An elastomer made with mechanophore-linked polymers changes color when stretched.
(Credit: Beckman Institute Imaging Technology Group, Darren Stevenson, and Alex Jerez)Scientists at the University of Illinois have developed polymers that change color when the material becomes overstressed.
The materials science invention could be used in things like parachute cords, climbing ropes, or added to smart coatings for bridges.
The polymers contain mechanophores--molecules that create a chemical reaction that makes the synthetic material change color when a certain amount of force is exerted upon it.
One of the polymers offered by the scientists as an example of their work is an amber-colored elastomer that turns progressively more orange as it's pulled and then finally red right before it reaches its point of failure and snaps (see photo). In another example, the group made a hard little bead that turned from translucent to purple when compressed.
The group, whose project is funded by the U.S. Army Research Office MURI program, had previously done work with mechanophore-linked polymers in liquid. This latest invention is with solids .
The University of Illinois research was led by Nancy Sottos, a Willett Professor of materials science and engineering and a professor at the university's Beckman Institute; and Douglas Davis, graduate research assistant and lead author on the project.
Davis noted that the material can go back to its original color once relieved of stress and perform the same function over and over.
"Mechanical stress induces a ring-opening reaction of the spiropyran that changes the color of the material. The reaction is reversible, so we can repeat the opening and closing of the mechanophore," Davis said in a statement.
Keeping that in mind, the group hopes to create mechanophore-linked polymers that could actually self-reinforce each time they're met with increased stress. If created, the material could be used in things like airplanes as a temporary solution to damaged or stressed parts. In a plane, for example, parts made of the polymer could self-reinforce to minimize damage until the plane could safely be landed and fixed.
Details of the group's invention can be found in the May 7 issue of Nature.
Ford Motor offered a glimpse into one of its testing labs on Tuesday. The showcase was assumably to promote the new safety features in its upcoming lineup of cars, and as you can imagine, the peek into this world of crash test dummies is rather amusing.
One of the technologies Ford talked about testing was a new air bag system, which was put in the 2009 F-150 and will be in the 2010 Ford Taurus. Instead of being acceleration-based, the new sensors are pressure-based, which makes them more accurate, according to Ford, but also more sensitive.
The company wanted to make sure the highly sensitive system in its cars was not set off by minor everyday annoyances. Obviously, there's no need for an air bag to deploy when things like shopping carts, baseballs, and bicycles hit the side of a car. To that end, Ford's safety group engineers incorporated real-world scenarios combined with robots and other sophisticated lab equipment that go beyond the usual car collision tests.
One of its tests involves a robot plowing a shopping cart filled with 110 pounds of weight (roughly one kid and a full cart of groceries) into the side of a Taurus at 10 miles per hour.
Another test has Ford engineers driving the cars at high speeds on a test track of curbs, potholes, and ditches to re-create the real-life carelessness most drivers engage in at some point, but likely never admit to.
Is this method really necessary, or just something Ford engineers came up with to break up the monotony of sifting through safety testing data?
"Blasting and ramming cars may seem over-the-top, but they're part of a serious testing regimen that Ford had to invent, because increasingly sophisticated technologies require more advanced testing," Sue Cischke, vice president of Ford's Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering Group, said in a statement.
Ford's new air bags are sensor-based so they can deploy before the full impact of a crash occurs, but not so sensitive they go off from an errant baseball or shopping cart. (Click above to see more photos.)
(Credit: Ford Motor)
Ford's Michigan Assembly Plant in city of Wayne.
(Credit: Ford Motor)Ford Motor plans to spend $550 million to retool its Michigan Assembly Plant so it will be capable of producing its new line of Ford Focus cars, the company announced Wednesday.
More than $160 million of the money Ford plans to invest in the Wayne, Mich.-based plant will come from tax credits and grants from the state of Michigan, Wayne County, and the city of Wayne.
The rebuilt plant, which Ford expects to support more than 3,000 jobs, will produce the new Ford Focus, and, eventually, the battery-electric version of Focus that the company plans to begin producing in 2011 for a 2012 release.
About 155 jobs will be salaried positions, and 3,180 jobs will be hourly worker positions at the Wayne location, according to Ford.
"This is about investing in modern, efficient and flexible American manufacturing. It is about fuel economy and the electrification of vehicles," Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally said in a statement.
The Michigan Assembly Plant (formerly known as the Michigan Truck Plant) originally opened in 1957 and has produced the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, as well as the Ford Bronco and Ford F-Series, according to Ford.
The Michigan change is part of Ford's plan to convert three of its North American plants so that it can introduce six small cars to the American market by the end of 2012. The other two plants undergoing renovation are the Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico, which will begin producing the Ford Fiesta in 2010, and the Louisville, Ky., plant, which will begin producing cars build with the Ford Focus platform starting in 2011.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels
(Credit: City of Seattle)The City of Seattle has partnered with Nissan North America to promote the development of an electric vehicle charging network in anticipation of Nissan's release of its highway-legal EV, Renault-Nissan Alliance and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced Tuesday.
Nissan's commercially sold EV will have a different look than its EV-02 prototype, but the same functionality. The Nissan EV is expected to have a range of 100 miles on a single charge and be able to be charged within four to eight hours via a 220-volt outlet. The City of Seattle is planning to work with its local utility to come up with a program for installing the outlets--already commonly used in homes for electric laundry dryers--in interested residents' garages. It will also work to develop electric charging stations throughout Seattle.
The announcement is just one in a list of many U.S. communities that have begun to develop electrical charging stations in anticipation of Nissan's commercial EV release in the U.S. in 2010.
Last week Renault-Nissan Alliance announced a program in Tennessee. In March and April, Nissan announced partnerships with local Arizona governments to development a corridor of electric charging stations that would encompass the 116-mile stretch between Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz. as well as their surrounding areas.
That particular project includes a partnership with tech company Ecotality. Its CEO Jonathan Read has told CNET it will be building the Arizona stations to accommodate any EV that adheres to Society of Automotive Engineers standards for electric vehicles, not just Nissan's EV.
Nissan now has projects geared toward establishing electric charging stations in anticipation of its 2010 EV launch in the U.S. in Sonoma County and San Diego, Calif., Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., Oregon, and Tennessee.
But the Seattle announcement is unique because the power source for the electric charging stations will be from http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/Seattle City Light, the publically-owned utility who's claim to fame is that it's "net zero" for greenhouse gas emissions.
"From light rail to street cars to electric vehicles, we're reducing the impact of transportation on our climate. Electric-powered transportation is particularly attractive in a city with a carbon-neutral utility, generating clean electricity through hydropower," Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said in a statement.
Correction at 9:20 a.m. PDT: The time span for Office Depot's figures is one year.
Last year, Office Depot recycled almost 1.5 million pounds of old tech equipment through its service for consumers, the company said Wednesday.
That sounds like a lot. It makes you realize how quickly all those landfills must be filling up since that figure represents only the junk from people who 1) actually bother to recycle, and 2) chose to go with Office Depot's recycling program.
For a comparison, I decided to check how other company-sponsored recycling programs are doing. Unfortunately, as sustainability expert Kevin Wilhelm told CNET, there is yet to be a standard way for companies to calculate such statistics. What's included in recycling statistics varies from company to company, but the data I dug up offers a rough idea of what's going on in this arena.
Staples, an Office Depot competitor, began offering an in-store recycling service in May 2007. It charges $10 per large item regardless of where you originally bought it; recycles small items like keyboards, mice, and speakers for free; and offers $3 in Staples rewards for Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark or Dell brand printer cartridges.
By the end of the 2007, Staples had recycled 2 million pounds of tech junk, including almost 24 million printer cartridges in the U.S., according to the company's 2007 sustainability report.
What about the computer manufacturers themselves?
Hewlett-Packard has had a recycling program since 1987 and in January 2009 launched a new program that offers money for old tech equipment. As of June 2007, the company had recycled more than 1 billion pounds of electronics and printer cartridges and expanded to include consumer programs in 50 countries. HP's new goal is to reach 2 billion pounds by the end of 2010.
Unlike Office Depot, which asks customers for pay $5, $10, or $15 for a box they can fill with everything from printers to digital cameras, HP offers credit that can be put toward the purchase of an HP product.
Apple has consumer recycling programs in 95 percent of the countries where it sells its computers. In 2007, it collected about "21 million pounds of e-waste," according to the company's 2008 environmental report.
Dell offers consumer recycling programs worldwide. In the U.S., it's free. Between 2006 and 2008, Dell recycled about 255 million pounds of its own products. Its goal is to recover about 275 million pounds by the end of 2009, according to its 2008 Global Corporate Responsibility Report.
Big Blue seems to have recycled the most, or at least calculated the most.
Between 1995 (when it began keeping track) and the end of 2007, IBM "collected and recovered (resold, refurbished, or recycled)" more than 1.5 billion pounds of product and product waste worldwide, according to the company's latest corporate sustainability report.
In the U.S., IBM offers consumer recycling programs on a state-by-state basis.
While recycling tech equipment is definitely a positive way to do your part for the environment, it's also important to keep your computer information secure. Always remember to properly wipe computers clean of your personal information before giving away or recycling them. Coincidentally, CNET's Seth Rosenblatt did a piece on wiping hard drives clean earlier this week.
Ecotality is in talks with leading automakers--not only Nissan--concerning its electric charging stations for highway-legal electric cars, according to CEO Jonathan Read.
"We have been contacted by every major automaker about electric vehicle systems relating to charging and infrastructure. We expect to convert these discussions into firm contracts," Read told investors Wednesday at a shareholders' conference that was open to the press.
The Arizona-based company recently announced a partnership with Nissan and the local governments in the Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., areas to build charging stations for electric cars that would cover the regions and the 116-mile stretch between them to make an electric vehicle corridor.
Ecotality's CEO Jonathan Read
(Credit: Ecotality)Read told CNET News at the time that while Nissan's electric vehicles (or EVs) will be the first ones commercially available in the area, Ecotality's charging stations will be built to Society of Automotive Engineers standards so that they'll be compatible with any electric cars built to that standard.
In addition to the going after Big Auto, Read told investors the company has applied for Department of Energy loan packages to expand its manufacturing and for other loans and grants from the federal government. It has also bid on contracts in both the public and private sectors.
"We're building a strong position to benefit from the new stimulus program. Many companies are planning for the launch of their EVs, and we've responded to proposals. We have applied or are in the process of applying for about $1.5 billion in contracts through private and government programs. Obviously, receipt of any of these contracts would drastically change the dynamic of our company," said Read.
Ecotality and subsidiary eTec have been in the battery-charging business for years for light-use utility trucks like ones used at airports or for commercial fleets. And charging stations for the general consumer are not an entirely new foray for the company either. While Delphi was the manufacturer, eTec installed many of the charging stations for General Motors' EV1s of "who killed the electric car?" fame.
The Idea is a light-use plug-in electric hybrid intended for commercial fleets.
(Credit: Bright Automotive)Start-up Bright Automotive unveiled a light-use vehicle on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that gets 100 mpg for its first 50 miles.
The Idea, as the plug-in hybrid utility vehicle is called, uses battery power almost exclusively for the first 30 miles when starting with a fully charged battery. It then moves to the electric with gas supplement system found on any typical hybrid vehicle.
Because of this 30-mile electric start, Bright Automotive estimates that in a 50-mile drive the Idea consumes half a gallon of gas, getting it roughly the equivalent of 100 mpg. On a total drive of 70 miles, the Idea uses about one gallon of gas, giving the car "a mileage equivalent of 70 mpg."
Bright Automotive openly clarifies that their mileage count includes that 30-mile electric head start. Given the vehicle's target audience, the odd assessment of what would otherwise amount to a 40 mpg plug-in hybrid might be fair.
The Idea uses low-rolling resistance tires and is built from lightweight materials consisting of a high-tech aluminum from Alcoa and advanced composites to contribute to the vehicle's fuel efficiency. It has a one-ton cargo capacity and a passenger seat that can convert into a mobile office.
In other words, the Idea is not a highway car intended for the masses, but a light-use truck for commercial and military utility fleets. Utility trucks don't typically travel long distances and are often returned to a garage where the vehicle could be fully charged.
The Indiana-based company has applied for $450 million in federal loans from the Department of Energy to mass-produce the plug-in vehicle.
The U.S. government itself is not just a potential lender, but also a potential customer. Last January, the Army announced plans to replace up to 28,000 gas-powered vehicles with light-use EVs in the coming years. Global Electric Motorcar, a division of Chrysler, was the first manufacturer to win a contract for the U.S. Army initiative, and would be an obvious competitor for Bright Automotive if it gets up and running.
Granted the federal loan money, Bright Automotive says it could be in production by 2012 and could be mass-producing 50,000 vehicles a year starting in 2013. Including suppliers, the company would create more than 5,000 U.S. jobs, according to CEO John E. Waters.
In addition to the unveiling in Washington, D.C., Waters held a telephone press conference.
While he was asked several times to elaborate, he would not give any hint at how much the Idea costs.
"If I give you a number, consumers will then look at it like a consumer vehicle and that's not the impression we want to give. Our commercial customers will lease them usually on a monthly basis," said Waters.
Waters did hint that Bright Automotive is looking into an adaptation for a highway legal version for consumers.
"We have designed the vehicle platform to be extremely flexible. We are analyzing it for markets that would include a common power train, and a common chassis for both domestic and international markets," he said.
While Bright Automotive's business plan is based on private capital, the requested loan money from the federal government would ramp up production, giving the company a better chance to survive against the automotive legacy companies, according to Waters.
"We are impatient. We know every day we wait is a day less we have the Idea on the roads, cleaning up American skies, and providing people with green transportation as we see the titans of the world advancing in the world of transportation," he said.
While the company may have only started in 2008, it's not exactly an outsider. Its partners, many of whom have said they are also interested in being fleet customers, include Alcoa, Cox Communications, and Frito Lay.
Single women rival single men as tech device owners, according to a Forrester Research survey released Thursday.
Obviously, to an organization filled with female tech geeks, the study was met with bemusement.
But the survey of more than 1,000 single adult males and more than 1,000 single adult females in the United States and Canada had some interesting gems.
Did you know that single women prefer laptops while single men prefer desktops? Among the adult singles surveyed, 47 percent of women said their next computer would be a laptop, and 29 percent said it would be a desktop, while 47 percent of men said their next computer would be a desktop and 38 percent said it would be a laptop.
Forty-four percent of all single women surveyed own a game console, compared to 53 percent of single men, confirming reports from International Game Developers Association and Entertainment Software Association illustrating that women do play video games.
When it comes to handheld-game devices, 27 percent of single women surveyed count themselves as owners while 29 percent of single men said they have one, according to the study. Single women, meanwhile, surpassed single men slightly on digital-camera ownership, 78 percent to 76 percent.
Alas, less than 20 percent of single women said they followed technology news, compared to less than 40 percent of single men.
(Credit:
Forrester Research)
In 2007, Kia Motors America and several design firms devised a taxi that could display its destination and indicate whether a passenger was interested in splitting a fare.
(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET)You got a better idea on how taxis should work? New York City is all ears.
On Tuesday, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) put out a request for information on how it can improve its taxi technology.
The TLC, in conjunction with the Design Trust for Public Space, staged an elaborate display at the New York International Auto Show in 2007 of taxis with innovative ideas on sustainability and design. Now it seems that the TLC wants to ensure that the public is aware of its interest in tech beyond hybrids.
The city's contracts with service providers for its tech tools program--referred to as the Taxicab Passenger Enhancement Program, or T-PEP--expire in about two years. The TLC seems to be shopping for options on how "to enhance the technology systems in each taxicab for the benefit of passengers, drivers, and owners alike," according to the announcement.
... Read more
An artist's rendering of what Ecotality fast-charging commercial stations may look like.
(Credit: Ecotality)Nissan has promised to supply its highway-legal electric vehicles to the Phoenix area, as well as the previously announced Tucson area, for public and private fleets by the end of 2010, the Renault-Nissan Alliance plans to announce Thursday.
"This is a deployment well in excess of a couple hundred," said Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America.
In anticipation of Nissan's municipal and eventual commercial electric vehicle (EV) launch, the energy technology company Ecotality plans to also announce on Thursday an expansion of its chain of electric charging stations beyond the Tucson Metro area stations it announced in March.
The total plan, which includes partnerships with the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) and Pima Association of Governments (PAG), is that Ecotality will create an electric plug-in infrastructure corridor encompassing the greater metropolitan areas of both Phoenix (Maricopa County) and Tucson (Pima County), as well as the 116-mile stretch between them along the Interstate 10 highway.
Using a 480-volt rapid-charge option, Nissan's EV-02 prototype--which has the battery pack and motor that will be used in the final commercial version--can charge up to 80 percent capacity in about 26 minutes, according to Perry.
Ecotality's CEO Jonathan Read said charging up at its SAE Level 3 (440V) fast-charging stations may actually even be a little quicker in practice.
Ecotality's fast-charging commercial stations may look similar to those Ecotality stations used for typical private off-road EV fleets.
(Credit: Ecotality)"Nissan's conservative. We believe that generally the charge time can be 15-20 minutes, given most people are not going to run to zero. I almost dare you to try to get a Starbucks in less than 15 minutes. It's really conducive to a stop for a beverage, a quick shop, a stop at the pharmacy, so we're going to position these where people normally stop for a few minutes anyway," said Read.
In addition to commercial charging stations, there are also plans to work with local utilities to install 220-volt outlets in the garages of would-be EV owners. At those outlets, Nissan's EV would take an average 4 hours to recharge from zero to full capacity, according to Perry.
But you won't have to be a Nissan customer per se to get a charge from an Ecotality-built station in Arizona.
"Our charging stations are going to be agnostic; they'll work on any battery in any vehicle that adheres to the SAE standards. So while Nissan will be the first here, they'll attach to any vehicle that comes along," said Read.
Phoenix and Tucson residents may actually have cooperative community leaders to thank for the EV opportunity, if Nissan is to be believed.
Never underestimate the value of municipalities that get along with each other, their utilities, and the private sector when embarking on projects that require permitting, said Perry.
"Phoenix had all the things we were looking for in a launch market: High consumer interest, but really something you shouldn't underestimate (is) a regional planning authority that has a history of working well together and moving things forward in a coordinated fashion to make Phoenix plug-in ready. Plus, we have support from the utility companies. Plus interest from the private sector, support from Ecotality, and major employers interested in participating. When those factors are there, that's what you want," said Perry.
Perry said he's seen interest from companies who'd like to provide employees with free charging stations in their parking facilities as part of a sustainability plan.
Ecotality, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz., had another logical reason.
"We actually have a long and storied history in electric here. We worked on charging stations for the old EV1s before they were crunched by General Motors," said Read, referring to Ecotality's subsidiary eTec.
While the charging equipment was made by Delphi, eTec installed many of the residential charging stations for General Motors' EV1 customers in the Southwest, particularly Arizona, as well as some public charging stations, according to Ecotality.
