Gas 2.0 |
- Electric Cars to Get “Alert Sounds” for Blind, Elderly, and Child Safety
- Back to the Future: A Revolutionary $1,000 EV With Battery Swap Tech and a 100 Mile Range
- NEVs: They May be Small, Low-Speed Electric Cars, but They Raise Big Safety Concerns
- London Officially Unveils Hybrid Double Decker Bus for the Future
| Electric Cars to Get “Alert Sounds” for Blind, Elderly, and Child Safety Posted: 20 May 2010 01:27 PM PDT
If you’ve been dreaming of a future in which electric cars move silently about city streets like ghosts on wheels, your fantasy is about to be dashed. Often times cited as one of the best aspects of electric cars, their silence is enticing. But from the perspective of the blind, the elderly and parents of oblivious kids (most of them), that silence is a major safety concern. This week, in association with representatives of almost every major car manufacturer on the planet, the National Federation for the Blind and the American Council of the Blind endorsed language that would add an audible alert to any vehicle that makes little to no noise at low speeds, including electric cars and hybrids that shut off engines when coming to a stop. |
| Back to the Future: A Revolutionary $1,000 EV With Battery Swap Tech and a 100 Mile Range Posted: 20 May 2010 11:59 AM PDT
Think electric cars are great? Well, they’ve been great for the better part of a century now — a fact that most people seem to be unaware of. Before Big Oil got its greasy paws in a death-lock stranglehold around our puny little necks, electric cars were the way of the future. Everyone from Ferdinand Porsche to your garden variety backyard inventor saw the simple beauty of the electric drivetrain. Witness the above 1920 Milburn as a great example of this. While doing a bit of lazy Internet surfing last weekend, I stumbled upon a post over at Plugin Recharge! highlighting this beauty of an antique car with features that would be considered modern even by today’s standards. |
| NEVs: They May be Small, Low-Speed Electric Cars, but They Raise Big Safety Concerns Posted: 20 May 2010 11:11 AM PDT
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) have been touted as a low-cost way to quickly electrify much of the daily driving that people do. They typically don’t go faster than 35 mph and are increasingly showing up in cities as a way to make short commutes and run errands in a fuel-less and environmentally beneficial way. But after a series of crash tests that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conducted on a few popular models of them, including Chrysler’s GEM brand, the consumer watchdog group is making stern warnings that NEVs have very few safety features and could easily lead to fatalities in even moderate accidents at medium speeds. |
| London Officially Unveils Hybrid Double Decker Bus for the Future Posted: 20 May 2010 09:33 AM PDT
When I visited England a few years ago, it was a strange juxtaposition of contemporary American culture with a classic British twist. As a car guy though, I naturally paid the most attention to all the interesting and foreign (literally) vehicles around me. While the black cabs nearly clipped me and I saw a runaway Renault crash into a streetlamp, the legendary vehicles that captivated me the most were the red, double decker buses. Of course, these old, mobile landmarks are pretty much the picture of a bygone gas guzzling era. In an effort to improve the green cred of London, Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the official new hybrid double decker bus, which will hit the streets sometime in 2012. |
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