Green Tech
Don't forget to feed the 'leccy meter: Tesla opening European showrooms
Electric-speedster manufacturer Tesla is heading for Europe this summer. The company is planning a batch of new showrooms, three of which will be in Europe.
Tesla's three existing Californian showrooms will be joined by ones in New York, Seattle, Chicago and Miami, with Washington DC and Toronto also on the cards. This side of the Atlantic, millionaire's playground Monaco and autobahn heaven Munich will be getting showrooms. And here's the good news: you'll be able to surf the Web, take a test drive and see the Roadster in the flesh in London, home of CNET Towers, the Queen and the congestion charge.
Hang on -- what congestion charge? Snap yourself up a Tesla and you'll be able to hit 60mph in less than 4 seconds, without paying Boris a penny. Actually, the only way you'll hit 60mph on a London street is if you're dropped from a plane, but you know what we mean.
CNET UK's award-winning Car Tech series goes way back with the Tesla Roadster: we test drove it in Geneva, and this could be our chance to get gearhead-in-chief Rory 'Roadhog' Reid behind the wheel of the new Tesla S sedan. Continue reading...
Eco-documentary Home is first simultaneous cinema, TV and YouTube premiere
Environmental documentary Home today became the first feature-length film to premiere on YouTube at the same time as in cinemas and on TV.
The non-profit film, backed by retail group PPR, is directed by French photographer and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and produced by Luc Besson, the chap behind Léon and The Fifth Element. It's been released in French cinemas and will be shown on France 2 and for free at an open-air screening beneath the Eiffel Tower at 10pm. It's even out on DVD today. Continue reading...
Pixel Qi 3qi hybrid LCD/e-paper display
Pixel Qi was at Computex in Taiwan this week, demonstrating its 3qi display technology, which integrates e-paper attributes with LCD to create a versatile and potentially very energy-efficient screen.
The idea is that with a flip of a button you can go from a traditional high-resolution colour LCD experience to a low-power black and white mode to an even more energy-efficient e-paper mode, which allows you to easily view text in bright sunlight. Check out the demo video after the jump. Continue reading...
Sony Ericsson goes green with Ling and C901 GreenHeart
Sony Ericsson is going green with two new phones announced this week: the C901 GreenHeart and the Ling concept. The GreenHeart is the eco-friendly version of the C902, which has a carbon footprint of 25kg of CO2, while the GreenHeart punts out an admirable 5kg less. It's a mid-range Cyber-shot phone with a 5-megapixel camera, boxed in smaller-than-usual packaging, while the Ling concept will be a no-frills entry-level model responsible for a scant 18kg of CO2.
The idea behind GreenHeart is not to add one eco phone to the line-up, but to green up all Ericsson's phones. Starting with the GreenHeart and the recent Satio, Sony Ericsson is removing paper manuals from all its phones, instead building the instructions into the phone itself. Apparently the manual alone is responsible for 3kg of CO2 -- that's 15 per cent of a phone's carbon footprint, according to Ericsson, a third of which is printing and the rest transport. Continue reading...
Air-fuelled battery could store 10 times more power
A new type of air-fuelled battery being studied could provide up to 10 times the energy storage of designs currently available, and someday be used to power electric cars, mobile phones, and laptops, say researchers. "Our results so far are very encouraging and have far exceeded our expectations," said professor Peter Bruce, of the University of St Andrews' chemistry department.
The new idea the researchers are examining is to replace the lithium cobalt oxide electrode in today's rechargeable lithium batteries with a porous carbon electrode. This allows lithium ions and electrons in the cell to react instead with oxygen in the ambient air, according to a press release from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which finances the research conducted at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The project has received about £1.6 million from the EPSRC. Continue reading...
Nissan may launch hybrid 370Z sports car
Internet rumours suggest that Nissan will offer a hybrid version of its 370Z sports car by around 2012. Currently, Nissan's only hybrid is the Altima sedan, with a power train licensed from Toyota. But Nissan has long promised a car with a hybrid system developed in-house, and showed off a concept car that would use this system, the Essence, at the Geneva International Motor Show.
The first production car featuring Nissan's own hybrid system should be based on the Infiniti M45 (Infiniti is Nissan's luxury-car division), expected to come out in 2010. Nissan has been working on lithium-ion battery development in partnership with NEC. Continue reading...
Magna Steyr showcases green car platform
At the Geneva International Motor Show, Magna Steyr, a maker of automotive parts, illustrated what its Mila automotive platform can offer to car makers: Magna Steyr would build a car's innards, with a car maker then slapping on a body shell and badges.
Mila is designed as a flexible platform for the manufacturing of either electric or hybrid cars, allowing car manufacturers to market their own green cars without having to do years of costly research. Continue reading...
Giugiaro Frazer-Nash Namir and Infiniti Essence: Supercars go electric 
At the Geneva International Motor Show, Italian design house Giugiaro showed off the fruits of its collaboration with hybrid-systems maker Frazer-Nash: the Frazer-Nash Namir, a hybrid supercar.
This concept car uses a series hybrid system, with two motors -- one for the front wheels and one for the rear -- a lithium-polymer battery pack, and a 814cc rotary engine as a generator.Continue reading...
SunCat solar batteries charge themselves
Solar-powered phones such as the Samsung Blue Earth are great eco-friendly concepts, but we won't see these sun-worshipping devices replacing mainstream handsets anytime soon. Meanwhile, we still have a mountain of gadgets that need to be juiced regularly, which is why designer Knut Karlsen's idea of integrating flexible solar cells on to rechargeable batteries could be a more immediate solution to reducing our carbon footprint.
Named after a feline basking in the sun, SunCat involves flexible solar-cell strips glued to nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable cells. Continue reading...
Rinspeed iChange: Shape-changing electric concept car
Rinspeed, a Swiss automotive design company, has a history of presenting ambitious concept cars at the Geneva auto show. The iChange, the company's offering for this year's event, which takes place from 5 to 15 March, doesn't disappoint either.
The shape of the electric iChange alters depending on whether it's carrying one or three people. Continue reading...
