture. By keeping Tesla viable, Daimler could be seen by many EV fans as a savior of the electric car. For that kind of positive feeling, Daimler might consider $50 million a small price to pay. Only time will tell. Gallery: Daimler Tesla press conference [Source: TechCrunch ] Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Tesla Motors , Daimler Is Tesla really worth $550 million? Daimler apparently thinks so originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 20 May 2009 10:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

While lead acid batteries have energized electric cars for most of the motoring age and nickel metal hydrides (NiMH) have helped hybrids return high gas mileage numbers more recently, the future seems to securely belong to lithium batteries for both applications. With all that’s riding on this technology, can it really fulfill its green promises? Of the dozens of electric vehicle announcements have been made over the past few years, practically all of them have named lithium ion batteries as their energy storage solution of choice. Indeed, lithium ion batteries power the best-known electric car on the road today, the Tesla Roadster . But, with reports of lithium-powered laptop fires and the press ponderings on the possibility of “peak-lithium,” it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Is there hope beyond the hype or is there, perhaps, a different energy storage around the corner? Hit the jump and we’ll investigate the possibilities. Gallery: New York 2009: Chrysler ENVI battery packs Gallery: Tesla smart mule and battery Continue reading Greenlings: Can we build a better battery with lithium? Filed under: Emerging Technologies , Etc. , EV/Plug-in , Hybrid , Greenlings Greenlings: Can we build a better battery with lithium? originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 07 May 2009 19:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Phoenix SUT - Click above for a high-res gallery Phoenix Motorcars has responded to our request for information about the bankruptcy filing news we heard about earlier this week. This email is written in response to questions we have received from Autoblog Green relating to our recent restructuring. Phoenix MC, Inc. is going through a restructure of which we plan to be very straight forward and short in nature. We have secured DIP financing and have a clear path in front of us. We have not abandoned the alternative fuels transportation space. We will have no further comments. Sincerely, Daniel J. Elliott Chairman & CEO Phoenix MC, Inc . In other news, Earth2Tech notes that the bankruptcy hearing scheduled for today is meant to, literally, keep the lights on and that Phoenix’s battery partner, Altairnano Technologies, had to write down the value of Phoenix’s stock on its books in early March. Thoughts? Gallery: AFVI Ride & Drive Phoenix SUT [Source: Phoenix] Filed under: EV/Plug-in , AutoblogGreen Exclusive , Phoenix Phoenix Motorcars: “We have not abandoned the alternative fuels transportation space.” originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

Capstone Turbine Corporation, maker of the micro turbines that are being used as a power source in some hybrid buses , has announced that they have demonstrated that their 30 kW microturbine is compliant with the new EPA and CARB standards that will come into effect in 2010. Makers of some internal combustion diesel engines have been having some difficulty meeting the criterion without the implementation of lots of expensive add-ons, usually exhaust treatment systems. These additions will add to running costs even as the price of the fuel is dipping below that of gasoline in places. The C30 microturbine use “lean premix combustion technology” to burn gaseous and liquid fuels and now CTC’s engineers have altered the way the fuel is is injected. This allows for a cleaner burn without having to pre-treat fuel or require exhaust aftertreatment. While the 30 kW (40 hp) engine may not have the output to move an eighteen-wheeler over hill and dale, it seems a good match for the Designline hybrid buses ( now with Altairnano batteries ) it is being used in. Hit the jump for the official press release. [Source: Green Car Congress ] Continue reading Capstone demonstrates turbine compliant with 2010 EPA and CARB diesel standards Filed under: Diesel , Emerging Technologies , Hybrid , USA Capstone demonstrates turbine compliant with 2010 EPA and CARB diesel standards originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments

NxtGen Emission Controls is releasing an evaluation version of its syngas generator for lab use. NxtGen is developing and has been field testing a portable syngas generation system for diesel vehicles that can help clean up emissions with lower fuel consumption and cost than existing particulate filter and urea injection systems. Syngas is mix of predominantly hydrogen and carbon monoxide and is produced in the vehicle from diesel fuel and exhaust gases. The syngas is combustible and is used to regenerate the particulate filters and lean NOx traps at lower temperatures. That means the regeneration can happen more readily at partial load conditions such as in-town driving where the exhaust gas temperatures might not get hot enough for regeneration under normal driving. The syngas generator evaluation unit is a stand-alone system designed to produce the gas for lab and dynamometer testing. The NxtGen press release is after the jump. [Source: NxtGen] Continue reading NxtGen making demonstration units of SynGas generator available Filed under: Diesel NxtGen making demonstration units of SynGas generator available originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments