By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
 
It was a Lexus in the sky, with carbon, and it is causing Paul McCartney and Lexus no end of grief.
 
The former Beatle was given a Lexus by Toyota Motor Corp. for his help in promoting the raaather posh and expensive Lexus LS600H. In Great Britain, the hybrid costs the equivalent of $165,000.
 
Sir Paul, as the Brits like to call the knighted entertainer and environmental activist, asked that the leather upholstery be stripped out and replaced with cloth (he's an animal rights supporter and a vegan).
 
Then Lexus loaded the car, which also has a special paint job, onto a Korean air jet and flew it to Britain.
 
The British press is having a field day, going on about how that flight created a carbon footprint almost 100 times larger than if the car had been shipped by sea, as is usual.
 
The Telegraph, for instance, quotes an unidentified source in its story as saying McCartney will be "horrified after learning it was delivered by plane."
 
The paper says that a carbon-offset company, CO₂balance.com, said the plane flight "caused a carbon footprint of 38,050 kilograms [23,591 pounds] compared to 397 kg [246 lbs.] for a three-week boat journey."
 
McCartney hasn't said anything, but Nancy Hubbell, a Lexus spokeswoman at the company's North American headquarters just south of Los Angeles, called it a case of mistaken assumptions.
 
"It was a scheduled flight, so the carbon footprint was there whether we shipped the car or not," she said, adding that McCartney shouldn't be shocked or horrified as the decision to ship the car by air "was a joint one."
 
Lexus and McCartney's people jointly decided to do the air shipment to help protect the expensive paint and to speed delivery to fit into Lexus' plans to use the car in several upcoming promotional events in Britain, she said.
 
But even had the car come by boat, there still would have been grumbling.
 
The Telegraph quotes a spokesman for the anti-aviation lobby Plane Stupid complaining that "for anyone to pretend that a private limousine is in any way eco-friendly is like pretending a private jet is. It's total greenwash."
 
McCartney and Lexus have a long relationship stemming from the carmakers' sponsorship of his 2005 U.S. tour. The singer has publicly lauded Lexus for making hybrids because they use less fuel -- and have a reduced carbon footprint.

Toyota's Prius is top hybrid in the world with more than a million sold so far.

Over the years, automotive industry analysts repeatedly have pondered the question of just what the gas-price tipping point might be.

 For a while it was thought, based on focus groups, surveys and gut feelings, that people wouldn't change their car-buying habits until gas hit $3 a gallon. Then it was $4 and some even said it would take $5 a gallon gas to do the trick.

Well, it seems that $3.60 did the trick.

 As gas prices hit that mark in early April, small car and hybrid sales began soaring. As we reported earlier, both segments captured record shares of the U.S. new vehicle sales market for the month.

Toyota's Prius, synonymous with "hybrid" for many people, was not only the top-selling hybrid but the eighth-best selling passenger car overall for the month.

Now Edmunds AutoObserver brings us news that Toyota has announced that the Prius sales motored proudly past the million-mark in April, hitting a global total of 1.028 million – and climbing.

Success like that is likely to spur Toyota's decision-makers to give a big green light to a project they've been discussing publicly for months now – an expanded line of Prius models.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

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...

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...

 After a speech Thursday at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner was asked if the Chevrolet Volt -- still two-plus years away but already starring in the automaker's TV ads -- would be GM's Prius.

The high-mileage, gas-electric car from Toyota Motor Corp. still dominates hybrid sales nearly a decade after it first went on sale in the U.S.

 "We think it could be a big game-changer.," said Wagoner, an executive not prone to over-statement.

"When we get it to the market, we'll see. If we deliver on what we have on the drawing board, I think it's going to show a lot of people that we've got great technology at GM and we can compete with anybody in that field."

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...

A fierce battle among Japanese automakers is likely to be staged during the Group of Eight summit in Japan this July, with carmakers using the session as a showcase for their fuel-efficient cars, including hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

Toyota,  Mitsubishi and other automakers will provide about 100 fuel-efficient cars to transport participants at the summit meeting, The Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reports in Tuesday's edition.

Toyota will provide about 80 hybrid cars, including luxury Lexus models, minivans and compact cars for participants making short trips around the venue. The company also is planning to provide plug-in hybrid electric cars for participants' use.

Mitsubishi will be holding test rides of its iMIEV battery-powered city car. Mazda reportedly will make a hydrogen-fueled sports car available for use. Honda is considering providing hybrid and fuel-cell cars for participants' use.

Environmental problems will be one of the major topics at this year's summit. The G8 countries consist of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Scott Doggett, Contributor

GM's message is emblazoned on slide accompanying GM executive's speech chastizing hydrogen industry.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Crusty corporate vice chairman Bob Lutz usually is cast as General Motor's hitman when there's a hard-nosed message to be delivered. But the automaker this week is calling on soft-spoken strategist Larry Burns to blast the hydrogen industry for not working hard enough to realize what should be a common goal.

The world needs fuel-cell electric vehicles, but the hydrogen industry is not stepping up to do its part, Burns will tell hundreds of industry insiders in a speech at the National Hydrogen Association's annual conference here this morning.

"There does not appear to be a sense of urgency" by hydrogen suppliers to build the refining, delivery and refueling infrastructure now needed to support the fuel cell cars that automakers including GM are ready to start producing, he said in a pre-speech interview with Green Car Advisor.

"We need to build more of these cars, but why do it if there are no fuel stations out there?"

Continue reading...

Toyota Motor Corp. says it will spend $100 million over the next four years on advanced research at a new Toyota Research Institute of North America.

Formation of the institute was announced this morning. It will be part of and located at the automaker's Toyota Technical Center campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and will focus on accelerating research on issues of energy, environment, safety and infrastructure as part of Toyota's "sustainable mobility" effort, the company said.

The advanced research unit will launch with a staff of 35 and Toyota plans to add 30 researchers to the team by 2010.

Noboru Kikuchi, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan and a director of Toyota Central Research & Development Laboratories in Japan, has been appointed to head the new institute. 

John O'Dell, Senior Editor