Kirk Nason's Space

Yesterday I received a letter from American Express’ Richard F. Flynn (SVP & GM Amex OPEN), telling me that they want to reduce our cash back reward on Costco gas purchases from 5% to 4% with a yearly cap of $6,000 then drop the rebate down to 1%.   I had to ask why?  Doesn’t AMEX make enough money already to not SCREW their customers?

I called Richard F. Flynn and was able to get to his voicemail.   I did ask Richard to give me a call back but not sure if he will.   If you are pissed like myself, feel free to pick up the phone and call 1-212-640-2000 ask for him.

If you want to voice your opinion to Costco, contact Sandi Torrey
(425-313-6744) or email storrey@costco.com or Dave Fuller Editor of Costco connections @ dfuller@costco.com

 Update 11:35am 6-5-09:  Talked to Paul Kim at American Express.   He indicated to me that Amex needs to make changes to help their bottom line.  Thus the change in policy.  I indicated to him that the policy has a much larger effect on Small Business Owners and consumers and that they should consider policies that don’t affect their good customers.   He indicated that he understands my concerns.   He said that Amex can’t make policies that benefit their good customers over others.  So because of the bad customers we all suffer

Update 1:00pm 6-5-09: Received a email reply from Dave Fuller, Costco,  that he was forwarding my email to Sandi Torrey

Update 3:30pm 6-5-09: Ah the power of the web to get info, thank you www.bing.com!  I received another call  Margery who works with Sandi Torrey.   She indicated that that Costco has nothing to do with the rebate schedule by AMEX, though she is willing to document my comments and provide the dissatisfaction to American Express when the meet next.

Wow,  I had an amazing experience, as part of Project Driveway, to learn about and test drive a Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell Electric SUV.   IMHO, HEV is the future!!!   Hydrogen used to create electricity via a Fuel Cell stack and exhaust is H2O, yes water vapor.

Here are numerous pictures of the SUV, picture one shows that this is a normal looking (from the outside) Chevy Equinox,  picture two shows the Fuel Cell Stack where a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) would reside and picture three shows the modified GPS screen showing the HEV in operation.

Here is a 7 minute video of the driving experience:

The amazing thing about the drive is the silence.   You start the car, no engine noise, you step on the “gas” and you get instant power (10% of the moving parts of a ICE engine) to the electric motor that moves the SUV.  All you hear is the road noise of the tires.   GM has done an amazing job of making the test HEV SUV quite.  My Lexus RX400h (with engine off, but moving with the electric motor) makes more noise both moving and regenerative breaking.  

I hope the best for GM, with EREV’s like the Volt and HEV’s like the Equinox.  In late 2010, I hope to be able to buy a Chevy Volt and move a huge step forward in removing on dependence on Foreign Oil.

To understand how the GM Fuel cell works click here.

AllElectricCars has indicated that Ford surpassed 1,000 miles on a single tank of gas in a production 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.  The team surpassed the 1,000 mile  mark with Nascar Driver Carl Edwards behind the wheel. Not a person you would normally associated with the slow driving techniques and other hypermiling techniques used to achieve feats like this.

Read about the experience at the GM-Volt site, what a exciting day.  Hope GM gets to produce this PHEV by next year!!

Love the sound of silence, except for wheel road noise!!   There is discussion about coasting vs. regenerative mode.  No shifting as there is no transmission, can hit 100mph.   At 6:31 minutes into the video Lyle climbs a 16.5% grade on the GM test track!! 

Test Drive of Chevy Volt Mule (10min)

I was on my bi-monthly trip at Costco in Fountain Valley, CA and found these LED light bulbs by “Lights of America”, now being sold.  Always looking for more energy efficient technologies I bought some. 

The flood lamps are great replacements for outside fixtures (mine are on a motion detector) and they work great.   The light is bright, but a different hue from incandescent bulbs.  The Candelabra lights bulbs look cool, but don’t put out the same brightness as their incandescent counterparts.   I think this is the case due to the bottom third of the blub being blocked.

GM is letting journalists take the Volt out for a drive.  They call them “Chevy Cruze mule” because they are test vehicles.  Volt Vehicle Line Director Tony Posawatz says the vehicle has performance
"comparable to a 250-horsepower V6."

From AutoWeek: Toyota Slashes Price of Prius
Storm clouds are brewing on the hybrid front as the top player in the category drops prices to compete with the Honda Insight.

Aggressive U.S. Pricing Likely
”Bringing the starting price down to Honda  Insight levels will steal Honda's thunder as purveyor of world's first affordable hybrid vehicle. Toyota's pricing strategy for the Prius in the United States is still unclear. But if Japan is any guide, it will be very aggressive.”

“A newer Prius that is also cheaper will be an easier sell against the archrival Insight. It is not only bigger and roomier than the Insight, it boasts much better mileage. The Insight has an EPA rating of 40 mpg city/43 highway, while the Prius gets 51 mpg city/48 highway.”

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I mentioned in my review of the Honda Insight (below) that pricing might be a factor for people considering the Insight, but with this announcement more people will be inclined to go to Toyota..

Toyota makes the official 50mpg mark and it is possible to go 60mpg Toyota claims.
The Prius to arrive in May 2009 in dealer showrooms for purchase, possibly in April to view.
Small price increase is estimate, but recent announcements, indicate a price war with Honda!

Four items to
Fuel efficiency – Full Hybrid power train
Comfort – Seats 5
New technologies
New styling (sun roof w/Solar for example)

I was able to drive the new 2010 Honda Insight yesterday.  Norm Reeves Honda of Huntington Beach, CA received two, and I was the first driver after they rolled off the truck.  They had a LX and EX (w/o Navigation).   The higher end EX was in the showroom and they did not want to pull it out for the test drive, so we drove the LX.   

The body style of the Insight is really nice, and will grab the eye of many buyers.  The pricing is a little under the Prius, so value shoppers now have a great option and will appeal to first time hybrid buyers, young adults, or those on a tighter budget.

For me, it lacks some the features I have grown to expect.   If you are looking for seating luxuries, they are not here.  No leather options or heated seats.  No Sun Roof, the 2010 Prius will have a sunroof with solar panel btw.

Just so you know, I drive a 2007 Lexus RX400h, which uses the current Toyota Synergy Drive.  This is the state of the art, IMHO.  You CAN drive in a EV only mode around neighborhoods and some city streets.  It takes practice in the RX400h, but is probably easy in a Prius.  So you start driving and stop without the engine running.

The Honda Insight does stop the engine when you come to a complete stop, but as soon as you release the break the engine starts.   This bugged me.  This is why the Toyota Synergy Drive will get better mileage.   I give thumbs up to the Eco Assist™, which glows blue or green depending on your driving habits as well as adding leaves to tree icons if you are doing a really good job.

For the tech geek,  the LX has a high end 160-Watt AM/FM/CD Audio System, all have a jack for MP3/Auxiliary Input Jack and MP3/Windows Media® Audio (WMA®) Playback Capability, 6 cd changer,

The LX w/Navigation, would be my choice if I bought one as it has Honda Satellite-Linked Navigation System to avoid traffic, which we have lots of in SoCal.

You can read all the other info on your own here, thanks for taking a look!!!

This is fantastic news.  The U.S. needs to be the leader in this space to drive EV’s and PHEV’s.  Yesterday China announced a released EV that gets a 60mile range,  GM needs to get the Volt out to be able to not loose more market to China and Japan.

A consortium of 14 U.S. technology companies is seeking $1 billion in federal aid to build a factory to manufacture advanced electric car batteries, according to a report Wednesday night by The Wall Street Journal.

Aiming to catch up to Asian battery producers that already dominate the market, the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture is described as the most ambitious effort to date to meet automakers' increasing demand for lithium-ion batteries. The report noted that U.S. automakers such as GM and Ford plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010, but that the U.S. lacks sufficient facilities to produce the lithium-ion batteries those cars require.

Batteries are the most expensive component in plug-in electric vehicles, a market being pursued by a few U.S. companies. But battery makers and analysts say that U.S. manufacturers lack the financial means to meet the anticipated demand of electric cars.

Last week, former Intel CEO Andy Grove joined other Silicon Valley elites in advocating for an industry shift into energy technology. Grove told the Journal that he is urging Intel to invest in battery manufacturing as a way to diversify from its core chip business.

Grove said Intel's "strategic objective is tackling big problems and turning them into big businesses." He said Intel, with its cash resources, can invest in battery technology and manufacturing to bring down the cost of car batteries, which would drive adoption of plug-in electric cars.

Here is a short trip report on the 2009 LA Auto Show.  Layout was the same as last year as far as vendor placement, but the big change was seeing all the alternative energy cars this year.  

If you are interested in seeing the photos look here!!

Lightning GT
A 700-horsepower electric supercar unveiled at the British Motor Show 2008.

Check this out,  probably out of my price range,  but this is the type of thinking we need to move EV's forward.

 

From scooters to off-road trucks to utility vehicles, all sorts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are on display at the Plug-In 2008 car conference in San Jose, Calif.

Push your government to get PHEV's to market sooner than later....

Here is a sample of Out of the Box thinking.  The Aptera type 1h,  Composite, PHEV, & Solar

The Aptera was designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle, and later as an extended range electric vehicle. After building the proof-of-concept Mk-0, we hired the automotive design firm, 'eleven', to help us further develop the concept vehicle. The 'eleven' team, led by Jason Hill and Nathan Armstrong, made great strides in the development of the Aptera's body styling, interior design, and structural engineering. Meanwhile, we refined the Aptera's shape to maximize efficiency using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), developed and built advanced suspension and drivetrain components, and integrated a strong yet lightweight composite shell. Our entire process has been developed in-house exclusively by Aptera for the Aptera Typ-1. Our structural elements have undergone countless revisions of FEA (Finite Element Analysis) to be lightweight, robust, and manufacturable.

From CNN: Toyota is introducing a plug-in hybrid with next-generation lithium-ion batteries in Japan, the U.S. and Europe by 2010, under a widespread green strategy outlined Wednesday.

The ecological gas-electric vehicles, which can be recharged from a home electrical outlet, will target leasing customers, Toyota Motor Corp. said. Such plug-in hybrids can run longer as an electric vehicle than regular hybrids, and are cleaner.

Toyota also said it's setting up a battery research department later this month to develop an innovative battery that can outperform even that lithium-ion battery.....

For 2010, General Motors is planning a Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle, while Nissan Motor Co. is planning electric vehicles for the U.S. and Japan. Honda Motor Co. is also developing new hybrid models, targeting sales of 500,000 hybrids a year sometime after 2010.

As reported in Earth2Tech, there has been a rare sighting of what has been labeled an urban wind turbine in San Francisco, California and the sighting has been captured on film. Check out this YouTube video of a Skystream 3.7 in action. 

"The Chevy Volt is a go," said Wagoner. "We believe this is the biggest step yet in our industry's move away from our historic, virtually complete reliance on petroleum to power vehicles."

The Chevy Volt took a major step toward the showroom with formal approval by the GM board of funding for production of the extended-range electric vehicle. This approval, which includes funding for production development and tooling, indicates that GM leadership believes that the technology for the Volt, including its lithium-ion batteries, will be ready for volume production on schedule.

Go here to see the video

I am a member of Project Driveway, this project is used by GM to collect data from consumers interested in HEV's!   Check out this great video on the GM Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle produced by one of the members lucky enough to be driving one!!!    One hundred of these are going to be out in the field, if you are interested in potentially be a candidate to drive one of these go to http://www.chevrolet.com/fuelcell/checkzipcode/ and see if you are eligible!!

Shell oil claims supply and demand is the culprit and wants to blame China.

What is up with this crazy world,  rather than focus on all the good Microsoft has done for the world, idiots like this student in Budapest attach a industry visionary.   Microsoft even built a huge XBOX production facility in Hungary which provides many with jobs and a better life! 

Oil execs defend huge profits before Senate - Oil & energy- msnbc.com
What a joke,  check out the comments by Oil Barons at Chevron, BP & Shell and how they try to justify their HUGE profits and in the mean time gouging the consumer.

Send emails to your representatives today.  Get involved with http://environmentcalifornia.org/ 

To quote Gomer Pyle "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!! " it was just a matter of time for Toyota to take the lead from GM.  With gas prices hitting $4.00/Gal people are going to either smaller our hybrid models.  The article does say that growth overseas was a major contributor to overtaking GM...

DETROIT - Toyota Motor Corp. has taken the first-quarter global automotive sales lead from General Motors Corp., selling 2.41 million vehicles to GM’s 2.25 million over the first three months of the year. GM barely won the global sales race with Japan-based Toyota last year. Toyota overtook General Motors as the world’s top automaker in global vehicle production last year. 

Toyota takes world sales lead from GM - Autos- msnbc.com

New fuel economy standard will be 31.6 mpg

 

Industry expects trend to continue this year as other vehicle sales struggle http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24230209/ 

U.S. registrations of new hybrid vehicles rose 38 percent in 2007 to a record 350,289, according to data to be released Monday by R.L. Polk & Co., a Southfield-based automotive marketing and research company.   Hybrids made up just 2.2 percent of the U.S. market share for the year, but they were growing steadily even as overall sales declined 3 percent.

Green states

These are the top 10 states for new hybrid registrations in 2007 and their share of the total U.S. hybrid sales.

1. California, 26.1 percent
2. Florida, 5.5
3. New York, 5.0
4. Texas, 4.9
5. Washington, 3.7
6. Illinois, 3.7
7. Virginia, 3.4
8. Pennsylvania, 3.2
9. Massachusetts, 2.8
10. New Jersey, 2.8

  Greenest cars of 2008

Well MSN Autos published their "Greeniest"  cars for for 2008!!  The Honda Civic GX actually beat the Toyota Prius with a score of 57 vs 53.

I am bummed that my Lexus RX400h did not make the list, but it probably did not meet the mileage requirement, even though I get 38.5 mpg is this cool SUV Hybrid