Green cars are slowly starting to gain some traction in the automotive realm, as seemingly every manufacturer now offers some sort of hybrid model. Even electric cars are starting to see a lot of upswing lately, as most manufacturers are at least tinkering with the EV idea. However, there is one “green” mode of transportation that is getting overlooked at every turn. This is liquid natural gas and compressed natural gas.
One company has made LNG and CNG its No. 1 priority lately, and that is Maxximus. Maxximus’ first vehicle was a supercar dubbed the G-Force and it recently took that monster and turned it into a vehicle that can run on LNG, CNG, or even propane, and run at an extremely high rate of speed. This new vehicle is named the LNG 2000.
CNG and LNG are not only 90 percent cleaner burning than gasoline, making them the cleanest burning fossil fuel, but they are also as much as 50 percent cheaper than gasoline. Of course, some oil tycoon would snatch up the world’s supply and eventually drive process to the range of gasoline. At least it would provide a little temporary relief for the price of fuel, as we search for a legitimate alternative.
When most people think of alternative fuels, they think of a slow-moving vehicle that isn’t practical in the real world. Can the Maxximus LNG 2000 break this mold?
As much as we try to resist talking about every single celebrity’s car, there are some cases where a celebrity car also happens to be 100% ridiculous. In those cases, well, we just can’t help ourselves. Enter in, Justin Bieber’s 2012 Fisker Karma.
We aren’t reporting on the fact that this teen pop idol is being environmentally friendly, nor that he was handed the keys to this beautiful black Fisker Karma free of charge. Nope, that’s not the story. The story is that this 18-year-old pop sensation turned this beautifully sculpted ECO-supercar into a rolling mirror, literally.
We are cool with a little chrome, but there is a point when it becomes excessive. Mr. Bieber, you hit that point of excess, then broke through the barrier and tossed a live grenade at the remainder of that barrier to make sure it can never be crossed again.
This young man chromed out the entire car, not just a few accents here and there, the e-n-t-i-r-e car. Top to bottom coated in shiny, sunlight-reflecting chrome. Now, if he lived somewhere that the sun wasn’t excruciatingly intense, that might be cool, but this dude lives in California. As you can see from the above video, the sunlight creates a nearly blinding reflection on the car’s surface, which we would assume is illegal.
Um, nope, according to California law, a fully chromed out car is perfectly legal, but those pretty little mood lights under the front bumper are not legal. I remember getting pulled over repeatedly in Pennsylvania for my Camaro’s exhaust being too loud, that monstrosity of a Karma is louder than my Camaro’s exhaust could have ever been.
Hit the jump to see this beautiful machine before Bieber ruined, err, customized it.
We all understand that the European market was the first to really get nailed with high gas prices. They were paying over $5 per gallon while the U.S. market still was just cresting the $2 per gallon mark. This forced the European market to start accepting smaller and less desirable vehicles in hopes of getting better economy, while folks in the States continued to drive Hummers and other large SUVs.
Now that gas is hitting $4 per gallon, the U.S. buyers are starting to become more receptive to smaller cars with upwards of 40 mpg capabilities and hybrids cresting the 50 mpg mark. However, we are still left out in one market, the ultra economic clean diesels. The latest one is the 2012 Chevrolet Aveo, which is known as the Sonic in the U.S.
In the U.S., the highest mpg available on the Sonic is 40 mpg and that is the optional 1.4-liter turbocharged engine, which we have our doubts if any normal driver can actually hit 40 mpg in this car. In the U.K., the Aveo has several four-cylinder engine options, including a 1.2-liter gasoline, 1.3-liter diesel, 1.3-liter Eco Diesel, and a 1.4-liter. The highway fuel economy on these engines is 68.9 mpg, 83.1 mpg, 85.6 mpg, and 62.7 mpg, respectively.
None of these engines would make the Sonic a speed demon, like the relatively quick Sonic LTZ and its 1.4-liter turbo engine, but will Chevy ever bring these engine options to the U.S. market? We understand that diesel fuel is not as readily available as regular gasoline, but they certainly give the U.S. buyer an option other than hybrid or electric, which have technologies that could end up requiring rather pricy repairs in the future.
We’re not singling out Chevy here, as Ford has its ECOnetic system getting 65+ mpg in a Ford Fiesta. Our best Fiesta gets an arguable 40 mpg on the highway. Seemingly every car company has a super-Eco diesel engine in its European lineup, but we have yet to see one in the U.S. We think the time has come for one to show up.
After successfully building the world’s fastest street-legal supercar - the Maxximus G-Force - back in 2009, partners Marlon Kirby and David McMahan are back in action. However, this time, they have gone very green with the new Maxximus LNG 2000.
Not many details have been released for the LNG 2000 as of yet, but we do know that it is breaking the walls set up by petrol engines by running on compressed natural gas and liquid natural gas. That’s right supercar owners; no more getting ripped off at the pump! We still don’t know what kind of performance it will provide, but it is being pegged as the second generation G-Force which clobbered the 0-60mph sprint in 2.1 seconds. The G-Force was by no means green, though. It was powered by a 1,600-horsepower, 7.0-liter engine sourced from Chevrolet which boasted if additional performance times of 0-100 mph in 4.5 seconds and 0-100-0 mph in 8.8 seconds.
Development for the LNG 2000 is still ongoing, but the company was kind enough to reveal the first image of the "green" vehicle for us to ogle. They are also currently working on another model model - dubbed the Prodigy - which will come with 2,000 horsepower and a $1,000,000 price tag. Considering the G-Force costs $3,000,000, the Prodigy will actually be a steal! No pricing information for the LNG 2000 has been revealed as of yet.
Stay tuned! We’ll be following this development of the LNG 2000 closely!
UPDATE 02/13/12: Despite not knowing comprehensive information about the Maxximus LNG 2000, we do know enough to conclude that this is one insane supercar that packs an ungodly 1,600 horsepower. Recently, the folks over at Maxximus Technologies took the LNG 2000 out to stretch its legs and in fairness to the insane expectations set out on this supercar, it performed incredibly well in the drag strip, hitting 0-60 mph in just 1.9 seconds! Check out the video by clicking on the photo above.
Trying to get gas at reasonable prices is becoming one of the world’s major problems these days, so it seemed only natural that people would look for alternative sources to power their vehicles. There has been an onslaught of hybrid and full electric vehicles introduced to the market as of late, but there have also been unconventional methods as well, like that whiskey-powered model over in Scotland. It is the unconventional that has just broken the land speed record for vehicles running on organic waste. Engineer, Martin Bacon, and a group of volunteers from Teesdale Conservation in England have managed to make a car run on coffee.
Their project is based on a modified Rover SD1 which managed to hit a top speed of 77.5 mph and an average speed of 66.5 mph after many modifications, all with the help of the sole reason I get up in the morning. This java-powered rocket broke the previous speed record in this category of 47.7 mph, set by the wood-burning Beaver XR7 in 2010.
In this coffee-powered car, the fuel is sent to the V6 engine through an on board wood gas generator (gasification) system, which in this case burns wood and coffee grounds at a high temperature (more than 1292 F). The result is carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and methane, or the exact gas an internal combustion engine needs.
"Some of the clean gas is also being compressed to 150 PSI and injected directly into the manifold to achieve top speed. The cooling system is configured using an intercooler with two 12-volt fans attached."
Hyundai is on a roll these days, having just launched the wildly successful Sonata midsize sedan and the Elantra compact. Both cars are selling at record volumes, and Hyundai has ramped up production at their Montgomery, Alabama plant (where both cars are built) to meet demand. The line is running three shifts per day, but that’s still not enough to meet demand, so Hyundai is importing additional cars from Korea.
For any automaker, such success would be a tough act to follow. For Hyundai, it’s just business as usual, and their newly-launched Accent subcompact is about to change the market in the same way its bigger brothers did. Forget everything you may know about the outgoing Hyundai Accent, which was inexpensive and designed to compete on price alone. The new car is better styled (carrying on Hyunda’s “fluidic sculpture” exterior design theme), roomier, more comfortable, and much safer, thanks to the addition of electronic stability control, traction control, and even electronic brakeforce distribution. You can read our full review of the 2012 Hyundai Accent here.
Just as the 2011 Hyundai Elantra set the bar for compact cars, the 2011 Hyundai Accent will cause consumers to rethink what’s possible from an entry-level subcompact. All Accents come powered by Hyundai’s 1.6-liter Gamma engine, which somehow manages to produce both class-leading horsepower and highway fuel economy of 40 mpg. With 138 horsepower, driving a car that weighs just 2,400 pounds, acceleration is surprisingly brisk. The Accent pulls away from a stop noticeably harder than the competition, and it never manages to feel like an economy car.
If you use an electric toothbrush, chances are good that you don’t have to plug it in to recharge it. Instead, you simply place it on a post in the base of the charging stand, and the toothbrush tops itself off via electromagnetic inductive charging. If that works to recharge a toothbrush, or a cell phone, why can’t the same idea be applied to electric cars?
This is the exact question being raised by HaloIPT, a British firm that will demonstrate electromagnetic inductive charging for electric cars at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show. The concept is relatively simple: the driver of an electric car equipped with Halo IPT’s system parks his car atop a rubber charging mat, which is plugged into a charging station nearby. The mat and the car communicate via Bluetooth to test the connection and ensure the car is parked properly. Once the hand-off is given, charging begins with no additional action required on the part of the driver.
We love going fast and we love pushing the limits to see what our vehicles are capable of. The Bonneville Salt Flats provide a perfect setting for speed junkies of all kind to come and find out what they are capable of achieving. This dry lake bed has been dominated in recent times by the internal combustion engine and even jet power, but an older form of powering four wheels is about to take center stage once again.
The U.S. Land Steam Record Team will be attempting to beat the current record in their newest steam powered vehicle. In 2009, Team Inspiration from Great Britain broke the 1985 steam record by hitting 148.308 mph. The previous official FIA record of 127mph was set in 1906 by American, Fred Marriott, driving a Stanley steamer at Daytona Beach.
Driver and car designer, Chuk Williams, in conjunction with Cyclone Power Technologies will be the latest steam pioneers when they attempt the record breaking run in August 2011. The state of the art streamline design is projected to hit a top speed north of 200 mph, which would undoubtedly seal its position in the history books. We look forward to reporting more on the attempt once the team makes it to Bonneville.
Hit the jump for more details on the U.S. Land Steam Record Team
Similar to how Henry Ford set out to make the automobile accessible for everyone in America; a small start-up company based in Santa Monica, CA intends to make the electric car affordable to all. Coda Automotive has been developing what they call a revolutionary new compact, full-electric car for less money than the competition. The past several years have been a struggle, but as with any start-up company, there are growing pains.
At the beginning of 2011, the company had already raised $76 million dollars and is looking to end with a total of $200 million. Past CEOs of this fledgling carmaker are former Goldman Sachs executives that should have no problem finding the last chunk of capital. This year, Phil Murtaugh became the new CEO and can back up his credentials with former stints at Chrysler and General Motors. “We’re getting our production tooling in order now. It all takes about six weeks to ship them over to the United States, so sometime in the fourth quarter, probably the late fourth quarter, we’ll see cars going on sale in California,” said Murtaugh.
The car itself is less than stunning on the outside, but with fuel efficiency being at the forefront of many Californian’s minds, this car could be the easy answer. It should achieve 90 to 120 miles on a single charge and charge faster than its major competition.
Ever watch that show American Pickers and hope Mike Wolf and Frank Fritz would come over to your place and pay you for your junk? Mickey Nilsson, 62, of Bardstown, Kentucky had that exact experience, but he was not so pleased with the offer.
"The two knuckleheads from TV show American Pickers (Mike Wolf and Frank Fritz) stopped by here trying to steal from me offering me $200 for my old stuff and said I had no use for it since moonshine was illegal. Although I did sell the chubby one with the beard oil can for $40 before they ticked me off."
Instead of selling his junk, Nilsson grabbed some inspiration from the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where a magical flying car was made from junk and created his very own whiskey-powered vehicle. The task took him six months and should be revealed as a concept car in 2014. There are some setbacks however. The world is suffering from a depletion of oil resources, but the average price of Bourbon is $24, making it much more expensive than gasoline. Can’t we bring back the DeLorean from Back to the Future and run cars on our trash? Just a thought.
