The US President Barack Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to make important announcements that will provide stimulus for a greener future. An Obama administration official has said that the President will make announcement regarding Smart Grids during his visit to Florida. Obama’s announcement of a Smart Grid will be the government’s largest investment of economic stimulus funds in clean energy.

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Toyota Prius Hybrid Plugged In For Electricity

As the number of electric vehicles, or plug-in hybrids increases, there is a good chance that they may put greater strain on the grid with a lot of vehicles going for a recharge simultaneously. Google is currently working on a solution to this problem, by integrating vehicles with the electric grid so as to minimize strain and help utilities charge better.

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With the economy declining as it is, Toyota’s belief that it would be able to sell 25,000 Lexus Hybrids within the first twelve months is appreciable. The Lexus HS250 has yet to go on sale (later this summer) and Toyota has some real good reasons to back their belief.

2010 Toyota Lexus HS 250h hybrid

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Automobile manufacturer Volvo is joining forces with Sweden-based Vattenfall, one of the world’s leading energy companies, to make a new plug-in hybrid diesel/electric vehicle.

Volvo V70 Plug-in hybrid demonstration car

Volvo says the new hybrid that will come out of the partnership is to hit the market in 2012.

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I remember the gas wars when I was a kid. I once filled up my ‘60 VW bug (I bought it used) for less than $2.00. Gas was 24.9¢. That’s right, less than a quarter a gallon. Yeah, yeah. I’m old.

The point is, when there are price wars, the consumer wins.

Toyota and Honda are going to go at it with their hybrid cars. Remember those three reasons why Honda’s New Insight Will Beat Out Toyota’s New Prius? We may have been right, eh? Honda introduced its hybrid Insight last month and it has already received 18,000 orders, more than three times its monthly sales target.

Toyota is countering by preparing to lower the price of its Prius and roll out a new hybrid less than Y2 million (Insight costs Y1.89million). But their new hybrid with an engine smaller than 1.5 litre, isn’t expected out until 2011.

In the end, however, the consumer is going to win this war.

Via: AFP

Orders for Honda Motor Co.’s environmentally friendly ultra fuel-efficient hybrid Insight hatchback have topped 10,000 units in just 10 days. The figure is double and then some the monthly sales goal set for the five-door vehicle.

Honda Insight Hybrid

The Insight base model of the Insight goes for $21,000 compared with $26,000 for the base model of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid hatchback.

It’s all about the price, industry analysts said.

Question – would you buy a fuel-efficient hybrid knowing it’s better for the environment even you have to drive it 10 years to get your money back out of it in savings?

Let us hear from you.

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]

Sanyo Electric will release an electric hybrid bicycle that has a Lithium ion secondary battery and a twofold assist force, early next February 2009 in Japan.

Dubbed the “eneloop bike (product No: CY-SPA226)” it’s an industry’s first product that reflects revisions in the Road Traffic Law Enforcement Regulations that came into effect on Dec 1, 2008. The maximum drive assist ratio (motor drive force to human power) is 1:2 in Japan. The 26-inch bicycle will cost ¥136,290 (approx US$1,463, including tax).

The motor that drives the front wheel is brushless motor and has a rated output of 250W. The rated voltage and capacity of the Lithium-ion secondary battery increased 1.5 times to 25.9V and 6.0Ah, respectively. The charging time increased from two to 3.5 hours.

The eneloop bike uses the assist motor as a generator during braking and downhill riding for recharging and can run in:

1. Auto mode switches between assist and power generation automatically.
2. Power Up mode provides a continuous assist force = double human power.
3. Standard mode provides an assist equivalent to human power and recharges the battery when braking.

The cruising distance of the bike is 57km (33mi) without regenerative charging and it is 75km (60mi) in the Standard mode where regenerative charging occurs during braking. In the Auto mode, the travel distance reaches 100km.

Sanyo also released a model with a Ni-hydrogen secondary battery. But the cruising distance of this model in the Auto mode is only 53km.

The electric hybrid bicycle market sold 283,000 units in 2007. Sanyo hopes for 300,000 units in 2008.

Source: NikkeiBP

I am a little slow sometimes. Okay, a lot slow. I spotted an eBox at the SF Auto Show. I thought to myself, “This car sure looks like something to me.” Duh…it’s a modified 5-speed Scion xB wagon.

The way it works is after buying a Scion for $15K “engineers will remove the internal combustion engine and related components, and install AC Propulsion’s electric drive and battery system composed of more than 5,000 small cells.” The cost of the conversion is $55K. At that price, we wonder why people aren’t knocking down the doors.

I wonder how much it’d cost to make the car from scratch? Why can’t we be Earth-friendly without breaking the bank?

Regular readers here at Greenpacks will know that I am putting up a bunch of post/pics from my recent gallivant to the 2008 San Fran Auto Show.

There was more than one display that kind of caught my eye. I was looking for a green cars, eco-friendly cars, that sort of thing. Cadillac had a rotating display of its Luxury Escalade SUV stating it was confident enough to talk about fuel efficiency in the same sentence as luxury, SUV and big big car. And no Britney Spears …

They claim that the world’s first full-size luxury hybrid SUV, their 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, gets better mileage than the Mini-cooper. With a 332 hp V8 engine that generates 367 lb-ft of torque at 4,100 rpm they claim they seat more than 4 adults luxuriously and still get 20mpg … in the city!

But, what about all the hardware that went into making this monstrosity? Never mind that I suppose. At least, Cadillac is using the right buzzwords and aiming in the right direction, eh?