Make Your Own Electric Car: How Hard Can It Be?

As a huge fan of Top Gear, (The UK version, which is the only version worth watching) I of course saw the episode where the hosts attempted to create a homemade electric car. Quite frankly it was one of the best Top Gear episodes ever! Seeing as I have a blog dedicated to green driving I thought it would be fitting to post this episode on the site for all to see. Who knows maybe some of you will become inspired and build one for yourselves!
This is taken from Season 14 Episode 2 of Top Gear

Enjoy the videos!

Short version:

Hyundai: The Laziest Car Company in the World

Hello Fellow Automotive Enthusiasts,

I readily admit that this post is completely off topic and has nothing to do with green driving whatsoever. What this is, is an expose on cheating and dishonesty in the automotive world.

Hyundai: The Laziest Car Company in the World.

Recently, Korean company Hyundai motors has been getting rave reviews on their entire lineup of cars from their sporty Genesis to the towering Tuscan SUV, but it seems that while everyone has been wowed by the performance and aesthetics they don’t seem to notice that these vehicles look strangely familiar. Hyundai has shamelessly copied class leading vehicles from dozens of manufacturers and then repackaged them as Hyundai products.

Let’s start with the most obvious, the four door Hyundai Genesis.

The four door Hyundai Genesis was released in 2008. According to Hyundai, the Genesis was meant to compete with BMW M5 in all areas except price. However, it seems that the individuals in the design department took that statement a bit too literally. The resulting car, while striking, represents one of the greatest affronts to automotive design.  The designers essentially lifted the nose and hood from an E Class Mercedes, attached the doors and side panels of a BMW 5 series, and then slapped on the trunk from a Bentley Continental. Oh, and while they were at it, they copied Bentley’s badge. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I have been driving down the road and said, “Hey look there’s a Bent!…oh it’s just a Hyundai.”

 While creating this kind of confusion is probably great for marketing and makes the prospect of buying a Genesis more appealing, what does it say about Hyundai and the consumer in general? I liken the 2008 Genesis to a fake Rolex. It looks almost as good and probably works almost as well, but to buy a knockoff just tells the world “Look at me! I think I’m a big shot, although I did just get fired from my job at 7-11, due to incompetence, and I still live with my parents even though I’m 35.” The irony of all of this is that Hyundai originally created the new Genesis to try and attract younger buyers. Unfortunately, almost all of the four door Geneses’ that I have seen were driven by people forty or older. Seriously, if you are 40 years old, a Hyundai Genesis, no matter what it looks like, not even one that looks like a Ferrari, is going to make you look like a high roller. Buy yourself a used BMW, Mercedes, or Porsche instead. People will at least take you seriously.

As for Hyundai, I can’t believe that there hasn’t been an absolute uproar over their designs. The other design copies aren’t as blatant as they are with the Genesis, but are obvious nonetheless. Take the new Hyundai Sonata for instance. It’s a classic case of let’s make a car just like car X but change it just enough that no one will notice. In order to create the Sonata, it looks like Hyundai designers took an M series Infiniti and shoved it through a funnel. What pops out at the other end is a warped looking Infiniti that Hyundai simply rebadges and then puts on sale.  

How about SUVs?

 Here’s your recipe: One Toyota Rav4, Remove the trunk mounted spare tire, nip tail lights and tuck the D pillar a bit and you have the new Hyundai Santa Fe! You might be thinking, “Well SUVs are all large boxy things, so that’s not fair to Hyundai.” Well actually, that’s not exactly true. Take a look on Toyota, Infiniti, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Ford, and all the others.  Their cars, while similar in terms of function, look quite different from one another. I mean no one is going to confuse a Ford Flex with a Chevy Tahoe or a Suburban. By the same token no one has ever said “Hey, nice BMW X5” when pointing to a Land Rover Discovery or a Porsche Cayenne. While all of these companies compete fiercely with one another, they take care to make sure that their products are different enough because they understand that customers don’t all want to be driving the same looking vehicle.

Think about the last time you were at a car show or saw a beautiful new car drive by. Did you think to yourself, “Just because it looks different doesn’t make it any good.” Or did you say, “Wow that car is amazing I wonder what it’s like to drive!”  My guess is that 99.999% of you reading this picked the latter one. That is exactly the reaction car companies and designers, regardless of industry, want you to have.  It’s that WOW factor that shows what is really going on behind the doors of the company. Hyundai, in an effort to play with the big boys, has forgotten this rule. Granted, its vehicles are extremely well priced and are much better value for money then a lot of other makes out there; but it doesn’t change the fact that Hyundai is not breaking into uncharted territory technically or visually. My assumption is that in order to keep costs down they have forgone taking the visual route letting others do the work for them.  

In essence, Hyundai has simply decided to copy of its automotive peers in the hopes that we, the teachers, the people who grade them with our cash and checkbooks, are not paying attention. Well, Hyundai, this is me throwing an editorial eraser at you, you’ve been caught, so please put your head down and keep your eyes on your own damn paper.   

Hybrid Vehicle Tax Credits

Here is a small excerpt from this article:

"Both diesels and hybrids must meet certain emissions certification levels to qualify: Smaller vehicles must have a Federal emissions rating of Tier 2 bin 5 or better, and larger ones must achieve Tier 2 bin 8, a less stringent requirement. While most hybrid vehicles already meet the emissions requirement, no diesels are currently rated cleaner than bin 9. Diesels will probably reach the magic numbers with the introduction of ultra-low sulfur fuel that hit the pumps in late 2006. ACEEE expects the '08 Mercedes-Benz E320 BlueTec diesel to qualify for a $1,300 tax credit running on low sulfur fuel.
 
Legislators hope the tax credits will increase the variety and classes of hybrids available to consumers. If gas prices head for the rarified air over $3 a gallon, consumers will be dumping greater shares of their budgets down the tank. That scenario could fuel resurgence in hybrid sales. Toyota's President Katsuaki Watanabe announced plans to sell a million hybrids a year by the end of the next decade, or about 600,000 hybrids in the U.S. To reach that goal, about a quarter of the automaker's vehicles would have to be hybrids. The automaker added a hybrid Camry to its '07 lineup that began sales last year. The Camry sold quickly and the tax credit dropped from $2,600 to $1,300. Both 2wd and 4wd versions of the Highlander Hybrid also sold crisply and their tax credit fell from an initial $2,600 to $1,300. Selling hybrids as a mainstream vehicle still depends upon the price of gas and environmental concerns overcoming the $3,000 to $5,000 premium on these models."

Full article

How Car Companies Cheat the New Fuel Economy Rules

This article is a horror show of corporate greed and lies all in an attempt to circumvent government policies which are designed, rightly or wrongly to make our lives better.

Here is a small excerpt:  "Also, I discovered that the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel-mileage numbers found on car window stickers and quoted in new-car reviews may or may not be what’s used to calculate CAFE. A long phone conversation with a representative from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the group that sets CAFE standards, only muddied my understanding: If the government wants to keep something secret, it should try to explain it.
I found that manufacturers get credits for equipping their cars with air conditioners, making them capable of using multiple fuels and, likely, being built in the states of senators with the most seniority. If car factories or parts suppliers suddenly locate to West Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii or Montana, be suspicious. And if they move from West Virginia, Massachusetts or Hawaii, it means Senators Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy and Dan Inouye have left the Senate."

read more here