2015 BMW i8: Sexy Plug-In Hybrid Sport Coupe Coming Later This Year

With awareness of the 2014 BMW i3 battery-electric car starting to rise--it will arrive at dealers in late April or early May--it's sometimes easy to forget that BMW has a second plug-in car following close behind.

And unlike the i3, whose looks are controversial, there's very little debate over the design of the 2015 BMW i8 plug-in hybrid sport coupe.
Pretty much everyone thinks it looks just fantastic.
And that's even before neat technological breakthroughs like the laser headlights.
And adding to the style quotient, we learned today--courtesy of an excited BMW press release--that famed French luxury brand Louis Vuitton will be offering custom-fitted carbon-fiber luggage for the i8.

The two travel bags are described as "a business case and a garment bag," each one "tailor-made to fit perfectly into the interior" of the plug-in hybrid sports car.
But lots of makers offer elegant, sexy sport coupes--think Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, and the rest.
Granted that its body shell is made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) riding on an aluminum platform carrying the crash structures and running gear, it's still the plug-in hybrid powertrain--BMW's first--that really sets the i8 apart.

Its rear-mounted and turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine, adapted from one used in the latest 2014 MINI Cooper, provides an output of 231 horsepower and 236 lb-ft of torque, and drives the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox.

The car has a liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack with a usable capacity of 5 kilowatt-hours, housed in a wide tunnel between the two seats. It powers an electric motor driving the front wheels that's rated at 96 kilowatts (131 hp) and 184 lb-ft of torque.

In all-electric mode, the BMW i8 can run up to 22 miles, at a top speed limited to 75 mph.

The i8 can run electrically (with the front wheels powered) or on gasoline only (through the rear wheels), with all-wheel drive provided when both sets of wheels are powered at the same time.

Performance with all wheels driven is simply the sum of the two maximums: power output of 362 hp and torque of 420 lb-ft.

That arrangement makes the BMW i8 what's called a "through-the-road hybrid," a formulation also used by the far more expensive and limited-edition Porsche 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid sports car.

The car's statistics are impressive: curb weight of just 3,285 pounds, a drag coefficient of 0.26, and a center of gravity less than 18 inches above the ground.

The company's press release calls it a "revolutionary interpretation" of BMW's tradition of driving pleasure, and for once, the word "revolutionary" may not be hyperbole.

The BMW i8 will start at $135,925 including destination--or roughly three times the cost of the smaller i3 battery-electric car that will precede it.

It should arrive at BMW dealers within six to nine months.

Published at : Green Car Reports

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US Navy’s Arctic strategy forecasts ice-free shipping routes

   

By 2030, the Arctic’s Northern Sea Route could be ice free and navigable for at least nine weeks each year, with a 10-week ‘shoulder season’, according to projections released today in the US Navy’s Arctic strategy. The Northwest Passage could be open for five weeks, with a six-week shoulder season; and the Bering Strait could be ice free for a whopping 27 weeks a year, with up to 10 weeks of shoulder season.

New shipping lanes are just one potential consequence of the ongoing loss of the Arctic’s blanket of snow and ice, which has accelerated in recent years. The Navy also projects that the region’s waterways will see rising activity from fishing, tourism and oil and gas exploration. But in its updated Arctic strategy, the service dismisses any suggestion that newfound access to Arctic resources will create a new Wild West.

Arctic sea lanes such as the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage “are not going to replace the Suez or Panama canals any time soon as primary shipping routes,” says Rear Admiral Bill McQuilkin, director of the US Navy’s strategy and policy division. Even in ice-free waters, ships may be hampered by drifting ice or incomplete nautical charts, creating an unacceptable level of risk for many industries.

Still, the region is likely to grow in strategic importance. The Navy’s report notes that the Arctic is home to an estimated 22% of the world’s undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves. With that in mind, the service says that it plans to improve its ability to operate in the Far North, though its new plan avoids specific discussion of the equipment and infrastructure that will require. “It’s not a rush to the Arctic,” McQuilkin says. “We’re making sure we’re pacing ourselves here — and we’re ready to go up there when required.”

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Windows may kill up to 988 million birds a year in the United States

Between 365 million and 988 million birds die from crashing into windows in the United States each year, according to the latest estimate.
That might equal 2 to 10 percent of the (admittedly uncertain) total bird population of the country.

The biggest share of the deaths comes not from glass massacres at skyscrapers but from occasional collisions with the nation’s many small buildings, says Scott Loss of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. “It’s death by a million nicks.”

Low-rise buildings four to 11 stories tall account for about 56 percent of deaths in the new estimate, Loss and his colleagues report in the February Condor: Ornithological Applications. Residences that are one to three stories tall make up around 44 percent, with skyscrapers representing less than 1 percent.

Any given small building kills only a few birds each year versus the 24 expected to die annually at a single skyscraper. But the United States has about 15.1 million low-rises and 122.9 million small residences, and only about 21,000 skyscrapers. Loss applauds efforts to make skyscrapers bird-friendly, but cautions that protecting birds takes a broader effort.

Some species — many of them Neotropical migrants — appear especially vulnerable to the deceptions of windows, Loss and his colleagues find. Among the possible reasons are the risks of disorientation from artificial lights for birds on long-haul migrations at night. Compiling data from all kinds of buildings, the team found that Anna’s hummingbirds, black-throated blue warblers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, Townsend’s solitaires and golden-winged warblers topped the risk list.

Among those birds, conservationists have already flagged the golden-winged warbler because of its steep population decline in recent decades. Six other troubled species nationally also rank high in vulnerability to window crashes, including painted buntings, wood thrushes and Kentucky warblers.

It’s these already distressed species that worry Loss the most. For individual species with dwindling numbers, he imagines window kills might affect population trends.

The estimate puts windows, just behind cats, as the second-largest source of human-related menaces that kill birds directly (SN: 2/23/13, p. 14). From what Loss knows of estimates of other perils to birds such as wind turbines and vehicle kills, he says, “nothing else comes close.”

There’s no nationwide reporting of birds thumping into glass or succumbing to a paw, so estimating death tolls has long been difficult and controversial (SN: 9/21/13, p. 20). The new estimate of mortality from windows, based on statistical analysis of 23 local studies, comes close to an old estimate (100 million to 1 billion) that had been derided for its simple, back-of-the-envelope approach. “We were a little surprised,” Loss says.

There are plenty of uncertainties in extrapolating from small, diverse, local studies, particularly in trying to estimate overall species vulnerabilities, says Wayne Thogmartin of the U.S. Geological Survey in LaCrosse, Wis. But even such “imperfect science” has value, he says. For one thing, it may inspire people to start filling in gaps in data.

The total for window kills isn’t the whole story, though, says ornithologist Daniel Klem Jr. of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., who did the earlier calculation: “The moral imperative of preventing even one unwanted and unintended death of these utilitarian and aesthetically pleasing creatures is, or should be, compelling enough.”
Pulished at; ScienceNews

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Nothing so sweet as a voice like your own Study finds

Have you ever noticed that your best friends speak the same way? A new University of British Columbia study finds we prefer voices that are similar to our own because they convey a soothing sense of community and social belongingness.While previous research has suggested that we prefer voices that sound like they are coming from smaller women or bigger men, the new study – published today in the journalPLOS ONE – identifies a variety of other acoustic signals that we find appealing.

"The voice is an amazingly flexible tool that we use to construct our identity," says lead author Molly Babel, a professor in the Department of Linguistics. "Very few things in our voices are immutable, so we felt that our preferences had to be about more than a person's shape and size."

Aside from identifying the overwhelming allure of one's own regional dialects, the study finds key gender differences. It showed a preference for men who spoke with a shorter average word length, and for "larger" sounding male voices, a finding that supports previous research.

For females, there was also a strong preference for breathier voices – a la Marilyn Monroe – as opposed to the creakier voices of the Kardashians or Ellen Page. The allure of breathiness – which typically results from younger and thinner vocal cords – relates to our cultural obsession with youthfulness and health, the researchers say. A creaky voice might suggest a person has a cold, is tired or smokes regularly.

Babel says the findings indicate that our preference for voices aren't all about body size and finding a mate, it is also about fitting in to our social groups.

Background

Babel and her colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz asked college-aged participants in California to rate the attractiveness of male and female voices from people living west of the Mississippi River.

They found that participants preferred different acoustic signals for males and females – and the strongest predictors of voice preference are specific to the community that you're a part of.

For example, the Californian participants had a strong preference for female voices that pronounced the "oo" vowel sound from a word like "goose" further forward in the mouth. This has been a characteristic of California speech since at least the early 1980's. In many other regions of North America, people would pronounce the "oo" sound farther back in the mouth, as one might hear in the movie Fargo.

The preference for males who had shorter average word length relates to a difference between how men and women speak. In North American English, longer average word length is a style typically used by women while shorter average word length is one used by men. The preference for men with shorter average word length connects to what we consider normal or average.

Foreign accents

Given the anecdotal evidence of people's preference for foreign accents, Babel theorizes that at a certain point the exotic is also appealing. "Once you are outside of a certain range of familiarity, novel and exotic sounding voices might become more attractive," she says. "We also have to keep in mind that we find some accents more preferable than others because of social stereotypes that are associated with them."

Publish at :Medical Press

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New Mazda Hazumi Concept Is New Mazda 2, Next Toyota Yaris Too

With the new Mazda3, Mazda6 and CX-5 crossover launched over the last few years, you might have forgotten the smaller Mazda2 subcompact even exists.

Mazda hasn't forgotten the 2 though, and will unveil a new subcompact concept car at the Geneva Motor Show to point the way to its replacement.

Mazda calls it the Hazumi, which means "bound" or "spring up" in Japanese, a reference to a small car that's apparently "bursting with energy".

Styling will echo that of Mazda's larger models, part of the firm's 'Kodo, soul of motion' design language. That much is clear even in the teaser image, which shows a front light cluster, grille edge and curving flanks very like that of the Mazda3 hatchback.

The car will be a vital one for Mazda in the U.S, as its underpinnings will also be found under the next-generation Yaris.

Toyota revealed back in late 2012 that the next-gen Yaris will sit on the next Mazda2 platform, and both cars will be produced at Mazda's facility in Salamanca, Mexico.

Up to 50,000 cars per year will roll out of the factory, giving both automakers a stronger presence in the subcompact sector. Mazda, a relatively small independent automaker, will gain from economies of scale, while Toyota will help protect itself from fluctuations in the Yen with Mexican production.

As well as the Hazumi concept, Mazda is also bringing a brand-new 1.5-liter Skyactiv-D diesel engine to Geneva. Few details are known at this time, but Geneva will mark the engine's worldwide debut.

Mazda is also planning a celebration of the MX-5 sports car's 25th anniversary at the Swiss show.

Head over to our Geneva Motor Show hub page to discover more news and launches from the show, which opens to the press on March 4.

Publish at : Green car reports

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Lend an ear to science

Pop music hit maker Clive Davis knows a catchy song when he hears one. Now an app aims to define that elusive quality more concretely.

Designed by computer and cognitive scientists at the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Hooked! asks citizen scientists to help uncover the mystery ingredients of a hook — the most memorable part of a song. The results might illuminate how music taps into memories and emotions in the brain. First the app drops the needle somewhere in the middle of one of the 2,000 most popular songs of all time. Listeners quickly report whether they know the tune or not. To test whether the listener really does know the song, the app then turns off the music.

Listeners follow along in their heads until the tune restarts, then judge whether the song is in the right place or not. The better people are at remembering the song, the more likely the snippet is to be a hook, the researchers reason. Occasionally, the app also asks people to pick the catchiest snippet of a song. As people tune in, the program will analyze which sound patterns and qualities make a hook memorable. Hooked! is available free for iOS devices in the iTunes store.

Publish at : ScienceNews

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GEAR AND GADGETS Tasty Tech Eye Candy Of The Week

This week in tech, we present amazing concepts from exceptionally creative minds. These ideas are so good, you'll wonder why no one invented them before. How about germ-proof clothing? Odors that can be sent via text message? A car that comes with its own drone and a fish that's able to drive an aquarium. Those are just a few. Read on.

STRING JUNGLE GYM: Croatian-Austrian collective Numen/For Use is known for its large-scale interactive environments. The group's latest design is an inflatable building rigged with a network of cables. The String Prototype gives kids and adults alike a jungle gym experience. Climb aboard.

Publish at : News

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Pillow Nudges Sleepers To Stop Snoring

Trying to sleep next to a snorer is a nightmare, with not much middle ground for solution. At best, bed mates can look forward to a night of interrupted rest and nudging the other to turn over. Worst case scenario, the snorer is diagnosed with sleep apnea and forced to wear one of thosesleep apnea masks.However, with its snore-triggered nudging pillow, goofy gadget emporium Hammacher Schlemmer may have what it takes for a peaceful night of slumber. The pillow includes a microphone that picks up the sonic vibrations of snoring. When snores are detected, an air bag inflates the pillow by three inches, enough to nudge the snorer into changing positions.The pillow’s microphone can be calibrated to detect light or heavy snoring. The inflation feature can also be controlled manually, if one’s partner wants to give the elbow nudging a rest.Unfortunately, the pillow in powered by an AC adapter, so it needs to be plugged in. Which, in my case, would be a real threat. With all the tossing and turning I do, having any type of power cord in bed is liable to tangle me up or destroy everything on the nightstand.

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Hummingbirds May Change Their Tunes to Attract Females

  

The male hummingbird is a dedicated suitor, returning to the same place every day for up to eight months a year to trumpet his availability–for as long as eight hours at a stretch. He’ll repeat his song two times per second, hoping for a female to heed his call.Hummingbirds’ songs are distinguished by more than just their duration; the birds are among a select group that learn their vocalizations (songbirds and parrots are the other two). Songs can vary by individual or by location, creating what scientists call “song neighborhoods” and “dialects.

”Scientists had long thought that male hummingbirds learned their song while young and then “crystallized” that melody for life.

But Marcelo Araya Salas and Timothy Wright, biologists at New Mexico State University, have recently observed some male long-billed hermit hummingbirds (Phaethornis longirostris)changing their tunes in Costa Rica, suggesting they are capable of learning new songs even later in life. (See hummingbird pictures.)

“In most cases this new song also matches those of neighbors,” says Wright, whose work is partly funded by a National Geographic Society grant. “But occasionally a male will develop a brand-new song type.” According to Wright, this marks “the first time such open-ended learning has been shown in a hummingbird.”

                                                               

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Fisker Assets Sold For $149 Million

The assets of bankrupt Fisker Automotive were sold to Wanxiang America at the close of an auction in Delaware bankruptcy court that lasted more than two days and lasted 19 rounds.

Bloomberg reports that the Chinese company paid a total of $149.2 million for the company, or six times the price of $25 million first offered by unsuccessful bidder Hybrid Tech Holdings, whose opening bid was $55 million as the auction began.Winning bidder Wanxiang is China's largest auto-parts group. It also owns A123 Systems, the lithium-ion cell maker whose batteries were used in the luxury range-extended electric Fisker Karma sedan.Hybrid Tech had sought to buy Fisker's assets privately; when Fisker filed for bankruptcy in November, it said it had agreed to that deal.

Hybrid's attempt to gain control of Fisker was spoiled by a late bid from Wanxiang, whereupon Hybrid Tech raised its bid to $55 million. Both Hybrid Tech and Fisker had sought to avoid an auction of the company's assets.But U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross chose instead to put those assets up for open public auction. Fisker's many unsecured creditors would have received little or nothing from the Hybrid Tech bid.

Details Here

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Many Car Dealers Don't Want To Sell Electric Cars: Here's Why

The stories abound: A car buyer walks into a dealership, educated about the electric car she wants to buy...and the salesperson tries to convince her she doesn't want that car after all.

She really wants a gasoline car, he argues.Hundreds of cases have been reported of customers walking into a Nissan or Chevy dealer to buy a Leaf or Volt, then being aggressively steered toward a Sentra or Cruze.Doom, danger, dire predictions

A buyer will run out of charge and be left stranded at the side of the road, he hears, or that very expensive battery will have to be replaced in five years.

Then the electric demo car hasn't been recharged, so its electric range is minimal on the test drive. And so forth.

A recent discussion in a Facebook group prompted us to write, once more, about how car dealers work--and what motivates them to sell specific vehicles.The salient point is that it takes much longer to sell a plug-in electric car, today, than it does a gasoline or diesel vehicle.

Maximizing profit

And dealers maximize their profits by exploiting the difference in information about complex financial transactions between buyers who do it once every five or six years, on average, and salespeople who sell multiple cars a day.

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Honda Film: Controlling Air Pollution A 'Never-Ending Race'

The fight to improve air quality may not sound like fodder for a typical Hollywood blockbuster, but Honda has done its best to make the topic exciting.

The latest short film in the company's Environmental Short Film series--this one titled "Never Ending Race"--depicts Honda's efforts to respond to the far stricter Federal and state environmental legislation in the 1970s that resulted from efforts to improve the heavy air pollution in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

It was just like racing, the filmmakers say.

While Los Angeles was experiencing around 100 Stage One smog alerts a year, Honda had just ended several years of competition in Formula One racing.

According to Honda, the tightening of emissions standards that followed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 was a challenge similar to the competition of top-level racing.

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First-Ever Porsche Turns Out To Be An Electric Car

Here's a great piece of bar trivia: The first-ever Porsche was ... an electric car.

While any ardent Porschephile knows that the first Porsche-branded vehicle was the 356 sports carof 1948, the first car designed by Ferdinand Porsche was actually the 1898 "Egger-Lohner electric vehicle, C.2 Phaeton model," or the P1 for short.The P1 was recently recovered from a warehouse where it had reportedly sat untouched since 1902. 

It will be displayed in original, unrestored condition at the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen, Germany.

Designed by Ferdinand Porsche when he was 22 years old, the P1--or Porsche, number one--is powered by a rear-mounted electric drive unit that produces 3 horsepower, harnessed to a 12-speed controller.

The 2,977-pound vehicle had a reported range of 49 miles, and could briefly reach a top speed of 21 mph when in "overdrive" mode, which extracted a full 5 hp from the motor.

One unique feature was the Lohner "alternating" body, which was designed to be detached from the chassis and swapped for another body depending on the driver's needs.

The P1 debuted on the streets of Vienna on July 26, 1898, and competed in the international motor-vehicle exhibition in Berlin the next year. Porsche and three passengers took part in a 24-mile race against other electric cars.

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