cars

Umbra on hybrids vs. veggie-oil cars

Dear Umbra, I currently drive a 2002 Toyota Prius that gets about 40 to 42 miles per gallon on the highway, which is where most of my driving takes place. However, I’ve recently become enamored with biodiesel vehicles, and specifically with straight vegetable oil (SVO) vehicles. I’m interested in investing in an SVO system fueled […]

Be Cool — eventually

I saw Be Cool last night. It's the sequel to Get Shorty, and as you would expect, it's not nearly as good. But there are enough spirited, funny moments -- mainly involving bit characters played by The Rock and Andre 3000 -- to make it worth the price of admission. Barely.

One of the running jokes in Get Shorty was that Chili Palmer (apparently the only character John Travolta plays well) got stuck with a minivan. After he becomes a successful movie producer, and thus an arbiter of cool, everyone in Hollywood starts driving minivans.

The jokes is basically repeated in Be Cool, except this time he gets stuck with a Honda Insight (guess Honda outbid Toyota for product placement).

It's obvious why the minivan is funny -- it's associated with soccer moms and suburban squares. But it's worth pondering why the hybrid is funny.

Umbra on spending wisely to help the environment

Dear Umbra, I read your column on how best to spend six hours of time a week on environmental issues, but how about the best way to spend limited financial resources on environmental issues? Obviously, giving a gift to Grist would help, but what can I do with my limited pocketbook to make the most […]

Fareed on hybrids

I'm a huge fan of Fareed Zakaria, who's both one of the most insightful political commentators around and one of the best repeat guests on the Daily Show. I don't find his column on hybrid cars to be his best work, but it does fall within this blog's purview, so I'm gonna link it anyway. Basically, Zakaria says that we could, with concerted effort, exceed Kyoto CO2 emissions targets and break our dependence on foreign oil purely through hybrids (not today's hybrids, of course, but future plug-in hybrids that also accept biofuels). Pretty bold, and also, I suspect, a little overly optimistic. Nonetheless, this passage is worth quoting at length:

If things are already moving, why does the government need to do anything? Because this is not a pure free market. Large companies -- in the oil and automotive industry -- have vested interests in not changing much. There are transition costs -- gas stations will need to be fitted to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which have lobbies in Washington.

Besides, the idea that the government should have nothing to do with this problem is bizarre. It was military funding and spending that produced much of the technology that makes hybrids possible. (The military is actually leading the hybrid trend. All new naval surface ships are now electric-powered, as are big diesel locomotives and mining trucks.) And the West's reliance on foreign oil is not cost-free. [Energy security advocate Gal] Luft estimates that a government plan that could accelerate the move to a hybrid transport system would cost $12 billion dollars. That is what we spend in Iraq in about three months.

Umbra on trains vs. cars

Dear Umbra, My girlfriend recently made a trip by train (about 600 kilometers, I’d guess), and it made me wonder just how much more ecological it is to travel by train instead of by car. What’s your take on this? MichaelOttawa, Ontario, Canada Dearest Canadian Michael, The train, it is better. The car, it is […]

Umbra on renting hybrids and sharing cars

Dear Umbra, Do you know of any car-rental companies that offer hybrids? I have heard of a bunch in environmentally friendly California, but my quick search in the Boston area has turned up nil. With high gas prices, I think I’m brewing up a new campaign! JeanDorchester, Mass. Dearest Jean, An environmentally focused rental group, […]

New Ford hybrid SUV

Ford recently announced their second hybrid SUV, the Mariner. What I'm saying is, when's the hybrid minivan coming? There's got to be a huge market, no? Take me, for instance. As the patriarch of a growing clan of resource-sucking, overpopulation-contributing children, a minivan looms large in my future. I'd love to be able to show-off my eco-credentials while porting around my clan and their inevitable sports gear, musical instruments, academic awards, etc.

My god, I think I lost half my remaining manhood just by writing that sentence.

Anyway, if you're curious about the Mariner, the place to find more, as with all matters green and automotive, is Green Car Congress.

Update [2005-2-9 12:27:47 by Dave Roberts]: Ah, have y'all heard of this site "google"? It's quite nifty. Anyway, turns out there's already a hybrid minivan on the Japanese market (shocking, I know), and according to HybridCars.com, a hybrid Toyota Sienna may be headed for the U.S. market as early as 2007. Good to know Japanese automakers continue to kick our asses in this department.

Hybrid ceiling?

Interesting.  J.D. Power and Associates has released a report saying that the market for hybrids will top out at a 3% share in 2010, primarily due to the three or four thousand dollar premium consumers have to pay above a comparably non-hybrid.  Green Car Congress has some reflections.

The liter of the pack

I didn't know this: In Canada, automobile fuel economy is expressed as gallons per mile, not miles per gallon as it is in the U.S. (Well, really, it's liters per hundred kilometers, but if you're south of the 49th parallel and a metric-system-phobe, gallons per mile is essentially the same thing.)

Now, I don't mention this just to expose my lack of cultural knowledge of my northern neighbors. I mention it because it seems to me that liters-per-kilometer is a much better way of expressing the fuel efficiency of autos.