By Scott Doggett, Contributor

U.S. subsidized biodiesel that can't be sold here is swamping Europe, wreaking financial havoc with many European biodiesel producers.

Adding insult to injury, much of the fuel subsidized by U.S. taxpayers at the rate of $1 a gallon isn’t even made in this country and is giving European motorists a break at the pumps.

A loophole in the 2004 subsidy act let U.S. fuel blenders claim the subsidy for entire boatloads of biodiesel produced elsewhere if they added just a dribble of petroleum-based diesel to the shipment before sending it off to Europe for sale at prices up to 30 percent below what European producers must charge.

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Tax time commeth, and if you purchased a hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle in the past year, you might have a tax break coming.

If you don't already have that info in hand or want to double check the figures your dealership gave, here are two websites that cover hybrid and alternative fuel tax credits and incentives:

The Internal Revenue Service lists all federal credits for hybrid cars and SUVs on its Qualified Hybrid Vehicles site, and the federal Energy Department has a nifty interactive site that provides info about both federal and state tax and other incentives for alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles.

In a damned if you do-damned if you don't sort of move, a Washington state senator has proposed taxing motor vehicles based on fuel economy, in part to replace state revenue lost as motorists cut back on driving in the face of soaring fuel prices.

The measure, Senate Bill 6932, is similar to a bill that recently failed to pass muster in California.

The California bill, though, would have given rebates to owners of the most efficient vehicles, while the Washington measure envisions a minimum annual tax of $40 even on vehicles that get 50 miles per gallon or better.

The Washington bill seems to penalize motorists for heeding environmentalists' calls to cut back on driving in order to reduce the impact of automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

But Sen. Ed Murray, the Seattle Democrat who is lead author of the measure, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that the bill "finally takes into account global warming [linked] to the responsibility of owning a vehicle." 

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Tesla Roadster is about to go to market as company considers public offering.

Electric cars aren't the only thing Tesla Motors wants to sell.

The five-year-old company, funded so far with private capital, wants to start selling stock and executives are talking about an initial public offering as early as the end of the year.

A public stock sale would enable Tesla's founders to recoup their investments and profit from the battery and power-management technologies the company has developed in its quest to build a battery-powered electric car with market appeal.

Darryl Siry, Tesla's vice president for marketing, told Green Car Advisor of the plan this week, just as Tesla Chairman Elon Musk was discussing the same at an investors conference in the California desert resort town of Indian Wells, near Palm Springs.

A New Partnership?
Musk also raised the possibility of Tesla teaming with another automaker to produce a low-cost, high-volume electric car.

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Toyota Aygo city car is typical of low-emission cars selling well in Britain.

Overcome by rising fuel prices and growing environmental concerns, British car buyers are selecting fuel-efficient models in record numbers. 

So much so, according to a report from the nation's automakers, that cars with the lowest emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are set to outsell gas guzzlers for the first time in modern history.

The Brits tax cars according to greenhouse gas emissions – which are directly related to fuel economy – with cars in the least efficient groups charged a so-called road tax of  ₤300 pounds (almost $600 at current exchange rates) and those in the most efficient groups taxed at ₤35 or less.

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It's not just us!

Analysts at economic consulting powerhouse Global Insight report that new emissions- and fuel economy-based automotive tax programs that began January 1 in France and Spain spurred "panic" buying of big cars in both nations during December.

Global Insight reports that in France, December sales of Mercedes-Benz cars soared by 69.9 percent; BMW sales jumped 38.4 percent and Audi sales rose 25 percent.

In Spain, the rush was for sport-utility vehicles. Sales of SUVs jumped 40.7 percent during the last month of the year, in advance of imposition of what the Spanish call, to Porsche's delight we expect, "el impuesto Cayenne," or the Cayenne tax.

Seems that even in Europe, usually held up as an example to Americans of how to be more environmentally responsible, a goodly portion of the populace still loves those gas guzzlers and was lining up to buy before fuel economy taxes were imposed.

In France as of the start of the year, cars and light trucks that spew the highest levels of carbon dioxide were hit with a CO₂ tax of 2,600 euros ($3,800 at today's exchange rate), while the biggest CO₂ producers in the Spanish auto market are now subject to a 14.5 percent purchase tax.

We'll be watching to see what those taxes do to car buying trends in those countries over the long term.

Wonder if anyone in Washington will be watching as well?

By Robert E. Calem, Contributor

It could be the perfect automobile for environment-conscious Americans who are also short on money and time: the NGV, or natural gas vehicle, a near-zero emissions auto powered by an inexpensive, domestically abundant fuel, and granted special single-occupancy access to commuter fast lanes. 

Popular in Europe where gasoline prices are exorbitant, NGVs are still rare among alternative fuel vehicles in the U.S. Earlier this decade, citing weak sales, Ford, Chrysler and GM all stopped selling them here, ceding the domestic market to the Honda Civic GX, which has been named the world's cleanest internal combustion engine vehicle.

Through a process called "upfitting," however, some new GM and Ford vehicles can be converted to NGVs, and reap all of the benefits available to Civic GX owners. Those include a federal tax credit and certain local tax credits and incentives aimed at encouraging ownership of natural gas vehicles, as well as relatively cheap fuel prices and, in some states, "driver-only" access to HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes on arterial highways.

As gasoline prices climb, U.S. sales to everyday folks of the Civic GX and of NGV conversions are on an upswing, people close to the market say.

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Will residents of the San Fransisco Bay area agree to raise the price of gasoline in the nine-county area to help battle global warming?

The idea of a regional gas tax increase has surfaced, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, in discussions among members of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority, or BART, and a variety of business and civic groups.

The thinking, it seems, is that predominately liberal voters in the region might be willing to add a dime to the price they pay for gasoline if the funds -- an additional $300 million a year -- were earmarked  to help cut carbon emissions by encourage car pooling, use of mass transit and other programs to reduce use of private vehicles

If the idea moves from board room to ballot booth, it could jump-start a copycat movement in other parts of California, in other states, and maybe even in Washington, where Congress has been notoriously weak-kneed about tinkering with the gas tax (the federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents a gallon; California's state tax is 18 cents).

After all, an increase in what Americans have to pay for their principal automotive fuel would go a lot further than a CAFE increase in persuading us to cut back on car travel, in prodding automakers to come out with more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and in pushing fuel companies to speed development of alternative fuels that could wean us from our national oil addiction.     

 

The federal tax credits that helped pump up hybrid car sales for Toyota and Honda are winding down.

The program, established in the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, rewards success by disappearing in several stages after a carmaker sells 60,000 hybrids. Toyota’s Prius hit that mark last year, and Honda’s Civic hybrid crossed the threshold last month.

Buyers of the 2007 Civic hybrid can still receive a $2,100 credit on cars purchased through December 31. The credit is then halved, to $1,050, on cars purchased from January 1 through June 30 of 2008, and it drops again, to $525, for purchases in the last half of next year before disappearing completely on January 1, 2009.

Tax credits for Toyota’s hybrids expire at the end of September. Ford, General Motors, Mercury, Mazda and Nissan haven’t hit the threshold yet, so their hybrids still qualify for the full federal tax credit— which varies by model.

Mazda, which just launched its 2008 Tribute SUV hybrid, is selling it only in California, while Nissan is limiting sales of its Altima hybrid to California and the seven Northeastern states that have adopted California emissions rules: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Will loss of the federal credits hurt sales?

"The decline will have some negative impact on sales only if Honda does not increase incentives to make up the difference," says Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com's senior industry analyst.

"When the tax credits for the Prius expired, Toyota first introduced generous incentives for it followed by a dramatic price reduction. Both strategies helped keep sales around record numbers. I suspect Honda may follow a similar strategy," he said.

Analysts at Global Insight say that  tax credits typically have taken a back seat to fuel economy and image-building when consumers are deciding whether to go hybrid.

And many states and some local agencies offer incentives of their own.

Still, that federal credit helped erase the hybrid premium automakers charge for all the extra technology.