A New Dimension to Sustainability – to work hand-in-hand with car-sharing program
Sell Sustainability
As natural resources diminish everyday, a sustainable way of making products slowly also becomes economic. Sustainability and a flourishing economy don’t have to be enemies. Far from it!
William mcDonough is an architect that takes this vision into practice and builds factories and buildings that are both more economic and more sustainable. Read more on MSNBC ( google it … )
Similar to solar panels, sustainable products can be an investment. A high purchasing price might return low usage costs. But solar panels don’t sell…
There are four types of people in making choices financially -
1.controllers
2.aspirers
3.advise sensitives
4.ease orientated.
Solar panels only aim at the small group of controllers that have an idealistic view on the environment. This ‘brand’ should aim at the other three groups by using the message of ‘Enabling people to show-off their environmental consciousness’.
The Lease program
> Cars stay in ownership of the company.
> Leasing means a contract for three years or a certain amount of kilometers, after that a new car can be purchased.
> Now the difference: after three years the car is being ‘upcycled’: parts like a fuel-cell and electro motors might be updated and reused in the new models, while structural- and bodyparts are shredded and recycled into a new car.
> All is done in a ‘green’ facility that gets its energy from natural resources.
> Customers pay for the hippest sizzle on the street and can keep up-to-date.
> These cars do not have to be expensive.
> This approach doesn’t have to stay limited to cars.
Hydrogen Filling Station
A solution to the distribution problems of introducing hydrogen as a fuel can be a network of self sustaining filling stations. These self-service stations use wind and solar energy to convert water into hydrogen. The water could even be reused from the cars.
GM Design Intern Program
Triobike: Three is the Magic Number
They’re so cool, they started the Dogme film movement. They’re so cool, they’re 83% Lutheran. They’re so cool, they can make bikes with a stroller attachment (which are admittedly not as crave worthy a concept as say a Balenciaga bag) into something super desirable. From the country that loves biking as much as they do open rye bread sandwiches, comes the triobike.
As the name suggests, Denmark’s uber stylish triobike comprises three main functions: a carrier bike; a bike; and pushchair (that’s stroller for you guys). Which adds up to an exciting new concept in transportation, especially for parents with a penchant for cycling. Here’s what sets it apart from other kid wheeling bikes. While a regular carrier bike is great when you have kids in it, once they’ve been dropped off why pedal harder than you have to? With the triobike, you drop the kids off to daycare/school/the mine (I’m kidding), leave the front carrier there and bicycle solo onto work. The trio also gives you the flexibility of having your spouse pick up the kids, simply fitting the carrier onto their bikes or walking home with the kids in the stroller.
It’s not only the pedal-happy Danes who enjoy are the triobike. The concept has also taken off in other parts of Europe including England where “influential mums” like Jools Oliver own and rave about their trios, while TV chef husband, chef Jamie uses them for local deliveries for his philanthropic Fifteen restaurant. The triobike is a triumph of design with all three components working as super stylish as separates (I especially love the Jetson-inspired stroller) whilst epitomizing versatility and function when put together. With six color schemes to choose from: urban jungle; candy floss; knight rider; pink power; bumble bee; and ice baby, the triobike really is irresistible.
Not as Green as it Seems – Hydrogen as a sustainable Fuel
By Christian Wüst
BMW is manufacturing the first series of hydrogen fueled cars. They’re not as green as they seem. For a start, they’re incredibly thirsty — and they will put more strain on the environment than a heavy diesel truck.
There’s a new method for fueling cars. Instead of the usual dispenser nozzle, a plastic hose about the size of a sewage pipe is attached to the vehicle. An automatic clasp closes automatically around the tank opening.
The airtight hose system was developed by Germany’s Linde conglomerate and has already been installed at several German gas stations. It’s designed to allow the average person to fill his or her car with liquid hydrogen in just eight minutes. Berlin is one of the few places that already disposes of such a filling station.
Last week, German car-maker BMW used the facility to present car testers with the first small series vehicle in the world that drives on both gas and liquid hydrogen. The “Hydrogen 7,” will be part of BMW’s upscale “7″ series of vehicles, and BMW is now carefully preparing to make the new car available to customers.
Starting in March, the car will be delivered to about 100 celebrities, but so far BMW is keeping mum about their names or what their leasing rates might be. The car’s developers are hoping to gain insight into the practical reliability of a technology many consider the be all and end all of the car industry’s ecologically clean and climate friendly future.
The Munich-based company is promising “sustainable mobility and sheer joy of driving,” citing the car’s 260 horsepower, 12-cylinder engine. The Hydrogen 7’s standard combustion engine has been adapted to run on both liquid hydrogen and regular gasoline as well — and tons of it. The company says the car will consume an average of 13.9 liters (3.7 gallons) per 100 kilometers (roughly 17 miles per gallon) using regular gasoline and a whopping 50 liters to drive the same distance when fuelled by hydrogen.
In other words, BMW has created an energy-guzzling engine that only seems to be environmentally friendly — a farcical ecomobile whose only true merit is that of illustrating the cardinal dilemma of a possible hydrogen-based economy.
The problem is that hydrogen is in scarce supply and producing it requires vast amounts of energy. Climate-friendly production of liquid hydrogen on a large scale presupposes a virtually unlimited supply of ecologically produced electricity — not something likely to materialize in the near future. That’s why energy experts from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy believe forcing the transition to a hydrogen-based economy within the next three to four decades is “not an ecologically sound” idea.
Storing the volatile energy source also requires energy and money. The only method that promises a reasonable storage life is liquid storage at temperatures below -253 degrees Celsius (-423 degrees Fahrenheit). The process of cooling the storage facility down to such a low temperature alone uses up to one-third of the energy contained in one fuel tank.
Volatile fuel
BMW’s thermo-tank, specially designed to hold liquid hydrogen as well as regular gasoline, has the same diameter as the drum of a washing machine. It has a volume of 170 liters (45 gallons) and takes up half the trunk. But it can only hold eight kilograms (17.6 lbs) of the extremely light hydrogen fuel — barely enough for a 200 kilometer (124 mile) trip. What’s more, some of the tank’s contents have to be released as they heat up and evaporate — even the best insulation system can’t keep temperatures down forever. After nine days, half the tank load has gone bad.
BMW’s competitors are somewhat puzzled by the company’s decision to adapt combustion engines — known for their high fuel consumption — so that they will run on a fuel as sensitive and problematic as liquid hydrogen. “We think it’s non-sense,” says Frank Seyfried, research director for hydrogen-based propulsion at Volkswagen.
With the exception of BMW, every car company out there is betting on a different technology: fuel cells, which transform hydrogen into electricity via a chemical process. The electricity generated in the process then drives the vehicle. This method promises far greater efficiency, but the current technology yields only modest driving performance. Test cars with fuel cell engines can produce between 50 and 90 kilowatts, but they consume only about 14 liters of hydrogen per 100 kilometers (62 miles) — a fuel value corresponding to that of four liters (one gallon) of gasoline.
BMW’s chief developer Klaus Draeger still thinks there’s good reason not to shelve the combustion engine. “It’s the only engine that meets our requirements in terms of dynamics,” he explains.
And so, in creating the Hydrogen 7, BMW is announcing a future of putatively clean, full-throttle driving. The new car caters to the pleasing fantasy of customers spoiled by high-horsepower engines: That they can conform to ecological standards without making any sacrifices, burning “clean” fuel to their heart’s content. Advertizing images display the Hydrogen 7 against a backdrop of wind turbines and solar panels.
But the image is one of deceit. Because the hydrogen dispensed at the new filling station is generated primarily from petroleum and natural gas, the new car puts about as much strain on the environment as a heavy truck with a diesel engine. Add the loss of environmental benefits involved in the production and transportation of the putatively clean fuel to the consumption of the car itself and you get an actual consumption corresponding to considerably more than 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of fossil fuel.
The environment isn’t the only loser: Customers will also have to shell out a lot of money for their deceptive display of ecologically responsible driving. The current standard price for liquid hydrogen is 57 euro cents (0.73 US cents) per liter (0.3 gallons). And the price tag on a 100 kilometer (62 mile) drive in the Hydrogen 7, at a comfortable speed, is about €30 ($38).
H.I.D – The new age LED lighting system
IT flashes, points and lights up puddles. The humble side mirror has come a long way from simply supplying a rearward glimpse of traffic, and it is all because of new lighting technology.
Flashing mirrors are only part of a larger technology push that is changing the look and function of a car’s lights. Carmakers call these lights and lenses jewelry, and cars are increasingly adorned with more of them as new plastics, electronics and manufacturing methods change necessary but dull structures into bright and sexy selling points.
Most noticeable may be high-intensity discharge, or H.I.D., headlights, whose blue-white glow contrasts sharply with the yellow light of ordinary tungsten filament headlights. The xenon-gas-based H.I.D. lights generate a spectrum that is much closer to sunlight, so they appear brighter, giving drivers who use them a visual advantage after dark.
”The H.I.D. is more expensive, but you get two and a half times the light,” said Mark Evans, engineering group manager of exterior lighting for General Motors.
The H.I.D. headlight requires a different design. In one form, it resembles a bulbous round lens deep inside a shiny headlight module. This is called a projector headlight, and it works much like a slide projector. Instead of one light for ordinary driving and a separate high-beam headlight for longer-distance vision, the projector lens uses a single bulb and moves the reflector shield surrounding it to change the light focus.
H.I.D. lights have been common on European luxury cars, and Cadillac cars will soon carry them as standard equipment. Ford’s Lincoln line is also using them.
A BLENDING of North American and European approaches is emerging, too, in the way light is beamed in front of a car. American designers have traditionally used a diffuse focus, with the pool of light created by the headlights fading at the far reaches, while European designers favor a precise cutoff at a set distance for the headlight beam to reduce surplus glare. As headlamps become brighter and more engineered, automakers are tending to the European approach.
Even where the specialty lights are not yet in use, headlight assemblies themselves have been changed significantly. Where once a headlight bulb existed, today there is a multifaceted lens assembly carrying four or more separate bulbs. These can include a low beam, a high beam, a daytime running light and a special turning lamp that throws white light in the direction the car is about to go.
Another star player of the emerging design revolution is the light-emitting diode, or L.E.D., the same green, amber or red solid-state widget that has been used for decades in computer equipment and home appliances. In the 1990’s, technology advances created reliable high-intensity diodes, and carmakers were charmed.
”The L.E.D.’s illuminate about 200 milliseconds faster than a light bulb, which doesn’t sound like much but equals about a full car length at 65 miles per hour,” said Al Gagne, an engineering spokesman at G.M.
Mr. Gagne said the L.E.D.’s created faster taillights to help prevent collisions, and soon might be bright enough to use in headlight assemblies.
In addition to being fast to light up, L.E.D.’s have other advantages. They use only 20 percent of the electricity it takes to power fragile and failure-prone light bulbs. They generally last longer than most cars. They emit less heat than bulbs, which frees car designers to replace huge, clunky taillight assemblies with slim, elegant ones.
The first L.E.D. taillights were crude industrial chic, mostly for delivery trucks and tractor-trailers. Automakers began using them in the extra taillight called a chimsel, for center high-mounted stop lamp, but as reliability increased, the diodes moved on. G.M. put its first L.E.D. taillights on the 2000 Cadillac DeVille.
”You’re going to see G.M. come out with designs that showcase the L.E.D.’s a little bit more,” Mr. Gagne said.
With the appropriate glues and heat-dissipating design, future taillights might become a stick-on external component, freeing trunk space and simplifying the use of sheet metal, which now must be pierced to hold lamp assemblies.
The diodes have also been popped into side mirrors to function as extra turn indicators. Mercedes-Benz uses L.E.D. technology for both brake lights and extra turn signals — called repeaters — on its S-Class sedan and CL-Class coupes.
Signal repeaters on the front sides of European cars have been required for a long time, but Mercedes-Benz came up with a twist, putting signal repeaters in the front of the mirrors on the 2000 S-Class.
Muth Mirror Systems of Sheboygan, Wis., an auto supplier, has a side mirror that flashes a chevron-shaped line of diodes when a turn signal is activated; they have appeared as original equipment on premium Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles, including the Excursion. The mirrors are sold as ”power safety signal mirrors” on the 2002 Windstar minivan, in which they also flash in the side mirror to show that a sliding door is open and passengers may be exiting.
The Donnelly Corporation of Holland, Mich., has its bulb-based side mirror signals installed on G.M.’s GMC 360 sport utility vehicles, which sell as the TrailBlazer, Envoy and Bravada. Donnelly’s mirrors combine turn signals and ”puddle lights,” an increasingly popular feature that shines a small spotlight on the ground near car doors to help the driver and passengers avoid stepping into a mess after dark. The light is activated by opening the driver’s door or by a remote entry key fob.
THE Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says there is no research yet to indicate that the side-mirror signals improve safety. Not enough cars equipped with the systems are on the road to measure their effectiveness, said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the institute.
But if the signals are even somewhat as effective as daytime running lights or chimsel brakelights, side-mirror signaling and advanced headlight and brakelight systems may end up saving hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in property damage annually.
Though many drivers do not like them, automotive researchers say that daytime running lights have reduced multiple vehicle crashes during daylight hours. A study completed last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 3 percent decline in such crashes in a nine-state area during the time period that daytime running light systems were introduced.
The figures seem to show that lighting cars for visibility is beneficial. The systems have typically used either regular headlamps at half their normal brightness or special marker lamps near the headlights. Carmakers are now experimenting with cutting down the brightness to try to make daytime running lights more appealing to customers.
The same safety logic has led to the introduction of what are called rear fog lights. The lights are actually an amplified version of the typical taillight, and they are meant to brighten the rear marker lamps of a car so that drivers coming up from behind will notice a car sooner in foggy or hazy conditions.
Lighting has become so important, automotive executives say, that lighting engineers are now routinely included during the earliest phases of car design and production. Concept cars that once were displayed with generalized, nonroadworthy head and taillamps are now displayed in all their shining glory.
Designing Cars for Low-Carbon Chic
As governments seek to cut carbon emissions through regulation and consumers react to rising fuel prices, automakers and designers are mapping out a new generation of lighter, sleeker vehicles that could give a radical new look to urban streets.
Toyota has already set a benchmark for low emissions and fuel economy. Its Prius model, introduced in 1997, pioneered new technologies, including the first fully integrated hybrid engine, able to switch between gasoline and battery power, and electronic and computerized controls replacing heavy hydraulic systems.
Toyota has been followed by another Japanese company, Honda, with a Civic hybrid, and a string of releases or planned models from European and American competitors. Carmakers are now racing to design more innovative bodies incorporating advanced aerodynamics and light, biodegradable plastic components. They are also trying to second-guess the kind of styling that the next generation of car buyers will want.
Gilles Vidal, designer of a recent “green” concept car, the C-Cactus, for the French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën, said, “To make a real environmental effort, you need to work on all of the possible factors — materials, optimization of processes, simplifying, going back to essentials.”
Students at Créapôle, a leading industry-sponsored design school in Paris, are among those working with manufacturers to develop new designs and technologies that could become auto industry standards.
Alec Moran, a final-year master’s student at the school, said that instead of selling cars based on the size of the engine, the car’s relationship with its surroundings and how it interacts with people should be increasingly important.
“We are trying to develop the aesthetic element of the shape and interior comfort while assimilating the car’s essence to the cultural needs of a particular social group,” he said.
The evolution in fuel economy is continuing. For example, Ford fitted its EcoBoost engine this year to the new Lincoln MKS and Ford Flex models. The motor combines direct injection for higher fuel efficiency with additional turbo-charged power generated by using waste exhaust gas energy.
Guy Negre, a motor engineer and founder of MDI Enterprises, a company that studies new technologies and production concepts to reduce the environmental impact of carbon dioxide, invented a compressed-air engine in 1996. The engine emits one-third the carbon dioxide of conventional motors of the same size. Cold air, compressed in tanks to 300 times atmospheric pressure, is heated and fed into the cylinders of a piston engine. No combustion takes place, meaning there is no pollution, although the energy needed to compress the air may still come from polluting oil- or coal-burning power stations.
“Obviously, we are obliged to make changes to the design in relation to the requirements and specifics of new technologies,” Mr. Negre said. “The weight, for example, is extremely important for many reasons. The heavier a vehicle is, the more energy is needed to power it and the more it pollutes.”
Mr. Negre’s engine will be offered as an option in Tata Motor’s new production model, the Nano, next year. The Nano, a minicar with an ultralow price tag, was introduced in January and is primarily aimed at the Indian market. Mr. Negre said a full tank of compressed air would cost about $3 and provide about 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, of driving. The tank could be filled by gas station compressors used for inflating tires, or a built-in compressor powered by plugging in to an electrical outlet, he said.
Designers at automakers like Chrysler, Toyota and Citroën are already adapting to changing customer needs and perceptions. The Citroën C-Cactus, a retro take on the legendary 2CV, is designed for a post-SUV urban world where small is beautiful and low environmental impact is a top priority.
Maria Mack, a senior design specialist in Brussels for Toyota, said, “From the very first stage of design, the project leader responsible for a particular vehicle sets environmental impact reduction targets.”
The C-Cactus is an example of how manufacturers are experimenting to reduce the industry’s total carbon footprint, including production and driving emissions. Besides choosing a hybrid engine, Mr. Vidal, its designer, said, he halved the weight of the car and simplified everything that could be simplified to cut energy consumption.
Olivier Frémont, head of Créapôle’s department of transport design, said: “Four or five years ago much of our design work was focused on the Chinese and emerging markets. But in the last three years or so trends have radically changed as designers have become much more ecologically minded.”
He added, “We are regularly looking to simplify the vehicle whether it be outside or inside,” and he said that “we are coming back to basic questions of what is actually useful inside the vehicle, what we actually need.”
Mr. Moran, the Créapôle student, has designed a car that addresses two main issues: the escalation of oil prices and the need to minimize environmental impacts. His car runs on an electric motor using a lithium-ion battery, substantially lighter than traditional lead-acid batteries. It has a chassis made of bamboo, reinforced with spiders’ silk and plant resin.
Car companies like Mazda are looking to bioplastics for the fenders and dashboards of future models. Mazda says that the plastic will be made from cellulosic biomass produced from inedible vegetation like plant waste and wood shavings. Toyota’s concept car, the COMS BP, an electric vehicle, also uses bioplastics for some of its body parts, including the hood, pillars and roof.
Mr. Moran said his car was designed for people he likes to call “No-Nos” — those who reject mainstream consumerism and popular advertising.
“ ‘No-Nos’ are a growing minority of people who care a great deal about their carbon footprint,” Mr. Moran said. “Aesthetically conventional but technically advanced,” he said, his target buyers would be “activist consumers who are both thoughtful and introspective.”
Cyril Randuineau, another master’s student at the school, spent some time at Toyota’s main design center in Tokyo, where he studied cultural trends and noticed that many Japanese people had small garages and tended to travel in groups.
His response was to design a car with a miniaturized hybrid engine to maximize passenger space within a small frame, and a molded cocoonlike interior where driver and passengers could relax in comfort when stationary.
He has also designed a car for an emerging African market that he hopes will take off in the future. He says that rising oil prices will open up the market for exciting new technologies using electricity and solar power, all of which will change the shape and functions of the car.
“It’s uncertain that this type of car would actually have mass appeal,” Mr. Moran said. “The aim of this project is really to throw the idea out there.”
BMW Design Chief Sees Art on Wheels; Some Just See Ugly
Since the 1960’s, BMW has pried open the wallets of the affluent by producing handsome, conservative cars known for handling, performance, luxury and, most of all, status.
But now, even as BMW threatens to overtake Toyota’s Lexus as the best-selling luxury brand in the United States, a 46-year-old American executive from Wisconsin is not satisfied. He is trying to make the yuppie dream car as idiosyncratic as it once was predictable. And a lot of longtime BMW lovers hate him for it.
Christopher E. Bangle, BMW’s first non-German design chief, wants each BMW to be a conversation piece known as much for design as precision engineering. Where BMW’s all looked very much alike, he is trying to make each model different — some with bulging back ends, some with unusually reflective surfaces and sharp curves, and some, like the Mini, just plain small.
Why change what is already succeeding? BMW’s new chief executive, Helmut Panke, is asking Mr. Bangle to help raise United States sales of BMW’s almost 50 percent, to 300,000, in just a few years. And that demand comes even as many other car makers enter the luxury car market, which, they think, will be the fastest-growing part of the business in the coming decade.
Mr. Bangle’s answer is to make cars that stand apart from the crowd and appeal to younger buyers’ sense of individuality. ”Car design got into a comfort zone in the 80’s and 90’s and people were terrified to break out of it,” Mr. Bangle said. ”BMW should be applauded for having the courage to say the future is ahead of us, guys.”
But many devotees view him as an interloping artiste sullying the exalted Bimmer by trying to foist on it his version of hipness. The controversy began early this year, when the talk of the industry was the bumptious trunk lid of the 7 Series sedan, which bulges above its posterior.
”It’s a very Wagnerian-looking car; that back end, you can’t explain it,” said Horst Reinhardt Jr., a 32-year-old mechanical engineer who lives in the Detroit suburbs and drives an older BMW but is not sure he will be able to stay with the brand. ”It’s just plain ugly,” he said. (Sales have not been deterred though; they are up 45 percent this year.)
Others have been puzzled by the design of the company’s new interior control system, iDrive, which unifies a dizzying array of functions into a single knob and has left some drivers scrambling for the manual just to start a new BMW. (”iDrive?” went a headline in Road & Track magazine. ”No, you drive while I fiddle with the controller.”)
BMW has also introduced a line of Mini cars, featured in the latest installment of the Austin Powers movies. And mixed feelings have sprung afresh with the recent debut of the company’s Z4 roadster, which resembles a metallic shark with a highly reflective surface and unusual lines. ”Just plain goofy looking,” is how one reviewer, in Automobile magazine, describes it.
Some BMW fans, who have long viewed their cars as unassailable temples, fear worse could be ahead. One of BMW’s most controversial recent prototypes was even off-kilter, with a back end that looked like it sprang from a Cubist paintbrush.
”There’s not one human being on this planet that symmetrical,” Mr. Bangle said. ”So why do we demand it of an emotional product?”
One of a coterie of designers trained at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., in the 1970’s who have gone on to leading industry roles, Mr. Bangle exudes confidence. He hails from Wausau, Wis., a town founded by logging barons. The name is an Indian word for ”faraway place.” Insurance is now the town’s biggest industry, hunting and fishing are favorite hobbies and the Green Bay Packers are a religion. If Mr. Bangle still pronounces ”roots” like ”puts,” in the Midwestern style, he has become somewhat Continental after marrying a Swiss woman and spending the last 21 years working for carmakers in Europe (the last decade for BMW).
Queried about his rank, he asked an American handler: ”I’m not a V.P., am I? I have no idea what I am in English.” He sometimes slipped into German as he talked to an American reporter.
Mr. Bangle has much of the deep-thinking artistic soul in him. He is supremely intense. At a dinner at the Detroit Institute of Arts — sitting under an imposing Diego Rivera mural depicting the auto industry of the 1930’s — he briefly grew teary when describing the frustrations of a profession that has him telling his artists, all at various points, that projects of years in duration will never see the light of day. Such is the car business.
Mr. Bangle often speaks in language that floats beyond pedestrian conversation and can leave one a little puzzled. For instance, he calls the Z4 a car that ”truly separates itself far apart visually from the predecessors of the last century.” How? To the untrained eye, it might look like just a flashy new roadster. But Mr. Bangle said it was a leap beyond other cars the way sculpture changed when classical sculptors discovered the power of draping cloth on nude forms and infusing them with motion.
”That nude, now with the revealing and energizing aspect of a tissue of cloth, is the Z4,” he said. ”To me that’s as big a jump in terms of aesthetic value systems as there was between an Eve before the fall, where she was innocent and pure, and the sexiness that she had was an animalistic pureness that radiated out of her, and an Eve after the fall who discovered and was aware of the surface of her body, could use clothes and the drapery of form, a slit here an opening there, to bring a new kind of erotic sensuality. Same woman, two different aspects.”
When Mr. Bangle joined the Munich-based BMW in 1992, the company had not even had a chief designer for several years. He has spent the last decade elevating his own role, and the role of design, to the point where he has the influence to play a major role in the transformation of the company’s image.
His hypercerebral approach to car design was apparent during an hourlong interview, in which he mentioned Archimedes, Vermeer, Pythagoras, Euclid and the British art historian Kenneth Clark.
Criticism? He is not shy in shrugging it off.
”I’ve often told people that the 7 Series, to me, is the first car of the century, in all of its contents and technical aspects and certainly in its presence,” he said. ”This car is miles apart from anything that came before.”
Not everyone can appreciate that. Even some dealers concede the car is not sold from the rear.
”No one falls in love with the trunk,” said Greg Dickson, general sales manager at Nick Alexander Imports in Los Angeles.
He added: ”Some people say it’s ugly. I say, come on, sit in this car for five minutes. You can’t see the trunk from the driver’s seat.”
The criticism has hardly hurt sales of the 7 Series — BMW’s most expensive line, starting at about $70,000 — which have increased 45 percent this year. One fan is Chris Cedergren, co-founder of a California firm that does market research for the auto industry.
”It moves away from everyone else and differentiates the brand,” he said. ”It makes a statement. The more you can get the consumer to be one with that vehicle and really link their emotion to that vehicle, that will translate into a situation where the consumer will say, ‘I want it.’ ”
”What Chris Bangle is doing is reading that into the marketplace, and, rightly so, developing vehicles that go after individual emotions,” he added.
BMW had 11.4 percent of the luxury car market in the United States during the first 10 months of the year, second only to Lexus, which had 11.6 percent. BMW’s share has doubled in a decade as domestic brands like Cadillac and Lincoln have plummeted, according to data compiled by Sanford C. Bernstein and Ward’s AutoInfoBank. BMW sales generally are up an impressive 17 percent this year, but all is not rosy in Wall Street’s eyes.
”The problem,” said Scott Hill, auto analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, ”is every single mainline vehicle manufacturer is now trying to take their product line upscale.”
Mr. Hill thinks the trend is already putting pressure on the company’s profit margins and will give BMW less flexibility to raise prices. He also says Lexus will have an advantage in an increasingly competitive environment because of Toyota’s greater manufacturing efficiencies.
Mr. Bangle is confident. But speculation has already begun on whether he will continue to push the design envelope or pull back.
Just don’t call his cars automobiles.
”We don’t make automobiles, which are utilitarian machines you use to get from Point A to Point B,” Mr. Bangle once wrote. ”We make cars, moving works of art.”
So Efficient, L.E.D.’s Are Now Fashion Plates, Too
IN recent seasons, a new fashion accessory has become a must-have for the debutants of the auto-show circuit. No automaker introduces a new concept car, it seems, before dressing it up with L.E.D. jewelry.
Light-emitting diodes are replacing the car’s trusty glass light bulbs much as compact fluorescents are replacing Edison’s ancient incandescents in home lamp sockets. L.E.D.’s are longer lasting, more compact and consume less electricity.
Familiar as indicator lamps and later in powerful flashlights, the solid-state lights first found their way into cars as brake lights, an ideal application because L.E.D.’s illuminate more quickly than traditional lamps with wire filaments. Even if the difference is measured in milliseconds, L.E.D.’s can alert drivers sooner and help to prevent rear-end collisions.
Until recently, however, they have been about 10 times as expensive as traditional lights, according to LEDs magazine, a trade publication.
Now that is changing. Luxury cars are using the diode lamps in abundance, and they have already migrated onto more affordable vehicles.
“L.E.D.’s have finally become cheap enough that we can spread the goodness around,” said J Mays, group vice president for design and chief creative officer of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln, Ford’s premium brand, has broad bands of L.E.D.’s on the rear of some of its models. “You have to have a way to handle them,” said Mr. Mays. “We have one for Lincoln that will reveal itself,” he added, referring to future models.
L.E.D.’s offer bold possibilities for signaling brands and vehicle personalities.
Designers have developed a sweet tooth for L.E.D. eye candy. Younger designers in particular see the lamps as a token of the future and as high-tech jewels. They are deployed across every concept car — from the face of the new Ford Explorer America concept to the turn signals of the Hummer HX, a design study for a smaller new model that would compete with the Jeep Wrangler.
Now L.E.D.’s are found in the taillights of most luxury cars: in the circular constellations of red stars in Infinitis, in bold horizontal bands on the liftgate of the Lincoln MKX crossover wagon, in a quartet of brand-signaling bands on BMWs and as hints of tailfins on the Cadillac DTS.
They have also begun to show up at the front end of cars as daytime running lights and turn signals.
Lexus offered the first L.E.D. headlight on the LS 600h L. Now Audi is able to claim the first all-L.E.D. lighting package for the front of a car: high and low beams of the R8 V-12 TDI Concept’s headlights as well as running lights and turn signals.
L.E.D.’s appeal to engineers because in most cases they will outlast the cars in which they are mounted. And they use less energy — a big attraction because the electrical systems of today’s cars are already stretched to support entertainment systems, power steering and electronic controls.
But designers like L.E.D.’s for other reasons: they offer a whole new world of expressive possibilities.
“They look very high-tech and precise and accurate,” said Stefan Sielaff, Audi’s head of design. “This is part of our Audi design philosophy.”
Precision and technology are important components of Audi’s design theme, and its motto, “vorsprung durch technik,” or “progress through technology.” The Audi motto takes on visual expression in L.E.D.’s. The diode lamps, Mr. Sielaff said, also take up less space and give designers more flexibility in placing them.
The R8 lights are made by Automobile Lighting, a division of Magneti Marelli, a leading auto parts supplier based in Italy.
The Audi A5 coupe and the newest A4 have different arrangements of L.E.D.’s, more tubular in shape.
“Each car needs a personality with lights,” Mr. Sielaff said. “I have an expert team doing nothing but light design. You do not just draw a pretty curve and see if it can be built. It takes working with engineers who know light itself, and the manufacturer of the lights and so on.”
The first practical light-emitting diode, which was red, was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak Jr., an electronics professor who wanted to make a transistor do something he could see. Professor Holonyak, now the John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois, soon realized the advantages: for each watt of electricity, L.E.D.’s produced more lumens, or units of light, and lasted longer than conventional incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs.
The diodes make possible all sorts of electronic wonders; they are used, for instance, in the superthin screen of the new Apple Air laptops. Another variation, called organic L.E.D.’s, hold the promise of being flexible — future screens or lights may roll up like scrolls.
In headlights, L.E.D.’s make a light that is closer to daylight than traditional lamps, Mr. Sielaff said. The R8’s lights have a color temperature, a measure of the light’s hue, that is toward the blue end of the scale, at about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. Even brilliant rivals like the bluish xenon lamps measure below 4,000 degrees Kelvin, meaning they are yellowish. Blue lights improve contrast, make it easier for drivers to distinguish objects at night, and cut driver fatigue.
In the Audi R8’s front lamps, a complex array of diodes is arranged in front of curved reflectors in a pattern that Audi engineers liken to a pine cone. Another portion of the lamp takes inspiration from the shell-like roofs of the Sydney Opera House. The complex taillights comprise more than 50 L.E.D.’s with various functions. Even the engine compartment, a carbon fiber container for the dramatically presented R8 powerplant, is lighted by L.E.D.’s.
Headlights are the eyes of a car, of course. But now the eyes need not be round like eyes. They can be narrow slits or twists, like the Ford Explorer America concept.
At their most extreme, L.E.D.’s can be deployed as stars or bits of eye candy, sweet and irresistible. But they can also be deployed in tubular fashion, like raspberry frosting from a baker’s frosting bag. An example of using L.E.D.’s almost to draw is visible in the Mazda Taiki concept car, with headlights and taillights that bend and swoop to follow the body’s shape, or the Mazda Furai, where the headlights are onion shaped.
The arrival of halogen lighting inspired lamp designers to all sorts of creativity, from the Tizio lamp to the dramatic creations of Ingo Maurer, recently displayed in the Provoking Magic exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. New technology for automotive lights is likely to spur a similar burst of creativity.
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THE steely blue beam of high intensity discharge headlights was once a way for luxury carmakers to distinguish their products after dark. But with the H.I.D. lights increasingly popular on midprice cars, luxury-level marketers need a new novelty.
The 2008 Lexus LS 600h L will pioneer one new direction as the first production automobile to use light-emitting diodes, or L.E.D.’s, as headlamps. It will rely on L.E.D.’s only for its low beams and daytime running lights. H.I.D. lamps will do the heavy lifting on high beam, partly because they work better with the sensors in the car’s collision-avoidance system.
As cars gradually abandon the descendants of Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb and switch to L.E.D.’s, developing headlights that automatically adjust to driving conditions may become simpler.
“Headlights could adapt to speed, steering wheel input,” said Fred Peterson, engineering director for Osram Sylvania, which produces lamps for automakers. “All the information you have the vehicle collecting could be fed into L.E.D.’s.”
Mr. Peterson said that an L.E.D. headlight could use an array of about 25 high-powered diodes. In the same way that diodes can be switched on and off to create images on stadium scoreboards, the diodes in a headlight array could be dimmed, brightened or switched off to alter the beam pattern for driving at high speeds on dark highways, to accommodate snow, rain and fog, and for turning corners.
A few issues must be resolved before that happens. Mr. Peterson said that current high-powered L.E.D.’s drew more electricity and produced more heat than conventional lamps. L.E.D. headlight designers will have to rely on materials for lenses and reflectors that will not melt once darkness comes.
IAN AUSTEN
Interview with Flexicar CEO – Monique Conheady
Interview with Ms.Monique Conheady, CEO of Melbourne based car sharing company – explaining all the details about car-sharing – a concept that has recently taken off in major metro cities, proposing car as a part of city’s public transport , in order to say NO to private car ownership………….Melbourne, Sydney,Adelaide, Perth, London,Boston,Toronto,Paris……….just almost 5 years old…..and its growing fast worldwide…….
Public Transport
Integrating Car Sharing into MYKI
Plan to make Melbourne a car free city
Competition in car sharing
Expansion of Flexicar
Branding
Maintenance of flexicars
Academic and Industrial interests
Governement support
Using Kites to Pull Cargo Ships Across the Seas
A few months ago we reported on future attempts to use a kite to move a cargo ship across the ocean. But just last week, the MS Beluga set sail on its maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to Venezuela where it showed, quite successfully, that wind power might just be the future of nautical transportation.
The MS Beluga is a 140 meter long cargo ship. It uses a 160 square meter sky-sail which is set to fly at a height between 100 and 300 meters above the ocean. While it is not the main mode of propulsion, the kite is able to reduce fuel consumption by about 10% to 35% depending on wind conditions. The Skysail is the creation of Stephan Wrage who believes these kites could be used on almost 60% of all cargo ships. It is attached to the ship by a single line that is controlled by a computer, and works precisely as you’d expect, like a giant version of a small kite.
The maiden voyage started just last week, and already the sail has been deployed. It will cross the Atlantic Ocean using the traditional windjammer route south of the Azores. Its full travelling time is expected to be a total of 15 days. If successful, the company expects to deploy this system on other cargo ships.
RECLAIMING DESIGN
A few weeks ago, Inhabitat put together an event about recycling and reuse in design, called Reclaiming Design. This event at HauteGREEN in New York was a big success, thanks to the thought-provoking design and insightful discussion from Dwell Editor-in-Chief Sam Grawe and designers Carlos Salgado of Scrapile, Tejo Remy of Droog fame, and Matt Gagnon.
Our conversation touched on a variety of issues surrounding the concepts and processes behind using reclaimed materials in different scales of design, and its implications for both environmental sustainability as well as more conceptual and cultural themes.
The event was organized in order to explore what it means to recycle, reduce and reuse within the context of design. Our four panelists manage to not only touch on these issues, but raise many others that provided some great green design conceptual fodder for further discussion.After each of our panelists showed their own work and weighed in Reclaiming Design, Jill and I began a moderated question and answer session that raised some interesting topics of discussion. We talked about the historical influences, how reclaiming older materials relates to DIY (do-it-yourself) projects, and the design market for such products and architecture that integrate recycled materials. Jill discussed the idea of the changing social acceptance of “recycling” and its interpretation within differing cultural connotations, while Sam Grawe weighed in on the architectural possibilities of recycling and reclaiming materials.
The question-and-answer session was chock-full of thought-provoking and sometimes contrasting ideas, but each of the panelists seemed to agree on the same things – sustainable design (and particularly the use of reclaimed materials) is an ongoing and complicated process that manifests itself in different ways. There is no “perfect green design;” in fact, as Jill remarked, designing “green” is actually a series of unique solutions to individual problems that attempt to balance health, environmental, social, and aesthetic issues as best as possible.We want to thank HauteGREEN for helping the event come together so successfully, and all of you who showed up to perch on the upside-down buckets to hear the conversation. Hope to see you again next year!
PEV – Personal Electric Vehicle
With a name like ‘No More Gas’, you can bet that this cute little personal electric vehicle is as good to the environment as it is to the user. Its size, weight and fuel make it much better for the planet, while its look and driving experience make it great fun for the driver. Looking like it’s dropped straight out of an episode of The Jetsons, this tiny car can achieve speeds of over 75mph for a cost of $0.02 per mile. All this eco-goodness earned Myers Motors’ NmG vehicle kudos at this year’s Well-Tech Awards exhibit in Milan.
Much of the NmG’s benefits stem from its size. Holding just one person, it’s much smaller than the average car. Smaller cars means more commuters can fit on the roads, getting where they need to be in a shorter time. The size also enables drastic reductions in fuel consumption, earning it the title of the most energy efficient vehicle on the road today. Its size also allows the NmG to achieve a range of 25 to 30 miles, making it suitable for the vast majority of commutes.
Plug the vehicle into a 220 volt socket to fully recharge an empty battery in 3 hours. Fuel costs are around a quarter of the price of conventional oil-powered transportation. Charged using conventional electricity, NmG’s size and power type reduces emissions by around 70% compared to a conventional fossil fuel-powered car. And, of course, emissions are eliminated completely when the car is charged using a home-based renewable energy system.
The design sits halfway between a car and a motorbike so the manufacturers prefer to call it a ‘Personal Electric Vehicle’, or PEV. And because the US Department of Transportation classifies the NmG as a motorcycle, it’s permitted to go on highways traveling to speeds around 75mph while other electric vehicles are legally limited to speeds of 35mph or less. A speedier drive is also likely because the NmG is allowed in many carpool lanes, due to being ‘fully occupied’ by the driver alone.
The retro-futuristic vehicle is available in many bright colors for the reasonable price of $36,000. So, all in all, its an affordable, cheery, environmentally-friendly car that’s supported by existing infrastructures. We’re looking forward to spotting many more NmGs on the roads very soon.
Cardboard bike aims to put brakes on thieves
A bicycle is stolen in England every 71 seconds. So how do you solve this problem through the power of design? According to design student Phil Bridge, make a bike so cheap that there’s no incentive to steal it. And the intrepid design student did just that, by building a bike for about $30 made out of cardboard. Yes, my friends, cardboard!
The 21 year old student designed and created a cardboard bike as part of his degree course in product design at Sheffield Hallam University. The bicycle is not made out of simple ordinary corrugated cardboard, as that would not be strong enough to hold a person’s weight. Instead, Phil used hexacomb board, a more structurally stable form of cardboard which, by the way, is also waterproof. Not all of the bike is made out of cardboard. Tires, chain and brakes are still the same metal and rubber components as any other bike.
The cheap and cheerful cardboard bicycle will hold anyone, provided such person does not weigh more than 168 pounds. And while not designed for speed, the bike does work and will get you to where you want to go. Bridge is now hoping to get a sponsor for to turn his bike into an actual product. Any takers?
OILgae test drive – Algae power hits the road
Corn and soybean derived biofuels have long been the most promising options on the table for escaping the clutches of fast depleting petroleum. However, acquiring the space necessary to produce ethanol and biodiesel at the same consumption rate as fossil fuels would be impossible, so sustainable fingers are pointing to oilgae, or algae fuel. Algae produces 30 times more energy per acre than corn or soybeans and can grow in salt water, our worlds most abundant source. There are several startups bringing pond scum to fuel tanks, among them Solazyme who were caught driving around Sundance Film Festival this year with an oilgae-powered car.
US Biotech firm Solazyme unveiled an algae-fueled Mercedes C320 at the Sundance Film Festival in January marking the first real-world road test of biodiesel made from algae. Solazyme president and CTO Harrison Dillon said the Sundance test drive responds to “the need for a near-term solution that will also be cost effective and sustainable. Our technology combines all the key components: low carbon footprint, environmental sustainability, certified compatibility with existing vehicles and infrastructure, and energy security for our country,” in a press release. The company has since coupled with the Chevron Corporation and plan on producing algae-derived fuels for consumer use in the next three years.
Solazyme grows algae in fermentation tanks without sunlight, by feeding it sugar. Algae suitable for biofuels can be grown in open ponds or lakes or enclosed in heated greenhouse structures to promote year-long growth. And since the production of algae doesn’t hinder food and livestock feed production like corn and soybeans, its effect on the ecosystem and the food chain is significantly reduced.
But what’s a great idea without a catch? In open systems like natural ponds and lakes algae is susceptible to bacteria and contamination, and at the whim of the water and air temperature and access to light. In closed systems, algae grows in contained ponds or pools eliminating much of the risk of environmental variables, though requires more attention, equipment, and space. One of the commercial readiness hurdles is managing production at a feasible market price. Algae biofuels are still being researched and tested throughout the world and will someday (hopefully soon) offer us a cleaner way to get around.
For more vital information – visit http://www.oilgae.com/
