Go Go Green Cars

“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.

Today, President Obama was inaugurated in Washington DC and gave a speech Martin Luther King would have been proud of, but buried within that speech is a line which underpins the commitment of billions of dollars and the US Government:

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

There are quite a few others packed in there as well including reference to reducing energy dependence which strengthens enemies abroad and so on.

What this means is simple – a kickstart to the further development and adoption of green technology and applying eco-friendly machines in our daily lives and the biggest one is the car.

In very recent years the popular interest in green cars has grown in a major way, fuelled (!) by the realization that we are killing the planet with our pollution, and the cost of oil, not to mention the fact that oil is a finite resource and supplies will fail at some date in the not so distant future.

The debate will continue as to what constitutes green transport and it is not just low or zero emissions.  For example, the environmental cost of a petrol/electric hybrid vehicle should take in to account the cost of production and disposal of the (large) battery, and in the case of an electric car not only the battery but also the electricity which must be generated to charge the batteries.

Pressure has been taken off green car development recently as fuel prices have dropped but if you had the choice of two cars, one of which did more miles to the gallon, was cheaper to service and was more environmentally friendly, which would you choose?

With federal government and a popular incoming President adding his weight to the argument, it is in the manufacturers interests to hasten the development of green technology.