Go Go Green Cars

The Department of Transportation has announced the new 2011 Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) rule and has pegged it at 30.2 mpg which is less than the current CAFE standard of 31.4 mpg for the average vehicle in a corporate car fleet. There is an increase of 2mpg over the 2010 standard for combined corporate and private vehicles but the real news under the froth is that this only represents a very meager 1% increase on the 2008 standards already achieved last year.

In short, the US government is not exactly raising the bar when it comes to environmental standards!

The green lobby has been bitterly disappointed by the ruling announcement but many observers have been questioning the real reason behind all of this – it certainly is sending a very different signal than that delivered earlier on in the year by President Obama when giving speech after speech on green and environmental issues.

One of the major motivators appears to be the current economic crisis and a desire not to impose any further costs on auto makers to achieve the CAFE standards. By setting the CAFE standard at a level that is already being achieved it relieves the burden off of the major car manufacturers and especially at a time when GM is in merger/takeover talks with Italy’s Fiat car giant and the financial issues surrounding the future of Chrysler are even more delicate.

This still leaves the bill which President Bush signed mandating an average of 35 mpg for cars and trucks by the year 2020 and which was signed into law in 2007 however, the dates and milestones as to how this was to be achieved were left blank for the 2011 phase in transitional period. The buck has been firmly passed on this one to the Obama administration and now they only have until April 1st to determine the rule itself – almost an impossibility and serious argument for throwing this in the trash and starting again with something more workable, especially in view of the economic impact on the industry.

“Green” – what does that mean?

Does it mean squeezing the last MPG out of existing technology, or lowering emissions as far as possible, or even developing a recyclable vehicle with minimal environmental impact to produce or dispose of?

Well it is all those things and more yet to come as environmental concerns increasingly push through to the forefront of responsible peoples’ thinking and we all start doing our bit to help save our planet by reducing, reusing and recycling more.

The car and transport is at the frontline of the environmental battle.

Motor manufacturers are busy developing more eco friendly vehicles, not least because of government incentives to do so, but also because to lag behind in the race to be green would be a business disaster.

Forget the environmental side of things for a moment; if you have a choice of two cars with similar space and performance yet one does twice as many miles to the gallon, which would you choose?

With gas prices back at a more realistic sub-$2 level perhaps you don’t care right now but this time last year gas prices were threatening $5 and you probably cared then!

Now if the emissions of that car were considerably lower too, you can give yourself a pat on the back as well as dollars in your pocket for making a sensible choice.

This is the green economic argument – lower costs and lower environmental impact and customers will buy the product.

Honda are at the forefront of the green race and will soon have a complete range of hybrid cars on the market, these use energy wasted in other cars, such as during braking, to top up batteries which are used when additional power is required. This allows a small engine to be used. Emissions are lower than on an equivalent non hybrid car. Additionally the FX fuel cell car is now in production which uses hydrogen to produce electricity and only water as output, the problem with this technology being the requirement to top up with hydrogen so a complete infrastructure would need to be in place to make use of this type of technology viable.

In addition the fully electric car is becoming more available but, apart from the fact that its carbon footprint includes the generation of the electricity used to power it, battery limitations are such that it is only relevant at the moment to short journeys.