Rick Wagoner announces development of plug-in hybrid SUV

General Motors CEO, Rick Wagoner, just wrapped up his keynote address to the salivating throngs of journos within the LA convention center and the crux of his comments centered on the flexibility of GM’s future vehicle’s fuel systems. The major announcement was the development of a plug-in hybrid setup on the Saturn Vue Green Line’s front-wheel drive platform. It will be based on the front-wheel drive two-mode hybrid drivetrain that GM also announced today. Although no time frame was cited, Wagoner insists that development is underway with battery manufacturers to develop the technology as quickly as possible.

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Doubts Cast on Hybrid Efficiency – Daily Auto Insider – Car and DriverApril 2006

Driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles, according to CNW Marketing Research Inc. The Bandon, Oregon, auto research firm says in a news release that it spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables. To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a “dollars per lifetime mile” figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. [...] For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the “Dust to Dust” lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version, CNW claims.

And SUVs are actually lower. The Hummer is a better deal, when looked at in this way.

Hybrids: Seven worries, seven answers

When they’re thinking about buying a hybrid vehicle, people sometimes worry about stuff that’s just silly. Sometimes, though, they’re absolutely right to be concerned. In a survey done in cooperation with Harris Interactive, Kelley Blue Book’s Web site, KBB.com, asked car shoppers who were considering a hybrid what worried them about the vehicles. We’ve evaluated the top seven concerns — for all of them, at least two-thirds of respondents were “somewhat worried.”

You might remember that I test drove a Ford Escape Hybrid last year. In the end, I didn’t buy it because it didn’t work out financially for me. The difference between the trade-in value of my Jeep and what I still owed on it was too great, gas prices weren’t high enough, and — this is the big killer — they wouldn’t go any lower than 5.9% on the APR over six years. They offered me 5.9% over seven years to try to bring the monthly payment down, but that’s the best they could do. I’ve bought three cars in my life, and I’ve never paid more than 3.9%. (I think the other two cars were at 0% or 0.9%.) With my great credit rating, I didn’t think 3.9% would be unreasonable.

So I walked away, but I stayed on the dealership’s e-mail list.

This weekend, I received an e-mail from them. They were blowing out their 2006 stock to make room for the 2007s. They offered 0% APR financing for six years on all cars, Hybrids included.

Idiots. If they had offered me 3.9% last year, I would have bought a car from them. 0% this year gets them nothing, even with the tax credit/refund. (The trade-in value on my car has dropped too far, and gas prices are much lower. It works out even worse financially for me now.)

No wonder Ford is in such trouble.

Their loss. I’ll stick with my Jeep, thanks.

(Unless, of course, there’s a Ford dealership in Northern, NJ somewhere looking for free publicity on a mildly-read blog and wants to cut me a deal: augie (at) variousandsundry (dot) com is a working e-mail address now. ;-)

• TREK learned nothing from Lucas: The original STAR TREK series is being remastered for HDTV with new space special effects. No DVD plans for them yet, though.

• STARGATE: SG-1 is cancelled, but can it return as a digital download? The producers think that it might.

• Screen shots from the latest Windows Vista beta. I like the commenter who asks for a screen shot of the BSOD. Bwah ha ha

• Here’s the Mini Cooper Hybrid. I don’t think this is a production vehicle yet, though.

• Windows Vista is going to set you back $200, plus whatever costs you incur buying a new video card to handle it.

• 2 million unique users have played with their Nintendo DSes in Wi-Fi mode. And this week’s release, STAR FOX COMMAND, looks pretty cool.

• Web Flash game of the day: Squares. So far, I’m at 5570 points, with 64 squares. (The slow motion bonus is a beautiful thing.) The goal in this game is to move your square around the board, hitting only the other black squares, not the red ones which will kill you.

U.S. Hybrids Get More Miles Per Congress – New York Times

EVER since the first Prius rolled off the assembly line almost a decade ago at the Takaoka plant not far from Toyota City, hybrid cars have basically been a luxury item. If you owned one, you could feel good about using less gasoline and being a trendsetter, but you couldn’t expect the fuel savings to make up for the thousands of extra dollars that the hybrid cost. There was no financial reward for environmental virtue. But in the last few months, something important has changed. Gas prices have settled in at close to $3 a gallon, which is enough to make a few hybrids almost worth it, if not quite. And since the start of the year, the federal government has been giving generous tax credits to hybrid buyers, pushing the Prius and a couple of other hybrids into bargain territory.

When I ran the numbers at the end of last summer, I needed gas to stabilize at about $3.15 a gallon in order to make it cheaper for me to buy a [tag]Ford Escape[/tag] Hybrid and trade in my Jeep Grand Cherokee. It wasn’t worth it. With the $2000 money back from the feds this year, it’s a little closer, but you still wouldn’t get that money for almost a full year at this point — next tax season.

But the [tag]Prius[/tag] would work out, economically. I just prefer to have a four wheel drive vehicle for the winters. Oh, well.

It’s only in Japan, but it sounds impressive.

Treehugger: [tag]Toyota[/tag] Launches New Hybrid Estima [tag]Minivan[/tag] in Japan

Toyota first introduced the Estima [tag]hybrid[/tag] minivan in 2001. At the time it, was the first hybrid minivan and the first mass-produced vehicle to use an electric four-wheel-drive system. The new redesigned Estima was just launched in Japan and its fuel consumption is impressive for a 7-seat vehicle: 5.0 l/100km (47 mpg US) in the Japanese 10-15 cycle. . .

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

At a time when hybrid passenger cars and light trucks are becoming hot consumer items, the numbers of hybrid heavy-duty vehicles, such as utility trucks and buses, are lagging behind severely, despite the availability of the technology and its potential to significantly reduce fuel consumption. Heavy-duty vehicles are an important target for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil because, while they make up less than 10 percent of all the vehicles on the roads, they consume about half the fuel. But, says Bill Van Amburg, senior vice president of WestStart, a Pasadena, CA, nonprofit working to increase the adoption of advanced energy technologies in vehicles, the federal government could do much more to help get fuel-saving technology on the roads. One exception are public transit buses. Federal subsidies for hybrid transit buses makes them a reasonable option for transit agencies. . .

It’s typical that a nonprofit group would be asking for more federal subsidies. Since the government is already doing them for hybrids, though, then they’ve opened themselves up to the call for more. I’d prefer to live in a world where the free market makes the hybrid car in all its forms work, but I’m also not against giving it a little jumpstart.

Toyota’s hybrid Prius sales top 500,000 worldwide – Yahoo! News

Toyota Motor Co.’s energy-saving hybrid Prius car has surpassed the half-million mark in worldwide sales, the Japanese automaker’s US subsidiary said. More than half the sales of the world’s first mass-produced gas-electric hybrid vehicle — 266,212 — have been in the massive US market.

• [tag]Sony[/tag] is still in denial.

• [tag]Wendys[/tag] misses Dave, suffers setbacks, starting to rebound. It’s still the best of the fast food franchises. I’ve been addicted to the #9 lately — the 10 piece chicken nugget meal. Biggie Sized, of course.

• Now you can lease a Segway. It’s still on my list of things to do before I die: “Ride a [tag]Segway[/tag].” I’ll need to go for one of those park tours where you rent one for a couple of hours, I guess.

• Play the original [tag]Super Mario[/tag] Bros. game in quasi-3D.

• Yes, Virginia, there is an electric-only mode for the Toyota [tag]Prius[/tag] — in Europe.

You’re not alone: ten states with the most [tag]hybrid[/tag]s – Autoblog

R.L. Polk & Co., a marketing firm that collects and interprets automotive data, recently listed the top ten states with the most registrations of hybrid vehicles for 2005.

California wins all. New York comes in fourth. Here’s a surprise for those who like to play politics with everything — Texas is third.

Chrysler, GM, BMW announce new [tag]hybrid[/tag] system

[tag]DaimlerChrysler[/tag], [tag]BMW[/tag], and [tag]GM[/tag] today announced a new full hybrid system that “represents a major automotive industry milestone due to the unprecedented fully integrated combination of electric motors with a fixed-gear transmission.� The technology is said to be ready for production beginning next year. As a result of its low- and high-speed electric continuously variable transmission (ECVT) modes, the system is commonly referred to as the 2-mode hybrid. However, the sophisticated fuel-saving system also incorporates four fixed gear ratios for high efficiency and power-handling capabilities in a broad variety of vehicle applications. During the two ECVT modes and four fixed gear operations, the hybrid system can use the electric motors for boosting and regenerative braking.

Hybrid Cabs Take A Licking…But Their Meters Keep On Ticking

The mean streets of San Francisco and New York City are the supreme torture test for any vehicle, let alone a new addition to those cities’ [tag]taxi[/tag] fleets in February 2005 and last November, respectively. So there was good reason for concern among drivers, cab owners and taxi commissions when the first mini-fleets of Escape [tag]Hybrid[/tag] taxis hit the road. [....] So far, so good, say cab company owners, drivers and the taxi commissioners in both cities.

In other Hybrid news, C|Net takes a look at those who juice up their hybrid to get even more mileage out of a gallon:

A few small companies will start to offer services and products for converting hybrid cars like the Toyota [tag]Prius[/tag] that currently get around 50 miles per gallon into plug-in hybrids that rely more heavily on electrical power and can get about 100 miles per gallon. “I get about 99 miles to the gallon,” said Felix Kramer, founder of The California Cars Initiative (CalCars), who owns the eighth Prius converted into a plug-in hybrid. “When gasoline costs $3 a gallon, driving most gasoline cars costs 8 to 20 cents a mile. With a plug-in hybrid, your local travel and commuting can go down to 2 to 4 cents a mile.” In general, plug-in hybrids have much larger battery packs than standard hybrids–in prototypes, the extra batteries fill up the space where spare tires now reside–and much smaller gas motors. The batteries can be recharged by plugging the car into any wall socket.

Gallup Surprise: Most Americans Now Say They May Buy Hybrid Cars

A Gallup poll released [this week] shows that nearly half of all Americans have cut back “significantly” on their driving due to high gas prices–and in a surprise, 57% say they will consider buying a hybrid car when replacing their current vehicle. About half of Americans report economizing in general in order to compensate for the increase in gas prices over the past year. Those favoring hybrids show little gender or regional differences, but “hybrids appeal much more to younger and middle-aged Americans than to seniors,” Gallup reports. Upper-income Americans are slightly more likely than lower-income Americans (62% vs. 55%) to say they would seriously consider buying a hybrid when purchasing their next car.

Tags: hybrid

• Final numbers are being released by the IRS on how much money they’ll give you to buy a hybrid car. The Prius tops out at $3150. The 4WD Ford Hybrid is $1950.

• TiVo should lead to the elimination of ads. Networks can make it up with product placements and paid downloads.

• When ESPN redesigned its site (granted, three years ago) on the backend to use CSS instead of tables, they started saving terabytes of bandwidth per day. Read more about it with the Associate Art Director for the site.

• Someone has hacked Guitar Hero to make it a real musical instrument. The pendulum swings back. . .

• How did David Copperfield fly? Answer at the link. (Via Digg)

• Microsoft is working on a competitor to Apple’s Garageband, for music production. I suppose it’s possible that the product will work. Stranger things have happened. But I’ve been using and experimenting with Garageband pretty seriously these past few weeks for the podcasts, and I’m picking things up easily and getting things done. There’s a lot of stuff to find in there, so long as you don’t allow yourself to become overwhelmed by it right away. Put a toe in the water first. . .

• AMERICAN IDOL sings the songs of Queen tonight. Full wrap up in the morning.