Pimp my ELECTRIC car…

This company takes cars people already love and electrifies them.

By Jacob Gordon of TreeHugger.com

Click to see more pictures

At a cost of $35,000, the all-electric smart car will be more than twice the price of the recently Americanized gasoline version.

Walk into a Wal-Mart in the not-too-distant future and among the thousands of products for sale will be an electric car. It will not be a remote control car, a golf cart or a little scooter to help granny cruise the aisles. The battery-powered automobile will look every bit like a MINI Cooper. This is because it will be a MINI Cooper, just with a powerful electric motor under the hood and a stack of lithium batteries where the gas tank used to be.

The company responsible for transforming the already-efficient MINI into a zero-emissions electric vehicle (EV) is Hybrid Technologies. At its factory in Mooresville, North Carolina, engineers pull the internal combustion guts from cars such as the Chrysler Crossfire, PT Cruiser, smart fortwo, and the MINI, endowing them with advanced electric powerplants. While several other well-funded startups are racing to build electric cars from scratch, Hybrid Technologies has taken a different line of attack, converting already popular models to battery power.

To Richard Griffiths, the founder and prolific spokesman for Hybrid Technologies, the goal is not to try and sell people on the idea of an electric vehicle, but rather to show them how much fun they can have in electric versions of their favorite cars. Griffiths wants people to start thinking of battery power as a kind of high-end option, like a convertible top or a navigation system.

“You’ll find that whatever great looking vehicle is launched next year, more than likely we’ll begin production on that vehicle,” Griffiths explains. At $65,000 for the MINI, electric power makes for one hefty option. But the appeal is undeniable, as actor George Clooney and singer James Blunt are enthusiastic drivers of Hybrid Technologies conversions.

Power to the People — Who Can Afford It
Hybrid Technologies plans to make 2008 the year that its cars become available to consumers — first through Wal-Mart and then directly. When the all-electric smart car hits the market it will cost $35,000, more than twice the price of the recently Americanized gasoline version. For the time being there is no shortage of customers. NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Military all buy alternative-fueled vehicles for their fleets (part of a Congressional mandate from the Clinton years) and have purchased EVs from Hybrid Technologies.

Working with the military is also a natural fit. Hybrid Technologies started out five years ago helping the military with watercraft and submarine power systems and now provides electric PT Cruisers for base transportation. Griffiths won’t hint at what other sort of projects Hybrid Technologies is building for the military, except to say that since EVs are almost silent they lend themselves to clandestine applications.

The Factory in Reverse
The Hybrid Technologies plant in Mooresville, North Carolina, looks much the way any auto factory should look. Except here, almost as many motors are being pulled out of cars as are being put in. Hybrid Technologies and smart share a core relationship, so for its electric version of the fortwo, Hybrid Technologies obtains what are called “gliders” — intact cars without engines or gas tanks.

For cars such as the Crossfire and PT Cruiser, the motor and other systems are stripped out and sold back to the automaker or others. By building off existing models, Hybrid Technologies gets to focus on the critical part of any electric car — the battery system.

Letting carmakers foot the bill for crash testing is another welcome advantage. The smart fortwo, with its steel safety cell, has been approved by the USDOT. Nevertheless, Hybrid Technologies is working with the Canadian government to crash test fully electric Smart cars for further validation. “At the end of the day,” says Griffiths, “you can keep a fairly large portion of the vehicle consistent with the original OEM, which does allow us a lot more freedom to put our money into the technology as opposed to into the design.”

Paving the Way
Not since General Motors leased out the now-legendary EV1 ten years ago has a large automaker put an all-electric car on the road. With electric cars predominantly in the territory of government contracts and industrious do-it-yourselfers, Hybrid Technologies exists in the gap between the big guns and the hobbyists.

According to Griffiths, automakers are biding their time and waiting for the dust to settle before making big moves toward alternative energies. Companies like his may be paving the way, with Toyota and General Motors poised to swoop in when the public decides its alternative car of choice. In the meantime, Hybrid Technologies is busy developing a product it hopes is “bulletproof.” Noting that reliability is paramount in building confidence in these new electric vehicles, Griffiths adds, “You get one shot at it.”

Jacob Gordon is a freelance writer, a blogger for TreeHugger.com, and producer of TreeHugger Radio. He can be reached at jacob@treehugger.com.

World’s smallest, lightest phone?

Did the start-up Modu create the World’s smallest, lightest phone?

An Israeli developed modular mobile phone has been introduced today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, with manufacturer modu claiming to have the world’s smallest and lightest mobile phone, weighing in at a featherweight 1.5 ounces.

modu’s unique selling point is that the phone can be upgraded in a modular fashion, with users being able to add on ‘jackets’ such as a camera, GPS or a larger screen.

Plug in to car stereos and other devices The 2.5G GSM phone can also be plugged into other devices such as Blaupunkt car stereos or Dect internet and home phones.

modu was set up in 2007 by leading technology innovator and entrepreneur Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB Flash Drive.

“It’s a unique concept not seen in the market or in major brands today,” said Modu’s Itay Sherman.

Mr Sherman added: “When you want to change your phone it can be expensive, because a phone is a complex device. But if you just want to change the look, the design or a feature like a camera then Modu is much simpler.”

A disruptive concept SanDisk CEO, Eli Harari, said: “modu is a disruptive concept in the well established mobile market. The modu proposition is unique and compelling to consumers, mobile network operators and consumer electronics companies alike.”

(Article written by Adam Hartley)

Click here for more info about Modu.

Cannabis vending machines rolled out in LA

Amsterdam (The Netherlands) is considered to be the drugs capital of the world, but we don’t have the vending machines they have for cannabis in Los Angeles (USA):

The world’s first cannabis vending machines have been launched in Los Angeles.But not everyone will be able to get there hands on the drug, as it will only be dispensed to people who have a legal medical prescription for it.A choice of six different types of cannabis are available from the handy machines, which are protected by security guards 24-hours a day.

And Vince Mehdizadeh, the owner of the Herbal Nutrition Center, is hoping the move will promote more accountability in the medicinal use of the drug - which is legal in 11 states in the US.

Mr Mehdizadeh said: “It’s looking to be regulated, why not have it regulated in this way, with actual transactions, after transactions, being documented, so that state taxes can be paid, fed taxes can be paid and everything is lucid and clear and out in the open for all to see.”

Before being allowed to use the machines, patients are photographed, fingerprinted and entered into a database that helps keep track of their usage.

They will then be issued with a prepaid security card, that along with their fingerprint ID, will allow them access to the drug at any time of the day.

California voters backed an initiative in 1996 allowing the smoking of marijuana for medical purposes - a use barred by federal law.

MSN, 30-1-2008 (http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=7401141#toolbar)
MSNBC, 30-1-2008 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22910820/?GT1=10755)

What is your opinion on drugs? Do you agree on the difference between soft and hard drugs? Should soft drugs be legalized?

In Holland we have a very weird legislation on drug: hard drugs is illegal and soft drugs is legal to use, but illegal to trade/sell… Yes, I know so if it is illegal to sell soft drugs, how can you buy it and use it in a legal way. But studies in Holland have shown that when soft drugs is legalized the usage goes down… Yes, you have read it correctly, when things are illegal, people will want it more!

What they are doing in the US is also intersting… Soft drugs as a medicine… What do you think?

“On the Jewish Question”: Update about political situation Israel

This is an interesting article written by Bernard Lewis, a historian with special interest in the Middle East, published in the Wall Street Journal. This was written as an introduction for the Annapolis ‘Peace’ Conference (11-2007) and to update one about the situation and why the conference is (or actually was) doomed to fail:

On the Jewish Question

By BERNARD LEWIS
November 26, 2007; Page A21 Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB119604260214503526-lMyQjAxMDE3OTI2NjAyNDYyWj.html

Herewith some thoughts about tomorrow’s Annapolis peace conference, and the larger problem of how to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict. The first question (one might think it is obvious but apparently not) is, “What is the conflict about?” There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence.

If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.

If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that’s not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

A good example of how this problem affects negotiation is the much-discussed refugee question. During the fighting in 1947-1948, about three-fourths of a million Arabs fled or were driven (both are true in different places) from Israel and found refuge in the neighboring Arab countries. In the same period and after, a slightly greater number of Jews fled or were driven from Arab countries, first from the Arab-controlled part of mandatory Palestine (where not a single Jew was permitted to remain), then from the Arab countries where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, or in some places for millennia. Most Jewish refugees found their way to Israel.

What happened was thus, in effect, an exchange of populations not unlike that which took place in the Indian subcontinent in the previous year, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. Millions of refugees fled or were driven both ways — Hindus and others from Pakistan to India, Muslims from India to Pakistan. Another example was Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, when the Soviets annexed a large piece of eastern Poland and compensated the Poles with a slice of eastern Germany. This too led to a massive refugee movement — Poles fled or were driven from the Soviet Union into Poland, Germans fled or were driven from Poland into Germany.

The Poles and the Germans, the Hindus and the Muslims, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands, all were resettled in their new homes and accorded the normal rights of citizenship. More remarkably, this was done without international aid. The one exception was the Palestinian Arabs in neighboring Arab countries.

The government of Jordan granted Palestinian Arabs a form of citizenship, but kept them in refugee camps. In the other Arab countries, they were and remained stateless aliens without rights or opportunities, maintained by U.N. funding. Paradoxically, if a Palestinian fled to Britain or America, he was eligible for naturalization after five years, and his locally-born children were citizens by birth. If he went to Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, he and his descendants remained stateless, now entering the fourth or fifth generation.

The reason for this has been stated by various Arab spokesmen. It is the need to preserve the Palestinians as a separate entity until the time when they will return and reclaim the whole of Palestine; that is to say, all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. The demand for the “return” of the refugees, in other words, means the destruction of Israel. This is highly unlikely to be approved by any Israeli government.

There are signs of change in some Arab circles, of a willingness to accept Israel and even to see the possibility of a positive Israeli contribution to the public life of the region. But such opinions are only furtively expressed. Sometimes, those who dare to express them are jailed or worse. These opinions have as yet little or no impact on the leadership.

Which brings us back to the Annapolis summit. If the issue is not the size of Israel, but its existence, negotiations are foredoomed. And in light of the past record, it is clear that is and will remain the issue, until the Arab leadership either achieves or renounces its purpose — to destroy Israel. Both seem equally unlikely for the time being.

Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of “From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East” (Oxford University Press, 2004).

2007: Year in pictures

Like last year, MSNBC, made an amazing compilation of the most breath taking images and pictures of 2007!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22200921

‘Our’ Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Most recent article)

Her most recent article in the International Herald Tribune:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/15/opinion/edayaan.php

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography is titled “Infidel.” A Somali immigrant, she was a member of the Dutch Parliament and on a hit list of Muslim radicals for writing the screenplay for the film “Submission.”