Nearly 1.8 million alternative-fuel cars were sold in the United States during the 2007 model year, about 250,000 more than the previous model year, according to figures gathered by the automotive information and marketing company R.L. Polk & Co. and released by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

The sales tally included 1,670,933 E-85-capable flex-fuel vehicles, 375,506 diesel-powered and 347,847 hybrids that use gas engines and electric motors. Honda Motor Co. also sold about 1,000 Civic models modified to run on compressed natural gas -- the only factory-built CNG cars in the market.

Sales of E-85-capable vehicles more than doubled from the 823,726 sold during the 2006 model year, while sales of hybrid vehicles increased 37 percent from the 253,081 hybrids sold during the 2006 model year. Sales of diesel vehicles actually fell 21 percent from the 475,203 sold during the previous model year, due to the discontinuation of some models.

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Sales of diesel-powered vehicles and gas-electric hybrids are expected to triple their share of the U.S. auto market to a combined 17 percent by 2015, according to a study by J.D. Power and Associates.
 
The study also predicted that sales of vehicles equipped with four-cylinder engines will outpace sales of more powerful cars and trucks as automakers find ways to increase fuel efficiency to the federally mandated industry-wide fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

The shift will be pricey for the auto industry, the Detroit News reports in Tuesday's edition, citing study author Mike Omotoso. He estimated the tab to attain the new mileage standards at $4,000 to $5,000 per vehicle, or a total of $68 billion to $85 billion.

Cost is the main reason why there will be fewer hybrids than diesel-powered or flex-fuel vehicles sold in 2015, Omotoso told the newspaper, even though hybrids have the most cachet.

Last year, 353,000 hybrids were sold in the U.S., accounting for 2.2 percent of the market. They are expected to comprise 7 percent of the market by 2015, while the share of diesel-powered vehicles is expected to rise to 10 percent from 3.2 percent over the same period.

European automakers already have achieved fleetwide mileage rates of 35 miles per gallon, primarily by selling many more small cars, fewer trucks and many more diesels than in the mix of vehicles sold in the U.S.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

Auto X-Prize entries will include mainstream vehicles and fanciful concepts.

By Robert E. Calem, Contributor

New York --The Automotive X Prize competition, an effort to do for the green car what the original X Prize did for private space flight, was officially launched Thursday at the New York International Auto Show, where sample vehicles were displayed by four of the more than 60 teams from nine countries that will be vying for shares of a $10 million bounty.

The prize money was put up by Progressive Insurance, which has become the  main sponsor in return for a name change: the competition is now the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize.

Additionally, the federal Department of Energy plans to provide a $3.5 million grant to fund a national education program organized around the competition in order to “inspire youth and the general public about the alternative vehicle and fuel options of the near future,” the X Prize Foundation announced.

Inspiring Entrepreneurs
The contest, developed over the past two and a half years by the non-profit  foundation, has the lofty goal of inspiring entrepreneurs to develop a new generation of commercially viable automobiles with low emissions and fuel economy equivalent to 100 miles per gallon.

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More than 5 million vehicles -- and almost nine in 10 new vehicles -- in Brazil now run on both gasoline and ethanol, the head of the Brazilian auto-manufacturing association, Anfavea, reported Monday.

Anfavea President Jackson Schneider, addressing reporters in Sao Paulo, also said that flex-fuel vehicles -- which run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of the two -- likely will comprise 52 percent of the Brazilian auto market by 2013, up from 12 percent in 2007.

Additionally, Anfavea will invest $4.9 billion in the industry in 2008, or more than double the amount invested last year, Schneider said. The first of the nation's flex-fuel vehicles rolled off the assembly line in 2003.

Brazil is the second-largest producer of ethanol after the United States, last year producing 5.8 billion gallons of ethanol derived from sugar cane.  Ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

Exige Tri-fuel concept uses gasoline, ethanol, methanol or any combination.

There may be snow on the ground in Switzerland in early March, but there's also a lot of green, at least in Geneva, where a multitude of diesels, diesel hybrids and alternatively fueled cars will be making their debut this week at the annual Geneva Motor Show.

In one of the more interesting – a concept, not a production model – is the tri-fuel Exige (badged the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel), which, the company says, can run on gasoline, ethanol, methanol or any combination of the three.

Lotus, which recently unveiled a low carbon dioxide emissions engine concept, is deep into green strategies, buthasn't abandoned performance: The 270 horsepower, tri-fuel Exige is capable of 0-60 acceleration in 3.88 seconds, the company said, and has a top speed of 158 mph.

The company says ongoing work on absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere and turning it back into alcohol-based fuels such as methanol could make it possible to someday have cars that use internal combustion engines but have environmentally neutral tailpipe emissions.

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It's time for session two of General Motor Corp.'s latest experiment in two-way communication on the green front: GMnext.

This is the General's latest effort to spread the company's message of "Hey, guys, we're not so bad!"

In session one, GM addressed concerns that its heavily-touted (can you say Second Coming?) Chevrolet Volt extended-range EV isn't just a PR stunt.

This time, GM is offering all comers the opportunity to chat with Wes Bolsen, vice president for product development at Coskata Inc., the start-up firm that the giant automaker has partnered with in an effort to develop a method for making ethanol that doesn't rely on depleting the planet's supply of basic food crops such as corn.

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It's not packed with sexy new technology like hybrid or fuel-cell cars, but its clean, low-carbon fuel and respectable fuel economy combined to earn Honda's 2008 Civic GX top place on a leading environmental guide's "greenest cars" list for the fifth consecutive year.



Honda's natural gas Civic GX is rated  "greenest" car in U.S. for fifth year.



VW's  Touareg diesel ranked  "meanest"  of more than 1,300 vehicles rated.

The  four-wheel-drive version  of Volkswagen's diesel-burning V10 Touareg SUV placed dead last on the lengthy list, behind such gas guzzlers as the Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Murcielago and the 6.0-liter Hummer H2.

In taking the top spot the GX, fueled by compressed natural gas, once again beat out the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids. 

The rankings are contained in the Washington, D.C.-based the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's 11the annual Green Book. The online guide to environmental rankings for every 2008 model car and passenger truck sold in the U.S. was released this morning by the ACEEE.

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By Dale Buss, Contributor

Warrenville, Illinois – Now that automakers have seen a bit of the downside of corn-based ethanol, General Motors said Sunday it  has entered into what it calls a "very serious" partnership with Coskata Inc., a small start-up based here, to pursue commercialization of cellulosic ethanol.
 
Under Coskata’s process, cellulosic ethanol is created by proprietary strains of bacteria that convert farm waste, wood chips, old tires, landfill plastic and a whole bunch of other organic materials into fuel-grade ethanol.

The initial promise is that Coskata plans to produce enough cellulosic ethanol here by later this year to begin fueling the GM test fleet at the company's Milford Proving Grounds about 40 miles northwest of Detroit.

100 Million Gallons

If that works, Coskata projects that it could be running its first commercial-scale plant, producing 50 million to 100 million gallons of ethanol annually, by 2011. The timeline includes the two years it will take to build the plant.

“This can revolutionize the transportation-fuel business,” said Bill Rowe, a three-decade veteran of the water-treatment and process-chemical industry who now serves as Coskata’s CEO. “Just as important, it’s a speed-to-market play.”

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We don't believe a candidate's stand on energy, or fuel economy regulation or even the larger issue of climate change, ought to be the sole reason he, or she, is judged worthy of office.

But it certainly ought to be an important part of every voter's decision-making, so we're offering up this look at the auto-related portions of the main candidates' energy plans to help those who haven't made up their minds with primary (and caucus) season rapidly closing in.

There are hundreds or sources for interested voters to find out how Hillary stands on health care, or Rudy on Iraq, but pinning down the presidential hopefuls' positions on CAFE and related alternative fuel issues isn't quite so easy.

To help out, we asked correspondent Terril Yue Jones to put together a look at the auto and fuels aspects of the energy plans of candidates who are polling at least 1 percent in national surveys.

We're doing this now, of course, because voting season gets off to an especially early start this year, with more than half the primaries and caucuses slated to be held on or before February 5 -- the so-called Super Tuesday when 22 states hold primaries and the major party nominees, who won't officially be named until the Democratic and Republican conventions at the end of summer, will be all but set in cement.

First up, though, are the Iowa caucuses, to be held Thursday evening, a fortnight after President Bush signed sweeping new energy legislation that raises the required corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) of automakers to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, from their current levels of 27.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 22.2 miles per gallon for light trucks.

Led by Hillary Clinton’s call for a massive increase in the fuel efficiency required of automakers, Democratic candidates' energy plans almost all spell out specific fuel economy standards for the nation’s automobiles. For the most part the Democrats even set fuel efficiency timetables.

Republicans speak in broader terms, preferring discussion of ending dependence on foreign oil and promoting alternative fuels and saying that specific miles-per-gallon benchmarks are not the way to go.

Here's the rundown on the candidates, in alphabetical order, from a green car perspective. Have fun!

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It's official: Both houses of Congress have approved a new energy bill that would boost average fuel economy for cars and trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

The measure now awaits President' Bush's signature, and the White House has said that could happen as early as Wednesday.

It is the first significant increase in the so called CAFE (corporate average fuel efficiency) standard since 1975.

The bill also boosts production of ethanol – a measure that actually lets carmakers reduce real fuel efficiency by granting extra credit for flex-fuel cars and trucks even when sold in states, such as California, that have virtually no ethanol pumps.

To win support from Bush and most Republicans in Congress, Democrats had to agree to eliminate meaures in the bill that would have hit  oil and gas companies with about $13 billion in taxes and would have required utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity from sources such as wind and solar power.