This sounds like a disaster in the making. At least in the US, this structure would be a recipe for infighting and resource wars. Come to think of it, is this not how GM has operated for eons?

Article seems very misleading. In what sense is this refrigeration unit NOT diesel-powered, as is claimed in the article?

Uh, hello? You talk down to me as if I am a misguided child, and mischaracterize what I said. And then **I** am supposed to ask nicely that you reconsider what you wrote? I think rather that you should apologize.

ai vin, you cannot be serious. Of course I know that. The article is about the supposed benefits of having cars returning home after the commute FOR USE BY A 2ND USER, and then return to work for a the evening commute. Are you just being a troll or what? How about instead you respond to what I actually wrote, instead of trying to mis-characterize it.

How the authors can come up with a study that seriously contemplates having empty vehicles making a full additional round-trip between home and work each day is beyond comprehension. That will nearly double the total distance driven, the energy use, and the amount of traffic, for a benefit that can easily be had by collective transportation or sharing vehicles, rather than having privately assigned vehicles. Conclusion: Idiocy is alive and well in American car culture, not withstanding recent trends of driving less. Now, before anyone starts arguing that nearly doubling distance driven, energy used, and traffic congestion can be alleviated by technology, I will say one thing: Such technology can and should instead be used to keep constant, or reduce, the distance driven, reduce energy consumption, and reduce congestion. It ought to be pretty clear what the correct solution is. And it does not involve vehicles returning home after the work commute. Anything that a car returning home can do, a car that is not constrained to return home, can do better.

QUOTE: "the application will take excess electricity from intermittent renewable energy sources" There is no "excess electricity". The problem is that the coal-based power plants are given priority to sell their polluted electricity, rather than giving priority to the windmills. The windmills are then designated as "excess". This is pure balderdash, of course. The correct solution is to dial down the coal plants, not to use some massively lossy process to convert the windpower electricity to methanol.

For newbies or others that will now claim that I am against saving CO2, let me make it clear. EFFICIENT hybrids are the answer. Buy a Prius or any other hybrid that gets 50mpg or better. They have lower CO2/mile than most "electric" cars. A Tesla model S is about a 35mpg equivalent in terms of CO2/mile. A Nissan Leaf is slighly worse than the bigger prius. Mercedes and BMW are not even close with their latest offerings.

Bogus numbers. As admitted in the quote below, the CO2 savings are at best 24%, not 64%. Even the 24% number is exaggerated, because the *marginal* CO2/kWh (from incremental demand) for European grid mix is guaranteed to be higher than the average CO2/kWh, due to the additional demand being filled by fossile sources (coal, natgas). QUOTE: the B-Class Electric Drive produces emissions of CO2 that are 24% (7.2 tonnes – EU electricity mix) or 64% (19 tonnes – hydroelectricity) lower than those of the B 180, despite the higher emissions generated during the production process. ENDQUOTE. At least this Mercedes is not quite as dishonest about the true CO2 emissions of their car as BMW was about their model i8 in another article: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/03/20140311-i8.html BMW just completely ignored the CO2 from the electricity production altogether in their press release. Just complete lies all around.

>>Through the use of renewably generated hydroelectricity a 56 percent reduction (46 tonnes) is possible. What a bunch of hooey. There is no surplus hydroelectricty in Germany or anywhere, for that sake,. >>2.8 liters/100 km (84 mpg US) Does not account for the fossile fuel going into satisfying the incremental electricity demand from this vehicle. >>which corresponds to 65 g CO2/km emissions Totally false, again does not account for the fossile fuel going into satisfying the incremental electricity demand from this vehicle. Look, Mercedes. If you want do to something more useful than writing press releases, you are going to have to build a car that truly gets 50 MPG, like a Prius. While still getting Mercedes performance. Are you up for the challenge?

>>at an efficiency of 1.5%, the highest level yet recorded. Sugracane is 8% efficient, Solar Panels are reaching 20%. But keep up the good work, Toshiba.

>>The total evolved H2 and O2 was ∼4.5 μmol, which corresponds to an overall solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency of 0.0017% This is the key result. Efficiency has to be better than 20% or else solar panels are simply better. Good research, though. If the H2 leaves become as efficient as sugar cane at 8% conversion efficiency we might start to talk.

Massively stupid. Incremental electrictiy supply in Germany comes from coal, not green sources. It is a complete lie that the electrolysis part of the process is "powered with green electricity". Making H2 with coal-based electricty at 70% effiency is already a complete waste. GOing further to make diesel by adding yet another lossy step of reacting CO2 with H2 is even worse. Good thing it is just a toy plant that males only 160 liter/day.

By the way, Tesla Model S is also worse than a Prius. According to the data from this link, http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/miles-kwh Tesla Model S uses on the average 341.7 WH/mile over the 41 cars surveyed. This means 0.3417 kWh/mile * 633 g/KWh = 216.29 g/mile which is 216.29/1.609 g/km = 134.43 g/km.

Bernard, BMW says "The related electricity consumption was measured at 11.9 kWh per 100 km". They do not specify the mix of gas and wallcharge in their driving cycle (NEDC). However, BMW also provded "real world MPG numbers" based on starting with a full charge 47.0 mpg city , (8975g/gal)/(47.0mpg)=191.0g/mile=118.7g/km 33.6 mpg mixed , (8975g/gal)/(33.6mpg)=267.1g/mile=166.0g/km 29.4 mpg highway, (8975g/gal)/(29.4mpg)=305.3g/mile=189.7g/km All worse than a plain Prius that gets 50 mpg (110g/km overall) in real life.

What a joke. If you factor in the CO2 inherent in the electricity production, this car is worse than a Prius. 11.9 kWh /100 km * 633 g/KWh = 75.3 g km IN ADDITION TO THE 49 g/km from the gasoline, for a total of 124.3 g/km. Prius at 50 mpg is 19.74 lbsCO2/gal / 50mpg is 0.3884 lbs/mile or 0.3888*457 /1.609 is 111 g/km.

I did a search http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140109/carnews/140109861 QUOTE: If you've been waiting for a Mazda 6 diesel, prepare to wait a bit longer. After delaying the U.S. launch until Spring 2014, Mazda now says it won't meet that target date, either. Mazda says the engine meets current emissions standards using only a particulate filter, but the resulting blend of performance and fuel economy isn't up to snuff. Company spokesperson Jeremy Barnes put it simply: "We can meet the emissions standards today, but not with the kind of performance worthy of a Mazda badge." Mazda is reportedly working on a solution, exploring all options, including exhaust aftertreatment, as it seeks the proper economy/entertainment blend.

Sounds good, but if this technology works so well why has Mazda now delayed the Mazda 6 Diesel for the US market by over a year? The delays are supposedly due to emissions problems, so it is related to the present article. Last I heard, months ago, Mazda 6 was supposed to arrive this spring, 2014. VW and Audi have done a considerably better job with clean diesel than Mazda. Step it up, Mazda!

I hate to say this, but 28 mpg diesel is about the same as 25 mpg gasoline when it comes to energy consumption and CO2 output. Hence the highway numbers are about the same for the diesel model as the gasoline model. One has to take the 11% higher volumetric energy density (MJ/L) for diesel into consideration. The 3L diesel should do better than the 3.6L gasoline model. Something is amiss amiss with the design here, It is still possible that the diesel is better for city mileage because it idles more efficiently.

Not bad!! Much better than the foolish muscle cars that Audi has been bragging so much about recently. Replace the start/stop with a real hybrid unit with a decent size battery (not as large as plug-in sized, but say a 10-mile/10-minute/3.3kWh battery), and the best of these cars would get 80mpg. Then start selling the same technology under VW branding and then we would really make a dent in the oil consumption.

Does the 2L diesel pass California emission requirements?

Beware of the possibility of jamming or spoofing any wireless system. Without some sort of coded security, as well as a directional transmitter and receiver, there could very well be simple methods for sabotage.

Using an active (transponder) system instead of a passive (radar) system has many advantages and does not have to cost much more. To be safe, the system needs to have both modes active at the same, though. One car can follow another closely (platoon) as long as it is receiving an active transponder signal. If the the receiver misses a detection, then it has to fall back to radar mode and increase the vehicle distance by easing up to account for the lesser accuracy and reliability of pure radar.

Well, this is yet another well-researched paper that shows that EV, natgas and hydrogen are all WORSE in terms of CO2/mile and efficiency than the best hybrid vehicle technology. Exactly what I have been explaining right here for years on end. @A.C.R., thanks for all your posts in this thread. I have not read them all yet, but what I saw so far was excellent. Thanks for making the effort. It's hard work to counteract and respond to the sheer volume of propaganda and misinformation that is being spread by the EV, natgas/CNG and hydrogen/H2 camps.

>>The e-tron powertrain delivers 515 kW (700 hp) of system power with 2.5 l/100 km (94.09 US mpg) fuel economy, equivalent to CO2 emissions of 59 g/km (94.95 g/mile); These claims are pure baloney. Audi is not accounting for all the CO2 that is emitted by the fossile power plants that will be feeding electricity to charge the car. Basically they assume zero gCO2/kWh for the electricity and claim zero emissions for the first 31 miles. Then they add a few miles (how many?) of running the engine on gasoline, and average the numbers. The story is absolute BS, and the same complete dishonesty is exhibited by quite a few car manufacturers, including many pure EV ones. It is terrible that the general public is subjected to this form of propaganda, and that many members of the general public think that Audi has "solved the CO2 problem" and "solved the fossile fuel supply problem". In reality, Audi has made emissions and consumption worse by building these perverse kinds of co2 belching and oil guzzling behemoths. The correct solution is a small and efficient diesel -based hybrid car. not this abomination of a vehicle.

Maybe "negates" or "wastes" would be a better word than "cancels"