By Donal Fagan
March 18, 2008
Recordnet.com reports on a new trend: "green" auto shop. To wit: Mark Armstrong's students at Santa Rosa Junior College have upgraded dozens of cars to run on biodiesel. They've converted five cars to run on vegetable oil, modified one to use ethanol and transformed three into electric vehicles. Mike Yonan and his automotive seniors at the Weber Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology modded a fire-engine red 2002 Neon to run on eight lead-acid batteries. Armstrong, who owns a heavy equipment repair business, believes the work teaches his charges self-reliance, resourcefulness and [left coast] Yankee ingenuity. "If we really want alternative fuel vehicles, let's get off the couch and start making them." Yonan says amen to that, and counsels his fellow students to learn the value of simple persistence. "Thinking hurts. Sometimes it gets so frustrating you don't really want to do it. But you think about what it's going to be like and keep going."
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POWERED
March 18th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I’m waiting to see their cold fusion-powered Solstice.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
A Neon? Bleh, I would have converted a Geo Metro.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
SO better-looking than the Prius.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
SO better-looking than the Caliber. Poor xler goes from ok to awful.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Whatever happened to the Neon??? Did they quit making it?