There’s a company in China that makes eco-coffins, eco-friendly coffins, um…okay, you tell me what I should call them.

The company boasts caskets woven from wicket willow, bamboo, seagrass and corn skin. They have been “natural willow caskets, woven bamboo coffins, corn skin coffins, sea grass coffins or biodegradable coffins and eco-coffins, wicker urns, wicker pet coffin casket, wicker sofa, pet urns, wooden pet casket and pet bed, and children’s sizes.

Who’d a thunk there were so many ways to rest in eternity, eh?

The company has been making these coffins for some 15 years in “line with our company’s strong green beliefs.”

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Mitsui & Co. of Japan has a service called Car Sharing Japan Co. From this spring the service will introduce electric vehicles. What an idea! What better than sharing a car? How about sharing an electric car?

Members share the use of vehicles.

The service is called careco and will be launched this Thursday. There will be nine bases in and around Tokyo’s Shibuya. (Why anybody would want to drive a car in Tokyo is beyond me, considering the availability of the public transportation.) Anyway, the fleet will be made up of the Prius hybrid, the iQ ultracompact, and the Vitz subcompact, all of which are made by Toyota Motor Corp. Also in the fleet will be Honda Motor Co.’s Fit subcompact. The lineup will gradually grow, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.’s wants its Plug-In Stella vehicle included by spring.

There are four levels of fees that are managed by a broker. Members will be able to reserve cars and unlock vehicles.

Uh Oh!

President Obama is expected to grant a waiver that will allow California to enforce their own greenhouse-gas emission standards. Yeah, I live in California. Good for me, right?

“That would completely change the landscape for vehicle regulation and obligate automakers to produce cars that are far more efficient than those called for under current federal standards,” the Los Angeles Times noted.

The move is aimed at the cars that are believed to create about a one-fourth of U.S. carbon emissions. The operative word in that sentence is ‘believe’ – they really don’t know.

“This is an essential piece of the nation’s environmental strategy,” says the president of the Coalition for Clean Air, said.

I wonder how much he gets paid to say that.

California’s Air Resources Board will implement and enforce the regulation.

“Environmentalists and state regulators have demanded that they be allowed to enforce their own greenhouse-gas emission standards on autos, saying the rules are key to combating global warming.”

Um, facts, please!

Until now the Bush administration has refused saying only the federal government can set car emission rules.

Automakers are calling it a nightmare scenario. They argue that compliance would create regulatory headaches and a technology burden that comes to $1,000-$5,000 more for each vehicle.

Asking carmakers to comply with California’s rules would be tantamount to forcing a cancer patient to “finish chemo and then go run the Boston Marathon,” General Motors Corp. spokesman said. “Right now, we’re just trying to make it through the current situation.”

Does anybody feel sorry for GM or any of the Big Three?

In age of the media and the internet, it would be real hard to keep a product under the wrap for a longtime and to unveil it on a grand stage in order to create a huge surprise. Leaks, spy shots and media intrusion have put an end to most surprises, but Chrysler has managed to pull off a complete surprise with its new c Electric Vehicle.

It was not until their presentation of upcoming electric vehicles at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, that the world had an idea about the 200C and for a company as big as Chrysler that is some surprise.

The fascinating thing is that the new electric vehicle will be in direct competition with the Chevy Volt and that really is an unexpected jolt. The 200C EV is an extended-range electric vehicle that has a mileage of around 40 miles on its electric motor and a good 400 miles when you use the assistance of the gas motor. With sleek curves from and better aerodynamics taken from the 300C, it reduces drag and further improves efficiency.

On the inside the 200C sports cool multimedia systems, touchscreen displays and even a tablet PC for the passengers (your kids should love it).

With the current state of the auto industry being real bad, it is all the more surprising and pleasantly refreshing to see Chrysler go green with another of their vehicles. This surely sets the tone for the future as every automaker has realized now that ‘green’ is the path towards future. [via New York Times]

Toyota says it will launch as many as 10 new hybrid gas-electric models within the next four years IF the economic downturn doesn’t prevent them and IF there is renewed consumer demand.

When gas was $4+ gallon (US) consumers didn’t mind paying an extra $3-5,000. They seem to mind now that gas is half that price.

Toyota has a fleet of 500 plug-in Priuses that it will unleash next year. A new redesigned Prius and Lexus luxury sedan will be unveiled in Detroit.

Toyota will also unveil a concept car – a battery-electric vehicle for city use that the company hopes to put into production by 2012. Sales were down by half in December.

How soon we forget! Save gas when it is expensive. Gulp it down when it is not. Now is the time to save on gas, BEFORE the next oil crisis comes.

Edmunds.com, an online car research service, estimates that, as a result of the drop in gas prices, a Prius owner must now wait more than eight years to recoup the extra cost of the vehicle in fuel savings, compared with 3.5 years when the gas price climbed above $4 a gallon last spring.

Meanwhile, Honda’s “Prius-Fighter” the Insight Hybrid is coming, GM’s Volt is on its way – sometime in late 2010, while Cadillac has the Converj which is expected in 2012. I wonder if that will turn out to be true, or not …

Source: Nikkei (sub req)

Modern day electric cars and bikes are most often viewed by the vast majority as slow slugs that really are no match for the Ferraris and that Hayabusas on the road. But that perception of owning an electric car ‘just for the sake of the planet’ is being fast changed and Eliica is attempting to bring about that change with one radical blitz.

Designed by a team at Keio University in Japan and brainchild of Hiroshi Shimizu, the 8-wheeled all-electric car, powered by lithium-ion batteries intends to get past the 250 mph mark making it the fastest street-legal car on the planet; quite a step forward from the electric cars of the past that struggled to dish out 50mph!

Eliica’s eight wheels (Electric Lithium-Ion car) are not there just to make it look big. Along with superb aerodynamics that allows it to cut through air like a hot knife through butter, each wheel sports an 80hp electric motor which ensures that it does not dropdown on pace. This does not mean that the car is short on mileage though. It can currently dish out 200miles on a single charge with a top speed of 230mph.

That is something both revolutionary for electric vehicles and the planet, as it gives a great ad for green energy. However, the team of scientists are now seeking corporate financing to keep the project running.

Right now, there are two of these babies each priced at a whooping $320,000. Considering that this a zero-emission vehicle, accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 4 seconds, tops at 230mph and has a range of 200 miles, the price tag seems pretty justified. However, we can’t guarantee it will get you a date or something. [Eliica via EV World & Engadget]

When a foreign (outside of Japan) car maker can’t make a car as good as Japan does, what do they do? Contract a Japanese car maker to make it for them and call it their own.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will make electric cars for France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen Group beginning early next year. The French government is ponying up to 5,000 euros, ($6,500), and giving tax breaks to those who buy electric cars. The U.K. and Germany are doing the same. And, Europe is bent on becoming the leading electric-car market.

Mitsubishi Motors will make its i MiEV passenger car on an OEM basis. The MiEV will debut in Japan this summer. It can go 160km (100 mi) on a single charge, more than enough for one day.

Mitsubishi gets access to PSA Peugeot Citroen’s sales network throughout Europe and Peugeot can sell the electric cars under its own brand helping the company make inroads into the green vehicle market. Because they have a larger market for its cars, increased production will help lower costs and boost competitiveness.

The i MiEV will cost about $20,000 and should be competitive with conventional gasoline-powered cars in France aftert the subsidies are taken into account.

The 2009 Detroit Auto Show just opened gates to press and there’s good stuff for eco-minded people. GM just officially unveiled their beautifully styled, sleek, and clearly aerodynamic Cadillac Converj.

It’s a two-door front-wheel-drive coupe extended range electric concept that uses E-Flex technology – now known as Voltec, that is expected to deliver a 40-mile range from a set of lithium ion batteries (16-kWh T-shaped battery that takes less than 3 hours at 240V/8 hours at 120V to charge) and a four-cylinder gasoline engine-generator.

As for how powerful it is, consider 120 kW and a 273 lb-ft torque. There’s no word on production yet, but our guess is it won’t hit the streets before 2012.

Hit the jump for a big gallery with the new Cadillac Converj, and the press release.

(more…)

Toyota is coming out with a new Prius, a solar-powered Prius. The car will have solar panels in its roof that will be used to run the car’s air conditioning. And, when does a car need air conditioning? Right! When the sun is out.

The 2010 Prius is expected to get 55+mpg, be plug-in-able, smaller, a wagon, and even Li-ion battery carrying.

How cool is Toyota?

The solar panels will go on the high-end version of the Prius = be expensive.

The solar panels will be made by Kyocera.

Prius had its debut in Japan in 1997. So far it has sold more than 1 million vehicles worldwide. The 2G version came out in 2003. The 3G version is due out this year.

China wants its car makers to develop smaller, fuel-efficient models NOT the gas guzzlers that the US Big Three produced despite all the warnings to the contrary.

“We used to believe medium-sized cars would have the biggest market in China, but actually small cars have the greatest potential in terms of energy efficiency and price,” said a senior engineer  of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China.

While Americans kept producing gas hogs, Japan quietly went about its business gaining a stronghold appealing to the fuel-conscious consumer.

Toyota expanded its presence in the US with cheap fuel efficient cars back during the 70s crude oil crisis…and never looked back. Now that prices have dropped back down, chances are America will keep driving their cows around while this time, China ALSO gains a foothold.

Chinese still want midsized sedans. In ‘06-’07 sales for small compact cars dipped while the sedan sales went up 20%.  But, that will change….or will it?