And the Fight Begins

Green Shuttle?

As eco-friendly or green cars hit the streets, will there be a need to re-write the laws for taxis? The fight has begun in Houston, Texas with a new company called Rev Houston. It was started in April of 2008 by Erik Ibarra and his brother. They have 3 small electric cars on the streets of downtown and midtown Houston, picking up passenger who TIP instead of paying a metered fare for short trips.

The city believes that they are breaking the law. One of the laws they believe they have broken is the fact that they do not carry a fire extinguisher. The problem there is that the vehicle does not have a single drop of combustible liquid. They also do not have a meter. They do not have a taxi cab license.

So, the city has ticketed this company 15 times so far this year at $150 to $200 per pop. It certainly is costing them to run the streets, legal or not.

The other problem they have to deal with is the taxi companies themselves. As we all know, taxis are regulated by the city, along with the fact that taxis do not take short trips. At least that is true in Houston. I do not know if that is so in cities like Chicago or New York.

The Yellow Cab Company is yelling that it is unfair that Rev Houston is not being regulated. Perhaps if all involved looked at Rev Houston as a trolley car like in San Francisco, this could be a deal maker.

Some have come up with giving them a jitney license. The only problem with that according to Erik is that it requires him to drive a set route within the city. That is not what the company stands for.

So what do you think? Should Rev Houston be required to follow what taxis are required to do? Should Rev Houston continue on its merry way as it does today, running on tips for short trips?

As the green future unfolds……..

BTW, keep your eye open here at Forced Green. We will be announcing something very soon that will be of interest to all.

Hydrogen Scorpion Car

A Texas startup has finally pulled the wraps off its 40-mpg, 450-horsepower Scorpion roadster, a hand-built hydrogen-burning "eco-exotic" that is sexier than Angelina Jolie and has the performance to provide more grins than nitrous oxide.


Ronn Motor Company unveiled the Scorpion today at the big SEMA, or Speciality Equipment Market Association, automotive trade show in Las Vegas, which may be the perfect place to debut so flashy — and innovative — a car. The company hopes the Scorpion does for hydrogen what the Tesla Roadster has done for batteries.


"We want to build cool cars, just more responsibly”, company president Ronn Maxwell told Wired.com. "Our hope with the Scorpion is to implement a paradigm shift not only in how the industry looks at supercars but at cars in general."


The Scorpion gets its sting from a hydrogen delivery system the company calls H2GO. While cars like the Honda FCX Clarity and Chevrolet Equinox use hydrogen fuel cells to drive electric motors, the Scorpion uses electrolysis to convert water into gaseous hydrogen. The hydrogen is mixed with 91-octane gasoline to improve the fuel economy and reduce the emissions of the car's 3.5-liter internal combustion engine.



Maxwell, a 40-year auto industry vet and lifelong gearhead who holds several patents, is using the limited production — just 200 will be built — Scorpion to prove the technology works and legitimize the H2GO system the company will begin selling for $1,000 early next year. The way he sees it, if H2GO works on the Scorpion, it'll work on your Civic.


Maxwell didn't offer much in the way of specifics, saying the publicly traded company is still dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the venture. But he says H2GO is good for a 15 percent to 33 percent improvement in mileage, a noticeable increase in power and a significant reduction in overall emissions. The company is pursuing EPA certification of the Scorpion so people can get a better idea of what the system is capable of. Maxwell insists the 40-mpg figure is the real deal.


Photos courtesy Ronn Motor Co.

The trucking industry has been using hydrogen boosting for years. But the Scorpion is significant because it uses what the company calls real-time hydrogen delivery as part of an original factory design. And unlike BMW’s Hydrogen 7, Scorpion does not keep any 30-gallon tanks full of liquid hydrogen lying around at −253 °C (−423.4 °F).

“Our system does not require any pressurized hydrogen storage. It’s completely safe and uses water from your garden hose to create hydrogen on demand. We are simply increasing the efficiency of what’s already there”, says company COO Damon Kuhn. “Even better, the infrastructure to support this technology is here right now, not 10 years from now.”

Kuhn is referring to the biggest challenges to hydrogen's use in vehicles — the need for a fueling infrastructure, a venture that by any measure will take many years and many millions of dollars.

Ronn Motors is confident that the sexy Scorpion will top 200 mph. The chrome-moly chassis and carbon-fiber body surrounds a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 in a car that weighs just 2,200 pounds. The engine was sourced from Acura — it's the same mill found in the TL Type S, albeit turbocharged — and mated to a six-speed gearbox. The car will set you back $150,000, and if 450 ponies isn't enough, another $100 grand will get you a tweaked version with another 150 horsepower.

Tom duPont, publisher of the duPont registry, pulled the sheet off the Scorpion this morning and said, “If it was a square box with a bunch of batteries, I wouldn’t be getting pre-orders from NBA basketball players. The exotic styling and amazing performance mixed in with the environmental angle is really inspiring a lot of attention.”