Technology

A $1 billion network of plug-in charge points will be built around the country under a plan developed by American environmental pioneer Shai Agassi and backed by AGL Energy and the Macquarie Capital finance group.More than 200,000 charging points will be installed at homes, offices and shopping centres in a local development of a program already underway in Israel and Norway. And there are also plans for quick-change sites where the next generation of electric cars can stop for a quick turnaround to a fully-charged battery pack.The move comes as Mitsubishi prepares for sales of Australia's first plug-in electric car, its baby I-Miev, from 2009 and Mercedes-Benz promises an electric Smart Fortwo in 2010 with a similar power pack in its A and B-Class cars just a year later.Israel has already signed an exclusive deal with the Renault-Nissan alliance, which is producing cars specifically for the country following Agassi's development through his Better Place organisation."Electric cars are going to be such a big part of the future of motoring," says David McCarthy, the spokesman for Daimler in Australia.Other carmakers are sure to follow, with BMW Group about to go public with its Mini E for the USA next month, although others are not convinced.Toyota is steering clear of pure electric vehicles in Australia because of its commitment to hybrids, including the upcoming petrol-electric Camry, and also because it is against the burning of coal to generate electricity.Honda, another fan of hybrids, says it does not have a plug-in electric car for Australia."So far as we know, there is nothing under development in Japan," says Lindsay Smalley, the top Australian at Honda Australia."Something could be happening, but for the moment we have no plan to bring electric cars to Australia."But the electric car grid is likely to accelerate the acceptance of battery-powered cars, particularly as the Mini E is promised with a 200-plus kilometre range which would satisfy almost all urban commuters.The early focus in Agassi's plan is Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with Adelaide and Perth to follow sometime after 2012."We call it a ubiquitous charging network across the cities. It's a massive infrastructure project ... and that means new jobs for Australians," Agassi says.Payment for the system would be similar to a mobile-phone contract, although some European cities are experimenting with a parking-meter style plan for their electric power points.The Better Place program will emphasise the use of renewable power, a link also being pushed by AGL.Full details of the plan are still being finalised, but it is backed by the Victorian government and the Federal government is assisting with a national agreement - similar to the Australia-wide rollout of fibre-optic cabling - on the system."The Victorian government supports any initiative that will have positive outcomes in reducing emissions in the transport sector and I welcome this innovative approach to help make broad adoption of electric vehicles in Australia possible,” says the Victorian Premier, John Brumby.

Estimable fellow in many respects the tall host of Brit Top Gear is, admittedly. Though he may never be able to hold his head up in public after what Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse did to him:Indeed, when it comes to what he derides as “flappy paddles”, Clarkson’s more wrong than whoever decided that the FG Falcon was the car to rescue Ford Australia.Steering wheel – or steering column – mounted gear shift selectors take many (sometimes ergonomically irksome) forms. The only logical configuration is where the left one is for downshifts, the right for up. In almost everything thus equipped, there is of course the option of simply leaving them alone, with gearstick in drive to do its automated thing.That’s a bit lame, though, isn’t it? Whether the transmission’s a torque converter auto or a twin-clutch jobbie like DSG – or any one of the seemingly endless new variations thereof – why not deploy a bit of the old DIY? Seems pretty vacant not to use that left one in particular to, say, engine brake especially if your hands need never leave the wheel to do so.This is the point at which the real-men-only-drive-crash-boxes-brigade grunt something along the lines of “If yer wanna change gears, why doncha buy a proper manual”.Well, chaps, I own one and, perversely enough, I wouldn’t swap it. But I’m also aware that something in the region of 90 plus per cent of those other drivers you might happen to dimly perceive on the road would rather undergo unanesthetized root canal therapy than use a clutch pedal and a gearstick.And as much as those whose sleep is fraught with fantasies about ripping ‘round Bathurst in the car numbered “05” might like to dream otherwise, the best flappy paddle set ups swap cogs quicker and slicker than we lumpen mortals can aspire. Not only do they engage gears about 1000 times faster they do so without emission spikes – a big deal for heavily regulated Euro carmakers these days and of increasingly consequence down this way. In the case of twin-clutch set-ups, they out sprint a conventional manual from 0-100km/h while using less juice in general running.So when a reviewer lamented recently that driver involvement is being removed from the equation, well, of course it is. We’re not that good.And anyone who imagines they can do better in their proper manual really does have their left hand on it.  

WHY do radio aerials fitted in car window glass begin to fail after five or six years? I own a 2002 Volvo S60 and have previously owned two Subaru Foresters. All have in-glass aerials and all the radio AM bands have developed severe interference after about that time. The FM band appears unaffected.

Volvo's has worked out how to minimise the chance on front end car crashes and will conduct hourly demonstrations of the new technology, call City Safety.City safety is a world-first and is currently only available in Australia on Volvo’s new mid-sized luxury SUV, the XC60.Volvo says its City Safety collision avoidance technology prevents front-end collisions when the vehicle is being driven at speeds of up to 30km/h where the speed differential between the two vehicles is no more than 15km/h.City Safety constantly monitors the distance of vehicles up to six metres in front of the XC60 via a laser positioned in its windscreen.If City Safety determines that the XC60 is approaching a vehicle too quickly to avoid a collision, it will automatically brake the vehicle. Depending on speed, the vehicle will either avoid a collision completely or the system will mitigate the collision to ensure the severity of the accident is reduced.

That's the view of General Motors' planner Larry Burns, who is leading the company's switch from petrol to an alternate fuel future. Burns, the vice-president of research and development and strategic planning based in Detroit, was in Australia recently when Carsguide interviewed him about GM's future. He says Australia must end its dependence on imported oil and capitalise on the country's bank of alternative energy sources.Burns says we should start with LPG and then look down the track at everything from compressed natural gas to hydrogen and even solar power.And he talks big about the GM Volt electric car, hydrogen, a nuclear future for motoring and improvements to GM Holden's home-grown Commodore. AUSTRALIA“I definitely would focus on energy diversity, I would ask myself, do I need to be importing any petroleum at all into this country,” he says. “I would look at LPG as a starting point. I think that'sa very exciting opportunity you have here already, there's a distribution for that already and the natural gas is relatively inexpensive and relatively clean.“I would anticipate compressed natural gas down the road and, longer term, I would ... go after solar big time. I do think it's going to be economically viable and then I would look at bio-mass.“And then I would anticipate that fuel cell vehicles and plug-in electrics are going to be very real solutions and set myself up for that.” THE FUTURE“Clearly, the industry is in a transformational period. Fuel, globalisation ... we need to get out in front of that better, as an industry, and we think the key is to focus on efficiency and energy diversity. Efficiency's important because energy supply looks like it's going to run short of energy demand and we think the supply of petroleum is plateauing. But efficiency alone won't solve this challenge.” THE CHALLENGE“Let's say you went to bed and had 900 million vehicles in the world ... all have their efficiency improved 25 per cent — that'd be a miracle. Now you pick your technology: they were all hybridised, they were all converted to diesels, HCCI, or something like that. So you have 25 per cent improvement — how much time have you bought yourself?“If you believe that the global economy is going to grow at 3 or 4 per cent per year, that's a pretty good bet. Energy demand correlates with that at 2 or 3 per cent per annum. So, 10 years from now after that miracle last night, we'll start consuming more petroleum for automotive than we did when we had this miracle happen.” PETROL PRICE CRISIS“I'd like to believe some markets have always had higher fuel prices, so I don't think they necessarily need a wake-up call. I was in Germany about a month ago and diesel fuel was the equivalent of $US8.25 a gallon (about $2.50 per litre). So the wake-up call really is where gasoline is relatively inexpensive, like the US. And it is not just a wake-up call for auto companies, but for consumers political leaders.“Gasoline became very, very inexpensive over an extended period of time and that defined the consumer choice, and the consumer choice tended to be for more power and more size in the vehicle. One of the things I get very concerned about is: `What if petroleum dropped back under $20 a barrel?” THE CHOICES“You have all of these people digging their heels in thinking there is a simple answer and that's the only thing you should invest in, and in fact you have to invest in all of it. Then we get paralysed by that indecisiveness on people thinking it's one answer. We can solve it, but we can't solve it by being paralysed by all these parochial different views, and what's happening is people who tend to like natural gas over gasoline promote that and they overly criticise all the other ones. People who tend to like ethanol overly promote that and they overly criticise all the other ones.” POTENTIAL IN AUSTRALIA“I was fascinated to see how much coal you have and certainly pathways where coal could find its way to automobiles, whether it's through electrically-driven vehicles or creating hydrogen or coal liquid,” he says. “I was intrigued by how much sunshine you have and solar energy continues to look promising longer term. I'm intrigued by how much natural gas you have and the potential for LPG and CNG vehicles and, quite frankly, I'm intrigued by the amount of bio-mass that could exist, both in the form of municipal waste and also plants that we don't need. So you can find a way to reduce the dependence on petroleum by finding pathways for this energy to get to the automobile.” HYDROGEN FUEL“Right now, in the world today, there's enough hydrogen being produced to fuel over 200 million fuel cell vehicles. That's almost a quarter of the cars in the world could be fuelled by hydrogen. What's all that hydrogen being used for? It's used to make fertiliser — one half of it. The other half is used as input making gasoline. By 2012 just the hydrogen used at refineries could fuel 175 million vehicles with fuel cells.” FUTURE FUELS“The sun shines on my roof, I create electricity and I put it in my electric vehicle. The time frame on LPG is right now ... the bio-mass time frame is three to five years. The good news on bio-mass technology is it's already very, very inexpensive to make your car capable of running on E85 and we'll find clever ways with LPG and compressed natural gas to get more cost out as well. I want to emphasise that this is not food-based bio-mass ... it's garbage.” FUTURE CARS“We think the tipping point for fuel-cell vehicles is at the point where we have sufficient scale and sufficient cost and market learning. That could be 2018 to 2020 and you might ask, `Can the world wait that long?'. Well, we're not waiting. We're playing hard on ethanol, we're playing hard on plug-in electrics, we have eight hybrids , and we'll have eight more in the next two years, and we're pushing solutions like CNG and LPG — and that is energy diversity.” NUCLEAR FUTURE“I know nuclear is not necessarily the right thing in Australia but in the US I would build one nuclear plant on a closed military base so it's secure.I'd dedicate it to creating hydrogen ... you can make a lot from a nuclear plant. I'd introduce hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles using that because they're an exciting vehicle customers like and then I'd go to OPEC and say, `Do you want to talk?' ... we don't necessarily have to rely on petroleum any more.”

Smart ForTwo electric car, undergoing trials in UK it is a possibility for release early 2010.A plug-in Smart car will race a baby Mitsubishi to become the first all-electric showroom contender in Australia.The battery-powered Smart ForTwo is already undergoing trials in Britain and the worldwide head of Daimler, Dieter Zetsche, says there is a very good chance it willcome to Australia.The timing could be in the back end of 2009 or early in 2010, which means the ForTwo will be fighting for first with the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which Mitsubishi Motors Australia chief Rob McEniry is fast-tracking for Australia — and the worse-case scenario for its delivery is some time in 2012.Mercedes-Benz is making a strong electric push with the Smart, which will be followed by battery-powered A-Class and B-Class compacts.“This idea is not totally out of the possibilities. We have not made final decisions,” is the non-committal response from Zetsche on the electric Smart during a one-day visit to Australia.“We won't go to all countries. It is a reasonable possibility it could come to Australia.”But the plug-in Smart is more than just a possibility, as Mercedes-Benz pushes hard on electric cars. It is already leasing a trial fleet and is preparing for full-scale production.Zetsche says Benz will abandon the twin-floor chassis design it pioneered as a safety move on the original A-Class when the car is renewed in 2010, but left the way open for a similar approach for electric operation.He says there will be four different body styles, not just A and B hatches, but refuses to give any detail on the potential for a coupe, sedan or wagon.Zetsche is bullish about Smart, which has come back from a near-death expansion plan to a successful model built around the tiny ForTwo.“It is the CO2 champion. So I'm very glad with where we are today. In the US we don't know how to deal with the demand,” Zetsche says. “It's always a question of perspective. For now it is all and before it was nothing. We just built more andmore problems.“Today we are making money with Smart.”The electric trial will step up in the UK with theproduction of 1000 customer cars and these could open the door for a battery-powered ForTwo in Australia.“Towards the end of next year we will see another 1000. The earliest possibility would be one of that 1000,” Zetsche says.“If that is not the outcome, thelatest would be two or three years later whenwe see high production.” 

General Motors researchers are working on a windscreen that combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to enhance what's happening on the road, so drivers with vision problems are able to see more clearly.In the research stage, the technology will help as the proportion of people over 65 rises and spend more time driving.The windscreen won't improve vision, but it will make objects stand out that may go unnoticed by an aged eye.Developers say the technology won't cause drivers to plough into trees. It is enhancing a few objects that are in a driver's view, not splashing distracting information onto the glass.During a foggy drive, a laser projects a blue line on to the windshield that follows the edge of the road. If infrared sensors detect a person or animal in the driver's path at night, its outline is projected on the windshield to highlight its location.It is possible because of a transparent coating on the windscreen that lights up when struck by ultraviolet light.Sensors determine the position of the car in relation to the road, while other devices track the driver's head and eye movement to make sure the image on the windscreen isn't skewed.Technological issues mean it will be a while before the windscreen goes into production.GM researcher Thomas Seder says there are sceptics.“They say, `That would be very frustrating or confusing, to have things on my windscreen. I need to see the world',” Seder says.“I'm enhancing the world. I'll take a feature that should be important to you, like the edge of the road, and paint a line over the real edge.” 

The chance to save $450 a year on fuel bills and help save the planet could be enough to lure Sydney drivers to test a new fuel-saving system.Technology company Mtech Australia is looking for owners of a wide range of cars to take part in a three-month test of the company's ceramic fuel-saving technology.Using nano-technology, Mtech claims to be able to reduce fuel consumption by as much as 15 per cent and greenhouse-gas emission by as much as 23 per cent — as well as boosting power.“We already have qualified independent test results proving Mtech Fuel Saver's credentials, and today we want Australians to step up to the plate and commit to reducing their carbon emissions and fuel consumption in their vehicles,” Mtech chief executive David Bignold says.According to Mtech literature, the system works by encouraging the fuel molecules to break down from clusters to single molecules.The result is a change in the properties of the fuel, allowing better atomisation of the fuel before delivery to the combustion chamber.This, in turn, improves volumetric efficiency and improves fuel efficiency.Mtech claims the system will work on petrol, diesel and LPG-fuelled vehicles, with a range of results depending on the age of the car and the condition of the car's engine.“We know that different vehicles and models have varying results in carbon emissions and fuel consumption, and now we want to prove that Mtech Fuel Saver gets results regardless of the vehicle type,” Bignold says.For the public test, the company is seeking models as diverse as the Toyota Prius, Mercedes-Benz A200, Ford Territory, Holden Commodore, Ford Falcon and many others.“With the average family sedan consuming more than 1400 litres of fuel each year and emitting four tonnes of carbon, participants can save up to $450 per year,” Bignold says.The greater the fuel usage, the greater the saving, Bignold says.He claims a family spending $130 a week on fuel could cut their annual bill by around $1000, while a company with a $3000-a-week fuel bill would be in line for savings of more than $23,000.Ten years of study on the system has been ratified by Associate Professor Dr Peter Dingle, from Murdoch University, in a paper published last November.“The statistics and research are compelling,” Professor Dingle says.“There are more than 14 million registered vehicles travelling over two billion kilometres a year in Australia.“This rate is growing and, as it does, so do the pollutants that result.“This (the claimed 23 per cent emission reduction) could equate to a possible saving of around 25 million tonnes of CO2 a year if applied to the Australian fleet.”Anyone interested in registering for the public test can click here for details.  Applications close on April 25.Carsguide would like to know what you think about Mtech's latest nano-technology? is 23 percent enough to help you pay your bills? 

TH!NK city car will go on sale in Europe this year after being revealed at the Geneva Motor Show by Norwegian electric vehicle pioneers Think.

One of the first tasks confronting the new federal petrol commissioner, Pat Walker - who began work yesterday - is to examine the spiralling price of diesel fuel. Diesel has jumped from $1.46 on February 17 to nearly $1.60.While it is an efficient and miserly petrol alternative, its value to motorists has been eroded by the price differential of more than 10c a litre compared with petrol.Yet diesel is cheaper to produce and there is superficially far less demand, at least among Australian drivers.What Mr Walker should establish, and quickly, is whether the causes of the rise in diesel prices are justified.Have petrol companies pushed up the price of diesel because, in effect, it is under the radar? Has the public and political focus on petrol prices allowed the incremental increase in diesel to go almost unchallenged?As always in the case of motor-fuel prices, there is no easy answer.Diesel prices have been pushed up because of the traditional winter fuel price demand of the northern hemisphere, which is now abating.Emission standards, particularly in Europe, have demanded a greater reduction in sulphur from diesel, which impacts on costs.Also, the shutdown of refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, diversion of mass refining from diesel to petrol, the growing popularity of diesel vehicles (both domestic and industrial) in Europe and Asia and increasing industrial demand from China and other emerging industrial nations have all played a role.But are they genuine reasons for the rapid rise in diesel prices - and the negative differential with petrol - or are they excuses grasped by petroleum companies to exploit an emerging sector of the motoring market?That is something Mr Walker should put high on his agenda.