Up North

This sounds a little like pulling into the Huntingon LIRR station and being besieged by the Orange&White taxi drivers.

With one driver for every 62 residents, the Albanian and Korean cabbies drive circles around other towns. Well, it's just one circle: Only 10 miles of road are paved.
By Tomas Alex Tizon
Los Angeles Times
BETHEL, ALASKA -- Atiny, round-faced woman stands in a field of ice, a solitary figure in the tundra, waiting for a ride. From one hand dangles several plastic grocery bags. With her free hand, she flicks a finger as if inscribing a single scratch in the air, an almost imperceptible gesture.

A taxicab appears from a cloud of mist. It is an old, white Chevy, so splattered with mud there is hardly any white to see. On the roof glows a green sign that reads "Kusko."


"Hello, dear," the driver says.

"I'd like to go home," says Lucy Daniel, folding herself in the back seat among her bags.

Daniel, 65, a Yupik Eskimo who grew up riding dog sleds and paddling seal-skin kayaks along the Bering coast, now takes a cab everywhere she goes.

A Bit of Green in L.A.

L.A. Auto Show Suggests Automakers Finally Going Green
By Chuck Squatriglia

The Los Angeles Auto Show is the first big industry event of the season, and it's offering the strongest evidence yet that automakers are serious about going green. But many critics say it's just good PR.

The overall emphasis of the annual event is squarely on your typical SUVs and sedans, and there's the usual assortment of high-end exotics and luxury cars. But nearly everyone is also showcasing hybrid, electric or fuel-cell vehicles and vowing to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets. Some automakers say they'll have alternative fuel vehicles on the road within months, and one or two say they want to lead the industry beyond oil.

A Sense of Suburbia

Hydrogen Is Far Away

It doesn't look as if we're going to be replacing the old gas guzzler with another fuel anytime soon, does it?

Hydrogen: the wave of the future, but how far down the road?
by Jean-Louis Santini
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States hopes to fill American roads with hydrogen-powered cars in two decades, but the clean fuel must be cheap and practical to make before it can replace oil, US experts say.

President George W. Bush unveiled a 1.2-billion-dollar initiative in 2003 to reverse US dependence on foreign oil and make hydrogen, which emits zero pollution, the fuel that drives the US economy.

"That was ambitious," said Timothy Wilkins, an attorney of the firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, based in Texas, who specializes in environmental and energy regulation.

"I think in a century hydrogen could fill a role like that, but not in 20 years," Wilkins told AFP, adding that the Bush administration was no longer as vocal about the plan as it used to be.

"To produce it like the gasoline scale, to get it in the vehicle fleet, fully integrated in the vehicle fleet and the infrastructure the fueling, stations ... it will take one century," he said.

While hydrogen has more energy power than oil, methanol and natural gas, its lightness makes it very difficult to stock and transport.

Universities, oil companies and automakers, as well as the US Energy Department, are investing in research to find better ways to produce hydrogen, most of which today is generated from non-renewable fossil fuels such as natural gas.

Pennsylvania State University researchers recently developed a method of producing hydrogen gas by combining electron-generating bacteria and a small electrical charge in a microbial fuel cell.

Fuel Standards

yes, of course, it's all Nancy Pelosi's fault. Morons. H/t TPM

Court’s Fuel-Economy Ruling May Prod Congress to Set Even Higher Requirements

By MICHELINE MAYNARD
The New York Times
DETROIT, Nov. 16 — A ruling by a federal appeals court this week to throw out proposed fuel-economy standards is likely to accelerate efforts in Congress to set higher requirements for all vehicles, industry analysts said Friday.

Detroit auto companies had been lobbying to soften proposals for higher fuel economy, and the court ruling, which voided the Bush administration’s year-old standard for light trucks because it did not take pollution issues into account, represents an unexpected setback to that effort.

Democrats and the Environment

Three Democratic presidential candidates, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, are going to be discussing environmental issues at 5 p.m. Eastern today.
You can get more information here. I tried the video link a little while ago but it wasn't working but if it's up and running later, I'll post it at Going Green

I wonder where Mr. Interior, Bill Richardson, is? And Obama?

Grist also has a breakdown on where the candidates, Democratic and Republican, stand on environmental issues.

Car Design as Art

NB, Some bad language.

Not So Fast

The San Jose Mercury News has a good piece, looking at the difficulties of creating an electric-car business. It manages to avoid the hype of some alternative-energy stores and gives us some context about the auto industry..

How Silicon Valley could become the Detroit of electric cars
DAUNTING CHALLENGES FACE FIRMS ENVISIONING LIFE AFTER GASOLINE
By Matt Nauman
Mercury News
The valley's electric car industry
Silicon Valley is already the capital of the world's high-tech industry. Is it also becoming the Detroit of the electric car industry?

Last week's announcement by Shai Agassi, a former SAP executive based in Palo Alto, that he's raised $200 million for a company that will try to revolutionize the electric car industry is the latest sign of this region's growing role in one of the hottest sectors of the automotive industry.

That's no surprise considering California's mandate for cleaner cars, the local enthusiasm for plug-in hybrids, the Silicon Valley fascination with new technology and the number of Bay Area venture firms investing in this industry.

Agassi, who spent months studying his venture, makes an interesting observation about the valley and the Motor City. "Detroit is a car manufacturing center. I think what we're looking at is not something that can be done in a normal way. . . . It needs an Internet approach, a Google approach."

And, he said, this region is well-suited to do that. "In the valley, we know how to do technology disruption. We know how to do business models, how to develop proof of concept and get it adopted around the world," he said.

Others, even those enthusiastic about the potential of electric cars, are uncertain about how much success start-ups such as Agassi's Better Place and Tesla Motors of San Carlos can have against the huge global auto industry. General Motors and Toyota, for instance, each produced more than 9 million vehicles in 2006.
"It's not simple or cheap stuff to do," said Neal Dikeman, partner with Jane Capital Partners, a San Francisco merchant bank focusing on cleantech and energy technologies. "$100 million is the ante up to play the game," Dikeman said.

"People are waking up to the fact that this is not like software start-ups that raise $40 or $50 million, and then have IPOs," said Darryl Siry, Tesla's vice president of sales, marketing and service. "This business is capital intensive."

Driving Cutback?

Based on the traffic jams, it sure doesn't seem as if people are reducing their driving.

Improved Mileage Pays Off

Citigroup Report Says Automakers Can Profit from CAFE Standards
By GreenBiz.com

WASHINGTON -- Anticipating legislation that will boost required gas mileage for cars in the United States, Citigroup has released a report showing that the auto industry can improve mileage and improve profits at the same time.

The report comes as the U.S. Congress is considering bills to raise the standards for the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which dictate the miles per gallon achieved by an automaker's vehicle line. In June, the Senate passed a bill that would raise the average to 35 mpg by 2020, a 40 percent increase over the average 24.1 mpg currently achieved by the six major U.S. car companies.

"When you have the world's number one bank, which has financial ties to many major automakers, saying fuel economy standards are a good economic play, it drives a stake through the heart of the auto industry's scare tactics," said Representative Edward J. Markey of the House's Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The report, "CAFE and the U.S. Auto Industry; A Growing Auto Investor Issue, 2012-2020," was created by Citigroup, working together with Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk. The report examines predicted changes to the CAFE standards, and finds that improved mileage requirements will be good for manufacturers as well as for the environment.

You Tubed

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Carbon-Neutral Auto Race

Teams to Race in Carbon-Neutral Road Rally
Emily Gertz
November 2, 2007 1:17 PM


From World Changing:
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world -- or it will be in January, in Africa:

Zero Rally Africa, a carbon neutral car rally to be staged between Victoria Falls and Cape Town in January 2009 [is being held] to publicise renewable energy and draw further attention to climate chnage while crossing the continent which will be worst affected by global warming.
It is open to solar, electric, hybrid, biofuel and hydren vehicles.

Over twenty teams from the USA, UK, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland, India, New Zealand and Australia want to take part so far. It will be a dramatic demonstration of the viability and practicality of these vehicles in an even more dramatic setting.

.

Car Careers for Women

Women in the Driver's Seat: An Automotive Career Forum for Women
Saturday, November 3, 10:30 am - 2 pm

10:30-11:15 Car Care Clinics & Brunch, Network with Women & Dealers
11:30-12:45 Panel Discussion
1:00-1:45 Car Care Clinics, Network with Women and Dealers
2:00 Raffle Drawings


Where
Center for Automotive Education & Training
15-30 Petracca Place
Whitestone, Queens

Directions



Register now to receive your free brunch ticket. Or, call Diana at 718.640.2000 for more info.

Toll on Health

Bye-Bye, Parking Meter

How soon before it's here on Long Island?

Meter is ticking on parking meter's fate
Internet system will let drivers reserve, pay for space with cell phone
By Erik N. Nelson

SAN FRANCISCO — Parking meters are so 1920s.
That's what U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters told a crowd of journalists Tuesday just off Van Ness Street after buying a little paper ticket from a newfangled meter that controls an entire block of parking spaces.

"Meter technology has remained unchanged since — can you believe this — the 1920s, when vehicle travel was a relatively new activity in American life," Peters said. "Back then, the early parking meter concept wasn't too much different from parking during the last turn of the century, when travelerswould tie up at a hitching post and throw a coin to the stablehand to watch their horse."

But, now the stablehand is artificial intelligence, the hitching post is wireless Internet parking, and the days of trolling for a parking space are, in theory, numbered.

All the well-equipped motorist will need to do is call up the parking system on a cell phone or hand-held computer, and the system will show where the empty spaces are.

A few clicks later and the space is reserved and waiting for the driver to arrive.

Payment will work the same way, and then some.

The parking meter would text the motorist's cell phone with a warning, and instead of having to sprint to the meter, the overdue parker can pay via cell phone, too.