NTSB RECOMMENDS BAN ON CELL PHONE USAGE IN CARS INCLUDING HANDS-FREE DEVICES

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) voted on Tuesday to recommend that all states ban the use of using cell phones while driving, whether for talking or texting. It is also recommending that states ban hands-free devices, which are typically used as a safety measure among those who do place phone calls while driving. “No call, no text, no update is worth a human life,” NTSB chairman Deborah Hersan said. “This is a difficult recommendation, but it’s the right recommendation and it’s time.” States are not required to follow the NTSB’s recommendation, The New York Times said, noting that state regulators can individually choose to implement a law or ignore the recommendation altogether.

UK JUDGE SAYS TOP GEAR DID NOT LIBEL TESLA

A judge in the United Kingdom has ruled that the popular car show Top Gear, and specifically Jeremy Clarkson, did not libel Tesla Motors. BAck in 2008 a review by Clarkson showed the Tesla conking out after 55 miles of driving (a quarter of its expected range), suffering brake failures and an engine overheat that Elon Musk's company flatly denies ever happening. In the High Court, however, Mr Justice Tugendhat said that people could tell the difference between Clarkson's torturous, heavy-footed "powerrrrrrrrr" driving that goes on at Dunsfold Aerodrome, and the staid manner in which people drive on motorways. Tesla still maintains that the review has damaged its image, which is why it's also pursuing a claim for malicious falsehood, which is yet to be decided.

DARPA'S HTV-2 FAILS

The prototype Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2) failed its second test flight after having failed the first one. The HTV-2 disappeared without a trace during the first flight. A video of the second failed flight has been released.

The HTV-2 is an unmanned, experimental aircraft that is designed to drop a bomb anywhere in the world. A Minotaur IV Lite launch vehicle takes the HTV-2 into space and releases it. The HTV-2 then reenters the atmosphere and follows a path until it lands in the ocean. Its top speed is Mach 20, twenty times the speed of sound. To give a sense of how fast the HTV-2 is, it can fly from Los Angeles to New York City in less than 12 minutes.

The HTV-2′s first test flight occurred last year. The flight lasted nine minutes before DARPA lost contact with the aircraft. Despite the failure, the test flight proved that the HTV-2 is capable of flying 3.6 miles per second while maintaining GPS signals.

The second test flight occurred on August 11 of this year. The flight lasted nine minutes before DARPA lost contact with the aircraft following the glide phase. DARPA had 22 stations set up along the HTV-2′s flight path to collect data.

8 GRAMS OF THORIUM COULD REPLACE GASOLINE IN VEHICLES FOR LIFE

1958 Ford Nucleon model

The price of oil is on an upward spiral due to increasing demand and diminishing supplies. Short of finding vast new untapped reserves buried somewhere under out feet, we need to find an alternative sooner rather than later.

Charles Stevens is an inventor and CEO of Laser Power Systems. His idea is to replace the gasoline engine with an electricity generator that doesn’t require a battery. He is proposing the use of the rare earth mineral thorium in conjunction with a laser and mini turbines that easily produce enough electricity to power a vehicle.

Thorium is abundant and radioactive, but much safer to use than an element such as uranium. When thorium is heated it becomes extremely hot and causes heat surges allowing it to be coupled with mini turbines producing steam that can then be used to generate electricity. It also helps that it has a very large liquid range between melting and boiling point.

Combining a laser, radioactive material, and mini-turbines might sound like a complicated alternative solution to filling your gas tank, but there’s one feature that sells it as a great alternative solution.

Stevens has worked out you’d require a 227kg, 250MW thorium engine in order to power a typical road car. Within that system 1 gram of thorium produces the equivalent of 7,500 gallons of gasoline. So if you fit the Thorium engine with 8 grams of Thorium, it will run the vehicle for its entire lifetime without needing to be refueled while all the time not producing any emissions. The engine lasts so long in fact, that it could be taken from one vehicle and used in another as and when they wear out.

The issues to overcome are the radioactivity and the mining of thorium to make this engine possible. Stevens says the radioactivity can easily be contained with aluminium foil. As for the mining, the reserves are there, with 440,000 tons alone in the U.S., we just need the mining facilities to extract it in large enough quantities. With the potential benefits that is sure to happen.

Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity. Even so, Stevens believes he’ll have a working prototype by 2014 and the potential to not only replace, but improve upon the gasoline-powered engines we rely on today.

ELECTRIC CAR SALES FIZZLE IN FEBRUARY

Autoblog Green has turned up the numbers for the Cheverolet Volt and Nissan Leaf sales for the month of February and it's not good. The Volt's sales declined from January's 321 to just 281. The Leaf didn't fair much better, losing 20 sales from January bringing them down to a paltry 67 for February.

Constrained supplies may have something to do with the anemic sales for both months, it could also be that people don't want to pay the price Chevy and Nissan are asking for a small car, regardless if it is all electric or not.

ROLLS ROYCE UNVEILS ALL ELECTRIC PHANTOM

Rolls Royce isn't known for being radical or following trends, which makes the unveiling by the company of an all electric Phantom rather odd. The vehicle, weighing close to 6,000 lbs., has a massive 71kWh battery, which is nearly 3 times the capacity of the Nissan Leaf. The battery allows the Phantom to cruise along for approximately 125 miles on a single charge. Moving from zero to sixty takes just under 8 seconds, which is pretty impressive for the hulking vehicle. Charge time is around 8 hours. No word on if Rolls will actually produce the vehicle or if they are using as a test bed for future models.

HYDROGEN MICROBEADS COULD FUEL YOUR CAR FOR $1.50/GALLON

Cella Energy is working on putting hydrogen inside microbeads eliminating the need for dangerous high pressure tanks. The microbeads would then explode providing the energy necessary to run your car's engine. The exhaust would be ordinary water.

According to Cella Energy these beads can be poured into the gas tank of a car with an internal combustion engine (presumably suspended in some sort of liquid) and, with no modification, that car will run just fine. Best news is that this concoction costs just $1.50 per gallon, or will eventually once they actually get it to work.

GM BRINGING LTE TO VEHICLES VIA ONSTAR

OnStar has outfitted a Buick LaCrosse with a 4G LTE modem for the purpose of experimenting with what can be done in a car with that kind of bandwidth. It wouldn't have been our choice of cars for such application, Buick not exactly screaming "hot new thing" at this point, but of course it's not really about the car, it's about the bandwidth.

What are they going to do with it? High-def streaming both ways, for one thing, including the ability to watch home security cameras from within the car or, alternatively, to look at cameras within the car when it's parked in the night, in an alley, somewhere you're having second thoughts about. OnStar wants real-time streaming of traffic cameras and even Skype video chat, which sounds like overkill to us, but don't let us rain on your crazy mobile video chat parade. [Engadget]

URBEE HYBRID BODY CAME FROM A PRINTER

The Urbee Hybrid vehicle is a concept with an interesting twist. The body of the vehicle was produced from a printer...a really big 3D printer. The result is a partnership between Kor Ecologic, a transportation company, and Stratasys, a printer company that markets its 3D printers as HP Designjets.

Kor provided the concept and the underpinnings of the thing, a design that amazingly has its roots in the early '90s but has been given a new, teardrop body 100 percent printed by Stratasys. Underneath is a plug-in hybrid powertrain that manages up to 200mpg on the highway and 100mpg around town running on ethanol or plain 'ol gasoline. No, there are no plans for the three-wheelin' Urbee to actually see production, and beneath that luscious shape rolls something that looks rather more like a work in progress. [Engadget]

CHEVROLET VOLT GETTING POOR MILEAGE

The much touted saviour of Chevrolet (and GM to an extent), the Volt, has hit the media this week for preview drives.  It looks like the range and mileage Chevy has been throwing around is somewhat exaggerated.  According to Popular Mechanics, who tested the mileage and range, has come up with an average of 33 miles on electric motor only.  This is down from Chevy's initial, and long standing, statement of over 40 miles on electric motor.  Chevy has revised their estimates for range 3 times.  The first statement had the range at 40+ miles, then it was forty-ish miles and most recently a complete revision to 25-50 miles.  In fairness to Chevy, there are a number of factors that can affect the efficiency of batteries including weather.

Also of concern is the mpg of the gasoline powered "assistance" motor.  Popular Mechanics tested this as well and calculated 32mpg city/36mpg highway.   This is a far cry from Chevy's estimate of overall fuel economy of 230mpg.  GM does say the 9.3 gallon tank adds 310 miles of driving range, which is 37-42mpg.

Chevy also recently announced the gas "assist" motor can directly drive the wheels.  This is in contrast to what was widely believed.  The understanding that most people had, and Chevrolet perpetuated, was the gas engine would power a generator which in turn would recharge the batteries which would then power the motors on the wheels.  With this change to the gas motor powering the wheels directly and charging the batteries the Volt becomes a standard hybrid vehicle with a $41,000 price tag. [Gearlog]

UNIQUE SIKORSKY HELICOPTER BREAKS SPEED RECORD - WITH VIDEO

Sikorsky, the venerable helicopter manufacturer, has just broken the helicopter speed record with its X2 vehicle.  This unique helicopter has 2 counter rotating main rotors with a push prop in the rear instead of the usual parallel fan blade.  The Sikorsky website description of the helicopter:

The X2 uses a single T800 engine to power both the rotors and the tail-mounted variable-pitch propeller, which provides forward thrust to enable the high speed. Other technologies include fly-by-wire flight controls and active vibration control.


In the beginning of the video you can see the X2 Light Tactical Helicopter being developed for military use. [Gizmodo]

ELECTRIC CAR CHARGING STATIONS COULD FOLLOW YOU AROUND

Could the fear of running out of power in an electric vehicle keep people from buying them?  It is a possibility and researchers at the Mitsubishi's lab in Cambridge, MA have come up with a novel way to help alleviate the problem.

By using a central database to compile power usage and battery capacity from electric vehicles, then using that data to locate where the vehicles find they need re-charging the most, they would then send mobile power stations to those locations.

The mobile power stations would also need recharging, however this could be done overnight, when demand for recharging of vehicles would be slower, or by solar power. [New Scientist]

MERCEDES UNVEILS NEW 2012 CLS CLASS

Leftlane has a great slideshow of the new 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS Class four-door coupe.  The vehicle is set to make it's official debut at the Paris Auto Show later this year.

The new CLS has a more aggressive front and rear and is considerably more styled than it's predecessor.