SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Toyota announced this week a partnership with the University of California to road test two plug-in hybrid cars, a step toward getting the fuel-efficient vehicles to consumers.

The study to be launched this fall will be the first time a major automaker puts the experimental cars on US roads. UC Berkeley will analyze the behavior of the drivers, and UC Irvine will study air quality and energy use.

By plugging into 110-volt household current, the prototype Prius can cover seven miles (eleven kilometers) per charge in all-electric mode at up to 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).

"This is exciting technology that Toyota has been working on for years," Denise Morrissey, Toyota spokeswoman, told AFP. "This will be a great experiment to see how the market will respond to the plug-in modification."

The new Prius will weigh one hundred kilograms (220 pounds) more than its hybrid forbear to accommodate an additional nickel battery, but other specifications will remain the same.

Toyota's choice of Berkeley as a testing ground for the daily usage of a modified Prius seems a good fit. The city just east of the San Francisco Bay, where the hybrids are as common as pick-up trucks in Texas, is known for it environmentalism and progressive politics and is one of the biggest Prius markets, Morrissey said.

In May, Toyota sold the one-millionth Prius hybrid, half of those in the United States. Sales of the Prius for the first six months of 2007 have increased 69 percent over the same period of 2006, and the company estimates that hybrids worldwide have emitted 3.5 million tonnes less carbon dioxide than gasoline-fueled vehicles of the same class.

Researchers at UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies will be tracking what they believe will be the behavior of early adopters of the new plug-in modified hybrid.

"We will be looking at how people integrate this vehicle in their daily lives and monitoring behavioral response," said researcher Susan Shaheen. "I study how people adapt to new technology, how it affects their lifestyle."

Shaheen will track the patterns in usage over two years during which the prototype Prius will be placed in a company fleet where employees will drive it for both business and personal use.

The study hopes to collect data on trip distance, charging location, duration, time of day, and frequency of trips.

A gas-electric hybrid vehicle demands no modification of behavior, other than learning how to drive to maximize fuel efficiency, said Shaheen. "But a plug-in hybrid is a step in a whole new direction," she said. "This is different from traditional refueling and will require some degree of adjustment."

Many consumers seem eager for the change. Shaheen has already been flooded with calls and emails from Berkeley residents hoping to be a subject in the study.

"But it is still not clear if consumers are going to be willing to plug in their cars, and adjust to the price premium of this new technology," said Morrissey. "Only time will tell."

Air-Car Ready for Mass Production

By Bob Ewing

EAST AMWELL, N.J. - Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates.

It sounds promising, even utopian: homemade, storable energy that doesn't contribute to global warming. But does Strizki's method – converting electricity generated from renewable sources into hydrogen – make sense for widespread adoption?

According to some renewable-energy experts, the answer is "no," at least not anytime soon. The system is too expensive, they say, and the process of creating hydrogen from clean sources is itself laced with inefficiency – the numbers just don't add up.

Strizki's response: "Nothing is as wildly expensive as destroying the whole planet."

Life free from the power grid
Strizki lives with his wife in a rural section of Central New Jersey. His 12-acre property is surrounded by trees and his gravel driveway leads to a winding country road. His 3,500-square-foot house has all the amenities, including a hot tub and a big-screen TV.

It was here, four years ago, that Strizki set out to do something that's never been done in this country – power his home completely through a combination of solar and hydrogen. "My motivation was, I saw what fossil fuels were doing to the environment," he says.

Strizki works for a company that installs solar panels. In previous jobs, he's helped integrate hydrogen fuel cells into cars, a boat, a fire truck, and an airplane. His latest project, the one involving his house, is an extension of that expertise.

The solar-hydrogen house took longer to complete than Strizki expected – a strict local zoning officer and the state permitting process caused delays, he says – but in October 2006, the system finally went online. The total cost, $500,000, was paid for in part with a $250,000 grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

This is how it works
On sunny days, solar panels on the roof of Strizki's detached garage generate more than enough electricity to power his home. The excess electricity powers a device inside the garage called an electrolyzer, which transforms a tank of water into its base elements – oxygen and hydrogen.

The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is stored in 10 1,000-gallon propane tanks on Strizki's property. In the winter, when the solar panels collect less energy than the home needs, that hydrogen is piped to an air-conditioner-size fuel cell, located just outside the garage, which generates electricity.

The final piece of the equation is "The New Jersey Genesis," a hydrogen fuel-cell car Strizki helped design and now maintains for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. He can fill up the Genesis with hydrogen from his electrolyzer and drive it pollution free.

Strizki understands that few people can afford to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for clean energy. Now that he's demonstrated his idea works, his goal is to make the system better and less expensive. (For example, the 10 propane tanks could be replaced by one high-pressure hydrogen tank buried underground.) With mass production, he believes he could get the price of the system, not including the solar panels, down to about $50,000. (A new solar panel system can cost as much as $80,000, Strizki says, but some states, including New Jersey, have offered rebates that cover up to 70 percent of the cost.) Strizki is seeking government grants and private donors for funding, and he's started a company, Renewable Energy International, which he hopes will one day market his product. He says he's already heard from potential customers: "We've been called by some A-list Hollywood types interested in powering their islands."

Hydrogen hurdles
Strizki's project proves that carbon-free living is possible right now, but renewable-energy experts are skeptical that hydrogen houses with hydrogen-run cars in the driveway will catch on anytime soon.

"There's no way your average person is going to want to buy five expensive pieces of hardware," says Joseph Romm, a former Department of Energy official who analyzed clean-energy technologies during the Clinton administration.

In addition to the high cost of the equipment, there's another huge hurdle that must be overcome if hydrogen is to become a viable clean energy: Although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it doesn't exist alone in nature; you can't just bottle it up.

To get at hydrogen, it must be processed from another source, such as natural gas, oil, coal, or water. According to the National Hydrogen Association, 95 percent of the hydrogen produced in the United States is made through steam reforming natural gas – a process that releases greenhouse gases into the air.

Strizki's method for making hydrogen is totally clean, but suffers from a different problem: Electrolyzers are only 50 percent efficient. By the time the electricity from his solar panels is converted into hydrogen, and the hydrogen converted back into electricity in the fuel cell, half of the clean energy he started with is used up.

Mr. Romm thinks it's a waste. That electricity would do more good toward reducing pollution if it was sent into the main power grid to displace other energy, he says. "[Strizki's system] doesn't get you that much environmentally," he says.

Romm is an advocate for clean-energy use – in recent books and articles he advocates a sharp cut in greenhouse-gas emissions within 10 years – but he's characterized hydrogen as an overhyped distraction that isn't ready yet to help toward that goal. He supports continued hydrogen research, but other technologies that are more developed could help the Earth much more and much sooner, he says.

Not ready for prime time
Robert Boehm, director of the Center for Energy Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has studied renewable energy for the past 35 years. His reaction to Strizki's home project is tempered.

"Does it make sense in the present environment? Probably not. Does it make sense as a sustainable thing in the future? It very well could," Dr. Boehm says.

Boehm predicts that it will be at least a decade before hydrogen energy is ready for the mainstream, and then only if enough money is put into research and development.

"In any of these new technologies, they need a lot of government support," he says.

Boehm sees the most immediate potential for a system like Strizki's in places far from a power grid, where selling renewable energy back to a power company is not an option.

Strizki isn't dissuaded by criticisms that his system is too expensive or too inefficient to be practical. He's determined to push technology ahead toward an end goal – totally clean energy – and he sees renewable hydrogen as the best solution.

"It's the way that makes the most sense, and we have to start somewhere," he says. "If you look at it, no one has said what I'm doing doesn't work."

BioPerformance will be back in business in a few weeks. Will it survive? It reached a settlement to repay customers $7 mio, but it may continue it's business as long as it doesn't make claims and informs that the product is basically naphthalene - essentially mothballs.  If that's the BIG secret behind the pill....well, then it's NOT worth $50 per bottle.

http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=15657@ktvt.dayport.com

DETROIT, United States (AFP) - So small it can fit into a parking space sideways, the tiny "Smart" car is making waves in the land of the giant pickup truck after proving a quirky hit in Europe.

The Smart "fortwo" has been drawing curious crowds at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opened to the press Sunday, with the words "Coming to the USA in 2008" emblazoned on its stand.

Part of the Mercedes-Benz division of German-US company DaimlerChrysler AG, the tiny car has become a familiar sight on Europe's congested roads since it was launched in 1998, although the project has yet to make a profit.

But in the United States, proud home to gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs), the notion that such a car might prove a hit seemed laughable until only recently.

According to DaimlerChrysler chairman Dieter Zetsche, even the group's head of US sales once "said it would fall into a pothole in Manhattan and you couldn't find it any more."

"That's not the attitude people are showing today. The Smart is simply cool," he said on an ice rink laid out to introduce new Mercedes-Benz cars, insisting that US drivers were ready for the two-seater vehicle.

"I think the simple equation that the larger the car the better, doesn't apply that much to the US market any more either."

DaimlerChrysler says that more than 770,000 Europeans have chosen the first generation of the Smart, which now comes in four models including a four-seater and a sporty convertible, often to replace a larger car for city living.

Now, with higher fuel prices hurting US drivers' wallets and traffic gridlock commonplace in the urban jungle, DaimlerChrysler says the vehicle with shopping-trolley dimensions will take off.

Company officials point to the Smart's relative success in Canada, where the brand was expected to shift 1,500 units in its first year but has ended up achieving more than 4,000 sales.

At 2.5 meters long (8 feet, 2 inches) and weighing in at a mere 990 kilograms (2,180 pounds), the two-seat Smart car is about half the length and a third the weight of a Hummer, Ford Expedition or other large SUV.

And with fuel consumption of over 40 miles per gallon (3.8 liters), it is half as thirsty as the bigger SUVs.

Some Smart cars have already sold in the United States through unofficial resellers such as Zap! Cars.

But DaimlerChrysler has teamed up with motor racing legend Roger Penske and his UnitedAuto distribution group with a plan to put the Smart on general US sale in the first quarter of 2008.

"The Smart fortwo is coming to the USA at the right time," Penske said at the Detroit auto show.

"Volatile gas prices, urban congestion and America's acceptance of smaller vehicles will make the Smart fortwo a real home run here in the United States," he said.

The outgoing president of the Smart division, Ullrich Walter, told AFP the company had been inundated by requests from US dealers wanting to sell the Smart.

The unit is maintaining "conservative" sales targets, he said, adding that Smart as a whole should break even this year and turn a profit in 2008.

Jesse Toprak, executive industry analyst at auto website Edmunds.com, said questions could surround the Smart car's safety alongside beefy pickup trucks.

"It'll take a lot of marketing dollars to get across the message that they are safe," he said.

"But if you drive around Europe, they're everywhere. They're practical, they're stylish and they get great gas mileage," Toprak said.

"Low running costs, combined with a hip image, will appeal to a wide enough market that DaimlerChrysler will be able to sell as many as they can import into the US for at least a few years."

Toyota, Honda lead fuel-efficient list

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By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press WriterTue Oct 17, 4:59 PM ET

The hybrid-electric Toyota Prius leads the government's annual top-10 fuel economy list of vehicles that can make living with high gas prices a little more tolerable.

The 2007 Prius, with 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 mpg on the highway, ranked first while the Honda Civic Hybrid was second with 49 mpg in the city and 51 mpg on the highway, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy said Tuesday.

Honda and Toyota made seven of the 12 vehicles listed in the top 10. The new Toyota Camry Hybrid made its debut at No. 3, with 40 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on the highway.

Ford Motor Co. had the most fuel-efficient sport utility vehicle, the Escape Hybrid front-wheel drive, which was fourth with 36 mpg in the city and 31 mpg on the highway. The four-wheel drive version of the Escape Hybrid, along with the Mercury Mariner Hybrid four-wheel drive, were tied for 10th place with 32 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway.

Six gas-only vehicles made the top 10: manual and automatic versions of the Toyota Yaris, the manual version of the Honda Fit, the manual Toyota Corolla and manual versions of the Hyundai Accent and Kia Rio.

The government compiles the list based on information from manufacturers. Fuel economy estimates are determined by averaging numbers from a specific set of tests.

"Each year millions of Americans buy new cars, and by using fuel economy information, each consumer can make a more educated decision that will help conserve energy and save money," said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

Hybrids comprise about 2 percent of the U.S. sales market but they have benefited from a federal tax incentive meant to help consumers recover part of the $3,000-$4,000 premium for a hybrid.

Last summer's $3 gas prices made fuel economy a larger selling point in the industry. For example, Toyota has said it's looking to make hybrids available across virtually its entire lineup in the future. General Motors Corp. has stressed in advertising the number of its vehicles getting 30 mpg or better.

Environmentalists said the list offered more evidence of a wide gap between top-performing models and average vehicles. An EPA report last summer said the average fuel economy for 2006 vehicles was 21 mpg, lower than the peak in 1987-88.

Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program, said it showed that the industry "has the technology to make vehicles get better mileage" but "auto companies fail to put that technology in most of their cars and light trucks."

Automakers said more fuel-efficient vehicles are available than ever before, driven by consumer demand.

"Every model is available with some sort of fuel efficient technology and as consumers continue to demand fuel efficient vehicles, manufacturers will continue to offer more choices," said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Among classes of vehicles, the Ford Ranger two-wheel-drive was the most fuel-efficient pickup, with 24 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway. The Hyundai Sonata manual version was the top large car, with 24 mpg in the city and 34 mpg on the highway, while the Dodge Caravan two-wheel drive was the top minivan, with 20 mpg in the city and 26 mpg on the highway.

Cargo and passenger vans were led by Chevrolet and GMC, each with 15 mpg in the city and 20 mpg on the highway.

Luxury cars were among the least fuel-efficient vehicles in the survey. The Lamborghini L-147/148 Murcielago topped the list of worst performers with 9 mpg in the city and 14 mpg on the highway.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee four-wheel drive was the least fuel-efficient SUV with 12 mpg in the city and 15 mpg on the highway. The Nissan Titan four-wheel drive was the least fuel-efficient pickup truck, with 13 mpg in the city and 18 mpg in the highway.

Next year's list will likely show a decline in gas-mileage numbers. The EPA is revising the way it estimates how far a vehicle will travel on a gallon of gas to take into account high-speed driving, use of air conditioning and rapid acceleration.

Under the proposed testing changes, fuel economy stickers would show most 2008 models getting 10 percent to 20 percent less gas mileage in city driving and 5 percent to 15 percent less in highway use.

Hybrid buyers will find a greater sticker shock. Hybrid ratings for city driving are expected to drop an average of 20 percent to 30 percent.

The list does not include some of the largest vehicles in the fleet, such as the Hummer H2, because the law does not include vehicles that weigh more than 8,500 pounds under the fuel economy standards.

EPA: http://www.fueleconomy.gov

Poll: Fuel economy big car-buying factor

By TOM KRISHER,

The telephone survey, taken Aug. 3-7 as gasoline prices remained around $3 per gallon, showed that 27 percent of likely vehicle buyers ranked gas mileage as the top factor in an automobile purchase.

Reliability was the top factor for 25 percent, followed by purchase price for 14 percent and safety features among 12 percent, according to the poll taken by Opinion Research Corp. Five percent said manufacturer and dealer incentives are the top factor in an auto purchase, and 3 percent said styling.

Consumer Reports funded the poll, which has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

On the surface, the poll results appear to indicate further trouble for the Big Three domestic auto manufacturers, which rely more on truck and sport utility vehicle sales for their profits than their foreign-based competitors. Truck and SUV sales were down for the first seven months of the year compared with the same period in 2005, while car sales were up.

But Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Global Insight Inc., said her company's research shows consumers often say one thing when polled and then do something else when it comes time to make a purchase.

Americans, she said, are loath to give up the storage space and seating of on SUV and switch to a sedan. She said she thinks the shift to car-based crossover vehicles, which have the same seating and storage as SUVs but are more fuel efficient, will continue.

"It's kind of difficult to get out of an SUV/crossover vehicle and go back to a sedan," she said. "When push comes to shove, it's tough to give up an SUV, especially because there are crossovers now that do get better gas mileage."

The survey also showed that incentives such as rebates and free gasoline have been used so often by manufacturers that consumers look past them to other factors, said Rob Gentile, director of Consumer Reports' car information products.

The poll was the magazine's first of this size dealing with auto purchases, Gentile said. Past research has shown gas mileage as an important factor in buying decisions, but it hasn't ranked as high, he said.

"I think now what you're starting to see obviously is it's becoming more and more significant as gasoline prices have risen in the past year or so," Gentile said.

Princeton, N.J.-based Opinion Research randomly called 1,000 people at least 18 years old and surveyed 526 people who said they were considering a vehicle purchase in the next two years.