Tesla to sell Roadster in Europe

Schwarzenegger is expected to receive this electric Tesla Roadster within a few months. He paid $100,000 for this car. His pals in the Old World won't have to wait too much longer before they can buy their own, for a cool €100,000 ($156,000.) The Roadster will be sold in Europe beginning in Summer, 2008, CEO Ze'ev Drori has told the Financial Times.

The upstart California auto maker decided to offer its vehicles in Europe for a number of reasons. Favorable tax treatment of electric cars as well as other incentives are among the measures the continent hopes to employ to lower carbon emissions. The weak dollar also makes Europe an attractive market. Although the chassis and body are made in the U.K., with no plans for a right hand drive version the English rich and royal are out of luck.

Brammo Enertia motorcycle

Is an Injury Proof Car Possible

Volvo has come out with an ambitious plan to eliminate any injuries or deaths in their cars by 2020. They also want to go one step further and design cars that don’t get into accidents at all. Though it may sound unreal, automobile industry experts believe it is possible.

Automakers, parts suppliers, governments and global agencies from the United Nations to the OECD are all looking at ways to relegate to memory the roughly 1.2 million deaths and 50 million injuries caused by motor vehicle crashes each year.

But in what some analysts see as a bid to hold its lead in consumer perceptions of safety, the Swedish carmaker now owned by Ford is the first to set a target date to eliminate death and injury in its cars.

“I think if you look into the future, we as a community will not accept that we have injuries,” said Jan Ivarsson, leader of the Volvo safety team with specialists in everything from biomechanics to engineering to behavioral science.

The HID Advantage

Bottom line, HID headlights provide better visibility than ordinary halogen bulbs. The difference is even more evident during poor driving conditions. A significant percentage of road accidents take place during bad weather, especially at night. HID lights allow drivers to overcome these conditions by providing up to 3 times more light. Added visibility contributes to driver confidence, which provides for a more relaxed, safer driver.

HID lights are able to provide greater light output with less power consumption. Studies show that a 35 Watt HID lamp produced 3 times as much light compared to a 55-Watt halogen bulb. Also, the 55 Watt halogen bulb uses a continuous power draw of 10-15 amps, while the HID system uses 20 for start-ups but drops to a mere 3 amps during operation. In addition to high output and low power usage, your HID headlight provide a longer service life. Under normal driving conditions, the bulbs will last approximately 4 years (3000 hours). That's up to 4 times as long as an ordinary halogen lamp.

Can Gas Prices Actually go down for the Summer ?

The United States may see a decrease in gas price if a bill is passed in order to provide a tax holiday on gas. In my recent study in economics I do not see any good coming out of this. Yes, gas prices will be reduced for a while but only in the short run. The demand for gas during this tax break will continue to increase and it the demand will remain the same after the break. The supply is still decreasing and I could imagine after this tax break the gas price will become more expensive.

Idea of Smart Traffic Lights

Traffic lights that are capable to wirelessly keep track of vehicles. This could be a really good technology because it could speed up journeys because you will know how to plan your route accordingly. In one respect it could also reduce fuel consumption because you will no longer have to speed up at the light from a complete stop. It will also improve urban air quality because thier will be less gas going into the air from a car at the idle state. Romanian and US researchers who show that "smart" traffic lights might reduce the time drivers spend waiting at intersections by more than 28% during rush hours. These smart traffic lights will take time off of your trip.
In the testing of this technology, "traffic lights were fed the position and speed of all vehicles on nearby roads and programmed to calculate how to phase colour changes in order to optimise traffic flow. As well as reducing intersection waiting times, the team calculates that CO₂ emissions could fall by 6.5%." It will help drivers with speed warnings. If traffic lights were able to tell the driver when they are going the change it will reduce traffic and also reduce the unneeded acceleration at a fresh green light.
For this to work, vehicles must transmit data to the computer system that controls a city's lights. This is not possible currently, but companies and research groups worldwide are already developing vehicle communications systems that might be adapted to be used for the smart lights.
Dash Express is one such car-to-car communication system expected to ship commercially in the US in February 2008. It provides drivers with real-time traffic information using data automatically gathered from other vehicles with Dash Express units. This information includes their current speed and location. This info is transfered via centralized computer.

Rideing Shotgun Roadrage

Gun-carrying motorists can be more prone to road rage

GUN lobbyists like to repeat the quote often attributed to American writer Robert Heinlein, that "an armed society is a polite society". But this is certainly not true for motorists.

A survey of 2400 drivers carried out by David Hemenway and his colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health shows that motorists who carry guns in their cars are far more likely to indulge in road rage - driving aggressively or making obscene gestures - than motorists without guns. Some 23 per cent of gun-toting drivers admitted making rude signs, compared with 16 per cent of those who did not carry guns (Accident Analysis and Prevention, DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2005.12.014).

Yet in some states it is easier than ever to own a gun and carry it a car. In the past two decades 23 states have eased restrictions on carrying guns, says researcher Mary Vriniotis.