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July 2008 - Posts

• American Le Mans Series kicks off Green Challenge for 2009

  It seems only a short time ago that a $60 barrel of oil caused great concern among industry business leaders, politicians and consumers. There are now predictions that $200 a barrel may be likely. Gasoline prices have escalated to all-time highs while automobile sales are decreasing at rates not seen in decades. Combined with higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change becomes increasingly apparent. While The American Le Mans Series will not portend to have a solution for the escalating price of crude oil, it will profess to have a solution for helping the auto industry - and ultimately consumers. To further emphasize its commitment to help auto manufacturers find alternative fuel solutions and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the American Le Mans Series in concert with the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and SAE International announced at the North American International Auto Show earlier this year that it would implement the first ever Green Challenge™ at its signature event - Petit Le Mans, October 4 at Road Atlanta. Officials from those entities will be on hand to present trophies to the winners for that race-within-a-race. In 2009, the Green Challenge™ will include all Series events and culminate in a Green Challenge™ Championship Award made by these three organizations. In recent months, members of the aforementioned entities have comprised the Green Racing Work Group commissioned with the task of creating the rules, regulations and protocols of that competition in which all race cars would participate in a competition measuring three critical criteria: Performance Fuel Efficiency Environmental Impact "This has been an interesting and challenging process," said Scott Atherton, President and CEO of the American Le Mans Series. "With four different classes of cars, 14 auto and chassis manufacturers, and three different alternative fuels to take into consideration, a formula of how to create a fair competition with real time analysis and a format that is easy to understand and communicate has been very difficult. It has taken hundreds and hundreds of hours and involved some of the finest technical minds in the automotive and energy industries." The American Le Mans Series and internationally recognized Argonne National Laboratory have developed a Green Challenge™ ranking system to be used for all cars competing in the Series. Cars will be ranked by the: amount of energy they use greenhouse gases (GHG) they emit amount of petroleum they displace   GM has embraced the Series' green focus with its two factory Corvette C6.Rs competing in 2008 on cellulosic E85. In brief, race cars that go the farthest, the fastest with the smallest environmental footprint for the energy used will get the lowest scores. The Green Challenge™ point score differs from racing score totals in that the lowest number wins. Two awards will be given - one to the lowest score among the prototype classes (LMP1 and LMP2) and one to the lowest score among the GT classes (GT1 and GT2). Thus, the Prototype and the Grand Touring (GT) race car that uses the least energy, the least petroleum and emits the fewest GHGs on a distance and speed equalized basis will be the winners. During the 2009 season, those teams will earn the same number of points toward the season-long Green Challenge™ Championship as those earned by the race winners each race in the overall American Le Mans Series Championship. All teams will participate and qualify for the Green Challenge™ and receive points for their Green Challenge™ scores for each race based on the Series' race point structure (i.e. maximum points for less than four hours is 20; for four to eight hours, 25; and for more than eight hours, 30). The twist, however, for winning the Green Challenge™ Championship is that each American Le Mans Series team starts off the season with the maximum number of points available for all the scheduled races (i.e. - 250 maximum in 2008). When teams win Green Challenge™ Championship points, they are deducted from this total. As a result, the points decline for successful teams over the course of the season with the lowest total at season's end, winning a Green Challenge™ championship for one prototype and one GT team. The aforementioned ranking factors (energy used, GHGs emitted, petroleum displaced) will be compiled into a single weighted number representing the car's environmental performance. Race cars that use less energy and petroleum and produce fewer GHGs will score low. All measurements and calculations will be done on a well-to-wheel (life cycle analysis) basis, the most comprehensive and realistic approach to establishing the environmental impact of racing. The GREET model developed by Argonne calculates all the energy consumed and the GHGs created from the time the oil is pumped out of the ground, the corn is seeded in the field or the wood waste is harvested, to its use as fuel in the car. [GREET stands for Greenhouse gasses, Regulated Emissions and Energy use in Transportation. It evaluates energy and emission impacts of advanced vehicle technologies and new transportation fuels, the fuel cycle from well to wheels and the vehicle cycle through material recovery and vehicle disposal.]   Audi revolutionized motorsport by building and winning races with its Audi R10 TDI powered by clean, sulfur-free diesel. The difficulty of creating such a formula to rank environmental impact arises from the realities of racing that have to be factored to make valid energy comparisons. Faster cars and heavier cars use more energy and produce more greenhouse gasses than comparable slower or lighter cars. Cars that go farther during a race also require more energy. To develop the formula, Argonne and the American Le Mans Series created "normalizing factors" for each variable so that they could accurately and fairly compare the environmental performance of each car in the race. The normalizing factors took into consideration such things as average speed, distance covered and car weight. These calculations were compared using sophisticated computer modeling with previous races to check their validity. In some cases, the cars that win the race will also get the best environmental performance score, but that will not always be the case. "Motorsports has always enjoyed the distinction of being at the forefront of advanced automotive engineering," said Andy Karsner, U.S. Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, "and it has been a primary catalyst for moving new technologies to the showroom floor. The leadership role the American Le Mans Series has taken by embracing open and diverse alternative fuel technology platforms has not only set the bar for automotive racing, but it has helped redefine the future of the transportation sector." The American Le Mans Series, where automobile manufacturers race to develop technologies for future consumer cars, is the only racing series in the world where all its cars race on not one, not two, but three alternative "street legal" fuels: clean sulfur-free diesel, E10 and cellulosic E85 ... with rumors of a next-generation hybrid soon to come. "Street legal" refers to fuels that are virtually the same as the consumer buys at the fuel station. The Series has 11 auto manufacturers/marques involved, more than any other major racing series in the world. "We have always claimed to be the most relevant racing series on the planet," said Atherton. "Now, we hope to play a role in saving that planet by working with manufacturers on innovative alternative fuel solutions and new technologies. We believe this could be truly paradigm shifting by effectively putting the auto back into auto racing and taking the sport from a form that for some has been primarily entertainment-focused to one that is also relevant and issue-focused. We are working with the car companies on new technology that matters." For more information on ALMS, visit www.americanlemans.com.     Posted Jul 17 2008, 09:52 AM by bbaker with no comments Filed under: Alternative Fuel, Racing

• Rebate checks going to car repairs, not new cars

  By NEIL WHITE, The State Tony Nguyen doesn’t need a business analyst to tell him why major automakers are considering cutbacks in the face of sluggish sales. He sees it every day in his Seven Oaks Auto Repair on Piney Grove Road. Nguyen used to have customers facing expensive repairs tell him they were going to buy a new car instead. “But in today’s world, people are fixing their cars instead of buying them,” he said. General Motors is preparing to cut thousands of jobs and possibly unload one or more of its brands, according to published reports Monday. Ford has already taken similar measures. In an economic downturn, the decision to repair a car as opposed to getting a new one has customers shifting gears. “It’s cheaper to fix a car than to buy a new car,” said Tanya Blankenship, who has run Danny’s Automotive in Northeast Richland with her husband, Danny, since 1999. “We’ve seen a lot more transmission repairs. We’ve done more head gaskets this year than in a long time. In the past, people wouldn’t fix that kind of stuff.” Nguyen estimates an average transmission overhaul would cost anywhere from $1,800 to $2,800. But even a used model, such as a 2006 Ford Taurus on cars.com at $16,000, would cost $400 a month over four years. Faron Waguespack of Columbia, a regular customer of Seven Oaks Auto Repair, had his teenage son’s 1994 Dodge Ram pickup in the shop this week for cable accelerator work. In addition to the pickup with 190,000 miles, his family also has a 2003 Ford Expedition with 60,000 miles and a 1983 Datsun 280-ZX with 100,000 miles. “Without a doubt, I can maintain and fix my cars easier and quicker and cheaper than I can paying a car note and high property taxes,” he said. “I’m all about maintenance.” Nguyen believes his business benefited from the economic-stimulus package that had tax rebates coming to people in the past couple of months. “Rather than spend that on a $20,000 to $30,000 new vehicle, they took that $1,000 and spent it on repairs,” he said. Danny’s Automotive has a pair of regular customers who do what they can to keep their cars running, even when the required repairs start to add up. Raymond Foster drives a 1998 Ford Explorer with more than 174,000 miles. He recently had exhaust manifold and suspension work done on it because he likes the idea of keeping it. “Twice in the last four years, I’ve put $1,400 to $1,600 in it at one time. But that’s still more cost-effective than going out to get a new vehicle,” said Foster, who added it’s also important to have a mechanic you can trust who knows the car. “Four or five months of payments is better than six or seven years of payments with interest.” Mike Metzger of Columbia has four cars, including a 1999 Chevy Suburban with 120,000 miles and a 2000 Cadillac Escalade with 225,000 miles. Because he has regular maintenance done on them, he has no problems sending his daughter off to college in a vehicle with that many miles. “You’re looking at $25,000-$30,000 for a decent size car,” Metzger said, “and you can repair them for a long time for that kind of money.”  From www.thestate.com Posted Jul 16 2008, 01:47 PM by bbaker with no comments Filed under: view from the shop