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ecoXplorer is edited by Evelyn Kanter, a professional journalist with more than two decades of experience as magazine and newspaper writer and photographer, radio and television news producer and reporter, and guidebook author and editor -- all focusing on travel, automotive, lifestyle, the environment, and your rights as a consumer.

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Toyota Hybrid Minicar Concept Intro at Detroit Auto Show

Toyota hybrid concept minicar teaser photo

Toyota hybrid concept minicar teaser photo

Green cars were the big news at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September and the Los Angeles Auto Show in December 2009, and the expectation is that hybrid cars, plug-in electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars will be making headlines at the important Detroit Auto Show in January 2010.

The rumor is that Toyota will introduce a hybrid mini-car.  Why else would they release teaser photographs — a fender here, a hood there.   

According to CNET, this will be a new Toyota model, not a hybrid version of one already on sale. 

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Top Green Rating for No. Carolina Hotel

Proximity Hotel, Greensboro, N.C., LEED Platinum

Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, N.C., is LEED Platinum

How appropriate — the hotel with the world’s top green rating is in the city of Greensboro. It’s the Proximity Hotel, one of the few hotels anywhere to achieve the LEED Platinum rating.  Don’t think you have to give up luxury to travel green — this hotel has an AAA Four Diamond rating.

Platinum and diamond — that’s a great combination.

The Priximity Hotel was built to use 40% less energy and 30% less water than a comparable hotel, and features such state-of-the-art technologies as the first installation in North America of the regenerative drive for Otis’ Gen2 elevator.  This system reduces energy usage by capturing energy and feeding it back into the building’s internal electrical grid.

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