cars

Boston Gullible

Via Autoblog Green, it looks like the widely discredited study showing that Hummers beat Priuses has now reached prime time: For Gristmillian debunkings of the study, see biodiversivist and Joe Romm.

The Big Three attempt to persuade other states of the danger of fuel efficiency standards

Automakers are ramping up their PR effort to persuade states not to adopt California’s auto emission standards, which they fear will survive the Bush administration’s latest monkey wrench. But their arguments are as silly as ever: Dave McCurdy, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers … said the California-inspired initiative would result in a […]

California mulls nation’s first feebate bill

Feebates are one of the most promising strategies for lowering vehicle fleet emissions. This week, the California Assembly will vote on the nation’s first feebate bill, the California Clean Car Discount Act. It would levy a fee of up to $2,500 on gas guzzlers, with commensurate rebates for fuel efficient cars. The L.A. Times has […]

Israel to build national electric car infrastructure

Project Better Place, in partnership with Renault/Nissan and the Israeli government, will build a national electric car infrastructure.

A major manufacturer developing new electric vehicles with swappable batteries, and a plan to develop 500,000 battery recharging sites across the country? It's still January, and I'm ready to call this the most important environmental news story of 2008.

I'm going to write more about this later, but do yourself a favor and read all about it here.

This, friends, is the road to Middle-East peace. And it was announced on MLK day. How appropriate.

Plug-in hybrids and electric cars: A core climate solution, nationally and globally

I have a new article in Salon, "The car of the future is here," about plug-in hybrids. The two central points of the article are:

1. Plug-in hybrids (and electric cars) are an essential climate strategy, enabling renewable power (even intermittent sources like wind) to become a major low-cost transportation fuel.
2. Practical, affordable plug-in hybrids will be here in a few years -- even if we don't get a technology breakthrough in batteries.

(I am even more confident of these conclusions given the amazing joint announcement today by Renault-Nissan, Project Better Place, and Israel -- see below.)

If you read the Salon article, you'll know more than billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who recently said:

Forget plug-ins. They are nice toys. But they will not be material to climate change.

The subject deserves a far more serious discussion. Transportation is the toughest sector in which to achieve deep carbon emissions reductions. Of the three major alternative fuels that could plausibly provide a low-carbon substitute for a significant amount of petroleum:

The privileged attitude of the motorhead

A Washington Post columnist:

A pragmatic view of cellulosic biofuels

So Vinod Khosla is not happy with with my recent attack on his (willful) ignorance, "Khosla blows his credibility dissing plug-ins." Gristmill has given the billionaire a platform to defend himself, but he just spouts even more nonsense in the bizarrely titled post, "Pragmatists v. environmentalists, part I":

I have been accused of dissing hybrids. I was mostly discussing Prius-type parallel hybrids and all the support they get, when one can get the same carbon reduction by buying a cheaper, similar-sized and -featured car and buying $10 worth of carbon credits. I was objecting to greenwashing (powered by a large marketing machine) that suggests hybrids can solve our problems ...

Corn ethanol, which has been heavily maligned in the mainstream media, reduces carbon emissions (on a per-mile-driven basis) by almost the same amount as today's typical hybrid ...

The Prius is the corn ethanol of hybrid cars ...

Seriously! This is like one of those newspaper puzzles: Can you spot all the errors?

Hybrids and biofuels: The road ahead

Many people make the mistake of comparing apples to oranges. One has to compare futures to futures and current status to current status. All technologies improve, but some improve more than others.

The Prius gets 46 mpg, while a similar-sized Toyota Corolla gets 31 mpg. One of our investments (Transonic) is trying to make an engine that (if it works!) can be placed in a Prius to produce a vehicle that will have lower carbon emissions than the hybrid Prius at below $1,000 in marginal cost. Other efficient engine efforts abound. If battery technology efforts like Seeo (one of our investments), EEstor, silicon nanowire batteries (or similar efforts that others have funded and many we are evaluating) are successful, we will get the same effect (better petroleum mpg) with a plug-in -- if we can also clean up our grid at the same time!

From my perspective, if I have to pick between a 5-10 times lower cost/performance battery and a cleaned-up electrical grid in the next 5-10 years (or even 20-25 years), or pick cellulosic fuels in 50 percent more efficient ICE engines, I consider the latter lower risk and significantly more probable.

I am confident that cellulosic biofuels without significant land-use impact or biodiversity impact can achieve costs of $1.25/gallon in less than five years and below $1.00 per gallon in 10 years (more details on that, especially on land use / biodiversity and sources of biomass, in a upcoming paper). At this price point, the technology will be adopted broadly and rapidly worldwide, even if oil prices decline substantially.

Business-y news I should write more about, but probably won’t

GE is going to double its investment in renewable energy from $3b to $6b; Toyota plans to offer plug-in hybrids by 2010; meanwhile, GM, which also promises a plug-in by 2010, just struck a deal with Coskata, a start-up which will be making cellulosic ethanol from waste products. [Token acknowledgement that cars are not the […]