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After last year’s pathetic edition of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the premier American car show is making an attempt to get with the times by adding Electric Avenue, presented by the Dow Chemical Company.

The area will have electric cars from major manufacturers on display, plus information from the suppliers and universities developing the new technologies found in the cars. There will even be a track where attendees can take electric cars for a test drive. The indoor course “winds through natural surroundings,” says the NAIAS web site, which sounds suspiciously like the horrid little track in the basement that they had last year.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Chevy announced its contest to name the greenish-silver paint on the Volt? Well, the contestants have been narrowed from 13,000 to three, and you can vote until 8 a.m. Eastern Time on December 1.

Your choices are:

• The uber-geeky “Veridian Joule”
• The tasty “enviroMINT”
• The painfully punny “EV-ergreen”

Did you submit a name that didn’t make it to the final round? Share your genius in the comments.

Electric vehicle manufacturers have been promising for years that as soon as economies of scale were in place and manufacturing became more efficient, the price of those vehicles would drop. Well, Brammo, Inc., is putting its MSRP where it’s mouth is and dropping the price of its Enertia electric motorcycle a mere six months after introducing it.

The company made a deal with electronics retailer Best Buy to sell the motorcycles on the West Coast, and it must be working out if they feel they can already drop the price by a third. When the bike made its debut over the summer, it retailed for $11,995. These days, that same electric motorcycle is $7,995. And that’s before any federal or state credits for zero-emissions vehicles.

At these prices, you can add the Enertia to your Solstice list.

Chrysler’s ENVI division was responsible for creating electric vehicles like the sporty Dodge Circuit EV we saw at the Detroit Auto Show last year, along with electric minivans and Jeeps.

But fear not, domestic electric car fans. While the ENVI program is no longer a stand-alone entity, the work its done for the past few years will not be forgotten. The program will become part of the normal vehicle development process, with just as many — if not more — people working on the projects, according to the Detroit News.

Chrysler’s new electric vehicle plan, in conjunction with its new partner Fiat,  includes:

• 2010 Dodge Ram two-mode hybrid pickup
• 2011 Dodge Ram plug-in and minivan hybrid – test fleet only
• 2011 (or 2012) Fiat all-electric commercial van

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize made its first round of cuts, leaving 43 teams still in the running for the $10 million prize. All these teams have passed round one — design judging. Round two, which will examine the technical feasibility of the entrants, begins in spring 2010.

Those still in the running include corporate teams, like Tesla and Zap, and schools like Western Washington University, Cornell, and a team from a West Philadelphia high school. For the conspiracy buffs, Illuminati Motor Works has made it past round two. International teams from Italy and Switzerland made the cut, too. And of course the space-age white Aptera 2e is hanging in there.

For a complete list of the teams so far, and a detailed description of the prize, visit the X Prize web site.

The debate about the silent running of electric vehicles, and the potential for disaster with blind pedestrians or oblivious kids who can’t hear them, has been simmering for a couple of years now, ever since hybrids like the Toyota Prius began running on electric power alone at low speeds.

Nissan says its new Leaf electric vehicle, which will hit U.S. markets in late 2010, will make a “beautiful and futuristic” noise like the flying cars in the movie “Blade Runner.” Once the Nissan Leaf hits 12 mph, the sound will turn off, as the tires turning on the pavement will make enough sound to alert pedestrians and bikers alike, according to the L.A. Times “Up to Speed” blog.

Everybody’s buzzing about the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show, but it’s not the flashy, expensive cars that are getting all the love — it’s the next wave of electric vehicles.

Only one electric vehicle on the show floor is ready for production, a Renault hatchback that won’t be sold in the States any time soon. But check out this list of things to come, all of which will make their debuts as concept cars this week:

• Audi R8 electric sports car
• BMW Vision EfficientDynamics plug-in hybrid sports car
• Mercedes SLS AMG electric sports car
• Peugeot RCZ electric coupe
• Peugeot 3008 electric minivan
• Renault electric small car
• Renault Megane electric car
• Renault Kangoo electric small car
• Volkswagen electric car

There will also be a 1-liter diesel-powered small car concept from Volkswagen, which while not electric, would get something like 230 mpg.

Whenever I think of Daewoo, I think of the “Mad TV” skit with Bobby Lee as Tank, the wannbe tuner boy with the yellow Daewoo. GM, Daewoo’s parent company, is hoping I’ll take another look at the company and its cars by introducing a new electric car, called the Matiz Creative, on September 1.

The Daewoo Matiz Creative is small — actually, it’s in the mini car segment, making it Smart-car-like in stature. It’s a “global car,” which means it will be sold even in the U.S., as soon as it meets crash test standards, which Daewoo expects to pass with flying colors. As befits a cute little car, it’s available in three trim levels called Pop, Jazz, and Groove, with Groove obviously being the most swank.

Here’s the basics:

• 1-liter 4-cylinder engine
• 4-speed automatic transmission (manual will be available in the future)
• Meets Korea’s Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle standard
• Air bags and crumple zones integrated in the design
• 40 mpg or so
• Will likely start around $8,000

Vegetarians and vegans and PETA activists and other sensitive animal-loving souls beware: this post is about plucked, post-industrial chicken feathers. And it’s a bit gross. But it becomes cheap, domestic, high-energy-density biodiesel in the end, so, um, yay!

Researchers at the University of Nevada have found that the feathers of chickens contain fat, and as anyone who’s followed a Volvo converted to run on french-fry grease knows, fat can be turned into fuel. One ton of feathers makes about 18 gallons of biodiesel, which should cost about a buck a gallon to put into your VW TDI.

The system would use the byproducts of the chicken meat industry, so no chickens would be grown specifically for fuel. The processing plant would pluck and process the chickens for meat, just like they do now, and the feathery waste (plus some of the blood and guts) would be turned into biofuel, plus some animal feed, soap base, and fertilizer. There’s a lot of usable stuff in those feathers, it seems.

Chem majors and sticklers can read the whole article in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.

Photo by Fred Dawson.

The past few days have been hectic for the Cash for Clunkers program. The U.S. government had allocated $1 billion for the CARS program as of July 24, when “The Rule” was issued with details for how the rebates would be used. The program had been in effect, though, since July 1, without the official word being finalized.

In the weeks between the start date and the appearance of the final rules (which have already been amended), the program started to run out of funds and the EPA changed some fuel economy numbers. The program, which was supposed to run through November 1 or until the government had used all its cash, was almost killed early by its own popularity. And the EPA tried, at the eleventh hour, to update old mpg ratings to reflect the new mpg measuring system, which knocked some previously eligible cars off the list of clunkers and added others.

Where do we stand now? Cash for Clunkers, or CARS, as it’s officially called, is still on (fingers crossed). Here are the major changes as it stands after a very busy weekend:

• The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a $2 billion extension; the Senate will vote on it soon
• Since New Hampshire and Wisconsin don’t require insurance, buyers in these states don’t have to have one year’s worth of insurance, as they do in the other 48 states
• Cars that met the fuel economy requirement before the changes the EPA made on July 24 and that were traded in as clunkers after July 1 are still eligible for the CARS rebate

Good luck, car shoppers! If you have questions or opinions about the CARS program, leave them in the comments. I’ll research anything that needs answering.

FedEx announced that it has added 92 hybrid vehicles to its fleet of delivery trucks, bringing its grand green total to 264 hybrid vehicles. The company started accumulated the lower-emissions, fuel-sipping hybrid-electric vehicles in 2004. The trucks were converted to hybrid systems by Freightliner and Eaton Corporation, and each truck was at least eight years old with 300,000 miles or more on it before the conversion.

How much good have the FedEx hybrid conversions done? Here’s the numbers from the company:

• Reduced fuel use by 150,000 gallons since 2004
• Reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 1,521 metric tons sine 2004
• Equivalent to removing 279 cars from the road each year
• 50 new temporary green jobs created during the past six months while trucks were being converted

Smart, maker of tiny, Euro-style automobiles, has a new leasing campaign that ties in with the “cash for clunkers” sales-boosting program that will go into effect this summer. With a combined mpg rating of 36 mpg, every Smart car qualifies for the program, if your current car gets worse than 18 mpg.

And who could argue with a $99 a month lease payment? That’s what Smart is offering: $99 a month for 36 months if you use the $4,500 cash for clunkers government rebate when you buy your new ForTwo. The potentially icky part of the deal is the $6,667 balloon payment due at the end of the lease.  Dave Schembri defended the balloon payment industry outlet Automotive News by saying it’s in line with the kind of financing offered by Smart’s parent company, Daimler AG.

Image by Kristen Hall-Geisler for GoodGreenCars.com.

The city of Santa Monica, California, has purchased the first zero-emissions, plug-in, battery-powered electric medium-duty truck sold in the U.S. The truck, which will be used by the city’s water department, was manufactured by Electrorides.

Santa Monica apparently has a “Sustainable City Plan,” according to a press release from Electrorides, and the ZeroTruck will help the city reach its goals of reducing emissions and use of petroleum fuel. The truck uses an Isuzu medium-duty truck chassis with the gasoline-using bits removed and an electric propulsion system put in.

The Electrorides ZeroTruck has:

• A 100-mile range
• Highway capability, up to 55 mph
• Lithium batteries with an on-board charger
• Regenerative braking system

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory have set their sights on one of the least efficient systems in modern automobiles: the air conditioning. The laboratory says 6% of the total amount of fuel consumed in the U.S. — about seven billion gallons, if you can imagine — is used to run the a/c.  The EPA piles on the bad news by reporting that leaky automotive air conditioning units pump 50 million metric tons of CO2 into the air each year.

That’s where the NREL is hoping to make a difference. According to a post on the New York Times’ “Wheels” blog, engineers are hoping to improve the a/c in cars by as much as a third. If they succeed, it could be a big step toward the new CAFE standards, which require an average fuel efficiency of 35.5 mpg by 2016.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is outfitting its fleet of Ford Crown Victorias with solar power. The $37 panels are much smaller than the rooftop array found on, say, the 2010 Toyota Prius or the forthcoming Fisker Karma. The goal is to reduce the time that cops spend idling with the engine on by powering some of their gear with energy from the sun.

The panel is wired directly to the car’s battery, which would normally power the police gadgets when the car is turned off. To extend the battery’s run time, and therefore the amount of time the engine is running, the solar panel will add clean, zero-emissions juice to the system.

The panels, according to Edmunds.com, are mounted inside the rear window (ever leave a chocolate bar back there? A proven sun-catching site). The brackets used to hold the panels are green, too: they’re recycled from misprinted license plates.

At the March 19 IMSA GT3 race in Sebring, Florida, the Porsche 911s on the track smelled a little sweeter — or maybe just greener — than their competitors. Yokohama, a sponsor of the race, outfitted each of the cars with its Advan EVN-R1 orange-oil infused race tires.

The addition of orange oil to natural rubber produces what Yokohama calls “Super Nano-Powered Rubber,” which sounds like an anime plot device. In reality, it reduces the amount of petroleum in the tire by about 10% and increases its ability to be recycled — after a thorough shredding on the track. The compound also retains the performance of conventional race slicks, according to the company’s press release.

If you, Consumer Joe, would like to fit your Prius or Insight with some orange-oil tires, ask for the Yokohama dB Super E-Spec passenger car tire by name when it hits stores this summer. Sorry to say, though, that the scent of oranges does not carry through the tire-making process. They still smell like plain, old rubber.

Porsche debuted a diesel version of its Cayenne SUV at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, but for now, at least, it won’t be in U.S. showrooms. Porsche says it’s saving the North American market for something even better: a hybrid version of the Cayenne in 2010.

The 3L, 240-hp engine in the diesel get 25 mpg combined, a significant increase over the current U.S. base model’s 17 mpg. In a press release, Porsche promises that the hybrid will deliver “V8 performance, the efficiency of a four-cylinder, and the ability to ‘coast’ at a maximum highway speed of 86 mph for up to 1.2 miles on electric power only.” I’m not sure how handy coasting on electric power for a mile or so will be in the real world, but that’s the statistic Porsche provided.

Image courtesy of Porsche.

Remember when I posted about the brand-new Dodge Durango Hybrid? Of course you remember — it was only a month ago. I went to a local product launch event hosted by Chrysler and learned that the Durango Hybrid  was eligible for a $2,200 tax credit.

If people want to take advantage of this huge hybrid and its substantial tax credit, it turns out they need to act fast. Chrysler announced that it’s closing the plant that builds the Durango Hybrid and its sibling the Chrysler Aspen. A mere 400 of hybrids had been built; according to the New York Times‘ calculations, that means a total of 800 may be built before the plant closes December 31.

When exactly did Chrysler make this annoucment? October 23 — three days after I posted about the Durango Hybrid and its tax break. This could go down in history as the shortest-lived model to ever hit production.

It’s a sign of the times when an institution like the Kelly Blue Book turns its eye to alternative-fuel vehicles. When people talk about “blue book value” or even just “book value,” they mean Kelly Blue Book, so it’s significant that the company has launched the slightly confusingly named Kelly Blue Book Green.

The site offers articles on the latest alternative fuel vehicles, including electric-, hydrogen-, and ethanol-powered cars. It also has a widget to help you decide if its time to trade in your car for a hybrid (or similar brand-new gas-saver) based on your driving habits. Are you willing to pay the premium? Are you willing to give up one dinner out with drinks per month to make the switch?

Pricing and comparison shopping is where KBBG shines, since the company has decades of practice. With premiums being tacked on at dealerships and used hybrids holding their value like a dog holds onto his bone, KBBG is a useful tool for navigating these new alterna-fuel markets.