The company, started in 2009, said in March of this year it intended to have the prototype of its lightweight, electric powertrain vehicle, the Qbeak, ready to launch in 2012. However, ECOmove recently announced a third, more updated version of its city car, and that the prototype will closely resemble the final product.

In a statement, CEO Mogens Løkke said the company is “convinced that the first Qbeak will be ready to leave the factory in 2014.”

Mixed in with the announcement of the latest version of the prototype, the company acknowledged it came up short in a bid to launch the car this year, citing long lead times as a major hurdle.

The current Qbeak prototype now has a charging structure and instrumentation, and overall is developed enough that company is ready to move toward production.

Speaking to Gizmag.com Løkke said the company will announce details on the car’s battery at a later time. “However, I can confirm that the system for simple battery swap-outs is integrated and will support more different power module systems (we are working on a fuel cell system),” stated Løkke.

“The smartphone integration is progressing and is still to be implemented in the Qbeak III,” he added. “We will soon demonstrate an intelligent sound alert system as an option for warning pedestrians. We are performing simulations for crash but are planning to run some destructive tests soon.”

ECOmove also said it is seeking strategic partnerships in manufacturing and supply chain management to ensure a smooth transition to mass-producing the Qbeak. The company says it’s currently in discussions with foreign and domestic companies that will be able to assemble and deliver cars for the major markets such as Europe, America and Asia, including China.

The post ECOmove Unveils Third Qbeak EV Prototype, Ready By 2014 appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Attending a meeting of the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce, Pierre-Luc Desgagné, Senior Director – Strategic Planning at Hydro-Québec, took the opportunity to announce, on behalf of The Electric Circuit’s founding partners, the selected locations for the first public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) to be installed in Quebec’s Estrie region and the Sherbrooke area.
Four stations are already in service in Sherbrooke, at the Marché de la Gare, the parking lot at La Grenouillère downtown, the Plateau Sylvie-Daigle and the Centre récréatif de Rock Forest.

Over the next few weeks, more will be installed at five Université de Sherbrooke sites: the main campus, innovation park and health campus in Sherbrooke and the MiQro Innovation Collaborative Centre in Bromont.

The Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Sherbrooke and Cégep de Sherbrooke will also set up charging stations at 300, rue King Est, and 475, rue du Cégep, in Sherbrooke.

“I’d like to thank the Chamber of Commerce for its warm welcome and underscore the important role played by the City and its institutional partners in supporting the public EV charging station network in Estrie. It’s a very dynamic community and I’m convinced that local service companies will soon get involved, too,” said Mr. Desgagné after his presentation. “The addition of these stations is very important to us, because it will serve the Montréal-Sherbrooke corridor, a key focus of development for The Electric Circuit,” he concluded.

Louise Bourgault, Vice President and Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, stated during the meeting that “the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce is more than satisfied with the scope of The Electric Circuit in the region. It will encourage motorists to go green.”

The post The Electric Circuit’s Estrie Expansion appeared first on HybridCars.com.

As the subtext in our masthead says, we actually cover all “Auto alternatives for the 21st century.” This has long since been seen as a natural evolution to the mission that years ago led to focusing on hybrids as a means to sustainable transportation.

Where we recognize the “all of the above” approach policymakers and the industry are edging toward with all-electric, diesel, natural gas, and other technologies, we’d be remiss not to cover these as well.

So, the saga continues, and today’s updated site is in keeping with our intent to move onward and upward as well.

We have good things planned for the months ahead and pushed this launch with much content from the original HybridCars.com carried over. There will be more updating in weeks to come, and our aim will be to continue with what you liked about HybridCars.com including news, reviews, features, videos now just begun, and more.

Having majored over the past year-plus on briefed daily news with car reviews interspersed, going forward we’ll be doing more features and longer pieces as well. These will be prominent on the home page. Some time after February we also will launch an updated newsletter which readers can easily sign up for via a sidebar interface.

Our forum will be cleaned up ASAP as well. The old site was in a different content management system more vulnerable to spam. We intend to nip that in the bud, and retroactively prepare a usable forum for worthwhile discussion.

Be sure also to check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

As always you can contact us with thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

Thanks for reading!

Jeff Cobb
Editor-in-Chief

The post Welcome to the new HybridCars.com! appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The car market in China is expanding at a dizzying rate. Will the country pins its hopes on unproven technologies, or begin working with proven solutions?

In a global drama to reduce the environmental impact from cars and trucks, China is taking center stage. China’s vehicle market is already the second largest in the world, after the United States, and rapidly expanding. By 2030, the total number of personal cars in China is expected to exceed the United States—which means the total number of cars on roads worldwide will approach two billion.

The cars on display at the current Shanghai auto show indicates that China is serious about alternatives to the internal combustion engine—but also reveals that it has not sorted out the differences between real short-term solutions and long-term dreams. In their coverage of the Shanghai show, the New York Times reported that the Chinese government has not chosen among options like electric battery cars, fuel cells, hybrids and ethanol combustion, but wants the industry to move quickly to find the best approach and adopt it.

Western environmentalists have long speculated whether China may actually leapfrog the West in personal transportation by embracing new automotive technologies before the country’s oil and auto industries can become too wedded to internal combustion engines.

The odds of such a leapfrogging have eroded because nobody has yet surmounted the technological obstacles that prevent a broad switch from gasoline technology to hydrogen fuel cells, said An Feng, the executive director of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation in Beijing.

Japanese companies, particularly Toyota and Honda, are already far ahead in the hybrid gasoline-electric designs that have proved more attractive lately to Chinese companies than fuel cells, said Kelly Sims Gallagher, the director of the Energy Technology Innovation Project at Harvard.

The key question is how much environmental damage will occur before China realizes that hybrids and other conventional fuel-saving technologies are ready today—while it throws investment dollars and engineering resources at hydrogen fuel cells.

***

> Read Full Story

> More Hybrid Cars News

The post Debate in Shanghai: Hybrid or Fuel Cell appeared first on HybridCars.com.

There’s no better adventure guide than Paul Cortes of Art’s Automotive in Berkeley, California.

Honda Insight Oil Leak
The repair of a messy oil leak on a Honda Insight becomes a kaleidoscopic journey through the mechanics of the retired king of hybrid fuel economy. Along the way, we learn about the similarities and differences between the Insight, other hybrids, and conventional vehicles.

Toyota Prius RFID Unit
Replacing the ECU for a Toyota Prius RFID immobilizer is harder than it looks.

Stay tuned for more adventures.

The post Adventures of a Hybrid Mechanic appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Guzzle a Little, Guzzle a Lot
The Union of Concerned Scientists, like the Sierra Club, BlueWater Network, the Rainforest Action Network/Global Exchange, and others, share the view that the latest hybrids are being used as greenwash, but they appear divided on which car company is the worst culprit. The UCS, for example, sees General Motors as enemy number one. They have applied the term "hollow hybrid" to GM’s current hybrid offerings. Jason Mark said, "We think that hybrid technology ought to be reserved for the environmental and consumer benefits they can deliver. Every quasi-hybrid under the sun is being labeled as hybrid for public relations benefits." Mark thinks that hybrid technology should be put to better uses than turning a 16-mpg vehicle into an 18-mpg vehicle. "The point is not to turn extreme gas-guzzlers into moderate gas guzzlers."

What perturbs Mark and others is not only the mislabeling or misuse of hybrid technology on the part of certain automakers, but that those same automakers are lobbying and litigating to block any public policy that will hold them accountable for the detrimental environmental and social effects of their products. Mark calls GM "the bad boys of public policy for fuel economy, emissions, and greenhouse gases. In all public forums, they are the most aggressive in fighting environmental regulations. If you ask anybody to rank the automakers on their policy performance, GM would be on the bottom."

Prove That It’s Easy Being Green
The folks at Jumpstart Ford, a project of Global Exchange and the Rainforest Action Network, might disagree. Their disapproval and public protests are aimed at the Ford Motor Co.. Jennifer Krill, zero emissions campaign director for the Rainforest Action Network, thinks that Ford deserves credit for producing the Ford Escape Hybrid. But, she said, the same year that Ford released the Escape Hybrid, they "had the worst overall fuel-efficiency record. One hybrid doesn’t let them off the hook for being the most wasteful automaker."

Don’t think that Prius-producing Toyota has escaped the attention of the environmentalists. Last fall, when Toyota launched their "Hybrid Synergy Drive" ad campaign, BlueWater Network launched their own campaign, entitled "Toyota: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing." The full-page ads in the New York Times and other publications showed CEO Katsuaki Watanabe in the foreground and a man wearing a wolf’s head in the background. Danielle Fugere, director of climate change at BlueWater, said, " What people don’t know, and what we wanted to tell them, is that Toyota is not as green as it makes itself out to be. Yes, it has some good green technology, like the Prius. But Toyota has consistently lobbied against every attempt to increase vehicle fuel economy. It’s part of a group of automakers suing against California’s greenhouse gas law."

Whereas the various environmental groups have each chosen a different company to target for their public education campaigns, they stand unified in their criticism of the automakers who have sued California to block the enactment of AB1493, the greenhouse-gas-capping law known as the Pavley Law. The regulation, which could affect as much as 30 percent of the U.S. market (not just California), would phase in from 2009 to 2016. It would require the auto industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its new fleets by approximately 30 percent.

The response from automakers is that greenhouse gas restrictions are a surrogate for fuel economy, because increasing fuel efficiency is the only effective way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Therefore, they claim, California is trying to regulate fuel economy standards, which only can be established at the federal level. Otherwise, they argue, manufacturers would have to produce vehicles based on two or more different emissions standards. (In fact, tailpipe emissions are already set at the state level.)

BlueWaterNetwork, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, and the National Resources Defense Council have all joined the lawsuit to defend the Pavley Law against the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Alliance of International Automobile Manufacturers, which includes all of the major carmakers, including those who sell hybrids.

The state of California and the environmental groups say that greenhouse gas emissions are not strictly related to fuel economy. Fugere said, "The automakers can comply by using alternative fuel vehicles. In some cases, an alternative fuel vehicle will get less fuel economy. California doesn’t care if fuel economy goes up or goes down. We want to know how much CO2 is coming up from the tailpipe."

The legal contest, scheduled for 2007, is shaping up into the biggest battle over automobile emissions and efficiency since CAFE was enacted 30 years ago.

It also highlights the fact that producing a hybrid—however you define it—no longer qualifies a car company as a green company. Fugere said, "I would like to have a name like ‘hybrid’ to denote this is a great, fuel-efficient vehicle. (But) Point of fact, the auto manufacturers are using the hybrid terminology to fool people."

Now, the only way for a car company to considered environmentally friendly is to remove their name from the lawsuit blocking the Pavley Law. Toyota? Honda? Ford? Anybody?

The post The New Green Litmus Test appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The effect of weather on disease can be dramatic. In one period of turbulent weather from 1992 to 1994, the study found a six to eight-fold increase in the number of cholera cases.

The researchers found that both floods and droughts promote cholera infections.

Floods caused by heavy monsoons often contaminate drinking water. Droughts and heat waves, sometimes caused by warming waters in the nearby Bay of Bengal, promote growth of the cholera bacterium in ponds and rivers.

"What this shows is that meteorological factors are dominant," said Dr. Paul R. Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He was not involved in the study. "It’s the extremes that are bad for our health."

Cholera, a major problem in developing nations, is caused by Vibrio cholerae, a bacterium that spreads through contaminated food and water. It causes severe diarrhea, and without rapid treatment often leads to dehydration and death.

American, Spanish and Bangladeshi researchers studied the severity of cyclical cholera outbreaks in Matlab, Bangladesh, in the Ganges and Brahmaputra river deltas.

They examined disease rates and climatic conditions, including rainfall, from 1966 to 2002. The severity of cholera outbreaks corresponded to harsh conditions stimulated by El Niño, a weather pattern with global effects that stems from warming in the Pacific Ocean.

"Even when you take the degree of immunity into account, there is still solid evidence for the role of climate variability in cholera rates," said Mercedes Pascual, an ecologist at the University of Michigan and coauthor of the study.

Systems designed to track local immunity levels, and monitor ocean temperature and rainfall, could eventually predict cholera outbreaks—a step that could help scientists determine effects of global warming on disease patterns, she said.

The post Global Warming and Cholera Rates appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Dengue Fever

Dengue, or "breakbone", fever is a mosquito borne disease related to yellow fever. Unlike its relative, however, there is no vaccine against dengue.

The range of the mosquito which carries dengue fever is limited by temperatures. Frost kills both adults and larvae. In the past, this has prevented the disease from spreading from the tropics, but rising temperatures are changing that. It has moved steadily north in recent decades, and to higher elevations. In the United States the mosquito which carries dengue has reached as far north as Chicago.

Dengue fever has already infected victims in the US. When McAllen, Texas suffered an outbreak of the disease in 1995, the Houston Chronicle’s headline read, "Warming Climate Invites Dengue Fever to Texas."

Malaria

Like dengue fever, malaria is a mosquito borne illness normally limited by temperatures. Rising temperatures have expanded its range, and exposed new populations to infection. IPCC scientists project that as warmer temperatures continue to spread north and south from the tropics and to higher elevations, malaria-carrying mosquitoes will spread with them. They project that global warming could put as much as 65 percent of the world’s population at risk of infection by malaria.

Here in the United States malaria infections are already on the rise. Houston has experienced a malaria outbreak in each of the last two years. In the last three years malaria cases have occurred as far north as New Jersey, Michigan and Queens, New York. In 1997 an outbreak occurred in Florida, striking the Disney World theme park, and mosquitoes carrying the illness were discovered in New York.

Cholera and Encephalitis

Climate-related increases in sea surface temperatures and sea level can lead to higher incidence of water-borne infectious and toxin-related illnesses such as cholera and shellfish poisoning.

Outbreaks of encephalitis, another illness with strong links to warmer temperatures, also appear to be on the rise. Since 1987 there have been major outbreaks in Florida, Mississippi, New Orleans, Texas, Arizona, California, and Colorado.

The post Dramatic Malaria. Dengue Fever. Encephalitis. appeared first on HybridCars.com.

And the problem is made significantly worse by global warming. According to a report issued by the General Accounting Office, a combination of melting permafrost and shortened season for their protective sea ice barrier due to climate change, Arctic communities are increasingly vulnerable to erosion and the impacts of fall storms.

The Bottom Line: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is debating whether to try to literally relocate Shishmaref at a cost of $180 million or relocate the whole community to Nome for half the price. Four other communities — Dillingham, Bethel, Newtok, and Kivaline — are also facing severe erosion. Some of these communities, however, are too
large to move.

How it Affects You: Shishmaref and the Arctic Circle are far enough away from the lives of most Americans, in terms of distance and lifestyle, that most of us never or rarely think about the problems facing these communities. But, even if you are not a resident of Shishmaref, the reality is that global warming in the Arctic Circle impacts all of us.

Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. When the protective cooling layer of snow and ice over the Arctic melts, the earth absorbs more sunlight and gets hotter. The rising temperatures are not only affecting Alaska, but sensitive ecosystems from alpine meadows to coral reefs. If global warming is left unchecked we will all feel the heat close to home, whether from more severe drought, more frequent heat waves, or the spread of disease-carrying insects.

The post Dramatic Erosion in Shishmaref, Alaska appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Montana’s Glacier National Park is one of America’s most majestic treasures. Each year, some 2,000,000 visitors visit the park, pumping millions of dollars into the state’s economy, but this national landmark—and its tourist dollars—will soon vanish forever. A recent New York Times Travel article warned, see the remaining glaciers “While Supplies Last.” (6/26/05)

Across the world, glaciers are difficult to reach and even harder to measure. Because Glacier National Park is protected and accessible, it’s a perfect study ground for experts eager to discover the secrets of climate change. Until recently, just 1,000 of the world’s 160,000 glaciers had been adequately examined, leaving huge holes in the Global Warming puzzle.

NASA is changing that. Scientists from 23 countries have teamed up with the space agency to form the Global Land Ice Measurement Project (GLIMS). Using a sophisticated satellite called ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer), they are carefully photographing and studying all of the world’s glaciers.

Early results from the research are disheartening: glaciers across the world are receding at alarming rates.

Glacial melting doesn’t simply wipe out beautiful tourist parks. The introduction of large volumes of melting ice can cause severe, seasonal local flooding. Globally, melting glaciers will dump enormous amounts of fresh water into the oceans. That will reduce the amount of salt in the sea water, and could well disrupt the ocean’s delicate ecosystem.

Glacier National Park should serve as a poignant reminder to us all; our climate is delicate.

The post The Death of a National Park? appeared first on HybridCars.com.