Alt.fuel

State of the Independent EV: Buddy Can You Spare a Ni-MH

Recently I “overheard” someone say that if a small company like Tesla could make it, what the hell is wrong with GM and Ford?
Oh boy. We should probably all be very grateful that is not the case.
The contemporary electric car is such a lovely romantic idea and I am not one to knock the dreamers [...]

High Performance Carbon Fiber & How Tuners Might Help the Environment

The other day, after returning from a trip out of town, I went to pick up my dogs from the kennel (they like to call it summer camp). As I parked on the street in this semi-industrial, older area of Long Beach, I happened to glance across the street and did the complete cartoon double [...]

Looking Forward to Carbon Again

A bit ago I wrote about high-performance carbon, the tuner culture and how carbon could change how cars are being made.
As a big fan of the eccentric & genius Buckminster Fuller I was intrigued by the idea of buckypaper in an article about how this new material could change the way that cars, airplanes and [...]

Honda Insight: Ahead of its time

I have been watching sale prices on used Honda Insight’s lately. There appears to have been a real resurgence of interest in these small fuel-efficient hybrids. Well, perhaps it’s unfair to say “resurgence” since they didn’t exactly set the world on fire with sales when they were new. I would attribute this to Honda being [...]

Ford is Becoming a Big PZEV Dispenser

It is always interesting to hear different manufacturer representatives talk about their green efforts which are sometimes major advances, occasionally gestures of good intentions and every so often admitting that they would like to jump on the green bandwagon are making changes as fast as their corporate machinery will allow. The economy and the recent [...]

Greening of Car Manufacturing and more About PZEV

So you have a cell phone plan and you go over minutes every month for years but the phone company never charges you…sounds like a dream come true, right?
Well, that will never happen and that kind of monitoring has a reason! It costs them (mostly man hours) to maintain their systems. The way the government [...]

Tesla Crunched in San Francisco: Carbon Fiber is Expensive! AddThis

Steve says:

Sadly, after likely having waited for over a year to get his new electric supercar, this unlucky San Francisco Tesla owner reportedly crashed only hours after taking delivery. While there were no reports of injuries, that carbon fiber bodywork won’t be cheap to fix.
This crash actually happened right outside of my friend’s apartment building [...]

Redux: Who Killed the Electric Car (GM & the EV1 from an Insider’s View)

This blog was written 1 1/2 years ago by a good friend who an industry expert & veteran of the automotive industry. Steve loves all things cars and has taught me an unmeasurable amount about the industry. I wish that he would write more often but for now I wanted to share this insightful review [...]

Hybrids Are Retaining Their Value: Cars as an Investment? GASP!

My friend is Beverly Hills hairdresser- stylist type to the stars. She has always been conservative, well spoken and beautiful! (One time we went to the beach together with the kids and as I sat next to her in my one-piece while she was in her Chanel red RED bikini and I felt like the [...]