TOYOTA PRIUS: A wagon & SUV version of it

Toyota's Prius has remained the best-selling hybrid of all time even as competitors like Ford and GM step up the competition. But the Prius can't do it all--for anyone with a large family, it's just not big enough. Perhaps that's why Toyota is hatching a plan to produce a line of Prius vehicles, with either a wagon or SUV first in line for a mass rollout.

Few details have been released, but Toyota is reportedly thinking about installing a lithium-ion battery pack in the vehicle--a surprise considering that Toyota has repeatedly claimed that lithium-ion batteries aren't cheap or reliable enough for mass use. The new wagon/SUV will be bigger and heavier than the Prius sedan, and will likely have a larger power system (read: a larger battery pack).

Beyond those scraps of information, Toyota is staying mum. The new Prius could be a plug-in or a regular hybrid, and pricing is still up in the air--though Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper says that it will retail for about $22,000. But whenever Toyota decides to release the new, larger Prius, we can expect a rapid increase in the number of hybrid-owning soccer moms.

Toyota will provide 150 test versions of the plug-in Prius to European fleets, and the same number in the States. The first Prius Plug-Ins will be delivered by the end of the year, but Toyota hasn't said when retail customers will be able to get their hands on a factory-built plug-in Prius.

[Resources: Fast Company article : Rumor: Toyota Planning Prius Wagon and SUV]

Rachel Avalon - World's first green model

Rachel Avalon wears an EcoSkin dress and SmartGlass earrings.Image by Todd Westphal.


Rachel’s core environmental connections come to her through what she puts in her body; like many of us, food and nutrition helped her understand how connected we are to the health of the planet. Growing up with a mom who was passionate about gardening and other environmental concerns, as well as the increasingly obvious realities of global warming and other human-caused eco problems put her on the path to green awareness and outreach. 

What she says:

Scientists have proven that agricultural chemicals and petro-packaging materials are contaminating the soil, water, air and the food we ingest. It’s no coincidence that cancer rates are on the rise and that other species are suffering as well. Of course, there are more pieces to the puzzle. I believe GMOs are also a major threat to nature’s infinite wisdom and design along with the brutal reality of factory-farming.

Not only is there a total lack of reverence towards life that is embedded in those business practices, but most of the meat people eat in this country is pumped full of antibiotics, hormones, and corn. That undermines everyone’s health plus ecosystems as far reaching as the oceans. There is no doubt in my mind that we need to support organic farming and eat less or no meat. In fact the U.N. published a report a couple years ago stating that Americans could have a greater impact on climate change and pollution by adopting that priority than by driving hybrids. I say, let’s do both!

Reva NXR - low running & maintenance cost

REVA Electric Car Company (REVA) said a few days ago that the REVA NXR will enter production in 2010. The car will be sold as a 2011 model. It is a 3 door, 4 seater car for city families. While this is the first car which will come to our homes from the Reva stable, a much more promising product is the Reva NXG which goes into production in 2011. NXG is a 2 door hatchback with removable convertible style top and a range of 200 kms.


Specifications for Reva NXR

Battery: Litium Ion
Recharge time: Complete in 8 hours
90% recharge in 90 minutes
15 minute recharge gives 40 km of driving
Range: 160 km ( Can easily give 320 km of driving a day using instant charging )
Top Speed: 104 km/h


Specifications for Reva NXG

Battery: Litium Ion Phosphate
Recharge time: Complete in 8 hours
90% recharge in 90 minutes
15 minute recharge gives 40 km of driving
Range: 200 km ( Can easily give 400 km of driving a day using instant charging )
Top Speed: 130 km/h

Here are 5 reasons to buy a Reva:

1. Amazing Range -The average inter city travel of an average driver in Delhi is 39.78 Km. With a range of 200 kms in NXG and 160 km. in NXR, most of the problems related to electric vehicles being short ranged and only useful for neighbourhood shopping can go to sleep once and for all.
2. ReViVe Technology – The REVA support centre assesses information from the car via telematics (information and communication technology) to calculate the amount of reserve energy available for that particular car. Then, within a few minutes the digital display will indicate ‘Revive’ and the ‘distance to empty’ gauge will display the additional amount of range available and the driver can continue their journey. It puts an end to ‘Range anxiety’.
3. Tons of Torque – With a powerful motor and a short burst system which provides extra torque for a short period of time. And a a top speed of 130kms brings it in the league of ‘normal’ cars.
4. No Noise and No Pollution – A car which is clean on your environmental conscious and has no engine noise.
5. Dirt cheap compared to other cars on running and maintenance costs – with a cost of 40 paisa per km, it has one of the lowest running costs. Also, with crude reluctant to come below Rs. 50, it makes more sense to invest in the Reva. One sure shot way to beat inflation.

And not to mention the cool looks that draw instant admiration and the unique features like remote AC control which allows you to turn it on some time before you enter the car and Integrated communications console.
And to make it an irresistible buy, Reva Company offers an on road service which recharges your car in case you run out of charge and are stranded.

Lexus LFA - the 1st ever sportcar from LEXUS

It's is V10 engine driven & 65% carbon fibre body.
The rival for Nissan GT-R.

The Lexus LFA is a two-seat exotic sports coupe produced by Lexus as a concept car, halo vehicle, racing prototype, and production vehicle.^[1] It is the second model in the F marque line of performance vehicles from Lexus, following the IS F. Three concept versions have been shown, each debuting at the North American International Auto Show with the LF-A designation as part of the LF Series concept line. The first LF-A concept premiered in 2005, followed in 2007 by a second LF-A with a more completely furnished interior and exterior. The third version of the LF-A, a roadster model, premiered in 2008. The production model, trademarked LFA,^[2] was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show in October 2009.^[3]

The production Lexus LFA features a new V10 engine and a carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) body. The use of CFRP materials, which account for 65 percent of the LFA's body composition,^[4] is to reduce overall weight for improved performance. The LFA is scheduled to go into production in late 2010, with a projected run of 500 hand-built vehicles at an estimated base price of $US350,000-375,000.^[5][6] A circuit-tuned variant is scheduled for 2012.^[7]

Android 2.0's Convenience May Leave iPhone legacy behind

Everyone loves the iPhone--today. It does two things extremely well: calling and email. To date, no other device can top it. But by this time next year, that may not be enough. And Android will be waiting in the wings.


Google and Microsoft are both deeply interested in status updates from Twitter and Facebook, because their users are increasingly reliant on social networking accounts. More and more people are also getting VOIP numbers like 3Jam and Google Voice; even more are excited about getting on the Google Wave bandwagon. Some people have gone ahead and auto-registered themselves for every social network available by using automatic-registration tools. We're drowning in connections and sharing.

That means every person in your address book now conceivably has a half dozen or more profiles, numbers, addresses, and handles. The iPhone can barely handle the onslaught; even if you have MobileMe, as I do, contacts frequently get doubled up in the iPhone, or aren't correctly overwritten (the "my contact" feature seems especially error prone; it keeps trying to update my personal v-card to say "Me Dannen" instead of just "Me.)
To make matters worse, the iPhone OS doesn't auto-update from any of the new services above--I have to manually enter every new Google Wave address, for example, into my contacts.
Android manages all this chaos with aplomb in its "Eclair" 2.0 version, which is replete with smart ways to centrally manage accounts and contacts and make them available to all apps, OS-wide. If the iPhone doesn't hurry up and follow suit, Apple might lose its most Rolodex-reliant customers: business people who are defecting from Blackberry or Windows Mobile.
Android will also have an edge when it comes to searching content made by the people you know. On the iPhone, there's no native Web search that could coalesce contacts' content and Web content; you have to go to Safari to search. Even with aggregator apps, it's still hard to get a handle on the trends or topics in your social graph. Google, by contrast, lets Android search system- and Web-wide, which means it can include its new social search feature.
Android's Eclair version was opened to developers today, and should be available for download soon.

Project Nina = Transforming GM disused plant into an EV plant

We've gotten excited about Fisker's Karma electric car before--it's dashingly attractive for an eco-friendly vehicle. But Fisker will only make a big dent in carbon emissions if it makes a family car. Which it will now do in Delaware.

Because Fisker stated, today, that it will be buying up a disused GM factory in Wilmington for about $18 million, and re-tooling it over the next three years with all the high-tech gear and robots it needs to get its family car rolling off the production line. This car is dubbed Project Nina, and it's being built with the help of a $528.7 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. Part of that cash will go towards buying up the old GM plant--which closed in July of this year due to GM's bankruptcy restructuring, and which used to manufacture such gas-guzzling beasts as the Solstice--and some $175 million will go towards the re-tooling.
That still leaves $335.7 million in Fisker's pocket, which will presumably go towards the raw materials and 2,000 U.S. staff needed to put the Nina on the roads. Fisker plans to have a production run of between 75,000 to 100,000 Ninas per annum by 2014, which means it'll have to move very fast indeed to rebuild that old GM site.
Fisker's upcoming luxury Karma (pictured above because we don't know what Nina looks like) is being built in Europe and will cost something like $80,000, but the Nina looks like it will be a U.S.-centric enterprise with plans to export some of the $40,000 cars to satisfy EV-hungry drivers elsewhere on the globe. Which is kind of fitting given GM's former status as a proud ambassador of U.S. car tech.

Hi-tech yet Affordable EV is true & it's NISSAN model

Abandon your doubts that an affordably priced EV will do well. Nissan's news yesterday confirms it: Almost 22,000 people in North America have contacted Nissan since it announced, in August, that the LEAF EV sedan--expected to hit showrooms in fall 2010--will cost approximately $20,000.

According to Nissan, 70% of the inquiries came from regions where the LEAF will be rolled out initially--San Diego, CA; Tucson, AZ; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR, and Los Angeles--and more than 90% drive less than 100 miles daily (the LEAF's range on a single charge). Preordering won't be available until spring 2010, but the initial interest in the LEAF indicates that EVs may finally move beyond the domain of wealthy Tesla Roadster owners. Tesla is preparing an all-electric economy car of its own--the Model S--but at $57,000+ it's no steal.

Is the LEAF the harbinger of affordable EVs? That depends on the success of initiative like the Renault-Nissan Alliance in building a widespread electric car infrastructure. If they don't succeed, EVs will likely remain on the sidelines. But judging by the Alliance's rapidly expanding plan to install charging corridors throughout the U.S., we will probably see more low-priced EVs hit the streets in short order.