The three new vehicles will be under a new brand, the BlueMotion Technologies. The range of cars under the umbrella will primarily be products that have low carbon dioxide emissions and efficient fuel consumption.

The BlueMotion Technologies will represent evolving solutions and systems that are still on the works like regenerative braking, stop-start system, hybrid systems, and electric drives.

The Passat BlueMotion features a start-stop system that passes the Euro-5 standards. The power plant of the new gen Passat BlueMotion can output 109 horsepower and has a mileage of 48 mpg. This car features lightweight wheels made from flow-formed steel.

The Blue TDI will be the first of its kind launched by Volkswagen. This car is set to meet the Euro-6 standards that will take effect in 2014. The car is equipped with an SCR catalytic converter to minimize harmful emissions to 80mg/km. Production will be ramping up as early as March. The Blue TDUI has a 2.0L engine that has an output of 141 horsepower. Mileage is at 45 mpg.

The TSI Ecofuel is scheduled for roll out early of 2009. The 148 horsepower engine is equipped with turbo and supercharge. These enable it to zoom from 0 to 100 km.h in just 9.7 seconds. The engine is coupled with a 7-speed transmission. A 4.4 kilogram load of natural gas can bring the car 100 kilometers from the starting point.

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In a joint venture with Nandan Biometrix, Ltd, the jatropha grower and Shapoorji Pallonji Co. Ltd, a construction company, the newly formed company Bharat Renewable Energy Ltd will be responsible for converting the jatropha to biodiesel. One million hectares of the plants will be planted and harvested in the next four years in response to the September 11th announcement by the Indian government to require a twenty percent mixture of bio fuels in all transportation fuels sold by the year 2017.

To keep valuable farmlands available for edible food sources, the government is encouraging organizations to use wastelands as growing areas. One such area, in which the national petroleum company has invested, is in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. To further encourage production of biodiesel, new policies allow for tax and duty concessions. In addition, the government has banned the importation of animal fats previously used as the raw materials to make biodiesel oil.

Unlike fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel, biodiesel used to run these cute little Beetle cars, comes from discarded cooking oils. Imagine fueling a vehicle with a restaurant’s old vegetable oil used to cook French fries. Another aspect of the Bio-Beetle is that it also uses earth friendly coolants, synthetic oil, and non-toxic cleaners. The company employees wear organic cotton uniforms and the company mission is “to be the greenest and best rental car company on the planet”.

The company goal sounds like a grandiose ideal but considering the fact that the owners personally funded the development and realization of these Bio-Beetles with their own monies, it is a testament to their dedication to finding alternative fuel solutions. As funds allow, they purchase more cars for development to add to their eco rental fleet. And believe it or not, there are places to refuel the cars other than the rental agency itself.

In addition to discarded cooking oil, biodiesel can also be made with inferior oils that do not meet food quality standards and mixtures can be blended from more than one plant. The most common plants used to create the oils are safflower, castor, palm, olive, peanut, soy bean and mustard.

More info on the Bio Beetle Website at bio-beetle.com!

In modern diesel engines Biodiesel can be used in unadulterated form (B100) or may be mixed with petroleum diesel at any application. Biodiesel manufacture and use are increasing rapidly. Fueling stations make biodiesel willingly accessible to customers transversely in Europe, and progressively in Canada and USA.

Biodiesel can also be used as a heating fuel in household and saleable boilers, seldom known as bioheat. Biodiesel is normally formed by the transesterification of the animal fat or vegetable oil feedstock. A number of methods are used for carrying out this transesterification reaction together with the regular batch process, microwave methods, supercritical processes and ultrasonic methods

Biodiesel has a lot of environmentally valuable properties. The chief advantage of biodiesel is that it can be described as carbon neutral and it is quickly recyclable and totally safe, meaning spillages correspond to far a smaller amount of a threat than fossil diesel spillages. Biodiesel has an upper blaze point than fossil diesel and so is safer in the result of a collapse.