Volkswagen to Produce Plug-In Hybrid Electric Cars in 2010

Hot on the heels of the announcement that Mercedes will produce electric cars, comes the news that fellow German manufacturer Volkswagen plans to produce a test fleet of plug-in hybrid electric cars by 2010.

A few months ago, to much excitement from the automotive press, the company unveiled a diesel-electric Golf but, according to VW chief Martin Winterkorn, “the future belongs to electric cars.” To help in mapping out the road to this electric future, the company have unveiled a plug-in hybrid powertrain, called the Twin-Drive, which will make its first appearance in a Golf kitted out with a 122-horsepower diesel engine, twinned with an 82-horsepower electric motor.

A key difference between the VW approach and typical hybrids is that instead of the battery providing supplemental power to the combustion engine, the Twin-Drive will work the other way around. According to Winterkorn, “here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor.”

The car will use lithium-ion batteries and have a range of 31 miles on purely electric power. Over the last few months, Volkswagen has invested heavily in li-ion battery technology. In addition to teaming up with Sanyo in a $769 million dollar development project, the company has also formed the Lithium-Ion Battery 2015 Alliance (LIB2015) with Bosch, BASF, Evonik and others, backed up by a €60 million investment from the German government.

Volkwagen says it will have a test-fleet of twenty Twin-Drive Golf’s on the road in 2010, but there is still no news on plans to ramp-up commercial production. Given the level of investment being ploughed into the technology, I have a hunch that such an announcement won’t be too long in coming.

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Sinclair dreams of 'flying cars'

Personal flying machines will be a reality, home computer and electric car pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair has said.

He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that soon it would be "economically and technically possible" to create flying cars for individuals.

Sir Clive is best-known for the Spectrum computer and his failed electric car effort, the C5.

"I'm sure it will happen and I am sure it will change the world dramatically," he predicted.

Despite his pioneering work in the field of computers, Sir Clive told BBC Radio 4 he was not an internet user.

"I don't use it myself directly," he said, explaining that as an inventor he tried to avoid "mechanical and technical things around me so they don't blur the mind".

He said the internet was "just wonderful and quite amazing" and its growth was not something he had predicted back in the 1980s.

"It has totally surprised me. I utterly failed to foresee that."

The celebrated inventor is not working on developing flying car technology currently but said he would "love to be involved" with any effort.

As a pioneer in personal transport, he said "flying cars were technically entirely possible".

"It would need to be automatically controlled because we can't all learn to fly.

"The vehicle would take off from your home and fly to wherever you want to go."

Sir Clive said personal flying machines would have to be electric powered, because petrol engines were not reliable enough.

Sir Clive pioneered many electronics fields - including portable TVs

But, he admitted, his 1980s venture into electric cars "didn't achieve the success I expected".

He said: "We did sell quite a few thousand. Looking back I can see why [we didn't have success].

"It was a bit daunting to go into traffic."

The rising cost of oil, combined with environmental concerns, have made alternative-energy powered cars a goal once more.

"Long before the C5, and ever since, I have strongly believed in electric vehicles. I am glad to say it's all happening at long last."

Sir Clive produced an electric powered bicycle, called the Zike, in 1992, but it too failed to capture the public's imagination.

His latest project is the A-Bike, a lightweight, foldable bicycle. But, he said, he still harboured hopes of returning to the electric car field.

"The thing is - to do an electric car is obviously a huge investment. I'd need huge success in the electric bike field," he said.
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Oxymoron of the day: Green NASCAR?

Yep, that's right. NASCAR is going green. How can the sport of cars going around a track for no purpose other than the sole enjoyment of going (or watching someone else go) really fast (hopefully faster than the other guy) be going green? Are they getting a bunch of electric Tesla Roadsters to race? As Ryan McGee of ESPN reported in his article, Darrell Walltrip (three-time Cup winner who's turned his talent into his new role as a TV analyst) says "The coolest thing about these cars is the noise...Forty-three electric cars rolling by going 'weeeeeee' just isn't all that cool."

So no. They're not doing that. Instead, they're looking to an invasive plant, the kudzu. In a nut shell, they'd take kudzu, mash it up into ethanol...

And turn NASCAR from this... Into this....

(Some of you might know that NASCAR has been using ethanol and ethanol blends for some time...however, this has all been corn based. And corn isn't necessarily stellar biofuel stuffs.) Just to give you a little background around this crazy kudzu plant...it was introduced to the US in 1876 from its native Japan with the hope of being a food source, as well as ornamental groundcovering.

Unfortunately, the kudzu took a little bit too well to American soil - between 1935 and 1950, the Soil Conservation Service encouraged farmers in the southeastern United States to fight soil erosion by planting kudzu. And then it took over. And I mean, it REALLY took over. This bad boy can grow a foot a day. Yeah, you heard me - 12 inches a day! Holy crap, is right. It's had devastating effects on the environs of the southeastern US, consuming vehicles, homes, and choking the life out of trees and other plants.

But have no fear! Your children, your homes, your cars...they will all be saved. By NASCAR!

In all seriousness...it might not be a terrible biofuel. According to Dr. Rowan Sage, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, kudzu could be a solid option. Growing it would clearly be a snap because it's so voracious all on its own. Harvesting existing "crops" would (hopefully) help restore some ecosystems. And if the fuel is at all efficient....perhaps we've found the silver lining to the "plant that ate the South."

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