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New Italian company Tazzari aims to address one of the key shortcomings of electric cars — recharge time — by offering a vehicle capable of taking a full charge in just 45 minutes. Tazzari hasn’t clarified what kind of outlet is required for this compressed recharge time, but as it’s an Italian company, we’ll assume at least a 220v is needed, but likely not a commercial-grade three-phase unit like the one required by the Lightning GT supercar. By comparison, the Tesla Roadster takes 8 hours or so to recharge its batteries, but it’s also capable of a sub 4-second 0-60 time, a 125 MPH top speed and a range of 200 miles. The Tazzari, which will presumably be far cheaper, is only capable of hitting 56 MPH, has a range of 93 miles and does 0-31 MPH in “less than 5 seconds.” While it’s not a performance car, the Tazzari Zero actually looks like it has significant merit as a city runabout, having range and performance considerably greater than its main competition, the G-Wiz. Like...
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Only two companies achieved the voluntary average CO2 target of 140 g/km that European automakers set for themselves in the late 1990's to avoid actual government sanctions. Fiat and Mini were the big winners with emissions of 138.2 and 139.6 g/km, respectively. The worst offenders were Porsche (275.6 g/km), Land Rover (249.2 g/km) and Jeep (218.7 g/km). The figures were published by Clean Green Cars , which also pointed out that "Every manufacturer with average new car emissions significantly above 200 g/km of CO2 saw sales slump from January to June." Clearly, voluntary agreements are working. Why oh why then did the EU have to implement non-voluntary emissions targets for 2012? Press release below the jump. Fiat tops the CO2 league; Porsche is rock bottom Figures published exclusively by Clean Green Cars today reveal that Fiat and MINI are only mainstream manufacturers whose average tailpipe CO2 is now under 140 g/km. That figure was the target car makers' set themselves...
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The problem with the green movement isn't its goal of conservation — that's admirable — it's the gullibility many of its proponents suffer from and which big companies and governments are able to exploit to sell them on far-from-friendly products and policies. Take biofuel for instance. Many of its sources use more energy and effort than they're capable of producing, yet they receive subsidies and publicity over sources that might actually prove sustainable. This chart, put together by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer neatly sums this up. We only spot one glaring omission, poop . galleryPost('biofuelscompare', 6, 'Biofuels Comparison Chart'); [ Seattle PI via Treehugger ] Photogrpahy credit: Daniel Leininger
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With green-this, hydrogen-that, hybrid-this and Al Gore-that all slowly taking over the pages of Jalopnik, we thought that we still had the safe haven known as the "traditional engine" to fall back on, free from worries about the environment or mpg or anything else. Until now. Welcome G-Oil to the party, the green-alternative to traditional motor oil. This oil supposedly uses nanotechnology and dehydrogenation, whatever the hell those do, to be all green-like. It contains amino acid, plant exacts, plant-based fatty acids and non-ionic surfacants. Sounds like it would make a nice shampoo! One appealing feature is that when it comes time for an oil change you can combine the G-Oil with Green Earth Technology's G-DISPOSOIL to ensure the oil is 100 percent biodegradable. G-Oil also comes in a variety of weighs including 5w-20, 5w-30, 10w-30, 10w-40, 15w-40, 20w-50 and SAE-30. Man, going green is freaking awesome! [ Toolmonger ]
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Rather than focusing vehicle-development and alternative-energy resources on finding different kinds of fuel , students and researchers at Georgia Tech are taking a couple steps back and looking at the emissions problem. The project currently being worked on involves a car that still operates on standard liquid fuels, but the kicker is the carbon emissions. The car will collect those and shuttle them back to a processing plant that can convert them back into fuel, taking out two birds with one stone. Eventually the team is looking into a long-term strategy that would involve creation of a truly and completely sustainable system. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the process as well, so take a gander at the press release below and see if you can figure out all of the eggheady scientific jargon. ATLANTA (February 11, 2008) --Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant...
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