By Scott Doggett, Contributor

If a seven-man contingent representing the biggest automakers thought they could talk California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger into terminating his campaign to force them to meet California's stringent fuel-efficiency standards, they were sadly mistaken.
 
Following a private, 45-minute meeting Thursday  with executives from Toyota, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and BMW, the governor has released a statement that reads, in part:
 
“... I made it clear to the automakers that California will not back down in the fight to protect our own environment by regulating pollution that causes global warming. We will continue to press the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant our request for a waiver, and we will use legal remedies if they fail to do so.
 
“Hiding behind the federal government's proposed CAFE standards won't work, and it won't effectively reduce the pollution that causes global warming. In fact, I believe the federal government should adopt California's model; with 13 other states on board, we are heading in the right direction,” Schwarzenegger said.
 
Schwarzenegger referred to the EPA's denial of a waiver that would allow California to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles sold in the state – regulations that are more stringent than the federal government's.

 If California receives the waiver – and the three major presidential candidates have all said they support the request, which the Bush Administration sat on for two years before denying – at least 13 other states would adopt or are considering adopting California's tailpipe-emissions rules.
 
Calls placed to the Michigan and Sacramento offices of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which sent representatives to the meeting, went unanswered.
 
The following industry representatives attended the meeting: Troy Clarke, president of General Motors North America and chairman of the Alliance; James Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales, USA; James Press, vice chairman and president of Chrysler; Jim O’Donnell, president and chief operating officer, BMW North America; Ziad Ojakli, vice president of government and community relations, Ford Motor Company; David Geanacopoulos, vice president and general counsel, Volkswagen of America; and Dave McCurdy, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance.
 
Schwarzenegger's entire statement can be read at the governor's website. 

Hybrid version of BMW's X6 will hit U.S. roads as an '09 model.

BMW says a hybrid version of its X6 "activity vehicle" will, indeed, hit the U.S. market in 2009, initially available only with the company's twin-turbo, 407-horsepower, 4.4-liter V8 coupled to the dual-mode electric drive system co-developed with General Motors and the former DaimlerChrysler.

It's the automotive equivalent of strapping a hydrogen bomb to a nuclear bomb for extra oomph.

In that configuration the hefty X6 won't be the poster child for fuel economy, but it will use less gas than the conventional model.

BMW hasn't disclosed mileage estimates for the hybrid, but says it should be about 20 percent better than the 19 mpg combined city/highway rating for the conventional version. That would put it close to 23 mpg for drivers who can keep the accelerator pedal off the floor.

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By John O'Dell,  Senior Editor

Looks like we're heading into either a stay-at-home summer, or a real pricey one, fuel-wise.

Gas prices hit a new national high of $3.339 a gallon at the pump today, according to the AAA, up 58 cents, or 21 percent, in the last year.

And that's the national average. In some states, pump prices are considerably higher.

California, for instance, is averaging $3.709 per gallon for unleaded regular – the highest statewide average in the country.

That's for unleaded regular.

If you are unlucky enough to be driving something that requires premium, the national average hit $3.679 per gallon Monday while the nation's high – in California again, rose to $4.103.

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Fuel-cell Highlander successfully logged 2,300 miles on Alcan Highway, but  even if Toyota built retail version, there's little hydrogen fuel available.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The conference is about early commercialization of hydrogen fueling and fuel-cell products and services, but the buzzwords still are "research" and "study," not "build" and "sell."

Granted, the National Hydrogen Association conference has just begun and there are, literally, scores of papers being delivered. Some do talk about things with real market potential – things like Plug Power's hydrogen fuel-cell electric fork lift and Air Products' on-site hydrogen fuel stations for commercial and government fleets. But most still deal with what could be, after a lot more research and development and testing gets done.

A hydrogen economy that relieves our dependency on foreign oil may be in our future, but it hasn't yet arrived.

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 By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --Those sly devils at BMW waited until today to drop the other shoe.

Turns out the Hydrogen 7 that cleaned up in a recent Argonne National Laboratory emissions test wasn't one of the bi-fuel, gasoline-or-hydrogen internal combusion models the automaker has been testing. It was a new mono-fuel model, built to run only on liquid hydrogen.

BMW officially debuted the car -- which looks just like the bi-fuel models -- at the National Hyrogen Association's annual conference here in California's capital city.

The big differences are that the bi-fuel models have gas tanks as well as hydrogen tanks, and engines that are tuned to run well on gasoline, meaning that performance and fuel economy drops when they are driven under the influence of hydrogen.

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Researchers at Argonnne National Laboratory have put BMW's hydrogen-burning V12 engine to the test and found that it is, indeed, as clean as the automaker has been claiming.

The hydrogen internal combustion engine, mounted in a test fleet of about 100 7-Series sedans, is being placed with a variety of celebtrities, politicans, opinion-leaders and other high-visibility types around the U.S. and Europe this year to help raise awareness of BMW's alternative fuel strategy.

The company, which has been developing the engine for years, has always maintained that, except for miniscule amounts of carbon and NOx, created by the heating of engine oil used for lubricating pistons and other moving parts, the internal combustion engine is as clean as a hydrogen fuel cell, emitting only water vapor from the cars' tailpipes.

Argonne's scientists found in their study that the Hydrogen-7's exshaust stream is one of the cleanest in the industry, surpassing the "Super Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle," or SULEV, criteria that is now a the cleanest rating.

Details of the study are to be released Tuersday during the National Hydrogen Association conference.  

John  O'Dell, Senior Editor    

By Nick Kurczewski, Contributor

MONTE CARLO, Monaco --The BMW Hydrogen 7 sedan is loaded with luxury touches and powered by a state-of-the-art emissions-free engine.  Unfortunately, it also requires its own tanker truck when it comes time for a fill-up.  

But Prince Albert II of Monaco didn’t seem overly concerned about trivial matters like finding the closest hydrogen fueling station – there isn't one, hence the tanker -- when BMW handed him the keys to a Hydrogen 7-Series at this week’s EVER Monaco ecological car show.

EVs from Monaco's own Venturi will be on display at annual eco-car event .

By Nick Kurczewski, Contributor
 
MONTE CARLO, Monaco – A convention hall filled with electric, hydrogen, biofuel and hybrid-powered vehicles is a strange site in any town, much less the world’s most famous principality and one of James Bond’s favorite holiday hideaways.

A haven for the rich and powerful -- where champagne glasses are never empty, every parking lot is overflowing with Ferraris and Aston Martins and Formula 1 takes over the town once a year -- Monte Carlo is the most unlikely setting in which to find a show dedicated to green-car technology.

The EVER Monaco ecological car show, here from Thursday through Sunday, is dedicated to all forms of transport powered by fuels offering environmental benefits. Now in its third year, the annual Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies (EVER) exhibition is a showcase for vehicles powered by alternative fuels or technology.

We’ll be attending the show, and making our way through the Grimaldi Forum to see what progress is being made and what technology looks promising – not to mention what looks far-fetched and totally unfeasible.

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As Europe cracks down on carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles, automakers are ratcheting up R&D efforts aimed at putting more fuel-efficient vehicles into their fleets.

The latest news comes form BMW, which already is deep into development of hydrogen-burning internal combustion engines for its larger cars.

The Munich-based luxury-performance car maker says it has launched an independent unit to begin developing a small city car (shades of Smart).

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

While the Prius deserves much of the praise it gets – for fuel-efficiency, advanced technology, even (in some quarters) for styling – we've always believed it foolish to look at Toyota's high-volume hybrid as the best thing out there since sliced bread.

Among other things, there's always been a big discrepancy between the officially recognized fuel-efficiency and what real people were reporting in real-world driving situations.

Before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed its method for computing mileage, the EPA rating for the Prius with an automatic transmission was 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 mpg on the highway. But most drivers reported real mileage down in the mid 40s (and yes, there are exceptions and yes, we know some of you do get 60 mpg by driving with maximum fuel economy as your chief goal).

For 2008, under the new, more realistic test, the Prius is EPA-rated at 48 mpg city and 45 mpg highway. 

But over on the Continent, according to London's Sunday  Times,  the Prius still gets that 60 mpg rating  -- more, in fact: "The official fuel consumption figure for the Prius – supplied by Toyota itself – is 65.7 mpg in mixed motoring," the newspaper reported in a piece this past weekend comparing fuel-efficiency for the Prius and the diesel-powered BMW 520d.

But how's it really do?

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