We Obsessively Cover the Green Scene…

Tesla's 2014 third quarter financial report mixed some positive news with gloomy messages. On one hand, the electric carmaker posted its best quarter ever in terms of deliveries, including its best single day with 907 EVs delivered. The company also announced expanded production to get even more vehicles out the door by the end of 2015. However, the Model X got delayed yet again and higher prices in Europe were mulled. Dousing the results with a bit more cold water, a Merrill Lynch investor letter claims there's more to be pessimistic about the business than meets the eye.

The Daily Kanban, quoting research meant for Merrill Lynch clients, claims that Tesla had "approximately 3K vehicles stocked in inventory or in transit" at the end of the Q3. That's a fairly large number considering that the company reports selling 7,785 units for the whole quarter. The statement is also surprising because the automaker has a reputation for keeping excess supply low, and there are allegedly waiting lists for Model S sedans. CEO Elon Musk maintains that the automaker has a problem being able to keep up with high demand, as well.

According to Daily Kanban, the letter further states, "China is proving to be more challenging for Tesla to penetrate than expected." The automaker does not break out sales by region in its Q3 financials to check this assertion, however, the company does report the recently opened store in Shenzhen is one of its top-grossing stores worldwide and that there are now 23 Supercharger locations in 10 Chinese cities.

Merrill Lynch is hardly the first company to challenge the consistently positive assertions made by Musk. In late October, the stock price bounced all over the place after a claim of falling sales by The Wall Street Journal prior to the Q3 announcement. Another analyst believed the company might need around $6 billion to get all of its plans accomplished by 2025.

Texas might be known for the independent spirit of its people and for long stretches of high-speed open road, but prospective buyers of the Polaris Slingshot need to look elsewhere for their three-wheeled thrills. The state's Department of Motor Vehicles says that the sporty models cannot be registered there because they don't meet the definition of a motorcycle.

According to dealer letters posted on Slingshot Forums, Polaris had already received approval from the state over the summer to sell the Slingshot in Texas. However, on November 4, the company was advised by the DMV that the vehicles couldn't be registered. Under the Texas guidelines, a motorcycle is defined as a vehicle with a "saddle" seat, meaning that it is positioned between occupants' legs. However, people sit side-by-side inside the Slingshot like a traditional car.

According to the letter, Polaris is working to find solutions "as quickly and efficiently as possible," but the company doesn't know when that could be. It claims to be in contact with the "upper levels" of the DMV to rectify things.

Understandably, people in the Lone Star State ready to buy one of these sporty three-wheelers are upset at the news. According to forum members, the DMV's decision is especially confusing because other vehicles with similar layouts, like the Campagna Motors T-Rex and Morgan Three-Wheeler, are already registered in Texas. It makes the exception for the Slingshot that much more strange.

The Slingshot was unveiled in July with a base price of $19,999. It boasts a General-Motors-sourced 2.4-liter Ecotec four-cylinder making 173 horsepower and 166 pound-feet of torque, and power goes to the belt-driven rear wheel through a five-speed manual. It's styling mixes a little KTM X-Bow with the dipping sides reminiscent of a Triumph TR-3. Hopefully, Texans get a chance to enjoy them soon.

For those who thought either green SUV or green luxury vehicles were oxymorons, time to stand corrected. Green Car Journal will announce its green-car award winners at the Washington Auto Show next January and has created award categories for those two sectors as well as a technology award for standout powertrains. The winners will be announced January 22 at the show's Public Policy Day.

A fuel-cell vehicle – the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell – joins entrants such as the Honda CR-V and Mazda CX-5 among the five finalists for the Green SUV Award. Models like the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in and the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid haven't gotten a ton of love from the American public, but they did get some from Green Car Journal, which put those models on its Luxury Green Car finalist list. That group, not surprisingly, includes the all-electric Tesla Model S while making room for the Audi A8 TDI diesel and BMW i8 plug-in hybrid.

That last model also makes the short list for Green Car Technology finalists, along with fellow Bimmer the i3 (in its range-extender version), Ford's 2.7-liter EcoBoost V-6 and the Kia Soul Electric Powertrain. Take a look at Green Car Journal's press release for the complete list of finalists, below.

Decked out in stark black and white, the Akka Link And Go is making an appearance at the 2014 Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Chengdu, China this week. It's a fitting color scheme in the home of captive pandas in China, but we think the neon green and orange version we saw in 2013 made a better statement. That statement? This is one crazy autonomous "car."

While the Link And Go technology platform on display here in Chengdu is that same (aside from the color) as the one from the Geneva Motor Show last year, the big news from the European company is that version 2.0 is being worked on, one that could learn your habits as it drives you from place to place in living room style. Just look at the in-cabin flatscreen TV.

These will allow the wheels to turn 90 degrees, making parallel parking about the easiest thing in the world.

Luk Barthelemy, Akka's program manager, told AutoblogGreen that whereas the original Link And Go has motors above the wheels, and the next iteration will have a steering and propulsion motor on all four corners. These will allow the wheels to turn 90 degrees, making parallel parking about the easiest thing in the world. Of course, you won't need to even do that much, since the Link And Go is an autonomous vehicle that can map the world around it as it goes. It relies on a number of sensors (Akka is testing a number of different kinds, since the vehicle's purpose is to figure out what works and what doesn't, not to result in a production vehicle) and GPS to find its way around. Barthelemy said version 2.0 will be able to "see" 360 degrees around the car, a huge improvement over the forward-looking sensors in 1.0. The Akka team is also rethinking the design of where the doors go and how many there are. Version 1.0 has two sliding doors on the passenger side and a somewhat standard hexagon-shaped driver's side door.

The AI could be programmed to keep track of when the owner usually goes where, and alert him or her if necessary. So, for example, if you always drive your son to gymnastics on Mondays but today there's an accident along the regular route, the car could text you and say you need to leave 15 minutes early to take a detour. Not bad for a little bubble car.

Volkswagen has presented a list of near-term technologies to improve fuel economy and decrease emissions. The list includes an addition to a coasting function in its stop-start system, a 10-speed DSG transmission and a more power-dense four-cylinder TDI engine. Volkswagen aims to be the world's most sustainable automaker by 2018 through electric mobility, improved design and increased environmental performance from internal combustion vehicles. Volkswagen also announced other technologies for increased interactivity and connectivity in its vehicles. Read more at Green Car Congress.

Commence Pence is a system that allows subway riders in London to donate their unused transit money to charity. People visiting the city often load up enough on their subway card (called Oyster Card) to get them through their trip and end up with unused funds leftover. Zander Whitehurst, a British designer, has created a device that can use the card's RFID to accept leftover funds, which then get diverted to charity rather than reverting back to the agency in charge of running the subway fare system. See the video below or read more at Wired.

Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation has called Michigan's efforts to ban Tesla's direct sales in the state "unnecessary protectionism." The statement comes as a bit of a surprise, as it dissents from the majority of auto dealers who support a franchise model, as well as laws that forbid automakers selling directly to the consumer. "If Elon Musk wants to make a mistake and go with an inefficient distribution system, that's his right as an American," says Jackson, showing he feels he has little to fear from the electric automaker. Jackson has more to say on the matter, which you can read over at Green Car Reports.

Pat Cox does not work for Toyota and we don't think he has any secret inside information. Still, he's the former President of the European Parliament and the current high level coordinator for TransEuropean Network, so when he says Toyota is likely going to lose between 50,000 and 100,000 euros ($66,000 and $133,000) on each of the hydrogen-powered FCV sedans it will sell next year, it's worth noting.

That was just one highlight of Cox's presentation at the 2014 Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Chengdu, China today, which addressed the main problem of using more H2 in transportation: cost. The EU has a tremendous incentive to find an alternative to fossil fuels, since Europe today is 94 percent dependent on oil for its transportation sector and 84 percent of that 94 percent dependency is imported oil. The tab for that costs the EU a billion euros a day, Cox said, on top of the environmental costs.

To encourage a shift away from petroleum, European Directive 2014/94 requires each member state to develop national policy frameworks for the market development of alternative fuels and their infrastructure. For the member states that choose to fulfill 2014/94 by developing a hydrogen market – and to be clear, Cox said, it's not an EU diktat that they do so, since a number of other alternatives are also allowed – the aim is to have things in place by the end of 2025. The plans don't even have to be submitted until the end of 2016. The long lead time is due to a quirk in a hydrogen economy.

In hydrogen infrastructure, "the first-mover cost is not the first-mover advantage, but the firstmover disadvantage." – Pat Cox

In deploying a hydrogen infrastructure, Cox said, "the first-mover cost is not the first-mover advantage, but the first-mover disadvantage, and high risk." That's why the EU and member states will financially support the early stages, but everyone agrees that "if this is to work, it will have to be ultimately and essentially a commercially viable and commercially driven infrastructure roll-out." Since 1986, European Union research programs have spent 550 million euros on hydrogen-related and fuel-cell-related research, including methods of hydrogen storage and distribution as well as improved fuel cells vehicles, Cox said.

Expensive problems remain to be solved. At a conference in Berlin, Germany this past summer, Cox said, the unit cost of the refueling stations was identified as the main problem. "One can count on up to one million euros per refueling station at the moment and also the very high cost of vehicles." Toyota will sell its upcoming FCV in early 2015 for around 50,000 euros, Cox said, and "they are probably taking a hit of 50 to 100,000 euros per unit in order to achieve that roll-out." Jana Hartline, the environmental communications manager for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, wouldn't comment on the losses directly but told AutoblogGreen that, "each market (Japan, Europe and US) is unique in their pricing, launch plan. We'll have additional information on these global plans very soon."

There is small but growing hydrogen infrastructure in countries like Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and the UK. Today, Cox said, there are 27 publically available H2 stations in the EU but by the end of next year there should be 47 new H2 stations. The big expansion will come between 2020 and 2030, along with more vehicles. That's the plan, anyway.

There's a lot of information on display at the 2014 Michelin Challenge Bibendum. We've spent time this week trying to sponge it all in but one of the charts caught out eye today. In a session on hydrogen vehicles – about which we'll have more later – a representative from Air Liquide, Jean-Baptiste Mossa, shared a chart about how hydrogen vehicles fall in a sweet spot for vehicle emissions and range. Maybe you can notice the number that stood out.

Yeah, it's the battery range one. We'll admit that there's a lot of unknowns about the future, especially when it comes to alt-fuel cars. But if you want to make the point that hydrogen cars beat out electric vehicles, you probably shouldn't use 2011 data that is easily proved wrong by cars from 2014. After all, the idea that a pure electric vehicle will have a range of only 140 miles on a full charge – in 2050! – is going to elicit some laughs from those in the know. Or anyone who's driving a Tesla Model S.

When we saw the chart used again in the e-mobility display, we had to find out where this data comes from. The source was listed as McKinsey and Company and after a bit of searching we found it in a 2011 report called, A Portfolio of power-trains for Europe: a fact-based analysis (find the PDF and look on page 35). It's not impossible that fuel cell vehicles will always be able to offer more zero-local-emission range than EVs, but to say that your average EV won't get more than a roughly 50-percent range increase in the next 35 years is patently absurd. Everyone from Toyota to a number of automotive industry experts agree.

People strive to find a way to make just about anything fast. After all, there's a whole series dedicated to racing lawnmowers. Still, there's just something absurdly fun about watching a vehicle that shouldn't have much performance go rocketing down a drag strip – like this speedy golf cart.

A business called Plum Quick Motors is dedicated to pulling even more speed out of these usually dawdling little buggies. The company offers high-performance electric motors for golf carts, and to prove what these machines can do, Plum Quick launches them down the drag strip.

The business has been quite successful at making some seriously peppy buggies, too. In October 2013, one of Plum Quick's vehicles set a Guinness World Record as the world's fastest golf cart by reaching 103.65 miles per hour at Darlington Dragway in South Carolina.

Of course, with any record there's always the drive to do more. At a recent return to Darlington, the company blasted through its old record by hitting over 118 mph... with clubs strapped to the back, no less. Scroll down to check out the video of the full run from two angles. As a bonus, there's a another clip down there of one of the company's vehicles drag racing a Ford Mustang, and the cart sounds like a dentist's drill.

I officially gave up after 758 miles. The 15 or so miles leading up to this decision were spent in the right lane of Southern California's I-8 freeway, hazard lights blinking, climbing uphill at just over 40 miles per hour. After two days of sweating to the oldies (okay, a mix of SiriusXM Classic Rewind and First Wave), I had covered those 758 miles in a 2015 Audi A3 TDI on one tank of diesel fuel. And when I say sweating, I mean it quite literally. In order to maximize fuel efficiency, my co-driver and I kept the air conditioning off, even when the direct sunlight in the California desert had outside temperatures hovering around 90 degrees. I had been doing this hypermiling exercise for two days, the car was getting stinky, and I was ready to hear the sweet "thhhhhhhwack" of satisfaction that would finally come from peeling my sweat-soaked self off the A3's leather seat. Sexy, I know.

Audi had challenged me to drive 834 miles from Albuquerque, NM to San Diego, CA, on just one 13.2-gallon tank of diesel fuel. If you believe the EPA's highway fuel economy rating of 43 miles per gallon, this means I should have sputtered to a stop after 568 miles. But I went a grand total of 758 – that's 59.4 mpg – and I could have kept going. In fact, two teams made it the full 834 miles on their one allotted tank of fuel. That's over 63 mpg. That's twenty miles per gallon better than EPA estimates.

The TDI Challenge took me through three states over the course of two days, and the 834-mile journey wasn't just a simple highway cruise. I negotiated uphill climbs, long series of involving switchbacks through the mountains and elevations that ranged from 220 feet below sea level to nearly 8,000 feet above. I learned that super-crazy-efficient driving like this an incredibly challenging game that takes serious skill. But I also learned that if you're going to attempt to stomp all over the EPA's numbers, the Audi A3 TDI is one heck of a car for the journey.

CARB has fined Chevron $329,700 for over-oxygenated gasoline. The regulations put the cap for oxygenates at 10 percent, but 4.4 million gallons of Chevron gas from 2010 and 2011 were found to have about 11 percent. While adding oxygenates to gasoline helps reduce carbon monoxide and soot, over-oxygenation creates excessive nitrogen oxide emissions. $247,275 of the fines will go to the California Air Pollution Control Fund, with $82,425 going toward a project to clean up or replace polluting diesel school buses in California. Read more at Green Car Congress.

Tritium is launching Australia's largest EV fast-charging network. Centered on Brisbane, the Fast Cities Network extends northward along the coast to Noosa, southward to Byron and westward to Toowoomba. The network will be made up of twelve Veefil fast-charging stations, with four in Brisbane and eight at popular destinations along the mentioned routes. Veefil chargers are made by Tritium in Australia. Read more at Green Car Congress.

Chinese researchers have created the highest octane gasoline ever produced from biomass. By processing γ-valerolactone (from biomass) with an ionic liquid catalyst, they were able to produce fuel with an octane number of 95.4. Nankai University's Liang-Nian believes this breakthrough will "stimulate further interest in more cost-efficient processes to produce biomass-based gasoline on a larger scale." The next step is to reach for even higher octane numbers and find ways to produce the fuels more efficiently. Read more at Green Car Congress.

New research from Tsinghua University blames smog for 670,000 premature deaths in China every year. The pollution, much of which comes from burning of coal, leads to diseases such as strokes, lung cancer, coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The main culprit is the carcinogenic PM2.5 particulate matter, which 70 percent of the population is exposed to in quantities greater than China's own health benchmarks. Other estimates point to greater and lower death tolls, but the problem is serious regardless even on the low end of the scale. Read more at Treehugger.

Despite a recent setback in the UK, Daimler's carsharing company Car2go remains in expansion mode. The company is currently studying the scene in China (and other countries) to see where the next batch of blue-and-white Smart Fortwo cars will land.

"We are looking at the opportunities and doing a lot of market research about [China]." – Moovel China's Su Shasha

Su Shasha, from Moovel China's business development department, would not confirm that Car2go would one day be available in China, but did tell AutoblogGreen, "We are looking at all kinds of locations and opportunities worldwide, and China is definitely one big market with many populated cities. We are looking at the opportunities and doing a lot of market research about it. We don't have any concrete plans for the details of the launch yet." Su wouldn't say how long Daimler has been studying China as a place to expand Car2go or when the results of the internal study would be made public.

Car2go was on display at the 2014 Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Chengdu, China. Su said that the purpose of the cars on display was to gauge interest from the people attending the event. She did say that people were interested in the exhibit, so that's a start.

Daimler is looking for more workers to bring Car2go to China. An online job opening for a "Trainee as Financial Analyst for Car2go China" says that the new hire will be responsible for "continuously refining the car2go China business case," supporting "the local management with business analysis on achieving the growth targets and the refinement of the business model based on the planned roll-outs" and making sure the Car2go plan doesn't run afoul of any local laws. Sounds pretty serious to us.

It took more than the high cost of gas to kill off the Hummer brand, but the military/civilian vehicle's near-endless need for fuel didn't help sales when gas prices started to climb. Turns out, there is still a thirst for the gas-devouring vehicle in the US. The evidence is anecdotal at best, but since we know prices at the pump can change car shopping behavior in America, the idea that more people want a Hummer now than they have these past few years doesn't surprise us at all.

Gas prices in the US are currently sitting at $2.926 a gallon, on average, much lower than the $3.186 per gallon they were a year ago and below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2010. According to the Washington Post, this is causing a slight uptick in used Hummer H1 sales. With a fuel consumption rate of around 12 miles per gallon, every penny drop in gas prices has a big impact on the H1's running costs. Read more on the newfound Hummer lust at the WaPo, including how online interest in H1s was up 11 percent at Autotrader last month.

Late last month, TrueCar issued a report on the recent increase in new vehicle sales of large SUVs and pick-up trucks, thanks to falling fuel costs. TrueCar president John Krafcik said in a statement that, "Hybrid popularity is waning, and the country's love of the full-size pickup truck is remarkable.'' Looks like that love extends to the used lot as well. Anyone know someone who has re-joined the Hummer brigade?

We won't even ask how much torque it'll produce, but we could easily see the number cresting 450 lb-ft.

From dual-clutch transmissions to W-shaped engine blocks, the Volkswagen Group has certainly contributed more than its fair share of powertrain innovations to the automotive world. The German industrial giant isn't about to quit while it's ahead – instead, it's just announced a slew of new technologies at its 2014 Innovation Workshop. The list of new developments is long, but some of the most noteworthy advances include a new high-performance diesel engine and a ten-speed(!) dual-clutch gearbox.

Those familiar with the VW Touareg V10 TDI and Audi Q7 V12 TDI will know that the Volkswagen Group has put out some seriously powerful diesel engines in the past. The former kicked out 309 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque, after all, and the latter an even more impressive 493 hp and 738 lb-ft – more than enough to pull a jumbo jet, in other words, but they required larger displacements and many cylinders to get there.

That's what makes the new engine so impressive. For its latest European-market Passat, VW introduced a 2.0-liter twin-turbo diesel four kicking out 236 horsepower to give it the highest specific output of any four-cylinder diesel on the market. But now VW is saying it can get even more out of that engine – as much as 268 horsepower, to be precise. We won't even ask how much torque it'll produce, but we could easily see the number cresting 450 lb-ft. That'd put it ahead of the 3.0-liter V6 TDI offered in many Audi models, albeit with two fewer cylinders.

Another noteworthy innovation is the introduction of a new ten-speed dual-clutch gearbox. VW introduced the world's first production DSG in its German-market Golf R32 back in 2003 and soon rolled out the tech worldwide on the Audi TT. It's since offered both six- and seven-speed variants, but with other manufacturers rolling out conventional torque-converter automatics with many more speeds, VW's getting back ahead of the curve with this new ten-speed unit. There's no word yet on when we can expect to see it put into production, but the German automaker says it's been developed to handle up to 405 lb-ft of torque.

Other new technologies announced include a smarter stop/start system that turns off the engine while rolling to a stop, motorsport-derived lightweight sandwich body panel construction and a smarter navigation system that learns your driving habits. Delve into the full details in the press release below.

There's just something appealing about the idea of a solar-powered road. Letting that ugly ribbon through the countryside generate power, interact smartly with cars, bikes and pedestrians and even charging up your electric car. It all just seems magical, doesn't it? Well, yes, which is why there are so many critics of a small (230 feet), $3.7 million solar bike path test space that was just installed in Holland.

Treehugger has rounded up a good collection of reasons why putting solar into roadways isn't a great idea, most reasonably that you can generate a lot more electricity is you just throw traditional panels up onto a nearby roof instead of making special "heavy textured tempered glass" that will get scuffed up and dirty. Even the people behind the Solaroad bike lane test admit that, compared to a rooftop solar setup of the same size, the bike path will only generated 30 percent as much power.

But TNO, which is supporting the project, says that we should perhaps let this test play out, because this is about more than simply providing power:

A solar energy road will offer a unique chance to integrate different functions into the road surface. Sensors gathering information about traffic circulation can help improve traffic management, or even allow automatic vehicle guidance. Other possible functions are variable road markings, 'tag-along' LED-lights and heating in winter. And eventually, a system for wireless energy transfer to vehicles.

That dream is powerful. You can read more in this PDF and the press release below.