Green Car Journal picks 5 nominees for Green Car Vision award
Having honored the VW Jetta TDI as the Green Car of the Year at last month's LA Auto Show, the editors at Green Car Journal are not done with awards just yet. Next up they will be selecting a winner for the Green Car Vision award. The nominees go beyond ordinary concepts and are either current low volume production units, in fleet tests or are in development for production in the near future. The nominees are the Mitsubishi iMiEV (above), the Honda FCX Clarity, Chevy Volt, Fisker Karma and MINI E. All but the Honda have plug-in capability, with the Fisker and Chevrolet using range-extenders. The winner will be announced at the Washington, DC Auto Show on February 3, 2009.
[Sources: Green Car Journal, Mitsubishi]
Mitsubishi i MiEV Nominated for 2009 Green Car Vision Award
"We are pleased the i MiEV is getting this recognition," said Dan Kuhnert, executive vice president of Mitsubishi Motors North America. "Its design and execution are ideally suited to meet the urban transportation needs of a rapidly changing world."
The zero-emission i MiEV uses a state-of-the-art, 330-volt lithium-ion battery to power a 47 kW permanent-magnet motor. The compact, lightweight battery is situated under the floor, its small size helping to maximize the roomy four-passenger cabin while minimizing the car's overall footprint.
"Vehicles offering dramatically improved environmental performance are crucial to helping us move beyond today's challenges of oil dependence and growing environmental impacts," explained Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com.
Having completed extensive fleet-testing in Japan for the past two years, Mitsubishi's inventive i MiEV is currently undergoing fleet testing in a joint effort with two California utilities-Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric. It is scheduled to go on sale to the public in Japan this summer.
About Mitsubishi Motors North America:
Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc., (MMNA) is responsible for all manufacturing, finance, sales, marketing, research and development operations for Mitsubishi Motors in the United States. MMNA sells coupes, convertibles, sedans, sport utility vehicles and light trucks through a network of dealerships. For more information, contact the Mitsubishi Motors News Bureau at (888) 560-6672 or visit media.mitsubishicars.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 11:07AM (12/27/2008)
The winner should be the clarity because it's already real since 2 years and it's commercialised right now contrary to the volt, mini, imiev and fisker karma that are futur projects and nobody knows what it do in real life.
The clarity consume hydrogen gas from water and have better performance then the imiev and mini.The volt and karma use gasoline and even if it's a simpler and older technology are not ready even as prototype as the honda and show that gm and fisker are sub-par political brands of products dictated by big-oil-goverments and journalists and bloggers.
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Mike!!ekiM 11:26AM (12/27/2008)
Do you own oil stock?
Hydrogen is much less efficient then Pure Electric Drive. The LOSER will pick hydrogen in the global economic-environmental race.
Rick 12:06PM (12/27/2008)
Maybe they should make the Clarity into a plug in vehicle with a fuel cell range extender. Give it 40 mile battery range and 250 mile hydrogen range for occasional use.
tankd0g 1:01AM (12/28/2008)
Mike, you're a bit of an idiot. Can you store Gigawatts of solar, wind, tidal or geo thermal power in a battery when it's being generated in remote locations at a time no one needs it? Nope. Can you store it in Hydrogen? Yep.
tankd0g 1:01AM (12/28/2008)
BMW Hydrogen 7 deserves the award. Whoever comes up with a hydrogen conversion kit for gasoline ICEs is going to make billions.
Chris M 3:11AM (12/28/2008)
Gorr, the engineers at Honda already know a lot more than you do about electrolysis, they've designed and built a solar powered electrolysis unit to provide H2 fuel for their LA test fleet. They didn't include onboard electrolysis for the Clarity as they already know it takes 3x more energy than the fuel cell can produce, therefore they know your idea cannot work.
tankd0g, you're a bit of an idiot. We can store Gigawatt-hours of solar/wind/tidal/geothermal energy in batteries, it just requires a big enough batttery pack. We could also store it with even bigger H2 tanks, but which option would be more efficient and less expensive? Well, charger and battery combined efficiency is about 85%, but electrolyzer and fuel cell combined efficiency is at best 30% efficient, subtract energy to pack it away for storage and efficiency drops to 24% or less. Moreover, large high pressure H2 storage tanks don't come cheap, and fuel cells requiring platinum are even more costly.
As for the H2 conversion of ICE engines, I really can't understand why anyone would spend a small fortune (H2 tanks aren't cheap) to get reduced performance, greatly reduced driving range, and a dramatic increase in fuel cost to $8 per GGE (gallon of gasoline equivalent).
gorr 3:21PM (12/27/2008)
The clarity don't need to be a plug-in, this is the argument of journalists and goverment driven by big oil and tax money. What it need that is way better then having to refuel at a unnecessary hydrogen station is an inside water electrolyser that produce hydrogen gas directly from water. Go see the genepax movie in youtube, this is real.
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Chris M 3:20AM (12/28/2008)
You're right, it doesn't "need to be" a plug-in, but it already includes a LiIon battery pack to power the car during fuel cell startup, store regenerative braking energy, and provide extra power for acceleration. Running on electricity would be much less expensive and more efficient compared to running on H2 fuel, so why not take advantage of if.
Of course, Big Oil is the biggest producers of H2 and they'd rather you buy that profitable H2 fuel from them, not the much cheaper electricity, so they are doing their best to stifle talk of plug-ins.
EVdriver 6:56PM (12/27/2008)
Clarity has already been dead, as well as all hydrogen foolery for a long time. Lack of infastructure (and NEVER will be), a million dollar unit price, and its laughably low efficiency killed it for ever.
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tankd0g 1:01AM (12/28/2008)
Yawn, go back to 1996 when these things were true. The entire country of Iceland runs on hydrogen.
Chris M 2:46AM (12/28/2008)
Um, no, Iceland isn't running on H2. They were big on the hype, and got a few H2 fuel cell busses, but then found out how incredibly expensive it was, and their economy went down, they couldn't afford it, and now they are looking at much cheaper and more efficient plug-ins instead.
gorr 1:33PM (12/28/2008)
Don't believe the paid traders that know everything and have proposed their own enforcement deals on anything hydrogen related like 500 000$ platinum fuelcell or costly hydrogen tanks and monopoly on any hydrogen gas sold to consumers. They live by enforced tax on anything for protecting you from even thinking of a free ride. The more your sick, the best they feel. They tried to kill anything biology related before this planet because they were opposed to sex because they were living in robot-corpses and they tried to study biology with electronics machines and toxics gas to previous human civilisations and almost kill entirelly human culture and knowledge.
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sherry 6:36AM (12/31/2008)
OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100 per barrel again. We are at their mercy. We really need to get on about the business of becoming energy independent. This past year and the record gas prices played a huge part in our economic meltdown and seriously damaged our economy and society.We keep planning to spend BILLIONS on bailouts and stimulus plans.Bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil. Make electric plug in car technology more affordable. I just read an amazing new book by Jeff Wilson called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. It cost the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon to drive an electric plug in car. The electric could be generated from wind or solar. Get with it! Utilize free sources such as wind and solar. In fact, if all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. Stop throwing away money on things that don't work. Invest in America and it's energy independence. Create cheap clean energy, create millions of badly needed green collar jobs. Put America back to work. It is a win-win situation. We have to become more proactive citizens, educate ourselves and demand our elected officials move this country forward into the era of energy independence. We need to stop talking about becoming energy independent and do everything in our power to make it happen. We need to use some of those bailout billions to invest in America becoming Energy Independent!
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gorr 4:25PM (1/01/2009)
Don't believe state wannabee peoples that work in deinformation here in this site like sherry.
What they say is that they wanted to finance arabs( opec) to start a big war in the middle east between arabs themself and especially the jews. All that financed by the oil-cartel that wall street gave to arabs in 1973 when they created opec and they tried to start a general war at that time. Since then there's been a lot of wars even if i was not a big one, many millions have suffered and die. They want too, that u.s.a citizens participate in this useless war for petrol and after said that the slayer record of 11 sept 2001 was not fun, they started the war between u.s.a military and their previous friend sabbam.
There is sufficient petrol in u.s.a and enouph natural gas to fuel the u.s.a but they wanted to control foreign contries with forced deals on toxicity and general war and poverty till everyone dies.
It's as sad as that.
That's why they are afraid of hydrogen. If a single car works without petrol then the truth about toxics gas been promoted by u.s.a authorities and high-financial circle will be known.
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Chris M 5:56PM (1/01/2009)
Gorr, you apparently missed the whole point of Sherry's post. With plug-in hybrids and electric cars, most or all of the energy can be made locally, and petroleum consumption reduced enough to end importation. Add in biofuels from high yield sources, and petroleum consumption would be miniscule, extending current local oil supplies by centuries.
A pure electric transport system wouldn't burn any oil at all.
gorr 4:28PM (1/01/2009)
Saddam not sabbam
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Tohe 7:13PM (3/31/2009)
Gorr you are CRAZY.
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