Auto Show Shows More Green

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public. Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks, and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:

Transcript

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public.
Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks,
and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised
before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than
just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:


The press previews for this year’s Detroit auto show were made up of three straight days
of back-to-back new product launches. Dozens of new vehicles were unveiled. Hundreds
of glossy brochures were offered to reporters, and nothing generated as much interest as
the new Chevrolet Volt concept vehicle:


(Sound of buzzing)


A packed crowd gathered for the flashy and noisy unveiling. GM executives announced
that the concept car could run up to 40 miles without using a single drop of fuel. It runs
instead on electricity cranked out by its next-generation lithium-ion batteries. When the
liquid fuel system eventually does kick in, it recharges the battery for better fuel
economy, getting up to 150 miles per gallon.


And as GM CEO Rick Wagoner told the audience, the Chevy Volt represents a new way
of thinking for the world’s largest automaker. It comes from a realization that oil alone is
highly unlikely to supply enough energy for all of tomorrow’s vehicles:


“For the global auto industry, this means that we must as a business necessity, develop
alternative sources of propulsion based on alternative sources of energy in order to meet the
world’s growing demand for our products.”


GM wasn’t the only automaker to unveil a fuel conscious vehicle at this year’s auto show.
Ford’s Airstream concept, and Toyota’s FT-HS sports car concept both featured hybrid
style powertrain systems, backed by a lithium-ion battery.


It might not be all that surprising for automakers to release such vehicles after a year in
which gas prices surged beyond three dollars a gallon, but analyst Jim Hall of Auto
Pacific says gas prices aren’t the reason for automakers to get into low or no emission
vehicles.


“You do it for two reasons, one, the potential of getting out of the business of making a
mechanical engine that has to be machined and made of multiple pieces and assembled,
and the other part of it is, you never have to spend another penny on emissions controls,
and emissions research, and emissions development and emissions engineering, which, at
every major car company is billions of dollars.”


So, basically, greener technology will eventually be cheaper technology. That means that
for perhaps the first time in the history of the auto industry, the interests of
environmentalists and the interest of business-minded bean counters are finally in line.


The big question now is how to get to that greener future. The concepts at this year’s
Detroit auto show all point to lithium-ion batteries as the next frontier. These batteries
are more powerful, and potentially cheaper than the batteries in today’s hybrids, but
they’re also less stable, and don’t last as long.


GM executives say they think they can resolve those issues and have a lithium-ion
powered vehicle by the end of the decade, but Jim Hall says no way:


“I worked on an electric vehicle program when I was employed in the auto industry
directly, and I learned that there are three kinds of liars in the world. There are liars,
damn liars and battery engineers.”


Of course, not everyone agrees with Hall’s assessment. Some lithium-ion proponents
even argue that the technology could be ready to go right now. Ford, General Motors and
the Chrysler Group have asked the federal government for more funding to speed-
development of lithium-ion batteries.


They say the Japanese government is giving its car companies several hundred million
dollars for battery development, and they want a comparable effort from the US
government. But even if Detroit automakers don’t get the money, almost everyone agrees
that big changes are coming for the auto industry, and that decades-long battle between
the good of the environment and the good of carmakers could be coming to a close.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Green Auto Plants Going Main-Stream?

  • GM will build three new crossover SUVs at the Lansing plant. Production will start this fall. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

A new assembly plant from one of Detroit’s Big Three car companies is getting attention for its “green” qualities. Big Three automakers may not rank at the top of most environmentalists’ list for companies of the year. But some say the new auto plant is a sign that environmentally-sensitive manufacturing has finally gone main-stream. It’s not just because building green plants is the right thing to do. Really, it comes down to a different kind of green. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has the story:

Transcript

A new assembly plant from one of Detroit’s Big Three car companies is getting attention
for its “green” qualities. Big Three automakers may not rank at the top of most
environmentalists’ list for companies of the year. But some say the new auto plant is a
sign that environmentally-sensitive manufacturing has finally gone main-stream. It’s not
just because building green plants is the right thing to do. Really, it comes down to a
different kind of green. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has the story:


The first thing you notice about the smell of General Motors’ newest plant is how much
you don’t notice it. The plant smells like nothing at all. Not paint, grease or even that
new car smell. GM says it specifically selected materials for its new Lansing Delta Township
Plant in Michigan to limit indoor air pollution. And there’s a lot more to not notice about the plant.
Like how much space it doesn’t use.


On a tour with reporters, GM Environmental Engineer Bridget Bernal points out that less
than half of the plant’s 1,100-acre lot has been developed. The rest is left green, including
75 acres for habitat preservation:


“And basically in that 75 acres, we have a couple of pretty large wetlands, along with
some smaller wetlands. We have a rather large wood lot. And we’ve got a significant area
that’s being developed as native prairie.”


GM says it only planted native species on the site. And it planned ditches and culverts to
help filter water as it drains into other areas. A quarter of the materials used to build the
facility was recycled. The plant uses 45 percent less total energy than a traditional plant.
And, on the day GM gave reporter tours, it rained. Even that gets used. The water is
collected in cisterns, and used for flushing. GM says the plant saves a total of more than 4
million gallons of water per year.


Put together, all these elements were enough to win GM a LEED Gold Certification from
the U.S. Green Building Council.


Kimberly Hoskin is director of the council’s new construction program. She says she’d
been traveling a lot for work when one of her colleagues asked if she’d be willing to take
a trip to an event Lansing, Michigan.


“And I said, ‘Well, who’s it for? And she said, well, General Motors.’ General Motors, a
factory, is getting a LEED Gold Certification? Yes, I’ll go. Of course I’ll go. This is really
exciting.”


GM is not the first auto company to use green elements in an auto plant design. Ford’s
Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan was built earlier this decade with a 10-acre “living”
roof that helped manage storm water runoff.


But Hoskin says, out of about 560 buildings in the nation that have been certified by the
Green Building Council, only five are manufacturing facilities, and GM says the Lansing
facility is the first auto assembly plant to get Gold, the agency’s top rating.


But for GM, the green elements of the Lansing Delta Assembly Plant aren’t just about the
environment. They’re about cold, hard cash. The lower energy use alone will save GM a
million dollars a year. That gives people like Hoskin comfort that the plant isn’t just a
public relations move by GM and it increases the chances that we’ll see more green plants
in the future.


Sean McAlinden is Chief Economist with the Center for Automotive Research:


“As we slowly replace our old big 3 plants, many of which are very elderly, they’re all
going to look like this. They’re all going to be green plants. In fact, some of them will
keep getting greener.”


That’s good news for places where there’s a lot of auto manufacturing, but many people
are not ready to absolve GM of all of its environmental sins.


David Friedman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says a green plant is nice,
but the real problem is still the product:


“Over eight times the impact on the environment when it comes to global warming is
once that vehicle leaves that plant. That’s the biggest step that we need automakers to
take and to improve the fuel economy of all of their cars and trucks.”


GM, and other automakers, say they are working to make cars cleaner. High gas prices
may force even more changes as sales of big pickups and SUVs drop off. Ultimately, car
makers’ profits could depend on building cleaner cars, just as keeping manufacturing
costs down will depend on having cleaner plants.


That could change the way auto companies think about environmental improvements
because going green will be about more than just doing the right thing, or protecting the
brand image. It will be about protecting the bottom line. What’s sustainable for the
environment will also be sustainable for the business, and both will show a lot more
green.


For the GLRC, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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