The Honda Insight Concept (Photo courtesy of Honda)
Next spring car buyers will have
another choice if they’re looking for a
hybrid car. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Next spring car buyers will have
another choice if they’re looking for a
hybrid car. Lester Graham reports:
The very first electric-gas hybrid car to hit the dealership showroom was the Honda
Insight back in 2000. But the small two-seater never took off like the bigger Toyota
Prius.
Now a re-designed Insight will be on exhibit at next month’s Paris Auto Show.
Csaba Csere is the editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine. He says the new
Insight will seat four or five.
“The profile looks very much like the current Prius, but it’s going to be a less
expensive car. It’s probably going to start at about $19,000, still get nearly 50-miles
per gallon, and it’s going to go on sale on Earth Day next spring.”
The Honda Insight will get to the dealers’ lots more than a year before a next
generation Toyota Prius and GM’s Chevy Volt are expected to go on sale.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrid cars. That’s
because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And,
just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand. (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)
The big automakers are working on
coming up with plug in hybrids. By the
end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have
cars you can plug in to charge up batteries,
backed up with small gas powered engines.
Lester Graham reports there are concerns
about whether pollution from power plants
will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:
Transcript
The big automakers are working on
coming up with plug in hybrids. By the
end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have
cars you can plug in to charge up batteries,
backed up with small gas powered engines.
Lester Graham reports there are concerns
about whether pollution from power plants
will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:
I was out the other day with a guy who converted his Saturn four-door into an all electric
vehicle. Did it all himself.
His name’s Bob Gurk. He’s one of a lot of people who think there’s a better way, and
they want you to see for yourself.
Bob Gurk: “Here are the keys.”
Lester Graham: “I’m drivin’?”
Guys like Bob Gurk think the big automakers should have come up with electrics and
plug-in hybrids a long time ago.
Lester Graham: “Unplug here?”
Bob Gurk: “Yeah.”
(sounds of driving)
Bob Gurk says, sure, he spent a lot converting his car to electric. And there are some
sacrifices: no air conditioning, he can only go just a little over 50 miles without a charge,
but then, he’s not paying close to four-bucks a gallon for gasoline now.
Bob Gurk: “I figure it’s about three cents a mile.”
Lester Graham: “Three cents a mile?”
Bob Gurk: “Yeah.”
Lester Graham: “As opposed to gasoline, which is?”
Bob Gurk: “Ten cents a mile, I’d say. At least.”
Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrids. That’s
because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And,
just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand.
A guy who’s supposed to know something about electric cars is Andy Frank. He’s at
the University of California Davis. Some call him the father of the plug-in-hybrid. Andy
Frank says we don’t use all the power that’s available right now.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that the grid actually has excess capacity. The
reason why is there has to be enough capacity to satisfy the peak draw in the middle of
the day. But, at night everybody turns off their lights and that draw goes down to about
anywhere between a half and two-thirds of what is required during the peak of the day.”
So, the idea is you could plug in your plug-in hybrid overnight.
“And then the question is how many cars could you charge with that idle capacity on our
existing grid? About 75 to 80% of cars in our entire fleet in the U.S. could be charged
with that excess capacity that we currently have.”
That’s assuming most people would only plug in at night, during the off-peak hours. If
most of them did, that would be a lot of cars that would not be emitting pollution from the
tailpipes.
But that also means some power plants will be burning more coal at night, billowing out
pollution, including greenhouse gasses.
Dustin Dwyer reports on automotive issues for Michigan Radio and he’s covered this
issue.
“One of the benefits, the power companies will tell you, is that if you have millions of
tailpipes out there spewing emissions, it’s much more difficult to capture those emissions
or manage those emissions than it is to manage coming out of one smokestack at the
power plant.”
But, you do end up shifting some pollution upstream to the power plants. And that
would pollute rural areas more, because that’s where they build the power plants.
The experts say that’s why we ought to start building parking lots with car ports covered
in solar panels, put up more wind turbines, and find other ways to use energy better – to
power all those electric and plug-in hybrids that are coming.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A laboratory researcher examines a lithium-ion battery that may be put in a hybrid car in the future (Photo courtesy of the Department of Energy)
The federal government and US carmakers are spending more
money on battery research for plug-in hybrid vehicles. That’s because
existing battery technology is limited. But some of the grant winners
say success won’t come easily. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
The federal government and US carmakers are spending more
money on battery research for plug-in hybrid vehicles. That’s because
existing battery technology is limited. But some of the grant winners
say success won’t come easily. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The US Advanced Battery Consortium is made up of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford.
Together with money from the Department of Energy, the consortium is handing out millions of
dollars to develop batteries for Hybrid vehicles.
Johnson Controls and a partner will develop lithium-ion batteries for plug-in hybrids.
Michael Andrew is a spokesman for Johnson Controls. He says his company has a lot of work to
do to make a battery that will go forty miles between charges.
“You’ve got to hit volume targets, weight targets, power targets, energy targets, cost targets. For
the 40 mile range application, that’s gonna be a tremendous challenge for us.”
The battery and car makers say it might take even more government support to help the US auto
industry shift away from gasoline-powered cars.
Critics say the companies should have focused sooner on fuel efficiency.
The powertrain of the Chevy Volt. This concept image shows the lithium ion battery pack running down the center of the vehicle. (Image courtesy of GM)
If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:
Transcript
If you’ve been thinking about buying a hybrid
vehicle sometime in the future, 2010 might be your
year. General Motors and Toyota have been battling
to be the first to build the next generation of hybrids.
And both say 2010 is the year it will happen. Dustin
Dwyer reports:
GM engineers and executives more or less admit that the first round of
hybrid vehicle development went to Toyota. The Prius is by far the best
selling hybrid on the road.
But GM has been racing to win the second round on hybrids.
GM CEO Rick Wagoner says his company will have a new kind of
hybrid battery, and a more powerful electric motor ready by 2010.
“And because our new system is three times more powerful, we’ll also
be able to use it in a wider range of powertrains, and that’s exactly what
we plan to do.”
Wagoner says the more powerful hybrid system will save more gas. And
applying it to more vehicles will make the system cheaper.
Toyota says it’s also working to have its next generation of hybrids ready by 2010.
When we think about climate change, many of us think about it as a national, even international, problem. But a growing number of officials at the local level are beginning to see it as a local problem as well. Karen Kelly brings us the first
of a two-part series on what cities are doing to
prepare for global warming:
Transcript
When we think about climate change, many of us think about it as a national, even international, problem. But a growing number of officials at the local level are beginning to see it as a local problem as well. Karen Kelly brings us the first
Of a two-part series on what cities are doing to
prepare for global warming:
Ron Sims has lived in Washington State his whole life, and he loves its unique environment: Puget Sound, the snow-capped mountains, and the salmon runs. But he’s worried about its future. He’s now the head of King County, Washington. It’s home to about 2 million residents, including the city of Seattle.
As county executive, he sees the scientific reports about his region.
They say the snow caps are melting, marine life is changing and the cedar trees are being replaced by other species. That’s what happening right now.
But what really convinced Sims he had to do something is when he called scientists at the nearby University of Washington’s School of Climate Impacts.
“And I asked them a simple question. I wanted to know what the climate in our area would be in 2050.”
The scientists’ report said King County could expect frequent torrential rains that would cause serious flooding, even swamping the buildings of some major employers. In terms of wildlife, the rains would wipe out the salmon’s spawning grounds. Yet, at other times of the year, they say they’ll be a drought as the snowcaps decline. Sims knew it was time to take action:
“Should we wait for our children to make this decision in 2045 or 2030? And since we now know that we have to make these decisions, based upon what the scientists are telling us, why aren’t we doing it now? Because generations in the future are going to have to make far more complex decisions and this shouldn’t be one of them they have to work from.
Sims isn’t the only city or county leader who’s taking climate change seriously.
The mayor of London, England starting charging people a fee for driving into his city during rush hour.
In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the same proposal to reduce emissions. He also wants to see a new rule that requires all New York City taxis to be hybrids within the next five years, and groups like the US Conference of Mayors are holding climate change summits to help local officials plan for the effects of global warming.
Jennifer Penney is with the Alliance for Resilient Cities, which recently brought local leaders to Toronto. She says a lot of officials are realizing that they’ll be on the front lines when serious weather events occur:
“Most of those things are in the jurisdiction of the local government. So protecting people from heat waves. Dealing with local floods. Dealing with wind storms or tornadoes that come through. Those are the kinds of things that local governments are on the ground, they have to deal with.”
And that’s why city and county officials across the nation are starting to make plans.
Back in Washington State, Ron Sims decided on two strategies to deal with this. One, reduce his county’s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, mostly by getting cars off the road. That’s led the county to start buying up development rights on rural lands to prevent sprawl and the number of suburban commuters. They’ve also bought a fleet of hybrid buses.
And the second strategy? Start finding ways to adapt to the realities of climate change. King County has taken many steps. They range from a plan to strengthen their levies to prevent flooding, and the county is buying up forest land to act as a sponge for the runoff water. Sims says King County’s climate change plan has touched every department in the government:
“We decided to go backwards in time in all functions of this government… how we plan for growth, what do preserve, what will we face, what do we see the consequences of 2050 being, and are we prepared for that?”
A lot of people wonder if the public is ready for that, to sacrifice for it.
Ron Sims tells his colleagues in local government that the public is ready.
They saw the pictures of Hurricane Katrina. Many saw Al Gore’s documentary on climate change, and now they’re looking for elected officials, if not at the national level, then at the local level, to take the lead.
If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:
Transcript
If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:
More people are considering buying cleaner, more fuel-efficient
cars now that gas prices and global temperatures are on the rise. The gas-
electric hybrids made by Toyota and Honda are becoming popular. And
American car companies are also jumping on board and offering alternative-
powered vehicles.
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner has put much of his company’s stock in
ethanol:
“At GM, we believe that the bio-fuel with the greatest potential to
displace petroleum-based fuels in the US is ethanol, and so we have
made a major commitment here to vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol.”
E85 is a blend that’s 85% ethanol with 15% gasoline. GM’s not the only company offering cars that run on them:
(Sound of vehicle introduction)
Angela Hines is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. She’s taking notes as she looks at one
flex fuel car. The E85 only matters to her if it’s going to save her a
few bucks:
“I drive anywhere from 80-200 miles
a day for work, so yeah, gas is important.”
Gui Derochers is looking at a Chevy Silverado pickup truck:
(Grant:) “Does it matter to you that it’s a flex fuel?”
“I think it’s a good thing… flex-fuel. Particularly, we know there are some ethanol plants in Michigan coming, right? Isn’t
that what flex fuel is? Ethanol?”
Derochers works on engines and transmissions:
“You have to remember, I work for Daimler-Chrysler. But we have flex fuel as well. It’s a good thing. It’s wonderful.”
But not everyone thinks the move toward ethanol-fueled cars is
wonderful. Tadeusz Patzek is a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of California in Berkeley. He says
ethanol is not cheaper and it’s not any better for the environment than
regular gas.
Patzek says each gallon of ethanol burned might emit less greenhouse gas
into the air, but you have to burn more fuel to go the same distance:
“So, mile for mile, emissions of CO2 are exactly the same for gasoline as
they are for ethanol. Because they are proportional to the energy stored in
the fuel.”
When it comes to gas mileage, Patzek calls claims that ethanol is any
better then gasoline an imaginary economy… and he’s not alone. When Consumer Reports magazine tested a Chevy Tahoe that runs on gas mixed
with only ten percent ethanol, the truck got 14 miles per gallon. But
it got less than 11 miles per gallon when the ethanol content was
raised to 85%, as in E85. That’s a 27% drop in fuel economy with E85.
Consumer Reports concluded that to go the same distance, you wind up paying more than a dollar
extra per gallon on E85 then on regular
gas.
Patzek says it’s not a good deal for consumers or for the environment:
“You emit less because you have oxygen but you burn more, so it comes as a wash.”
Patzek says ethanol has other environmental costs. To grow the corn needed to make it, farmers have to use more fossil fuel-based fertilizers, tractor fuel, and then more fuel to truck the fuel to gas stations.
Even so, many scientists say ethanol still provides an energy benefit over fossil fuels and some auto engineers say ethanol cars
are just a stop-gap measure until a better technology comes along, but Patzek disagrees with that logic:
“So, you’re saying the following: why don’t we have a terribly bad
solution and call it a stop-gap solution because it’s politically
convenient. I’m saying is, if I’m an engineer, I have to, essentially, if I’m honest with myself and others, do I want a
better technological solution or do I want to say, let’s do probably the worst possible solution
that delays other solutions 10-15 years into the future… while the
world is running out of time?”
Patzek says the real reason American car companies are moving toward
vehicles that run on E85 is that the federal government rewards them
for it.
GM and the others get extra credit for meeting fuel efficiency
standards just for making cars that can run on E85, even if those cars
aren’t more fuel efficient.
Patzek knows he’s become unpopular among many farmers, engineers,
scientists and politicians who want easy answers. He wants people to
start reducing their energy-use rather than waiting for technological
magic bullets.
The annual season of major U.S. auto shows is underway. And this year, the
hot trend isn’t about horsepower or towing capacity. It’s about saving you
gas at the pump. But as Dustin Dwyer reports, the rhetoric is still ahead
of the reality:
Transcript
The annual season of major U.S. auto shows is underway. And this year, the hot trend
isn’t about horsepower or towing capacity. It’s about saving you gas at the pump.
But, as
Dustin Dwyer reports, the rhetoric is still ahead of the reality:
At the Los Angeles Auto Show, some promises were made by auto companies about
building cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars.
The problem is that, so far, the big gains have only been in a few specialized
vehicles, not
across the board.
David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says auto companies are making
some progress on cleaner technology. But he says the real test is whether they can
improve efficiency across all types of vehicles.
“Right now if you’re a mother of three and you need to have all those three kids in
car
seats, you probably need a minivan. A compact car won’t work for you. And yet, if you
walk into the showroom today, your choice for a minivan is what 20, 21, maybe 23 miles
per gallon? That’s no real choice.”
The next chance for the automakers to unveil new gas conscious vehicles comes later
this
month at the Detroit Auto Show.
A new study says there’s enough power being generated in the United States
to run a lot more plug-in electric vehicles. Dustin Dwyer reports the
environmental benefits of such a switch are harder to pin down:
Transcript
A new study says there’s enough power being generated in the United States to run a
lot
more plug-in electric vehicles. Dustin Dwyer reports the environmental benefits of
such
a switch are harder to pin down:
The study from the U.S. Department of Energy finds that up to 84 percent of the
vehicles
on the road could be powered by today’s electric plants, if plug-in vehicles became
more
available.
But in areas dominated by coal-burning plants, electric cars would just switch one
kind
of pollution for another.
Lead author Michael Kintner-Meyer says the future power grid is likely to be cleaner
than today’s. And he says there’s also a benefit from reducing consumption of foreign
oil.
“Although there was a very conservative, I think a very conservative estimate,
overall, I
think the story of plug-in hybrids is a very good one.”
General Motors has said it’s developing a plug-in gas/electric hybrid vehicle. But
executives have not said when that vehicle will be on the road.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to change the way it calculates fuel economy estimates on the window stickers of new cars and trucks. Consumer and environmental groups have been arguing that the estimates don’t match up to real world driving. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to change the way it
calculates fuel economy estimates on the window stickers of new cars
and trucks. Consumer and environmental groups have been arguing that
the estimates don’t match up to real world driving. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:
The current EPA tests assume cars and driving conditions are the way
they were in 1985. The tests don’t factor in air conditioning, driving in
cold weather or driving any faster than 60 miles an hour.
The EPA says the new methods will lower the miles per gallon estimates
on most vehicles. The city estimates for conventional cars and trucks
could drop 10 to 20 percent. For hybrids, the city estimates could drop
up to 30 percent. A hybrid’s fuel economy is more sensitive to cold
weather and air conditioning.
Consumer groups say the new tests will give buyers a more accurate
picture of the car they take home.
Susan Pikrillidas is with AAA.
“We do honestly and truly believe that accurate labels will cause people
to buy more fuel efficient vehicles particularly in light of the high
gasoline prices.”
Under the proposal, the new test methods will begin with 2008 models…
so you could see the new stickers on cars as soon as fall 2007.
Through car sharing programs, users rent cars on an hourly basis.
(Photo courtesy of Zipcar)
There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day.
It’s commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans,
renting a car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour
is often called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment
because its users only get the car when they need the car. They usually
take buses and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big
cities on the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair
of private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby
has this report:
Transcript
There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day. It’s
commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans, renting a
car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour is often
called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment because its
users only get the car when they need the car. They usually take buses
and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big cities on
the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair of
private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now, those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd
Melby has this report:
For the past six months, a nonprofit called the Neighborhood Energy
Consortium has had the Minneapolis/St. Paul car sharing market to itself.
The non-profit group has raised about $450,000 to buy 12 cars. Those
energy-efficient hybrids have attracted about 140 people to join the
HourCar program. That’s Hour with an “H.”
(Sound of bus stop and rumble of passing truck)
On this Saturday morning, Mary Solac is shivering at a bus stop, waiting
for a ride to go pick up her HourCar. Despite the obvious inconvenience,
she says it’s worth it.
“You don’t have to worry about insurance. You don’t have to worry
about gas. It’s like okay, I’m paying what I’m paying and I don’t have to
worry about fixing the blasted car either.”
After a short bus ride, Solac does have to worry about more mundane car
concerns… such as scraping the ice and snow off the window.
(Sound of ice/snow scraping on the windshield)
To date, Solac’s only choice for renting a car by the hour has been
HourCar. That’s about to change.
The nation’s largest car sharing company — Zipcar of Boston — is
invading HourCar’s Minneapolis turf. Nearly 50,000 people now take
turns driving about 500 Zipcars, mostly in Boston, New York and
Washington, D.C.
Scott Griffith is the CEO of Zipcar.
“Over the last several years, we’ve really focused on those cities and getting
them past profitability, past the break even point, to prove that at the
metro market level, that we can make money in this business.”
That track record enticed a venture capital firm to invest $10 million in
Zipcar.
Another big new company is also getting an influx of cash. The nation’s
second-largest car sharing company — Flexcar of Seattle — is about half
as big as Zipcar. It too has a new investor: AOL Founder Stephen Case.
He rented a Flexcar, liked it and bought the company.
In Chicago, Flexcar has paired with a local nonprofit to put 47 cars on
the street.
Zipcar, meanwhile, is also trying to get into Chicago. It wants
government agencies in the Windy City to commit to using its cars
before entering the market. The company hopes that happens sometime
this year.
Business professor Alfred Marcus at the University of Minnesota says it’s
not unusual for emerging businesses to seek government help like this.
“To get this sector going, to stimulate it, it makes sense for their to be
some public involvement, but you would hope this could take off on its
own. I think this is transitional – these public and private partnerships,
and that’s very typical when industries start.”
In Minneapolis/St. Paul, the University of Minnesota is guaranteeing
Zipcar a $1,500 per month per vehicle subsidy, but once Zipcar meets the
$1,500 minimum, that subsidy goes away. Zipcar says it expects to do
just that in three months.
At the moment, Zipcar is growing fast. It had revenues of about $15
million in 2005. CEO Griffith says it expects to double that this year, but
Alfred Marcus with the University of Minnesota says over the long-term,
Zipcar faces big hurdles.
Zipcar has only had success in large, densely-populated cities. Its target
market is young people without cars who are highly price sensitive, and
then there’s the question of where to keep the cars. They have to be
conveniently located to the people who might want to use them.
Marcus says that if these start-ups continue to grow, someday they might
be gobbled up by bigger companies.
“The ultimate aim of Flexcars or Zipcars may be to build up a fringe
business, get it going and have a rental car company buy them or have even
have a conventional automobile company by them.”
But the car-sharing company owners say they have other plans. Zipcar
boss Scott Griffith says he’s working on a 10-year plan to make Zipcar an
international company. Flexcar owner Stephen Case says he bought that
firm “to build it” and not to “flip it.”
The Honda Insight Concept (Photo courtesy of Honda)
