Mark: Hey, I'm Mark Licea and this week’s show we’ll show you the winners of iStage, we test drive green cars from ford and we’ll tell you what new standard could eliminate 13 million tons of CO2 a year. The Green Show starts now.
The Consumer Electronics Association held their iStage competition last week. The event showcases innovative products before they launch. Our own Natali Del Conte was a judge at the event and turns out green is pretty big. The first place winner was the renew portable solar panel that collects solar energy to charge gadgets like the iPhone through a USB plug.
Male: If this is outside in decent sun for three to four hours, you have enough to charge an iPhone or iPod once.
Mark: It also has a built in rechargeable battery so you won't be limited to charging our gadgets during the day time. The runner up could also be considered green. It saves paper at least, the edge dual book by Entourage Systems is an all in one eReader. And by all in one, it let you browse the web, instant message, listen to music, and even watch movies. You can find Natali Del Conte’s full coverage of the event on cnettv.com.
Our green tech editor Mark LaMonica got to test drive two electric vehicles from Ford. Quick disclaimer, Mark just got a new camera, so the video is a tad bit shaky. Take a look.
Mark LaMonica: I'm taking a battery electric Ford Focus out for a ride. It runs totally in batteries and later on I’ll be taking in a plug in Ford Escape SUV for a ride. That runs on batteries and a gas motor. So here we go.
Mark: Ford plans to start making an all electric Ford Focus in 2011, which will have a rage of about 100 miles.
Nancy: We have to take everything that would’ve been hydraulically run or belt run. And we have it run in electric.
Mark: Nancy Gioia, director of global electrification at Ford says that battery electric Focus is aimed to consumers and fleet operators.
Nancy: Its gas pedal is calibrated to give you that same performance feel as the Focus.
Mark: Utility National Grid is testing a plug in hybrid version of the Escape.
Steven: Right now it’s more about getting the vehicles into smart charging capabilities.
Mark: Steven Topias of National Grid wants it to have completely packed on the grid.
Mark LaMonica: What sort of the mode, this is a gas-electric cars. So it sort of batteries in the beginning and then the gas engine kicks in?
Steven: If you stay below the 30-40 miles an hour it will just all electric. If you accelerate very hard, it may kick in the gas engine. If you go above 40 miles an hour, the gas engine will come on.
Mark: Ford plans to convert between 10-25% of its fleets to hybrid, plug in hybrids, and battery-electrics by 2020.
If you plan to drive an electric vehicle, you don’t want to worry about having the right plug. Well the society of automotive engineers international or SAE is on top of this. They’re voting on an official plugging standard. This way, automakers can build the entire plug in vehicles to work with one designated charger. The SAE is voting on the J17-72 charging system as the standard connection. It could be use with both 120 and 240 volts systems. The J17-72 also has pins that feeds information to your cars so you’ll get data on your car’s battery life and see how much juice is left in the charger.
Speaking of standardizing chargers. The European Union wants a standard phone charger for all phones. Over the weekend, the micro USB standard was approved by the UN’s international telecommunication union. The GSM association says, eliminating non-standardize chargers could get rid of 136 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions every years. This doesn’t force manufacturers to build micro USB ports on their phones, it’s more like of a gentle nudge to make it easier on consumers and the planet.
How much would you expect to pay for a solar powered lantern? $20? $50? The Curin is a solar lantern created by Dlight. It’s been called the most affordable quality solar light. It has LEDs that can produce five times more light than the kerosene lantern and you get about 8 hours on to low light setting. It fully charges in the sun in 8 hours as well and you can plug it into a wall. The Curin is meant for developing countries and low income families. No information on when can it be commercially available. But the best part is it will cost $10.
That’s it for this week. Send your feedback to greenshow@cnet.com. I'm Mark Licea, thanks for watching.
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