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. 

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

The idea of spending less on gas seems to be driving far more people into the green car ranks than the idea that you are doing something good for the planet and those who occupy it.

We can see this pretty clearly in the astonishing growth of small car sales in the U.S. – hardly anyone was buying them a few years ago and last month they accounted for a record 22.6 percent of the new car market, according to Edmunds.com's market analysts.

Meantime, large trucks' market share plunged to just 11 percent, down from a high three years ago of 19 percent.

Small used to mean cheap. Now it means fuel efficient (although not all small cars are particularly miserly with gas). And as compacts and subcompacts continue to capture market share, look for automakers to start piling high-margin luxury goodies into their small cars as they seek ways to replace the profits they used to book from truck sales.

Hybrids Rising Too

We can also see concern about fuel prices in the steady rise of hybrid sales – they accounted for a record 3.2 percent of the market in April, with Toyota's Prius the month's 10th best-selling model of any type.

That hybrids are increasing their market penetration even though they cost more than comparably equipped conventional versions of the same models (except the Toyota Prius, which has no conventional counterpart) is testimony to people's desire to pare their fuel bills.

Just a year or so ago, the Prius was the only hybrid with a reasonable chance of providing sufficient fuel savings to pay back the so-called hybrid premium – the price a hybrid purchaser pays to get a car or SUV with two powertrains and enough complex electronics to make a NASA engineer jealous.

Continue reading...

Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday that it plans to double by the end of next year the number of fuel-saving six-speed automatic transmissions it is putting in its vehicles.

The new front-wheel-drive 6-speed transmission offers 4 percent to 6 percent better fuel economy, improved acceleration and smoother shifting than four- and five-speed automatics, Ford said in a statement on its website.

The Dearborn-based automaker said the new transmissions will debut early next year in the 2009-model Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner crossover SUVs, their sibling '09 Mazda Tribute, and two unidentified vehicles.

Ford said it plans to use the advanced transmission, which will be made at its Sterling Heights, Mich., plant, in 98 percent of its North American vehicles by 2012.

Ford Vice President Barb Samardzich, head of the company's North American transmission operations, said the new transmissions are key to Ford's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions form its vehicles by 30 percent by 2020.

The announcement comes five months after Ford unveiled a direct-injection technology it calls EcoBoost that will enable the gasoline-powered cars and trucks that use it to deliver up to 20 percent better fuel economy with 15 percent fewer carbon-dioxide emissions than versions equipped with standard fuel-injected engines of similar output.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the governor's office, easily overlooked while overlooking and overhearing all.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last year told the Big 3 automakers to "Get off your butt" and meet the state's tailpipe emissions regulations, is scheduled to sit down with representatives from Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and Toyota at the state Capitol in Sacramento Thursday.

The meeting, at the automakers' request, comes just two weeks after 12 governors, led by Schwarzenegger, threatened legal action against the Bush administration for trying to prohibit states from setting automotive emissions limits.

Continue reading...

Plug-in hybrids are seen by many, including Magna, as the next great  frontier.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Another entry in the plug-in hybrid race, this time from a competitor with really powerful potential.

Magna International, the top-tier Canadian auto parts maker, says it will roll out a plug-in car late next year or in 2010.

So as not to foul relationships with the major automakers that it already supplies with scores of parts, Magna says it won't sell a competing plug-in but will sell them the bits and pieces needed to make their own.

In markets where its customers don't sell cars, though, Magna intends to field a complete plug-in under its own brand.

The company, which reported $26.1 billion in sales and a $663 million net profit last year, is serious about becoming a car maker.

Continue reading...

Ford is among the companies working on plug-in gas-electric hybrids.

In a bid to promote plug-in hybrid development, the University of California's Davis campus is cosponsoring what it calls the world's first international conference on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The confab, to be held July 22-24 in San Jose, California, appears to be in response to California's recent endorsement of plug-in technology in the revision of its controversial Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) Mandate.

Continue reading...

 Amphere, foreground, and Faraday electric trucks heading for North America.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Britian's Smith Electric Vehicles has teamed with Ford Motor Co. to build two new battery-electric commercial trucks for the North America market.

Smith, which recently opened an electric truck assembly plant in Fresno, said that it will use Ford F-Series heavy duty truck chassis and Ford of Europe's Transit Connect van to underpin a range of new intra-city delivery and work trucks that run on electricity provided by rechargeable iron-phosphate lithium ion battery packs.

The announcement was made today at the at the annual Commercial Vehicle Show in Birmingham, England.

The initial vehicle, called the Smith Faraday Mark II and based on the F-Series chassis, is set to launch in the U.S. late this year, the electric truck company said. The second, called the Smith Amphere, will use the Transit chassis and will begin production in 2009.

Continue reading...

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Ford Motor Co. said today that it intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its nationwide fleet of new cars and trucks by at least 30 percent by 2020.

The company is the first U.S, automaker to publicly announce a GHG reductions goal. It acted in response to shareholder resolutions from a number of major investment groups concerned about climate change.

Because automotive greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to fuel consumption, Ford's goal means the company intends to provide a 30 percent increase in average fuel economy.

That's not particularly bold of Ford as it is the same level of improvement demanded in the new federal Energy Bill that was signed into law late last year and set a 35-miles-per-gallon corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, requirement for the entire auto industry to meet by 2020.

But announcing a goal and laying out the steps it intends to follow to achieve it is a major move by an automaker, the investor groups pushing for such action said.

In a press conference staged in New York City, representatives of those groups, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and the Investor Network on Climate Risk praised Ford for taking what one called a"giant step forward" in corporate leadership on global warming.

Continue reading...

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.

Continue reading...

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Bucking its downsizing efforts, Ford Motor Co. said Monday that it will reopen a Canadian factory to produce a new line of engines.

Ford will invest C$170 million (US$165 million) in the Essex Engine Plant in Windsor, Ontario,  with an additional C$17 million (US$16.5 million) in support from the Ontario government, company and provincial spokeswomen said.

The world's third-largest automaker closed the plant, affecting about 600 employees, in November as part of a broad restructuring that will shutter 16 facilities by 2012.

Ford "will be committing a new engine to the plant," production will start "within the next couple of years" and about 300 workers will be added to the handful now at the plant, Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski told Green Car Advisor. She would not elaborate, citing "competitive reasons."

The Associated Press quoted Ontario government spokeswoman Jane Almeida as saying that  the plant was expected to reopen in the next few months.

Continue reading...