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1 days ago
Now this is encouraging. The New York Times' Lindsay Brooke just tested a prototype 2011 Chevy Volt, but in a way that no one else has yet: with the battery completely drained. The Volt is a full-on electric car, but also with a small gas engine on board. Unlike with a hybrid, the Volt's gas engine only exists to recharge the battery--it's not connected to the wheels. The fear is that once the battery drains, the Volt would turn into a slug that could barely get out of its own way. But as Brooke found, that's not the case at all. The Volt still needs some additional tuning to quiet down the gas engine and stabilize the RPMs. But "at its current state of development, the Volt is an extremely refined vehicle." Awesome news. (Click for the NYT's full test.) 1 days ago
Ah, Times Square: For native New Yorkers, it's simply a crowded place to be avoided at all costs, but marketers know it as a premium locale for launching a splashy campaign. Yesterday Duracell unveiled its Smart Power Lab there for the second year running. At the Lab, tourists can burn off some of their energy by hopping on a "Power Rover" and pedaling. That energy is captured and will be used to light the 2010 numerals when the ball drops on New Years Eve. Celebrity pedalers, such as Kerry Butler and Constantine Maroulis from the Broadway show Rock of Ages (pictured at left), joined in. The Smart Power Lab, located next to a Charmin-promoted bathroom, also offers tourists a place to power up their rechargeable devices for free, and they can play Xbox games and get their picture taken with a lifesize replica of the 2010 numerals. The lab will be open November 23 through December 31 from 10 A.M. to 9 P.M. Sunday through Wednesday, and 10 A.M. to 11 P.M. Thursday ...2 days ago
Get ready, hybrid-lovers, because Mercedes-Benz has some exciting debuts coming to the L.A. Auto Show, which will be open to the public December 4 to13. For one, it will show the F-Cell, an electric car that's able to make its own power, for the first time in North America. The Mercedes-Benz F-Cell has a range of about 240 miles, and, running on compressed hydrogen, offers an equivalent fuel mileage of 86.6 miles per gallon city/highway combined. Two hundred F-Cell cars will come to the U.S. in 2010 as part of a special lease program. Attendees will also get to see the E350 BlueTEC, which is powered by a 3.0-liter V6 diesel with 210 horsepower. It features AdBlue injection to make its exhaust extremely clean. For those who like a little more muscle, the company will show the SLS AMG supercar (above), which offers a lightweight aluminum body, gull wing doors, and a 563-horsepower dry-sump V8 engine.2 days ago
A new bioplastics factory by a company called Metabolix will officially open this December. Metabolix, founded by MIT biology professor Anthony Sinskey and his former postdoc, Oliver Peoples, will utilize MIT-patented technology to manufacture bioplastic from corn. The plant will have the capacity to produce 110 million pounds of bioplastic per year in an attempt to break into the humongous plastic production market in the United States. There already are bioplastics available in the market today. Unlike most of them though, Metabolix taps upon a narutally-occurring form of polyester called polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) instead of the commonly used polylactic acid (PLA). According to Peoples, PHA has a higher heat resistance than PLA, giving the company's technology an advantage. It all started back in 1984 when Peoples sequenced a gene for the bacterium species R. eutropha that enables the bacterium to produce PHA. Ten years later, on 1994, Metabolix was born. Researchers in the ...2 days ago
California regulators have passed the nation's first television energy efficiency standards that, by 2013, will cut electricity consumption by almost half, the New York Times reports. Manufacturers must produce new models that use 33 percent less electricity by 2011 and 49 percent less by 2013. It turns out that about a quarter of sets already on sale--about 300 models--meet the more rigorous 2013 regulation already. The tough part will be reigning in larger plasma TVs, which consume about three times the electricity of a CRT, and larger LCDs, which consume about 50 percent more than the same CRT. The new rules still exempt TVs larger than 58 inches, which make up about three percent of the market. You can bet we'll continue to test the latest HDTVs to see which ones meet our rigorous GreenTech Approved standards.
