Hey dude, mind if I smoke your car?

Green is the new, well, green. Automakers large and small have jumped on the (biofuel powered) bandwagon, hoping that way lies profit, or at least a government handout. Group Lotus didn't want to merely bask in the reflected green light from their customer Tesla, they've introduced the new Eco Elise concept to display their own corporate enviro bone fides.

You know we're in a new era when one of the world's great sports car companies starts using words like "holistic" and "progressive".

The Eco Elise may appear to be a normal Elise S with a different paint job and interior trim, but that similarity is only skin deep. Actually, it's not even skin deep. The Eco Elise has body panels made not of fiberglass or carbon fiber but rather uses hemp to reinforce the plastic composite. That's hemp, as in pot, reefer, weed, chronic etc. Okay, so this "sustainable" hemp, grown in nearby Anglia to keep carbon impact down, was crossbred to deliver strong fibers, not sticky colas, but like all hemp plants it still has some level of THC, marijuana's active ingredient, albeit miniscule.

Hemp is also used in the hardtop and in the construction of the lightweight seats. Other green features are sisal carpets, naturally colored wool upholstery, and an eco-friendly water based, low temperature curing paint process developed by DuPont. To highlight the hemp material, a racing stripe of the clear-coated composite runs the length of the Eco Elise. The shift indicator light has been reprogrammed to encourage better fuel efficiency. They even managed to trim 70 pounds of weight. Since the base Elise already reflects Colin Chapman's dicta: "add lightness", most of the weight reduction comes from using lightweight wheels and a lightweight audio system, I assume with smaller and lighter magnets in the speakers.

I wonder if the Eco Elise comes with an ashtray. Just don't try driving the Eco Elise through customs.

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Shin Yoshikawa - Automotive Rennaisance Man

This guy is just way too cool for school. I saw an item on Jalopnik about a stunning aluminum reproduction of the classic Toyota 2000GT sports car by Shin Yoshikawa, now based in Lebec, CA.



Turns out, not only is he a master metal fabricator (there's a photo on his site of him at work on an English wheel, but I can't find it just now) and restoration specialist whose work is on display at the Toyota museum, he's a respected photographer and photojournalist, an author, and a car collector with great taste. He's so impressive that I decided to put this entire post on the main page, not just a taste and a link.



He's also a superb graphic artist, specializing in stunning cutaway drawings of classic sportscars.



I hear he plays a mean piano too. Oh, he also give seminars in metal fabrication.



Yeah, those are factory Nissan guys that he's teaching. He's also done work on the Shelby Daytona Coupe Superformance replica pictured below owned by Pete Brock, the Daytona Coupe's designer.



Plus he knew Soichiro Honda and Colin Chapman personally, and tried to buy Mr. Honda's personal 1st generation Lotus Elite. Like I said, the guy is off the charts cool and, it seems, very approachable. I'm hoping to interview him for a longer piece, maybe something I can hawk to one of the buff books. Yoshikawa-san is an automotive treasure.

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Good News, For a Change, About DetroitHint: It's Not the Bailout

Last Friday was a good news day for Detroit. No, I'm not talking about President Bush's loan package that was announced today. That wasn't so much good news as a stay of execution with a case still on appeal. Perhaps the good news then must be reports that previously invicible Toyota and Honda are losing money and cutting production. Prius sales are down 50% so Toyota has suspended work on their proposed Prius plant in Mississippi and the company will have a loss this fiscal year, the first in 71 years. Toyota and Richard Shelby's "New American Auto Industry" suffering? That's normally a shadenfreude twofer for Michiganders but it really is just a reminder of how auto sales have tanked globally. Nationally it got lost in the news about the bailout and locally in Detroit it dropped to the bottom of the news - below genuinely good news out of Lansing and Detroit.

What kind of good news? This is the end of the year and the end of legislative sessions. The US Senate wasn't able to finish a deal on a Detroit bailout by the end of their session, leading to President Bush's loan package. The Michigan legislature, though, did manage to pass legislation funding projects that could help the city of Detroit recover economically. What got the most attention, both from the general media and from car folks was a $288 million dollar plan between the state, Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, and the city of Detroit for the much needed improvement and expansion of Cobo Hall by 166,000 sq. ft. to a total of 866,000. This will provide more space for exhibitors, allow Detroit to keep the North American International Auto Show, as well as attract trade shows and conventions that passed on Detroit because of the size of Cobo or its older amenities. The newly renovated Book Cadillac hotel, now managed by Westin, is part of that same effort to increase Detroit's convention business. I know it sounds counterintuitive to those who believe that Detroit is a third world wasteland, but the primary obstacle to getting more conventions here hasn't been Detroit's reputation but rather a lack of hotel rooms downtown and a lack of floor space at Cobo.

In other development news, the legislature also funded a 3.5 mile light rail transit system to link the New Center area and downtown. This will also help in getting convention business, but the primary goal is to nurture the nascent development that has happened along the Woodward corridor in recent years.

Still, the NAIAS is the biggest trade show or convention held in Detroit and generates about $500 million in business for the region.

Speaking of the NAIAS, it hasn't been a good year for the Detroit show. Nissan/Infiniti and Mitsubishi dropped their factory displays and will instead support displays by their local dealer groups. Land Rover, Ferrari and Rolls Royce have pulled out entirely, notwithstanding the success of last year's "Gallery" program that gave hundreds of well-heeled guests from around the country a private showing and resulted in luxury marques selling about $3 million worth of cars. Earlier Porsche also decided not to display in Detroit this year because of its low sales in the region. In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club Joe Serra, senior co-chairman of the NAIAS acknowledged the "dire times" facing the auto industry but said that despite losing those six exhibitors, the total number of exhibitors on both floors will increase by two and there will be more world premieres than last year. The manufacturers who pulled out made space available to other companies who wanted in. That's shows how needed a Cobo expansion is, that even in tough economic times there's still demand for floor space at the NAIAS this year.

Still, the NAIAS will be a low key event this year. The NYT coined the cliché that you can tell how the domestic auto industry is doing by the size of the shrimp at the Detroit auto show media preview. The shrimp and other perks for the 6000 journalists in attendance will be few and far between this year. Chrysler will not have one of their showbiz introductions and all the manufacturers will have simpler displays. Only a few years ago GM and Ford were outdoing each with things like two story displays. Bottom line: fewer pretty girls, less glitz, and more focus on product and business plans.

That being said, that increased number of exhibitors includes some cars of particular interest to car enthusiasts. The Bugatti Veyron will make its first ever NAIAS appearance, and Lotus will have its first factory NAIAS display. Lotus is a much more substantial company than it ever was. The success of the Elise and derivatives, as well as Lotus' involvement in the development of Chrysler's EV sports car makes a NAIAS booth for Lotus a natural idea. Another technology partner of Lotus, electric car pioneer, Tesla, will have a factory booth with their roadster as well. This is also the first time Tesla will be showing at Detroit and Tesla CEO Elon Musk will be speaking to the Society of Automotive Analysts at a NAIAS related event on January 13, 2009.

Also in the electric car front, Chinese automaker BYD plans to use the NAIAS to introduce a serial hybrid with a 60 mile range on batteries. BYD produces about 25% of the world's cell phone batteries so they may have a leg up on other manufacturers' electric plans. China's Brilliance Auto will display for the first time and along with BYD will be the first Chinese manufacturers to display on the main floor in Detroit.

GM's turnaround is predicated on becoming the technology leader in electrically driven cars. To keep Michigan in the battery game with BYD and other battery developers, the state legislature also passed one other piece of legislation that got lost in the flood of automotive news today that may turn out to be the most significant item. That is, providing the bailout loans work and there is still a functioning domestic car industry.

The Michigan legislators on Friday approved a tax credit package intended to make the state a national center for the development of batteries for transportation. The bill will provide up to $335 million in tax credits from 2001 to 2016.

Cobasys, a joint venture between Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, MI, and Chevron produces Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries for GM's current generation of hybrids. However, Chevron's association has raised the controversy that the oil giant may be using its involvement to suppress alternatives to gasoline. At this time the US has no large scale facilities making the advanced lithium-ion batteries that will be needed for the next generation of hybrids and electric vehicles.

Legislators and Gov. Granholm hope that the tax credits will allow Michigan to become the locus of battery development and production in the US and give state businesses access to the $1 billion the federal government is investing in battery research.
While it would be better if the news was about private sector investment instead of government funding. However many of Detroit's problems are at least partially attributable to the hand of government and it's nice to see state and federal government helping for a change instead of hindering.

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