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Mayor Micheal Bloomberg is about to announce that every Taxi in New York City will be a hybrid in a mere five years.

Holy Moly. I guess these are the kinds of things you have to do quickly if you want your city to produce 30% less carbon in a mere 30 years. Bloombergs plan will see a 20% increase in hybrid taxis every year for the next five years.

The current standard taxi, the Crown Victoria, gets about 14 mpg in the city. It’ll be replaced by a wide variety of new taxis, from the smaller Prius, to the Ford Escape hybrid SUV. 13,000 Taxis is a lot to replace, but apparantly a 20% per year churn is about what taxi companies deal with in New York, so, basically, every new cab they buy will have to be a hybrid.

Looks like those yellow cabs might have to have a splash of green after all.

Via Metaefficient and WNBC

Just as we were informed by BMW execs at a previous trip we made in Munich back in March, MINI (officially) announced that all variants will adopt BMW’s Efficient Dynamics Tech goodies, first shown on the recently facelifted 1 & 5 Series. Thus meaning, from August 2007, all MINI versions will be equipped as standard with Brake Energy Regeneration, Auto Start-Stop Function and Switch Point Display

It’s amazing the difference good design can make. Yeah, those stupid little lawn lights we see all around nowadays are solar powered. But they’re not very attractive or versatile.

Which is why we love The Corona. The Corona is very attractive and can do pretty much anything. They can be staked into a lawn, hung from a wall or placed on a table. They’re water-proof, use high-efficiency LEDs and look as if they belong in the natural environment.

The materials, design, and idea of the Corona are all completely conscious of the environment. And that environmental consciousness has resulted in a stunningly attractive design. Solar lighting looks to be ready for the big leagues. Who could argue against these gorgeous little things.

Via NextLust

As 5th Gear’s presenter proves in this video, you don’t necessary need a rear-wheel drive vehicle to have a little sideways fun. Wait; did I say fun? Well maybe for Tiff, his co-driver and us viewers, but definetely not for the poor guy sitting in the Golf GTI Edition 30’s rear bench. Not the best place on earth to be when a driver like Tiff decides to steer looking out through his side window.

After several managerial and owner changes the past two decades which nearly lead the British sports car and kit manufacturer to extinction, Ginetta’s current owner, LNT Automotive (they bought the company in 2005) has announced its plans for an all-new model, designated the Ginetta G50. The sports coupe, that celebrates the company’s 50th birthday, has been designed in-house at LNT Automotive’s

Cars, cars, cars and… scoops. Don’t you think it’s about time we made a little a break from all that metal and see what’s going around the automotive blogsphere? Thought so. First up we saw that our Autoblog friends (the dot com ones) performed their own… facelift by redesigning their site -nice job John. To celebrate it, they’re giving away a brand new, 2008 Dodge Nitro. Believe you’re the

The developing world is leapfrogging us again! First they skipped the land-line step, opting for inexpensive and less infrastructure-dependent mobile phones, now it looks like they’re eschewing cables completely and opting for distributed sources of electricity.

Motorola has created a pilot project in Nambia that will power cell towers using solar and wind energy. This, the first project of it’s kind, could be the start of a system that would bring global communications to small and rural communities.

This independence from the electric grid could become a significant empowering force for rural communities across the world. While we don’t have technical details on the project (kilowatts generated, battery backup systems, etc,) we have confidence in Motorola’s ability to create this kind of distributed power and communications network. The question is, can they make it financially viable.

Via TreeHugger

This $100 Kenyan bike engine quickly converts any bicycle to a 100 mpg motorbike. It might not be the most efficient engine, or the cleanest. But as the world develops, simple solutions like these are necessary to make the world a better place for people, without upsetting the balance of the environment.

Via Afrigadget

Based on the Ariel Atom and utilizing next-generation battery materials (of course meaning: no further details available), the Wrightspeed X1 plug-in hybrid will set you back $120,000. The batteries alone cost more than double that used Prius you’ve had your eye on. But a 0-60 time better than any other production street car under $1,000,000 – 3.07 seconds – suddenly makes this supercar look like a bargain.

It’s creator, Ian Wright, created the X1 full-electric prototype in his Silicon Valley garage. It gets 170 MPG equivalent, and even with an electronically limited top speed of 112 MPH it still runs low 11’s in the quarter mile. An obvious EcoGeek, Ian did some math and figured out that we’ll save more fuel by bringing efficiency to the "high-end, big-margin gas guzzlers that garner big profit margins" than by improving already efficient passenger cars.

From the WrightSpeed website:

If reduction in fuel consumption is the goal, it would be better to replace 10mpg cars with 20mpg cars, than to replace 50 mpg cars with 100mpg cars. 5 times better.

Counter-intuitive? HereÂ’s the arithmetic. The 10mpg car uses 10 gallons to go 100 miles. The 20 mpg car uses 5: a saving of 5 gallons. The 50 mpg car uses only 2 gallons for 100 miles, so replacing it with a 100mpg car only saves one gallon.

The street-legal hybrid version, probably available in 2009 or 2010, is slated to be even more powerful.

via Wired News

Once upon a time, VW Group wanted to turn Seat, whom it had acquired (or rather saved) from Fiat, to a Spanish “Alfa Romeo”. Then all of a sudden we saw Seat presenting models like the Toledo, the Altea XL and recently, the Freetrack… Well, looks like VW’s white-collar workers have learned their lessons. Along with the announcement that they’ll present an all new C/D segment model available in

These are the first official pictures of Peugeot’s brand new compact hatch, the 308 which will succeed the 307 in the French carmaker’s range. Its design, which combines styling elements from the 207, the 407 and its predecessor, the 307, comes to no surprise as we’ve already had the chance to see various uncamouflaged prototypes on the road the past weeks. Still, as we’ve already noted before,

Another week, another Hamann Ferrari F430. Well, this time it’s the rag-top F430 and thanks God, without all the “Black Miracle” coloured blasphemy. Hamann’s Spider has received a discreet bodykit promising to optimize aerodynamics with the addition of a front spoiler, a newly designed rear diffuser and a rear spoiler -we could do without that. Interestingly, all add-on parts are optionally