This week at TreeHugger: Gasoline-powered cars are probably the most inefficient devices we all use almost every day, but no electric cars that actually resemble conventional cars exist yet. What to do? Convert your ride to electric power; we’ll show you how. Solar powered lights at your house: you know you want some.
Volvo dances up to its place in line in the plug-in electric vehicle parade, taking a spot right after Toyota, Chevy and Ford. Lastly, take a closer look at the KillaCycle, a two-wheeled electric terror that tops out at 157 mph.
Okay, so we should all be driving electric vehicles by now, but we should be eating vegetables instead of Cheetos for dinner, too. Part of the problem: We can’t buy a Tesla yet, and even if we could, we couldn’t afford it. Sure, you can buy a glorified golf cart and buzz around at 20 mph, but that ain’t gonna get it done for most of us, so what to do? Convert your old ride to electric power yourself. Follow these simple (eh, kind of) instructions and you’ll be doing 90 mph, going 80 miles or so between charges, spending pennies per mile.
Not only do solar-powered outdoor lights save energy, but they also save you the hassle of digging ditches, laying wires, and connecting them to an electric grid. If you’re lazy (even just a little bit—it’s okay, you can admit it), these are the gadgets for you; just let the sun do the work for you, and profit as your lights shine on long after the sun goes to bed. Here’s the 411 on how to choose among the three kinds of garden-variety solar lights available, depending on whether you just want standard path lights, something a little fancier, or spotlights that will give you focused lighting.
So far we have had Chevy, Ford and Toyota showing off plug-in hybrids in various stages of production. Next up in the plug-in parade: Volvo. ReCharge as an electric car first, and a hybrid second. For 60+ miles, the ReCharge will operate as a full electric vehicle, drawing power off the lithium-polymer battery. When the battery power lowers to 30%, the “four-cylinder Flexifuel engine” begins to charge the battery. Sounds pretty good; now we just have to see if it’ll makes it to a showroom near you.
Lastly, after seeing it a while back, we’re happy to see the KillaCycle emerge again as an indication that rad green tech is catching on. The good news: at 8.16 seconds and 157 mph on the quarter-mile stretch, the electric bike is just 2 seconds from all-time record set by a motorcycle running on nitromethane. The better news: the manufacturer will soon release a battery pack that doubles the KillaCycle’s horsepower, putting that record within reach. Ooh baby.
TreeHugger’s EcoModo column appears every Tuesday on Gizmodo.
