Manuel said:
"This is great news! I hope all cities pass this into law.The practice of using plastic bags just to quickly dispose of them has been going on far t..." [read]
Jay Knecht said:
"What are the performance stats for the Son of Max? ..." [read]
gazelle said:
"@ Dallas:
The book, and the supplementary videos in the "How It All Ends" youtube series, address this in detail, but I'll try to paraphrase:..." [read]
Barry said:
"Kofi Annan has about as much of a clue about electric cars and developing countries as Ann Ann the Panda.
He underestimates the ingenuity o..." [read]
JJ said:
"Very cool. I didn't thought that biodesel might be our future fuel...." [read]
Derek said:
""I guarantee you this will spark huge debates around the world," she said. "We have to delve into this in a way that hasn't been done in a long tim..." [read]
Does It Matter? Depends How You Look at It...
Autocar reports that a source inside the company told them that Rolls Royce could have an electric version of its Phantom super-luxury car on the road by the end of 2010: "Internally it's thought that the near-silence of electric propulsion, and the fact that full torque is available from a standstill, would align perfectly with Rolls-Royce's core values. Engineers are currently hard at work making this a reality, although a running prototype has yet to hit the road."
From turning waste food into energy to delivering food by barge, UK supermarket Sainsbury's has been exploring alternative energy and transportation for some time. They even recently unveiled "people-powered" checkouts, though on closer inspection they appeared to be gasoline driven. Now the company is taking a significant step toward real, far-reaching electric vehicle infrastructure across London.
Roadster #203 Got Quite a Workout
Making a video game used to be all about a few guys writing code. But as the the industry grew into a mammoth, the production of games turned into huge enterprises employing tons of people and requiring more and more realistic sounds and images. One way to get realistic sounds is of course to go out in the field and record the real thing (we're pretty far from the BEEP BEEPs of old-school games). That's exactly what a few sound engineers from Microsoft Game Studios did when they found themselves needing some electric car sounds for the upcoming games Forza and Project Gotham Racing. Tom Burt, the owner of the electric Roadster #203 generously donated some sounds...
Image: CycleTracks iPhone App from Apple App Store
Crowdsourcing Bike Path Planning
People don't always go where you think they will. You can try to predict the best places for foot paths and bike routes, but you'll never be able to know for sure if they are located optimally... Unless there's a way to know where people are naturally going (the path of least resistance). That's exactly what the new free iPhone app by the San Francisco Transportation Authority is trying to do.
About Time
It's been almost 40 years since the EPA's SO2 standards were strengthened. Sounds like a tightening was overdue... Until now. The EPA is look at a proposal to establish a new national one-hour SO2 standard, between 50 and 100 parts per billion (ppb). "The existing primary standards were 140 ppb measured over 24-hours, and 30 ppb measured over an entire year. The Agency also is taking comment on alternative levels for the 1-hour standard up to 150 ppb."
American rock band '30 Seconds to Mars,' sing lyrics like: We were the kings and queens of promise / We were the victims of ourselves / These lessons that we learned here / Have only just begun. And they have chosen the vibrant bike culture of Los Angeles as the visual connection to their words.
Although parts of the city were closed off to allow for filming it is rather pleasing to see one of the world's more automobile-centric cities overrun with bicycles, with barely a car in sight. Though one does make a dramatic entrance stage left.
Good Intentions, But Let's Wait for Real-World Results
The Chinese government and many Chinese businesses have been making pretty big bets on electric cars in the past few years. In fact, the richest man in China, Wang Chuanfu (in Chinese: 王传福), owes much of his fortune (at least on paper) to investments in electric cars and their batteries. So it isn't surprising that electric cars were on the agenda during the meeting between Barack Obama and Hu Jintao; what came out of it is the US-China "Electric Vehicles Initiative".
Cyclists in Santa Clara. Not the actual bike-sharing program since there are no pics yet. Photo: Flickr, CC
First in the Bay Area
Despite talk about a bike-share program in San Francisco for the past couple of years, it looks like Santa Clara will actually beat them to the punch with a pilot program to be launched in mid-2010. Market research began last April, and about 1,200 surveys were conducted in the target area.
What with its lack of water, dependence on air conditioning and endless sprawl, people like Jim Kunstler don't think Phoenix has much of a future. That doesn't stop the people there from trying to be greener; an example is their great new light rail system, previously coverd by Mike in Video: Phoenix's Brand New Light Rail Has 60% More Users than Expected.
When I left supposedly transit-oriented Toronto for Greenbuild I had to pay fifty bucks for a limo to get to the airport; I paid 10 bucks to get from Phoenix Airport to my hotel in a hotel shuttle. The smoothest, coolest ride back to the airport by Light Rail: $ 1.75....
Is it a tricycle? Is it a weird bike? It's neither. Called Pardo, as an abbreviation of the word guepardo (which is cheetah in Spanish), this human powered vehicle seeks to imitate the movement and feeling of the animal. See how it works and more pics in the extended....
Quite a Character
I think the less I say about this one the better. You just have to see for yourself, and hopefully get it... For those who missed the previous appearance from Veronica, check out her interview (at the wheel of her SUV) here: Meet Veronica Moss, A.U.T.O. Lobbyist. I think she's a great character. Would love to have her visit other pedestrian and/or bike-friendly places to see her reaction. Via Streetfilms...
Photo: Nissan
Bigger Battery Optional, Instead of Bigger Engine
With gasoline and diesel powered vehicles, one of the biggest option choices facing buyers is engine size. 4 cylinders? A V6 maybe? Or even a V8? That's an important decision since the engine is at the heart of a vehicle. But when it comes to electric vehicles, the heart is no doubt the battery. This is why Tesla has announced battery options for its upcoming Model S electric sedan, and it is why Nissan is suggesting that it might eventually offer different battery options with its LEAF electric car....
Photo: WorkCycles Other photos via respective manufacturers.Bike Cargos for All Tastes!
In our endeavours to take a snapshot of the world of Bicycle Cargo we have to date looked at the Racks And Bags used for bicycle cargo as well as the Bike Trailer. Now in Chapter Three, we take a gander at over 20 Extended Frame Bikes, as used for the hauling of people, product or produce. As per usual, leave a message in the comments panel to alert fellow readers to any glaring omissions we've made. Please note, our earlier round-up of Quads and Tricycles also captured quite a few human powered-vehicles used as bicycle transport. (In the next upcoming chapter, we'll showcase some of those businesses that rely on cargo bikes to get the job done.)...
Building Bipartisan Support for Public Transportation
Our friends at Streetfilms did a short interview with William Lind, co-autor of Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. Mr. Lind seems to want to help "liberal transit advocates" translate some of their ideas in language that political conservatives can related to (well, some of them anyway), and his main goal seems to be the expansion of rail in the US. I highly recommend that you watch the video above if only for the part where he talks about how subsidized the highway system is. Via Streetfilms. See also: Warren Buffett Makes a $44 Billion (!) Bet on Trains....
Flickr/BeijingPatrol
When Beijing Policeman Tan, the star of his very own local news segment, stops a motorcyclist because his passenger isn't wearing his helmet, we get an earful on gender norms, hairstyles, and one of our favorite topics -- helmets! See the video below....
Image credit: Peak Moment TV
From four-wheel-drive human-powered SUVs, to pedicabs, to cargo bikes, pedal-powered transportation is evolving. Students at Chico State University are determined to speed up that evolution with their Human-Powered-Vehicle challenge. Peak Moment TV took a ride on the winning entry. Check it out—I want one....
Image credit: Greenspeed
As the former owner of a Brompton folding bike, I know how convenient a human-powered vehicle that packs up small can be. But while the Brompton was great for commutes, it wasn't the finest touring bike in the world. So imagine my intrigue when I came across a folding recumbent trike. And then I saw a video of this thing doing some serious downhill action, and I fell in love....
Some 86 percent of Saudis have cars. Photo of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, via Ar-Riyadh Development Authority.
From instituting traffic calming measures to building metrobus systems, there are plenty of ways to ease congestion on the roads. But radio listeners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, think they have a better idea: Keep foreigners and the elderly from driving....
Image: Garmin
Knowledge is Power
Most of us probably don't realize that over the past few years our cars have turned into computers on wheels. There are tons of sensors everywhere, but most of that information isn't available to the driver. That's a shame, because if it was parsed through a user-intuitive interface, it could provide very useful feedback that could help people drive more efficiently (the Prius LCD effect). Well, this is exactly what Garmin is trying to do with a new add-on cable that can plug into your car's diagnostics communication port and feed that real-time data to your GPS device....
Photo: Dartz
A New Kind of Penis Car For Billionaire Oligarchs with No Taste
Some companies specialize in excess. Nobody really needs a Rolls Royce, but some people feel a need for exclusivity. Other companies go ever further and attempt excessive excess, like Dartz with its Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car (price tag: £1 million, or $1.65 million). It comes with tons of bling, such as ridiculously hyper-expensive vodka in a flask made out of pure gold, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhausts, and diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges. Totally ridiculous, but I guess if you're some billionaire oligarch with no taste, it can work. Dartz seems to have gone a bit too far with the seats, though: They wanted to make them from whale penis leather (apparently it's very soft), and this drew protest from many environmental groups....
Source: Dangerous By Design
It's the Jungle Out There!
San Francisco is definitely pedestrian-friendly in many ways compared to many cities, but being walkable doesn't always mean that it is safe. A new report by Transportation for America ranks the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area 13th safest for walkers, based on an index that takes into account annual pedestrian deaths and the percentage of workers who commute by foot. Our friends at Streetsblog SF dug deeper and found that things are worse than they first seem: "47.7 percent of all traffic fatalities in San Francisco are pedestrians, more than four times the national average of 11.8 percent. The rate of pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents is 2.60 in San Francisco, 70 percent higher than the national average of 1.53."...
Image: Center for Neighborhood Technology, I-GOLies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news: Hybrid registrations were up 38% in 2007, over 350,000 hybrids replacing internal combustion motors on the US roadways. The bad news: Headlines are touting a new study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finding that hybrids are hitting pedestrians and bicyclists more than traditional cars, especially when operating at low speeds, presumably with the engine in electric-only mode. Are hybrids a hazard? Or should we consider the opinion of Mark Twain, that statistics cannot be trusted?
For example, if hybrids spend more of their kilometers driving in metro areas, does that change the conclusion? What if hybrid drivers are more likely to report minor accidents than ICE drivers, being naturally more civic-minded? Conversely, what if hybrid owners are so smug about driving their eco-car that they feel entitled to ram the occasional walker or sever a bicyclist's leg? ...
Even in the early heydays, Henry Ford was fond of using plants like hemp and straw to reinforce plastic components for his cars. Now bioplastics are back and turning up in cell phones, forks, and more. Ford Motors started trying out soy-based seat foam a few years back, and is now expanding its palette of plant plastics. It's a small step, but the 2010 Ford Flex will be the first car to feature a plastic part that contains wheat straw....
Image via: Antenna MagazineShare
Don't we wish it were that easy: Just go online, pick all the green attributes you want, and then pick up you own custom solar car the next week or month at a dealership. You could add solar panels, make it a plug-in, add a charging port for your iPod and make the dimensions just roomy enough for your family without requiring a special permit to park it in a normal parking space. Oh well, we can always dream. Now Kia wants you to dream big on their website by designing your own custom (solar) car for a chance to win $1,000USD....
Image credit: 10:10 Campaign
The 10:10 Campaign has been receiving massive attention in the UK, signing up everyone from government ministers to major corporations with pledges to cut their own CO2 emissions 10% by 2010. It almost won a vote in parliament to reduce the entire country's emissions by 10% too. So you'd think think they'd be pleased when they receive an application from the country's third largest airport, an institution that is creating power with biomass grown and burned on site; running an experimental electric car; installing energy efficient lighting, and buying all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Don't count on it. In a move that's brought accusations of eco-snobbery, 10:10 turned the Manchester Airport Group down. Here's why. ...
Evel Knievel (here in the 1970s in Fort Lauderdale) wore a special suit and helmet for his Florida biking. According to Transportation for America's (ToA's) new report Dangerous by Design, 43,000 pedestrians have been killed this decade (3,906 children under 16) due in part to roads and streets that are poorly designed, that is, mainly with cars instead of pedestrians in mind. And the deadliest of all metro areas is none other than Orlando, Florida, known as "O Town" and home to that mecca for kids known as DisneyWorld. But Florida's other main towns and metro areas don't fare much better in ToA's report....
Photo: DeltaMike on Flickr
The other day Lloyd highlighted the ways in which cyclists are most often killed in altercations with motor vehicles. But not everyone shakes off this mortal coil after a bike accident. Many folk are injured. Now it seems that he severity of injuries and time spent in hospitalized for bicycle injuries has significantly increased At least that is the findings of the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center....
Image via Earth2Tech
It's one of those ideas that crosses your mind while you're stuck in never-ending stop and go traffic on some ugly stretch of the highway: what if there were some sort of a sensor that could put all of those cars into lockstep? Some sort of automated driving system that would keep that SOB from cutting you off and wedging himself into your lane--something that would make the whole process more efficient, help control the traffic flow, and even let you take your hands off the wheel for long stretches of road.
Well, a test version of exactly that is underway in Europe--it's called the 'road train', and it could revolutionize highway driving....
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
on 11.20.09
What with its lack of water, dependence on air conditioning and endless sprawl, people like 
Is it a tricycle? Is it a weird bike? It's neither. Called Pardo, as an abbreviation of the word guepardo (which is cheetah in Spanish), this human powered vehicle seeks to imitate the movement and feeling of the animal. See how it works and more pics in the extended....
Photo: Nissan
Bigger Battery Optional, Instead of Bigger Engine
With gasoline and diesel powered vehicles, one of the biggest option choices facing buyers is engine size. 4 cylinders? A V6 maybe? Or even a V8? That's an important decision since the engine is at the heart of a vehicle. But when it comes to electric vehicles, the heart is no doubt the battery. This is why Tesla has announced battery options for its upcoming 
Photo: 
Flickr/
Image credit: 
Image credit: 
Some 86 percent of Saudis have cars. Photo of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, via 
Image: Garmin
Knowledge is Power
Most of us probably don't realize that over the past few years our cars have turned into computers on wheels. There are tons of sensors everywhere, but most of that information isn't available to the driver. That's a shame, because if it was parsed through a user-intuitive interface, it could provide very useful feedback that could help people drive more efficiently (the Prius LCD effect). Well, this is exactly what Garmin is trying to do with a new add-on cable that can plug into your car's diagnostics communication port and feed that real-time data to your GPS device....
Photo: Dartz
A New Kind of Penis Car For Billionaire Oligarchs with No Taste
Some companies specialize in excess. Nobody really needs a Rolls Royce, but some people feel a need for exclusivity. Other companies go ever further and attempt excessive excess, like 
Source: Dangerous By Design
It's the Jungle Out There!
San Francisco is definitely pedestrian-friendly in many ways compared to many cities, but being walkable doesn't always mean that it is safe. A new report by 
Image: 
Image via: 
Image credit: 
Evel Knievel (here in the 
Photo: 
Image via 
