TransportGooru

(Source: Wired, CNET & Consumer Reports)

Images Courtesy: Apture

Volvo made history — and the world a far safer place — 50 years ago today when it delivered the world’s first car with standard three-point safety belts.

And it all started with a Volvo PV544 delivered to a dealership in the town of Kristianstad, Sweden.  The three-point belt was invented by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin, who was looking for a better way of keeping people secure in a collision.

Before the three-point belt, there was the basic lap belt. This two-point design did a good job of keeping passengers in their seats during a collision, but it failed to evenly disperse crash forces resulting in a bruised forehead or–at high speeds–a possible fractured pelvis.

The three-point design, developed by Volvo, a company fanatical about safety and engineer Nils Bohlin, more evenly spread impact forces across the passenger’s torso and helped to keep the upper body in place.  Bohlin, a former aviation engineer at Saab who worked on airplane catapult seats, came up with an ingenious solution that combined a lap belt with a diagonal belt across the chest. He anchored the straps low beside the seat so the geometry of the belts formed a “V” with the point directed at the floor.  The design was created to help absorb the force on the pelvis and chest, while keeping the belt in position and not moving under the load.

Even after 50 years of automotive safety innovation, the three-point safety belt remains the most effective protection for occupants in the event of a collision. The belt reduces the risk of fatalities and serious injuries from collisions by about 50 percent. A design as obvious as it is intelligent, the three-point belt is perfectly suited to the seat occupant’s body. It is the safety belt’s ability to keep the occupant in the seat that is of crucial importance.

We take them for granted nowadays, but the three-point belt was revolutionary when it appeared on Aug. 13, 1959. In the years since, the V-shaped safety belt has saved well over a million lives. It has been called one of the most significant inventions of the 20th century, and it remains the most widely used safety innovation in automotive history. Every single car sold today uses three-point belts.  Here are some facts dug from various sources on the internet, which I thought are very interesting:

• In 1963, Volvo introduced the three-point belt in the United States after performing a number of crash tests that validated their claims that it offered the best protection to occupants. In 1967, the Swedish automaker presented data from collisions in Volvo cars over a one-year period that found the seat belt saved lives and reduced injuries by 50-60 percent. That same year, Volvo offered the seat belt as standard on front and rear outboard seats.
• Within five years, three-point belts appeared in cars throughout Europe and the U.S. Bohlin’s invention has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented or reduced the severity of injuries for countless people. That makes the three-point safety belt the single most important safety device in the 120-year history of the automobile.
• The real breakthrough in legislation actually came from Victoria, Australia, which was the first state worldwide to draw up legislation in 1970 requiring not just the fitting of seatbelts, but also their actual use. In the first year of law, traffic deaths in the state dropped by 18 per cent.
• Consumer Reports blog states that in the year 2006, the use of seat belts saved an estimated 15,383 lives. During the five-year period from 2002 through 2006, seat belts have saved over 75,000 lives.
• Currently all U.S. states except New Hampshire have seat belt laws. However, 18 states do not have primary enforcement laws, meaning penalties can only be applied if the car is pulled over for another infraction. Studies show that stronger laws lead to higher use rates. Seat belt use continues to climb in the United States with 83 percent of all occupants buckling up.

What’s even more interesting is that neither Volvo nor Mercedes kept their inventions to themselves, and in fact encouraged other automakers to adopt the safety devices.  Thank you, Mr. Bohlin and Volvo for making our world a little more safer.

Click here to read more.

(Source: Business Week & WSJ)

Ford Motor Co. is upping its production of fuel efficient vehicles in the third quarter to meet demand, the company, says for vehicles being purchased under the extended Cash for Clunkers program, as well as overall increased interest in new cars by consumers.

Cash for Clunkers is pushing August sales so far this month to levels not seen since before the global credit meltdown last Fall. In the first few days of August, Edmunds.com says the auto industry was cracking at a 16 million a year rate. That’s up from less than a 10 million selling rate in the first half of the year, and less than 12 million rate in July.

Ford increased its third-quarter production to 495,000 new vehicles, driven primarily by the demand for its Focus and Escape models. The company will build 6,000 more Focus vehicles during the quarter through overtime and Saturday shifts.

Ford senior sales analyst George Pipas says that it is too early to project the selling rate for August on the whole. “But I can tell you that retail sales we are seeing is eyepopping versus a year ago.”

Ford’s chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick said the clunkers program could generate as much as 750,000 in new vehicle sales for the industry and is now on pace to run out of money within the next three weeks.

“This is what fiscal stimulus is suppose to do when you are in the financial situation we were in,” Hughes-Cromwick said.

Ford’s European executives said Wednesday they are holding formal talks with different governments to continue similar clunkers programs which are boosting sales in such countries as Germany. Russia, which is in a deep economic slump, also said Wednesday it too will start a scrappage offer.

Ford will build 10,000 more Focus sub-compact cars and Escape crossover SUVs than it had planned. In July, the first month of the government’s Clunkers program, the Focus was the top model purchased with the help of government rebates, while the Escape was the only utility vehicle to make the top ten.

Ford is increasing its North American production to a total of 495,000 units in the third quarter, an increase of 18% from the same quarter in 2008. Ford also plans to produce 570,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a 33% boost from the same quarter last year and 15% above planned third-quarter output.

The increased production will come after the Clunkers program has run out of money, but Ford says it will need it to replenish depleted inventories and deal with increasing demand for more fuel efficient vehicles as consumers anticipate higher gas prices with a recovering economy.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Business Week)

NewDealDesign and Better Place teamed up to create a car recharging tower called the Charge Spot, and won themselves an IDEA gold award

One day, recharging stations for electric cars might be much more common than gas stations. If NewDealDesign has its way, they won’t look at all the same, however. The San Francisco design shop has teamed up with e-car venture Better Place to create the Charge Spot, an electricity outlet that received the gold medal in 2009’s International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA a.k.a. Industrial Designers Society of America). The slender and sleek column looks a bit like a sidewalk traffic barrier with a blue plastic top. Amit calls it a “mini-tower of electric power.”

NewDealDesign, founded and financed by Gadi Amit, its president, borrowed from its experience with consumer-electronics clients such as Dell , Fujitsu, Nokia, and Palm to create the Charge Spot.

Better Place’s goal is to have these electricity outlets built wherever people might park their cars for long stretches—parking lots, garages, and streets. Motorists would plug one end of a heavy-duty extension cord into the top of the Charge Spot and the other into a port on their vehicles. Within six hours, their cars would be fully juiced and good to go. Shown below is an awesome cool video, courtesy of YouTube, demonstrating how the technology works)

The tower also houses digital electronics for recording charges and billing motorists’ accounts. The Charge Spot team, drawn from NewDealDesign’s staff of 12 designers, removed hinges and doors from the first prototypes, simplified the display screen, and changed some internal components, reducing cost to about one-tenth of earlier designs, says Paluska. Each spot can also charge two cars at once.

Better Place, established by Shai Agassi in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2007, is trying to create the infrastructure for battery-powered cars. It is also working with Renault-Nissan to design a new electric vehicle. First-generation recharging fixtures were patterned after gasoline pumps, with a power cord instead of a hose. NewDealDesign chose a different model: chargers for portable devices such as laptops, cell phones, and iPods.

“We want to make the electric vehicle a normal, widespread car, not just for the ‘crazy’ green guy,” says Amit, 46, who started NewDealDesign in 2000. Better Place launched the Charge Spot last December in Israel, where 900 of a planned 100,000 have been deployed in preparation for the upcoming launch of its electric vehicle.  Plans are afoot for  massive, worldwide deployment of these charging stations in many car-huggng cultures, including the US, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Austrlia.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Green Car Congress & GreenTechMedia)

A plug-in parallel hybrid electric terminal tractor used to move shipping containers and cargo within the port will be tested at a Port of Long Beach shipping terminal. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is coordinating the project among several ports and will also compile and analyze project data related to the tractor’s performance, including emissions, charging, diesel fuel reduction and other aspects.

Terminal tractors – vehicles that move massive cargo loads at seaports around the world – spend up to four-fifths of their time sitting still with their engines running, waiting to be put to use. Given that fact, why not retrofit the prevalent diesel-burning versions to make them plug-in hybrids?

US Hybrid Corporation performed the conversion which uses a 33 kWh Li-ion battery pack from GAIA. The truck is equipped with a 6.6 kW charger. EPRI expects the plug-in to have about 4 hours of electric operation, depending upon the duty cycle, said Andra Rogers, senior project manager of Electric Transportation at EPRI.

The equipment will be tested at SSA Container Terminal on Pier A at the Port of Long Beach for 3 months.

As a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) the tractor will be able to move containers weighing up to 95,000 pounds as its diesel counterparts can, but unlike diesels will not idle its engine when inactive. Over a year of full-time operation it is expected that the PHEV tractor would use 3,000 gallons of fuel per year less than a similar diesel and significantly reduce emissions.

It costs about $80,000 to convert a diesel terminal tractor to a plug-in hybrid, but a converted tractor will save about 80 percent of its fuel usage, or about 3,000 gallons of diesel a year, giving it a payback of about six years, EPRI estimates.

Ports, and the shipping industry they serve, aren’t as publicly visible sources of pollution as on-road cars and trucks. But the global shipping industry accounts for a significant share of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions – about 4.5 percent, according to a U.N. study reported by the Guardian newspaper last year.

Only a fraction of that can be contributed to on-shore activity at ports. Still, ports have been linked to high levels of pollution and contamination of nearby communities, and that’s led to government and industry action to clean them up, such as a $28 million project at the Port of Oakland, Calif. aimed at cutting diesel truck emission by up to 85 percent, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last month.

The three-month Port of Long Beach demonstration project is part of a one-year demonstration, during which the tractor will also be tested and evaluated at ports in Savannah, Ga., Mobile, Ala., Houston, and New York City.

Click here to read the entire article.

Date:  August 19, 2009

Time: 3:00 PM -4:30 PM EST

Speakers:

• Balaji Prabhakar, Stanford University
• Nicholas W. Ramfos, Director, Commuter Connections, National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board

This webinar will examine a project in India, led by Dr. Balaji Prabhakar, where a variety of payments and lottery awards were tested to encourage bus commuters to shift their schedules to just outside of peak periods. Dr. Prabhakar’s presentation will discuss the specific tests that were conducted and the results of each.

Closer to home, Dr. Prabhakar is also beginning to help try to solve some of Stanford University’s parking and commuting challenges in a policy climate that leaves little room for error¿the university is subjected to heavy penalties if the campus exceeds its allowance for peak-period car commuters.

Dr. Prabhakar has some very creative ideas for testing incentives related to parking at Stanford, which he plans to share in this Webinar, and the technological know-how to implement them and determine their effects.

The webinar will also provide a brief look at incentive programs implemented in the Washington DC metropolitan region to help reduce congestion. Nicholas Ramfos, the Director of the Commuter Connections program at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments will highlight incentives including a region-wide Guaranteed Ride Home Program, free consulting services and equipment lease reimbursements to employers that start or expand a telework program, and a new demonstration program that will be launched this fall which will pay commuters to carpool in designated congested corridors in the region. Nicholas Ramfos’ brief presentation will focus mostly on this newest demonstration program.

Click here to Register and for additional information on the event.

(Sources: Motor Authority, WSJ, Reuters Blogs)

In late July Porsche announced Wendelin Wiedeking would be leaving his position as the company’s CEOto be replaced by Michael Macht, clearing the way for the supervisory board atVolkswagen to lay the foundation for an integrated company with underVolkswagen leadership. Today that merger has moved forward, and reports indicate the Auto Union name could be revived to brand it.

A Reuters report says that details of a deal between Volkswagen and Porsche have been broadly agreed, with VW set to buy a stake of up to 49 percent in the sportscar maker.  The supervisory boards of the German auto makers are expected to vote Thursday morning on a so-called memorandum of understanding, which would be a precursor to a more detailed and firm merger agreement, one of the people said.

The crucial point here is that the family-owned holding company Porsche Automobil Holding SE will get a much-needed cash injection from the sale – anywhere between 4 and 5.5 billion euros –  as well as an additional 5 billion euros from selling a package of options on VW shares to the Gulf state of Qatar.

The Porsche clan has already agreed to sell shares to raise at least 5 billion euros, so it should finally be in a position to pay off debts of more than 10 billion euros it stacked up building up a stake of just over 50 percent in VW.  Stuttgart-based Porsche ousted its chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, in July and is working to pay down a debt pile of more than 10 billion euros ($14.13 billion).

After the successful completion of the VW deal, the Porsche marque will then enter into a new “Auto Union” as the 10th brand, under the leadership of VW CEO Martin Winterkorn.

The Auto Union name was originally given to a merger of four German carmakers – Horch,  DKW and Wanderer – in 1932. The brand went on to fame in motorsports through the 1930s, but was disrupted by World War II, and subsequently went through a number of reformations, eventually ending in a renaming to  AG in 1985.

The integrated automotive group will be formed from the progressive participation of  in AG and the subsequent merger of Automobil Holding SE and  VolkswagenAG.  Porsche will remain an independent company headquartered in Stuttgart.” Today’s report re-affirms  independence, and the Auto Union name is apparently being considered to help preserve the idea that it’s not running the whole show.

(Source:  Forbes)

GM. Those two letters call up a lot of emotion these days. People ask, “What went wrong?” “How could a company that large, that successful, go bankrupt?” The less polite say: “General Motors’ leadership is corrupt.” “They ignored customers.” “The union killed them.” “Government interference.” “Idiots.”

We used to expect size to benefit a company. Being large and established meant you were supposed to have market clout, and you could protect your profits. According to Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor and author, being biggest meant you had created entry barriers that kept your turf safe. With economies of scale in manufacturing, procurement, distribution, marketing, sales, financing and research and development, you could get so giant no competitor could effectively attack your products or prices. And for many, many years, nobody was bigger than General Motors ( GMGMQ.PK– news – people ).

The myth of the invulnerability of the large company is dead. We all know that by now. But other than depressing us, what does it mean? What have we learned from these failures that can help us be more successful in the future?

Many theories of business–from the work of Fredrick Winslow Taylor, who introduced modern management practices a century ago, to that of writers like Jim Collins today–have posited that success comes largely from figuring out what business you want to be in and then focusing on it intently. Pay attention to the resources on which you rely, invest to gain advantages of scale, operate with a tight focus on your goals and you should succeed.

This approach is based on an industrial-age understanding of oligopoly, where over time a pool of competitors shrinks to just the most efficient handful that can all be profitable in the long term. In other words, as Jim Collins has argued, if you set yourself a big, audacious goal and focus on tight management, you should expect to grow large and profitable in the end.

It’s good that GM’s situation raises people’s blood pressure. The company’s trip through bankruptcy is a highly visible sign of how markets have changed. To pull out of this recession, we need to make sure other companies don’t follow GM’s route. Leaders need to stop focusing on traditional market leadership, size and scale. They must abandon that approach to success. Now, more than ever, they have to identify market shifts and reposition their organizations to play in growing markets.

Profit comes from leading customers into new markets, not from optimizing your position in historical ones. To pick a winner, look for companies that shift with markets rather than trying to wield clout. To create a winner, build such a company.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Natural Resources Defense Council)

America’s addiction to oil continues to threaten not only our national security and global environmental health, but also our economic viability. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analyzed how heavily drivers in each state are affected by increases in oil prices and ranked states on their adoption of solutions to reduce their oil dependence — measures they are taking to lessen their vulnerability and to bolster America’s security. NRDC found that rising gas prices, combined with the economic downturn, are making people more vulnerable to changes in oil prices. But many states are taking significant steps to reduce oil dependence through smart clean-transportation policies.

Our analysis shows that:

• Oil dependence affects all states, but some drivers are hit harder economically than others.
• The trends in states’ vulnerability to oil price increases over the past couple of years are not encouraging — drivers in every state were more vulnerable in 2008 than they were in 2006.
• While some states are pioneering solutions and many are taking some action, a fair number of states are still taking few (if any) of the steps needed to reduce their oil dependence.

Image Courtesy: NRDC - Percent of Income Spent on Gasoline by the Average Driver, 2008

The NRDC report says that although some states are adopting strong measures to reduce their oil dependence, too many others are still taking little or no action. The solutions rankings in this report are based on the range of key actions that states can take to reduce oil dependence, with particular focus on policies that can have substantial impact and can be replicated by other states.

NRDC research shows that the 10 states doing the most to wean themselves from oil are:

1) California
2) Massachusetts
3) Washington
4) New Mexico
5) Connecticut
6) New York
7) New Jersey
8) Pennsylvania
9) Oregon
10) Florida

In contrast, the 10 states doing the least to reduce their oil dependence are:

1) West Virginia
2) Idaho
3) Wyoming
4) Mississippi
5) South Dakota
6) Oklahoma
7) Alabama
8) Arkansas
9) North Dakota
10) Alaska

Click here to download the full issue paper. A Fact Sheet developed by the study team can be downloaded here.

(Hat Tip: Elena Schor @ Streetsblog, Capitol Hill)