Better looking than the Fusion

Ford really pumped the fuel economy of the Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids today, trying desperately to one-up Toyota.

In terms of design and styling, I still prefer the Camry hybrid. Nonetheless, I definitely prefer the Milan styling over that of the Fusion.

Regardless, until Ford is willing to build more than 25,000 of these hybrid cars per year, I still can’t get too excited.

I’ve seen the future and I like it

Check out Honda’s new sport fuel cell vehicle. Based on the same fuel cell technology in the Clarity fuel cell vehicle, the FCSPORT is about to make me beg for the hydrogen highway Now!

The CNG Camry Hybrid. Click to enlarge. Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) USA showed a compressed natural gas (CNG) Camry Hybrid concept vehicle at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. (Earlier post.) The CNG Camry Hybrid concept was designed by the…

It’s a fact. Corn ethanol has lost its luster. Its intrigue has gone from, say, Sean Connery in Dr. No, to the “let’s-just-pretend-they-never-happened” Timothy Dalton years. Each day now brings news of another ethanol plant closure or project put on “hold.” In fact, the stream of bad news for corn ethanol has become so steady that it has largely faded into background noise — just another sign of a crashing economy.

In reality, however, corn ethanol was set up for a crash before the faltering world economy gave it the impetus to go over the edge. I’m not suggesting that corn ethanol is going extinct, just that, as some industry experts have put it, corn ethanol is going through a “major adjustment” where the outcome will be large swaths of consolidation and efficiency improvements within the industry.

In a way, corn ethanol is finally coming of age. To put it crudely, little Timmy has stopped having wet dreams and gone out and met some actual women.

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Filed under: Diesel, Emerging Technologies, MPG, Toyota, European Union, UK

Stop/start technology is finally gaining some real traction, especially in fuel-starved Europe where petrol is really expensive. When the engine isn’t needed to power the vehicle, it shuts down in lieu of idling away, which is a definite boon for efficiency and especially in urban settings. Toyota is entering the anti-idle arena with its Auris, which sees the technology applied to its 1.3-liter diesel engine. So equipped, the Auris emits 135g/km of CO₂ while improving mileage to 48.7 mpg in the EU combined cycle (about 40 mph U.S.) when mated to the standard six speed manual transmission.

Toyota calls its new system Optimal Drive. Like the firm’s Hybrid Synergy Drive, which debuted on the seminal Prius, expect the Japanese giant to begin rolling out its Optimal Drive technology to more models, including the upcoming iQ microcar, which will be doing battle with smart’s micro-hybrid fortwo.

[Source: Toyota]

Continue reading Toyota Auris gets stop/start in U.K., introduces Optimal Drive

Toyota Auris gets stop/start in U.K., introduces Optimal Drive originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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