PSA pede incentivos para híbridos em Portugal

Rafael Prieto é director-geral da Peugeot numa zona que inclui Portugal, Espanha, Itália, Grécia e Turquia. Diz que as marcas automóveis vão ter de se reconverter rapidamente a novas tecnologias, perante a possibilidade de um novo choque petrolífero. E pede a Portugal que também incentive a aquisição de veículos híbridos, à semelhança do que sucede com os eléctricos:

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VIDEO: Hybrid vehicles getting more popular

From KABC: Hybrid vehicles that use a gasoline engine and a battery electric motor save fuel, and keep getting more and more popular.

But they started out as a bit of an oddity. It was 12 years ago that Toyota began selling the original generation of the Prius. It didn't exactly fly out the door at first.

"When we launched this vehicle 12 years ago, a good year was 13-14-15,000, now a good month is about that volume," said Jim Lentz, president and COO of Toyota Motor Sales USA.

The Prius is a big success today and that name has almost become synonymous with the term "hybrid." So much so that Toyota will expand Prius into a sub-brand starting later this year with the Prius V, a kind of station wagon variation.

There will also be a Prius that plugs in and can go a dozen or so miles on battery power alone and a lower-priced entry model.

Since hybrids generally get much better gas mileage than a comparable conventional car, more and more buyers are looking at them, especially as we hear about gas prices going higher.

There's also the aspect of carbon output.

The Petersen Automotive Museum even has a permanent gallery on alternative fuel cars - things over the years that were supposed to replace gasoline, their last addition is an electric Ford Focus that was used in the Jay Leno TV show. And while it seems electric cars are the hot new thing, they're still niche players, hybrids will be with us for a long time.

In fact, if you attended the recent L.A. Auto Show, you probably noticed that hybrids were everywhere, either already in production or in development.

Toyota still leads the way, with about 70 percent of the hybrid market and they're promising more choices in the future.

"We think our core strategy now and into the future will still be hybrids. He think it's the best bang for the buck. You don't have range anxiety, you don't have to worry about infrastructure that you do with electrics," said Lentz.

From the lowest-priced economy models to full-on luxury cars, hybrids seem to be here to stay. We'll keep seeing more and more of them offered since they're no longer the automotive oddity they started out as.

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Range Rover and Porsche Panamera go hybrid

Land Rover is debuting its Range_e, a diesel hybrid plug-in prototype, at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show in March. According to the British car manufacturer, the technology-packed Range_e is one of several working prototypes currently being developed at Land Rover's design and engineering centre in the UK.

The Range_e is based on a Range Rover Sport and features a 3.0-litre TDV6 diesel with an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. Matched with a plug-in parallel diesel hybrid system it offers a premium SUV that can run as a pure electric vehicle. The 'Range_e' is the first capable 4WD model from Land Rover to achieve 89g of CO2. It has an EV range of 20 miles, a top speed of around 120mph and a range of 690 miles.

Porsche is also unveiling in Switzerland a new hybrid model, its second, the Panamera S Hybrid. According to the German sports car manufacturer, the new Panamera model produces 380 horsepower with fuel consumption of only 6.8 L/100 km on the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC).

Porsche calls its Panamera S Hybrid the most fuel efficient Porsche of all time. Optional low-rolling-resistance tires developed especially for the Panamera help this hybrid performance sedan deliver its NEDC fuel economy figure. But even with standard performance tires, the Panamera S Hybrid's fuel consumption is a low 7.1 L/100 km. Official EPA fuel economy estimates will be available closer to the car's on-sale date, Porsche states.

The Panamera S Hybrid sets new standards in terms of Porsche performance as well as hybrid efficiencies, the manufacturer claims. The S Hybrid accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in just 5.7 seconds and has a top track speed of 167 mph (270 km/h). Its range in purely electric mode is approximately one mile, with electric-only acceleration possible up to just over 50 mph (85 km/h).

The Porsche parallel full hybrid system also reduces consumption at high speeds thanks to its 'sailing' or coasting mode. When the driver lifts off the accelerator at normal highway cruising speeds, the gasoline engine is completely switched off and disengaged from the drivetrain by a decoupling clutch. This eliminates the combustion engine's drag forces and braking effect in the interest of lower resistance, fuel consumption and emissions. As soon as the driver presses the accelerator, to pass another vehicle for example, the gasoline engine smoothly starts within fractions of a second and engine rpms are increased to match the current vehicle speed. It does this seamlessly thanks to the Hybrid Manager, which also helps the Panamera S Hybrid accelerate dynamically in gears at higher speeds much like a conventional Panamera.

The same gasoline engine/electric motor combination that has already proven itself in the Cayenne S Hybrid drives the Panamera S Hybrid. A 3.0-liter supercharged V6 engine delivering 333 horsepower is supported by a 47-horsepower (34 kW) electric motor. Depending on driving conditions, either drive unit can operate independently or together to drive the rear wheels. The electric motor, which also serves as the car's generator and starter, combines with the decoupling clutch to form the compact hybrid module located between the combustion engine and the transmission. The electric motor is connected to a nickel metal hydride (NiMh) battery that stores electric energy recovered from braking and other driving situations. The transmission is the same eight-speed Tiptronic S fitted in the Cayenne models, with a wide range of gear ratios.

The Panamera S Hybrid has an even higher level of standard equipment than the V8 Panamera S, Porsche says. Adaptive Air Suspension with the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) adaptive shock absorber system, Servotronic variable-assist power steering and a rear wiper have been added to the list of standard equipment. Other standard features include Porsche Communication Management (PCM) with navigation, the universal audio interface to connect an external audio source such as an iPod or a USB stick to the PCM system, and Bi-Xenon headlights. Inside, this new model also features an innovative display that provides the driver with relevant information about the status of the vehicle's hybrid drive systems.

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US federal agency to investigate Honda Accord Hybrid

From the New York Times: A little more than five years after a crash killed Lalitha Seetharaman’s husband, Gautam, she is hoping the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will be able to confirm her contention that her Honda Accord Hybrid’s brakes were responsible for his death.

To obtain that information, she is employing a little-used and little-known federal regulation that requires the safety agency to consider carrying out a defect investigation.

Ms. Seetharaman, 31, of Newton, Pa., was driving the Accord Hybrid at the time of the accident, in which she was badly injured. She was initially charged with careless operation, but the charge was later dismissed for “not meeting the burden of proof,” according to officials from the New Jersey State Police and local court.

Lalitha Seetharaman hopes to learn whether the brakes on her Honda Accord Hybrid contributed to the crash in which her husband, Gautam, was killed.Now, N.H.T.S.A. is considering whether to grant her defect petition, which would ask the safety agency to investigate Ms. Seetharaman’s claim: that a loss of stopping power occurs when the Accord Hybrid’s brakes are applied on a rough or uneven surface. Read more...

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Russian magnate starts hybrid car company

From the New York Times / NDTV: Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team, rolled out another pet project on Monday: Russia’s first gas-electric hybrid car. It is called the Yo, for the Russian letter “ë,” and it can use either gasoline or natural gas to generate its electric power. Proponents say the Yo makes use of Russian engineering innovations but can be priced for mass consumption because of its bare-bones approach to hybrid automotive technology.

While two electric motors propel the Yo, a small petroleum engine that can burn either gasoline or natural gas will run nearly continuously to generate the electricity they consume. Instead of charging a battery, as in the hybrid Toyota Prius, the generator in the Yo either powers the motors directly or fills a bank of capacitors that can hold only a small charge.

The designers say that at about 67 miles per gallon, the Yo will achieve better fuel economy than the Toyota Prius (about 51 miles per gallon), in part because it is lighter. Like other gas-electric hybrids, it will also have a total range far beyond that of a pure plug-in electric car like the newly introduced Nissan Leaf.

The Yo, which is expected to go on sale in Russia in mid-2012 and cost about $14,500, will have a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 680 miles — if both its natural gas and gasoline tanks are filled.

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