Joe Wein’s blog

Our household of four uses about 500 kWh of electricity per month on average, a considerable portion of which is consumed by the computers I run my business on. The total tends to be more in July and August, when we also run air conditioners to take the edge of 35+ centigrade heat, whereas in [...]

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Toyota Motors and and the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced a recall of 55,000 floor mats for various Toyota and Lexus models following an investigation into a crash of a Lexus ES 350 on 28 August 2009 that killed a 45 year old police officer and three family members. The car [...]

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On August 11, 2009 GM made media headlines by claiming that using EPA methodology its Chevy Volt hybrid vehicle was capable of getting a city driving fuel economy rating of 230 miles to the gallon. That’s 98 km/l or 1.02 l/100 km to those of us on the rest of the planet who use the [...]

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A recent survey amongst Japanese third year university students indicates that relatively few aim to join the well known companies producing the export products “made in Japan” that, economically speaking, put the country on the world map during the 20th century.
According to the list published in Nihon Keizai Shimbun (2009-02-23), five of the top [...]

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Only about 6% of cars sold in Japan are foreign makes (mostly German), but Kanagawa prefecture and its capital Yokohama have one of the highest rates of import cars in Japan. Yokohama is one of the two major ports (the other is Kobe), it has a relatively long history of exposure to Western influences and [...]

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Every crisis can also be viewed an opportunity, or so it seems. As many motorists are having trouble making ends meet with rising fuel (and food) prices, various websites are popping up (usually with affiliate schemes) that make tempting promises such as:

“…use water as fuel and laugh at rising gas costs…”
“double your mileage”
[...]

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Nikkei and Reuters report about an announcement by Japanese company Genepax of a car that supposedly runs on only water. One litre will keep the car running at 80 km/h for about an hour, reports Reuters.
Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa is quoted by Reuters as stating that the car requires no external inputs but water. As [...]

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The Sunday Times did a road test, driving a BMW 520d SE and a Toyota Prius from London to Geneva. The BMW used 49.3 litres of diesel, versus 51.6 litres of petrol (gasoline) used by the Prius.
While the BMW’s results are clearly respectable, the figures quoted in the Sunday Times article do not tell [...]

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Following political gridlock in the Japanese parliament, a “temporary” tax on petrol (gasoline) that has been in force for three decades after being renewed every couple of years is set to expire on 01 April 2008 (to readers outside of Japan: No, this is not an April Fool’s joke). As a result prices of petrol [...]

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