Water-fueled car?

Seems there's a company in Japan that says they've built a car that runs on water. Supposedly, they have a "membrane electrode assembly" that breaks water into hydrogen and oxygen; they then use the hydrogen to generate electricity, producing water as the result. Sounds too good to be true? Then it almost certainly is (actually, I would state it more strongly than that). By comparison, cold fusion is very believable. What's really impressive to me about this is the speed of creation of a quality Wikipedia page on the matter. The company had a press release on June 12, 2008, and the Wikipedia page was up on June 14.

Why won't US car manufacturers learn?

Today, we filled up our car's gas tank; it cost $4/gallon for the first time. At Costco. No doubt, in the months and years to come, people may read those last two sentences and wonder briefly if I was bragging about how low the price was.

So, Dodge has release the new Challenger, with an SRT-8 model for 2008 and two down-line models planned for 2009. The car gets 13 miles per gallon (city)! With a 19 gallon gas tank, that means you'll be spending more than $75 every 250 miles to drive this thing. If you drive 12,000 miles per year, that's about $3,700 on gas.

Are US car executive idiots? Yes, I'm not surprised that the 2008 limited edition run of 6,400 cars sold out. But do they really expect this car to sell well over any reasonable model lifespan and production run, given likely future gas prices? And who wants to drive around in a car that looks 30 years old when brand new?

1300+ miles on a single tank of gas

Here's a guy who had his Toyota Prius converted to be a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), with a larger capacity battery pack and modified power management to increase its range on the electric motor. He got over 136 miles per gallon and went 2 months between fill-ups.

Then again, I've gone 1500 miles on my bike with zero fuel consumption.

(via davem5321).

1000 miles for Earth Day

I must admit that I started commuting to work by bicycle for health and family logistics reasons, but there's a certain symbolic significance of the fact that, due to a ride I went on with the Cascade Bicycle Club yesterday, I have clocked over a thousand miles since September -- just in time for Earth Day. Besides all of the gasoline I haven't burned, there's also the second car we haven't bought. My next goal: 2,000 miles by this September.