Apollo's fuel-cell power legacy. (online video included).
BMW launches hydrogen car. (online video included).
This webpage is made up of anything relating to cars that may have relevance to any one of us "hence the reason for this webpage".
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BMW launches hydrogen car. (online video included).
Electric
Cars could do more harm than good.
12th Nov 2009.There are a numerous other links to more on this subject which you can see on the pages above if you look hard enough which are for planes, boats etc all using Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
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1st September 2009.
A 2p-per-litre fuel tax rise came into
effect on Tuesday (this morning), the third such increase in the last nine months.
The latest tax hike brings the average price of a litre of petrol to 107p, up from
85p a litre at the beginning of the year.
The government said the move was necessary to support public finances.
Motoring groups have reacted angrily to the latest increase, which comes to 2.3p
with VAT included, and warned there was worse to come.
RAC motoring strategist Adrian Tink said: "This third fuel-duty hike is unacceptable.
Since the start of 2009, Britain's motorists have seen a 23% rise in pump prices,
meaning an extra 11 pounds per tank for the average car.
"The Chancellor seems to regard Britain's 30 million motorists as a soft target
for tax and with this latest rise he risks alienating them even further."
Tink added that fuel duty was likely to go up again in April.
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16th April 2009.
Motorists will be offered subsidies of up to £5,000 in 2 years time to encourage them to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars under plans announced by the government. See more on this subject. (External link).
Why do we have to wait until then and why do we have to have such a poor product with mileage limitations on it? What is more annoying is the fact that there is a vehicle which is not lacking in any form and is available now but not in the UK! Why not? Are you interested to know more on this it is well worth the look to see what should be on offer IN MY View!! click this External Link to see it. (if it is good enough for them why is it not good enough for us?
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16th July 2009.
Richard Hollingham reports from California
on how technology that took man to the Moon could soon take shoppers regularly to
the mall.
It looks like an ordinary SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle), the sort of chunky 4X4 you'll
find jamming American roads.
It's only when you take a drive that you realise that this is something very different.
I'm no motoring correspondent but, as we pull out of the parking lot, it's difficult
not to be impressed by this car's smooth acceleration.
What's even more disconcerting is that the vehicle is almost totally silent - the
only noise comes from the wind buffeting the windows and the squeal of the tyres
as we bomb down the freeway.
"The car drives with electricity but - unlike a battery-electric car that you need
to plug in to charge - the fuel cell vehicle makes electricity on-board from the
hydrogen stored in a tank," explained Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of
the California Fuel Cell Partnership.
"The fuel cell is a fuel conversion device that converts hydrogen to electricity,"
she told the BBC World Service's One Planet programme.
The only by-product is water - the ultimate 'zero-emission' vehicle.
Drinking by-product
The partnership, based in the Californian state capital Sacramento, was set-up 10
years ago to promote fuel cell vehicles and involves carmakers, energy companies
and government agencies.
And although "fuel conversion device" sounds terribly futuristic, the basic technology
of the fuel cell has been around for more than 150 years.
Like a battery, a fuel cell uses a chemical process to generate electricity. Inside
the fuel cell, a catalyst strips hydrogen into positively charged hydrogen ions
and electrons. The positive ions pass across a special membrane and react with oxygen
(from the air) to form water. The electrons have to take the long way round and
flow through a circuit to generate electricity.
But with a world powered by coal and oil, no-one knew what to use these things for,
until Nasa needed a way to power its spacecraft.
The agency turned to British engineer Francis Bacon.
During the Apollo 8 mission of 1968, Bacon told a BBC reporter how excited he was
to see "a real genuine use for a fuel cell".
When it came to powering Apollo (and the previous Gemini missions), fuel cells were
perfect. Less bulky than batteries and more efficient than 1960s solar panels, they
even produced a useful by-product: water, which the astronauts could drink.
So, great if you want to go to the Moon but it's still been a struggle to apply
the technology back on Earth.
Various US government initiatives have come and gone, fuel cell cars have remained
as prototypes. There are hydrogen fuel cells around but they've proved to be a niche
market. That could, finally, be about to change.
Just how clean?
A quick scout through a list of California's hi-tech start-up companies and you'll
find many of them devoted to the technology.
"There are a lot of people working on fuel cells in California," Fritz Prinz, the
chair of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, said.
"They are trying to create new ideas, making fuel cells more cost effective, more
efficient, for a variety of different applications from personal power to mobile
applications such as cars."
The first hydrogen fuel cell cars are due to go on sale in the next five years and
with governments keen to wean their nations off oil, they would seem to be a viable
alternative.
But a number of issues remain. Hydrogen fuel cell cars need hydrogen and, even in
California, there are only around 25 filling stations in the whole of the state.
The other problem is even more fundamental: where does the hydrogen come from?
"Most hydrogen today is made from natural gas," admits Ms Dunwoody.
So although the cars are technically zero emission, the process of making the hydrogen
produces carbon dioxide.
Nevertheless, she says, it's still greener than burning it.
"When you make hydrogen from natural gas and use it in a fuel cell vehicle, you
immediately cut your carbon emissions by 50%. But there's a lot of work going on
in California on creating renewable hydrogen," and that includes using hydrogen
produced from wastewater biogas.
The ultimate goal is to produce an efficient way of extracting hydrogen from water.
Imagine that? Cars powered by water.
What's certain is that without the effort that went into getting a spacecraft to
the Moon, the development of efficient, useful hydrogen fuel cells would be nowhere
near as advanced as it is today.
Said Dunwoody: "This is our future, this technology is tremendously efficient and
clean and, most importantly, it's going to give customers the performance they expect
from their vehicle."
External source which includes a live sound
track.
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9th July 2009.
Hydrogen refuel station unveiled
ITM Power's Jim Heathcoate demonstrates a car fuelled by home-brewed hydrogen
A hydrogen refuelling station which could be installed in the home as an alternative
to visiting a petrol station has been unveiled.
Users will need a hydrogen-powered car to go with it although the system can also
be used for heating and cooking.
Hydrogen has long been touted as an alternative energy source to carbon-hungry fossil
fuels.
One of the biggest obstacles to wider adoption of fuel-cell vehicles is the lack
of hydrogen fuelling stations.
To be used as a fuel, hydrogen must first be produced using another energy source.
While some scientists are hopeful of the fuel uses of hydrogen, many others are
sceptical because it is inefficient to produce, expensive to transport and to convert
into electricity.
A home refuelling station could provide much needed infrastructure to kick-start
a hydrogen-based economy, thinks Sheffield-based ITM Power, the firm behind the
system.
Hydrogen fridge
The hydrogen home refuelling station works via an electrolyser which produces the
gas from water and electricity.
An internal combustion generator converts the gas back into electricity to provide
power for the home.
ITM Power has set up a showcase hydrogen home in Sheffield, where the gas is used
for heating, cooking and to operate a fridge.
In terms of producing hydrogen to power a car, the unit can make enough gas overnight
to provide fuel for 25 miles.
The hope is eventually to have higher-pressure refuelling units in public places
which would be capable of offering enough hydrogen for cars to travel 100 miles.
Such units would be more expensive as they would require a hydrogen compressor which
costs around £20,000.
But ITM thinks its system has the potential to revolutionise the move to more green
energy.
"Given the pressing need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, especially oil,
and to cut CO2 emissions, the future for hydrogen as an alternative means of storing
and utilising energy cost-effectively has never been brighter," said Jim Heathcote,
chief executive of ITM.
David Hart, a research fellow at Imperial College, London studying hydrogen energy,
questioned the cost involved and how energy efficient it would be.
"The critical element of this is how much it would cost to put such a refuelling
station in your home. The technology is very plausible but there are some issues
about public acceptance," he said.
The fact that the refuelling station uses electricity meant it would not be a much-sought
after zero emissions system unless the electricity itself is produced in a more
green way, he added.
According to Mr Heathcote, the unit - which is currently only a prototype - could
be commercially available as soon as the end of this year.
If they were mass produced he estimates they would initially cost around £2000.
He see the first market for the product as being large companies which use a lot
of vehicles such as the Post Office.
But eventually it will become common in homes, he thinks. He said that the next
stage of the firm's work would be to produce a liquid fuel.
Hydrogen cars
At the launch of the home refuel station, ITM also showed off a hybrid Ford Focus
car converted to run on hydrogen.
The car needed three pieces of hardware to make it petrol-free - a hydrogen tank,
which cost around £3000, four hydrogen injectors (about £100 each) and a chip to
allow the conversion.
Last month, Japanese car manufacturer Honda began the first commercial production
of a zero-emission, hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle.
Honda claims the vehicle offers three times better fuel efficiency than a traditional,
petrol-powered car and plans to produce 200 of the cars over the next three years.
Prime minister Gordon Brown has said that he wants all new cars sold in Britain
by 2020 to be electric or hybrid vehicles producing less than 100 grams of carbon
dioxide per kilometre.
But Jon Gibbins, part of the hydrogen energy team at Imperial College, is not convinced
that ITM's hybrid car will be the solution.
"Unless the hydrogen is used in a fuel cell then hydrogen vehicles are very inefficient.
For a conventional engine, perhaps 20% of the energy in the electricity ends up
driving the wheels versus maybe 75% for an electric vehicle."
"This seems unlikely to be a sustainable use of the limited supplies of renewable
or low-carbon energy," he said.
Source (online video)
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8th July 2008.
UK Firm ITM Power has developed a way
of making hydrogen at home to fuel a car.
Chief executive Jim Heathcoate says it has made a new type of plastic for the production
process.
ITM believes the plastic could be mass produced relatively cheaply and would allow
people to create the gas at home using their normal electric supply or greener sources
such as solar power.
However, some industry experts have said that electric power and not hydrogen could
be more cost effective and energy efficient.
They have also questioned how safe it is to create fuel at home.
Source. (online video).
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7th July 2008.
Japanese car maker Honda has designed a zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicle. Source. (Online Video).
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The world's first, mass-produced, hydrogen powered car which emits water instead of gases, is being launched by BMW. Source. (Online Video).
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Disabled parking bays are set to become
legally enforceable on
25.02.09
Jackie Baillie's bill to impose fines on anyone parking incorrectly in a disabled
bay was set to become law after it was passed by Parliament yesterday (26th
February) . This means that anyone caught abusing a disabled persons' parking bay
will be fined £30, rising to £60 if not paid in 14 days.
more.
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6th June 2009.
Innovative devices designed to give
disabled people greater freedom and independence are on display at the Mobility
Road show at Kemble Airfield in Gloucestershire.
They include technology that delivers a wheelchair from the boot of a vehicle to
the driver's door in 25 seconds, a vehicle conversion that allows a wheelchair user
to drive from their chair or swap over to the front passenger's side, a simulator
to test adaptations.
Express delivery.
The Abi-Loader device (seen above) -
from Hertfordshire-based Steering Developments - can be used to deliver a folding
or fixed-frame wheelchair to the driver's or passenger's door from the rear of the
vehicle.
The company says the Abi-Loader is designed
to be used with estate cars, MPVs and some hatchbacks.
"What we like about it is that if you
can open your door, you can load or unload your wheelchair because it takes up no
more width at the side of the vehicle than that," said Neale Boulton of Steering
Developments.
The wheelchair can be released from or attached to the Abi-Loader using a simple
locking mechanism.
People wishing to use it will need to have sufficient upper-body strength to operate
the locking catch and - if using a folding wheelchair - be able to unfold it and
transfer in and out of their vehicle.
At just under £6,000 it costs almost twice as much as an automated "top-loader"
which stores a wheelchair on the roof of the car.
But the company says not having a box on the roof will improve fuel economy.
The Abi-Loader has not yet been approved by Motability but Steering Developments
expects that it soon will be.
The device is similar to an Israeli product already on the market which is controlled
by a computer.
Mr Boulton says the Abi-Loader has "less to go wrong".
*****
Take A Break.
A wheelchair conversion of the Fiat
Qubo that allows people to choose whether to drive from their wheelchair or to sit
in the front passenger position was shown off by Sirus Automotive.
The Switch has a completely flat floor pan and a quick release system on the front
seat so that a disabled person can easily take a break and allow someone accompanying
them to do the driving.
The Qubo's six-speed automatic gearbox is operated by push buttons, the ramp and
tailgate are automated and the handbrake is operated electronically.
Sirus says that - at just under £22,000 - the Switch is considerably cheaper than
other "drive from wheelchair" vehicles.
On the same stand at the show was the U-Can, a VW Caddy conversion that allows a
wheelchair passenger to sit "up front" with the driver.
Again, access is from the rear of the vehicle using a fully automated ramp and tailgate.
*****
Virtual Reality.
Knowing just which adaptation is going
to be suitable for a driver's particular impairment can now be determined using
a new driving simulator.
Autoadapt's Driver Test Station simulates the driving environment and measures a
person's strength, mobility and reaction time.
The simulator can be equipped with various adaptations to find out whether or not
they are suitable.
It can be used from its own swivel car seat or from a wheelchair
Autoadapt says that the simulator can be used for assessments at mobility centres
and as an educational tool in the rehabilitation process.
By Geoff Adams-Spink
Age & disability correspondent, BBC News
Source.
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23rd February 2009.
A satellite navigation system made specifically
to assist disabled drivers has been made by a UK company.
Gowrings Mobility - a specialist in adapted vehicles - is marketing the BB Nav,
developed by Navevo.
The system contains a database of Blue Badge parking bays, accessible toilets, disabled-friendly
petrol stations and accessible accommodation.
It covers 150 major towns and cities around the UK including all of the London boroughs.
"Many disabled travellers worry about the uncertainty of not knowing where to park...
and consequently do not venture further afield than their own local area," said
Janet Seward, sales and marketing director at Gowrings.
"We want to make disabled travellers' lives and journeys much smoother, easier and
more spontaneous."
The BB Nav grades car parks according to their level of accessibility and also has
the location of more than 10,000 on-street parking bays.
The device is also programmed with the varying parking regulations for Blue Badge
holders as they move from one local authority area to another.
Other "points of interest" (POIs) include accessible beaches, shopping facilities,
toilets and hotels.
Road test
In practice, the BB Nav delivers a lot less than it appears to promise.
The unit is small and slim - much like other in-car GPS systems.
But unlike other satnavs that rely on finger operation, the BB Nav has a telescopic
stylus that is housed in the body of the device.
Something so small and fiddly can and probably would be easily lost in a car.
The on-screen keyboard is too small to allow it to be programmed by all but the
most slender of fingers.
And the display fonts are so small that older motorists will be reaching for their
reading glasses.
On the plus side, the display is large, the map easy to read and all side roads
are helpfully named.
The default female voice is clear and crisp but does have a tendency to repeat itself
too often.
When tested in the outer suburbs of North-West London, the BB Nav was disappointing
and - at times - mystifying.
It failed to locate on-street parking bays on Bridge Street in Pinner.
When asked to find an accessible toilet in Ruislip, it found its way to a residential
street of pre-war, detached houses with not a public convenience in sight - accessible
or otherwise.
And when accessible accommodation in Harrow was requested, it located a Hilton hotel
in Wembley but directed the car to industrial units close to the football stadium.
When Navevo - the makers of the BB Nav - were approached to comment upon the problems
encountered, they referred the issue to The Pie Guide, the company that provides
the data for the device.
Mike Hudson, data manager for Pie Guide, explained that the data on parking bays
came from local authorities in a variety of formats, the quality of which was variable
too.
Referring to the absence of the parking bay in Pinner, Mr Hudson said: "I suspect
that the council has not provided the data to us - hopefully it will be picked up
in a forthcoming update."
He said that the hard-to-locate accessible toilet in Ruislip was "troubling" and
that it would require further investigation.
Data on accessible hotels was, he admitted, "not great".
The information comes from a variety of sources depending on the part of the UK
being searched.
And not all hotel chains submit to the verification process which they would have
to pay for.
"There is no one, single data source to which we can go and extract this information,"
said Mr Hudson.
Data updates are planned for the future but are still the subject of commercial
negotiations between Navevo and Pie.
For a product costing just under £200, it seems a little rough around the edges
to justify the price tag.
Given its shortcomings in terms of usability and accuracy, disabled motorists might
be better off waiting for other satnav suppliers to install a set of disabled-friendly
POIs.
Of those contacted, Garmin said providing useful information for disabled drivers
was already being considered.
By Geoff Adams-Spink
Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website.
Source.
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Electric Cars could do MORE harm than good! 12th Nov 2009.
The Environmental Transport Association
has called for the new generation of vehicles to carry meters to calculate how much
electricity they are using.
A
total of £250 million has been allocated by the Government to promote electric cars,
much of which will be used to reduce the cost to the consumer by up to £5,000.
But the ETA – which describes itself as a "Green AA" – has voiced doubts about who
much good they will do in a report published today.
Whilst the report is not intended to dampen enthusiasm for electric vehicles, their
introduction should not be viewed as a panacea; significant changes to the way we
produce and tax power are needed before we will reap any benefits.” said Andrew
Davis, the Association's director.
Electric cars will normally be plugged into the mains overnight to recharge the
battery, although some models will also use a petrol engine to top up power during
the day.
According to the report, the source of the electricity must also be taken into account
when calculating the environmental benefit.
If there is a surge in popularity for the cars, demand for electricity from the
national grid will increase.
"Even if the grid has the capacity and the basic infrastructure to meet the needs
of electric cars, the new demand patterns they will create may mean greater use
of coal and nuclear power," the report argues.
Coal-fired power stations are now regarded as one of the biggest sources of carbon
emissions.
Even if a car uses electricity rather than petrol, it must be fuel efficient for
genuine environmental benefit, the report continues.
"Electric cars should be rewarded for their energy efficiency, not for moving emissions
from exhaust pipes to power station chimneys"
A spokesman for the Department for Transport defended the Government's policy. "Electric
and other ultra-low emission cars offer the potential to dramatically reduce the
carbon emissions from road transport over the long term. But they are not the only
way to reduce car CO2 emissions," he said.
"Electric cars powered from today’s UK generating grid would save up to 40% of the
CO2 emissions of a conventional petrol car over its full life cycle. This saving
can improve as the grid moves to using more low carbon power sources.
"If demand for electricity is properly managed, through the use of smart meters
and dynamic tariffs, the grid can support a relatively high number of Electric Vehicles
In fact, they can provide a way to capture and store electricity at night from renewable
sources like wind power."
source. or to read 14 other articles on this click
here.
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This page was last updated on 27/11/2009 14:42:01