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Sales of gas-electric cars jumped nearly 20 percent in May, compared to last month, outpacing the overall vehicle market that increased by 12.3 percent. Sales of the 2010 Toyota Prius, which continues to make up half of all hybrid purchases, increased by 13.5 percent to 14,248 units—despite a relatively poor showing by the entire Toyota brand. Industry observers believe that Toyota has yet to overcome negative publicity from safety recalls earlier this years, yet car shoppers are apparently excusing the Toyota Prius from those quality concerns.

2010 Toyota Prius.

Sales of the Ford Fusion Hybrid accelerated by a whopping 64 percent to 2,486 units. Ford also added nearly 25 percent more sales of the Ford Escape Hybrid. At this point, Ford has decisively leapfrogged Honda to become the number two seller of hybrid cars. Toyota owns 68 percent of the hybrid market; Ford holds 14 percent; and Honda has dropped to nearly 9 percent of hybrid car sales. The upcoming Honda CR-Z hybrid might help the company regain the second place spot—and Honda executives are promising a clean-slate approach for future hybrids.

Sales of the Altima hybrid, which is only available in eight states, soared by 253 percent. It’s unclear if publicity about the company’s all-electric Nissan Leaf helped raise the green perception of the entire Nissan brand.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

By reading the Smart Fuel Cell (SFC) press release one would think that its hydrogen fuel cell range extender for a battery electric vehicle plus combined heat and power (CHP) technology is earth shattering news. But, it’s only mildly newsworthy and I’ll tell you why.

SFC has joined forces with EFOY Pro fuel cells to create a full hybrid car that uses a fuel cell as a range extender and to supply heat to start the batteries when the vehicle is in cooler climates.

According to Dr. Peter Podesser, CEO of SFC, “This concept represents a quantum leap for battery vehicles. In winter, powering vehicles by batteries alone has not been a convincing solution for many users: the performance of a cold battery is insufficient, while at the same time power demand is dramatically increased by heating requirements. We offer a worthwhile solution to this problem by intelligently combining battery and fuel cell in a hybrid system. In addition, we enable fully automatic recharging independent of the power grid, thus freeing the customer from the ever present fear of not finding a power outlet when needed.”

Is this a breakthrough? Most hydrogen fuel cell cars today are also hybrid electric vehicles as well. In 2006, the Peugeot ePure was unveiled that is a hydrogen hybrid vehicle that uses its fuel cell to charge the batteries which supply energy to the electric motor. In today’s world we could call this a battery electric car with a fuel cell range extender.

In February 2010 I had talked about Proton Power Systems and Smith Electric Vehicles developing an “electric car with fuel cell range extender”. It seems like since the public sentiment has swung towards battery electric cars for the moment that manufacturers are emphasizing the battery part and de-emphasizing the hydrogen fuel cell part.

The only byproducts of a hydrogen fuel cell are a little bit of steam and heat. Some of the heat comes out of the tailpipe with the steam and in some vehicles some of the heat is rerouted to help the fuel cell start in cold weather. In some FCVs some of the steam is also used to add moisture to the fuel cell.

In SFC’s fuel cell hybrid vehicle, some of the heat from the fuel cell is used to warm the battery pack. This so-called CHP technology may at most be called a minor innovation. Don’t get me wrong. Any new hydrogen car is welcomed. But, when you overhype a technology is just takes away from others that are truly innovative and ground-breaking.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I love the Transformers; but not the terrible, loud, and innuendo-laced Micheal Bay version. I’m talking old school 80’s toys made popular by the Transformers cartoon. Those guys were awesome, though I was always disappointed when the Decepticons were defeated, not because the Autobots were better, but because Megatron was an inept leader at best.

Someone in the military must be a fan of Transformers too. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has revealed plans for an all-terrain wheeled vehicle that can transform into an airplane and go as far as 250 miles on a tank of gas. Awesome.

The military has a history of hair-brained defense schemes, but this sounds like one that might actually make it to production one day. The design calls for a VTOL, or Vertical Take Off and Landing vehicle, sort of like the Osprey pictured to the left. It would also be about the size of two Hummers parked bumper-to-bumper with a price limitation of $43 million. So far, so good, right?

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Popularity: unranked [?]