The unexpected stars of this year's Geneva Motor Show were small cars. I expected hybrids or electrics to really make news but small cars stole the show. One of those small car stars was the Toyota iQ which will be released in half a year or so. How did Toyota do that? I think they had some help from Daihatsu, a car company Toyota bought a 51 percent stake in 1999 and one of Japan's most prolific maker of small cars. Daihatsu made the UFE (ultra fuel economy) III concept in the picture above (see it in a video below the fold) and first shown in 2001. The UFE III's drag coefficient is .168, it get gets 169 miles per gallon and it's a hybrid.


[Source: YouTube]

Lumeneo's titling electric car, the Smera, will be released early 2009 according to CNET TV. The official announcement will be made at the Paris Motor Show in October but CNET says Lumeneo will be "taking deliveries early 09." The CNET video also has a close up look at the Smera's electric motors and CNET TV's host, who is six feet two inches tall, gets in the car even though the fit is a little snug. The Smera has a top speed of 130 Km per hour, range of 150 Km on a single charge (which takes 3-5 hours) and will cost between 20-30,000 Euros ($31,000-$47,000US, at today's rate). Ouch.


[Source: CNET TV]

Easily the hottest green car at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show was the Sintesi, Pininfarina's hydrogen fuel cell concept. Below the fold is an amazing video of the unveiling of the car. Also below the fold is a quick look inside the car by AutoCar. Autoblog also took some amazing close up shots of the exterior and interior of the car you can see in the gallery below. Hydrogen fuels calls are very far away but Bolloré and Pininfarina did enter a partnership to a build a four-seat, 155 mile range electric in 2010. Will the Bolloré and Pininfarina produce an electric car that looks like the Sintesi? Keep your fingers crossed.


[Source: YouTube, Autoblog]

Click for high-res gallery

Most of our readers might not know SsangYong except that one of its models, the SUT, is used as the basis of the Phoenix Motorcars electric vehicles. Well, SsangYong has released more information about their new hybrid powertrain. During the Geneva Motor Show, the Korean marque didn't show a complete car but a model of the powertrain, which could be added to their current lineup of diesel engines (some of Mercedes origin). The pack meets the Euro IV norms and adds 30 kW (40 HP) to a standard diesel powertrain. The electric part of the powertrain uses a 340 V battery which is mated to a mild hybrid system that allows the engine to shut off at stops and supply power when accelerating.

SsangYong announced that fuel savings will be around 25 percent, with a NOx reduction of 10 percent. When will all this be available? SsangYong said 2010.


[Source: Autoblog en español]

Fiat showed a low emissions and low fuel consumption concept version of their tiny 500 at the Geneva Motor Show called the 500 Aria. The Aria is equipped with Fiat's 1.3L MultiJet diesel and the company's Dualogic transmission. The powertrain is topped off with an automatic start-stop system. The Dualogic transmission is an automated manual transmission that can shift automatically or the driver can determine when to shift. The clutch activation duties are always handled automatically. The full package delivers a ten percent improvement in fuel consumption compared to the standard 500.

[Source: Car and Driver]

Mercedes has been working on putting bio-products into its cars for years, since well before AutoblogGreen got started. The company hasn't really been making any sort of announcements about its progress. Hence the lack of coverage of ACO here on ABG.

What's ACO? Why, that's my new name for the abaca fibers, coconut parts and olive pits that find their way into some Mercedes models. The rubberized coconut - a by-product of Brazil's coconut industry - is made into seat padding. The olive pits - also food waste - are crushed and carbonized and then used in air filters. And the fibers of the abaca plant (a kind of banana-like plant) are used as underfloor cladding of A- and B-Class cars. Newspress reminded us about the ACO products in Benz vehicles from the Geneva Motor Show, but you can get a solid background from this old post at Green Car Congress.

[Source: Newspress]

Nissan finally launched their premium Infiniti brand in Europe this week with the world debut of the new FX at the Geneva Motor Show. Nissan (and Renault) boss Carlos Ghosn obviously knows that if you're going to take on the likes of BMW and Audi on their home turf, you had better have the right product. While it's questionable whether the FX50 and EX37 are the right products for Europe, one element that will definitely help their chances, is the availability of diesel power. In Geneva, Ghosn confirmed that the European Infiniti lineup will be getting a new diesel being developed by Nissan and Renault starting in 2010. The diesel, likely the 3.0L shown by Renault last fall and already announced for the U.S.-market Nissan Maxima, will be tweaked for the Infiniti models, likely yielding somewhere over 250hp and making it competitive with the dual turbo 3.0L offered by BMW in the 535d and other models. Whether U.S.-bound Infinitis will get diesels is unknown as Nissan has previously indicated that their in-house developed hybrid system would go into some of those models.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]

CNET TV has a video report from the Geneva Motor Show on the CNG Porsche boxer clone we told you about recently. Below the fold is a promotional video specifically for the compressed natural gas roadster. You won't find any updates to the news we know about this vehicle - except, perhaps, that it made it safely to the show, but now you can watch the car in motion and feel a little bit like you've ridden in it yourself. Also, if you can read German, you'll notice that the "producers" of the video are No Particulates Less CO₂. Nice, huh?

[Source: CNET TV, YouTube]

The Saab 9-X BioHybrid concept that debuted in Geneva this week has been picked as the Best Concept in show by the crew at AutoWeek. The 9-X is a vision for a new small Saab coupe to slot in under the 9-3 based on the next generation of GM's Global Compact Car platform. Two years ago Saab won the same award at Geneva for their Aero-X concept. The 9-X has a 200hp 1.4L flex-fuel four cylinder engine paired up with GM's next generation mild hybrid system. A production 9-1 based on this design is highly likely within the next couple of years and the updated hybrid system will be all over GM starting in 2010.



[Source: Saab]

Pininfarina Sintesi, the Th!nk Ox, the KTM X-Bow, the Audi R8 TDI Le Mans, the Toyota iQ, the Rinspeed sQuba, the John Cooper Works Mini (and Clubman), the Morgan LifeCar, Land Rover LRX in black, the Mercedes BlueEFFICIENCY C-Class and Vision GLK BlueTec hybrid, the Opel Meriva, the VW Sharan Bluemotion, the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics, the VW Passat EcoFuel, the Mila Alpin, the Saab 9-1X Biohybrid and the Hyundai i-mode.

You know these names and have read about what these vehicles are and what they promise. Now, you can kick back and spend some time getting better acquainted with how these vehicles look. The gallery for the Sintesi
is below. Check out over 75 more photos after the jump.

click photo to enlarge

The Tata Nano, number one in the list of ten cheapest cars in the world, is a big hit at the Geneva Motor Show. Newspress is saying that the tiny and inexpensive Nano is drawing the biggest crowds at the show.The throngs aren't thronging just to see the car - we've seen it in pictures for a while now - but to listen for Tata chairman Ratan Tata update on details of the Jaguar/Land Rover/Tata deal. Instead, he said that the Nano would not be coming to Europe because of stricter emissions and safety standards there. We're all aware that a revamped second-generation Nano is a likely contender for European sales some time down the road.

[Source: Newspress]

Diesel hybrids are popping up everywhere in Geneva this week from Volkswagen to Mercedes-Benz to BMW. One notable exception is Toyota. The hybrid pioneer has never shown a diesel hybrid and according to Katsuaki Watanabe, the company's president they have no plans to offer one. The problem lies in the fact that diesel engines are inherently more expensive than gasoline units and adding in the cost of a hybrid system would make them uncompetitive in terms of cost. Interestingly, most of the diesel hybrids being displayed in Switzerland right now are of the mild hybrid variety rather than the strong hybrid types that Toyota uses.

Mild hybrids have smaller less powerful motors that aren't integrated into the transmission the way a full hybrid typically is. They can be paired up more easily with different engines and transmissions. While they don't offer the potential for as much electric only running, they do provide electric assist and start stop functionality and at a lower cost. Perhaps if Toyota had a less costly (and somewhat less functional) mild hybrid system in their portfolio, they would be considering diesel hybrids. However, just because we haven't seen something like that yet it doesn't mean we won't. Toyota spends a lot on R&D, much of which is never seen in public until they are good and ready. Toyota certainly isn't shying away from hybrid technology in general.

[Source: Automotive News - Sub. req'd]

click the Th!nk Ox for a high res gallery

Th!nk, the Norwegian purveyor of electric cars that used to be owned be owned by Ford, has used the occassion of the Geneva Motor Show to show off their new vehicle platform concept. The Ox is a five-seat monocab design that has a space frame structure that can be used for a variety of different body styles. Besides the four-door body Th!nk is also showing a two-door coupe body. The space frame provides the crash structure and mounting locations for battery packs in the floor. The system is designed to be adaptable to different regions and applications so it can be equipped with either sodium batteries or lithium ion.

The 60kW electric motor should be able to accelerate the 3,300lb Ox to 62mph in about 8.5 seconds. Th!nk is claiming that with lithium batteries the Ox will have a range of about 120miles on the US06 driving cycle. The US06 is the new, more aggressive schedule that was added to the EPA fuel efficiency testing routine for 2008. If the Ox can actually achieve that range on US06 it should do at least as well in the real world (see our interview with GM's Pete Savagian for more discussion on driving test cycles including US06). So far we don't have any information from Th!nk on when we will actually see the Ox or something similar on the road or how much it will cost. Th!nk's press conference is tomorrow so we may get an update then.


[Source: Th!nk, thanks to Sindre and Kristoffer for the tips]

click to enlarge

• EcoBoost.
• The ECOnetic brand, including the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic, a car that emits under 100g/km of CO₂
• Flexifuel engines
• Compressed natural gas

These four items are the cornerstones of Ford of Europe's attempt to reduce the environmental impact of the Blue Oval across the pond. At the Geneva Motor Show today, Ford issued a wide-ranging press release (available after the jump) about the company's low-CO₂ targets. With Toyota continuing the all-hybrid line in Geneva and GM making their own waves with the Two-Mode BAS hybrid upgrade announcement today, the lack of a strong hybrid component is all too noticeable here. This is understandable considering the low popularity of hybrids in Europe today. Ethanol-capable and cleaner gasoline engines are the stars here, with CNG and LPG making an appearance as well. Will Ford's cornerstones be enough to win over increasingly eco-aware drivers?

click for high-resolution gallery of the HED 5 i mode

Color me disappointed. When Hyundai teased the announcement of the HED-5 "i-mode" concept crossover about a month ago, the company was saying it would feature "exceptional fuel economy." These sorts of things are easy to promise in a concept car, but the official statement from Hyundai, now that the vehicle has been unveiled in Geneva, doesn't give any mileage details. Instead, we hear a lot about the front seat that can swivel around so the front passenger can engage the four people in the back of the car. On the green front, the HED-5 i-mode uses lightweight body materials and Bayer-designed "self-healing water based bodywork finishes" that somehow work to repair minor scratches automatically. More standard eco-touches are in the exhaust gas recirculation system, which reduces NOx emissions and will help the new 2.2-litre R diesel engine meet future Euro emissions standards. The R engines will be coming in production vehicles starting in 2009 - first as single turbocharged versions and then as dual-stage turbocharged editions in early 2011. I guess that's not all bad. More details after the jump.