The Green Car Revolution
Jennifer Della’Zanna
Our need for fuel-efficient vehicles is evident. But who will deliver?
In March 2008, at the New York Auto Show, Progressive Insurance announced its Automotive X Prize challenge. Teams from around the world were invited to “design viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy.” Prizes will be awarded based on results of two long-distance races. Gasoline-powered cars are allowed, but fuel efficiency is key. The fastest car doesn’t necessarily win. Greg Belloso, a mechanically inclined surgeon from Salisbury is the head of the Belloso Motor Company team. Belloso said, in an interview at the auto show, “We have probably the only team with really new, different technology in the sense that it has never been seen in public before.”
Pictured Right: The fuel-efficient smart fortwo (33 mpg city/41 hwy), pictured at
Sandy Point State Park, was introduced to the U.S. market in January
2008. As early as January 2010, smart will introduce electric vehicle
(EV) models to the U.S.
Photo by Tony Lewis, Jr.; smart fortwo provided by Mercedes-Benz/smart center Annapolis
As we look ahead to the end of this year, we can expect to see the unveiling of radical technology, more so than in any other year, that will alter the way we power our cars. Today, it seems as though everybody is chasing green. Biodiesel, electric, and hybrid are some of the choices on auto dealers’ lots. But manufacturers tell us there is even more fuel-efficient and clean-car technology to come: hydrogen fuel cells, natural-gas cars, and flex-fuel vehicles.
Pictured Right: The Ford Fusion
hybrid was a finalist for the 2009 Green Car of the Year award.
Though all this seems new and improved, our vehicle situation was strikingly similar a century ago. Until the end of the 1800s, private transportation advances were limited to building a better carriage. Most people still traveled using horses to pull their coaches. But then things started to change. The first gasoline-powered car in the United States was built by the Duryea brothers in 1893. Less than 20 years later Henry Ford introduced the assembly line and made cars with internal combustion engines (ICE) affordable for most people. The only advances since then have been, well, building better carriages. Cars today are still powered by essentially the same engine as Ford’s Model T, there are just a few more horses and hoses.
Alternative Fuels and Flex-fuel
You can find diesel fuel these days in every gas station, right next to regular gasoline. But when Rudolf Diesel invented his combustion engine in 1900, he designed it to run on peanut oil. Diesel envisioned his engine in farm equipment, with farmers growing their own fuel—without government subsidy. Cars built to run on biofuel today usually run on a mix of ethanol, a corn-based product. (Learn more about ethanol and biodiesel fuel and cars by reading our previous feature articles at WhatsUpMag.com.)
Pictured Right: The Honda Civic GX is fueled by compressed natural gas, which emits nearly zero emissions.
According to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade association with members among major automakers, nearly 70 autos available today can use alternative fuels. These include everything from a Honda Civic that can run on natural gas to a Mercedes-Benz that runs on biodiesel. The ability to switch between alternative fuel and traditional gasoline in flex-fuel cars, such as the Toyota Sequoia, solves some of the problems associated with the dearth of gas stations that carry biofuels. According to the National Biodiesel Board, any diesel engine today can also run on biodiesel, with little or no engine modification.
The Honda Civic GX is fueled by compressed natural gas, which emits nearly zero emissions.
In November 2008, at the Los Angeles Auto Show, the Green Car Journal announced its Green Car of the Year. In the running were the BMW 335d, Ford Fusion Hybrid, Saturn Vue 2 Mode Hybrid, and smart fortwo. But the Volkswagen Jetta TDI, a clean diesel car, beat them all—the first time a biodiesel car has won the prize. So, can we grow peanuts in Annapolis?
Electric
What many people don’t know is that, at the time Henry Ford and the Duryea brothers were racing to put gasoline-powered cars on the road, electric cars were already in use. The first practical electric car in the United States was introduced in 1835, but it was basically a small locomotive. Advances in batteries over the next 50 years made the car more attractive, and by 1897 electric taxis roamed the streets of New York. In fact, Henry Ford bought an electric car for his wife from Detroit Electric, the most successful electric car company in the early 20th century, which produced about 13,500 cars and trucks before 1945.
Pictured Right : The auto industry has come a long way since Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, which averaged 16 mpg and a top speed of about 42 mph.
Today more than 30 electric car companies are in business. Electric vehicles (EV) work as you might expect: you plug the car into regular household current. Rechargeable batteries supply energy to an electric motor. There is no ICE. This means that the car is almost silent, and it produces no greenhouse gases.
The Tesla Roadster is a high-performance EV, but the $100,000 pricetag makes it impractical for most of us. Some electric cars have thrilling names, such as Think City, Zenn, Zap, and Lightning. The major drawback right now for electric vehicles is the battery. EVs also tend to be small—sometimes only two people can squeeze into one (like the smart fortwo mentioned earlier)—so they aren’t a good fit for families.
Hybrids
Toyota claims that it produced the first hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) in 1997 with the Prius, but a young engineer named Ferdinand Porsche beat Toyota to it: he invented one in 1899.
Today there are two kinds of hybrids. Both have ICEs and electric motors, but they work in slightly different ways. A mild hybrid car, such as the Chevy Malibu Hybrid, is not able to run on electric power alone. The ICE powers the car, and the electricity acts as a power booster. A full hybrid, such as the Toyota Prius, can drive on electricity from the battery alone, and the ICE kicks in only when needed. Both systems harness energy normally lost by braking to help charge the battery. Many automakers have hybrid versions of their popular gas-powered models, and they often look no different from the originals. This includes larger vehicles such as the Cadillac Escalade.
Batteries
In a gasoline-powered car, the battery, alternator, and engine work together to power all aspects of the car. Lead acid batteries were invented in 1859 and—you guessed it—we haven’t improved them much since! Although they work well, they’re heavy. To support the amount of power an electric or hybrid needs, where the battery provides all the power during at least part of the operating time, you need more battery. Most EVs and HEVs now have lighter-weight, nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. They last eight to 10 years and store triple the energy a lead acid battery does. The problems are, they’re not recyclable and they’re expensive. So, if you keep your car more than eight years, you can’t recycle that battery, and you’ll pay several thousand dollars to replace it. That takes a bite out of the hybrid’s benefits to the environment—and to your wallet.
The newest battery technology is lithium-ion, which powers most laptops these days. Lithium-ion quadruples the energy of lead acid batteries and may last up to 20 years. Of course, these batteries are also expensive, but they are recyclable. Unfortunately, they’re not available for automobiles yet. Several car companies are delaying production of hybrid or electric cars until this technology evolves. In an attempt to speed things up, two companies, A123 Systems and Ener1, applied for federal loans this year to build lithium-ion auto battery manufacturing facilities.
Pictured Right: The Chevrolet Volt hybrid (middle) can travel upwards of 400 miles on only six to seven gallons of gasoline.
A Hybrid Hybrid?
One automaker awaiting production of new batteries is General Motors. It unveiled its Chevy Volt last year to much fanfare. GM describes the Volt as “a plug-in range-extended electric vehicle with an on-board gasoline generator.” This means that the car plugs in to charge the battery, just like an EV. The car can drive up to 40 miles on a full charge, and then the gasoline engine powers up—but not to run the car. The engine recharges the battery, and the electric motor continues to power the car. The Volt will be able to travel up to 400 miles on six to seven gallons of gas. GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz expressed his enthusiasm about the project at a town hall meeting at the 2008 New York Auto Show. “We consider this a turning point in the automobile industry,” he said. “It will go down in history as a true game-changer.”
GM is also counting on the federal government to make people more interested in buying a Volt. Part of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package includes the Transportation and Domestic Fuel Security Provision. This provision provides a tax credit for taxpayers who buy a plug-in electric vehicle. The credit starts at $2,500 and goes up based on battery size. For the Volt, this would mean a tax credit of $7,500 per car.
Pictured Right: The Fisker Karma is a plug-in hybrid luxury sports sedan with a top speed of 125 mph and whose manufacturer claims will need refueling once per year if driven under 50 miles per day.
On the Horizon
With the financial crisis and subsequent bailout of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors (the Big Three) at the end of last year, the production of the Volt and other planned plug-in vehicles wobbled a little. But the companies that make them, took their ideas to the steps of the White House to make a case for their futures. Ford, the least troubled of the three, still expects an all-electric van by 2011 and a plug-in electric car by 2012. Chrysler unveiled three concept cars at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2008. But until last fall it kept quiet about its plans to introduce a line of electric cars, one of which it’s hoping to put in showrooms by 2010—giving chase to the Volt’s planned debut. It remains to be seen whether the crisis will affect which one of the automakers gets its next generation of vehicles onto dealers’ lots first.
Pictured Right: The Lincoln C is a concept car unveiled at this
year’s North American International Auto Show and features a 1.6L
EcoBoost™ engine projected to produce 43 mpg highway.
Of course, the economic climate will also affect whether the public will be buying any of the offerings once they do make it to the showroom. Ford made the production of ICE cars efficient enough to drive the price down and conquered the early 20th-century auto market. Today’s gas prices contribute to the U.S. public’s fickle approach towards car buying. When gas was topping $4 a gallon last summer Americans were driving their ICEs to hybrid dealers and leaving them there. In January of this year Edmunds’ Inside Line, one of the most popular auto enthusiast websites, reported that when gas prices fell to around $2 a gallon in the late fall sales of the Toyota Prius plummeted by 50 percent. And the price people were paying fell from $5,000 above sticker to $2,000 below sticker. The economic slowdown hit the auto market in general, of course, but sales of strictly gas-powered cars fell by only 37 percent from July to December 2008. We may be all about green, but is it environmental green or the color of money that’s driving our choices in engines? We want to spend as little as we can in the showroom, spend as little as we can at the pump, and be inconvenienced as little as possible, all at the same time—just like our great-grandparents 100 years ago.
Even the Automotive X Prize isn’t a new concept. In 1878 the state of Wisconsin sponsored a 200-mile race with $10,000 in prize money (roughly $2.6 million in today’s dollars). The winner made it with a steam-powered car in 22 hours. It was the start of an era. In just a few decades our entire culture would revolve around automobiles. There would be drive-ins, drive-ups, and drive-throughs—and more auto racing than anyone could have imagined.
Are we at the start of another era? Only the future will tell. In the meantime, we await the winner of another auto race. Maybe one from Maryland.
Jennifer Della’Zanna is a freelance writer living in Columbia, Md. and attended the 2008 International Auto Show in New York City.
“Test Driven” Online Resources
Hybridcars.com—Breaking news about hybrid cars.
Voltnation.com—Site extolling the virtues of GM’s Volt. (Lyle Dennis, a neurologist in New Jersey, started a forum to extol the virtues of the Volt when he first heard about it. His site drew so much traffic last year that GM noticed. GM has now involved him in marketing, to the extent that they held a town hall meeting at last year’s New York Auto Show and invited 200 of Dennis’s subscribers.)
Autoalliance.org—Web site of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
Kbb.com/green—Kelly Blue Book’s guide to buying hybrid cars.
Evcast.com—Podcast for information on electric cars.
Tags:
Lincoln C
Fuel-Efficient
Green
Fisker Karma
Hybrid
Green Car Revolution
Smart Car
Ford Fusion Hybrid
Honda Civic GX
Chevrolet Volt
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