This Aston Martin Volare is the next evolution of English sports car craftsmanship because not only does it combine a sleek new shape with the Aston Martin’s modern design, but underneath there four electric motors that are being fed go juice by a high power fuel cell stack located between the front seats centrally locating the weight as close to the ground as possible for enhanced performance while outside it looks like someone pushed down on the base of the wind shied of a Vantage, sharpening up the profile before transplanting a set of bold wings from a One-77 onto this innovative Aston Martin design.
If it were chocolate it would be good enough to eat, and it possibly could be because this isn’t the latest concept from Gaydon this a scale model from future automotive design master James Trim, we are referring to the days ahead because Mr. Trim is only a 23 year old recent graduate of Coventry University in England with a degree in Automotive Design and a quick look at his portfolio will quickly tell you that this kid is going places.
It’s an interesting idea that James is showing, creating design concepts specifically tailored for certain manufacturers. As every ten year old boy who ever got bored with a pen in his hand will tell you that it is hard to come up with a good looking design that is truly unique, most often the more memorable cars are shaped out of packaging and aerodynamic necessity something that only develops as the parts come together. But James Trim has a good shot at replacing Chris Bangle with his BMW Z1 roadster design study or even at Audi with his cute little A0 super compact city car, the only thing he would have to do is learn to speak German.
A word from the designer after the jump.
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When the Ronn Motor Company debuted the hydrogen powered Scorpion super car at the SEMA show last year, he let the world know that just because a car is green doesn’t mean that it has to be boring. So by asking the question, “How fast can you make water go?” RMC’s CEO Ronn Maxwell has embarked on an endeavor that will leave him amongst the likes of recent automotive pioneers like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Henrik Fisker.
The Scorpion’s chrome-moly tube chassis is wrapped in a custom made carbon fiber skin thanks to the legendary Gaffoglio family from Metalcrafters. The exterior of the 40 MPG super car has enough bold curves and cutouts to secure its place as an exotic sports car. The heart of the RMC Scorpion is a 3.5 Liter V6 from an Acura TL that has been upgraded with a pair of Turbonetics turbochargers and a H2GO hydrogen injection system, this alternative fuel mixture increases fuel economy by 20% to 30% while reducing emissions at the same time. The combination is good for around 600 HP, which allows the 2200 pound super car to go from 0 to 60 MPH in just 3.5 seconds and reach a theoretical top speed of 200 MPH.
Continued after the jump.
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The Cadillac Converj has caused quite a stir amongst the head honchos of General Motors.
Ever since it made a successful debut at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year, the fate of the Converj – which is based on the Chevy Volt – has been a hot topic of debate but now, it appears that GM’s big brass is finally on the verge – we say ‘on the verge’ because with GM, anything can still happen – of putting the Converj up for production.
But it’s not entirely the fault of the bosses at GM. The economic crisis and, to be more specific, GM’s filing for bankruptcy a few months ago all but spelled doom and gloom for the Converj. But now that GM has somehow regained its footing, a number of GM higher-ups, including vice chairman Bob Lutz, have steadily voiced their support to – finally – build the car.
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A lot of car manufacturers seem to understand that the future of the automobile industry lies in the electric variety. As such, a number of automakers have taken the steps to produce their own electric cars and now, we’ve learned that Honda is set to join the mix.
As one of the more pro-active automakers in pursuing fuel-efficient vehicles, it was only a matter of time before Honda jumped on the electric car bandwagon and the recent reports we have is that the company is set to release their all-electric car in the US by 2015.
Honda’s two main rivals – Toyota and Nissan – have already started with their own electric car versions for the US, which figures to be the first region to have substantial demand for all-electric vehicles, partly due to upcoming zero-emission regulations that will be enforced down the road.
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Tesla is slowly making some waves in the auto industry these days. After announcing that they were opening a new production plant in Palo Alto, the electric car maker has released new photos of its latest offering, the Tesla Roadster Sport.
While it’s been a long-standing belief that Tesla was producing a new car to succeed the highly-successful Roadster, it wasn’t until recently that the carmaker released the first official – and detailed - photos of the Roadster Sport.
Tesla has long said that the new Roadster Sport is going to pack more power in a simpler and more efficient engine, but a lot of us took it with a grain of salt considering the original Roadster seemed to have covered all of the bases as far as power and efficiency were concerned.
But now, it seems that Tesla may have been on to something.
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Even if General Motors all new gas electric hybrid the Chevrolet Volt has not made an official debut, the automaker has started to reveal more and more details about the future electric car. GM said that the future Volt will be able to achieve a city fuel economy of at least 230 miles per gallon, and that it will be able to travel up to 40 miles in pure electric mode from a full charge.
The actual as mileage of the Chevrolet Volt will depend on how far the owner travels amongst other factors such as how much cargo or how many bodies they bring along with them and even how much accessories like the air conditioning is used. Chevrolet has already verified the Volt’s 40 mile electric range through vigorous developmental testing which results in a petroleum-free driving experience in both city and highway cycles.
Based on the EPA’s new train of thought, plug-in electric vehicles will be traveling many more city miles than highway ones in electricity only mode. So the government agency has decided to use kilowatt hours per 100 miles traveled in order to categorize the efficiency of a plug-in electric vehicle. Using this methodology, General Motors expects the Chevrolet Volt to consume as little as 25 kilowatt hours per 100 miles when driving around town. Considering that the average cost of electricity in the U.S. is approximately 11 cents per kWh, a typical Volt driver will pay somewhere around $2.75 to travel every 100 miles. That equates to less than 3 cents per mile.
Press release after the jump.
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The safety conscious car builder Volvo will be changing their theme from city safety to all electric this September at the Frankfurt Motor Show when they unveil an E.V. version of the sporty Volvo C30 hatchback. Although the automaker previously said that they had no plans to put the plug in electric C30 into production. This is very interesting since the last vehicle of this kind from the savvy Swedes made itself known to the world in Frankfurt just one year ago. However, according to a source at the English automotive journal AutoCar: "The all-electric C30 is a car we have talked about previously and formed the basis of the ReCharge concept shown a few years ago. At the moment, the all-electric C30 is just a concept and Volvo has no current plans to put it into production."
The ReCharge Concept is a plug-in hybrid with individual electric wheel motors and batteries that can be recharged via a regular electrical outlet for maximum environmental benefit. The recharging allows the EV to have a range of about 100 kilometres, or 60 miles, on battery power alone before the car’s four-cylinder Flexifuel engine is needed to power the car and recharge the battery. The concept had all of the style and attitude of a sports car and none of the typical hybrid foibles with its blistered arches and large green electric motor filled wheels.
The automaker will make a decision about possible production in the near future. Until then Volvo is going in a bold direction with hybrid technology, instead of staying compact and lightweight, Volvo’s engineers and design teams are planning to bring an efficient diesel plug-in electric hybrid version of the V70 SUV to market by 2012.
In a time when making profits have become rarer than finding a needle in a haystack, Tesla seems to have bucked that trend with a strong showing in July, resulting in $20 million in revenues and $1 million in profit.
It seems improbable for an automaker to be making any sort of profit these days, much less an electric car brand. But against all odds, Tesla seems to have done it.
The company’s profit came as a result of extraordinarily strong month for Tesla, a month where they shipped 109 cars to reach their profit threshold.
Despite Tesla saying that they reached their ‘overall corporate profitability’, there remains a cloud of uncertainty as to how Tesla managed to do it. It’s also worth noting that selling 109 cars at $109,000 a pop falls far short of $20 million. Nevertheless, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO was predictably thrilled regarding Tesla’s performance. "We achieved a bottom-line profitability thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work by the Tesla team to improve quality, while simultaneously reducing costs on the Roadster,” he said.
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Even if the news is not official, the latest reports are saying that the Japanese automaker, Mitsubishi, has plans to unveil an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) at the Tokyo motor show at the end of October and into the beginning of the next month. The diamond star electric car will first be revealed as a concept followed by an all new production version that will be in dealerships by the end of 2010.
The new Mitsubishi EREV will be a compact crossover, similar in size to the Toyota RAV4 and will use a drive train similar to Chevrolet’s E-Flex platform on which the Volt is built with its 660 cc three cylinder gasoline engine acting exclusively as a generator that produces electricity to charge the EREV’s 21st century lithium-ion batteries.
The new Mitsubishi will not limit owners to around town commuting. Acting exclusively on electric power, and producing zero emissions, the EREV will have a range of 40 miles. However if you don’t mind polluting in the most efficient manner possible, you can travel up to 200 miles while using the generator to restore energy to the batteries.
We all know that the world’s oil resources isn’t going to last forever and that gas-guzzling vehicles would eventually fall by the wayside and be replaced by plug-in hybrids and electric cars.
So when car makers are slowly pushing for the development of these types of cars, you know that they’re fully aware of the future of the industry as well.
The latest car brand that’s being linked to producing an electric car is Volvo. The Swedish-based automaker has already gone on record as saying that they are in the middle of producing a plug-in hybrid. Now, it’s beginning to look like plug-ins aren’t the only thing that’s taking up Volvo’s time.
Rumors have come out that Volvo is in the infancy stage of producing an electric version of the Volvo C30 with a source, who knows his way around the industry, even saying that he is ‘reasonably confident’ that Volvo is doing more than just the standard research with regards to the future of an electric car in its line-up.
Continued after the jump.
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