Open up your mind and say, ahh...

The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) is launching a campaign to help cars lose weight in order to gain efficiency and performance.

By bringing together members of the aluminum and plastics/composites industries, CAR hopes that automakers will reap the benefits of new lightweight materials to meet stricter fuel economy standards without sacrificing acceleration or handling.

Obviously fans of descriptive acronyms, the folks at CAR have named the group Coalition of Automotive Lightweighting Materials, or CALM. Among its members, CALM will count over 200 automotive suppliers who will collaborate on weight-saving technologies in what they call “precompetitive” efforts. That way, the greatest number of automakers will be able to take advantage of lighter components.

“One of the first tasks for CALM will be to meet with engineering groups at the automakers to understand their mass reduction strategies and challenges so the supplier industries can develop and apply their technology solutions with each auto company,” said CAR president and CALM director Jay Baron.

Automakers can add hybrid powertrains, downsize engines and change up gearing ratios, but reducing a vehicle’s overall weight is still one of the most efficient ways of improving gas mileage. It’s an argument often made by fans of the late Geo Metro and Honda CRX HF — both of which achieved hybrid-worthy fuel economy at the expense of safety features, creature comforts and wheels larger than a lawn tractor’s.

While overall fuel economy has increased dramatically in the past few decades, so has the weight of passenger vehicles. MIT economist Christopher Knittel recently found that the average vehicle’s curb weight increased 26 percent between 1980 and 2006. If today’s powertrains were fitted to cars as light as the Chevettes and Civics of yore, the average fuel economy of cars sold in the US would be as high as 37 mpg in 2012.

Like most Americans this time of year, car manufacturers have started looking at the numbers on their scales and are vowing to do something about it. GM, for its part, has talked about using carbon fiber across their vehicle fleet, even on entry-level models.

The benefits won’t just be all about fuel economy. Lighter cars can be more nimble on the road, offering performance and handling benefits. For that reason, we suggest CAR change the coalition’s name to something like the Colin Chapman Center for Automotive Weight Loss, after the Lotus founder who famously said, “To go faster, just add lightness.”

Photo: Flickr/tibchris

An EV conversion company with a solid track history has debuted a prototype drivetrain and exterior design for a new 2+2 EV concept.

The Kar is the brainchild of the engineers at KleenSpeed, the same folks who brought us the record-setting WX10 racer. They’ve also performed countless conversions, our favorite being the Mazda Miata they turned into a battery powered “Eiata.” They know emissions, but they’re also fans of how much torque an EV can put out off the line. Now, they’re planning to build a universal vehicle platform and a car — er, Kar — to go with it.

According to KleenSpeed spokesperson Dean Seven, Kar is being readied for a 2015 public debut, and will be built on an interchangeable platform that offers a 40kWh lithium polymer liquid-cooled battery pack, 120-150 mile range and a top speed governed at 85 mph.

Right now, KleenSpeed is in talks with several Asian manufacturers to build the Kar, which features an exterior penned by lead designer Brian Rhim. The next phase of the design process includes digitizing it for tooling and engineering studies. Seven said that KleenSpeed will take advantage of other automakers’ surplus manufacturing capacity rather than build their own factories.

Judging by the struggles that other EV-only startups have faced (see Aptera for the most recent example), the Kar has a long road ahead. Plus, there are those same difficulties of developing an automobile from scratch that have plagued would-be automakers from Preston Tucker to John DeLorean.

But KleenSpeed has an ace in the hole: their VX-1 platform, a prototype chassis and battery setup that can be applied to many vehicle types. The VX-1 will be ready mid-2012 and will be used for pre-production testing, followed by an improved VX-2 platform that would underpin the Kar and also be made available for other automakers to license or purchase.

“We are a technology company first, a visionary design firm next and not planing to become a manufacturing corporation,” said Seven. “Not only will we be able to sell KleenSpeed vehicles, we can sell KleenSpeed EV platform technology to other volume automakers.”

Seven foresees a return to the “coachbuilding” days of automaking, where the likes of Fisher Body, H.J. Mulliner and Ghia topped chassis from Cadillac, Rolls-Royce and Alfa Romeo. In this case, automakers without an existing EV design could take advantage of KleenSpeed’s engineering expertise and fit their designs onto a VX-2 chassis.

Unlike coachbuilders of yore, KleenSpeed’s platform won’t just be for luxury automobiles. There’s no word on pricing yet, but Seven says the Kar will “hit the sweet spot of price, performance, functionality, style and social awareness.”

Photo: KleenSpeed

Toyota is pushing ahead with plans to offer a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle to consumers in 2015, but it looks like you’ll have to be among the 1 percent to buy one.

For all the love being lavished upon hybrids and electrics these days, hydrogen remains very much alive, with Toyota, Honda and Daimler among those insisting it is the best way to mend our fuelish ways. The world’s largest automaker told Automotive News it plans to sell just a few thousand fuel cell cars worldwide, due largely to the fact they’ll carry six-figure price tags.

“We could expect a fuel cell vehicle to retail at about 100,000 euros ($138,000) in Europe,” Alain Uyttenhoven, Toyota Europe v.p. for product planning and marketing, told Automotive News.

That’s far more than the $50,000 or so that Toyota cited last year when it first announced plans to offer a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to consumers by 2015. Toyota said at the time it had slashed costs by using one-third the amount of platinum typically found in a fuel cell and reducing the cost of the polymer-electrolyte membrane used in the cell. It also said scaling up production would cut costs further.

Beyond the dearth of hydrogen fueling stations, the exorbitant cost of fuel cells has been among the technology’s greatest hurdles. Still, Toyota, Honda, Daimler and Hyundai are among the automakers who hope to have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2015.

Toyota’s latest-generation fuel cell vehicle (pictured) has a range of 431 miles. The automaker plans to place 100 vehicles with demonstration partners by 2013.

Photo of Toyota’s latest fuel cell vehicle fueling at the Shell hydrogen station in Torrance, California: Toyota.