Jalopnik: ge

Geely GE Rips Off Phantom, Makes Room For One Imperial Emperor

Wes Siler — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EDT

Made a fortune by selling decadent Americans lead-tainted toys and bootlegged DVDs? This Geely GE is the ride for you; doubling a Phantom's luxury by offering half the seating capacity for less money.

The throne-like rear seat sits on plush red carpet underneath a starry night sky - the latter ripped straight from the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe.

No word on what engine underpowers the big Geely, but expect it to make an official premiere at the Shanghai Auto Show on April 20. [via TheTycho]

GE Gets Into Hybrid Game With Giant Mining Truck

Ben Wojdyla — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:40:00 EDT

Even though this news is almost two months old, it's interesting to see GE bringing good things to life, namely giant mining trucks which improve upon the previously standard diesel-electric powertrain — especially in light of Friday's news of Chrysler tying up with Thomas Edison's conglomerate. These Goliaths of the open pits have been using monster generators to power equally massive in-wheel electric motors for years, but GE is now testing a system which puts a battery between the generator and the motors, creating a true hybrid rather than just a monstrously torquey one.

The new system integrates a 447 kW-capable, sodium-based battery from the GE locomotive division in place of the dissipative resistor system which previously was used to dump the heat of braking. Instead of wasting all that energy, the battery stores it up and uses it to get the mini-mountain moving again later. The truly brilliant thing about this program? GE is getting government bucks from the US Department of Energy to do it! [GE Research via Edmunds]

GE Wants To Help Chrysler Bring Plug-In Hybrids To Life

Ray Wert — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:40:00 EDT

GE's looking to play with some new hybrid battery technology in the automotive space, so what better man for them to reach out to than former GE executive Bob "The Builder" Nardelli — the current CEO of Chrysler? That's exactly who the company all about the light bulbs and bringing good things to life is reaching out to. According to Automotive News GE's teaming up with Chrysler on a project to demonstrate a technology they're calling a "dual-battery energy storage system." What this one-time project means, after the jump.

Our take is that although a one-time team-up may be fun, GE's got a lot of expertise in batteries, drivetrains and power electronic controls — so the real fortunes and glory for Jeff Immelt's mega-company will come from being able to pivot this one-time project into a contract for supplying components for plug-in hybrid vehicles. But regardless of what company provides the technology, one thing that's clear is it took Chrysler much too long to start working on plug-in hybrid tech. At this rate they should have product hitting the street at about the same time as we start using plutonium to power SUVs. [via Automotive News (sub. req.)]