New posts from Gas 2.0!

Li-ion Wavejet Brings EVs to the Beach (video)

Posted: 30 May 2011 11:00 AM PDT

It’s still Memorial Day weekend for millions of Americans, and – for many of them – that means: the beach. It’s a he(ck) of a place, the beach. Often filled with sunbathers, swimmers, boaters, and (on some days) surfers, the beach is probably not a place you’d think of as “filled” with eco-conscious technology.

Nevertheless, the waters are teeming with green-as-can-be sailboats (the original off-shore wind power), and – soon - electric surfboards!

As cool as the li-ion battery-powered Wavejet is (what with 30 min. of run-time at a full 20 lb. of thrust), the big idea behind it is that surfers no longer need a PWC to tow them out to the big waves. In so doing, the Wavejet potentially saves its owners the fuel that said PWC would burn out on the water, the fuel required to tow the thing to the beach, the fuel that’d be burned by the “tow-rated” vehicle they’d drive back and forth to work the 300-odd days of the year they weren’t surfing. When you factor in the environmental impact of manufacturing and transporting the PWCs used as surf-tows into the mix, you can see how it would be easy to get excited about this $4500, carbon-fiber off-shore EV.

Source: Wavejet, via Cool Material

65 mpg Chevy Spark Diesel (!) Caught Testing in India

Posted: 30 May 2011 08:00 AM PDT

Chevrolet is building a diesel spark that gets over 65 mpg – and that TCDi badge on the back of a black Chevy Sonic (caught testing by a sharp-eyed team-bhp forum member) is proof.

Don’t get too excited, though: despite the fact that this TCDI tester is based on the top-end LT variant (the rear wiper is the giveaway), GM will probably not offer a diesel Spark for sale in the US … and that’s a shame.

I like the Chevy Spark. Sure, I gave its marketers a tough time for peddling the car to kids, but I also said (in that same article) that “The Chevy Sonic is a solid car. It offers great gas mileage (over 40 mpg), respectable performance from a 1.4L turbocharged engine (138 hp, 18 more than Ford's award-winning new Fiesta) and a close-ratio 6-speed manual that alone would have made it a "hot hatch" less than 20 years ago – all with modern safety (10 airbags!) and convenience features wrapped in an aggressive, sporty look.” All of those things are still true, of course – even the part about respectable performance, since the new TCDI is expected to deliver about 60 hp and more than 100 lb-ft of torque from its 1.0L 3-cylinder.

Granted, 60 hp isn’t enough to set the world on fire, but it’s more than the old 58 mpg Geo Metro had – and the Geo couldn’t hope to match the diesel Spark’s triple-digit torque figures (or projected 3.5L/100 km fuel economy), so this seems like exactly the kind of car GM could use to pump up its CAFE numbers here in the US.

What do you guys think? Would any of you line up for a 60+ mpg Chevy Spark? Let Chevy know, in the comments!

Source: Team-BHP.com, via Autoblog.es