Haha, love this design…now that is really a green car!

Here is a concept car that will probably never make it into production!!!

Love this bench ad!

This is not one of those ideas where Coke is going green for St. Patricks Day or anything.  Coca-Cola has pledged it will eliminate a major greenhouse gas in its new vending machines and coolers, raising the bar for climate-friendly refrigeration in the food and beverage industry.

Coke’s Chief Executive Muhtar Kent said that the company, which sells everything from soda and juice drinks to water, will replace hydrofluorocarbon, also known as HFC, in its new vending machines and coolers by 2015.  While Coke’s 10 million vending machines, coolers and other refrigeration equipment around the world keep its drinks chilled, they also are the biggest contributor to the company’s carbon footprint.

To ramp up the transition to greener machines, Coke and its bottling partners will buy 150,000 units of HFC-free equipment in 2010, doubling the company’s current pace for buying the systems.  Coke has invested $50 million in research for climate friendly replacements. The company expects the move to greener equipment to cut its emissions by nearly 53 million metric tons–the equivalent of taking 11 million cars off the road for a year–over the 10-year life-span of the equipment.

It seems carbon emissions reductions in large corporations is continuing to proliferate, which is great news!

After dreaming of owning a Honda Skydeck I thought this look back at concept cars of the past would be fun!

Now here is a mini van nobody would be embarrassed to drive!

Imagine a world where gadets were powered by bio-batteries, you know – grab a mars bar and power your iPod for 6 hours by using some of the energy produced by your bodies?  That is exactly what Gizmodo has written about!

It turns out that the bio-batteries closest to reality at this time have a major problem with waste products. That waste is created as those particular batteries involve microbial yeast-based fuel cells that steal “some of the electrons produced when the yeast metabolizes glucose” in order to create a small current. While the entire process works just fine, the yeast cells are at risk unless the waste products are removed. We can’t exactly let the waste be dumped into the blood stream, so until there’s a some kind of cleaning process, the batteries are trouble as they either they die off or poison your bloodstream while trying to survive. I think this would be super cool but I hope we don’t end up like the Matrix!

There was an exciting event today at Standard Auto Wreckers where a check for $10,000 was donated to a fantastic local ‘green’ charity, 10,000 trees! The funds came from OARA where members of the association have agreed to pay an extra $20 per vehicle they acquire though the Retire your Ride car recycling program.

In the picture below  you see (from left to right) Ken Gold, Raymond Cho, Colin Creasey and David Gold.

I really loved this analogy, it is very pertinent to us here because we are currently working with about half a dozen auto recyclers, upgrading their websites.

A user won’t wrestle with your site. Web design, particularly navigation, is not the place to get clever. Web design should be no more complicated than book design. You might notice every book shares the exact same user interface. As do cars. As do bicycles. I have no idea how my car works. People have explained the workings of the internal combustion engine to me, and I nod sagely, but really, I don’t have a clue. Nor do I need to know. I just turn the key and hit the pedal. Your website design should ask nothing more of the user than a car does. Assume nothing, other than the user will point and click something obvious.

The ARA conference this year was a great success and a lot of fun for all those that attended.  With a tag line like “Experience the Horsepower Driving the Industry” most of us took the challenge quite seriously.

It seems the entries for Standard Auto Wreckers and Car-Part exchanged a few words before the big race.  Rumor is Green-Gold Thunder started talking smack first, whispering things like, “you look like you were born in a junkyard” and “get ready to eat my radioactive dust” – Car-Part High Octane replied with, “hey sissy, at least I don’t glow in the dark”.

In the end every horse that participated was a winner because all racing proceeds went to benefit charity!