automotive

Will US car buyers adopt a car the size of a laundromat dryer, that costs as much as a sofa? Ratan Tata, chairman of India's Tata Motors, hopes they will. Automotive News reports that Tata is floating plans to bring a version of the $2,500 Nano minicar to the US within three years.

Chairman Tata made such remarks this week at a Cornell University forum in New York City. Deliveries of the Nano to buyers in India, where only one in one thousand people own a car, are scheduled to begin in India next month.

Sustainable transport may be just another task on environmentalists' to-do list, but for car designers it's a path to rethinking how automobiles are built, and from what they're made. That's the idea behind the "Stauro," a conceptual roadster with the horsepower of an exotic supercar, using recycled materials in its construction. The eco-friendly hot rod envisions a day when high-performance gasoline engines are replaced by powerplants using citrus-oil and steam. No, they're not kidding.

If you thought the rise of petroleum caused global economic upheavals, just wait until we start producing electric-car batteries in mass quantities. That's the warning from Glenn Bell, CEO of Air Fuel Auto. Bell told reporters at this weekend's Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica the need for precious metals and other raw materials for next-generation batteries could have a ripple effect on the global economy. Of course, Bell isn't a passive observer; he's got his own answer to the alternative-fuel question. You're breathing it.