• Use Facebook apps – There are some great apps on Facebook to keep your visitors glued to your business page. There are some cool games that can be integrated with your Facebook business page. Once you are successful in engaging your visitor, you can easily drive his attention to your car dealer website. Qualified web traffic generated from these tools can quickly get converted into buyers and long term customers.
• Expand your Facebook network – In the world of online marketing, your network is your greatest asset. The same holds true for your online automotive dealership as well. Placing pay per click advertisements on Facebook can rapidly expand your network on your Facebook fan page and in turn generate an influx of web traffic to your car dealer website.
• Install a podcast widget on your fan page – Podcasts are basically audio files that can be downloaded to your computer. They are a great way to boost web traffic to your car dealer website. By installing the Facebook podcast widget on your automotive dealership fan page, people from your network can listen to your podcast which would inform them about all the new cars and services that have been launched. This would prompt them to visit your site and in turn increase your web traffic statistics.

There are a myriad ways to gain web traffic from your Facebook fan page. The ones mentioned above are some of the most reliable and popular methods to drive a stream of traffic to your car dealer website. As long as Facebook continues to grow, a lot more tactics will be devised along the way to assist automotive dealers to effectively gain visitors to their site.

DeAngelis Advertising is an Automotive Advertising firm based out of Florida. Real World Results for Dealers Nationwide.

Both manufacturers have confirmed that their first year of production is on target and Chevy is set to deliver 25,000 Volts in the year while Nissan Leaf is in line with its target of 25,000 global sales. This includes the Nissan Leaf figures for the US and Japan.

So, besides the initial euphoria there is not much to say at this point of time as to who will win the battle for electric car supremacy.

As per the report, 53.1% brand awareness for the Chevy Volt is followed closely by the 49.1% awareness for Ford Focus. Nissan is a distant 3rd at 30.8% and it is followed by Tesla Motors.

While the exact details of the methodology of the study is not yet clear, there will be some talk of the authenticity of this study. In any case, the Nissan brand is the only one that is manufacturing a true electric car since Ford Focus and Chevy Volt will only be hybrid vehicles. Add to that the fact that the Leaf has been rated 99 mpg and at full re-charge it goes over and above the safe distance rating of Chevy Volt.

The EPA has also rated it a full charge mileage at 73 miles. So, this again means that the car will go up to 77 miles on full electric charge. The company says that the full recharge of the car can be done in 7 hours.

In a nutshell, you need to charge the car every for 7 hours before you can drive it for 70 miles. It may be easy for some folks and cumbersome for others to leave the charging station on the entire night.

The Euro-IV fuel variant that signifies European Grade – IV fuel was already launched and implemented in 13 major cities on 1st April and the remaining country was gradually migrated to Euro-III fuel variants.

The use of cleaner fuel is expected to reduce environmental toxins and also make the air quality better. Not everyone is happy though, because use of cleaner fuel has meant that subscribers have to pay slightly higher price for the fuel. The general mood however, is quite positive and people seem to have liked the idea of using cleaner, low-sulphur fuel for a better and green living.

Since the employers did not realize the theft or they forgot to get the card de-activated in time, the 31 year old man, Wayne Mitchell used it to buy fuel worth 5,000 pounds for himself before lending it to his friends who used the card to add to the misery of the company. The card was used between 21st July 2008 to 24th December 2008 at multiple petrol stations. During these 5 months, the employer lost out on 21,000 pounds of fuel. You may be left wondering as to how could this employer let the fuel card be abused for 5 months and not notice it.

The accused admitted to his fraud in an early hearing and was given a 2 year prison sentence and suspended for 2 years. He was also told to work for 150 hours without pay at the Oxford Crown Court. And in the recent Court order, he was ordered to pay 5 pounds as a nominal charge for the fraud committed by him. Interestingly, the Court did not consider the full amount of 21,000 pounds before sentencing the man and instead it took into account the actual fraud of 4985 pounds that was committed by the person.

Needless to say, the fuel card fraternity says that the blame lies with the company in question because it chose to ignore fraudulent purchases over a period of 5 months. One of the fuel card company’s representatives told us that these days petrol and diesel cards come with zero-liability insurance and this is more than sufficient to guard against any liability arising out of stolen cards. All that a person needs to do is to call the customer support and get this card blocked and within 24 hours of the call the petrol or diesel card gets blocked.

This episode also raises some very important questions.

1. How could the company have prevented the fraud?
2. How could a company limit the extent of liability arising out of criminal use of petrol cards?
3. And what would be the liability of a fraudster who chooses to sell a stolen card in grey market?

The Court sentencing is going to raise a few questions on what can be done better to ensure that this sort of theft does not take place in future, or at the least how can a company protect its petrol cards from potential frauds.

A123 Systems has opened what it says is the largest lithium-ion battery factory on North America, a sprawling 291,000-square foot facility in Michigan where it will develop, test and manufacture prismatic cells and assemble battery packs for hybrid and electric vehicles.

President Barack Obama lauded the factory, which was funded in part by a $249 million grant from the Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The state of Michigan kicked in another $125 million in incentives. The factory is located in the Detroit suburb of Livonia.

A123 Systems manufactures prismatic cells roughly the size of a license plate. Each cell produces 20 amp hours and 66 watt hours. Company officials said the factory will allow it to increase cell assembly capacity from from 100 megawatt-hours to 750 megawatt-hours by the end of next year.

Not surprisingly, the company’s stock surged 8.82 percent on news of the opening, which the president hailed in a conference call today with company brass and Gov. Grohnholm.

Photo: Argonne National Laboratory / Flickr. Argonne researcher Panagiotis Prezas checks the voltages of A123 Systems’ lithium-ion batteries before a test.

Rumors that McLaren Automotive is working on a hybrid supercar swirling again with word that the company is looking for an electrical engineer with gas-electric experience.

The British firm wants someone to work on the “concept, design and development of the electrical package and wiring system for a hybrid electric vehicle,” according to a McLaren advert spotted by the blokes at Britain’s Autocar magazine. The job posting renewed speculation that kicked up last year when McLaren was looking for a hybrid drivetrain engineer.

McLaren, of course, had no comment beyond telling Autocar, “Hybrid technology is something that we are looking at and assessing. It is something we are interested in.” That’s pretty much what it said about the first ad.

Still, it’s worth noting that Ferrari — which is the company’s biggest competitor, both in Formula 1 and in the supercar arena where the forthcoming McLaren MP4-12C (pictured) will compete — unveiled the 599-based HY-KERS hybrid earlier this year. Ferrari has patented a gas-electric system, and Lamborghini teased us with the sweet Estoque hybrid concept two years ago.

Clearly the incentive is there, and building a hybrid would monetize the kinetic energy recovery system McLaren developed for the the 2009 F1 season.

Photo: McLaren Automotive

Public transit riders in the Los Angeles foothills can be forgiven for missing the bus, as it’s been a lot quieter the last few days. With a Proterra EcoRide BE35 in the fleet, Foothill Transit is the first transit agency in the United States to use the world’s first rapid-charge electric bus.

We first told you about Proterra in November when the company showed off its EcoRide BE35 bus on Capitol Hill. Now, one of their buses is plying Foothill Transit’s line 291 between the Los Angeles County cities of Pomona and La Verne.

Branded as the “Ecoliner” and paid for by stimulus funds, the Proterra bus features lithium titanate batteries from Altairnano. Lithium titanate batteries don’t expand and contract during recharging, so they’re very resilient and can hold up to frequent partial recharges. The Ecoliner’s lithium titanate batteries can propel the bus for three hours after a ten minute rapid charge. That won’t be any problem for line 291, as the Ecoliner will be able to recharge every half hour at a drive-in docking station installed at the Pomona Transit Center.

According to Proterra, despite its high purchase price the $1 million BE35 can save transit authorities $300,000 in total lifetime operating expenses, not to mention a 400 percent improvement in fuel economy.

Even if other California transit authorities weren’t swayed by those attractive numbers, they’ll undoubtedly be clamoring for more Proterra buses before the California Air Resources Board’s Zero Emission Bus (ZBus) regulation goes into effect in 2012. By then, 15 percent of buses ordered by the largest transit agencies in California will have to be zero emissions.

Foothill Transit has an even more ambitious goal, aiming for a 100 percent clean-fuel fleet by 2011. That means while the Ecoliner is the transit authority’s first green bus, it’s hardly the last.

Videos: Youtube/nwfblv6, leko1224

Of the 1,800-plus hours Boeing 787 test pilots have flown so far, few are as dramatic as the recent trip to Iceland for crosswind testing. The 787 team flew to Keflavik airport after weather forecasts indicated conditions most pilots try to avoid — wind across the runway.

Boeing pilots made several takeoffs and landings on Runway 02 with winds of 30 knots, gusting to 39 from a heading of 120 degrees. This gave the 787 Dreamliner flight test team what it was looking for — nearly perpendicular winds at or exceeding speeds most airlines consider the limit for landing.

Keflavik is becoming the go-to location for crosswind testing, as Airbus tested the A380 in Iceland.

For most pilots, whether a student pilot or a veteran airline captain, making a good landing is matter of pride and something that is never guaranteed. Crosswind landings are typically among the most challenging.

Airport runways typically are normally aligned with the prevailing winds to make landings a bit easier, and many airports have runways aligned in different directions to account for changing wind. But the wind doesn’t always cooperate and at some point, every pilot has to make a landing with the wind blowing perpendicular to the runway.

Crosswind testing is important for the airplane makers because it allows them to confirm how strong a crosswind can blow while still allowing pilots to attempt a safe landing. All airplanes, big and small, have a limit to how much of a crosswind they can land in. This is usually dictated by how much the control surfaces (ailerons, rudder and elevator) can be used to keep the airplane flying along the runway heading despite being either crabbed or slipped into the wind.

In the 787 and other big airliners, pilots typically crab into the wind by using the rudder to point the nose of the airplane into the wind. When the airplane is very close to the ground, the pilot pushes on the other rudder pedal to align the nose with the runway while simultaneously using the ailerons to prevent the airplane from being blown down wind across the runway.

Unfortunately this can be a tricky balance of controls and without constant practice, the skill required to land in a crosswind can get rusty.

Most smaller airplanes have limits around 20-25 knots of wind coming straight across the runway. Large airliners may have limits of more than 30 knots.

The work performed by test pilots to find the limits of an airplane while landing in a crosswind are put to the test from time to time. In the video below, pilots of an Airbus A320 are attempting to land in Hamburg where winds were reported to be 35 knots, gusting to 47 roughly 60 degrees across the runway. The limit for a direct crosswind for the Airbus A320 is 33 knots, gusting 38.

While the co-pilot (who was flying during the landing) is de-crabbing close to the runway, left aileron input is applied and the left wing touches the runway, damaging the wing tip. The crew immediately elected to perform a go around. The airplane safely landed on a different runway more closely aligned with the wind about 20 minutes later. A full report on the landing can be found here (.pdf).