Nissan Motor Co.’s oddly shaped V2G (vehicle to grid) concept vehicle was named the winner of last week’s annual Design Challenge at the Los Angeles auto show.

This year’s theme, Youthmobile 2030, asked six competing design studios in southern California (for Audi, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota) to predict what young drivers in 2030 will want from a vehicle.

The Nissan V2G is designed to connect to an electric grid embedded in roadways. Vehicles traveling on the grid can be linked together to travel in unison to improve safety and traffic flow. The V2G’s small cabin rides on six wheels: two large outboard wheels in the rear and four smaller ones enclosed in shrouds in the front. The front wheels are positioned in series on either side.

The car also features customized upgrade kits that owners can easily snap into place or remove. The parts are made from what Nissan describes as carbon nanotube cloth impregnated with bio-resin. The material would allow parts to be continuously recycled, according to the design team.

Entries were judged by a jury of design professionals based on creative concept, integration of futuristic design elements and level of adaptation to the needs of the youth consumer in 2030.

The Honda Helix ambitiously envisions a future in which advanced adaptive polymers, capable of shifting shape, color and material properties when coupled with the user’s DNA will allow a vehicle to become an extension of the user.

Audi’s eSpira and eOra aim to incorporate future advanced control technologies that tailor vehicle functions to small body movements and gestures. The OnStar Hero from General Motors Co. pits an autonomous driving system against drivers who must master a simulation system before they can override the car and take the controls.

Mazda’s contribution, the VMazda, would allow buyers to design their own vehicles online and build a one-off model at a digital manufacturing plant.

The Toyota LINK is a car-sharing program that travels on spheres made of an electro-conductive material that converts friction into energy.

Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit plans to produce just 1,000 of the e-tron, an all-electric version of its R8 supercar, Autocar reports. Achim Badstubner, Audi’s head of exterior design, tells the British magazine that all e-tron models will be made to order.

Due in 2012, the EV will feature an electric motor at each wheel. Combined output is 313 hp. Audi says the car, which has a composite body and aluminum spaceframe, can accelerate from zero to 62 mpg in 4.8 seconds and travel about 154 miles per charge.

Yokohama Tire Corp. recently launched U.S. sales of its dB Super E-spec aftermarket tires, which substitute a variety of natural materials-including oil extracted from discarded orange peels-to reduce their environmental impact. The tires, which have been under development for about 20 years, bowed last year in Japan and were used in several race series this year in the U.S.

By infusing orange oil into natural rubber, Yokohama says a tire’s petroleum content can be reduced to just 20% from the usual 50%-65%.

The orange tires also can help improve overall fuel efficiency, thanks to a 2-lb weight reduction and 22% lower rolling resistance-and with better traction and tread life than competitive low-rolling-resistance tires, according to Yokohama. An improved inner liner of the tire, which Yokohama calls AirTex, is designed to keep air loss at 1%-3% per month vs. 3%-5% for many conventional tires.

Wear and braking performance are said to be equivalent to those of standard tires. But some reviewers have complained that the tires are noisy.

The new tires use more environmentally friendly natural rubber in place of most of the synthetic rubber. Silica is added to the compound to allow it to remain flexible over a wide variety of temperatures. Rayon derived from cellulose is used in place of synthetic polyester fabric. The tire’s carbon black comes from coal instead of petroleum.

Initial applications in the U.S. will target hybrid vehicles and other fuel efficient models to play up the tire’s environmental benefits. The downside: Orange tires cost about 15% to 40% more than regular tires.

Ford Motor Co. says it may spend $300 million to $500 million in Michigan to revamp assembly plants there to produce hybrid/electric vehicles and the advanced batteries used in them.

Executives briefed reporters on the project yesterday. They said the investment hinges on Ford receiving state tax credits-including up to $120 million for the company and its suppliers to make advanced batteries-to support the project, which would create an estimated 1,000 new jobs. The company indicated that it would look elsewhere if Michigan doesn’t come through with incentives.

Delphi Holdings LLC currently assemblies battery packs for Ford’s Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrid sedans in Mexico. But the automaker plans to do that job itself in the future at an unnamed plant in Michigan.

Ford plans to begin production of an all-electric version of the company’s Transit Connect commercial van in 2010. This will be followed a year later by an electric midsize sedan developed in partnership with Magna International Inc. A plug-in hybrid and other next-generation hybrids are due in 2012.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. is launching a new off-road wheel loader that uses a hybrid drivetrain developed by its KCM Corp. subsidiary, reports The Nikkei. The Tokyo newspaper describes the application as a first in the construction machinery market.

KCM’s hybrid system teams a 4.5-liter engine with a capacitor and electric motor. The configuration enables the use of a smaller displacement engine and reduces the loader’s fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by about 35% vs. standard models powered solely by a gasoline engine.

With the hybrid system, excess energy generated by the engine is converted into electricity when the machine is stationary and stores it for use as supplementary power when needed. The loader’s stop-and-go drive cycle makes a capacitor better-suited than a battery to store electrical energy.

The hybrid loader is expected to cost about $226,000, about twice the cost of a conventional machine, says The Nikkei. Kawasaki hopes to sell 10 of the hybrid loaders next year. Prices of the hybrid system likely would come down as volumes increase.

The company also should benefit from a pending partnership with Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., which is in the process of buying a one-third share of KCM. Hitachi already is collaborating with Kawasaki Heavy. Working together, the three companies aim to better compete against rival Komatsu Ltd., which already sells hybrid hydraulic excavators.