cars

The Stirling heat engine was invented by a Scotsman in 1816, but that doesn't stop Dean Kamen from using this new-old technology to create a unique hybrid vehicle.

Dean Kamen is probably best known for the creation of the Segway personal transportation device. And when he talks, people tend to listen. In addition to the somewhat whimsical Segway, his New Hampshire-based company DEKA Research has invented numerous breakthrough medical devices, including the AutoSyringe (a wearable device that dispenses medications on schedule), and Hydroflex, an irrigation pump for laproscopy and other procedures. He's won numerous awards for his inventions, including the Global Humanitarian Action Award from the UN, and numerous honorary doctorates.

The Deka Revolt: Best of both worlds?

But the 2008 DEKA Revolt is something else again. The basic car is a 1999 or 2000 Think City, a plastic-bodied two-seat electric car built in Norway. The company was briefly owned by Ford (1999 to 2003), and the Kamen car dates from that era. Under the name Think Global, the now-independent company has been infused with new venture capital and is once again operating internationally from a base in Aurskog, Norway. It is now selling battery cars in Scandinavia and soon to the rest of Europe. A decision on the U.S. will be made next year.

Against this backdrop, Kamen said he contacted Think approximately a year ago with the idea of turning a small battery electric EV into a mild hybrid equipped with a rear-mounted Stirling engine. The Stirling, which works by heating and cooling pressurized gases, can run on a wide variety of fuels, including gasoline, E85 ethanol and other biofuels, propane, natural gas and methane.

The next thing he knew, Kamen says, a large crate arrived on his loading dock. Inside was a disassembled Think, which he retrofitted with a two-kilowatt Stirling engine (soon to be replaced with a much larger 10-kilowatt version), a small fuel tank, a custom-made 18.3-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack using Kokum America batteries, and a 55-horsepower Azure Dynamics electric motor.

After some head scratching at the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles-was the car a 2000 or a 2008? -- the car was finally registered as a brand-new 2008 DEKA Revolt and began running around Manchester, New Hampshire. And soon it was Dean Kamen's personal transportation.

The Stirling engine does not power the wheels; instead, it provides heat and defrosting and powers accessories to avoid depleting the batteries. And, even better, it can trickle-charge the battery pack so that the driving range can be greatly extended. At speeds below 40 miles per hour, Kamen said, the Stirling should be able to recharge the batteries at the same rate as they're being depleted. Getting stranded with dead batteries won't be a problem, either, because you can run the Stirling for a short while and recharge them.

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Can you feel the electricity? There's a growing consensus that the next generation of automobiles will, to one degree or another, be powered by batteries. The most likely scenario is that a fling with plug-in hybrids will lead to a serious romance and eventually marriage to pure battery electrics. Yes, to make this sustainable we'll have to shift some of our electric grid from its current 50 percent dependence on coal power, but that is an achievable goal.

It may be that the batteries themselves will be harder. The marketplace has arrived at a consensus that the lithium-ion (li-ion) battery is the only real choice for the coming electric cars. But li-ion is also kind of problematic. Sony commercialized lightweight lithium-ion batteries for electronics in 1991; since then, most of us use them every day in laptops, mobile phones and other devices.

The Th!nk City: a 110-mile range.

The great advantage of li-ion (aside from the fact that it's relatively non-toxic) is that it has twice the energy density of, say, nickel-cadmium batteries. But what works great in your relatively coddled cellphone is a challenge in the automotive environment, where the batteries will have to withstand extremes of temperatures and go through really fast charging cycles. Li-ion has also had stability issues -- remember those Sony laptop fires? Well, that company just recalled 100,000 more laptop li-ions because of fire hazards.

I hear that some of the most interesting approaches to li-ion car batteries increase energy storage using the controversial engineering of tiny materials known as nanotechnology.

The li-ion contenders are mostly small companies contracting with automakers. Johnson Controls/Saft has worked on batteries for the Saturn Vue plug-in hybrid. A123 had been a frontrunner to deliver batteries for the forthcoming Chevrolet Volt plug-in, but it now appears that the contract is going to the South Korea-based LG Chem.

A bit of a wild card is Ener1, whose subsidiary EnerDel builds li-ions in a factory in Indiana using technology developed at the Argonne National Labs. "The company's new, highly reliable and safe batteries are designed to be lighter in weight, occupy less space, provide more power, more energy, and have a longer life than the nickel-metal-hydride batteries found in today's hybrid vehicles," Ener1 says. But it would say that, wouldn't it?

Since Korean technology is key here, Ener1 just bought a controlling interest in one of that country's biggest li-ion producers, Enertech International. In announcing the deal, CEO Charles Gassenheimer says he sees a potential market for automotive li-ion batteries at $20 to 30 billion, dwarfing the $7 billion spent annually on consumer electronics.

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Though he didn't have much to say about it at the just-concluded Republican National Convention, where most of the energy talk concerned offshore drilling, John McCain went on record last June as favoring a $300 million federal prize to deliver an automotive battery with "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrid or electric cars."

The constantly evolving Chevrolet Volt: Whose batteries will it use? (General Motors photo)

McCain also said he would stiffen fines on automakers that play fast and loose with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, and pump up incentives for developing alternative fuels.

Remember, he said all this back in June when prices were over $4 a gallon. With the tiny easing of prices since then, perhaps the McCain campaign has back-burnered this bright idea. Besides, he makes more headlines when he talked about offshore drilling.

But, wow, $300 million, that's a lot of money! I agree with McCain that this kind of competition can foster a lot of useful innovation. But I'd have to be convinced we could quickly develop technology to "leapfrog" what is going into prototype electric cars and trucks right now. And the fast-moving global race to develop clean cars may be all the incentive cutting-edge companies need.

The state of the art for batteries today is lithium-ion. And a leading player is Massachusetts-based A123 Systems, which the Department of Energy (presumed host of McCain's contest) would not have to go far to find -- they're already working together. A123 is well connected both at DOE and the auto companies with batteries for the next generation of hybrids, as well as plug-in hybrids.

A123's battery technology is being considered for what I would call General Motors' most important project: The Chevrolet Volt, which is tentatively scheduled for showrooms in 2010. The Volt is a new kind of hybrid, with a gasoline motor that's not connected to the wheels -- instead, it's there to keep the batteries charged and provide much greater range than is possible today with conventional electric cars.

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I was looking for the epicenter of the solar revolution, and I found it at the Gathering of the Vibes.

Imagine a hippie rock festival so immaculately dedicated to the Woodstock legacy that a late-night performance by Phil Lesh and his (much younger) friends was treated like a visitation from the Gods. Imagine tie-dye as the uniform of choice, and the Bridgeport, Connecticut sea breezes scented with the aroma of much marijuana. It was there that I discovered the Solar Bus.

Although it is normally to be found in northern Vermont, the brush-painted Solar Bus was temporarily relocated to Bridgeport, where its roof-mounted solar array was recharging hippie cellphones and running a bubbling fountain and some hopping frog toys. At night, it ran a projector that showed cartoons to delighted camping children.

It is by no means coincidental that the owner of the Solar Bus, Gary Beckwith, is a former Deadhead. A wiry young man with a full head of black curls, he gravitates to summer festivals like the Vibes and Vermont's Solar Fest (which begins with a thanks to Mother Nature and a ceremonial invocation to the equinox).

But despite the countercultural trappings, Beckwith is a serious techie who has done great things with his Solar Bus, a 1982 Crown Supercoach that moved California school kids until 2003.

"We yanked out the seats, put some solar panels on the roof, gave it a paint job, and started driving around showing and teaching people about the real uses of renewable energy," says Beckwith.

Let me guess: Up to this point you probably thought that the Solar Bus was actually powered by solar, didn't you? Isn't that why they call it a solar bus?

The solar panels actually power appliances and even the occasional rock music stage, but they are hardly able to give a large steel bus much driving range.

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The Hummer may be a symbol of everything environmentalists hate, but there's one part of it that could win a "much improved" award -- the tailpipe. Although the Hummer guzzles gas like a supertanker, it also benefits from modern emissions control technology.

Bill Clinton's 1967 Mustang: Scrapped for $500?

The average new car emits only a 10^th as many hydrocarbons as the average car on the road, and a 20^th of 1960s cars. A 1962 VW Bug undoubtedly causes more smog than a 2008 Ford Expedition.

The idea of "cash for clunkers" programs is that they get the gross polluters off the road. According to a California study cited by the New York Times, cars that are 13 years old or older cover only 25 percent of the miles driven, but cause 75 percent of the air pollution. The dirtiest 10 percent emit 59 percent of hydrocarbons and 47 percent of all carbon monoxide, says the California Air Resources Board.

Thirty percent of the 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads are at least 15 years old, so there are 75 million potential "clunkers" out there, the Times said.

These takeback programs have been tried out in several states and Canadian provinces, but they run into an implacable opponent: The classic car owner. Although the programs are voluntary, they deprive classic owners of access to old clunker "parts cars." One man's junk is another's treasure, apparently.

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“In some cases, the exhaust from the Hydrogen 7 is cleaner than the actual air,” Dave Buchko tells me. We are standing in my driveway next to his charge, a heavily art-directed BMW, which has the words “Clean Energy” emblazoned on its side. I am not tempted to breathe in its exhaust, however clean it may be.

Buchko, who is an advanced powertrain spokesman for BMW, delivered the car to me and brought his young son, Jamie, along for the ride. Given that his family's involved, I believe what he's saying about the safety of hydrogen (no visions of the Hindenburg for him) and the bullet-proof, drop-proof and crash-resistant nature of its hydrogen tank.

BMW's Dave Buchko, son Jamie and BMW's Hydrogen 7.

The Hydrogen 7 has a detuned 12-cylinder, internal-combustion engine. Normally cars with V-12s are horrible gas guzzlers. The standard-issue big boy known as the 760Li gets a miserable combined fuel economy of 15 miles per gallon, and will if allowed consume 22.8 barrels of oil annually. The fairly luxurious H7 runs on gasoline if you want it to, but a push of the “H2” button and its taking in hydrogen from the big cryogenic tank that occupies half the trunk.

Why cryogenic? Well ...

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Stranded in the Minneapolis airport as hailstones the size of quarters pounded the tarmac, I turned to the local Star Tribune. Responding to an article entitled "Is This the End of the SUV?" a letter writer noted that 76 percent of Americans still drive to work alone, mostly in huge, off-road vehicles.

It's the way of things, the writer added: "When supply and demand go through their natural fall and gas seems cheap again, people will buy big cars."

Today's oil troubles are unlikely to fade away like the 1970s Arab oil embargo.

The letter writer has history on his side, but I think he -- and the many Americans who agree with him -- are wrong this time. The Arab oil embargo and the gas lines it engendered did indeed give small cars a great ride for a few years in the 1970s. (At the height of the crisis, by the way, gas was selling for $1.20 a gallon, and oil was $11 a barrel.) When that artificial shortage ended, the big cars were soon back in the showrooms, followed soon after by the first popular SUVs.

But that's unlikely to happen again. The fundamentals are entirely different now. Americans are finally driving less. Demand will likely drop in 2008, a milestone we haven't seen in 17 years. At the same time, more than half the new car registrations are for passenger vehicles, not trucks. The death of the SUV is upon us.

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The day oil hit $138 a barrel, I was in ultra-rich Greenwich, Connecticut looking at 16-cylinder cars and thinking about how history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. It was the 13th annual Greenwich Concours d'Elegance, presenting an overpowering collection of Packards, Duesenbergs and Pierce Arrows.

Show judging at the Greenwich Concours.

Why don't we see these marques today? Because they misread the market and offered big, powerful and expensive cars during the depths of a Depression. Sound familiar? At least gas was cheap back then. Does GM have an excuse for filling its showrooms with Tahoes, Sierras and Hummers when average folk are having to choose between putting gas in the tank and food on the table?

I stood in awe before a 1937 Delahaye 135 M Roadster with an unbelievably gorgeous, over-the-top streamlined body by Figoni and Falaschi. French-made Delahayes could fetch as much as $20,000 (just for the chassis, without a body!). In the 1930s, the average American salary was $1,368. A year. Can you buy a Delahaye today? No, you cannot.

Oil prices have doubled in the last year. Automakers are frantically shutting pickup and SUV plants and making hasty plans for new subcompacts with four-cylinder engines. GM is likely to put Hummer on the block for peanuts.

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