This story has it all; porn star, drugs, sex, cops, video tapes and… blogs! The incident allegedly took place on May 7 in Wilson County near Highway 840 and Interstate 40 when a Tennessee Highway Trooper named James Randy Moss stopped porn-star Barbie Cummings (…) aka Justis Richert –yeah, we prefer the alias too, for a speeding ticket. He found drugs in her car and decided –always according to
SV stands for Super Veloce which in Italian, means Super Fast. But hey, doesn’t Lamborghini already have a “sportier†version of the Murcielago, the LP640? They do, and officially, the SV doesn’t exist. However according to the guys at Car magazine and their photographer who snapped some pretty interesting shots, Lamborghini will introduce this special, lightweight version of the Murcielago LP640
Our friendly British advertising watchdog has done it again by banning a Lexus magazine advert for the RX 400h on the grounds of false claims! For those of you with a hefty memory, the British Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) had banned Ford’s “Focus Zetec Climate” TV ad last year due to complaints from two viewers who said that it was misleading. The magazine ad for the Lexus RX 400h was
Remember when the military was on the fore-front of innovation? When what we did at war pulled the world into the future? I’m not saying that war was ever good…I’m just saying that it used to be a lot smarter.
Which is why it’s nice to see the US Army actually considering energy efficiency when building a vehicle. The Aggressor is a diesel-electric hybrid two seater designed for reconnaissance and light transport. While it can easily hit 80 mph and has a zero to forty time of just four seconds, the coolest feature is probably its stealth mode.
The Aggressor can switch to an all-battery mode that makes the vehicle virtually silent. The military initially looked to fuel cells to provide this feature. But then the impracticality of shipping hydrogen around a battlefield hit them, so they paid some attention to the rest of the world and went with batteries.
The Aggressor could be ready for operations within the next couple years. And while it’s kinda sad that these could be the first hybrids Iraq will ever see, it is at least better than the alternative: More Hummers.
In Eastern Kenya the four Ututu brothers inherited a large area of fertile farmland, which had been terraced by their father in the late 1950s. Despite this resource, they were experiencing problems because they lacked water both for drinking (meaning wasted time, fetching water from 9 miles away in the dry season) and for irrigation.
The Ututu brothers drilled their first successful well in 1997 where water was found at a depth of 30 feet. One of the brothers, Joseph Ututu, designed a working wind-pump to try on one of the wells. He and his brothers constructed the moving parts mainly from spare bicycle tires, and made the sails from corrugated steel roofing sheets. Joseph is particularly proud of the enclosed pulley mechanism, which has so far worked for six years without maintenance. The wind-pump is fixed in position and faces the prevailing wind. At night, when the wind picks up, the sails turn very fast, clanking and creaking as they turn. Every night, the turbine pumps over 1,000 liters of water.
While it may seem extraordinary that wells had not be “discovered” in this part of Kenya until the last decade or so, the Ututu brothers have certainly capitalized on their initiative. There is a good market for water, and from the income earned they have managed to educate all their children. They have also raised vegetables for food and for sale on a small horticultural plot close to the wells. Since they began, more than 30 wells have been dug by neighbors.
Wells and wind-pumps are hardly revolutionary technologies; nevertheless their development by the Ututus has revolutionized the local water supply. With improved technical knowledge, people gain the tools to make the most of their own imaginative design capability to solve local problems in the most relevant way. We should therefore recognize and encourage initiative where it occurs, and support such creativity with “scientific” knowledge.
Via: Afrigadget and Farming Solutions
A 43-foot hydrogen behemoth will take to the streets of Belgium early next month. Rolling in with three axles, a tank of hydrogen and plenty Sodium Nickel Chloride batteries, the new zero-emissions passenger bus will be the largest of its kind. Built as a joint venture between bus manufacturer Van Hool and United Technologies Corp., the mega hybrid will join Europe’s "HyFleet" project. HyFleet is an international panel on a mission to pollinate the European countryside with transit buses powered by H2.
The queen of HyFleet’s fleet will cart over 100 passengers distances of over 217 miles before an H2 fill-up is required. The bus has a 40kg tank on board and the numerous batteries on board can keep 53 kWh of electricity on board to zap the monstrous electric motor. Despite all these impressive techno-stats, the bus’s greatest asset is just being so frikin’ big. The last H2 bus that came along only held 70 riders, so the Van Hool/UTC bus is a money tree in cost-per-rider category.
Next time you’re in Orlando keep an eye open for these funky blue shuttle buses as FoMoCo and the State of Florida announced today, May 23, that they’re putting together a fleet of eight hydrogen-fueled Ford E-450 buses, four of which will be used by the Greater Orlando Airport Authority (GOAA) and the Orlando Convention Central District. The Ford E-450 shuttle bus is powered by a 6.8-liter V-
Nearly 4 years after the Picanto’s debut in early 2004 Kia “pro-cee’ded†to its mini’s first facelift. Up front, the redesigned Korean mini gets a new set of headlights, a “Cee’d†styled grille, a new bumper and hood. In the rear, the F/L Picanto features new light-clusters and a slightly redesigned bumper. Apart from giving it a fresher look, these changes also resulted to a slight increase in
Now this is what we call reality-rally. Watch what happened to the driver and his co-driver from the in-car camera when they missed a turn and headed full speed into a lake. Freaky, to say the least.
Despite a recent report on German newspaper Handelsblatt that said Chery wanted to re-examine a deal to build small cars for Chrysler due to the sale of the latter to Cerberus, the Chinese car maker has still got the hots for Chrysler. A Chery spokesman told Reuters today that the German newspaper had misquoted Chery’s general manager, Zhang Li, and that the earlier agreement with Chrysler,
Over the years the 3-Series has become the car that defines the term “sport sedan†and the benchmark for every luxury car maker from Alfa Romeo to Volvo. Also it’s the best selling car in BMW’s range. That’s the sole reason why the Bavarians have been so tentative with the styling of all 3-Series models. Either you like them or not, design-wise, the latest 5-Series and 7-Series sedans performed a
DEARBORN, May 21, 2007 – With increasing global consumption of
fossil fuels and consumers looking for “greener” choices in dealer
showrooms, Ford Motor Company is working to accelerate ethanol
production among a broad range of renewable fuel options for future
vehicles.
Ford has placed more than 2 million flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs)
on American roads. The company’s current lineup of FFVs includes the
Ford F-150, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town
Car.
Last year, Ford, along with General Motors and DaimlerChrysler,
pledged to double annual production of vehicles capable of running on
renewable fuels by 2010. The automakers renewed a commitment this
spring to make half of their annual vehicle production capable of
running on alternative fuels by 2012. Key to that commitment, however,
is the need for an adequate distribution network for ethanol or E85, a
mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
“Not only does E85 access have to be convenient to customers,
it has to be at a price point that provides value,” said Curtis
Magleby, director, State and Local Governmental Affairs.
Magleby says there are approximately 1,200 ethanol fueling stations
operating in the United States today. Most are concentrated in the
Midwest. Compared to the nearly 170,000 retail gasoline stations in
business nationally, the need for additional ethanol availability is
clear.
At least 10 to 20 percent of the fueling locations would need
to have E85 available to really begin to have true customer access,
according to Magleby, who added accessibility is only part of the
challenge. The government needs to make E85 production more attractive
for energy producers, he said.
“Governmental and business policies in place today actually
provide greater financial incentives to those producing lower-level
ethanol fuel blends (E10 which is 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent
gasoline). The result is there is no business equation for many of the
major refiners or retailers to produce or sell E85. That has to
change,” said Magleby.
“Ethanol has lower energy level content than gasoline. E85 needs to be
discounted at least 20 percent under gasoline to provide value to
customers,” he added.
Ford entered into a unique E85 partnership last year with
VeraSun Energy Corporation and MFA Oil to create the Midwest Ethanol
Corridor. The goal was to provide flexible-fuel vehicle owners the
ability to drive between Chicago and Kansas City, fueled exclusively by
E85, while educating consumers about the benefits of ethanol in the
process.
“I think the automakers, and Ford in particular, have stepped
up and shown leadership on this issue,” said Bill Honnef, senior vice
president, VeraSun. “This effort was a first for the industry, in that
Ford went from simply producing flexible fuel vehicles to proactively
looking to expand the E85 infrastructure. As a result, the ethanol
industry is expanding at a record pace.”
Honnef estimates that ethanol production in the U.S. will reach
a capacity of 14 billion gallons, or roughly one-tenth the annual
consumption of gasoline by American motorists (140 billion gallons),
within the next five years.
“Right now, America has no alternative fuel option; we’re
dependent on gasoline for transportation. Our challenge is to get the
ethanol infrastructure in place to match expected growth of production
to suport E85 sales,” said Magleby. “For every penny increase in the
cost of a gallon of gasoline today, it is a cost to the American
consumers of $1.3 billion.”
Perhaps the best example of an effective ethanol solution today
can be found in Brazil, where more than two-thirds of the vehicles sold
are already flex-fuel capable, including the ability to run on pure
ethanol, known as E100.
“About 10 years ago, the Brazilian government incentivized
their farmers to grow more sugar cane, which they convert to ethanol,
with the hope of reducing their dependency on foreign oil,” said Hau
Thai-Tang, product development director for Ford South America
Operations (FSAO).
“As market demands influence pricing, customers can switch from
100 percent gasoline to 100 percent ethanol, or any blends in between,
including E85. It gives the consumer a lot of flexibility.”
Thai-Tang says Ford has been a pioneer in delivering several
flexible-fuel products to the Brazilian marketplace, including the
Fiesta, Focus and EcoSport mini SUV. He adds that the company’s South
American experience will benefit future product development plans in
North America.
“We view ourselves as being the center of excellence within the
Ford community for doing flex fuel and ethanol vehicles,” Thai-Tang
said. “Every opportunity we have to share those learnings moving
forward, we’ll take advantage of.”
Today ethanol is primarily produced from corn, but Magleby says that may change.
“Work is being done to accelerate the transition toward a
broader array of biomass feedstocks, as an increasingly important part
of sustainability and greenhouse gas production,” he said.