News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.
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Category: Car Buying, Plants/Manufacturing, Marketing/Advertising, Subaru, Earnings/Financials
Tags: subaru, subaru forester, subaru impreza, subaru legacy, subaru outback, subaru sales, subaru wrx, subaru xv crosstrek
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News Source: Mercedes-Benz
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Category: Car Buying, Sedan, Technology, Mercedes-Benz, Luxury
Tags: 2014 mercedes s-class, configurator, mercedes, mercedes s-class
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The Sunswift solar car racing program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia recently debuted their revolutionary new solar racer “eVe.”
The eVe is aimed at demonstrating long-term ecological sustainability.
The students who volunteer their efforts to Sunswift created eVe in the hopes of capturing another team championship at the 2013 World Solar Challenge (WSC) – known as the pinnacle event for solar racing.
At this year’s WSC taking place in October, teams from top universities and private institutions around the world will compete in a 3,000 km race across Australia’s Outback from Darwin to Adelaide relying solely on the sun’s energy to power their cars.
This year, eVe races in the ‘cruiser’ class, a class that rewards entrants for incorporating practical motoring features into their advanced solar technology vehicles.
Sunswift has teamed with ToyLabs to impart these invaluable science lessons to school kids.
The Sunswift team uses ToyLabs’s Volta Racer to share their passion and to inspire future generations of scientists and engineers through a series of hands-on workshops located at the University of New South Wales Engineering School and at various location en-route to WSC.
ToyLabs said during the workshops kids get to build the Volta Racer and learn about Sunswift’s work on eVe. UNSW engineering student and Sunswift Project Director Alex To went so far as to liken the Volta Racer to a “miniature version of the car we build. Both vehicles, in fact, use the same direct solar to power conversion methods to provide electricity to their motors. The Volta Racers allow these kids to have a practical hands-on experience building their very own electric car while learning about basic mechanical engineering, electronics and using solar as a sustainable energy application.”
ToyLabs founder Tim Curley explained that his company is honored to lend support to Sunswift’s efforts.
“ToyLabs wants to help inspire kids to become the world’s next generation of scientists and engineers – just like the extremely bright students at UNSW working on eVe,” said Curley. “The eVe team’s important work on eVe is already impacting the way in which automotive designers, manufacturers and consumers think about the use of sustainable energy resources for powering vehicles. The team’s use of the Volta Racer to help impart these invaluable lessons to school kids is just what we’d imagined when we developed the Volta Racer. We hope school teachers and parents alike will adopt into their own curriculums these kinds of practical hands-on learning experiences for their students and kids. If we can help teachers and parents impart these important lessons in a way that is fun and exciting – then we’re doing a good thing.”
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California-based ToyLabs said it designs and develop innovative learning experiences in science and technology for kids. It described its commitment as to inspire and enrich young minds with fun-filled yet purposeful scientific “toys” that also serve as proactive tools with which educators and parents can actively engage children in the learning process.
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Opting for aluminum over steel in new automobile construction to improve fuel economy is also the best way to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, according to a new study by the United States Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
“As the U.S. works to reduce dependence on foreign oil, promote clean energy and combat climate change, this report definitively documents why aluminum offers the most promise for cutting total automotive-related carbon emissions and energy use,” said ORNL’s Sujit Das, expert on product lifecycle assessments.
The ORNL study modeled a typical 2012 crossover SUV reflective of the average on-the-road vehicle in the U.S. in terms of weight, performance, fuel economy and materials mix of steel, high-strength steel and aluminum.
Building on an earlier crossover SUV study by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Light-Duty Vehicle Mass Reduction and Cost Analysis — Midsize Crossover Utility Vehicle, Aug 2012), ORNL researchers analyzed a baseline SUV (a comprehensive mix of mild and high- strength steel), a lightweight steel vehicle (optimized for maximum use of high-strength and advanced high-strength steel), and a lightweight aluminum intensive vehicle (including currently available body, doors, trunk and hood applications).
“This study adds even more evidence that switching car bodies from steel to aluminum is the next logical step for car makers to take in the drive to reduce emissions,” said Randall Scheps, chairman of the Aluminum Association’s Transportation Group (ATG) and automotive marketing director for Alcoa, Inc. “There is already ample evidence that aluminum is a safe, durable and cost effective material for car bodies. Now ORNL has shown that aluminum is better than steel on a full lifecycle CO2 basis. That is the icing on the cake.”
Highlights from the ORNL study include (as listed by the ORNL):
“The ORNL environmental report is timely as there is an increasingly loud aluminum buzz in the auto industry right now – and with good reason. Automakers are projecting to double aluminum use within less than a decade as high-volume, all aluminum vehicles move from design studios to showrooms in the not-too-distant future. We already knew aluminum offers great fuel economy, safety and performance advantages, and now it’s proven to be best positioned to cut greenhouse gasses and save energy too,” said Scheps.
The ORNL said modeling for this study conforms to internationally recognized standard practices (ISO 14040 and 14044). Comparative data sets used in the study were provided directly to ORNL researchers by the U.S. steel and aluminum industries respectively, both sets of which are current, peer-reviewed and publicly available. The Aluminum Association underwrote the effort.
The ORNL study is consistent with an earlier independent study by the magnesium industry which also concluded that aluminum has the smallest carbon footprint of competing materials when examining total lifecycle CO2 emissions.
Additional benefits of aluminum come from its recycling properties. Recycling aluminum saves 95 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with primary aluminum production, and requires only 5 percent of the energy. Also, nearly 90 percent of automotive aluminum is recovered and recycled and aluminum is infinitely recyclable without degradation to the material.
Full study, facts, and other research about how aluminum in vehicles can be found on the www.drivealuminum.org website.
