The iBrabus is a $447,000 Apple freak’s dream come true.  It’s a Mercedes S-Class which German auto customizer Brabus has turned into a rolling platform for all things Apple Computer.

The car has the following pre-installed as custom equipment: the Apple Mini, several iPads, a Mac display, and an iPod.  All networked wirelessly, of course, and capable of interacting with various vehicle components such as climate controls, the stereo, interior lighting, and more.  Individual headsets, seat-back monitors, and so forth complete the deal.

The actual upgrade (this term may be subjective) to this Applicious package is $61,000 over the price of the premium-packaged luxury car, bringing the complete cost of the car (with other Brabus improvements to interior and exterior) to $447,000. The improvements begin with the “standard” S-Class Mercedes that Brabus sells tuned as the SV12 R (750hp engine, 211mph top speed…)

These other improvements include a 15.2″ display in the ceiling while the Mac Mini is mounted in the trunk and controlled from screens and keyboards up front.  As Brabus so eloquently puts it, the iBrabus is truly a luxury car for iBusiness needs in today’s iWorld.

So if you have about half a mil you’d like to spend on an ultra-luxury car, here you go.  Feel free to send the difference as a finder’s fee to me.  I’d appreciate it.

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Which, of course, is what bureaucrats are really good at.  Especially that last one, since most trucks on the road use diesel, not gasoline.  But hey, it’s not like this group plans to actually accomplish any real goals outside of soaking up more grant cash, government employment perks, and maybe the occasional “getaway jaunt” to a resort for “brainstorming.”

California, which has a $14 billion debt they can’t resolve, threw $3 million into the CalHEAT project to get it started.  Which is definitely not an illustration of the reasons behind CA’s budget woes, of course.

The project will involve the non-profit CALSTART, the University of California Riverside, and Southern California Edison.  They might also throw a bone to Caltech (if they’re nice), which is just down the street.  CalHEAT’s leadership touts the “innovation” rampant in Pasadena – which is very near where Bill and Ted built their time machine, of course.

The group plans to work with FedEx in partnership with the LA and Long Beach ports to facilitate hybrid medium and heavy duty truck development.  You know, like the Tyrano hydrogen fuel cell truck (already in service at those ports), like the electric truck FedEx just put into testing – the same one Navistar just began promoting -, not to mention FedEx’s already-existing fleet of hybrids, oh and the trailer spotters made by Vision and Capacity (electric and hybrid), plus the latest in high-efficiency hybrid technology from Capstone, ya and the electric trucks from Smith Electric, and don’t forget the electric drayage trucks already in service at those ports too…

All done without CalHEAT’s input…

So what’s the point of this new bureaucracy again?  Oh, ya, they let us know themselves, in case anyone decides to second-guess that $3 million investment:

“What you need is an intellectual group of experts that know how the market works, how to fund technologies and advance the need for it.”

Bureaucrat doublespeak translation: “You’re all stupid, we know all about this stuff and have been studying it (not doing, of course, just styding) for years, and we can tell other bureaucrats, in fancy words they’ll understand (probably while having caviar at a golf resort) where to send taxpayer funds (usually to our friends who’ve “greased the wheels”) and to others to whom we’ve explained the urgent need to, like those who haven’t contributed to our retirement funds yet.”

To find out if all of my statements are true, you need only look at the CalHEAT committee membership: representatives of the industry (i.e. those who want to “cash in” by being in position to “grease the wheels”), government (those whose wheels need the greasing), and the environmental community (so they can feel “a part of it” and blog about it later).

All of this taking place in the huge smog-filled, traffic-jammed, concrete jungle of a valley cradling LA and surrounds.  You know, where all the environmental stuff happens amidst Hollywood glamour.

Do I sound too cynical?

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Thanks to ThereIFixedIt.com for this photo.

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Well it appears you’re not alone.  There are a lot of people that aren’t exactly college material either, so your friendly neighborhood Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is here to help.  Along with their pals at the Department of Transportation (DOT), the EPA has come up with a new set of window stickers so that even the dullest knife in the drawer can pick out an eco-friendly car.

Labels are highlighted the same way your report card was, with letter grades from A to D to easily show you whether your car is in the “quick, give him a wedgie” nerd category or closer to your own, linebacker grunting vocabulary level.

A car, like the Toyota Prick, gets an A while your good old lift-kit-installed, turbo-charged Hemi-sportin pickup gets a D.  You can always make up the difference and buy your wife one of them prissy Priuses, of course.  Makes perfect sense, Bubba.

There’s a lot of other new stuff on those labels too, but that’s all fine print.  Nothing guys like you need to worry on.  Who gives a crap about “MPG equivalent” and whatever?  I got something for you to plug in…

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Pull Over! You're Not CARB Certified!!

Add this one to the “Bureaucrats Gone Wild” file.  Apparently Tesla Motors, which makes an all-electric (meaning it has a battery and motors, no engine at all and thus no fuel burning) car, is in violation of California’s Clean Air Act because they never submitted their emissions-free car to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for certification.

So they’re being fined $275,000 because they didn’t fill out some paperwork and waste a lot of time with their car sitting in a garage somewhere while some overpaid lame ducks eyeballed it and ate donuts, pretending to “measure” non-existent items on the car.  Like emissions.

This isn’t the first time this inanity has happened either.  A few months ago, I was in Colorado for the Denver Auto Show and made an appointment to visit with Boulder Electric Vehicle to check out their Class B all-electric truck.  Except they didn’t have the prototype there because… well, it was in California to get CARB certified.  Even though, again, it’s electric.

It turns out, every vehicle to be sold in California, no matter what it’s propulsion system, has to go through CARB certification.  Even if, as with Tesla and BEV, it’s just a paperwork shuffle.  No matter what, the bureaucrats in CARB have to physically see and handle and eat donuts in the vehicle to be “certified.”

This inanity is just one of many things that raise the costs of new vehicles for you and me.  For no reason.  Other than to feed some government employees inflated salaries and add on extra fees (or fines) to the final product.

I think I’ll forward this post to John Stossel.  I don’t think he does the Gimme a Break thing anymore, but this would fit perfectly.  Maybe Penn and Teller will do a BullSh*t episode on it.

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I went to school at Utah Valley State College, which is basically in the same town as Brigham Young University (BYU).  The two schools don’t have much of a rivalry, neither being in the same league size or budget-wise.  UVSC is very small in comparison and started out as a trade school before becoming a 4-year university (much of that actually happened while I was attending).

At any rate, I don’t know anyone from the Streamliner team personally, but am glad that all went well in the end, despite the wreck.  Hopefully they’ll get their bike back together and go back out to Bonneville to put it through another speed run.  It’s definitely more than capable of 200+ miles per hour with its 150kW motor.  It broke the 170mph mark before the crash.

Here’s video from the Electric Blue’s on-board camera:

Watch the shadows and you’ll see the driver extract from the bike safely.

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I don’t remember TMBG getting a female singer.  I thought it was just the two Johns.  Maybe one of them is pulling a Michael Jackson or something.  It’s from their official YouTube site, so there you go.

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Photo from Fast Company

The CannaCar, which designers officially call the Kestrel, is being developed in Canada (Canna-Canna-Canna-duh!)* by a company called Motive Industries.  The plan is to take an electric car platform (good start), use hemp to make as many of the body panels and other non-metal parts as possible, and then put the car on the road.

Obviously, Up In Smoke is popular with the Canadians and some of them took it pretty seriously.  I mean, really.  A car made of cannabis?  Too bad accidentally starting it on fire by mis-positioning the exhaust won’t get the cops high.

The vehicle’s body panels will be made of hemp-based bio-composites (basically biologically-derived fiberglass) and some of the interior bits will also come from hemp (cloth, some plastics, and whatnot).

The hemp composites themselves will come from fellow Canadian company Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (AITF) – wow, a sentence as a company name; that’s awesome.  The raw hemp itself will come from hippies in Alberta who make rope, sandals, necklaces, and other flea market items on an industrial hemp farm in Vegreville.

Motive hasn’t given a date for production, but the CannaCar Kestrel will have prototype models for testing later this year.

Also seen on CannaCentral.

*This stuff just comes to me. I could do this all night. And I don’t even smoke.  Imagine if I did toque up what kinds of things would be forthcoming… I know, mind blowing huh?

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General Motors, for all its hype about the Volt (which won’t run on ethanol), has announced that E85 (ethanol, up to 85%) is the “best near-term” alternative fuel solution.  This comes from their FastLane blog on which it’s touted that GM will be moving forward with an “ambitious” expansion of its flex-fuel vehicles.

In this succinct paragraph, HybridCars.com sums it up:

Despite commitments from major automakers like GM, E85′s long-term outlook remains in question. Why’s that? Because evidence suggests that very few people who own flex-fuel vehicles actually end up using the fuel. Just 2,500 of the 162,000 gas stations in the United States actually offer E85, which in most parts of the country offers little to no cost savings compared to standard gasoline.

There are a lot of reasons that ethanol (esp. corn-based ethanol) is a no-win game.  Not the least of which is that if gasoline prices go up, so do ethanol prices since 15-30% of E85 is still just gasoline and most of the production process for ethanol requires even more gasoline and diesel.

Rising oil prices?  Ditto.  The only thing that makes ethanol even feasible as it’s done in the U.S. are government subsidies.  Note that with the 45 cent per gallon subsidy going away at the end of the year, a lot of ethanol producers are beginning to beg and plead for it to be renewed.  More than a few have gone out of business or sold to larger companies with a more diverse financial footing now that their future is in jeopardy and investors are skittish.

Then we get into the questions of supply, demand, infrastructure, and availability.  Currently, none of those are in place: there is relatively little supply, demand is low, infrastructure is mostly non-existent, and thus availability is negligible.

Ethanol is one of those industries that exists purely at government’s whim.  The entire business model of corn-based ethanol in the U.S. is dependent on government subsidies, kickbacks, and incentives.  Without them, it fails.

So why is GM so keen on flex fuel cars?  Well, again, government subsidies.  In this case, the ability to get double the mileage numbers from the EPA for a flex-fuel vehicle versus its real-world numbers.  In other words, they get to cook the books to make their CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) numbers higher without having to actually make their vehicles more efficient.

So let’s say a GMC 1/2 ton truck gets 18 miles to the gallon.  If that truck is a flex-fuel truck, it’s credited as being a 36mpg truck, despite the fact that it actually gets less than 18mpg on ethanol (due to E85′s much lower BTU rating compared to gasoline).  So without making the truck more efficient, GM just got to double its value as a high MPG vehicle for its CAFE rating – a number the EPA watches closely and has specific requirements for in order to avoid fines.

Besides, GM just filed for their initial public offerings (IPO) to once again become publicly traded.  So they need to keep up the green hype and propaganda while also pushing the “really, folks, we’re making money now, we swear” line.

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Looks like he upgraded to the Deluxe Full Boot model.

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