Skip to Content

MIT


One Gallon Challenge: alt-fuel "race" cars get up to 164 MPGe

This weekend's One Gallon Challenge in Massachusetts resulted in some pretty amazing fuel economy results. The five vehicles that took part in the race challenge (any line of of cars that starts "in stately, fuel-conserving style" can't really be called a race, can it?) made the 100-mile drive into Boston and posted fuel efficiency results as follows: MIT's all-electric Porsche – 164 MPGe (plug-to-wheels) or 75MPGe (well-to-wheels) Moonbeam – 93 MPGe Dirigo – 88 MPGe Ricker Truck – 70 MPGe Wood-burning ... Read more →

In the future, we'll all be driving electric ... shopping carts? Jeremy Korzeniewski

Why waste a perfectly good used shopping cart when it can be recycled into something fun? Seeking to definitively answer that question is a twenty-year-old MIT student named Charles Guan who ...

MIT working to eliminate phantom traffic jams [w/VIDEO] Jeremy Korzeniewski

Seriously, how irritating is it when traffic inexplicably comes to a grinding halt for no apparent reason before starting right back up with no trace of a cause? Not only are these so-called ...

New lithium ion process could lead to fast charging, still needs BIG pipe! Sam Abuelsamid

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been looking at where the bottlenecks are inside lithium ion batteries that limit charging and discharging rates learned some interesting ...

MIT unveils "Eleanor" 2009 World Solar Challenge competitor Sam Abuelsamid

The World Solar Challenge is back for its tenth outing across the wilds of Australia this October. Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the only ones to have competed in every ...

MIT students develop shocks that generate electricity 9 months ago on Autoblog Green

Students at MIT have created a new set of shocks, called GenShock, that generate electricity as they smooth out the vehicle's ride. We first heard of such a system from MIT in late 2007; now the team has apparently refined the shocks to the point that major automakers have taken notice. The biggest ...

MIT students build DIY Segways, electric karts 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Remember the DIY Segway that we showed you? The same group of students from MIT and their friends from some area high schools known as the Edgerton Center Summer Engineering Workshop are back at it this year with a new project, an electric kart that has some rather high-tech features built in. ...

Ultracapacitors will be the next hot thing for hybrids 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

In a recent article in Popular Mechanics, editor Mike Allen declared himself a fan of ultracapacitors for hybrid cars. He explains how he visited Honda's development facilities 15 years ago and found himself testing a mild hybrid that used an ultracapacitor to store energy. However, we all know ...

RoboScooter: Very scooter, not so robo 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Popular Mechanics has done a bit of a follow up on a little scooter from the labs of MIT we originally told you about back in the beginning of January. In a good news/bad news story with enough new detail to make it worth the read, we learn, among other things, that the the scooter is "going to ...

Cool videos: MIT ethanol injection hybrid, Japanese hydrogen water engine 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Do you think the future of green engines is just flex-fuels, hybrids or fuel cells? Can you imagine a future with engines that have ethanol turbo-like injection or use steam super-heated by hydrogen? These engines are in the lab today. The video above is a look at a hybrid ethanol injection engine ...

Cool videos: BAE's electric tank, MIT's stackable car 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

The video above is of a BAE Systems' electric-powered military vehicle. According to one of video description, BAE Systems has made military vehicles with "electromagnetic hub mounted wheel motors from MST." The military is very interested in the silence and efficiency of electric vehicles because ...

MIT students make device that gets power from vertical motion of cars 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/Power_from_vertical_motion_of_cars'; The Curie Brothers team (MIT students Paul Abel '08, Shakeel Avadhany '09, and Vladimir Tarasov '08) won third place in the MADMEC, MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Dow Chemical Company's energy ...

MIT studying the bluegill sunfish to create more efficient submersibles 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Science often looks to nature for inspiration on how to improve a concept which is already used. Just as flippers help a swimmer or diver to move through the water, the same principle could replace the propeller that is normally used in submersibles. Specifically, the bluegill sunfish is being ...

MIT grad students propose crowd farming to generate electricity 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

A pair of MIT graduate architecture students are proposing a novel, almost carbon-free way to generate electricity. In crowded buildings and malls when thousands of people are walking around, every step they take puts mechanical energy into the floor. They want to harness that energy by building in ...

An electric Porsche 914 from MIT 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Three decades before Porsche and Volkswagen collaborated on the Cayenne/Touareg, they got together to create a little mid-engined sports car called the 914. Now a group of engineering students has taken a 914 provided one of their professors and created their answer to the Tesla Roadster. ...

MIT develops system for wireless electricity, dubbs it WiTricity 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

As a blogger, we often live on our electronic gadgetry like laptops, cell phones and digital cameras, and I am absolutely certain that many of our readers use the same devices and more in their everyday life. So, I am sure that you will agree with me that you would love to cut all the cords that ...

MIT experiments with turbocharged, direct injected, ethanol and gasoline powered engine 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

This information will not come as a shock to our readers, but I thought that I would go ahead and share the story with you anyway. As you are well aware, turbocharging an internal combustion engine can lead to higher power output by adding additional oxygen into the engine. This has been used to ...

MIT creates a foldable, stackable "City Car" 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Ever go to a big city and wonder how in the world you were going to get around? This happens to me, as my wife and I make several trips to Chicago every year for weekend getaways. The problem is that there are tons of cars there, traffic snarls a lack of good places to park, unless you want to pay ...

Caetano Rodrigues Miranda and Francesca Baletto of MIT debate the hydrogen economy 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

As part of a four-part seminar held in January entitled, "Hydrogen: Hype or Hope?", Caetano Rodrigues Miranda and Francesca Baletto give a possible glimpse into the future technical challenges of a hydrogen economy, which include hydrogen production, fuel cell design, storage, distribution and ...

How would you like to turn your trash into gas? 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

In America, we have trash, and lots of it. Remember in "Back to the Future", when Doc, played by Christopher Lloyd, grabbed garbage from a can, dropped it into the back of his time-machine and fueled its time circuitry with it? This is nothing like that. But, it is pretty cool if they can get it to ...

College students develop biodiesel programs as part of Ecomagination Challenge 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Here's a great idea: ask college students to develop new and creative ways to green their campus. General Electric and mtvU have combined to sponsor this unique competition. Of the 10 finalists, two schools are taking on biodiesel projects. MIT is looking at a solar-powered biodiesel processing and ...

MIT researchers developing an on-demand ethanol injection system 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

According to Reuters, a group of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on what they think is a more logical ethanol solution for our impending fuel crisis. Instead of using ethanol as a primary fuel or an additive, we could potentially see more realistic fuel-saving ...

Another effort to use algae as source for alternative fuel 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

Algae is growing in Arizona and being used to absorb carbon dioxide at an electrical generating plant. If the future holds true to the plant's potential, then algae could be converted to fuel and replace up to one-third of the natural gas needed to power the plant. So far researchers are trying to ...

Rifkin: "Our common energy future lies with the sun, not with uranium" 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

We've been hearing a lot about nuclear power lately. Bush mentioned it as an ideal energy source to generate hydrogen fuel. An MIT study proposed two reactor concepts to produce nuclear hydrogen. This Weekend Edition story on NPR finds that a co-founder of Greenpeace is an active supporter. And the ...

Alternative fuels will be key factor in car of the future 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

BusinessWeek.com has just posted a colorful and engaging multi-story report on high-tech cars. The one piece covering alternative fuel called on MIT professors to give their thoughts. They believe there will be many choices because "we can't put all our eggs in one basket." The article says hybrid ...

Ecofest Report: Vehicle Design Summit at MIT 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

The Vehicle Design Summit (VDS) at MIT is a summer project involving the collaboration of about 50 students from 21 universities and 13 countries. Their goal is to design and build 5 high-mileage vehicles which include a plugin-electric, a fuel cell car, another running off ethanol and a Honda ...

Nanopartical additive reportedly boost diesel fuel efficiency 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

There's a new diesel additive called Envirox that uses cerium oxide as a catalyst. That's the same metal that supports more efficient and expensive platinum in catalytic converters. A company spun off from the University of Oxford called Oxonica has discovered that by breaking the cerium down into ...

Sunset on alternators, hybrid batteries? 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

MIT researchers have developed a system that could potentially do away with vehicle alternators and even hybrid batteries. The system is called "thermophotovoltaics". Briefly, a gasoline engine heats a light-emitting material which causes a photovoltaic (aka solar) cell to emit electricity. The ...


Featured Galleries

  • 2009 Rolls-Royce Phantom
  • Smart ED production
  • Tesla Roadster audio recording for video games
  • Production i-MiEVs in the UK
  • Hyundai 2.4L direct injected Theta II
  • Mercedes-Benz Citaro FuelCELL-Hybrid bus
  • Chevy Volt hits the streets in Royal Oak
  • 2010 Nissan LEAF
  • 2010 Mercedes-Benz ML450 hybrid
  • Renault Fluence ZE concept
  • Governor Schwarzenegger with the Zero S
  • Peugeot Concept HYbrid3 Evolution

Categories

Autoblog

Daily Finance

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Autoblog Spanish

Switched.com

FanHouse

Asylum