Toyota to make plug-in hybrid by 2010

Toyota Motor plans to produce Lithium-ion batteries next year for a plug-in hybrid vehicle available in 2010.

The company last week said the plug-in hybrid will be "geared toward fleet customers in Japan, (the) United States, and Europe".

A joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic EV Energy plans to begin production of Lithium-ion batteries next year and move to full-scale production in 2010. Using the battery, Toyota plans to introduce a small electric vehicle for mass production.

Toyota's Prius, numbering a million sold, uses a nickel metal-hydride battery. Lithium-ion batteries, which are heavily used in consumer electronics, are being built into an upcoming generation of hybrid-electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

Later in the month, Toyota plans to establish a research-and-development center for next-generation batteries that outperform Lithium-ion batteries.

The company, which also continues to invest in fuel cell vehicles, recently began a lease program in Japan.

Toyota also disclosed last week its plug-in hybrid production plans at a company-sponsored environmental forum in Tokyo, where it outlined its greenhouse gas reduction and clean-technology plans.

Via CNET Crave

BMW's shape-shifting car

If you've caught the latest Knight Rider series recently, you'd have noticed that K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand) embraces nano technology which lets its outer shell change colors and morph into similar car forms temporarily. How cool is that? Now it seems the reel world has been made real. BMW's GINA Light Visionary Model, a two-seater concept car, wears a flexible, virtually seamless skin made of a textile fabric and stretched over a metal wire structure enforced with carbon fiber. What this does is to give the owner flexibility to change the shape of the car as he fancies, from within and without. All at the touch of a button. Just too bad this will sit in the research labs for another decade before BMW design chief Chris Bangle reckons such cool tech will hit the roads. By then, we may well have taken to the skies for our daily commute. Meanwhile, check Gina out in the YouTube video below.




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HP shows off concept devices of the future

BERLIN, GERMANY--HP wants you to believe you never have to sit through another boring meeting, ever. That's only if the Recap Meeting concept takes off. The idea behind it is pretty simple actually. Instead of attending a meeting in person, you assign a virtual avatar that's capable of recording the proceedings, while you're someplace else working on something more important, like burning rubber on Project Racer.

A few other concept devices were showcased to the media attending the Connecting Your World event in Berlin. These included a wearable data manager, which is essentially a ring that contains your personal bio-data profile and reacts to gesture controls; an interactive work surface with two flat surfaces for display and data input; and a volume printer that redefines the shopping experience by "printing" out mockup products before you pay for them.

There's also a tablet-like device which is capable of doing a multitude of tasks, which looks like an uber-cool remote control.

Pictures right after the jump! (And a video of it, too, if I manage to upload the file.)
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Air-powered go-kart hits the tracks

First, cars that run on water and air. Now, here's a go-kart that zips along on compressed O2. Considering that air is (still) free, this project by mechanical engineering students from Canada's Dalhousie University is on the right track. The air-powered vehicle apparently compares favorably against electric-powered carts. In test laps, the students managed three rounds or just under 2 minutes going full out at 43kmh on two tanks. But the air-powered go-kart still has some ways to go, literally. It runs out of air quickly, according to its makers. Nothing that time and refinements won't improve. And in the name of cheap, sustainable energy, we say bring it on!

Watch it in action below:



Source and picture from Dalhousie University of Canada

Scorpion sportscar would burn gasoline and hydrogen

A Texas company is offering a glimpse of a high-end hydrogen-gasoline sportscar it hopes to sell by October.

Rather than using fuel cells to power an electric motor, the Scorpion from Ronn Motor Company would have an internal combustion engine burning both gasoline and hydrogen, achieving 40 highway miles per gallon.

Unlike with a hydrogen fuel cell car, the Scorpion's "hydrogen on demand" system wouldn't require a high-pressure hydrogen storage tank. Nor would a driver need to find and fill up at a hydrogen fueling station.

Instead, electricity from the Scorpion's alternator sends an electric charge through the water in a storage tank, fracturing molecules and releasing hydrogen, which is injected into the motor, explained Ronn Maxwell, CEO of Ronn Motor in Horseshoe Bay, Texas.

"This means that as we're driving down the road, we're producing hydrogen in real time, and blending it with gasoline at a ratio of 30 to 40 percent," he said.
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