Gas-free cars will soon hit streets

By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 15, 2007

Coming soon to a freeway -- or driveway -- near you: cars that don't need gasoline.

American Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. announced plans at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Wednesday to put alternative fuel technology vehicles on the road in California in coming months. A few drivers will even get to park them in their garages.

Honda and GM's Chevrolet have developed hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars for limited test use, while Ford is producing a plug-in hybrid vehicle. And although none are being manufactured in large quantities -- mass production is still years away -- the limited trials will be a tantalizing taste of what's likely to come.

The FCX Clarity is what Honda calls a "production" version of a hydrogen fuel cell car it first exhibited two years ago. It promises zero emissions and luxury features such as heated seats and Bluetooth connectivity while getting about the equivalent of 68 miles per gallon.

Honda says it will lease the four-door sedans to a limited number of people in Irvine, Santa Monica and Torrance by next summer. (Those areas are being targeted because they're near hydrogen refueling centers.) The three-year lease -- the first time fuel cell cars will have been made commercially available anywhere -- will be $600 a month, or about the cost of a BMW 5 Series, Honda executives said.

Motorists will be able to keep the cars at home and drive them as they please while being mindful that the fuel tank allows them to go 270 miles between fill-ups. The leases include insurance and mechanical service from Honda.

The Japanese automaker won't say how much each FCX Clarity costs to make but admits the lease comes nowhere near to covering its expenses. Hydrogen fuel cell cars, which convert hydrogen into electricity used to power a motor, can cost $1 million or more each to make.

"At the end of the lease, we definitely want them back," said Dan Bonawitz, vice president of corporate planning and logistics for Honda. The company will use the lease term to gather information on the vehicle.

GM, meanwhile, says it will distribute 100 hydrogen fuel cell-powered Chevrolet Equinox crossovers over the next half year, including 10 that it will lend to Walt Disney Co. Like the Honda FCX, the Equinoxes will be used for company research.

"These will give up a good practical test of where these cars belong," said GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, adding that other Equinoxes will end up in "the hands of the public" and celebrities.

Honda and GM are focusing on Southern California because of its relative abundance of hydrogen fuel stations. Beyond Santa Monica, Irvine and Torrance, there are stations in Burbank, Diamond Bar and Long Beach, and about 20 others in the state. In many other parts of the country, there are no stations.

In California, Bonawitz said, hydrogen per kilogram, the unit used for the fuel, costs $4 to $10. A tank could cost $16 to $40 to fill.

Ford, meanwhile, is lending 20 plug-in hybrid Escapes to Southern California Edison.

The utility, which will use them as fleet vehicles, is to take delivery next month. Ford said it had planned to announce the partnership on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" but was unable to do so because of the writers strike.

Jennifer Moore, corporate news manager for Ford, says the company will use the test to study the commercialization possibilities of lithium-ion batteries and the behavior of plug-in drivers. "How do people use them? How often will they charge them? These are the questions we'll be asking," Moore said.

Who will be driving them is another question. Moore said Edison might use them as standard fleet vehicles or let employees drive them as their personal cars. And whereas Disney will use its Chevy Equinoxes as corporate shuttles, Honda wants to make sure some regular folks get behind the wheel.

To that end, it will have four fuel cell cars on hand at the Auto Show today and it will allow test drives by invited motorists and a few members of the media.

Skeptics point out that neither plug-in hybrids nor fuel cell vehicles are anywhere near ready for prime time, and are perhaps a decade or more away from true commercialization.

The tests by Honda, Ford and GM are "a demonstration on the part of the carmakers that they're green," said David Healy, an analyst at Burnham Securities. "Or at least that they look like they're green."

Microsoft Office bound for the Web

Microsoft Office heads to the Web

By Ina Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: September 30, 2007, 9:00 PM PDT

SEATTLE--In another clear sign that Microsoft sees the threat posed by its traditional business moving online, the company is readying a rival to Google's Documents and Spreadsheets.

The software maker is announcing Office Live Workspace, a free online tool for viewing, sharing and storing--but not editing--Office documents online. (Its existing Office Live efforts will be rebranded as Office Live Small Business.) It's not quite ready--starting Monday customers will be able to put in their name to be part of a beta testing program expected to begin later this year.

Still, the effort is a recognition that competition is heating up in the productivity arena, an area that large rivals had basically ceded to Microsoft a few years ago. In addition to Google's effort, which as of earlier this month also includes presentation software, IBM announced its free Lotus Symphony productivity software, which prompted 100,000 downloads in its first week of availability.

Adobe, meanwhile, on Monday is expected to announce it has acquired Virtual Ubiquity, a start-up that has built a Web-based word processor, called Buzzword, using Adobe's Flash and AIR technologies. Adobe is also introducing a service, code-named Share, that allows people to share and store documents via the Web.

A blend of online services and traditional software
For Microsoft, Office Live Workspace is also the next step in what the company touts as its "software plus services" strategy, essentially the notion that online services can serve as a complement to locally run software, but not necessarily fully replace software running on a consumer's own desktop machine or on a businesses server.

In some cases, though, Microsoft is also offering its traditional server software entirely as a hosted service. To start with, Microsoft is launching hosted versions of its Exchange e-mail and calendar program, its SharePoint portal software and Office Communications Server, its product for handling corporate instant messaging and telephony. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and other executives had previously said that such a service was coming.

Initially, the offer is aimed at large businesses that plan to use the software for more than 5,000 people. Microsoft Online Services, as that project is known, is born of a two-year-old effort in which companies such as Energizer Holdings and XL Capital essentially outsourced their desktop computing efforts to Microsoft.

Microsoft is moving cautiously with both efforts. By limiting the software hosting to the largest customers, it hopes to give partners that already offer hosted services some time to find a new niche and allow Microsoft to test itself with a smaller number of customers, before broadly offering the service directly. Partners will still be able to offer their own hosted service if they choose, or resell Microsoft's hosted service.

On the Office Live Workspace front, Microsoft will initially offer the product with no advertising, though Microsoft executives said that it has been designed so that ads can be shown in the future.

The company is also not allowing people to edit their documents online, but executives stressed over and over that Microsoft is committed to being the leader in productivity software and that includes online editing. (Translation: We don't think we need to have editing in there right now, but if that changes, we're prepared to do so.)

Another key project down the road is integrating Office Live Workspaces with other "Live" products such as Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, so that people will be able to view Office attachments they get via e-mail or IM. Google currently allows Gmail users to open attachments in Google Docs.

Microsoft has already said it has big plans for Office Live. At its partner conference in July, COO Kevin Turner said the product has the potential to be one of the company's top three or four most-used products.

Nor is the company stopping there. It is also planning an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works, has trialed prepaid cards for time-limited versions of Office and is exploring still other approaches to offer Office in as many ways as it can without overloading customers.

"We've put more of our marketing IQ behind alternative business models and alternative distribution strategies in the last two years," Corporate Vice President Chris Capossela said in an interview at the partner conference.