The Project P.U.M.A. prototype on 18th Street in Manhattan.

 (Source: Wheels Blog – New York Times)

When General Motors unveiled Project P.U.M.A. in New York on Tuesday (with partner Segway), it was showing not so much a vehicle as a vision for a new transportation system. And that’s high risk, high reward, because as much as new concepts are needed, they’re excruciatingly hard to actually put in place. Our highways are haunted with unfulfilled visions, from electric station-cars to statewide hydrogen-refueling networks.

 

For David J. Friedman, research director for the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the P.U.M.A. has possibilities, though what he called “the massive monitoring and managing of traffic to minimize congestion and maximize road usage” has been tried before; the general category is called Intelligent Transportation Systems. G.M. experimented with hands-free Buicks on automated highways in 1997, but the efforts were thwarted by high costs and driver confusion.

“We need to design our cities around something other than two- or three-ton vehicles,” said Mr. Friedman. “The data suggests that by 2030 half of the built environment in the U.S. will be new. What if we designed new suburban towns with integrated shopping so you could walk, bike or use a P.U.M.A. to get around, with conventional vehicles only for longer trips?”

 

(Source: Wired)

 

The brushed permanent magnet motor produces 31 horsepower and the bike weighs 225 pounds, making the Zero S a little less powerful – but 96 pounds lighter – than a Suzuki DR-Z400SM. With 62.5 foot-pounds of torque on tap, the Zero S has significantly more grunt than, say, the KTM 690 SMC.

Juice comes from a 4 kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery that weighs 80 pounds and charges in less than four hours when plugged into a 110 volt outlet. Zero predicts the battery will last five or six years with normal use. No word on the replacement cost, but an extra pack for the Zero X – which uses a 2 kilowatt-hour pack – costs $3,000.

Power flows directly to the back wheel – no transmission – and the bike offers 9 inches of suspension travel up front and 8 at the rear. Zero wouldn’t offer any details on who’s producing the suspension or brake components.

 

(Source: Treehugger)

Img: Daniel Sparing @ Flickr

The Dutch and the Danish pass back and forth the crown for best cycling country. Now new research (from the Dutch) shows Holland to have the safest cycling roads (graph after the jump). Here’s how Tineke Huizinga, State Secretary of Transport, views the bike:

“The bicycle oils the wheels of the municipal traffic system. Cycling means arriving at work, school or the gym in a more alert frame of mind, feeling creative and positive.”

That may seem like a subjective statement, but the Dutch have found cyclists do have fewer sick days. And, amazingly, cycling safety is NOT give the highest priority in Dutch planning.

(Source: Jalopnik)

P.U.M.A delivers 35 mile range, 35 MPH top speed, all on 35 cents of electricity 

GM and Segway have teamed up before the New York Auto Show on what they’re calling the PUMA project. The prototype vehicle was exclusively unveiled today on the Today Show. It’s no April Fool’s joke.  PUMA stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility and the prototype running around outside NBC’s Today Show this morning is an experimental prototype of a vehicle Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, claims we’ll see a roadable version by January.

Jalopnik’s review of the PUMA after taking it for a spin goes like this:  

The first impression is of how small and simple the PUMA is. There’s barely room for two full-sized adults to sit side-by-side within its roll cage and inside, under the rough plexi windshield there’s only one control: the aircraft-like yoke.

(Source: Charlotte Obervser & Autoblog)

Horry County officer back at work after 3-day suspension for going 131 mph in Kershaw County

His reason for driving at ridiculous speeds was that he was on his way to work traffic at the Carolina Cup in Camden, SC and was running late. Just like “running late” isn’t a good excuse for the rest of us, in this case it didn’t didn’t warrant a free pass for Mr. McGaha. The Charlotte Observes quotes Department of Public Safety director Mark Keel saying:

He faces a $355 fine and six points against his license if convicted.

“There was no justification for it,” Keel said. “He had no excuse.”

While McGaha was being stopped, he flashed the car’s police lights, presumably to let the trooper know he was a police officer, Keel said.

In August 2006, McGaha was recognized by the Department of Public Safety and Mothers Against Drunk Driving as “Statewide Rookie of the Year” for his work stopping drunk drivers.

“He’s been a great trooper from what I understand,” Keel said. “He was very apologetic, and he knew he made an error in judgment, and it’s those kinds of errors that can get people hurt.”

(Source: Business Week)

Image Courtesy: African Development Bank

International donors and lenders on Monday pledged $1.2 billion for projects to improve road and rail links between eight southern African countries.

The aim is to reduce transportation bottlenecks and bring down costs along the main trading routes through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Botswana and Mozambique.

Bad delays at national border crossings, along with road taxes, have led to high prices for shipping products to regional and international markets, especially from landlocked countries like copper-rich Zambia. Vehicles also require frequent repairs due to poor road quality.

World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy told participants at a two-day conference that there was an urgent need for Africa to speed up the completion of a North-South transportation corridor.

International lending institutions and donor governments promised $1.2 billion toward the project — with half coming from the African Development Bank over the next three years.

The World Bank pledged $340 million, with additional support from the European Union and Britain.

(Source: Associated Press via Yahoo! News)

WASHINGTON – U.S. highway deaths in 2008 fell to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, the latest government figures show, as the recession and $4 per gallon gas meant people drove less to save more. Safety experts said record-high seat-belt use, tighter enforcement of drunken driving laws and the work of advocacy groups that encourage safer driving habits contributed to the reduction in deaths.

Preliminary figures released by the government Monday show that 37,313 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year. That’s 9.1 percent lower than the year before, when 41,059 died, and the fewest since 1961, when there were 36,285 deaths.

A different measure, also offering good news, was the fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.28 in 2008, the lowest on record. A year earlier it was 1.36.

“The silver lining in a bad economy is that people drive less, and so the number of deaths go down,” said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Not only do they drive less but the kinds of driving they do tend to be less risky — there’s less discretionary driving.”

Fatalities fell by more than 14 percent in New England, and by 10 percent or more in many states along the Atlantic seaboard, parts of the Upper Midwest and the West Coast, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Americans should really be pleased that everyone has stepped up here in order to make driving safer and that people are paying attention to that,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

(Source: Deutsche Welle)

Denmark is a leader in climate policy, but the Danes are also among the highest per capita users of energy in the world. The government in Copenhagen is now trying to change that.

When Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen came to power in 2001, he didn’t seem at all interested in the environment and climate protection.

Currently there are only about 200 climate-friendly autos on the nation’s streets, but that should grow to 100,000 within two years.

 The Danish energy corporation DONG and the American company Better Place are planning to invest 100 million euros ($135 million) to build up infrastructure in the country for electric cars. The idea is to make it just as fast to charge up a battery as it is to fill up a tank of gas.

 The head of the Danish electric auto association, Per Moeller, is very pleased with that plan, and confident that Denmark can become a pioneer in this sector.

 “We have really good conditions for it here: no extreme climate changes and a flat landscape,” he said. “Denmark is certainly one of the countries in which it would be the easiest to introduce electric cars.”

The batteries to run these cars of the future have another advantage. They can be charged during the night when energy from wind turbines is available but isn’t being used much, essentially turning them into important energy storage devices.

Mike Zara @ Flickr

 (Source: New York Times)

Like many other air traffic controllers, Michael Pearson was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration in the early 1980s to help replace more than 10,000 striking air traffic controllers who were fired en masse by President Ronald Reagan.

(Source: McKinsey Quarterly ;Video:  The Auto Channel @ YouTube)

The fastest way to reduce America’s dependence on oil imports is to convert petroleum-driven miles to electric ones by retrofitting the SUVs and pick-ups now on the road with rechargeable batteries. Here’s how.