The fleet of new cars and trucks sold to U.S. consumers averaged 21 miles per gallon in the 2008 model year, a modest increase over the previous year, with Honda and Hyundai having the most fuel-efficient fleets in America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported Friday.
New vehicle fuel efficiency improved 2 percent in 2008 from 20.6 mpg for the 2007 model year. The government projected it will improve slightly to 21.1 mpg in the 2009 model year.
The EPA figures are based on real-world estimates for city and highway mileage found on window stickers at dealer showrooms, instead of mileage values developed through laboratory testing.
Honda Motor Co. led the industry in 2008 with 23.9 mpg, followed by Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. with 23.7 mpg, and Toyota Motor Corp. with 22.8 mpg.
Volkswagen AG's fleet averaged 22.3 mpg, followed by Nissan Motor Co. with 21.9 and BMW AG with 21.2.
General Motors Co. led U.S. automakers with 19.7 mpg, followed by Ford Motor Co. with 19.4 and Chrysler Group LLC with 19.3. The EPA projects Ford will increase its fuel efficiency by more than 1 mpg in the 2009 model year and overtake GM.
Mazda Motor Corp. will showcase the subcompact Mazda2, scheduled to be sold in the U.S. and Canada beginning late next year, at next month's 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show.
The model has been a brisk seller for Mazda since it first went on sale in 2003 in Europe. The second-generation Mazda2 commenced sales in Japan in July 2007.
The five-door hatchback coming to North America will share a platform with the Ford Fiesta, which is scheduled to launch on this side of the Atlantic next summer. In addition to the Fiesta, the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Chevrolet Aveo will offer the Mazda2 some stiff competition.
In Europe, the Mazda2 is offered with several gasoline and diesel engines. The U.S. edition will feature only a gasoline-powered, 1.5-liter four-cylinder.
Mazda has provided few specs for the North American Mazda2, but the gasoline-powered, 1.5-liter four-banger sold in Europe delivers 103 horsepower and 101 pounds-feet of torque.
That engine also propels the Mazda2 from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 10.4 seconds while delivering 41 miles per gallon in Europe's combined driving cycle test; in the more real-world American combined driving cycle test, fuel economy should be in the 35-38 mpg range.
Perhaps fretting that the public had forgotten about their hydrogen ambitions, Japan's Big 3 automakers last week took to the streets with their most advanced hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
Over two days, driving teams steered a Toyota Highlander FCHV-adv, a Nissan X-Trail FCV, and a Honda FCX Clarity 707 miles from Tokyo to Fukuoka, with an overnight stop in Osaka.
Combined, the vehicles consumed 28.8 kilograms of hydrogen during their demonstration run. That equates to roughly 70 miles per gallon for those of you wondering how efficient these vehicles stack up when compared to gasoline-powered vehicles.
But given that none of the advanced-fuel vehicles seen here are available for purchase, mileage/fuel comparisons right now are strictly academic.
That said, although all three automakers are working on electric vehicles, Honda and Toyota continue to say that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles offer the best long-term solution to today's climate-changing oil-burning street machines.
A recent study evaluating the effectiveness of this summer's cash-for-clunkers program concluded that cost U.S. taxpayers $3 billion and did more to help Japan's three largest automakers than it did the Detroit 3 of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
The Japanese companies accounted for only 8 percent of trade-ins but 41 percent of new-car purchases, according to the new study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.
By contrast, 85 percent of the trade-ins were manufactured by the Detroit 3 while only 39 percent of the new purchases were GM, Ford or Chrysler vehicles.
Sixty-eight percent of consumers who traded in a Toyota, Honda or Nissan bought another from one of the same from one of the three Japanese automakers.
Specifically, those owners who traded in Hondas bought another Honda 30 percent of the time. Nissan owners bought new Nissans under the clunker program did so 19 percent of the time and motorists unloading Toyotas turned around and bought another Toyota 44 percent of the time.
By contrast, 43 percent of consumers who traded in a Detroit 3 vehicle bought another Detroit 3 vehicle. Chrysler owners bought new Chryslers in 11 percent of the cases, Ford in 24 percent and GM in 32 percent.
As for those who switched, Japan's Big 3 got 38 percent of consumers who traded in a Detroit Big 3 vehicle. Toyota did best, with 18 percent. The Detroit Big 3 got only 12 percent of consumers who traded in a Japan Big 3 vehicle. GM did best with 5.3 percent.
The study made no attempt to determine how much of the money stayed in the United States and how much went to Japan. It should, of course, be noted that many of the Japanese cars purchased as a result of the clunker program were undoubtedly made in the USA.
Folding Electric Bike, Steam Speed Racer Other Green Transportation Honorees for 2009
Frankly, my dears, we find year-ending annual lists of the top 10, or 20, or even 50 things quite contrived, subjective and a pain to research and write - but fun, fun, fun to read.
Especially when they include things we would have stuck on 'em.
So we peruse them and this weekend found Time magazine's selection of the top 50 inventions of 2009, a list that includes a quintet of green car items (well, a triplet of cars plus an electric bicycle from way down under and a green unicycle from Honda).
Topping the transport list, in 15th place, was the YikeBike, a lithium-powered, folding two-wheeler from New Zealand - slated for production in very small numbers initially (100 or so) by mid 2010. It looks like a modern two-wheeled adaptation of a kid's Big Wheel trike.
The top automotive ranking was Nissan's Leaf EV, a 5-seat hatchback that we've been writing about for quite some time. It has just begin a 22-city U.S. tour but won't hit the market until this time next year. The Leaf, unveiled in August, will be the first mass-market, affordable (under $35,000 we believe) EV from a major automaker. Time ranks it the 25th best invention of the year.
Honda's U3-X concept, an electric, gyroscopically balanced unicycle controlled by the rider's shifting weight, placed 27th. The automaker showed it last month at the Tokyo Auto Show, and we thought then that it would beat the heck out of Segue's personal transporter for convenience and usability if Honda decided to make and market it.
In 40th position is another green car we wrote about earlier this year, the WorldFirst F3 Formula Three race car developed by at team at the University of Warwick-affiliated Warwick Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre using as many biological and biodegradable parts as possible. Thus a steering wheel made of bioplastic reinforced with carrot fibers; brake pads lined with cashew shells, potato-starch based plastic body parts, biodiesel fuel made from chocolate waste and vegetable oils and road-racing speeds of up to 125 miles an hour.
Occupying 50th place on the list is another British "invention," the world's fastest steam car. Imaginatively named British Steam Car, it's a 25-foot-long, dry-lake racer powered by the steam from a dozen boilers piped through more than 2 mile of tubing and putting out sufficient power to goose the rocket-shaped speedster this past August to 151 miles an hour on a Mojave Desert test track at Edwards Air Force Base northeast of Los Angeles.
Pricing has not been set yet on Nissan's Leaf electric car (pictured), which will see limited distribution starting late next year, but the automaker's top marketing executive for North America told us today that the monthly cost to the consumer should be equivalent to the monthly cost of a fully loaded Honda Civic plus its fuel.
(Article updated 11/13/09 to correct pricing.)
That means the purchase price (about $28,000) or comparable monthly payment for a high-end Civic plus the cost of the gasoline it would need to cover 1,200 miles (at 30 MPG and $3/gallon, about $120), said Brian Carolin, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Nissan North America.
Although Nissan's global plan is to sell the zero-emissions car without battery and to lease the battery to car buyers at a cost roughly equal to the $120 calculated above, both Carolin and Mark Perry, Nissan's director of product planning and advanced technology strategy for North America, told GreenCarAdvisor that Nissan has not yet decided how to price the package in the U.S.
"We may sell the car and battery together, we may lease it as a package, or we may sell the car and lease the battery," Carolin said. "We just haven't decided yet."
Daimler AG is considering launching a series of small Mercedes-Benz cars in the U.S. in a bid to tap Americans' growing interest in downsized models that offer upscale features and finishes, the German automaker's chief executive said.
---------- The Mercedes-Benz A-Class, right, gets 50 MPG but isn't available in the U.S. ----------
Under its tentative plan, Mercedes would import by 2012 at least one of four next-generation compact models it will start selling in Europe in late 2011, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
These diminutive Mercedes would go head to head with an expanding field of premium small cars in the U.S., including the A3 from Volkswagen AG's Audi unit and BMW AG's 1 series and Mini Cooper.
Unlike traditional compacts these cars can be costly; the Mini goes for as much as $34,000 depending on options.
Daimler's tentative move comes as buyers in Europe and the U.S. are increasingly redefining what they want in a luxury car. The severe economic downturn has driven even affluent consumers toward smaller and more understated models with higher fuel efficiency.
U.S. sales of large sport-utility vehicles such as the Chevrolet Suburban have plunged, while sales of tiny but stylish subcompacts such as the Honda Motor Co. Fit have grown, the Journal reported.
Dispelling rumors to the contrary, Honda Motor Co. won't be making a low-cost and presumably fuel-efficient minicar in India to compete with products released by Tata Motors Ltd. and the alliance of Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co.
Instead, Japan's second-biggest carmaker is developing a small car that will cost less than its existing Jazz hatchback model, CEO Takanobu Ito told a news conference today.
The starting price of Jazz is 698,000 rupees (about $15,000) at showrooms in New Delhi.
Ito said the new car will be targeted at countries in Asia, with India as a key market.
"We would like to offer to as many customers as possible, a product at their price expectation level," he said, but didn't give any time frame for launching the new car or a likely price range.
Tata Motors, which controls Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands, currently sells the Nano minicar (pictured), the world's cheapest car, with starting prices of about 115,000 rupees (roughly $2,500) at showrooms in New Delhi.
The popularity of the car amid rising demand for fuel-efficient, affordable vehicles has prompted other automakers such as Renualt-Nissan, General Motors Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. to announce plans to develop their own low-cost cars.
Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said Tuesday that a new minicar, to be designed and manufactured by Indian motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto Ltd. and distributed by Renault-Nissan, will be the cheapest car in India when introduced in 2012.
Spurred by factory incentives, replenished stocks and the relative freshness of several models, sales of hybrid-electric cars and SUVs soared in October, easily outperforming the market as a whole.
Compared to October '08 - a month with six fewer hybrid models available - sales of Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Toyota hybrids were up 12.1 percent, while sales of conventionally powered cars and trucks were flat.
The one-month picture was even rosier, as October hybrid sales jumped 22.5 percent from September's, versus a 12.1 percent hike in sales of conventional models.
Nissan, which has only one model - the Altima hybrid, - and sells it in just the nine states with the toughest emissions standards, was the only hybrid maker to record a sales decline for both periods, dropping 46 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from September.
As with most hybrids - Toyota's Prius excepted - Nissan's actual numbers are quite small because of low sales volumes. October's sales drop represented just 46 fewer Altima hybrid sales than in September.
Toyota's redesigned 2010 Prius, sweetened by a small factory incentive, remained by far the segment leader, accounting for 55 percent of all hybrid sales for the month.
Automakers, Green Groups Debate Standards, California's Role at Los Angeles Hearing By Danny King, Contributor
California's efforts to continue imposing more stringent greenhouse gas standards than federal rules require continued coming under fire from industry groups Tuesday as the Environmental Protection Agency held the last of three hearings on implementing proposed national standards for average passenger vehicle fuel economy.
Federal officials are trying to determine how best to reach gas mileage and tailpipe-emissions standards within the next seven years that are about 30% more stringent than they are now.
California, which has authority to set its own standards, is in agreement with the federal proposals through 2016 but already has started working on tougher state standards for 2017 and beyond - a move that automakers oppose, claiming that separate state and federal rules will impose severe economic hardships on an already beleaguered industry.
Looking Forward
So while Tuesday's hearing ostensibly was about present regulations, many in the audience were more concerned with what happens eight years from now.
Honda Motor Co. pulled the plug on Formula 1 racing to divert the money being spent there to green technologies and the company that's been playing second fiddle to Toyota in the green cars sweepstakes says it wants to hybridize larger vehicles again.
---------- Honda's top executive prefers hydrogen fuel cell FCX Clarity but says battery-electric cars will come first. ---------
That's the word from Honda President and CEO Takanobu Ito, speaking with a select group of automotive writers - including Edmunds' Inside Line News Editor Kelly Toepke - at the 2009 Tokyo auto show last week.
Toepke tells us that Ito is committed to the further greening of Honda, even to the extent of developing an environmentally friendly sports car that - his words - is truly green, "not like the car Lexus announced" at the show. He was referring to the limited production, V10-powered, $375,000 Lexus LFA supercar, which he apparently doesn't believe is green enough.
Incentive spending by automakers is soaring as a continued weak buyer market has inventories, which shrunk during the Cash for Clunkers program, piling up again.
It's unusual to see hybrids on the list of heavily incentivized cars, but this week two gas-electric models, the 2009 Cadillac Escalade hybrid SUV and the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid sedan, have both landed on Edmunds.com's "Deals of the Month" list.
"There are finance and cash deals on several of GM's hybrids, largely because sales have been slow all year and the automaker is hoping to move the 2009 models off the lots before the 2010s start piling up," said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell.
"And the Insight just hasn't been moving very well, so the reduced lease they're offering is a good hook to pull people into Honda dealerships to look at them," she said.
Honda Motor Co. offered a glimpse of the very near future in Tokyo late Tuesday as it unwrapped a sporty four-seat version of the CR-Z hybrid that will hit the market late next year as a 2-seat coupe.
Although they're calling it a concept, the "CR-Z Concept 2009" is pretty much what we'll see - sans the tiny rear jump seats - when the real thing hits U.S. showrooms in the second half of next year.
Actually, we'll see the real thing a little sooner, the production version of the CR-Z hybrid sport coupe will debut as a production car in January at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Honda Motor Co. is still high on hydrogen, but now thinks battery-electrics might be the way to go until there's a hydrogen fueling infrastructure to support the fuel-cell electric cars the company prefers.
---------- Honda EV-N electric city car concept being displayed at Tokyo Auto Show. ----------
Honda CEO Takanobu Ito told an industry seminar in Tokyo Monday that he would now consider launching electric cars in the United States, Europe and Japan while waiting for hydrogen cars to become marketable. Reuters news service reported Itos' remarks today.
The automaker, which made a big splash last year with its ready-for-production FCX Clarity fuel-cell electric car, had been counting on that technology to enable it to catch up with hybrid champion Toyota in the fuel-efficiency sweepstakes to mature.
But ongoing road tests of the Clarity and General Motors' fuel-cell Equinox SUV haven't generated enough interest to spur fuel companies to build hydrogen stations, limiting the potential market for fuel-cell cars to urban areas of California and the New York metropolitan region.
That's not enough to generate the high volume production that would be needed to increase the number of component suppliers and reduce the cost of the highly specialized fuel cell systems.
U.S. Trails Asia, Europe in Providing Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure, Automakers Warn
Automakers aiming to meet California's revised Zero Emission Vehicles mandate requirements have pushed the fuel-cell electric car much closer to reality than many realize, according to a report by Bloomberg news service.
----------
Rendering of advanced fuel station near Los Angeles International Airport touts hydrogen as the fuel of tomorrow. Automakers say that without more such stations, that vision won't be realized. ----------
Not only is the technology almost ready for prime time, reporter Alan Ohnsman found that automakers such as Toyota, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and General Motors now believe they can bring fuel cell vehicles to market by 2015 with price premium of just $3,600 over the average price of a comparable midsized gasoline model.
But the technology and price breakthroughs won't mean much if the U.S. government's infrastructure priorities aren't altered to include encouragement of a hydrogen fueling system
If the U.S. doesn't get moving, it will fall behind Europe and Asia - where governments are actively promoting hydrogen fueling - in the race to replace oil as a motor vehicle fuel, GM and others warn.
We first showed you the Honda EV-N city car concept a few days ago, but now the company has released more photos of the electric city car concept.
Even though Honda insists this particular car - so lovingly evoking the original CV-CC - the photos are still worth looking at.
They likely give us a glimpse at what might be featured on an electric city car if Honda does decide to build one, and who knows - if enough people see the photos and kick up a fuss with Honda's dealers, the company just might come around on the EV-N.
In addition to the new Honda EV-N photos, the automaker also has supplied a bit more detail about the concept, which, it says, has user-changeable seat fabric, fold-flat rear seats, solar cells in the roof, and a wireless communication system built into the instrument panel to keep the car in touch with traffic info, navigation signals from EV charging stations, other Hondas, and who knows what else.
There's also one of those neat Honda U3-X (experimental) self-balancing electric unicycles stored in the door, for when the crowded city streets degenerate into crowded alleyways (they do that in Tokyo) and you just don't feel like walking the rest of the way.
Audi's A3 TDI diesel and Mercury's Milan Hybrid are two of the contenders in LA Auto Show's green car face-off.
It will be diesel vs. hybrid and luxe models vs.standards in Green Car of the Year judging for December's 2009 Los Angeles International Auto Show. The five finalists in the annual competition, announced today, are the Toyota Prius (left), Honda Insight (below, right) and Mercury Milan hybrids on the gas-electric side and the Audi A3 TDI and Volkswagen Golf TDI (below, left) on the diesel side.
Judges picked the VW Jetta TDI last year, so if either the Golf or A3 win it will be two-in a-row for the fuel that most Americans still equate with big-rigs and giant bulldozers. There could be sentiment of the small luxury-performance car, which would help the Audi, but the engine in both the A3 and the Golf is the same that won it for the Jetta TDI in 2008.
Our handicapper at Inside Line's Straightline blog seems to be betting on the redesigned 2010 Prius, reasoning that the Milan Hybrid doesn't stand much of a chance because its twin, the Ford Fusion Hybrid, was nominated but didn't win last year, and that the judges will be loathe to salute diesel for a second consecutive year.
That leaves the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius, and the Pruis is the greener of the two by dint of its greater fuel economy.
The cash for clunkers frenzy that pulled many hybrid shoppers into the market earlier than they'd intended in July and August caused a big letdown in September as sales of gas-electric cars and trucks, which had been rising steadily all year, plunged 48.4 percent.
Only 19,977 hybrids were sold in September, down from 38,701 in August. The sales slide was the first in several months and was worse that that of the far larger conventional vehicle segment, which dropped by 40.9 percent from August.
Falling sales of the Toyota Prius - they were down 42 percent for the month - contributed heavily to the numeric decline although almost every hybrid model lost ground.
On a month over month basis there were no corporate winners in the hybrid segment as even Toyota - the industry leader with three out of every four hybrid sales - saw a 39.7 percent decline in its Toyota and Lexus hybrids.
And that was the segment's best performance.
Lots of Losers
Nissan, which has been on a tear with its single offering, the Altima hybrid sedan (helped by generous incentives in recent moths), saw its hybrid sales plunge 89.1 percent in September; Honda, the number two hybrid company, saw sales fall 61.6 percent; Ford, which had been rising since the March introduction of its Fusion hybrid sedan, was off 54.5 percent, and GM's hybrid sales fell by 40.8 percent.
Compared to sales at the end of the third-quarter last year- when the financial industry collapse began and the bottom fell out of the auto market, the picture was a little better as hybrid sales last month were down just 4.1 percent from September '08.
In contrast, conventional car sales fell 22.5 percent in the September-September comparison.
Research Could Lead to Better Electrical Storage for Hybrids, EVs, and Much More
Microscopic carbon nanotubes may have the potential to transport electricity faster and over greater distances with minimal loss of energy, according to Honda Research Institute USA. In this image, the 10 tubes grown on red. pink or peach-colored substrata have metallic conductive properties while the one growing on a blue substrate has semiconducting properties and could not be used to replace metallic conductors such as copper. The empty substrata on either side of the center section are particles too small or too large to grow usable nanotubes.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
By themselves, carbon nanotubes don't do much - don't look like much, either (in fact, you need a pretty powerful electron microscope to see 'em).
But shoot a jolt of electricity into them and it's a new ball game.
They conduct electricity faster, over greater distances and with less energy loss than just about anything else, and they are so small that you can pack an enormous number of them - and an enormous amount of high-efficiency conductivity - into a fairly small package.
Huge application possibilities exist, especially in the search for lighter, cooler-running and more powerful electronics and electrical storage devices for hybrid and electric vehicles.
That's why America Honda Motors is so excited about the announcement today from its R&D unit that researchers there have devised a way to grow carbon nanotubes so that 91 percent of the tubes gown have the necessary metallic properties, nearly double the best efforts of of other research efforts, the company says.
Commercial in Five Years?
A Honda spokesman told Green Car Advisor the research could result in commercial applications for carbon nanotubes in five years or less.
The project was led by Honda Research Institute USA, in Columbus, Ohio, in conjunction with researchers at Purdue University, in Indiana, and the University of Louisville, in Kentucky.
The research, to be published in Friday's edition of Science magazine, opens "new possibilities for miniaturization and energy efficiency, including much more powerful and compact computers, electrodes for supercapacitors, electric cables, batteries, solar cells, fuel cells, artificial muscles, composite material for automobiles and plane, energy storage material and electronics for hybrid vehicles," Honda said in its announcement.
Honda announced today that it will display at the Tokyo Motor Show next month a near-production version of the CR-Z (right), which will likely be the world's first hybrid sports car to employ a six-speed transmission when it goes on sale next year.
Alongside the CR-Z Concept 2009 will be the EV-N (below left), a small, four-seat battery-electric vehicle inspired by the N360, the twin-cylinder, air-cooled 360cc micro car launched with a plastic trunk lid in the 1960s. The revival vehicle has solar panels on the roof that could be used to charge the battery. Honda said the EV-N is "purely a design study and there are no plans for production."
The show will also see the debut of the Skydeck Concept (below right), a six-seat hybrid MPV/minivan, similar to the Ford S-Max. Honda said this design study is a great example of how hybrid technology can be placed in a range of different cars for different needs.
"To give the Skydeck the practicality of a conventional MPV, many of the hybrid system components, including the high-power battery, are housed in the car's center tunnel (rather than behind the rear seats or under the floor, as with previous production hybrids). This allows for greater cabin space, and the room for three rows of two seats. It also gives a lower center of gravity."
Honda, looking to cover all bets, is getting ready to add a one-wheeled, lightweight personal mobility device to a stable that already includes cars, trucks, motorcycles, a jet airplane and outboard motors for boats.
The U3-X mobility device (left) - still experimental - uses Honda-developed "balance control technology" and what the company believes to be "the world's first omni-directional wheel," to enable "riders" to go forward, backward, directly right or left and diagonally, turn in any direction and speed up, slow down or stop merely by leaning the upper body to shift body weight .
Oh, and it's lightweight - under 22 pounds - and electric, powered by a small lithium-ion battery good for an hour of continuous use.
In a neat bit of engineering, Honda made the device at once single- and multi-wheeled, connecting a number (unspecified) of small motor-controlled wheels in a single line then forming that into a single large-diameter wheel.
When the individual small wheels are moving, they enable the device to move side-to-side; when locked into position and rotating as the single large-diameter wheel they enable forward and backward motion, and when working in combination, they make it possible to move diagonally, Honda says.
After wavering awhile, Mazda has decided to jump into America's rapidly growing small-car segment with the company's fuel-efficient Mazda2 model.
----------
Right, the current Mazda2. The U.S. version will debut in L.A. in December. ----------
The five-door hatchback, which is currently sold in Europe, will begin appearing in U.S. showrooms during the fall of 2010, company officials told Mazda dealers at the automaker's annual meeting this week.
The vehicle will share a platform as the Ford Fiesta, which is scheduled to launch in America next summer. In addition to the Fiesta, the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Chevrolet Aveo will provide the Mazda2 with some stiff competition.
The U.S.-spec Mazda2 will be unveiled at the Los Angeles auto show in December. The current version of the Mazda2 has been on sale in Europe and Japan since 2007. In Japan, it is known as the Demio.
In Europe, the Mazda2 is offered with several gasoline and diesel engines. The U.S. edition will feature only a gasoline-powered, 1.5-liter four-cylinder.
That version in Europe delivers 103 horsepower and 101 pounds-feet of torque. It propels the Mazda2 from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 10.4 seconds while delivering 41 miles per gallon in Europe's combined driving cycle test; in the more real-world American combined driving cycle test, fuel economy should be 35-38 mpg.
The Mazda2 is offered as both a three- and five-door in Europe, but only the five-door will be available in the U.S. It comes only with a five-speed manual transmission in Europe, but the U.S. version will be available with a five-speed automatic.
Mazda would not disclose U.S. pricing, but in the U.K. it's priced around $16,750 not including taxes and fees. A Mazda source said the U.S. version will be priced somewhat lower.
The 2010 Honda CR-V went on sale in North America today, with improvements to its 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine over the 2009 model boosting fueling economy 1 mile per gallon while increasing power output 14 horsepower to 180 hp.
Honda said in a statement that the EPA-estimated city/highway fuel economy ratings increased to 21/28 miles per gallon on 2WD models and 21/27 mpg on models equipped with 4WD -- "an increase of 1 mpg in both city and highway driving on all models."
While we don't question Honda's claimed EPA mileage estimates, it should be noted that they don't appear on the EPA's fuel-economy site and we were unable to ascertain the reason quickly.
Edmunds.com's fuel economy figures for the 2009 CR-V, which is the average combined number of miles a vehicle is able to travel using one gallon of fuel according to EPA simulated laboratory tests that consist of 45 percent highway and 55 percent city driving conditions, put that model at 22-23 mpg, so the combined FE rating for the 2010 model ought to be 23-24.
We wish we could report that the 2010 model had a starting price equal to or less than the starting price of the 2009 CR-V, but we can't. The newer model starts at $21,545 for 2-wheel drive, or $300 more than the current model year. Add $200 for 4WD.
People who consider the CR-V often look at the Subaru Forester and Toyota RAV4. The EPA posts fuel-economy figures for the 2010 RAV4 with 4WD (19/26, 6 cylinder, 3.5 liter, automatic 5-speed transmission; 21/27, 4 cylinder, 2.5 liter, automatic 4-speed) and for the 2010 Forester 4WD (19/24, 4 cylinder, 2.5 liter, automatic 4-speed; 20/27, 2.5 liter, manual 5-speed).
The RAV4 in 4WD starts at $22,900 and Forester, which is only available in 4WD, starts $20,295.
Perhaps motivated by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu's proposal last May to slash more than $100 million in federal funding for hydrogen-vehicle research, nine major automakers today issued a joint statement announcing that they had signed a letter of understanding to develop and launch fuel-cell electric vehicles.
---------- A trio of Ford FCEVs get pumped up. ----------
FCEVs use an on-board fuel cell stack to convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity that powers an electric drive system.
Today's announcement came one day after Chu said in an interview that he will no longer seek to eliminate federal funding for the R&D of hydrogen cars, but instead will work with lawmakers to ensure the money is "invested wisely."
The automakers' announcement states that they "strongly anticipate that from 2015 onwards a quite significant number of electric vehicles with fuel cell could be commercialized. This number is aimed at a few hundred thousand units over life cycle on a worldwide basis."
It continued: "As every vehicle manufacturer will implement its own specific production and commercial strategies as well as timelines, commercialization of electric vehicles with fuel cells may occur earlier than in the above-mentioned expected year."
Beyond those statements, the announcement -- signed by Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and Toyota -- offered little more information regarding the automakers' plans.
Extreme cab-forward design of Honda FXC Clarity is possible because there's no engine to stuff under the hood.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
It felt like I was driving the future, but it seems that I was only driving toward it.
That elusive future was wrapped in a deep burgundy paint job and hummed along on electric power supplied by a suitcase-sized hydrogen fuel cell mounted in what would have been the transmission hump on a standard gasoline or diesel car.
Honda Motor Co. calls the color "star garnet metallic" and the car the FCX Clarity.
The Secretary of Energy, a Nobel laureate with a background in alternative fuels, calls it too much, too soon.
Foes and Pros
Some of the most vociferous proponents of battery-electric cars call fuel cell vehicles like the Clarity a pipe-dream, less efficient and more costly than "pure" electric vehicles and a technology that is simply not worth pursuing when all that research money could be going to perfecting plug-in hybrids and the electric vehicle battery.
Hydrogen proponents say the battery folks forget that you've got to measure energy efficiency over its entire life cycle - from well to the wheels - and not just compare snapshots of how efficiently it is transformed into motive power in the vehicle.
From their perspective, hydrogen is a more efficient fuel than electricity from the grid because the process of turning natural gas (the basic feedstock for hydrogen as well as for nearly a quarter of the electricity generated in the U.S.) to hydrogen is far more efficient than using it to generate electricity; an efficiency that more than makes up, they say, for battery-electric cars' more-efficient use of energy from battery to wheels.
China's moves to tighten control on the mining and export of a class of metal ores called rare earth are aimed at attracting high-tech manufacturing to Inner Mongolia, and not at dominating the market, The Wall Street Journal reported today, citing a senior Chinese official.
---------- The rare-earth element lanthanum, right, is used in the manufacture of hybrid-car batteries. ----------
As we reported earlier this week, a number of those rare metals are used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Fusion. Others are major ingredients for batteries used in hybrid cars.
Wednesday's comments by Zhao Shuanglin, vice chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, appear aimed at quelling concerns that China is trying to dominate the global market for rare-earth resources.
China produces more than 90 percent of the world's output of the metals. Recent steps by Beijing toward tightening export restrictions have sparked concern in other countries.
There also appear to be concerns about China's investment in rare-earth producers in other countries.
In Australia, the government has delayed yet again consideration of a $210 million investment by China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group Co. in Lynas Corp., an investment that would give the Chinese company a majority stake in the biggest new rare-earth mine currently under development.
Lynas, which unveiled the planned investment in early May, said Wednesday a 30-day review period by the Australian government's foreign investment review board had again been reset so that the board has until early October to consider the deal.
Nissan Altima hybrid was one of the stars of August, more than tripling sales for the month despite limited availability.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
The federal Cash for Clunkers program may have been good for conventional cars in August, but monthly sales performance was a letdown for hybrids after an explosive July.
Oh, sales of gas-electric cars and SUVs were up last month - a 9.2 percent gain from July, but that pales by comparison to the 35 percent gain the segment recorded in July over June and doesn't stand up well, either, against the 26.6% August increase posted by conventionally powered vehicles (cars and trucks except hybrids).
Overall, however, August 2009 hybrid sales of 38,701 gas-electric cars, SUVS and pickups were up 48.6 percent from 26,044 in August '08 - a significant gain explained in large part by the addition of half a dozen new hybrid models, including the Honda Insight, Ford Fusion and Lexus HS250, that weren't available a year earlier.
The Toyota Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.
.......... Neodymium: A key component of EV motors. ..........
That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells, Reuters news agency reported today.
Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tons annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.
Among the rare metals that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Fusion Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.
Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures, Reuters reported. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.
Toyota has 70 percent of the U.S. market for vehicles powered by a combination of an internal-combustion engine and electric motor. The Prius is its No. 1 hybrid seller.
Reuters reported that Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius "the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world."
Each electric Prius motor requires 2.2 pounds of neodymium, and each battery uses 22 to 33 pounds of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said.
Honda Motor Co. plans to develop an electric car to debut in the U.S. market by around 2015 as tighter environmental regulations push demand for zero-emissions vehicles, the Nikkei business journal reported Saturday.
---------- 2015 wouldn't mark the first year a Honda electric vehicle appeared in the U.S. Right, the Honda CUV-4 test EV in California two decades ago. It led to the Honda EV Plus, below, shown at a line-off ceremony in Japan in 1996. ----------
A spokesperson for the company, Japan's No. 2 automaker, said it was developing an electric vehicle but had not decided when to launch it.
The company would not comment on a Nikkei report, published without attribution to any sources, that a prototype of the car would be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in October.
The vehicle is expected to be about the size of a minicar, the Nikkei said.
Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third biggest automaker, unveiled its electric car "Leaf" earlier this month with plans to begin selling it in the United States, Japan and Europe towards the end of 2010.
Other major automakers such as Toyota and Volkswagen have also announced plans to launch electric cars in the next few years.
Tesla Motors, a small California electric-vehicle maker, has sold more than 700 highway-capable EVs since it began producing them last year.
Suzuki, which said last month that it would start selling its all-wheel-drive sports sedan in the U.S. by the end of the year, may unveil a gas-electric hybrid version in the country as soon as 2011, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported Sunday.
The carmaker, which would follow fellow Japanese carmakers Toyota and Honda into the hybrid vehicle market, will use a powertrain it's developing with General Motors for the hybrid version of its Kizashi, Suzuki's first mid-sized sedan, Nikkei reported.
The hybrid will get about 20 percent better gas mileage than its gas-powered equivalent, which will be powered by a 2.4-liter inline four-cylinder engine, according to Nikkei.
Suzuki, which announced late last month that it would begin selling the gasoline-powered version of the Kizashi in North America this winter, also said it would make a hybrid version of the sedan, although it declined at the time to estimate when the hybrid would be available.
American Suzuki Motors Corp. spokesman Jeff Holland declined to comment on the Nikkei report.
GM, which first invested in Suzuki in 1981 and owned as much as 20 percent of the company in 2001, sold its remaining 3 percent of the company last year. Suzuki sold about 26,000 vehicles in the U.S. from the start of this year through July, down 60 percent from a year earlier.
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to launch a hybrid vehicle that is cheaper and more fuel efficient than the Toyota Prius as early as 2011, a Japanese newspaper reported today.
---------- Right, the 2010 Toyota Yaris. ----------
The car will share key parts with the Toyota's Yaris and will get double the fuel economy of the Yaris, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported. It will be sold in the United States, Japan and Europe.
The vehicle would be priced around 1.5 million yen ($15,650) and deliver 94 miles per gallon, the newspaper said, without revealing how it got the information.
"The 'ultra-fuel-efficient' car will surpass in terms of fuel efficiency the latest model of Toyota's top hybrid car, the Prius," the newspaper reported. "The envisaged model will be the world's most fuel-efficient mass-produced hybrid car, whose main power source is gasoline."
Toyota spokeswoman Yoshie Matsuura said she could not discuss future product plans. But Toyota is known to be planning a small, inexpensive Yaris-based hybrid to compete with Honda Motor Co.'s plans for a hybrid version of the Fit/Jazz
The current Prius gets about 89 miles per gallon under a Japanese mileage test that is not comparable to U.S. or European tests.
The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius hybrids received "top safety pick" labels from the non-profit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, bolstering sales prospects for two of the industry's most fuel-efficient vehicles.
---------- Right, the Honda Insight dummy's position in relation to the steering wheel and instrument panel after the crash test indicates that his survival space was maintained well. ----------
Today's designations for the 2010 Insight and Prius along with the non-hybrid Kia Soul mean about a third of the small cars tested by the non-profit insurance group carry its highest rating.
Vehicles with that label have posted "good" scores in front, side and rear crash tests. Top safety picks also must have electronic stability control.
"The latest results show that consumers who want good fuel economy can also get a high level of safety," said institute spokesman Russ Rader. "Because there are so many small cars that test well, there's no reason to settle for a small car with less-than-stellar safety ratings."
The insurance group's side test simulates a collision with an SUV or pickup truck moving at 31 mph. The frontal trials mimic 40 mph offset crashes with vehicles of the same weight as the test car. The institute also simulates a stationary vehicle's being rear-ended by a vehicle going 20 mph.
Today's top-safety-pick designations for the Prius, Insight and Soul put the number of top-rated small cars at 10, out of the 27 the group has tested. Other small cars with the rating are the 2009 Subaru Impreza, 2009 Scion xB, four-door 2009 Honda Civic, 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer, 2009 Volkswagen Rabbit, 2010 Toyota Corolla and two-door 2009 Ford Focus.
In April, the insurance group said the Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit and Smart ForTwo minicars performed poorly in frontal crash tests with mid-sized vehicles. Upon impact, the three cars all collapsed into the space around the driver dummy.
The fuel economy rule of thumb used to be that a full hybrid like the Toyota Prius was great for city driving but not so much better than other cars on the highway; that smaller cars were more fuel efficient than larger cars, and that diesels kicked butt in mileage contests.
Edmunds.com's crack(ed) team of testers set out last month to see if that's all still true with the new crop of cars and came to some surprising conclusions in what is becoming our annual Fuel Sipper Smackdown.
Over two days and 700-plus miles of driving, from Southern California to and around Las Vegas and then back, the team put the 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid, 2010 Honda Insight, 2009 Mini, 2010 Toyota Prius and 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI through a series of driving conditions, tracked fuel costs and computer CO2 output.
You can read the results here, and watch the video, above, for a 5-minute summary, but we'll give you the boil-down now:
High-performance engine design is all about extracting as much power as possible within rigid confines.
So we weren't shocked to learn today that Ilmore Engineering, a British company that has designed and made racing engines for General Motors, Mercedes-Benz and Honda for Formula 1 and IndyCar competitions, had developed a 5-stroke concept engine (pictured) that it says has the power of a diesel engine and the fuel efficiency and low emissions of a stingy gas sipper.
The engine, which displaces only 700cc and yet puts out 130 horsepower and 122 pound-feet of torque, is turbocharged and equipped with a fifth stroke. Yes, a fifth stroke.
Two of the engine's cylinders, running with a conventional four-stroke design, fire and expend their exhaust gases into a third low-pressure expansion cylinder. A fifth stroke then allows those gases to expand, boosting thermodynamic efficiency.
The result: Ilmore estimates a 5 percent improvement in overall efficiency versus a conventional direct-injected engine of similar displacement.
Ilmore is seeking support for a next generation of the concept offering up 150 horsepower and weiging 20-percent less than current engine.
Specifically, Ilmore engineering manager Steve O'Connor says the company is "looking for a manufacturer to back the idea, and the interest centers on its use in a hybrid application, as they tend to need sudden bursts of energy, and that is what this engine does well."
True. We wish O'Connor and the rest of the Ilmore Engineering gang the best of luck in their five-stroke endeavors.
Toyota's Perennial Best-Seller Records 48% Sales Jump For Month; Honda Hybrids Flat
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
If Cash for Clunkers lit a fire under July's auto dales in the general market, it apparently set off a rocket booster under the hybrid market.
---------- It was blue skies for Toyota as its 2010 Prius rebounded in July. -----------
Sales of gas-electric cars, SUVs and trucks were up an impressive 35 percent in July - for the month and from a year earlier. Almost all hybrid cars best the 22 mph minimum combined EPA mileage that qualifies a vehicle to be purchased using a cash for clunkers voucher. By comparison, sales of conventional new vehicles rose 15.4 percent for the month and were down 13 percent from July '08.
The explosive performance was led almost single-handedly by Toyota's 2010 Prius, which saw its first full month of sales with an adequate supply on hand at dealerships.
"I think hybrids are benefiting from the buzz of new models such as the 2010 Prius and Honda Insight and fresh models in segments other than compact car, as well as from Cash for Clunkers," said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
If C4C Comes Back, Tech Premium For Many Could Be Offset; Manufacturer Rebates Would Do Same
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Got a gas guzzler that would qualify under the cash for clunkers program for a federal credit toward a new, more efficient car or truck? (That's if we still have a cash for clunkers program when the dust settles from Thursday's reveation that the programs's initial funding apparently has run dry.)
The situation's up in the air right now, but if you are in the mood to keep doing research, or perhaps have had the car-buying impulse jump-started and have decided to take the plunge - clunker incentive or no - this is a good time to look at hybrids and diesels.
----------
2009 Camry Hybrid has lowest technology premium, $239.
----------
If Congress keeps cash for clunkers going, or automakers step up with bigger incentives of their own to keep the market moving, the credits - ranging in the C4C program from $3,500 to $4,500 depending on the fuel economy of the new car or truck - could help make a previously unaffordable hybrid or clean diesel a lot more compatible with your budget.
Honda had hopes its retooled Insight (right
) would eventually overtake the Toyota Prius as America's top-selling hybrid when it began selling the model last March.
But four months after entering the U.S. market, it's not even a close race.
Nationwide, Americans bought 2,079 Insights in June, bringing total sales of the streamlined hatchback since March to 7,524. At that rate, Honda will sell less than a third of its goal of 90,000 in the first 12 months.
By comparison, the higher-priced Prius was snapped up by 12,998 drivers last month. Since March, Toyota has sold 40,398 of the gas sippers.
And reviews of the Insight have been dismal. Typical of them is last month's Consumer Reports review, which decided that the new Honda fell short in ride quality, handling, interior noise, acceleration, rear-seat access and visibility.
America's rejection of the fuel-efficient model must be all the more humbling because Honda was the first automaker to bring hybrids to the U.S. It did that a decade ago with an earlier version of the Insight.
And get this: The Ford Fusion Hybrid is selling as well as the Insight in the U.S. even though it costs nearly $10,000 more.
It'll be interesting to see how the Honda CR-Z -- the automaker's next hybrid -- competes when it comes to America next year. As a two-seat sport coupe, it will be entering one of the smallest-volume segments of the market.
Also: Illinois, Colorado, Austria announce plans to invest heavily in plug-in infrastructures.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
When it rains, it often pours. That's certainly the case now, as the U.S. Department of Energy, the states of Illinois and Colorado, and an Austrian utility all announced in recent days that they will invest many millions of dollars to create recharging networks for electric vehicles.
That's wonderful news, because it brings electric-vehicle makers and potential EV makers a step closer to solving one of the two major problems they face: That being a lack of infrastructure to support pure EVs and plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
The other problem remains development of inexpensive, safe, reliable, lightweight and energy-rich batteries to power the vehicles. Many companies and governments are working on a solution to that problem.
The Energy Department on Monday awarded $47 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to eight ongoing smart-grid demonstration projects. The $47 million investment will add to the $17 million in funds DOE had awarded these eight projects last year, thereby accelerating the timelines for the projects.
Most of the projects relate to technologies to help transmission and distribution systems operate better, but a few are directly related to clean energy. For example, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, will research, develop and demonstrate a coordinated and integrated system of mixed clean energy technologies and distributed energy resources, allowing the city to reduce its peak electrical demand by at least 15 percent.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago will focus on implementing distributed energy resources and creating demand-responsive microgrids, which are small power networks that can operate independently of the utility power grid. In addition, the University of Hawaii will explore the management of its electrical distribution system to better accommodate wind power.
The Energy Department also just released the first Smart Grid System Report, which examines smart-grid deployments nationwide. The findings show that while many smart-grid capabilities are just beginning to emerge, the adoption of various technologies such as smart metering, automated substation controls and distributed generation are growing significantly.
The report also notes that smart-grid capabilities are socially transformational. As with the Internet or cell phone communications, smart-grid technologies have the potential to dramatically change how we experience electricity in the country, but improvements in physical and cyber security and information privacy will require consumers, manufacturers and utilities to closely follow a range of best practices for the smart grid.
Additionally, the Energy Department has begun the development of a Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse, tapping Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for the $1.3 million initiative to develop and maintain the clearinghouse Website, which will provide information to the public about smart-grid initiatives happening nationwide. The Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse was mandated by the Recovery Act.
UPDATE: But the automaker says it has no plans to bring Fit Hybrid to U.S.
Honda Motor Co. announced today that it plans to begin selling the sporty CR-Z hybrid (above
) in Japan this coming February and release a hybrid version of its popular Fit five-door subcompact (below
) domestically by the end of next year.
By "combining these two models with the currently available Insight and Civic Hybrid, Honda will further enhance its lineup of compact hybrid models, which leverage the unique characteristics of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist, including compact size, lightweight and high efficiency," the company said in a statement.
Honda spokesman Chris Martin told Green Car Advisor that the CR-Z "will come to the United States within the calendar year of 2010," but he would not be more specific. As for the Fit Hybrid, he said Honda currently does not have any plans to bring it to the U.S.
The CR-Z concept vehicle made its world debut at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show in 2007. The car, which takes its looks from the CRX-style three-door hatchback of the 1980s, will feature a hybrid system similar to the one found in the current range of Honda hybrids.
As for a hybrid version of the Fit, American Honda spokesman Sage Marie insisted last September
that it was years away. We're delighted that Honda gave that timeframe more thought.
Prices for the CR-Z and Fit Hybrid have not been announced, but the CR-Z is likely to be priced around $20,000 to compete effectively against Toyota's hybrid lineup and the hybrid Fit will likely come in much lower.
The Ford Fusion (above) and Toyota Prius help propel hybrid sales gains despite weak economy and credit woes.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Led by strong showings from both third-generation Prius and the gas-electric version of Ford's Fusion, hybrid car sales in June were up 9 percent from a year earlier and rose 2 percent form May's tally to mark the sixth consecutive monthly increase in sales volume for the segment.
Hybrids, which gained traction from the June introduction of the new 2010 Prius and continued consumer interest in the well-reviewed Fusion hybrid that was introduced in March, outperformed the new-car market as a whole - which was down 28 percent from June of 2008 and off 7 percent from May.
It's too early to declare a recovery in the segment, but rising gasoline prices and renewed public awareness of the importance of improved fuel economy in addressing climate change issues seem to be underlying a gradual strengthening of market performance.
"The most important thing is that there have been a couple of new models that are putting some excitement into the segment, said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
"Then there's all the news of government fuel efficiency and emissions initiatives, and some pretty generous incentives in a segment that really hasn't seen many incentives in the past."
Caldwell doesn't think gas prices were a significant factor in June's hybrid market, but says "they certainly are on people's radar, with a broad expectation that they'll keep going up."
California's air-quality authorities are an innovative bunch, and this month they took an unprecedented step toward making the Golden State less hazy by requiring automakers to place a reflective coating on the windshields of cars and trucks purchased in California.
The requirement is one of several that the California Air Resources Board has considered under its Cool Cars program, which is designed, as you likely guessed, to keep vehicles in the sunny state cooler.
By doing that, they reason, Californians won't need to use their vehicles' air conditioners as much, which will reduce the strain on automotive engines, which will decrease the speed with which we gobble up fossil fuels, which in turn will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere.
Green Car Advisor first reported on the program in February, when CARB was focusing on having paint-makers tweak their automotive paints so they'd be more light reflective - as opposed to more light absorbing.
Light-absorbing paints, the king of which is black, contribute significantly to a vehicle's cabin temperature when parked in direct sunlight. Hot parked cars tend to cause their owners to reach for A-C controls the moment they enter their vehicles. Running the air conditioners adds to the workload of the vehicles, which in turn results in higher fuel consumption - you know the story.
The same is true with regard to windshields. When you consider at how much of the surface area of a car's sunny side consists of windshields, you can appreciate how important it is for the glass to be sunlight-reflective to help keep a vehicle's interior cool when parked in sunlight.
The technology used by glass manufacturers to make more reflective car windows has been around for nearly 20 years, said Mukesh Rustagi, director of strategic product management at Pittsburgh Glass Works, the largest automotive glass supplier in North America.
The technology exists and it's not particularly costly compared to, say, wiping out entire species and watching the world's glaciers - water sources for more than a billion people - melt away.
With that in mind, California's air regulators voted unanimously last week for a mandate requiring automakers to include sun-reflecting windshields on all vehicles sold within the state by 2014.
Magazine says hybrid is the most disappointing Honda it has tested "in a long time."
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
The new Honda Insight posted a lackluster "Good" overall road-test score in Consumer Reports' testing for the August issue, and fell short in ride quality, handling, interior noise, acceleration, rear-seat access and visibility.
"The Insight is the most disappointing Honda Consumer Reports has tested in a long time," said David Champion, senior director of CR's Auto Test Center. "The Insight is a noisy, stiff-riding car with clumsy handling that is nothing like the Fit on which it is based. Also, Electronic Stability Control is only available on the highline EX version."
About the only thing CR seemed impressed with was the vehicle's fuel efficiency. The Insight achieved an excellent 38 miles per gallon overall in CR's fuel-economy tests.
In a ratings chart of small hatchbacks and wagons, the Insight was rated 21st out of 22 vehicles, with a road test score of 54 points. It was followed by the Dodge Caliber, which scored 49.
All vehicles in the test group are Recommended by Consumer Reports except for the Insight.
CR only recommends vehicles that have performed well in its tests, have at least average predicted reliability based on CR's Annual Car Reliability Survey of its more than 7 million print and Web subscribers, and performed at least adequately if crash-tested or included in a government rollover test.
Full tests and ratings of the test group appear in the August issue of Consumer Reports, which goes on sale June 30.
Effort Comes as U.S. Plans to Drop Federal Funding For Fuel Cell Car Research
Japan's Internal Affairs Ministry, dismayed that its goal of having 50,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars on the roads by the spring of 2011 isn't going to be achieved, has called for new measures to promote use of the vehicles.
---------- A Toyota Highlander fuel-cell vehicle. ----------
The government, which set the present goal back in 2001, also is expected to release a new target, given that here were only 42 fuel-cell electric vehicles in operation in Japan at the end of the 2008 fiscal year last March.
Already in place, as of April, is an exemption for fuel cell vehicles and other "new-generation" cars and trucks, from Japan's expensive vehicle weight and new-vehicle purchase taxes.
The Japanese government has invested the equivalent of $205 million in fuel cell development in the past five years, and Japanese automakers Toyota and Honda are among the industry leaders in the technology.
Honda's FCX Clarity (left)
is the world's only purpose-built hydrogen fuel cell car.
It is a terribly expensive vehicle now (estimates of Honda's investment to build 200 of the cars range from $500,000 to $2 million per vehicle) because its body panels are all unique, requiring costly new tooling, and its power system is pretty much hand-built.
But Honda insiders say the car could be made affordable if there were sufficient demand to foster growth of a supplier industry to make fuel cells, batteries and other specialized components in volume.
Someone in Honda's PR department was thinking this morning.
That's evident from the smart press release the automaker issued today, which states that Honda offers nine models - from the Insight hybrid to the Ridgeline pickup - that can qualify for a cash-for-clunkers voucher.
---------- The '09 Civic EX-L is good for a voucher. ----------
The federal Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 - the cash-for-clunkers program - enacted Wednesday provides up to $4,500 to consumers who trade in their current eligible vehicle for one that achieves greater fuel economy. Program vouchers may be accepted at participating dealers as early as Monday.
The only vehicles in the Honda lineup that will not qualify for vouchers are the limited-production S2000 roadster, Accord V6 Coupe with manual transmission and the FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicle, which is excluded by the federal program's lease limitations.
Cars need only achieve a combined EPA fuel-economy rating of 22 miles per gallon or more to qualify. In the Honda lineup, these would include the 2009 Fit (all models), the 2010 Insight (all models), 2009 Civic (all models), and the 2009 Accord (all models except the V6 Coupe with manual transmission).
Light trucks need only a combined EPA fuel-economy rating of 18 mpg or more to be eligible. In the Honda lineup, they include the 2009 CR-V (all models), 2009 Element (all models), the 2009-2010 Pilot (all models), and the 2009-2010 Odyssey (all models).
A pickup truck can meet the "large light-duty truck" requirements with a combined rating of 17 mpg if its wheelbase is greater than 115 inches and its gross vehicle weight rating is less than 8,500 pounds. All models of the 2009 Ridgeline meet those requirements.
We intend to post a list containing all of the eligible models, not just Honda's, in the days to come. Further information about the federal program can be found on the U.S. Department of Transportation's Website.
This is not an endorsement, but the deal is so sweet we had to pass it on.
Honda is offering a $199 monthly lease (that's before taxes, license, registration etc.) on the 2009 Civic Hybrid.
That's $50 a week for a pretty thrifty car, rated at 40 miles per gallon in the city and 45 on the highway, 42 mpg combined, and carrying an MSRP of $23,650 - which would mean a $400-plus monthly payment for most people who'd buy one.
We're not going to go over the entire offer, but wanted to let you know that it's out there and is set to expire July 6 (dealers can extend it, as long as Honda keeps offering the cut-rate financing).
For people who qualify for Honda's top lease financing deal, the down payment is $1,505 and the initial out-of pocket, including the first month's payment, would be $2,299.
You can check out this deal and other rebates and incentives on Hondas or any other nameplate sold in the U.S., with Edmunds.com's incentives and rebates locator.
When Volkswagen came out with its "twincharger" 121-horsepower 1.4-liter engine a few years back, its goal was to combine the low-end power boost provided by a mechanically driven compressor (supercharging) with the higher-end increase provided by an exhaust turbocharger (turbocharging).
That would, they hoped as the engine was being developed, result in a clean-burning, fuel-efficient and yet fairly high-performance engine. The system (pictured; click on it to enlarge) would force more air into the cylinder, enabling more combustion and delivering more power.
The higher consumption of fuel would, they hoped, be more than offset by the overall decrease in fuel consumption that results from using a smaller engine.
And they were right. The 1.4-liter engine delivers torque corresponding to a 2.3-liter engine, but with 20 percent less fuel consumption and fewer emissions.
Today, VW secured overall honors at the 11th annual International Engine of the Year Award ceremony took place at Engine Expo 2009 in Stuttgart. It was the first time the company had won the accolade.
The winning engine, which beat both Toyota's and Honda's new electric-hybrid powerplants, was selected by 65 automotive writers from 32 countries across four continents.
The engine is offered across much of the VW model range, including the Golf, Scirocco and Eos, and is used to good effect by Seat in the Ibiza Cupra.
Dean Slavnich, editor of Engine Technology International and co-chairman of the International Engine of the Year Awards, described the engine as "a masterstroke of downsizing technology and a real engineering showcase. I have no doubt that this engine will become the template for a whole new generation of high efficiency, small capacity engines in the years to come."
Less than two months after the U.S. secretary of energy proposed cutting off federal funding for development of hydrogen cars, claiming their realization was many years away, a European company has announced plans to unveil a hydrogen-powered sedan (pictured
) in the next couple of years.
Hugo Spowers, head of the new U.K. car company Riversimple, said the four-seat urban car will launch by 2012, according to Autocar magazine.
Spowers is quoted as saying that the car will be capable of running at 75 miles per hour with a range of 200 miles between refueling, and it will have a much smaller fuel cell than other models such as Honda FCX.
Riversimple is currently testing its hydrogen technology in a small Smart-sized city car, which weighs just 770 pounds and has a 6-kilowatt fuel cell and a top speed of 50 mph. The prototype manages 240 miles on just 2.2 pounds of hydrogen
Sound too compelling to be true? That's what we thought, but the project has been given much-needed credibility and financial support by Sebastian Piëch, the great-grandson of Ferdinand Porsche.
With Toyota's Prius proving strong competition to its recently released Insight hybrid, Honda says the automaker is weighing the possibility of introducing two hybrid cars that will be priced lower than the Insight (pictured
).
The low-emissions Insight, rated by the U.S. government as getting 41 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, is priced from $19,800 to $23,100. By comparison, Toyota's 2010 Prius, which averages 50 mpg, sells for $22,000 to $31,770.
As we reported Monday, Honda said first-year U.S. sales of the fuel-efficient gasoline-electric Insight appears likely to miss the automaker's target by at least 30 percent.
U.S. sales of the model, which first started appearing in American dealerships in March, had been expected to reach 90,000 vehicles by March of next year. That forecast has been revised to no more than 60,000 vehicles.
Earlier today, Honda President Takeo Fukui told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that Japan's No. 2 carmaker by volume was considering adding the cheaper hybrids to an already announced line-up of hybrid vehicles, including the CR-Z hybrid coupe, and hybrid versions of Civic and Accord. Fukui did not reveal the timeframe for the launch.
This news follows the announcement last month that Honda was expecting to launch a gasoline-electric hybrid version of its Fit B-segment model in fiscal year 2010/11. Since Honda launched its Insight it has enjoyed strong sales in Japan, despite declining demand for its other models.
However, the Insight has started facing strong competition from the Prius in Japan as well as in overseas markets, despite being cheaper than its rival model.
In April, Honda's Insight became the first hybrid ever to top Japan's monthly car sales list
, but first-year U.S. sales of the gasoline-electric car the model appears likely to miss the automaker's target by a wide margin.
In an interview with a Bloomberg News reporter last week, John Mendel, U.S. executive vice president for Japan's second-largest carmaker, said first-year American sales of the Insight may be no more than 60,000 vehicles.
U.S. sales of the model, which first started appearing in American dealerships in March, had been expected to reach 90,000 vehicles by March of next year.
Mendel attributed the disappointing sales to cheap gasoline, the economic slump and competition from Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius hybrid. Gasoline prices in the U.S. have fallen 35 percent over the past year. Meanwhile, Toyota plans to cut the base price of its new Prius by $1,000 to compete more effectively with the Insight.
The Insight, rated by the U.S. government as getting 41 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, is priced from $19,800 to $23,100. By comparison, Toyota's 2010 Prius, which averages 50 mpg, sells for $22,000 to $31,770.
Like every other alternative fuel, hydrogen has its fans and foes, its pluses and minuses, its ups and, recently, its downs.
After being the favored ground transportation fuel of the future for most of the last eight years as the Bush administration pushed development of hydrogen fuel cells for automotive use, nature's most abundant - albeit hard to isolate - element has been cast aside by the Obama administration.
The new president's Nobel-winning energy secretary, Steven Chu, has proposed in his 2010 departmental budget to eliminate funding for automotive hydrogen programs - that's $100 million - and instead to focus hydrogen research on fuel cells to generate power for homes, businesses and other stationary power users.
For transportation, his choice of fuel research programs to back is no surprise, he's long been a supporter of biofuels and electric cars.
----------- Honda says its FCX Clarity (below, right) is production-ready, lacking only a fueling infrastructure and lower-priced components that can only come with increased production of such cars. ----------
That's got the hydrogen car crowd - and we confess to a great fondness for fuel cell vehicles ourselves - up in arms and questioning the validity of Chu's apparent decision to "pick winners" by concentrating DOE research finding on biofuels and battery-electric, or plug-in, cars while announcing that his team doesn't see any short-term chance for hydrogen to emerge as a widely available and used fuel.
But Chu, powerful as he is sitting atop the nation's official energy policy agency and operating with the endorsement and backing of the president, isn't all-powerful. He has to answer to Congress, and Congress is subject to lobbying.
So the pressure politics have begun.
Short-Sighted?
With DOE budget hearings about to start, the chairman of the Senate's energy and Water Appropriations Committee - the committee that sits in judgment over the energy Department budget - has come out swinging.
A fan of hydrogen, Sen. Byron Dorgan recently called the DOE's budget recommendation to eliminate automotive hydrogen research funding "a very short-sighted recommendation." Hydrogen and fuel cells "are part of this country's future," said the North Dakota Democrat.
Backing Dorgan in support of restoring at lest some hydrogen programs funding for automotive research are automakers with huge investments in the technology.
They include Toyota and Honda, no slouches when it comes to making informed choices about technologies, as well as Daimler and our own General Motors Corp.
(We say "our own" because as part of the taxpaying public, we now share ownership of the faltering car company with the rest of America.)
Unlikely Allies
GM, in case you've been living in a cave or up in space for the past few weeks, is in bankruptcy now and the government, as its majority owner, has a rather big stake in the company's survival and future success.
Granted, GM hasn't been all that great at picking the proper trends and technologies as it looked to the future.
But this time the General is on the same team as Toyota and Honda rather than turning up its nose and sniffing that the Japanese car companies don't know what they are talking about.
It's still 18 months before California's revised zero emissions vehicle requirements kick in, but the lobbying, has quietly begun.
----------
Cars such as this plugin Toyota Prius are needed to meet California ZEV mandate, but increase automakers' operating costs.
----------
Toyota Motor Co. will be most impacted by the rules requiring major antomakers to provide electric and plug-in vehicles for at least 3 percent of their sales in the state from 2012 through 2014, and in an interview with Bloomberg reporter Alan Ohnsman last week a Toyota insider said the company faces $1 billion in new costs to comply.
There's no overt complaining in the article, published today on Bloomberg.com, but Toyota's meassage is clear: $1 billion is a lot of money anytime, and is a particularly sizeable pile of cash to come up with in the midst of a recession that is hurting the entire auto industry including the world's biggest car company.
In addition Toyota, which has the biggest share of the California new-car makert, the mandate would apply to Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and pre-bankruptcy General Motors Corp, and Chrysler LLC.
The two domestics have said that major production cuts are part of their recovery plans and if their sales in California drop below 60,000 a year as a result, they would no longer be bound by the mandate
Toyota, according to Bloomgerg's calculations, would have to produce 16,000 plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles to by 2014 to comply with the rules, which require major automakers to make non-polluting vehicles equal at least 3 percent of their sales for the 3-year period.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour today at Stop 6 of a 9-day, 28-stop, 1,700-mile road trip, telling a group of reporters at the site of the state's first integrated (H2 and gasoline) station that California remains committed to a future where hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles replace gassy rides regardless of what Washington does.
Speaking at a Shell station in West Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger reminded reporters that the California Air Resources Board, which sets vehicle-emissions standards for the state, recently passed a low-carbon fuel standard - the world's first such standard.
It will, he said, ensure that the cleanest fuels, including hydrogen, will always have a strong market in California.
"And the reason why this is so important is that on the federal level, they [politicians] make decisions based on where the oil price is. That means that sometimes the federal government, when the oil price goes up, they go in the direction of renewable energy and alternate fuels. And when the oil price goes down, they abandon those policies," the "Governator" said, his back to a row of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles made by Daimler, Honda, Toyota, KIA, Volkswagen and Nissan.
"Well we don't do that here in California. We only march in one direction and that is forward. And we're not going to slow down. In 2010, we will have seven new hydrogen refueling stations in California and we will invest another $40 million over the next two years in hydrogen stations."
The governor reminded the automotive press that 20 percent of the new vehicles sold in the United States are sold in California, which is home to 25 million cars and trucks. (Those vehicles, not incidentally, consume 50 million gallons of gasoline and diesel a day and produce 40 percent of the state's greenhouse gases.)
As a result of California's vehicle market share, and that fact that Washington often follows the state's lead regarding tailpipe-emissions regulations, automakers can count on there being a large market for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and companies considering investments in an H2-refueling infrastructure can rest assured there will be vehicles requiring the fuel, he said.
There's a Dow Jones International wire service article circulating today that quotes an unidentified spokesman for Honda Motor Co. in Japan as saying that the company intends to launch a gas-electric hybrid version of its popular Fit subcompact sometime in the upcoming 2010-2011 fiscal year.
If true, it is pretty dramatic illustration of how effective government fuel economy mandates can be in pushing carmakers to speed up introduction of fuel-efficient models. It was just last September, after all, that American Honda spokesman Sage Marie told us it would be years until introduction of a hybrid model of the Fit.
That, however, was before President Obama accelerated U.S. fuel efficiency standards to require automakkers' passenger car fleets to average 39 miles per gallon on the CAFE rating scale (27 mpg on the EPA rating scale) by 2015.
We can't vouch for the accuracy of the Dow Jones report because it also says Honda will follow the Fit hybrid in 2012 with a hybrid sports car based on its CR-Z concept (left),
and that's not the case.
Honda already has set next year -2010 - for introduction of the CR-Z hybrid and has said that the Fit hybrid will follow it, not come before, says American Honda spokesman Chis Martin.
Still, that time-line doesn't make the wire service report wrong on the Fit: Introduction of a Fit hybrid in the first quarter of 2011 would still put it in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
Toyota Motor Corp., which recently posted its first financial loss in decades, said U.S. consumer demand for plug-in hybrids may be limited by the vehicles' price, recharge time and battery durability - nevermind their popularity with President Obama.
Toyota estimates sales of hybrids that can be recharged at household outlets may be 50,000 vehicles a year at most and could be as few as 3,500, Bill Reinert, the automaker's U.S. national manager for advanced technology, told a National Academy of Sciences panel in Washington, D.C., Monday.
Sales of Toyota's Prius - the best-selling gasoline-electric hybrid on the road, and a vehicle Reinert helped design - were almost 159,000 last year.
A market for the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles "will emerge, but their success depends on advantages over existing hybrids," Reinert said. "There is a great deal of variation on how current PHEVs perform in real-world conditions."
Interest in plug-ins surged after gasoline prices reached record highs last year and Obama campaigned on a goal of getting 1 million such vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. The Energy Department has said it plans to begin awarding a portion of $25 billion in low-cost federal loans to companies that build plug-ins and other fuel-efficient vehicles at U.S. factories.
Auto Industry Lines Up To Praise National Program Idea, Now the Hard Work Begins
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
The auto industry, tired of being seen as the bad guy whenever fuel economy and emissions regulation is on the table, is wasting no time lining up in support of tomorrow's White House announcement on development of a national carbon emissions and fuel efficiency program.
A cynic might think this doesn't bode well for the ultimate result of the rulemaking process that President Obama will outline at a press conference in Washington Tuesday morning: That the auto industry figures it has enough clout left to wring the life out of any effort to significantly improve fuel economy.
But we think it simply shows that an industry on life support and dependent on government largess here and overseas has finally read the writing on the wall and realizes that this is as good as it is ever going to get and that if it doesn't play ball it will have no say in the rules it eventually will have to live by.
Automakers also have been caught in a trap of their own making. They've been fighting California, the national leader in establishing greenhouse gas controls on motor vehicles, insisting that individual states shouldn't be able to set carbon emissions rules and that a national standard is needed.
Now the Obama administration has stepped to the table and said, as the president is wont to: "Okay, let's develop a national rule."
To oppose that would be political suicide.
In that vein, the two lobbying groups representing almost every car maker that does business in the U.S. have jumped on board and are voicing support for the so-called National Program for Autos.
Toyota rolled out the revamped Prius today, and the world's largest automaker said it already has 80,000 advance orders in Japan for the remodeled hybrid amid intensifying competition with Honda's rival offering, the Insight.
---------- Right, Toyota's Akio Toyoda speaks at the unveiling of the revamped Prius. ----------
That figure is remarkable, given that Toyota sold only 73,000 Priuses in Japan all last year.
Toyota said it aims to sell up to 400,000 units globally a year of the new Prius.
"We are resting the future of cars in this model," said incoming president Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, who drove the new model onto a stage at a packed Tokyo showroom.
Both Toyoda's presence and the revamped Prius are symbolic of Toyota's pursuit of a turnaround from its worst annual loss since its 1937 founding.
The Prius, now in its third generation since its 1997 introduction, is the best-selling gas-electric hybrid in the world, racking up a cumulative 1.256 million units sold in more than 40 nations and regions.
But now Toyota faces a challenge from Honda, whose more cheaply priced Insight has sold briskly since it was introduced in Japan in February.
One week has nearly passed since Energy Secretary Stephen Chu proposed slashing more than $100 million from Uncle Sam's hydrogen research and development program, and all of us should still be mystified and bothered by his proposal.
In other words, Chu's litmus test for funding a technology that might avoid or at least delay the catastrophic effects of global warming is that the technology must be developed within, say, the lifetime of an old house cat.
If Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius applied the same rationale to drug research, she'd propose slashing federal funding for cancer, AIDS and influenza research, because cures for them are probably 20-plus years out. But tossing in the towel on those problems would be nutty, wouldn't it.
And just think where we'd be today if the Wright brothers, Ladislo Biro, Stephen Poplawski, Willis Carrier, Percy Spencer, and the banjo-playing, 3M engineer Richard Drew decided not to invent anything because it'll take too much time. We might never know airplanes, ball-point pens, kitchen blenders, air-conditioning, microwave ovens and, God forbid, Scotch tape.
Other things that took years to invent include: the telephone, the light bulb, the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the personal computer, television, the camera and, lest we forget, the automobile.
Shucks, a whole lot of things that shape the lives we lead today took a long time to develop.
There was a bit of green news along with the river of red ink that Nissan Motor Co. reported earlier today in Tokyo.
---------- The Denki Cube, a concept Nissan EV. ----------
Nissan reported a $2.85 billion net loss for its fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31. The Japanese automobile company reported a full-year loss of $2.4 billion, down from a $4.9 billion profit for fiscal 2007.
Last week, Toyota Motor Co. reported a $4.5 billion loss, while Honda Motor Co. Ltd. posted a $1.4 billion profit.
"The global economic recession and financial crisis continue, but we are beginning to see some signs of improved access to credit, the impact of government stimulus packages and a gradual return in consumer confidence," Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn said in a statement. "We remain cautious about the economic environment and fully focused on our company's recovery efforts."
Now for the green.
Nissan said that the tough times in the automobile world won't slow its plan to start building electric vehicles at its Oppama plant outside of Tokyo in the fall of 2010. The plant's initial production capacity will be 50,000 units, but that volume will "continuously increase for the start of EV mass-marketing in 2012," according to Nissan.
A little bit of news from Japan: Honda's Insight has become the first hybrid ever to top that nation's monthly car sales list.
The Japan Auto Dealers Assn. reported Monday that Honda dealers sold 10,481 Insights in April, making it the best-selling passenger vehicle in the country.
Honda's Fit subcompact was second with 9,443 sales, followed by Toyota's Vitz subcompact (it's the Yaris in the U.S.) with 6,341 sales and the Toyota Corolla with 6,341 sales.
April was not only the first time a hybrid has been the country's top seller, it is the first time since its February introduction in Japan that Insight sales have topped the 10,000 mark.
AS is the case in the U.S., sales of Toyota's aging Prius are slipping - badly in Japan with a 64 percent decline from April of '08 - as consumers wait for the introduction at the end of this month of the redesiogned and reengineered 2010 Prius.
That's helped Honda's smaller Insight jump to the top of the heap, as has the Insight's price, which at just about $19,500 U.S. (1.89 million yen) is almost $4,500 cheaper than the present generation Prius (2.33 million yen). In the U.S, the Insight launced in late March with a $20,470 base price.
Thje big price differential has led Toyota to green-light a stripped down version of the Prius that will be priced to compete with the Insight, and there's speculation in Japan that pricing for the 2010 Prius with a full standard equipment package will be about $1,500 (280,000 yen) less than the comparably equipped '09 model.
Toyota alrerady has said that in the U.S. it will launch the Prius at $22,000 plus delivery (which varies by region and can add $300 to $600 to the price), with a stripped "basic" model to foillow in the Fall at $21,000 plus delivery.
When the Obama Administration unveiled its proposed 2010 budget last week, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu had penciled in a proposal to cut more than $100 million from Uncle Sam's hydrogen research and development program.
Chu's rationale for cutting hydrogen funding by 59 percent to just $68 million? It's unlikely that the technology will become significant player during the next two decades.
In contrast, the California Fuel Cell Partnership in February predicted that 4,300 fuel-cell electric vehicles could be traveling California roads by 2014, and that the the hydrogen-powered fleet could grow to about 50,000 vehicles by 2017 as more manufacturers introduce their zero emission vehicles.
What's more, the partnership believes that, by 2017, Californians will be able to fuel their Honda FCX Clarity and other fuel cell vehicles at between 50 and 100 hydrogen refueling stations around the state.
'"Fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen stations are at the cusp of transition into the early commercial market," according to the organization's report that is titled "Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle and Station Deployment Plan: A Strategy for Meeting the Challenge Ahead."
So it's not surprising that the CaFCP, which counts auto manufacturers (including Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.), energy companies (Shell and Chevron), fuel cell technology companies (Proton Energy Systems) and government agencies (including the DoE, which is a dues-paying member!) on Friday called for Chu to reconsider the proposed budget cut.
"Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have progressed to the point where some automakers are ready to begin early commercialization," said CaFCP Executive Director Catherine Dunwoody. "Stopping federal investment at this point is like a coach pulling back an Olympic athlete who has trained for years, just as the trials begin. We can't wait for the next round. We're ready to go."
(Note: Updated 5 p.m. 5/7/09 to include link to Hydrogen and Fuel Cell groups' joint statement.)
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
In a huge blow to backers of fuel-cell electric vehicles, the nation's top energy official said today he sees little promise of the technology becoming a significant player in the nation's transportation system within the next two decades.
---------- Honda's FCX Clarity, now being tested in Southern California, uses a hydrogen fuel cell to provide electric power. ----------
As a result, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is proposing that more than $100 million be cut from the Energy Department hydrogen program in the 2010 budget the administration is submitting to Congress.
The proposed budget slashes hydrogen fuel cell spending by 59 percent to just $68 million and focuses on programs for stationary power generation rather than for transportation.
"We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no,'" Chu said in a briefing today.
The National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Fuel Cell Coalition quickly issued a joint statement criticizing the program cuts.
Today's diesel-powered automobiles aren't your father's diesel-powered automobiles.
That's one of the core messages Volkswagen Group of America Inc. hopes to deliver in a new (and sufficiently quirky, given the company's advertising heritage) marking effort that includes a website where light-footed VW owners are boasting about extreme mileage accomplishments.
The pro-diesel push comes at the same time as a new "Meet the Volkswagens" ad campaign that pairs Max, the restored black VW Beetle that speaks with a German accent, with "Bus," an immaculately restored white and red 1968 Microbus (whose voice is supplied by actor Thomas Haden Church).
VW has a simple message in each instance: its autos are fuel-efficient, green and safe vehicles that won't break the household budget. And, to ensure that the message has a chance of being heard, VW plans to keep its 2009 advertising budget at the same level it was in 2008.
That is a serious commitment given that VW reportedly raised last year's spend by 45.7 percent over the 2007 level. The Nielsen Company reports that the overall automotive sector cut overall 2008 advertising spending by 15.5 percent to just over $10 billion.
VW's U.S. marketing chief, Tim Ellis, told USAToday that "When we invest in marketing, things happen. We think it's important to stick to our roots and stick to our value message. We're getting a higher percentage of the dwindling marketplace. And when this crazy situation comes straight side up again, we'll be positioned to increase our share even further."
VW isn't escaping the auto industry carnage. The Herndon, Va.-based company saw April sales tumble by 16.1 percent to 16,289 vehicles. Full year sales for 2008 declined by 3.2 percent to 223,128.
The automobile industry's global slump underscores the bold nature of VW's American gambit. Last year it announced plans for a $1 billion production plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. that will produce 150,000 vehicles annually - 30 percent of which will be powered by VW's TDI (turbo direct injection) engines.
On top of that, VW has boldly set a U.S. sales goal of one million vehicles by 2018.
To reach its lofty sales goal VW knows that it must persuade Americans (the emphasis is on younger consumers) that diesels aren't the clunky, smoky and noisy engines of yesteryear.
Hybrid sales in the U.S. rose in April for the fourth consecutive month and posted the highest monthly volume since October 2008.
---------- Honda's 2010 Insight was one of the bright spots in the U.S. hybrid market in April. ----------
The bump illustrates the influence that novelty and price still have on the market: Honda's new Insight, Ford's new Fusion and a heavily incentivized Honda Civic hybrid overcame slumping sales of many other gas-electric models to account for the gain.
But in a month when car and light truck sales overall still fell well below the one-million mark, the performance of the hybrid segment wasn't much to get excited about.
The month-over-month increase wasn't strong enough, for example, to put April's hybrid sales in contention with April 2008, when gasoline prices averaged above $3.50 a gallon, car buyers were scouring the market for fuel-efficient models and recession hadn't begun wreaking havoc with the economy.
Honda Motor Co., which pushed financially strapped natural-gas pump manufacturer FuelMaker Corp.
into receivership last month, has found a buyer to keep customers for its natural gas-powered Civic GX supplied with home fueling systems.
The deal could do more than that, however.
The buyer, Southern California-based Fuel Systems Solutions Inc., also owns a major manufacturer of systems for converting gasoline vehicles to natural gas and is one of the biggest players in the European CNG vehicles market with plans to expand into the U.S.
Owning a fueling systems manufacturer opens the door to cross-marketing opportunities that could help it grow its business.
Fuel systems said this morning that it has agreed to acquire FuelMaker's assets and intellectual property through a European subsidiary.
Honda, FuelMaker's controlling shareholder and longtime business partner, said in a statement that it expects Fuel Systems to continue manufacturing and selling home-based natural gas refueling systems such as the Phill unit that many Honda Civic GX owners (including Edmunds.com) acquired when they bought their cars. Warranty Protection
FuelMaker, based in Canada, manufactured and sold the Phill as well as a number of larger natural gas fuel stations for commercial applications.
About 14,000 FuelMaker compressed natural gas, or CNG, pumps are in use, mainly in the U.S., and Honda and Fuel Systems Solutions both said the sale, which still required bankruptcy court approval and is expected to close in the second quarter, would ensure continued warranty coverage and maintenance of the systems.
The Phill pump has been a critical resource for Honda in marketing the Civic GX, which is rated as the greenest production car sold in the U.S. because of natural gas' super-clean emissions and low greenhouse gas content.
Gasoline Alternative
Honda had been selling only about 400 natural gas Civics a year - mainly to fleet customers.
But demand blossomed a bit last year as gasoline prices soared and retail customers in California and New York - the only two states where Honda dealers offer the Civic GX to retail buyers - discovered the car as an economical alternative to gasoline-burning vehicles.
Like a kid with an overachieving cousin, the Honda Insight can't seem to escape the shadow of the Toyota Prius.
Since Honda started selling its new compact gas-electric hybrid (bottom, right) late last month, about 61 percent of the people who held online discussions about the car also mentioned the Prius (top, right), the Nielsen Co. reports in a comparison of recent Web chatter about the two hybrids.
In contrast, Nielsen found, only about 27 percent of the people who wrote about the 2010 Toyota Prius on the Web mentioned the competition.
And like that kid with the superstar cousin, the Insight often comes out second-best to the Prius in these on-line hybrid comparisons, at least when looks are considered.
There's a perception that the 2010 Honda Insight's design "is too similar to that of the Prius," the Nielsen report notes. The problem is that the similarity serves to highlight "the belief that the Prius is the gold standard to which all other hybrids must aspire," the report says.
Online discussions also showed the Insight to be more polarizing -- which also means less bland -- than the Prius.
Discussions generated a higher percentage of positive reviews for the Honda -- 31 percent liked it -- than for the Toyota -- 28 percent -- but the Insight also generated far more negative reviews than its rival -- 15 percent versus just 7 percent for the Prius.
More than half of all Prius chats were "neutral" on the car's merits versus a 38 percent neutral rating for the Insight, according to Nielsen, and 9 percent of Prius discussions gave the Toyota hybrid a mixed review, compared to 16 percent mixed reviews for the Honda.
Honda is looking to use the Insight's lower price -- the base model is $19,995, or about $1,000 cheaper than the no-frills version of the Prius -- to chip away at the leadership position Toyota has established in the hybrid market.
But Toyota, whose 2010 Prius is rated at 50 miles per gallon compared to 41 mpg for the Insight, has appeared to generate strong demand for the extensively redesigned hybrid, which will go on sale in the U.S. at the end of May.
Toyota reportedly is boosting production of the new Prius through next March by 25 percent to 50,000 cars a month because of better-than-expected pre-orders.
Perhaps most telling is the Nielsen finding that about 12 percent of those talking about the new Prius online say they are considering buying, while only about 7 percent of Insight discussions involve purchase intent.
Report Says Company Enthused by Large Volume of Advance Orders in Japan
Initial interest in Toyota's extensively redesigned 2010 Prius (left)
has persuaded the company to boost monthly production of the gas-electric hybrid by 25 percent, to 50,000 cars a month for the remainder of its fiscal 2009, Japan's Nikkei news is reporting.
The hike is significant because it comes at a time the global economy is in severe melt-down mode with sales of most new vehicles shrinking.
The apparent popularity of the new Prius, and the 2010 Insight hybrid from rival Honda Motor Co., point to consumers' willingness to commit to cars they perceive will save the money at the fuel pump - the new Prius is EPA rated at 50 miles a gallon and the Honda Insight at 41 mpg.
But both cars also are enjoying early sales successes because they are new.
Analysts at Global Insight consulting wonder in their intelligence briefing this morning whether the two Japanese automakers are seeing the start of ongoing demand, or simply enjoying a soon-to-burst bubble caused by new car excitement.
Nikkei, a subscription-only Japanese news service, reports that Toyota thinks demand will remain steady and now is eying Prius production of 500,000 cars in fiscal '09 (ending in March 2010) up from the previous expectation of 300,000.
The company, which began taking advance orders for the 2010 model earlier this month in Japan, had booked more than 40,000 by early last week and expects the total to top 60,000 by the time the car actually goes on sale this summer.
We expect the new Prius - and the 2010 Honda Insight (right)- to be hits in the U.S. as well, at least in their first year, due to relatively low pricing ($19,995 base for the Insight, $21,000 for the bare-bones "Level 1" Prius) and the likelihood that gasoline prices will start edging up this summer and could be back at or above $3 per gallon by year's end.
As the once-favored hydrogen highway becomes a mere side road on the route to oil independence with the Obama administration's push for rechargeable hybrid powertrains as the new favored alternative to the conventional gasoline engine, hydrogen pioneer Honda Motor Co. says it, too, will begin to pursue the way of the plug.
In an interview with Bloomberg news last week, Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui said his company still sees hydrogen as the best long-term replacement for gasoline in the effort to slash automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases tied to global arming.
Fukui, who is stepping down in June as part of Honda's regular executive shuffle, has in the past has been outspoken in his disdain for plug-in technology, calling it an unnecessary intermediate step form gasoline to pure electric power.
Honda has developed a hydrogen fuel-cell sedan, the FCX Clarity, that it leases to select customers in a Los Angeles-area test program, and isn't planning to abandon the effort.
But, Fukui said in a Bloomberg news wire article published this morning, the automaker also will accommodate the perceived preference of the U.S. government for plug-in hybrid-electric cars and trucks.
Unlike a conventional gas-electric hybrid that charges its batteries from on-board power sources such as regenerative braking, a plug-in hybrid gets its initial charge from the commercial grid, by "plugging in" to a wall socket or a special rapid-charging station
Plug-ins use larger battery pack than a conventional hybrids. They store enough power to permit the vehicle to be driven for an extended amount of time on all-electric drive before the grid charge is depleted and the gas engine kicks in.
Although others, including General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Volkswagen are developing fuel-cell vehicles, Honda has been the only major automaker championing hydrogen above other technologies and so far has stayed out of the rapidly developing race to bring plug-ins to market.
While federal support of hydrogen development has all-but evaporated in the U.S., the government is providing billions of dollars for battery development programs and for federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-ins.
(Note: This post was updated at 2:35 p.m. to include information on the Prius I's equipment.)
The third-generation Toyota Prius will go on sale in late May with a base manufacturer's suggested retail price of $21,000. But Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. confirmed today that the lowest-cost Prius won't hit dealer showrooms until later this year.
The $21,000 base price is designed to help Toyota compete with the new Honda Insight hybrid that went on sale earlier this year with a $20,470 base price. That means the base model Prius I will cost about the same as a mid-level Insight.
Toyota is offering five levels of equipment combinations, but expects the $22,000 Prius II to be the most popular. "This model provides more than $2,000 added value, including the features most buyers want, at the same price as the current base model," said Bob Carter, group vice president and general manager of the Toyota Division.
Toyota's pricing doesn't include delivery, processing and handling fees, which may vary according to where they're being sold. Here is a look at what your money will buy:
The Prius I will have a base price of $21,000. The list of standard equipment will "be released at a later date," according to Toyota.USA Today is quoting a Toyota spokeswoman who says that the base model will lack such features as cruise control, a rear windshield wiper and an EV-only mode that keeps the car running on battery power for as long as possible. The Prius I also won't have the "touch-tracer" display that superimposes steering wheel buttons on the dashboard display.
The Prius II ($22,000) will include a 1.8-liter Atkinson cycle engine, all-season tires, alloy wheels and covers, the Smart Key and Push Button start systems, an AM/FM/MP3/CD player with six speakers, cruise control, seven airbags, four-wheel disc brakes and other goodies.
The Prius III ($23,000) adds a six-disc CD changer with eight speakers, integrated satellite radio capability and Bluetooth wireless.
The Prius IV ($25,800) offers a three-door Smart Key system, leather-trimmed interior, heated front seats with driver lumbar support, an ionizer and 17-inch alloy wheels.
The top-of-the-line Prius V ($27,270) adds LED headlamps with auto leveling and washers, upscale wheels and tires and integrated fog lamps.
Newspaper reports suggest that Toyota Motor Corp. could have about 40,000 pre-orders in hand come mid-May when its third-generation Toyota Prius hybrid goes on sale in Japan.
Reuters cites two newspaper stories as stating that Japanese dealers already have booked more than 20,000 pre-orders. One of the newspapers also quotes an unnamed Toyota official as predicting that pre-sale orders will reach 40,000.
Toyota officials in Japan declined to confirm the reports. In the U.S., a Toyota spokesman told Green Car Advisor that dealers take pre-orders, but that the automaker doesn't track that data.
Prius and Insight pre-orders, whether in Japan or the U.S. are taking on added significance given the head-on sales collision coming as Honda Motor Co. continues to roll out its new Insight hybrid and dealers ready showrooms for the third-generation Toyota Prius.
The Insight hybrid overtook Prius in Japanese domestic sales when it went on sale in February. The model drew 18,000 orders during the month to beat out Prius.
Global Insight, an economic forecasting company, believes that the first month of Prius sales will "easily surpass" the Honda Insight's initial monthly sales figure. Global Insight reports that Toyota "will undoubtedly be helped by its brand name and support for this type of powertrain from the Japanese government in the form of tax reductions."
And the winner is: Honda FCX Clarity, the 2009 World Green Car.
The announcement was made this morning at the New York Auto Show. The FCX Clarity beat out the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Toyota iQ. The top three finishers were culled from a list of 22 contenders that were nominated by 59 judges in 25 countries.
Here is some of what the judges had to say about the car:
"The FCX Clarity is an utterly real, hydrogen-fueled luxury sedan that provides the amenities people expect in a premium car with 430 km (267 miles) range, fuel consumption of about 3.3 litres/100 km (72 mpg U.S.) equivalent and zero tailpipe emissions. While there is only so much the automotive industry can do when it comes to this technology - governments need to come onboard to help create a true refuelling infrastructure - Honda must be credited for taking a bold step in leasing FCX Clarity to customers in California for $600 (U.S.) per month.There's still a long way to go before fuel-cell cars will become a commercial success, but hats off to Honda for continuing to advance this expensive technology during a time when every cent counts."
To be eligible, vehicles had to be available in at least one major market during 2008. The field included production models and experimental prototypes with near-future applications. Judging criteria included fuel economy, emissions and overall environmental impact.
Don't count Phill out just yet. And the same goes for the Honda Civic GX.
American Honda Motor Co. today said that is still trying to negotiate a sale of FuelMaker Corp., the Toronto-based manufacturer of the Phill-branded natural gas home refueling units that some Civic GX owners use to fill their tanks.
Honda also said that it will keep marketing the GX, currently the only natural gas car being sold in the U.S.
Honda's announcement came several days after an online natural gas industry newsletter reported that FuelMaker had been placed into receivership and seemed to be headed into bankruptcy proceedings.
Honda confirmed that FuelMaker is, indeed, in receivership and that bankruptcy is a possibility.
But the Torrance, Calif.-based automaker also reported that it is in the "final stages" of negotiations with a potential buyer that shares its vision of making natural gas a "viable alternative fuel."
Honda declined to say much more about FuelMaker's fate, citing "the pending finalization of the legal matters involved."
Honda said that it will continue selling the Civic GX through select dealerships in California and New York. The car and the fueling system had become synonymous because Honda had been trying to couple the Phill-branded home refueling unit with the Civic GX as a marketing tool.
No word on whether Honda is again negotiating with Clean Energy, a company co-founded by Texas oilman and natural gas advocate T. Boone Pickens. In September 2008 we reported that Clean Energy had agreed to buy FuelMaker for $17 million. But that deal fell apart less than a month later.
Has FuelMaker Corp.,
manufacturer of the Phill-branded home refueling unit that some Civic GX owners use to fill their natural gas tanks, been forced into bankruptcy?
And, if that's the case, what does the news mean for Honda Motor Co.'s natural gas vehicles program in North America?
Honda officials didn't immediately respond to a telephone request on Tuesday for confirmation that Toronto-based FuelMaker is being liquidated.
But NGV Global, an online newsletter published by the International Assn. for Natural Gas Vehicles, earlier today ran a story with this headline: "FuelMaker Declared Bankrupt - Honda Hands to Liquidator." NGV Global reported that FuelMaker "entered into receivership on 2nd April" and that the plan is to "liquidate all assets."
The newsletter also quoted John Lyon, identified as FuelMaker's former president and CEO, as saying:
"FuelMaker management was aware that American Honda was trying to sell its FuelMaker stock and intellectual property to a company that would provide the synergies necessary to move FM to the next step of efficiency and profitability. This was public knowledge. We were shocked to learn this week from a third party (not Honda) that Honda was planning to put FM into bankruptcy and sell the assets."
Last fall, Honda seemed close to brokering a sale of FuelMaker that would have kept Phill-branded home refueling units in the North American marketplace. (At the time, the company was co-owned by Honda and a private trust.)
In September 2008 we reported that Clean Energy, a company co-founded by Texas oilman and natural gas advocate T. Boone Pickins, wanted to buy FuelMaker for $17 million. But within weeks, the deal fell apart.
At the time, we reported that "Honda and FuelMaker were unable to complete their end of a purchase agreement with Clean Energy Fuels Corp." A Honda spokesman also said that the company still wanted to sell FuelMaker "to an appropriate buyer who wants to expand the CNG fueling infrastructure."
Ford's SmartGauge features a multitude of displays to help people become more fuel-efficient drivers.
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
Regardless of the kind of car you drive, one of the keys to improving fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to drive smarter - don't hammer the accelerator pedal, don't brake harshly and do steadily maintain just enough speed to keep up with the flow of traffic without passing everyone in sight.
These often are not easy tasks.
To help, automakers have begun rolling out new features and technologies that call attention to uneconomical driving behavior and offer "rewards" for fuel-efficient driving.
Some of these features are passive, like instrument panels that change color as fuel economy improves.
Others more actively engage with the driver, such as an accelerator pedal that pushes back when pressed too aggressively.
Some automakers are even working on technologies that will be able to take the driver out of the fuel economy equation by allowing the car to practically drive itself with best mileage in mind.
Read on to learn more about the driver training features and technologies in cars you can buy today, and be able to buy tomorrow.
Smart Gauges Make Smarter Drivers
"The whole idea is coaching the driver, but as a good coach you don't want to preach," says Sonya Nematollahi, driver information engineering supervisor at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., while describing the "SmartGauge with EcoGuide" instrument cluster in the 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids.
Conceived by Ford in collaboration with IDEO, the design and innovation consultancy that also devised the Swivel 'n Go seating in Chrysler minivans, SmartGauge consists of two 4.3-inch, high-resolution color LCD screens - one on either side of the analog speedometer - that display a collection of digitally rendered gauges accessed through multi-layered menus.
SmartGauge with EcoGuide, fashioned by Ford Design Studio with features input from the industrial design firm Smart Design, uses the menus and gauges to offer increasingly detailed information in four modes: Inform, Enlighten, Engage and Empower.
"Like a good coach, we designed modes into SmartGauge to engage drivers at their experience levels and then guide them to new energy-efficient behavior," says Steve Bishop, global lead for sustainability at IDEO in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Green leaves 'grow' on fusion instrument panel as visual reward when fuel economy improves.
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"Video games engage their users in a similar fashion with levels. In fact, when we observed hybrid drivers, we found they were going for high scores, a gaming behavior that has never existed in cars before. We designed to accommodate it."
Steering-wheel mounted directional buttons are used to navigate through the modes, and the driver can customize the displays in each mode by adding or removing gauges.
It's no secret, hybrids haven't been doing well lately, on dealers' lots, in the media, or in a lot of political arguments. Sales data that comes in on a monthly basis shows hybrid sales sinking faster than auto sales as a whole. And there's nothing pretty about auto sales as a whole.
Indeed, looking at March's tally shows that the 21,433 hybrid cars and trucks sold in the U.S. last month represents a 43.9 percent drop from hybrid sales in March of 2008, while sales of all other types of new passenger vehicles, on a March-vs-March basis, were off "just" 36.5 percent.
So, the argument goes, hybrids can't hold their own, they cost too much and people don't really want them.
---------- Nissan Altima hybrid was one of only two models posting a first quarter gain. ----------
But we've never been big on the idea that a trend can be made, or broken, in a single month.
One could also argue, for instance, that March hybrid sales were up substantially from February and recovered more than did all other segments combined.
On a sales-per-day basis, to account for the shorter February selling period, March hybrid sales were up 20.9 percent, versus an 11.6 percent increase from February in sales of other types of new cars and trucks.
Does that mean that March sales show that people have changed their minds and are flocking to hybrids in droves?
Toyota Motor Corp. says it will try to compete directly with rival Honda Motor Co.'s new Insight hybrid in the Japanese market by introducing a downscale base model of its 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid priced at the U.S. equivalent of $20,750 -- about the same as a midlevel 2010 Honda Insight.
---------- 2010 Toyota Prius (top) versus 2010 Honda Insight (bottom) is shaping up as the industry's first hybrid price war. ----------
The company has not made a formal announcement of the strategy, but has told Japan's Toyota dealers what to expect, according to a report in the trade journal Automotive News
.
In the U.S., as Green Car Advisorpreviously has reported, Toyota will launch the 2010 Prius in late May or early June without a base model, adding it sometime in the third quarter.
That model will let Toyota in the U.S. replicate the Japanese strategy: It will have less standard equipment than other 2010 Prius models and is expected to be priced several thousand dollars less to compete with the smaller Insight.
Toyota hasn't announced U.S. pricing for the new Prius, but the "Level 2" model that will serve as the price leader at launch is expected to come in at about $23,500-$24,000. Honda launched the 2010 Insight in the U.S. last month with a base price of $20,470, versus the 2009 Prius' base price of $22,720.
Toyota executives previously had maintained that they did not consider the Insight a direct competitor because the Honda hybrid, while also seating five, is a compact while the five-passenger Prius is a midsize car. The Insight also delivers less fuel economy, with an EPA combined city-highway rating of 41 miles per gallon versus the 2010 Prius' 50 mpg rating.
Pressure from Toyota dealers who fear losing hybrid customers to Honda is believed to have influenced the decision to add a cut-rate model to the Prius lineup.
In Japan -- but not in the U.S. -- Toyota also will continue selling the second-generation ('09) Prius, heavily stripped down, as an inexpensive, fuel-efficient car for commercial and government fleets.
Note: The quote about Ford and Honda in the third paragraph was from an article in The Los Angeles Times, and was incorrectly attributed to Rush Limbaugh.
The gospel according to Rush Limbaugh now includes another chapter in what we'll call the green car conspiracy.
Here (from a transcript on the Excellence in Broadcasting network Web site) is what Limbaugh had to say on Tuesday about why vehicle manufacturers are scrambling to design and produce fuel-efficient, cleaner vehicles:
"The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel-efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multibillion-dollar bailout."
(That's probably news to Ford, which has just said 'no' to bailouts, and Honda, which doesn't qualify. And it might be news to the million motorists worldwide who've purchased Priuses and prodded Ford to introduce the Fusion Hybrid (left) and Honda to market the Insight Hybrid.)
And why are the auto companies kowtowing? Because the president is in cahoots with environmentalists who stay awake nights trying to figure out how to get us back to the good, old days when a gallon of gas cost more than $4.
Ah, but the evil-doers in Washington, D.C. (and their cronies in Sacramento) can't fool steely-eyed consumers when it comes to hybrids.
"Nobody's buying 'em," Limbaugh said. "Nobody wants them! The manufacturers are making them in droves to satisfy Obama! Sorry for yelling. Nobody wants them!"
(As of March 30, Americans had purchased 1.3 million hybrids since the first one -- a two-seat Honda Insight -- was sold in December 1999. Hybrids accounted for 2.51 percent of the market in March. That's the fourth-best monthly market-share showing ever, even with the lower gasoline prices. To be fair, though, hybrid sales did fall by 44 percent in March from a year earlier, and that's a worse showing than the 37 percent drop in the overall market.)
You have to look hard to find the good news when most of what's being reported is downright depressing.
Such is the case with Honda's decision to pass on this fall's Frankfurt auto show due to the "unprecedented market turndown."
The global recession previously prompted Honda to close a U.K. auto assembly plant for four months to reduce inventories and to withdraw from Formula 1 racing.
The bit of good news buried in Honda's decision to skip Frankfurt is, as Edmunds' AutoObserver Editor Michelle Krebs reports, that Honda will continue to use its available European resources in large part to "strengthen new fuel-cell research [and] its hybrid vehicle portfolio."
Toyota Motor Corp. on Thursday confirmed that the current Prius model will continue to be sold in Japan even after the new, 2010 Prius (left) goes on sale in May.
The Insight's sales price in Japan starts at 1.89 million yen ($19,000), while the third-generation Prius will start at 2.3 million yen ($22,000).
Japanese media accounts have Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe confirming that the older model, which is smaller and somewhat cheaper, will remain on the market in Japan.
Japanese media reports also suggest that Toyota is planning a Yaris-based hybrid that would serve as another lower-cost alternative to the Insight. The Nikkei newspaper on Wednesday quoted a Toyota engineer as saying "we are developing a low-priced hybrid like Honda's Insight."
Don't look for the second-generation Prius to remain on the market in the U.S. Toyota earlier said that motorists on this side of the Pacific Ocean will get the third-generation model.
And you thought it was tough trying to figure out which fuel-efficient car to drive off the dealer lot.
Ichiro Sakai, assistant vice president of American Honda Motor Co., said earlier this week that vehicle manufacturers face similar challenges when it comes to allocating limited R&D dollars among competing (and expensive) green technologies.
"We suffer from market preference," Sakai said during a transportation program sponsored by the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
That's a polite way of saying Honda doesn't want to get too far ahead of the green automobile pack -- only to discover that consumers aren't interested in buying what it has to sell. A case in point: the ongoing debate over whether lower gasoline prices have dulled consumer demand for smaller, fuel-efficient cars.
Honda sees the wisdom of advancing such technologies as pure-electric vehicles and increased use of biofuels. But EE Publishing's ClimateWire (a subscription-only news service) reports that Sakai also told the audience that such market realities as fuel economy regulations force it to concentrate on picking "lots of low-hanging fruit for the future of internal combustion engines."
Honda Motor Co. and Japanese battery-maker GS Yuasa Corp., have formalized a joint venture agreement to develop, build and market high-performance lithium-ion batteries for hybrid and all-electric vehicles.
The deal originally was announced in December.
The new company, to be called Blue Energy Co., is scheduled to begin operations in April. Honda said that it will hold a 49 percent stake and that the company, initially funded with 3 billion yen ($31.1 million at today's exchange rate), will be headed by a GS Yuasa executive.
Honda, which just launched the Insight compact hybrid , also markets the Civic Hybrid and has several other hybrid vehicles in development.
Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. also are developing lithium-ion batteries. Nissan has a joint venture with NEC Corp. and plans to start production this year; Toyota is teaming with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. on its own battery technology.
Car prices are falling, we all know that, but did you realize that for some makes the declines, combined with the industry's ubiquitous cut-rate financing offers, has made it cheaper to buy new than used?
A just-released study by Edmunds.com's analysts shows that shoppers who may think the budget will only stretch to cover payments on late model used vehicles could, with a little research, find themselves in a new model for lower overall costs if they are financing rather than paying cash.
Mostly, the findings apply to conventional models, although many of those are fuel-efficient compacts. But there are even two hybrids in the mix.
Yup, the price on the window of that brand new, 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid (above, left) may be a lot higher than what's being asked for a year-old "previously owned" model (below, right), but the new Civic Hybrid comes with a national interest rate deal that means a savings of nearly $2,000 over the year-old model in the course of a 60-month loan.
To compute potential savings, our analysts used the Edmunds True Market Value
® - what people are really paying - rather than the sticker prices and figured a 10.5 percent annual percentage rate on the used car loans. New car loans were figured at a national average of 5.9 percent, and where a national interest rate discount is being offered - as with the Honda Civic Hybrid - it was applied instead of the higher, 5.9 percent rate.
(Incentives can change from region to region. For the most up-to-date information abut deals and discounts in your area, check Edmunds' incentive finder.)
In the case of the Civic Hybrid, the new '09 model has a True Market Value® of $21,788, the use '08 model a TMV of $20,167.
Because of the higher interest on a used car loan, the new hybrid would be $795 less expensive than the used model over a 60-month loan even if Honda weren't offering a discount interest rate on new-car financing. With that rate the savings jumps to $1,991.
AutoPacific projects a significant increase in sales of compact and mid-size cars, with compacts the volume leader.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Automakers, most of them anyway, have been telling American consumers for years that they didn't want small cars, the bigger was better, and safer, and sexier and more fun to drive.
That, said the likes of Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Chrysler, is why they weren't making them - that and the problems they had making small cars that could compete in price and quality with those coming over from Japan.
After a while, even the Japanese pretty much gave up on small cars, shifting their attention to the big SUVs, pickups and luxury and quasi-luxe sedans that the American public had been persuaded were safer and brought more status to the table than compacts.
That started changing as fuel prices began soaring a few years ago, and the pace of change has accelerated as the economy has sunk into a deep recession.
Compacts have replaced mid-sized cars as the volume leader in new car sales, and many analysts believe that's not going to change even when the economy turns around.
California-based AutoPacific, for instance, is projecting that compact sales volume will grow much faster than mid-size volume through 2010 and then maintain an annual lead of 250,000 or so sales over midsized cars well into the next decade.
Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell agrees, adding that while fuel economy and lower purchase prices are a big reason for the growth in the segment, today's compacts also come loaded with standard equipment and options packages that were unheard of in the segment a few years ago.
Redefining Small
But wait!
There's a complication in the small car vs midsized car analysis, and a reason other than economy that American car buyers have begun favoring compacts.
"Today's compacts are as big as yesterday's midsized cars," says Dan Hall, AutoPacific's marketing vice president.
"While today's Honda Civic is definitely smaller than an Accord, it is about the same size as a mid-'90s Honda Accord," says Ed Kim, AutoPacific's industry analysis director.
The wheelbase of the present-generation Civic - the area in which the passenger cabin fits - is less than half-an-inch smaller than the 1997 Accord. Overall lengths of today's compacts are shorter than previous-generation mid-sized cars, but that's mainly because design changes have made engine compartments and trunk overhangs much shorter.
It's not so much that we've overcome our national preference for mid-sized cars and begun gravitation to the small car, Kim says, its just that the nomenclature has changed.
The future drove by me the other day and I almost missed it.
I was leaving one of the look-alike office buildings clustered around the Hyatt hotel in Irvine, Calif., on Friday the 13th when it suddenly dawned on me that a steady stream of very quiet vehicles was rolling past.
In green-conscious Southern California it's not at all unusual to see a couple of Priuses pass by in quick succession. But half-a dozen of them? Immediately followed by a half dozen or so spanking new 2010 Honda Insights?
In the time it took me to drop my packages and flip open the cell phone to snap a picture the parade had passed me by, so no photo.
But I asked around and discovered that the parade of cars rolling by with just their electric motors humming was no coincidence.
Behind closed doors in one of the hotel's first-floor meeting rooms , Honda dealers were being schooled on the company's new hybrid, which officially goes on sale Tuesday.
And out on the street they were being schooled in the differences between the 2010 Insight and the hybrid segment's sales leader, Toyota's Prius (which has its own debut, the all-new 2010 Prius, set for June).
Honda has said that it plans to highlight the Insight's proprietary technology and styling and not worry much about the Prius. But it seemed clear that Honda wanted to give its dealers an insight into both cars.
What's that line about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?
We've never been enamored of the California legislation that opened its carpool lanes to solo drivers of certain high fuel-economy hybrids and clean-burning natural gas vehicles.
(Not that our principled stand is enough to stop Green Car Advisor's senior editor from driving solo in the HOV lanes when he's in Edmunds.com's state-credentialed, natural-gas burning Honda Civic GX.)
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States with carpool lanes usually require vehicles to have two or more occupants, unless vehicle is a 45-mpg hybrid or a specially designated clean-air vehicle.
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So we were planning a modest celebration for New Year's Day in 2011 when the special dispensation was set to expire and carpool lanes were to be handed back to carpoolers. Something along the lines of a mass chuckle as solo greenies sadly rejoined drivers of fuel-guzzling sedans, sport utilities and pick-up trucks that never escaped the hoi polloi lanes.
Imagine our disappointment then upon learning that California Assemblyman Ted Lieu (D, Torrance) has introduced legislation to extend the HOV Lane special dispensation to 2016. His bill, AB 1500 could surface in a committee hearing as early as March 30.
We think it's a bad idea to breathe new life into a bad idea.
Hopes for widespread introduction of clean, fuel-efficient diesel cars and light trucks in the U.S. over the next few year are diminishing as quickly as most of our 401ks.
---------- Diesels such as Ford's 65 mpg Fiesta ECOnetic aren't seen as marketable in the U.S. ----------
The latest casualty seems to be the once-promised Nissan Maxima diesel sedan, Senior Editor Billl Visnic reports in our sister blog, Edmunds' AutoObserver
.
The 3-liter V6 turbodiesel originally slated to launch here later this year is most likely on hold and well could be canceled, Visnic says, victim of the economic meltdown that has made spending on pricey technologies such as clean diesel a difficult decision for both automakers and consumers.
General Motors Corp. last week said it has shelved plans for a new diesel V8 for its pickups and SUVs, Ford Motor Co. has been grim about the outlook for diesel cars here, Toyota has canceled a diesel engine development program and Honda Motor Co. last year said it was ditching plans to launch a diesel Acura model in the U.S.
As Visnic points out, only the Europeans - heavily invested in diesel technology because of fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions policies over there - are still big backers of diesels for the U.S
Volkswagen already sells the new diesel Jetta here; Audi launches the diesel-powered Q7 late this spring, followed by the diesel A3 in the fall as a 2010 model; Mercedes-Benz has three diesel-powered U.S. models, the ML-, GL- and R-Class, and BMW currently offers a diesel-engine 3-Series sedan and a diesel-powered X5 crossover here.
It's not easy being green, particularly when vehicle manufacturers worldwide are singing the blues and clamoring for sales-tax breaks to help move less-expensive conventionally-powered cars and trucks off of dealer lots.
---------- Green cars like BYD Autos' plug-in hybrid aren't moving well in China's slow economy. ----------
That's true even in China, one of the world's largest car markets.
Their country remains an attractive long-term market for new-energy vehicles but at present, Chinese consumers are hard-pressed to pay a premium for a green car.
Chinese automakers, though, are scrambling to produce advanced technology cars and trucks in the wake of a central government edict that calls for 60,000 green vehicles to be on the roads by 2012. To help move them off dealers' lots, Beijing is offering subsidies of up to $36,500 to consumers in big cities who buy hybrid, electric cars and fuel-cell vehicles.
The subsidies were created because although the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and the domestically produced BYD F3DM are on sale, Chinese consumers bought fewer than 1,000 hybrids in 2008. To put that figure into context, consider that Toyota's combined U.S. sales of its Prius and Lexus models recently passed the one million mark.
Henry Li, general manager for BYD Auto, bemoaned the situation to the Reuters news agency during a recent interview at the firm's Shenzhen headquarters: "I hope government subsidies can help boost demand, because this is good technology, though expensive compared to conventional cars."
Could Also Happen In U.S. to Compete with Lower-Priced 2010 Honda Insight
So much for Toyota's insistence that it doesn't see Honda's new 2010 Insight compact hybrid as competition for the larger and pricier mid-size Prius, which has long been the world's best-selling gas-electric car.
Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that there's serious talk inside Toyota Motor Corp. of releasing a base model of the upcoming 2010 Prius that's 250,000 yen cheaper (about $2,575 at today's exchange rate) than the least expensive 2009 model Prius now sold in Japan.
U.S. Plans
The redesigned 2010 Prius is slated to go on sale in the U.S. in late May or early June and pricing hasn't been announced yet.
Toyota does plan, however, to hold up release of the base, or "standard" trim level of the new Prius for three to six months (marketing plans calls for the initial launch to include Level 2, 3, 4 and 5 models, but no Level 1) and a spokesman said this morning that it is likely to have less standard equipment than the other models and a price that is closer to the Insight's. Honda recently announced that 2010 Insight pricing in the U.S. would start at $20,470, including destination. The new hybrid goes on sale here March 24. The '09 Prius in the U.S. starts at $22,720 including the destination charge.
Hot Contest
The reason for the price-cut discssion in Japan is also to better compete with the Insight, which has taken Japan by storm in the month since it was released here, with Honda dealers booking a reported 18,000 orders.
While the bottom-of-the-line '09 Prius is now priced at 2.3 million yen, the base Insight went on sale Feb. 6 in Japan at 1.89 million yen, almost 18 percent less.
Kyodo News International is reporting that Honda Motor Co. wrote about 18,000 orders in Japan for the 2010 Insight hybrid hatchback in the month following its February 6 debut.
The surge of Japanese Insight orders shows considerable interest in the compact hybrid in a country where, as in the U.S., the Toyota Prius has reigned supreme.
And despite the shortened February selling period, Japan's Honda dealers hit the company's monthly target of 5,000 sales, delivering 4,906 new Insights during the month to land the car at 10th overall on the Japanese Automobile Dealers Assn.'s monthly sales ranking.
The Prius fell from 5th to 12th place on February sales of 4,524 vehicles.
The auto dealers association linked the tumble to Japan's stalled economy and to consumer interest in the new hybrid on the block. Japanese consumers also are waiting for the spring launch of the new 2010 Prius.
Kyodo reports that the Insight, as expected, is clicking with young singles. But the report also notes that the compact hybrid hatchback is drawing "seniors who are seeking a family car, thanks to its high fuel economy" and relatively affordable price.
As we reported earlier today, the official U.S. starting price for the base LX model will be $19,800 when sales here begin on March 24. The real starting price, including the destination charge, is $20,470.
In Japan, the Insight went on sale last month priced at 1.89 million yen, or about $20,640 plus the Japanese version of a destination charge.
The votes are in and the finalists in the 2009 World Green Car award race are (in alphabetical order) the Honda FCX Clarity, the Mitsubishi iMiEV and the Toyota iQ . The winner is to be crowned April 9 at the 2009 New York International Auto Show.
Past winners of the three-year-old World Green Car of the Year have been the BMW 118d (2008), the Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec (2007) and the Honda Civic Hybrid (2006).
To be eligible, vehicles had to be available in at least one major market during 2008. The field included production models and experimental prototypes with near-future applications -- thus Honda's fuel-cell electric Clarity and Mitsubishi's battery-electric city car. Judging criteria includes fuel economy, emissions and overall environmental impact.
While diesels dominated in the past with two of three previous titles, this year's field has none, instead offering the Honda fuel-cell sedan, the Mitsubishi battery-electric car and the gasoline-fueled Toyota. Two are small city cars, and the third, the Honda, is a midsize, four-seat sedan.
A 59-member jury of green car specialists including journalists from several continents selected the three finalists.
Edmunds.com has spilled a lot of digital ink on each of the three nominated vehicles. Here are some links to the Honda FCX Clarity, the Mitsubishi iMiEV and the Toyota iQ.
It's not the $18,995 some were hoping for, but Honda Motors released official pricing for the 2010 Honda Insight compact hybrid this morning and it is, as promised, under $20,000 -- if you don't count the $670 delivery and handling fee that is tacked on to each and every one.
Official starting price for the base LX model will be $19,800 when Insight sales begin March 24. The real starting price, including that destination charge, is $20,470.
Still, that's $2,250 less than the present price leader, Toyota's Prius ($22,720 including its $720 destination charge -- pricing for the 2010 Prius, which goes on sale in June, hasn't been released yet) and "brings the cost of entry for hybrid technology within closer reach of an entirely new car-shopping audience," according to Dick Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co.
The Insight EX, next step up, starts awith an MSRP of $21,300 ($21,970) and a navigation package bumps that to $23,100 ($23,770).
All of the cars are five-seat, five-door hatchbacks powered by a 1.3-liter gas engine and Honda's integrated motor assist hybrid drive system that combine to deliver fuel economy that's EPA-rated at 40 miles per gallon in the city, 43 mpg on the highway and 41 miles a gallon in the combined city-highway circuit.
Sales of hybrid cars and SUVs continued falling in February but their plunge was slowed somewhat by a strong updraft of incentives.
---------- Camry hybrid sales were down 50 percent from February '08 but with incentive spending rose 82 percent from January ----------
While new car sales overall were down 41 percent from a year earlier, hybrid sales were off just 28.5 percent with 16,020 vehicles sold, down from 22,411 in February 2008.
The gas-electric cars cost more than their conventional counterparts and haven't been doing well as the economy tanks and gas prices remain relatively low.
Sales also have been slowed as interested consumers hold off in anticipation of the new Honda insight compact 5-passenger hybrid and the redesigned 2010 Toyota Prius, both due to hit showroom floors soon.
One Gainer
February saw only one gain - the Lexus RX400 hybrid crossover SUV was up 31 percent from a year earlier - but several models posted smaller declines than the segment as a whole.
The Lexus RX400 hybrid was helped by significant incentive spending, as Toyota's luxury division poured an average of $6,338 into each vehicle, according to Edmunds.com's True Cost of Incentives data. That was up from just $503 per vehicle incentive spending on the RX400 hybrid a year earlier and was $1,300 more than Lexus was spending on RX400 incentives in January.
Both the Ford Escape hybrid and the Toyota Camry posted big gains for the month. The Escape, with 1,172 sales, climbed 55.6 percent from January and the Camry, with 2,080 sales, was up 82.3 percent.
Camry sales really show the power of incentives: the car was among the worst performers in comparing February '08 and '09 sales, down almost 50 percent.To get the big January to February improvement, Toyota pumped up incentive spending on the model to $1,495 per vehicle from "virtually nothing in January," said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
They're not too worried over at Toyota Motor Corp., the world's leader in sales of gas-electric cars and trucks, but Honda Motor Co. says that global sales of its hybrids have now topped the 300,000 mark.
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Civic hybrid is Honda's top-selling gas-electric model now...
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Honda began marketing hybrids in 1999 in Japan and the U.S. with the now discontinued two-seat Insight, beefed up its offerings in 2001 with a hybrid Civic and briefly added an Accord sedan to the lineup from 2004 through mid-2007.
The company said in a brief announcement today that it had sold 300,740 hybrid models around the world through Jan. 31.
Of the total, 234,252, or almost 78 percent, were sold in North America, with the U.S. market accounting for most of those sales.
In contrast, Toyota sold 3.7 million hybrids globally from the introduction of the first Prius in Japan in 1997 through the end of 2008. U.S. sales account for about a third of the total.
Honda hopes to see a dramatic rise in its hybrid sales this year with the introduction of the sub-$20,000 Insight, a five-seat compact that resurrects the name of the company's first gas-electric car.
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...but expects the 2010 Insight to quickly overtake Civic as its leading hybrid model.
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Global sales of the new Insight are expected to top 200,000 a year, with half the total gobbled up by North American buyers.
The 2010 Insight already has gone on sale in Japan, where 5,000 orders in the first week outstripped Honda's expectations for the entire month.
The new hybrid goes on sale in the U.S. in April.
Worldwide, Honda's hybrid sales include 255,246 Civics, 28,471 Accords and 17,020 original Insights.
The all-new 2010 Honda Insight Hybrid car made its world debut at the North American International Auto Show last month and, of course, we wrote about it then
and two days later
and 15 days after that
and again on February 5
.
If you're still hankering for photos and information on the Insight or just want to see what the company has to say about its EPA-mileage-rated 40/43 city/highway five-passenger sedan, which is scheduled to reach U.S. showrooms in April, go to Honda's Words of Hybrid Web site.
China has taken steps in recent years to change its reputation as a mass polluter to an environmentally sensitive country.
Its efforts started with a massive Beijing clean-up operation for the Olympics, followed by a $175 billion countrywide clean-up and the closure of some particularly dirty coal power plants.
Soon the country will offer subsidies to the residents and businesses of 13 large cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, who purchase hybrid cars, trucks and buses, or vehicles that run on electricity, liquefied petroleum gas or compressed natural gas.
If the subsidy program succeeds, it might be extended to the rest of China.
Although the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and the domestically produced and recently released BYD F3DM are available in China, fewer than a 1,000 hybrids cars were sold in 2008.
That number will likely change as China produces more hybrids, which are much less expensive than the Japanese hybrids. The size of the subsidies have yet to be announced.
So far, only two Chinese carmakers - Dongfeng Motor and Great Wall Motor (its Kunna EV is pictured) - have announced plans to make electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Nissan Motor Co. announced today that it is seeking a federal loan under a U.S. program for fuel-efficient autos.
The decision means that it is competing for U.S. funds with numerous American companies, including General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and electric-car start-up Tesla Motors Inc.
The announcement came the same day as Nissan, Japan's third-largest automaker, said it intended to cut more than 20,000 jobs worldwide and shift production out of Japan as part of a broad new effort to weather the economic downturn.
Nissan, which suffered a net loss of $908 million for the quarter that ended in December, today projected a $1.92 billion operating loss for its year ending in March.
As for the federal loan, the U.S. Department of Energy may disburse some of the $25 billion in low-cost loans to successful applicants in coming weeks, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday.
Rules for the program were set in November and the agency received 75 applications for projects totaling $38 billion, Energy Department spokesman Phil West said. Of those, only 26 were "substantially complete," he said.
U.S. officials notified Nissan that its application met initial requirements, and the request entered the second of four approval stages, according to Alan Buddendeck, Nissan's U.S. vice president of communications.
Unlike the $17.4 billion in emergency federal loans GM and Chrysler LLC won to avoid bankruptcy, the $25 billion are part of 2007 legislation creating tougher fuel-efficiency rules. Any manufacturer can apply as long as the money is used to make autos at U.S. factories that produce cars with at least 25 percent better fuel economy.
No surprise, hybrid sales in January went down the drain along with the rest of the industry.
The gas-electric cars, pricier than their conventional counterparts, typically don't do well when gas prices are cheapish, as they are these days.
---------- Lexus RX 400h was one of only two hybrids to post a gain over January '08 sales. ----------
Add in a recession teetering on the edge of depression and the picture is grimmer.
Piling on, Toyota and Honda -- the industry's hybrid sales leaders -- have new models coming out in a few months, a situation that doesn't do much to promote sales of models that are soon to be outdated.
The only good news is that, as a percentage of an overall abysmal market, hybrids gained in January, rising to a 2.33 percent market share from 1.97 percent in December and 2.14 percent a year earlier.
In terms of market share, January was the seventh-best month for hybrids since the first model went on sale in the U.S. in 1999.
Good market share in a bad market isn't much to cheer about, though. In terms of sales volume, January was the worst month for hybrids in almost three years.
Total sales of 15,393 hybrid cars and SUVs were down 12.8 percent from December and plunged 31.2 percent from a year earlier.
The last time sales were lower was February 2006, when only 14,957 hybrids were sold.
Gains
As usual, Toyota's Prius was the month's volume leader with 8,121 sales -- almost 53 percent of the total.
The Prius also was one of only five hybrid models of the 16 tracked by Edmunds.com to post a gain from December, up 3.3 percent. Prius sales were down 28.6 percent from a year earlier, though.
The other January gainers were:
The Lexus 400h crossover hybrid, up 6.3 percent with 1,556 sales;
Toyota's Highlander hybrid SUV, up 10.6 percent with 984 sales;
Honda's Civic Hybrid, up 3.8 percent with 1,076 sales; and
The Mercury Mariner Hybrid SUV from Ford Motor Co., up 19.8 percent with 127 sales.
Despite the one-month gains, the Civic Hybrid was down 38.3 percent from January '07, the Mariner was off 28.7 percent from a year earlier, and the Highlander was down 54.1 percent.
Potential buyers holding back in anticipation of the improved 2010 Prius and Honda's new 2010 Insight Hybrid, both due later this year, didn't help any of the January-over-January sales comparisons, said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com's manager of industry analysis.
"Hefty price tags combined with the promise of newer, more-efficient models to come within the next few months have really hindered hybrid sales in January," she said.
Two hybrid models did post gains from their year-ago, marks, though.
---------- Nissan Altima Hybrid joined Lexus in winner's circle with an increase from January '08 sales. ----------
The Lexus 400h was up 28.3 percent from 1,211 sales a year earlier -- the only model to gain for the month and the year -- while Nissan's Altima Hybrid, with 644 sales last month, was up 36.1 percent from 473 sales in January '07.
Big Losses
The rest of the pack lost ground, although most are such low-volume sellers that the losses didn't make much impression on January's total sales picture.
General Motors Corp.'s hybrid cars and crossovers were the biggest losers, percentagewise, all but one falling more than 50 percent from December (none were in the market a year ago, so there are no January '07 numbers to compare to).
The Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid SUV was hit hardest, down 69.5 percent with 299 sold versus 981 in December.
The Chevy Malibu Hybrid sedan was a close second in the loser column, its 145 sales a 68.1 percent decline from 454 sales a month earlier.
The GMC Yukon Hybrid SUV (a twin to the Tahoe) was down 62 percent to 168 sales from 442 in December; Cadillac Escalade Hybrid SUV sales fell 56.8 percent to 132 from 306; the Saturn Vue Greenline Hybrid crossover was off 54.7 percent with 153 sales, down from 338; and the Saturn Aura Hybrid sedan was down 44.1 percent to 19 sales from 34 in December.
Sales of Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV fell 27.9 percent from December, to 753, and were off 41.9 percent from January '07, and Toyota's Camry Hybrid sedan dropped 39.6 percent from December, to 1,141 sales, and was down 49.7 percent from a year earlier.
In Toyota's luxury stable, the Lexus LS 600h L hybrid sedan posted 33 sales, down 34 percent from December and 68.6 percent below January '07 sales, and the Lexus GS 450h crossover hybrid dropped 19.6 percent from December, to 41 sales, and was off 35.9 percent from a year earlier.
Although the new models from Toyota and Honda could pump a little excitement into the hybrid market later this year, Caldwell and other analysts don't expect much improvement before the latter part of the year.
U.S. On-Sale Date Is Late April, but First Cars Could Be Here by End of March
By John O'Dell, Senior Edito
r
Honda Motor Co. hasn't set U.S. pricing yet for its new 2010 Honda Insight Hybrid (right), but by launching the car first in Japan -- it goes on sale there Friday -- the automaker provides a pretty good clue.
Japanese pricing for the five-seat, gas-electric compact starts at 1.89 million yen, the U.S. equivalent of $20,640 at today's exchange rate.
Honda has said that the Insight will be the least-expensive hybrid in the U.S., and most in the automotive media have taken that to mean that the price tag here will be under $20,000.
The Insight officially is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. on April 22, but Honda insiders say the company will start shipping them to dealers as soon as the first boatload makes landfall and that some could be in showrooms as early as the end of March.
Honda and most other Japanese carmakers often price vehicles higher in the home market than the same models sell for in the U.S., so it would seem that guesstimates of a base Insight price here in the range of $18,995 to $19,995 would be on the money.
Toyota's Prius starts at $22,000 and the Honda Civic Hybrid at $23,550.
The 2010 Insight, introduced at the Detroit auto show last month, uses the name of Honda's first hybrid, but shares little else with the original two-seat Insight.
Mercedes-Benz says it's thinking of selling in the United States a B-class four-door hatchback fueled by compressed natural gas, very similar to the European 2009 B-class model shown here.
Mercedes, part of Daimler AG, plans to display a CNG - or rather NGT, for natural gas technology - B-class model this week at the Washington Auto Show.
Natural gas, once was considered a promising alternative fuel, has fallen out of favor in the light-duty segment even though it tends to be cheaper than gasoline and releases 20 percent less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Regardless, Honda still sells the Civic GX, which runs on CNG.
Mercedes offers a B-class CNG vehicle can run on both natural gas and premium grade gasoline while delivering an identical maximum output of 116 horsepower. Five CNG gas tanks provide a natural gas range of 186 miles. With the gasoline tank, the vehicle has a total range between refueling of 620 miles.
The driver selects which fuel to use with the touch of a button in the steering wheel. An electronic control unit carries out the switch instantaneously without any jolts. Fuel economy tends to run about 32 miles per gallon combined.
The vehicle's four-cylinder engine has been modified by Mercedes-Benz to include additional gas injectors on the underside of the intake manifold. A close-coupled pressure governor with an electromagnetic shut-off valve regulates the supply of natural gas and keeps the pressure within the system constant.
We hope Mercedes will provide additional details during the auto show, which runs February 4 through 8.
GM Gets Three Models on 'Greenest' List and Tops 'Meanest' Ranking With Hummer H2
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
In an anticlimactic repeat, Honda's natural-gas burning Civic GX topped the annual "greenest vehicles" of the year listing being published this morning by the non-profit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
It is the 12th year the Washington-based environmental and economic lobbying group has published its Green Book Online, which ranks passenger cars and light trucks for overall environmental impact.
Although the list for the 2009 model year contained no big surprises, it was marked by the reappearance of General Motors Corp., with trio of small cars among the dozen "greenest" vehicles in the market - the Chevrolet Cobalt compact and its Pontiac G5 twin placed eighth overall and the Chevrolet Aveo subcompact finished10th.
The GM cars, which were rated highly for their fuel economy, knocked Ford's Focus off the "greenest" list after its appearance there last year as the only domestic car in the top twelve.
The Ford didn't get a lower score - but the average scores in the top 12 were higher this year than last.
Evolution, Not Revolution
Generally, the 2009 list was marked by continued improvements in the fuel economy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions of scores of vehicles rather than by stellar performances from just one or two models.
Manufacturers are fine-tuning their engines and transmissions, improving materials, and adding emission control technologies, said ACEEE transportation program director Therese Langer.
While they've been publicly sniping at one another over California's controversial greenhouse gas reduction rules for automobiles, a group of automakers, environmentalists and regulators have been privately meeting to see if there's any common grounds for agreement.
We're not getting our hopes up.
The series of meetings, conducted at the invitation of the private, nonprofit Aspen Institute, took place over the past few months but have ended with no agreement and no plans for further meetings, according to a source with insider knowledge of the sessions.
The meetings were attended by representatives of Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., the California Air Resources Board, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
All of the participants signed an agreement to keep the content of the greenhouse gas meetings confidential.
Green Car Advisor is told that while the sessions did promote "greater understanding of the issues" by all parties, there were no changes of mind and no agreements to compromise.
Opel will unveil a vehicle at the Geneva Auto Show in March that uses the same powertrain as the upcoming Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, parent company General Motors announced this week, and that the car will be named Ampera.
The Ampera (pictured) will enter production in 2011, one year after the Volt is scheduled to do so, GM said. Vauxhall, Opel's sister brand in the U.K., will get its own version in 2012 or sometime thereafter.
All three cars will share the Voltec powertrain, which will use an electric motor for propulsion. A battery pack will supply electricity to the motor for the initial 40 or so miles of driving. After that, an onboard gasoline generator will come on to juice the battery pack for roughly 200 more miles of travel.
Once out of gasoline, the Ampera's lithium-ion battery can be recharged via a standard 230-volt outlet. GM will release more data on the European-specification Ampera at the Geneva show.
"With the Ampera, Opel will be the first European automobile manufacturer to provide customers several hundred kilometers of non-stop electric driving," said Alain Visser, a spokesman for GM Europe's chief marketing office.
The European variant of the Volt is a key model for GM Europe's future model plans and the reinvention of Opel as an upper mid-market brand.
The Ampera is not expected to have any major styling changes in comparison to the Volt and is set to rival the new generation Toyota Prius and Honda Insight that will go on sale in Europe this year.
GM will be hoping that the Ampera's groundbreaking plug-in hybrid powertrain technology will give the model an edge over the Prius and Insight - conventional hybrids that rely on less-desirable nickel-metal hydride battery technology.
The Detroit auto show is over and the Chicago show doesn't start until the end of next week, so we thought we'd bring you a treat for the slow time in between.
The crack Edmunds video team usually does its work at auto shows for Inside Line, but there were a couple of new and noteworthy green cars being unveiled in Motown earlier this month, so we asked for a few minutes of their time to be devoted to pieces expressly for the Green Car Advisor audience.
Senior Automotive Editor Brian Moody first maneuvered Honda spokesman Sage Marie in front of the 2010 Honda Insight for this 3.5-minute look at what's going to make the upcoming 2010 Honda Insight hybrid tick and why it will come to market costing a lot less than Toyota's Prius.
Then Moody stuck his microphone and inquisitive self in front of Toyota's Bill Reinert, national manager of advanced technology vehicles, for this 6-minute, 47-second discussion of the FT-EV concept car, which foreshadows the battery-electric city car Toyota says it will launch for retail sales in the U.S. in 2012.
Among the things Moody teases out of Reinert is a nice explanation of Toyota's marketing strategy for its first EV, as well as the disclosure that the company is "way beyond" overnight battery charging and is confident it can bring to market a car that can be charged up and ready to go in two hours or so.
So do yourselves a favor, take a 10-minute break and take a look.
Then do us a favor and let us know what you think.
Volkswagen, which has been selling its Polo subcompact in Europe since 1975, has decided to bring the supermini fuel-sipping car in the United States.
---------- A 2009 VW Polo gets the star treatment. ----------
VW development chief Ulrich Hackenberg says the automaker wants to take advantage of American buyers' increasing enthusiasm for smaller fuel-efficient cars.
"Oil prices will rise again and that will drive small-car sales up further," he said in an interview at the Detroit auto show last week.
Hackenberg said the U.S.-bound Polos may be produced in VW's assembly plant in Puebla, Mexico, where the original Beetle was made until a few years ago, to avoid an unfavorable Euro-dollar exchange rate. He did not say when U.S. sales of the Polo might start.
The Wolfsburg, Germany, company will debut its fifth-generation Polo -- the 2010 model -- at the Geneva auto show in March. Pricing and fuel economy have not been divulged.
The most fuel-efficient of the current, fourth-generation Polo variants sold in Europe get about 60 miles per gallon. The low-emissions version or versions sold in America would likely get between 40 and 60 mpg.
The decision to sell the Polo in the U.S. will give VW an entrant in the increasingly competitive subcompact market that exists there.
Currently, VW's smallest car in the U.S. is the Rabbit (or Golf, as the model is known elsewhere), which starts at $15,900. Its 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine puts out 170 horsepower, which is wonderful, but achieves only 24 miles per gallon in combined city-highway driving.
VW also sells a Jetta compact, which starts at $17,300. It and the Rabbit thus far have not competed favorably in the high-volume, affordable-car segment dominated by the 2009 Honda Civic, which starts at $15,200, and the 2009 Toyota Corolla, which starts at $16,700.
Stepping down a notch in size and price are the 2009 Toyota Yaris, starting at $12,200, and the Honda Fit, starting at $14,700. These -- or rather their 2010 successors, assuming the U.S.-bound Polo is a 2010 model -- would likely be the Polo's direct competition, as would Ford's new Fiesta global car.
Hot on the heels of its recent announcement that it is pushing hard to bring plug-in hybrids
and more conventional hybrids to market as quickly as possible, Toyota Motor Co. now has put a date on the launch of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
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Toyota Highlander fuel-cell vehicle completed a 350- mile trip from Osaka to Tokyo last year without refueling.
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The company's top product planner, Masatami Takimoto, a corporate executive vice president, said in interviews during the Detroit show's media days earlier this week that "limited commercialization" of a Toyota fuel-cell vehicle will begin "in 2015, and maybe sooner."
The program is seen by Toyota as "the beginning of true commercialization" of the fuel-cell vehicles, Takimoto said.
Although it is best for its gas-electric hybrids, especially the Prius, and its (mostly) reliable and fuel-efficient conventional cars, Toyota Motor Corp. has never abandoned the hydrogen fuel cell.
Indeed, the company continues testing models in Japan and in California as a charter member of the California Fuel Cell Partnership and last year announced several improvements that greatly improved reliability and range.
"We think the technology has been achieved," said John Hanson, Toyota's top environmental spokesman in the U.S.
You might have noticed that 2010 Honda Insight hybrid not only doesn't beat the Toyota Prius in fuel economy, it doesn't even beat its own stablemate, the Honda Civic hybrid, which is a bit larger and heavier than the Insight.
We're only talking about one mile per gallon on average - the Insight is rated at 40 mpg in the city and 43 on the highway for a combined 41 mpg rating while the Civic hybrid is 40 in the city and 45 on the highway for a 42 mpg overall.
But when gas prices are back up at $4 a gallon,or more, Honda Insight's sales success may well hinge on Honda Insight fuel economy.
A Motor Trend magazine reporter at the Detroit auto show asked a Honda engineer why the car's EPA rating isn't stellar and got a fairly decent explanation: the Insight was designed to be more of a "fun" car to drive, and a less-costly car to boot. So some of the things that promote fuel efficiency on the Civic hybrid (and Prius) were dropped from the Insight.
It Starts With IMA
We'll get to the specifics the Honda engineer provided the magazine in just a moment, but want to add the most important thing, which isn't in the magazine article but which Honda engineers and produce specialists have told Green Car Advisor from the beginning:
The Insight's hybrid drive system is smaller and less powerful than the Civic's.
It doesn't deliver the same level of electric boost to the gas engine. It is the state-of-the-art Honda IMAS (integrated motor assist) system, but downscaled for price and to better fit a smaller vehicle.
Honda Motor Co. said today that the federal EPA fuel economy rating for the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid,which goes on sale in April, will be 40 miles per gallon in city driving and 43 mpg on the highway, an overall average of about 41 mpg.
That mileage, while stellar in today's market, is well below that of its chief competitor, Toyota's Prius, which is rated at 48 miles per gallon in the city and 45 mpg on the highway for an overall average of 46 mpg.
But the Insight wasn't expected to be able to compete on fuel economy alone. Honda's Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system uses a smaller electric motor than Toyota's Synergy Drive system and requires more use of the the car's gas engine.
Instead, Honda designed the five-seat Insight - its first stand-alone hybrid model since the original two-seat, 70 mpg Insight that was sold from late 1999 until 2006 - to compete on price.
The company has been coy so far, saying only that it would be the least-expensive gas-electric hybrid in the market, which would likely put the base LX model at or below $20,000. The Prius starts at $22,000.
Pricing still hasn't been released - that's expected to happen closer to the on-sale date - and all Honda would say today is that the 2010 Insight will be priced "near" the mid-range of the Honda line up and "below the Civic hybrid," which starts at $23,550.
"We're opening up...hybrid technology to an entirely new group of buyers that previously may not have considered a hybrid because of either image or cost," said John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda.
Remember that 2009 Insight hybrid that Honda was going to unveil at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit today?
The '09 Insight it released photos of last month, and showed off as a near-production "concept" at the Los Angeles auto show in November?
Yeah, that 2009 Honda Insight hybrid.
Well, forget it.
Honda has now decided that it's a 2010 model.
So from now on that's what they, and we, will be calling it. As you are searching the Web for info on the sub-$20,000 Prius fighter, key in "2010 Honda Insight" for the most up-to date data.
Oh, the covers still will be pulled off the official production version of the new hybrid later today at the NAIAS, amid speeches about Honda's commitment to green, fuel-efficient vehicles.
It may be a case of piling on, but Ford Motor Co. gleefully issued a press release today touting yet another fuel economy win over Japanese rivals - this time it's the conventionally powered Ford Fusion S beating the 4-cylinder Toyota Camry and Honda accord models.
The base model in the 2010 Fusion lineup has been rated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency at 23 miles per gallon in city driving and 34 mpg on the highway, Ford said.
The company has proudly been touting the EPA fuel efficiency rating for the 2010 Fusion hybrid - 41 mpg in the city and 36 on the highway - as best-in-class in the mid-size car segment, easily overshadowing Toyota's Camry hybrid and Nissan's Altima hybrid.
Toyota took umbrage at that claim, however, maintaining, as we reported earlier today, that despite being much smaller that the Fusion and the Camry, the Prius qualifies as a mid-size under federal rules and thus beats the Fusion hybrid with its 48 mpg city-45 mpg highway rating.
In today's announcement, Ford tried to fix that by proclaiming the Fusion, which goes on sale in the spring, as "American's most fuel-efficient mid-size sedan for both hybrid and conventional gasoline models."
The key word there is "sedan." Toyota's Prius is a hatchback and thus no longer part of the comparison set.
The Fusion S uses Ford's new 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine linked to the front wheels through a six-speed automatic transmission.
Its 23/34 mpg rating tops the 2.4-liter, 4-cylinder Camry's by 2 miles a gallon in the city cycle and 3 mpg on the highway. It bests the 2.4-liter, 4-cylinder Accord by just 1 mile per gallon in the city, but by 3 mpg in highway driving, according to the EPA.
We don't really care who is mileage champ, it's just good to see the automakers battling it out over fuel economy claims as well as doing the standard horsepower and 0-60 acceleration match-ups.
(Note: Article updated after initial posting to include Lexus hybrid)
The upcoming North American International Auto Show in snowy Detroit - media preview days begin Sunday and the show opens to the public on Jan. 17 - is likely to be a pretty glum affair, what with the auto industry imploding and the prospect of many people really being interested in buying a new car right now ranking right up there with being interested in having wisdom teeth pulled sans anesthesia.
But carmakers are trying, and what most are trying hardest with is fuel efficiency and alternatives to the thirsty, greenhouse-gas spewing cars and trucks of the past.
Oh, there will be speedsters and factory-built hot rods on display at the show - Ford Motor Co., for example, will unveil the 540-horsepower 2010 Shelby GT500 Mustang and Audi will be showing a 525-horsepower, V10-version of its exotic R8 sports car.
But most attention will be focused on advanced technology cars such as the 2010 Prius hybrid (right)
and the battery-electric city car concept that Toyota will show, Honda's Prius-fighting 2009 Insight hybrid and concepts such as the all-electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel -cell electric trio, collectively called Concept Zero, that Mercedes-Benz will unveil.
Beyond the cars, the show's media preview will spotlight industry executives who will be delivering news about their companies' green futures.
Most notably, Toyota is expected to outline its hybrid and electric-vehicle strategies for the next few years and Ford is expected to discuss its plans for a stable of future EVs, starting with a commercial truck it plans to launch in 2010.
Green Car Advsior, along with Edmunds Auto Observer, Edmunds Inside Line and Edmunds.com, will be covering the show 's media days and bringing you timely reports, but we thought we'd also offer a preview today of the major green vehicles that will be displayed and discussed.
Green Preview
So, by manufacturer, here they are:
Audi
Volkswagen's upscale stablemate is expected to announce plans for its upcoming U.S. diesel lineup. So far, the company has said it will launch a 3-liter diesel version of its Q7 SUV (right)
later this year and has broached the possibility of a diesel A4. We'll know more after Audi's Sunday afternoon press conference.
BMW The pride of Bavaria will discuss the X5 and 3-Series diesels it plans to bring to the U.S., perhaps supplying us with some performance and fuel economy numbers as well as a marketing time-line.
Chevrolet
Nothing big here, unless the General decides to announce the upcoming Volt plug-in hybrid's pricing and/or the battery suppliers.
The Chevy vehicle that gets officially introduced at the show is the redesigned 2010 Equinox crossover (right), which will come with a new six-speed automatic and a fuel-efficient, direct-injection four-banger expected to deliver 182 horsepower (almost as much as the '08 model's base V6) and highway fuel economy of 30 miles per gallon.
Chrysler The company has three brands that it has tied together for car show purposes with a trio of concept electric vehicles.
Those to be displayed in Detroit are further refined versions of the Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep EVs originally unveiled last September and first shown publicly at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in November.
By brand, they are the Chrysler EV, an extended-range electric version of the town and Country minivan; the Jeep EV, a gas-electric Wrangler; and the Dodge EV, a Lotus-based, bumblebee-striped battery-electric sports car that would look great in the garage next to an electric Tesla Roadster.
Chrysler has said that it will bring one of the cars to market in 2010, but hasn't said which or in what kind of numbers. Maybe that's what we'll hear at the show.
Fisker
The nascent plug-in-hybrid company headed by, and named for, noted auto designer Henrik Fisker (BMW, Aston Martin, Fisker Coachbuild), will show the production version of it first proposed vehicle, the Fisker Karma sports sedan (right)
that it unveiled to great interest at last year's Detroit show. Fisker also will unveil a new version - a convertible, we suspect - caled the Karma S.
Like the Chevy Volt, the Karma uses an on-board internal combustion engine to generate power to keep its electric motors turning the wheels.
Ford We expect a discussion of the company's electric vehicle strategy, perhaps with a teaser glimpse or two of potential future offerings and a look at the commercial truck the company has said it will launch in 2010.
Honda
The news here will be the unveiling of the production version 2009 Insight hybrid (right)
, a sub $20,000, five-seater Honda hopes will finally, finally, pump its hybrid sales up into Prius territory.
We're expected to hear a lot of technical detail and, perhaps, even a firmer price for the car, which looks in pictures a bit like the Prius it's designed to battle.
Lexus Toyota's luxury unit will reveal its first stand-alone hybrid model, a small car that is based off the upcoming 2010 Prius.
Although it is not unusual - its pretty common, even - for photos of new models to leak out before their official unveiling, the best we've been able to come up with for the new Lexus hybrid is this rendering (left) published in a Japanese auto magazine a few months ago.
Mercedes-Benz The covers will come off a trio of EV concepts from Daimler's luxe brand. All use the same swoopy, sport wagon-ish body (below right) - a design that also shows where Mercedes is heading with the compact B-Class replacement due in 2010 and, perhaps, headed for the U.S.
The so-called Concept Zero family consists of the E-Cell, a battery-electric with a range of about 60 miles; the E-Cell Plus, a plug-in hybrid that uses a 3-cylinder gas engine-generator to extend the range of its batteries when the initial charge is depleted (think Chevy Volt), and the F-Cell, which uses a hydrogen fuel-cell to produce electricity on-board by combining hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel-cell stack. Range is about 125 miles. Mercedes says the E-Cell Plus can go almost 400 miles on an overnight battery charge and a tank of gas.
Toyota The company whose name has become synonymous with 'hybrid" is introducing the redesigned 2010 Prius at the show, but photos of the car leaked out weeks ago and you've got to believe that anyone who's interested has already seen it. What will be news, of course, are the specifications and performance numbers.
The other biggie on the product front from Toyota will be the unveiling of a concept electric vehicle, probably called the FT-EV if the company's previous auto show naming practices prevail (that would stand for "future technology-electric vehicle").
The car, believed to be built on a current Toyota subcompact chassis, is the company's effort to give us a look at what a Toyota-built battery-electric EV for short-range urban driving might look like if the company does, as it has said it would, put an EV into its retail fleet in 2012.
Not The End
And, of course - Detroit being Detroit - there likely will be a surprise or two. So consider this list a starter, not a definitive catalog.
China's BYD, for instance, will be there with the plug-in-hybrid (left)
it launched in its home market a few weeks ago, beating the big boys like GM and Toyota to the punch by a matter of, oh, a year or two. Who knows what the company - whose name is an acronym for Build Your Dreams and whose future is being backed by investment whiz Warren Buffett - will do next? We might find out as the Detroit show rolls along.
We'll be back when media days begin on Sunday to keep you up-to-date.
Garmin International announced today that it's offering a free software update for the company's stand-alone Nuvi 205- and 705-series personal travel assistants that allows drivers to select the most fuel-efficient route and to track their fuel usage.
The announcement, made at the 2009 International Consumer and Electronics Show in Las Vegas, follows recent announcements by Honda and Ford that some of their vehicles will soon be fitted with in-dash eco-driving navigational systems.
But unlike those systems, Garmin's ecoRoute software update takes a look at all of various routes from starting point to destination and can provide the one that's likely to require the least amount of fuel.
EcoRoute's Less Fuel option does this by studying a variety of factors, including traffic speed and the number of stop lights along routes, and "tries to route you on roads where your speed will be constant," Garmin spokeswoman Jessica Myers said by phone.
"That doesn't necessarily mean it will always put you on the freeway," she said, "but rather it will figure out the way to route you to maximize your fuel economy."
Prior to the software update, which will be available for download in February, ecoRoute only supplied drivers with Shortest Distance -- as the crow would fly -- and Fastest Time -- think highways and freeways.
The software also now offers fuel-saving tips, which appear in text form (as opposed to verbal suggestions).
December's gas-electric car and SUV sales plunged almost 43 percent from the final month of 2007 as the year wound up on a discouraging note for the only alternative technology vehicles to so far make a dent in the auto market.
It was a near repeat of a stupendously disastrous November, when sales of fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles fell 50 percent from a year earlier.
For all of 2008, hybrid sales tumbled 10.3 percent with 310,724 models sold. While nothing to boast about, the hybrid segment bested the overall market's performance of an 18.2 percent drop for the year, according to Edmunds.com statistics.
The only bright spots were that hybrid sales in December actually rose a bit from November, and that 2008 hybrid sales were the second-best on record in the decade since 1999, when Honda introduced the first model, the now-discontinued two-seat Insight. The year's sales trailed only 2007, when 346,431 hybrids were sold.
Incentives Made the Difference
The 6.8 percent rise in sales volume from November to December was due to hefty incentives and discounting by most automakers and to an especially effective financing program that General Motors' financing arm provided for almost all of the company's lineup.
Industrywide, the same pricing and financing incentives led to a one-month sales gain of 20 percent.
In the hybrid segment, December's total of 17,652 sales was the second lowest of the year, trailing only November's dismal 16,536.
After that, you'd have to go back to January 2007, when only 17,591 gas-electric cars and sport-utes were sold, to find a worse month for hybrids.
The folks at the BMW Blog
say they've seen Bimmer's '09 product plan and it contains a pair of new BMW electric-vehicle concepts.
BMW has been talking EV most of the year, and the blog report says the first of the new concepts, to be introduced in March at the Geneva Auto Show, is an eDrive concept that uses the Mini E's battery-electric drive system installed in either a BMW 1- or 3-Series.
The second, if the rumor mill is grinding true, is a battery-electric version of the Z roadster, to be dubbed the Z Vision Concept and due at either the Frankfurt or Tokyo auto shows later in the year.
And on the Honda front, thanks to Insightman
via Autoblog Green
, comes word that the 2009 Insight hybrid to be unveiled next week at the Detroit auto show will come in three flavors - likely to be the DX, LX and EX trim lines that differentiate the price- and equipment-levels of other Honda models.
Insightman also suggests that there will be no spare, just a flat fix kit; that the top-of-the-line EX model will feature a 7-speed CVT with paddle shifters; that the only interiors offered will be blue or grey cloth and that side air bags will be option on all trim levels.
We're talking about EV battery manufacturing
and development
in the U.S., but they're doing it in Japan.
Nissan Motor and NEC Corp. reportedly have agreed to pump almost $1.1 billion, into Automotive Energy Supply Corp., their previously announced joint venture for manufacturing lithium-ion battery packs (right) for electric and hybrid cars.
If the Nikkei business daily report is accurate, this will be the fourth major battery venture in Japan: Toyota has teamed with Matsushita Electric, Honda with Sanyo and Mitsubishi with GS Yuasa.
Nissan has an agreement with its French partner, Renault, to begin producing electric vehicles by 2010, and needs an assured battery supplier. The Japanese model calls for important components for a Japanese-built vehicle to be developed and produced at home when possible.
The deal, according to the Nikkei report as reviewed by analysts at Global Insight, calls for the Nissan-NEC partnership to ultimately produce sufficient batteries to supply 200,000 hybrids and EVs a year, with initial production of 13,000 battery packs a year to begin in 2009.
We've watched hybrid sales, especially the league-leading Toyota Prius, plummet in recent months along with gasoline prices and consumers' overall purchasing power.
Now the hybrid car that people stood in line for and willingly paid premiums to snag at the height of the gas price run-up this summer is being discounted in a growing number of markets as Toyota dealers seek to get rid of their growing stock of '09 Priuses as the automaker gets ready to launch to redesigned and slightly larger 2010 model.
Latest to join the discounting crowd are the Los Angeles area Toyota dealers. They may not be advertising the discounts, but Toyota is giving them an extra $750 "marketing support" allowance for each 2009 Prius (right)
they move off the lot.
Go Shopping Fully Armed
Obviously, most sales people would like to keep as much of that as possible for themselves and many may not be all that willing to volunteer the info.
But the Edmunds.com incentives and rebates center provides the info - at no charge - with the click of a mouse.
Just follow this link, which is pre-populated with a West Los Angeles zip code that you can change to see what, if anything, Toyota dealers in your region have available to bargain with - and how much more you can ask for.
Unlike direct consumer rebates, marketing money is provided by the carmaker to the dealer to encourage sales of a particular model or models, and the dealer can use to lower the price to the customer, to reward successful sales people or for anything else that helps move the targeted vehicles.
It's Not Just Toyota
The marketing money often is used when a carmaker doesn't want to have to admit out loud that it needs to incentivize a particular model.
Honda has long used such funds to let it continue to boast that it almost never offers incentives.
And, BTW, if you are looking for a hybrid and the Prius doesn't move you, even at a possible $750 off MSRP, check out your area Honda dealer on our incentives finder.
With Honda about to unleash the sub-$20,000 Insight hybrid next year, they're offering steeply discounted interest rates on the '08 Civic hybrid (right).
Honda boss Takeo Fukui announced this week that the Japanese company will bring a battery-powered motorcycle to market in "about two years."
---------- Honda's fuel-cell scooter was never available. ----------
The announcement was made as part of his annual December state-of-Honda speech and comes only a couple of months after reports circulated that Yamaha intends to offer an electric motorcycle in 2010.
"Honda is currently developing a battery-powered electric motorcycle which emits no CO2 during operation, because the characteristics of a battery can be better utilized in the area of motorcycles, which are often used for short distance travel," Fukui said. "Honda is aiming to introduce this electric motorcycle to the market about two years from now."
He added that "Honda's toughness in meeting changes in the business environment comes from the global business foundation built around the three axes of motorcycles, automobiles and power products."
History shows that motorcycles remain strong in a difficult market environment and have always supported Honda in difficult times, he said.
Small cars fare better in crashes than they used to, but they still lag behind larger vehicles in protecting passengers. Their disadvantages are especially clear in side-impact crashes.
---------- Chrysler's PT Cruiser did poorly in the side-impact test. ----------
Of the nine small cars recently tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, all received the group's top rating of "good" in frontal crashes, but only two got good ratings when broadsided.
The Insurance Institute tested nine small cars for the 2009 model year in front, side and rear collisions. The group included the BMW Mini Cooper, Chevrolet HHR, Chrysler PT Cruiser, Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra, Saturn Astra, Suzuki SX4, as well as the Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe, which are essentially the same vehicle sold under two brand names.
Only the SX4 and Matrix, and its twin the Vibe, received good ratings for protection in side crashes. The Ford and Chevrolet were judged acceptable in side-impact protection, while the Hyundai and Saturn were marginal and the Chrysler was poor.
Only the Ford Focus was top-rated in rear-impact crashes that test how well the vehicles' seats and head restraints protect passengers. The Chrysler PT Cruiser was the worst performer, with poor ratings for side and rear protection.
Honda Motor Co. won't be bringing its mid- and large-size clean diesel engines to the U.S. in 2009 as planned due to rising material costs, slumping economic conditions and the significant disparity between diesel fuel and gasoline prices, a company spokesman told us today.
---------- Honda displayed its four-cylinder clean diesel engine at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show. ----------
"We will postpone the introduction of the mid- and larger-size diesel engines into the U.S. market," David Iida, a spokesman for American Honda Motor Co., said. The company had said it was working on a low-emissions diesel V6 engine, as well as a four-cylinder diesel engine that would be introduced in the Acura series next year.
But because of the factors mentioned above, "we've changed our focus right now and we're going to devote a lot of energy to the further development of hybrid models," Iida said. "In the short term, we think this is probably the most efficient way to achieve CO2 reductions as well."
Iida confirmed Honda's plans to introduce the Insight hybrid in the U.S. this Spring and put the CRZ hybrid on sale by the end of 2010.
"We'll also look into enhancing our hybrid lineup with possible applications of hybrid technology to medium- to large-size vehicles," he said. He said he could not discuss which models be effected at this time.
Iida announced that a new assembly line for hybrid engines was just added to Honda's Suzuka plant, raising from 70,000 to 250,000 the number of hybrid engines that can be produced at the factory annually.
Battery Venture Announced
Also today, Honda President Takeo Fukui announced the automaker is partnering with battery maker GS Yuasa Corp. to develop lithium-ion batteries for hybrid cars.
The new venture will launch next year at a cost of about $170 million.
The announcement came immediately after Honda slashed its profit forecast by more than half for this year, its third cut.
Fukui said the company believes accelerating the development of advanced environmental technology will be crucial in the severe business conditions.
Honda took its sweet time, but finally delivered an FCX Clarity fuel-cell sedan to Edmunds.com's garage for a multi-day field test (we did one of the first test drives
a year ago, but that was only good for about two hours of seat time).
Features Editor Joanne Helperin, who writes for our sister blog, Strategies for Smart Car Buyers, took the futuristic car out to the test track Tuesday and in a piece posted this morning talks about driving the hydrogen-fueled Clarity in real-world conditions around town and on Southern California's freeway system.
If you're a cutting-edge trendsetter, very eco-conscious, or simply love Hondas, and if you can afford a $600-a-month, two-year lease and happen to live in Santa Monica, Torrance or Irvine, California, you must read Helperin's piece. From front to rear visibility, from the corn-based fabric on the seats to the host of techno-goodies, she provides insights you'd expect from someone who takes test drives for a living.
On the other hand, if you just want to know what it's like driving a vehicle that emits nothing but water vapor from the tailpipe and gets the equivalent of 74 miles per gallon, you must read Helperin's observations, too. Can Honda dampen the high-pitched whine the FCX Clarity lets out every time the accelerator is depressed? Helperin has her doubts.
So jump on over and give it a read. Then come back for more Green Car Advisor.
The World Car of the Year organization has announced the initial slate of candidates for 2009 World Green Car of the Year.
Launched three years ago, the title has been awarded in the past to the BMW 118d (2008), the Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec (2007) and the Honda Civic Hybrid (2006).
The 2009 candidates must be new and on sale by December 31.
The list includes the Audi Q7 3.0 TDI (pictured), BMW 335d BluePerformance, Chevrolet Tahoe/GMC Yukon hybrids, Citroen C1, Fiat Palio Weekend Electric, Fiat Siena Tetrafuel model, Honda FCX Clarity. Go to Edmunds.com's Inside Line to view more candidates.
The organization includes working automotive journalists from around the globe, including regular Inside Line contributors Matt Davis, Hormazd Sorabjee, Peter Nunn and Peter Lyon.
The top 10 finalists will be announced in January, with the winner revealed in April at the 2009 New York Auto Show.
It was only a few months ago that people who wanted to buy a Toyota Prius had to get on a waiting list and pay a premium price at many dealerships.
---------- 2009 Toyota Prius "Basic" model. ----------
What a difference an economic meltdown - not to mention $1.75-a-gallon gasoline - can make.
While still the world's most popular gas-electric hybrid, the Prius is now in plentiful supply all over the U.S. Annual sales through November were down 10 percent from the first 11 months of 2007, and November was the first time since January, 2007, that Prius sales volume fell below 10,000 a month.
Customers can even find bare-bones models that dealers wouldn't deign to stock this summer.
Bargain Rate
And in at least one region of the country, the cars are not only plentiful, they are selling - or leasing, in this case - at bargain prices.
That's right. You can actually lease a Prius at a discount, at least if you are shopping at one of the San Francisco (Calif.) region's 60 Toyota dealers between now and Jan. 15.
In what Toyota Financial Services spokeswoman Kerry Rivera says is a program not being offered anywhere else, the region's dealers are advertising three-year, 36,000-mile leases on the basic (or #1224) model for $2,999 in up-front cash and a $249 monthly payment for a basic priced at $23,375.
Options, extra mileage and the like would add to the cost, as with any lease, and the deal requires a premium credit score.
The cash part is about what a "normal" Prius lease demands, but the monthly payments, including tax, are $63 less than would be usual. "It's a better deal than the current standard lease," Rivera said.
So What?
Why, if you don't live in the area, would you care?
"It demonstrates how fast the pendulum swings in this economic climate," said Edmunds.com market analyst Jessica Caldwell.
It also could portend more such cheap leases, even discounted selling prices, for Priuses in other parts of the country as the national economic malaise continues - which it is expected to do for at least another six months.
Ward's Automotive Group has announced its 15th annual 10 Best Engines list, which "reflects the diversity of 2009 powertrains that will play a role in reshaping America's automotive landscape."
The winning engines were selected by editors for Ward's, publisher of automotive trade magazines since 1924.
Thirty-two engines were considered this year. Eligibility requirements included: Availability in a regular-production U.S.-specification model on sale no later than first-quarter 2009. And, the engine must be in a vehicle priced no more than $54,000 (a price cap indexed to the average cost of a new vehicle).
The winners by manufacturer, engine and vehicle tested:
Audi; 2.0-liter TFSI (Turbocharged Fuel Stratified Injection) DOHC (double overhead camshaft) I-4 (inline 4-cylinder); A4 Avant BMW; 3.0-liter turbocharged DOHC I-6; 135i coupe BMW; 3.0-liter DOHC I-6 Turbodiesel; 335d sedan Chrysler; 5.7-liter Hemi OHV (overhead valves) V-8 (a V-shaped engine with eight cylinders); Dodge Ram truck/Challenger R/T large car Ford; 2.5-liter DOHC I-4 HEV (hybrid electric vehicle); Escape Hybrid SUV General Motors; 3.6-liter DOHC V-6; Cadillac CTS sedan Honda; 3.5-liter SOHC (single overhead camshaft) V-6; Accord coupe Hyundai; 4.6-liter DOHC V-8; Genesis sedan Toyota; 3.5-liter DOHC V-6; Lexus IS 350 sedan Volkswagen; 2.0-liter SOHC I-4 Turbodiesel; Jetta TDI sedan
The diesel engines from VW and BMW and the engine from the Ford Escape Hybrid all got better than 30 miles per gallon during Ward's testing and often topped 40 mpg, said Tom Murphy, executive editor of Ward's AutoWorld magazine.
The Honda Insight is expected to be the most affordable hybrid car available when it goes on sale in the spring of '09.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
Although the all-new 2009 Honda Insight Hybrid won't make its world debut for another month, when it takes a bow at the Detroit auto show, Japan's No. 2 automaker today released the first photo of the production version of the five-passenger sedan.
Until today, only photos of the concept version of the Insight have been available.
The new Insight -- which takes its name from the original Honda hybrid, the two-seat Insight introduced in 1999 and discontinued in 2006 -- sticks with Honda's proprietary Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system.
It is a somewhat downsized version of the system, though, likely with a smaller battery pack and power control unit than in the IMA system that helps propel the Civic Hybrid. A smaller car, however, can get away with a smaller hybrid system.
Sales of hybrid cars and SUVs took a worse beating than the industry as a whole in November, plummeting 50 percent from a year earlier and off 24.8 percent from October.
---------- Industry leading Prius hybrid sales in November were off 50 percent from a year earlier. ----------
Industrywide sales of all new cars and light trucks were down 37 percent from a year ago.
The hbrid segment was hit with the triple whammy of falling gasoline prices, high sticker prices in a recessionary economy and tight credit that cut many potential buyers out of the market.
"The environment is taking a back seat to the macroeconomic situation," said Edmunds.com market analyst Jessica Caldwell.
With gasoline falling below $2 a gallon, many hybrid models just didn't pencil out for consumers when their premium prices were compared with prices for other fuel efficient vehicles with conventional powertrains, she said.
Altogether, automakers sold 16,536 gas-electric hybrids last month, down from 21,979 in October.
To make matter worse, consumers purchased twice as many hybrids - 33,063 of them - in November 2007, when there were several fewer models available.
Hybrids' market share dropped to 2.21 percent in November, down from 2.62 percent in October and 2.82 percent in November 2007.
Above, the instrument panel of the Honda Insight contains lots of tools to help the motorist drive more fuel efficiently.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
Honda has released images and details of the Ecological Drive Assist System as it appears in the Japanese version of the soon-to-launch Insight hybrid.
The system is similar to Ford's new SmartGauge with EcoGuide instrument cluster for the 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids, as well as devices appearing in various Nissan and Toyota models, in that all are intended to help drivers use gasoline as efficiently as possible.
Japan's version of the Insight will also be able to integrate with the optional Honda HDD InterNavi System. When combined with this system, the EDAS can give more advice on how to enhance fuel economy while driving, specifically by looking through a driver's history and suggesting driver-specific changes.
A scoring function provides cumulative, long-term feedback through graphic "leaves" that grow over time as drivers become more fuel-efficient. "The joy of growing these leaves over a long time will encourage drivers to learn how to drive more fuel-efficiently," the company said in a press release.
Among the key features of the EDAS is an ECON Mode, which Honda first implemented on the all-new Odyssey. Since then, the mode has been advanced with added functions to control the idle stop and regenerative braking capabilities of the hybrid.
As soon as the driver presses the ECON Mode button, the system will "harmonize" the continuously variable transmission and engine, flip the air-conditioner to energy-saving mode, extend the idle stop time and increase regenerative recharging during deceleration--all of which will increase the vehicle's fuel economy.
Honda Motor Co. has joined the list of automakers downplaying the importance of January's 2009 North American International Auto Show , but the automaker says it still will use the Detroit show to debut the production version of its upcoming Insight hybrid.
Unlike Nissan and several other carmakers that are pulling out of the upcoming Detroit show
completely in order to save the millions of dollars show participation can cost, Honda will still be there, and will still have a range of top executives available for interviews and to promote the company's vehicles during the show's four-day media preview, said spokesman Sage Marie.
---------- Honda's 2010 Insight Hybrid will look a lot like the concept (right) shown in Paris and Los Angeles. ----------
"We're just doing away with the smoke and mirrors," he said, referring to the company's decision to not stage a formal unveiling ceremony with the kind of theatrical productions -- including indoor snowstorms, cattle drives, entertainment and sports stars hawking vehicles and cars crashing through walls of glass -- that has distinguished the Detroit show for decades.
It wasn't a difficult decision.
With the auto industry in turmoil and the fate of the ever-shrinking "Big Three" U.S. automakers expected to be the center of attraction anyway -- there probably will be more financial obituary writers than auto writers in attendance during the media preview days -- an expensive launch party for the Insight probably wouldn't have gained any more publicity for the car than its mere presence on the show floor will garner.
"It's an important vehicle that will still generate a huge amount of interest," Marie said of the Insight, a five-seat hybrid expected to be priced below $20,000, making it the industry's least-expensive gas-electric car at a time consumers are looking to save money in the showroom as well as at the gas pump.
"We'll still be at the show, and with the right car at the right time," he said.
We were expecting, maybe, that Honda might juice up its press conference at the LA Auto Show with an updated concept version of the hybrid sports coupe the company's been teasing us with.
But no, boring old Honda pulled the covers off the same CR-Z concept it first rolled out at the 2007 Tokyo show.
Then the company found excitement, knocking our socks off by rolling out an all-new design study -- a fuel cell sports car concept called, back in boring old Honda mode, the FC Sport.
On a more mundane plane, Honda also rolled out the Insight Hybrid concept (which, we're told, is pretty much a giveaway off what the production model will look like) that it first showed at the Paris auto show last month.
The Insight (right)
, which resurrects the name given Honda's first hybrid, will debut next year in the U.S. as a five-passenger compact that slots into the lineup beneath the Civic and Civic Hybrid and will be priced, the company suggests, a few thousand dollars less than the base Toyota Prius.
Unlike hybrid-centric Toyota, though, Honda thinks of hybrids as an interim step to a brave new world of silent, zero-emissions electric cars that produce their own juice by blending hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell stack.
That's what the FC Sport Concept is all about.
We're not naive enough to think we'll ever see a Honda that looks quite like it - with or without a fuel-cell electric powertrain - but we do think that developing the concept shows Honda still believes fuel cells have a future. (Indeed, the company in July began leasing its limited-production FCX Clarity fuel-cell sedan to select customers in the Southern California.
CNG hasn't caught on with automakers - Honda's the only company presently selling a natural gas car - but Toyota thinks things could change and wants to be ready if they do.
Thus was born the CNG-electric Camry Hybrid Concept (right) being unveiled today at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
Toyota actually spilled the beans two months ago when it announced that it would show the concept car at the LA event, which opens to the public Friday and runs through Nov. 30.
But the company is providing a few previously withheld technical details with today's official unveiling.
The numbers
Under its hood, the CNG Hybrid Camry carries a 2.4-liter, 4-cylinder engine and Toyota's patented "hybrid synergy drive" electric powerplant and drive system. The whole thing has a combined power output equal to 170 horsepower
Toyota says the concept would get almost the same EPA mileage rating as the conventional gasoline-electric Camry Hybrid, coming in at 32 miles per gallon in the city cycle, 34 mpg on the highway and 33 mpg overall, versus 33 mpg city, 34 highway and 34 overall for the regular hybrid model.
In testimony to the fuel saving prowess of a hybrid system, the non-hybrid Honda Civic GX natural gas car is EPA-rated at 28 mpg overall, 15 percent less than the larger and heavier Camry CNG Hybrid.
The Camry CNG Hybrid Concept started with a standard Camry Hybrid then stripped off its gasoline fuel storage and delivery system and replaced it with a system suitable for compressed natural gas.
That included a pair of 4-gallon cylindrical fuel tanks installed in the car's spare tire well (right)
, and special fuel lines, injectors and engine control software to handle the pressurized gas (it usually is delivered at 3,600 psi).
Because it is a show car, the vehicle's exterior also got some attention, including a custom front fascia and front bumper cover that eliminates the grill opening, and a custom rear bumper that conceals the tail pipe and otherwise visible part of the exhaust system.
The CNG hybrid concept is shod with 19" Bridgestone run-flat tires - to make up for loss of the spare tire - and the car was lowered and its sides emblazoned "Compressed Natural Gas Hybrid" graphics.
Fueling Alternatives, California's alternative fuel vehicle rebate program, has added the 2009 Honda Civic GX compressed natural gas car to its list of vehicles
that are eligible for a $3,000 rebate under the state-funded program.
The 2009 model joins the 2007 and 2008 Civic GX, as well as the BAF conversions for the 2007 Ford Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis, as eligible for $3,000 rebates.
Eleven other models are eligible for smaller rebates and two models--the 2008 Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen-powered fuel-cell sedan and the all-electric 2008 Tesla Roadster--are eligible for $5,000 rebates.
Additionally, the 2009 Civic GX might qualify for a $4,000 federal new-energy tax credit. The 2005-2008 Civic GX models meet the Internal Revenue Service criteria for that tax credit, but the IRS has not yet extended the tax credit to the 2009 model.
The Civic GX is fueled by compressed natural gas for nearly zero emissions. It is fuel-economy rated for 24 miles per gallon equivalent in the city and 36 mpg equivalent on the highway by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The vehicle's suggested starting price is $25,090.
More information about the Civic GX can be found at Edmund's Inside Line Website, where Green Car Advisor Senior Editor John O'Dell has been reviewing a 2007 model on a regular basis for many months, and at Honda's Website for the U.S.
Fueling Alternatives is funded by the California Air Resources Board and administered by the California Center for Sustainable Energy. A total of $1.8 million was appropriated and directed toward vehicle incentive rebates to promote the use and production of alternative fuel vehicles.
Rebates of up to $5,000 are available for California residents who purchase or lease new eligible alternative-fuel vehicles between May 24, 2007, and March 31, 2009, or until funding runs out. For more information, go to Fueling Alternatives' Website.
In Washington's infinite wisdom, the tax incentives that have bolstered U.S. sales of the most fuel-efficient hybrids are gone or soon will be at a time when experts agree the vehicles could play an important role in reducing America's addiction to foreign oil and in stopping global warming.
---------- Honda's 42-mpg 2008 Civic Hybrid; its tax break ends next month. ----------
Tax incentives tied to Toyota's 2005-2008 model-year Prius, which gets a phenomenal EPA-rated 48 miles per gallon in the city, 45 mpg on the highway and 46 combined, expired in October 2007.
That same month saw the tax credit for the 2007-2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid vanish, despite the fact that model gets an EPA-rated 34 mpg combined.
And soon we'll witness another mystery: In the final minutes of next month, as people around the world usher out the old year and celebrate the new, the U.S. tax incentive for the 2006-2008 Honda Civic Hybrid (42 mpg combined!) will dissolve at the stroke of midnight.
But the strangeness won't end there.
Beginning next spring, Honda will offer a hybrid achieving a claimed 60 mpg. What tax break will Uncle Sam provide buyers of this gas-sipper, the 2010 Honda Insight? None whatsoever.
None, as in the 2,200 fewer taxpayer dollars than he's offering buyers of the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid right now, despite the fact that big ol' honkin' SUV achieves only 21 mpg combined.
About the only thing sinking faster than new car sales these days is consumer interest in hybrids.
As the economy continues to tank and gas prices continue to fall, the number of consumers using the various Edmunds.com information channels to gather data on hybrid models has plummeted.
Hybrid consideration -- tallied by tracking the number of visitors to Edmunds' sites who spend time looking at model specifications and pricing data and cross-shopping hybrids with other hybrids and with conventional models -- is off 86 percent from its peak in mid-June.
By comparison, considerations of all new car and truck models are down 35 percent from the peak in May, according to data compiled for Green Car Advisor by Dr. David Tompkins, Edmunds.com's executive director of business solutions.
Consideration doesn't necessarily predict sales -- it could be that we're seeing the casual shoppers being knocked out of the box with only hard-core, determined buyers left looking.
Indeed, hybrid sales in October, while down 45 percent from their peak in April, were off only 9.4 percent from a year earlier. If seven models that weren't sold a year ago are omitted, the drop is sharper, at 16 percent. By comparison, total sales for the month were off 39 percent from the year's high in May and were down 32 percent from October 2007. Subtracting the 1,551 extra hybrids sold this year makes almost no difference in drop in total sales.
The sales figures show that hybrids continue to be popular among a significant slice of the public that's still buying cars -- they accounted for 2.6 percent of total October sales, their highest market share since July.
But Edmunds' hybrid consideration numbers may portend a bigger drop as the year progresses.
---------- Hydrid consideration (green) grew as gas prices rose but since summer has fallen faster than has consideration of all vehicles (red), according to Edmunds.com data.(Click on chart for expanded view.) ----------
With the nation in a recession that's been building since summer, you'd expect the numbers of people shopping for new cars, on-line and in dealerships, to decline, said Daniel Hall, vice president and data analyst at global auto industry consulting firm AutoPacific.
That the rate of decline for hybrid consideration is so much sharper, said Edmunds analyst Tompkins, shows that shoppers are being far more cautious about expenses than when gas prices were at their peak this summer and the line for hybrids at any price stretched around the block.
Back then, shoppers were enamored of the fuel economy a hybrid model could deliver in comparison to a conventionally powered model of the same vehicle.
Now, shoppers are looking not only at fuel economy -- which is less important to many as gas prices fall -- but at the so-called hybrid premium automakers charge to cover the extra cost of the battery packs and advanced powertrain components a hybrid requires.
Additionally, the nation's economic woes have made it more difficult for people to obtain loans, especially for big-ticket items such as homes and cars. When credit is already tight, a hybrid's premium price thins the herd, said Edmunds.com pricing and sales analyst Jessica Caldwell.
You can't always get what you want, but if you've got a big pot of money and a sweet-sounding environmental pitch, chances are you can get a proposition on a state ballot. In California, anyway.
And if there's enough money left in the pot to pay for volleys of TV ads after you've paid the people who gathered the signatures needed to put the proposition on the ballot, odds are it will become state law. In California, anyway.
And, because California is such a trendsetting state, if your proposition becomes law there, it stands a good chance of becoming law in other states as well.
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens knows this. It's why the Texas billionaire is bankrolling a proposition -- one that ostensibly would advance renewable energy and alternative fuels -- on California's November 4 general election ballot.
In truth, what it advances most is Picken's fortune -- while costing the state's taxpayers $10 billion.
To give you an idea of how little California can afford Pickens' proposition, consider that officials in Sacramento are expected to announce this coming week that the state's budget deficit has reached at least $10 billion.
The budget crisis is why Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last month informing him that "California may need to turn to the Federal Treasury for short-term financing." A bailout, in other words.
At a time when the locomotive that drives America's economic train can least afford it, Pickens' initiative would nearly double California's deficit.
And despite the crushing cost the proposition would levy on all of the state's taxpayers, the ballot measure would benefit very few while throwing a tremendous amount of money behind an automotive fuel that isn't very green compared to other alternative fuels that could benefit from that kind of spending.
Concerns about rising material costs, slumping economic conditions and the growing disparity between diesel fuel and gasoline prices Honda Motor Co. is reconsidering its decision to launch clean diesel cars in the U.S. and Japan next year.
---------- Honda displayed its 4-cylinder clean diesel engine at the 2008 Detroit auto show. ----------
While no decision has been made, Honda product and market planners "are carefully assessing the situation, said David Iida, a spokesman for American Honda Motor Co. "We're concerned about fuel price trends and material costs."
Honda hasn't priced its proposed clean diesel models, but because they require more expensive engines with beefier components and sophisticated high-pressure fuel injection systems, diesels typically cost $1,000 to $3,000 more than comparably equipped gasoline cars.
In a falling economy with rising unemployment and record-low consumer confidence levels, the case for cars that cost more isn't a good one.
Adding to the pressure, the gap between diesel fuel and gasoline prices has been growing steadily as gas prices have plummeted in recent weeks,
Diesel engines typically deliver 20 percent to 30 percent better fuel economy than their gasoline counterparts, and motorists can see the benefit of a diesel car when diesel fuel doesn't cost much more than gasoline.
But diesel today is priced 31 percent more than gasoline on a national average, erasing the fuel economy benefits.
When the national average price of regular unleaded gasoline peaked at $4.11 a gallon on July 17, diesel was $4.84, or 18 percent more, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Today, with gas at $2.55 a gallon, diesel is averaging $3.35.
Honda had said its first clean diesel for the U.S. would be in an unspecified Acura model (most industry watchers have speculated that it would be the TSX).
If the company pulls back for its 2009 launch date, the only diesel cars sold here will be from European manufacturers.
Like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and a few others, Honda has developed a so-called 50-state clean diesel that meets the tough California emissions standards and can be sold throughout the U.S. It uses a special catalytic converter that uses ammonia created in the engine exhaust to neutralize nitrogen oxides, or NOx.
Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest carmaker, increased global production in September to meet demand for small cars in the U.S. and emerging markets, Bloomberg news service reported Monday
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Output rose 9.6 percent to 360,453 vehicles last month, the company said in a statement. Honda also benefited from one to two extra production days in the U.S. this year, it said.
The company is shuffling U.S. production to keep factories busy and boost car output, while building fewer minivans and sport-utility vehicles as light-truck sales fall. Expansion in China is reducing Honda's reliance on the U.S., where U.S. industrywide sales this year have slid 13 percent through September, triggered by high gasoline prices and a credit crunch.
"Honda has a very focused strategy'' emphasizing small cars over larger vehicles, Hirofumi Yokoi, a Tokyo-based analyst at auto-consulting company CSM Worldwide, told Bloomberg. "That leaves them in pretty good shape right now.''
Honda's sales are down 1.1 percent this year, compared with an 18 percent drop for General Motors Corp., a 17 percent decline for Ford Motor Co. and a 25 percent plunge for Chrysler LLC. Sales for Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, have fallen 10 percent.
The rules were crystal: chow mescaline and Twinkies, crank Hendrix or Led Zep, and design alt-fuel race cars for model year 2025 that defy normal imaginations.
At least that's our understanding of the rules given the nine Southern California automotive design studios competing in the fifth annual L.A. Auto Show's Design Challenge.
This year's entries will be judged by Tom Matano of San Francisco's Academy of Art University, Imre Molner of Detroit's College for Creative Studies, Stewart Reed of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and Daniel Simon, founder of Cosmic Motors.
The winning design will be announced at the auto show on Nov. 20. And now for your dreaming pleasure:
After years of lackluster sales for its flagship sedan, Honda Motor Co. CEO Takeo Fukui announced today that the next-generation Acura RL will be fitted with a V8 engine.
---------- The insufficiently powered 2009 RL.
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Honda's luxury vehicle division has been around since 1986, and yet at a time when General Motors, Ford and other automakers are shelving thirsty V8s in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient engines, the move will mark the first time in Acura's 22-year history that it will place a V8 in any of its production models.
The timing couldn't be more peculiar, given the attention most people are giving pump prices these days.
Which isn't to say that Acura hasn't been accused of under-powering its top-of-the-line model. Rumors of it being offered with an optional V8 to compete with the top sedans of other luxury automakers have circulated nearly as long the RL has been around, which is a full dozen years.
With the entirely refreshed 2009 RL, Acura finally moved to replace its 290-horsepower 3.5-liter V6 with something more exciting. But instead of a V8, the automaker went with a 3.7-liter V6.
For buyers in the high-end sedan market, the 3.7 didn't cut it. Fukui as much as admitted that today.
"I don't think that the Acura RL 3.7-liter is sufficient," he said. "We can't compete with other premium brands."
Why oh why the Japanese automaker took so long to reach that conclusion he didn't say.
But Fukui did say the upcoming engine will "be completely different from conventional, past-generation ones and have excellent fuel efficiency."
A V8 with excellent fuel efficiency in a high-performance luxury sedan with the reliability of a Honda and the finish of, well, an Acura?
Looks like Honda Motor Co. will hang onto its controlling interest in natural gas refueling pump manufacturer FuelMaker Corp.
Honda and FuelMaker were unable to complete their end of a purchase agreement with Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fuel company co-founded by oil billionaire-turned-CNG-booster T. Boone Pickens, and the deal was terminated Wednesday.
Clean Energy, based in Southern California, had agreed last month to pay $17 million to purchase Toronto-based FuelMaker from Honda and the private trust that owns the minority interest in the Canadian company.
At the time, Clean Energy said it wanted Fuel Maker to take advantage of the growing demand for less-expensive alternatives to gasoline and diesel fuel by aggressively marketing the company's home- and business-based natural gas pumps.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued its 2009 fuel economy guide
, with Smart cars and Volkswagen diesels now appearing on the government's top-10 list of most fuel-efficient vehicles available in America.
The Toyota Prius once again retains its position atop the list, with fuel-economy ratings of 48 miles per gallon in the city and 45 on the highway.
The additions to the top 10 list this year are the Smart ForTwo convertible and coupe and the Volkswagen Jetta diesels.
The Smarts, which arrived in the U.S. in January, were too late to make the 2008 guide. This year the Smart models hold down the No. 5 spot with ratings of 33 mpg city and 41 mpg highway.
The Jetta diesels were too heavy on emissions to enter the U.S. market last year, but they are in this year with improved emissions controls.
The Jetta diesel sedan and wagon with manual transmissions are in seventh place with ratings of 30 mpg city and 41 mpg highway. The sedan and wagon with automatic transmissions are in eighth place with ratings of 29 city and 40 highway.
Without further ado, here is the top 10 list for 2009:
In response to customer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, Honda announced today
that it will increase production of 4-cylinder engines at its Anna, Ohio, engine plant and slash production of its Odyssey minivans, Ridgeline pickup trucks and Pilot sport utility vehicles.
The Japanese automaker also announced that starting next year it will increase production of 4-cylinder Accord sedans at its Marysville, Ohio, factory to reduce the number of 4-cylinder Accords it is importing from its Saitama Factory in Japan.
Honda further stated that by mid-2009, most of its V-6 Accord sedan production will shift from its Marysville plant to its factory in Lincoln, Alabama.
Through September 2008, more than 80 percent of Accord sales in the U.S. were produced in America. Following the production adjustments next year, an even higher percentage of Accords sold in the U.S. will be produced in Ohio and Alabama.
Honda built a record 1,432,731 cars and light trucks in North America in 2007, including 1,015,462 units in the U.S. Last year, 76 percent of all Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S. were produced in North America, the highest percentage for any international automaker.
Honda purchased more than $18.8 billion in parts and materials from suppliers in North America last year.
Honda Motor Co. has begun shifting production of its 4-door Civic from its East Liberty, Ohio, plant to its new assembly facility (right)
in Greensburg, Indiana.
That's of interest because one of the models in the 4-door line is the natural gas powered Honda Civic GX
, and there have been a few reports circulating that the move will disrupt supplies of the very green GX at a time the limited-production car is in high demand.
The GX is made in batches throughout the year and it probably is true that the move will delay a batch or two - we say "probably" because while a spokesman for Honda's sales and marketing unit in California says that's so, the always-secretive carmaker's manufacturing spokesman in Ohio won't discuss production scheduling.
But we are assured by Honda that even if the regular flow of the natural gas vehicles to the 114 Honda dealers authorized to sell them is momentarily interrupted, the total output for the 2009 model year won't be affected.
It's a bit of a tempest in a teapot, as Honda only plans to make 2,000 GX models for the year - but it's important to the growing number of consumers who see in the car a reasonable alternative to a gasoline-burner that is cleaner and can save them money.
Natural gas has about 30 percent less carbon content that gasoline and about 95 percent fewer smog-causing emissions. Natural gas also is cheaper (for now at least) than gasoline -- by $2 a gallon or more with at-home fuel systems that compress and pump natural gas from the residential supply.
The 2,000 GX models for the 2009 model year, by the way, is up from 1,000 GXs in the '08 model year - and Honda says it is considering doubling production again, to as many as 4,000 vehicles in 2010, if demand is still there.
Electric cars are the hot topic at this year's Paris auto show, with General Motors, Renault, Nissan, Smart and many lesser-known car manufacturers showing off a huge variety of EVs.
They range from wildly exotic supercars to tiny commuter cars that look ready to park in your driveway. Some are strictly concepts. Others could go on sale - even here in the U.S. -- much sooner than you think.
Green Car Advisor's man in Paris, contributor Nick Kurczewski, was at the show last week and offers some thoughts on the biggest electric-car newsmakers there.
Chevrolet Volt
- Yes, we've written a ton about it and you've read even more, but we still can't ignore it. There it was, sitting on the GM stand in Paris, bowtie gleaming in the spotlights.
Chevy's Volt is often called a plug-in hybrid, and it is a hybrid by definition. But it also is an electric car, using only an electric motor for propulsion.
Its small 1.4-liter gasoline engine cranks over only to recharge the batteries and never sends its power directly to the Volt's wheels.
Whether you consider it an EV or a hybrid, chances are the bigger factor in consumer acceptance of the four-door sedan will be its escalating price tag.
A new bill just signed by the White House makes the Volt eligible for a $7,500 federal income tax credit, but before applying that, the sticker price - which determines the size of down payments and monthly lease or purchase costs - is likely to be at or above $40,000 when it goes on sale in late 2010 in the U.S.
That's awfully steep sticker-price, especially considering that new Honda Insight hybrid will cost less than $20,000 when it arrives next year.
Renault Z.E. Concept
- Renault and its sister company, Nissan, are busy co-developing electric vehicles that will go on sale as early as 2010. The Z.E. Concept is the first indication as to where Renault is taking its version.
The design of the Z.E. - for Zero Emissions -- looks like a shortened version of the humble Renault Kangoo, a tall and boxy utility van currently sold throughout Europe. The green glass in the concept model adds a bizarre touch of show-car drama.
Other details include the use of rear-view cameras instead of side mirrors - to smooth out the aerodynamics and improve range - along with solar panels built into the roof, to aid battery recharging.
The Z.E. concept car uses double-walled insulating bodywork, which keeps the cabin cozy whether it is hot or cold outside and requires less energy from the ventilation system.
Its lithium-ion batteries provide a driving range between 60 to 90 miles.
Renault does not currently sell cars in America, which makes it unlikely the French manufacturer will ever bring its EV stateside.
But it's Japanese partner has other plans.
Nissan Nuvu
- Don't worry if you love the idea of an electric-powered Nissan but hate the blobby looks of the Nuvu concept car.
The 2+1 seat Nuvu is important chiefly because it offers a glimpse of the lithium-ion powered drivetrain of the electric vehicle Nissan says it will start selling in the U.S. in 2010.
The Japanese company reassures us that the quirky Nuvu is not a totally faithful indication of what this production car will eventually look like.
Under its skin, the Nuvu's battery pack provides a range of 75 miles and a top-speed of 78 miles per hour. Range will likely be improved, and the wacky looks toned down a bit when Nissan unveils a more accurate glimpse of its upcoming EV during next year's Tokyo motor show.
Volkswagen is weighing whether or not to export a small, fuel-efficient car to the U.S. to take on the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.
Stefan Jacoby, president of Volkswagen's U.S. operations, said Tuesday that VW's Passat sedan (starting at $28,300) and Jetta compact (starting at $17,300) are too pricey to compete in the high-volume affordable-car segment (the 2009 Civic starts at $15,200 and the 2009 Corolla at $16,700).
As a result, Volkswagen is considering bringing a subcompact to the American market, he said.
"We could imagine having a car like the Polo in the United States," Jacoby said, referring to the model that is a smaller version of the VW Rabbit hatchback. He said VW would likely make a decision within a year.
VW's U.S. sales peaked in 1970 at 570,000 vehicles, when it was offering the original Beetle. By 1993, its share of the market had dwindled to 49,000 vehicles, mainly due to competition from Japanese automakers.
The company sold 37,182 Passats and 98,951 Jettas in the United States last year.
In case you've been in a deep, dank cave with no wireless connection for the past few hours, the news du jour
is that the House has approved the Wall Street rescue measure that includes the original $700-billion in bail-out bucks plus wads of cash for renewable energy, biofuels and energy-efficiency programs.
The $17 billion energy package also includes a plug-in hybrids tax credit plan
with an estimated price tag of $1 billion. It won't expire until the auto industry has, collectively, sold 250,000 plug-in cars and trucks that run at least part of the time on all-electric drive from energy stored in rechargeable, on-board batteries.
While none of the major automakers has yet to offer a plug-in, just about all (Honda Motor Co. is a notable exception) are working on them, with General Motor Corp.'s Chevrolet Volt perhaps the best known of the bunch.
Reporters walking the floor of the Paris Auto Show this week, however, are seeing a lot more as European car makers seem to have embraced the idea
of electric cars and gas- and diesel-electric hybrids with a fervor usually associated with revival meeting preachers.
It's been pretty well established that there wasn't much of an auto market in the U.S. last month.
"Catastrophe" and "disaster" are applicable adjectives; "It sucked" is how some wags have described it.
---------- Sales of new GM hybrid SUVs like this Chevrolet Tahoe helped hybrid market. ----------
We've had Edmunds' crack number crunchers parsing the data for us, looking for any glimmer of hope that might be found in the "green" and fuel-efficiency parts of the market and, so, far, have to say that they haven't come up with much.
The first pass through Wednesday's raw sales data provides at look at how hybrids did in comparison to the market as a whole.
And depending on how you do the comparison - to the previous month or to the same month a year ago - we found a mixed message for September hybrid sales.
Hybrid Segment Outpaces Market
The market as a whole was down 26.5 percent from September 2007 and was off 22.5 percent from August '08. It was the first month since the late 1990s that sales dropped below the 1-million mark.
The concept version of the 2009 Honda Insight Hybrid was unveiled at the Paris Auto Show this morning, providing us a good idea of what the production car is likely to look like, but little new information about the car or its powertrain beyond what Honda already told us last month
.
The one bit of news that did squeak out came form Honda President and Chief Executive Takeo Fukui, who said when introducing the Insight Hybrid concept that the production car is expected to post fuel economy figures "on par" with those for the slightly larger Honda Civic Hybrid.
The Civic hybrid is rated at 40 miles per gallon in the city and 45 mpg on the highway.
Previsouly, Honda described the 2009 Insight Hybrid as a five-seat, five-door hatchback aimed at entry-level hybrid buyers who might otherwise be looking at rival Toyota's Prius.
The Insight Hybrid, Honda has hinted, is likely to come to market priced at under $20,000, well below the Prius' starting price of $21,500 (before dealers start slapping on premium charges because the car is in high demand), and the Civic hybrid's $22,600 base price.
Honda also has said that it took most of the Insight Hybrid's styling cues form the limited production 2009 FCX Clarity (right), and many auto critics have noted a distinct similarity between the Clarity and the Prius.
Although it is doubtful that the neat blue accent lighting around the 2009 Insight's grille (see photos below) will make it to production, and the concept car's tires and wheels likely will be downsized, there's a good bet that the car that bowed in Paris this morning is pretty much what we'll see when Honda takes the wraps off the production model at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show in January.
AltCar Expo 2008 closed its doors Saturday evening, ending from what by all accounts was another successful effort to showcase alternative transporation or fuels technologies to mainstream consumers.
We brought you a couple of pre-event reports and now are taking advantage of the goods nature of one of our colleagues, Edmunds New Product Manager Dori Merifield, to bring us a wrap-up report from the eyes - and pen - of one of those interested consumers.
Dori is an member of Edmund's corporate Green Team, helping to make sure the company is an environmentally responsible corporate citizen, and is an active environmental advocate in her own right.
She spent much of Saturday at AltCar, listening to the various symposia, examining displays and vehicles and talking to expo-goers and exhibitors about the event and the products.
Here's her report:
Thousands of people visited AltCar Expo over the weekend, many hoping to find an efficient but viable alternative to their present cars and trucks.
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was filled with vehicles large and small that ran on a variety of alternative fuels - electricity, natural gas, hydrogen, biodiesel and even compressed air.
AltCar visitor examines Hybrid Technologies' Mini Cooper EV conversion.
There were also lots of conversion companies on hand hoping to persuade people of the wisdom of converting existing cars to a plug-in electric vehicles.
At one symposium, UC Davis Professor Andy Frank - father of the plug-in - explained why using electric cars to help reduce our oil consumption is so important: "Oil production is going to peak this year or next - after that supply will decrease and the cost will only increase."
Peter Ward, of the California Energy Commission staff, said the bigger problem is that 38 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California come from transportation (a lot of that is from buses, delivery trucks and other commercial vehicles) and that the state is the third largest consumer of gasoline in the world.
Frank believes the solution is to convert existing cars to alternative energy.
Most cars on the road aren't new, he said, "so if only 10 percent of new cars are hybrid or electric, we're only replacing 1% of all the cars on the road each year. We simply don't have 50 years to make this change."
PORTLAND, Or. - In a move that could give a big boost to proponents of natural gas as an automotive fuel, hybrid car leader Toyota Motor Corp. says it will show off a "concept" CNG Camry Hybrid at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November.
Bill Reinert, Toyota's North American advanced technology vehicles manager, said the automaker hasn't decided to put the car into production and wants to use its showing at the heavily visited LA show to gather consumer feedback on the idea of a hybrid that used compressed national gas to power its internal combustion engine.
For consumers where CNG is available - there are only 1,000 pumps nationwide and half aren't open to the public - the idea has merit.
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2009 Camry Hybrid uses gasoline enging, electric motgor. Is a natural gas-electric version soon to follow?
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CNG delivers the same fuel economy as gasoline and is considerably less expensive.
It also is far cleaner-burning that gasoline, with fewer smog-causing emissions and less carbon dioxide.
For Toyota, and other automakers, use of CNG helps overcome growing concerns about the impacts on their businesses of global oil depletion and the drive for U.S. energy independence.
The announcement was made Tuesday in Portland during a day-long Toyota Sustainable Mobility Conference at which one keynote speaker pointed out that of all the alternative fuels on the table today, natural gas is perhaps the easiest to put into widespread use, and also is the most plentiful.
"It lasts a lot longer than crude oil," noted oil industry consultant Peter Wells said of the global supply of natural gas.
Toyota's concept marries its Hybrid Synergy Drive system to a CNG-fueled four-cylinder engine that likely would be modified for high compression to optimize natural gas' high octane level.
It would be the only CNG-electric hybrid on the road if put into production, and only one of two factory-built CNG vehicles.
We opined last week that Honda was skipping at least the initial heat of the battery electric vehicle race to concentrate on its hybrid and fuel-cell electric programs.
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Honda believes fuel-cell electric cars such as its FCX Clarity will be marketable before battery-electric vehicles can make the grade.
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Now comes word, via Bloomberg News, that the automaker also is bowing out of the plug-in hybrid contest.
Batteries just aren't advanced enough to make rechargeable gasoline-electric vehicles sensible replacements for gasoline-only cars, Honda research chief Masaaki Kato said in a recent interview with the business news service.
"For battery-powered vehicles to become more widespread, more popular in the market, we feel battery technology needs to advance further,'' Kato said. "We just don't see it providing the type of driving performance you get with a gasoline-powered vehicle.''
Honda's reticence flys in the face of aggressive moves by General Motors Corp, with its promised Volt plug-in sedan, due in fleets in small numbers toward the end of next year and scheduled for mass production at the end of 2010, and Toyota Motor Corp., which is developing a plug-in Prius hybrid for fleet use and has scheduled a late 2009 introduction (no word on when or if the car will be made available in the retail market).
Paris, fashion capital of the world, usually has more influence on what hangs in your closet than what's parked in your driveway.
But from October 4th through the 19th, when the doors to the Paris auto show are open to the public, the automobile takes center stage in the City of Lights, and big fuel economy numbers will be as essential to automakers as little red dresses or neatly tailored black suits are to the fashion world. Â
Car manufacturers will be displaying everything from hybrids, such as the new Honda Insight, to electric cars and fuel-sipping diesel and gas-powered models like the new Ford Ka and Toyota iQ (above) city cars.
To help whet your appetites, Green Car Advisor offers a look at the cars that are set to make the biggest impression in this distinctively enviro-chic auto show:
Honda Insight
The newest hybrid from Honda represents the Japanese company's most determined effort at cracking Toyota's stranglehold on this increasingly important market.
The five-passenger, four-door hatchback uses an improved version of Honda's Integrated Motor Assist system. Better fuel economy, a lower center of gravity and reduced cost are said to be the main benefits.
The Insight is expected to be cheaper than its rival, the next-generation Toyota Prius, when both cars go on sale early next year. Our one complaint: Why did Honda feel the need to copy the potatolike profile of the Prius?
Toyota iQ
If the Insight is Honda's take on a Prius fighter, the iQ is Toyota's attempt at outsmarting the Smart Fortwo.
The iQ is slightly longer than the Smart, and the Japanese city car offers two tiny rear seats, whereas the Fortwo -- as the name makes clear -- is strictly a two-seater.
The iQ goes on sale in Japan in October and in Europe later this year.
Will Toyota bring the iQ Stateside? The company's not saying, but with the sales success of the Smart Fortwo in America, it would be pretty dumb not to consider the idea. And Toyota's not noted for dumb.
Some blogs are reporting today that the U.S. government is now offering tax incentives for five diesel models, three from Mercedes-Benz and two from Volkswagen.
We brought you that information weeks ago, when it had just come out of the oven, so to speak.
But in case you missed it, here it is again, in a wrap-up of all the fuel-efficient vehicles that are now eligible for U.S. tax credits.
Just click on the charts below for easily readable charts of what's available.
Honda Motor Co. and Yamaha Motor Co. have set launch dates for electric motorcycles, the Nikkei business daily reported today.
Yamaha aims to launch electric motorcycles by 2010 with a range of 60 miles on a single charge, comparable to those with 50cc engine displacements, the paper said.
There was no information regarding the Yamaha's battery.
Honda, the world's largest motorcycle maker, will launch lithium-ion battery electric motorcycles in 2011, targeting fleet customers such as Japan Post Service, which likely would consider replacing its 90,000 gas-powered motorcycles with electric models.
Neither officials at Honda nor Yamaha would provide additional details, including prices.
A Honda Cub Concept fuel-cell motorcycle is pictured above.
As has been noted here and in our longterm vehicles blog, Edmunds' 2007 Honda Civic GX doesn't generate a lot of news. It's a competent daily commuter with carpool lane access and relatively cheap fuel that is plentiful in some places (ie: Utah, Southern California, parts of Oklahoma) and hard to find in others.
But as a leading player in the alternative fuels arena, Honda's natural gas car it ought to help generate discussion about energy resources.
As we approach a pivotal presidential election (correction - they're all pivotal, this one is going to be a real game-changer in terms of the directions we're heading on many fronts), we need to start talking about oil and gasoline prices and availability versus energy security.
Do we simply want to make more oil available so it and the fuels derived from it are cheaper - "drill, baby, drill," as those suited cheerleaders at the GOP convention were shouting last week - or do we want to figure out ways to free ourselves from oil's tyranny?
While rivals in Japan are increasingly experimenting with small electric vehicles, Honda Motor Co. apparently is sticking to its guns and arguing that battery-electric cars still don't make sense.
The automaker, which already boasts the industry's most fuel-efficient fleet, doesn't believe that battery technology is sufficiently advanced to make a case for electric vehicles, Honda's research and development chief told industry trade journal Automotive News.
R&D chief Masaaki Kato said he sees EVs limited for now to short-range commuter and inter-city delivery vehicles.
Rival Toyota Motor Co. apparently figures that's a good-enough market and is joining Mitsubishi and Subaru in developing a minicar EV of its own.
And Nissan, Renault and several other carmakers apparently don't buy Honda's argument at all and have invested in battery-making enterprises and are designing full-service electric cars for the global market.
Subaru parent Fuji Heavy Industries has decided to join the growing cadre of carmakers hustling to launch battery-electric vehicles for the retail market.
A report in Automotive News, a subscription-only auto industry journal, says the company intends to build a limited run of four-seat minicar EVs with a range of 50 miles per charge. The cars will be based on the gasoline-fueled Subaru Stella model and intended for Japan's intra-city commuter market.
Actually, Subaru pretty much confirmed production plans for the car during the New York Auto Show in March, and introduced a few concept models of its EV at the recent G8 economic summit in Japan earlier this summer. But it's nice to see additional info hitting the media.
Subaru plans to launch the cars next year and is aiming to sell about 200 to fleet customers in Japan.
Like Mitsubishi's minicar-based i-MiEV electric car, the Subaru EV isn't intended for the U.S. market, Automotive News reports - although Fuji put a couple test cars into service in New York following the auto show there earlier this year and is about to wrap up a six-month test to gauge the cars' chances in this market.
(We also suspect that Mitsubish, which has tested its i-MiEV in the States, is rethinking its plans and considering the possibility that these tiny cars just might have a future here if marketed to the proper audience.)
Power for the Suby EV will be storied in and delivered by a lithium-ion battery pack from Automotive Energy Supply Corp. - a joint venture of Nissan Motor Co. and NEC.
Ever since Honda CEO Takeo Fukui revealed that the carmaker is developing a hybrid version of its popular Fit subcompact, the widespread impression has been that the car will be introduced sometime around 2010 and will be sold in the U.S. alongside Honda's other hybrids.
We'll admit to being among those who've helped spread that word, and we were about to do it again this week when we wrote about Honda releasing the first photo of its upcoming small and affordable hybrid, the five-seat, five-door Insight hatchback sedan.
But while checking a couple of facts with the carmaker, American Honda spokesman Sage Marie pointed out that - while he and others at the company haven't said so before - the word on the Fit hybrid is all wrong.
"There are no plans to bring it to the U.S.," Marie said, indicating that a Fit hybrid would just be competition for the new Insight hybrid that will be launched next spring.
Nor will Honda be introducing the hybrid version of the Fit in any country any time soon. The car was just redesigned for 2009, and a hybrid version won't be offered until the next redesign, Marie said.
That's four to five years from now.
What we do have to look forward to from Honda
during that period is continued improvements to the already industry-leading fuel efficiency of it gas engines; a new diesel; the Insight hybrid,
a sporty hybrid model based on the CR-Z sport coupe concept, and a redesigned Civic hybrid.
There is no Honda plug-in hybrid in the works, Fukui has said repeatedly that without a major battery breakthrough he doesn't see much economic promise in PHEVs
But the carmaker continues to work on electric drivetrains and has promised --- although with no timetable -- a smaller, less expensive version of the FCX Clarity
fuel-cell car.
We suspect, though, that unless/until industry gets off its collective hind end and figures out a way to make and distribute carbon-neutral hydrogen fuel, that no version of the Clarity, or any other fuel-cell car, is going to be more than an exercise in green public relations.
As promised, Honda has released the first official photo of its new Prius-fighter, the 2010 Honda Insight hybrid.
Smaller than the Honda Civic Hybrid but still a five-seat vehicle, the new Insight (right) is expected to be priced at under $20,000, making it the least-expensive hybrid on the market when it goes on sale next year.
Although still called a "concept," the car pictured is not expected to be much different from the production version that will be introduced in the flesh (so to speak) on Oct. 2 at the Paris Motor Show.
The Insight, a five-door hatchback sedan, takes many of its styling cues from Honda's FCX Clarity fuel-cell electric car, Honda says - ignoring critics who say it owes a lot of its look to Toyota's Prius, the world's best-selling hybrid.
(Honda probably wouldn't be hurt if that association was to be made by a lot of buyers, but we're not going to suggest that any resemblance to the Prius is intentional. Both cars were designed to minimize wind resistance, and that pretty much dictates the basic body shape.)
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Honda's Insight (right) and the CR-Z concept (left) borrow design cues from FCX Clarity fuel-cell car (center).
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Whatever it looks like, the new Insight - which takes its name from the original Honda hybrid, the two-seat Insight introduced in 1999 and discontinued in 2006 - sticks with Honda's proprietary Integrated Motor Assist hybrid system.
It is a somewhat downsized version of the system, though, likely with a smaller battery pack and power control unit than in the IMA system that helps propel the Civic Hybrid. A smaller car, however, can get away with a smaller hybrid system.
While not revolutionary on the technology side of things, the new Insight is a ground-breaker on the price front.
It "will break new ground as an affordable hybrid within the reach of customers who want great fuel economy and great value," said Takeo Fukui, Honda chief executive.
The company wouldn't disclose fuel economy estimates, but one would expect a car that is lighter and more streamlined than the Civic hybrid to deliver better mileage.
Honda says the Insight will be followed - probably sometime in 2010 - by an all-new model based on the CR-Z sport coupe concept car shown at the Tokyo Auto Show in October, 2007.
As we've reported
, Honda Motor Co. plans to launch a response to Toyota's Prius with a gas-electric hybrid hatchback of their own, available in April 2009.
Today Honda announced that it's going to release photos of the vehicle this Thursday, Sept. 4.
The decision comes less than a week after the Japanese automotive magazine Best Car published a rendering of the as-yet-unnamed hybrid (right).
The magazine said the rendering is based on spy photos and inside information of the Prius challenger.
As we've previously reported, Honda is planning to offer the five-passenger hatchback for less than $20,000. The Prius currently has a base price of $21,500.
Honda has not released fuel economy figures for its new hybrid. The Prius gets an estimated 45 miles per gallon on the highway and 48 in the city.
As the nine cars crossed the Hydrogen Road Tour
"finish line" Saturday in the shadow of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, promoters of the 13-day, 31-city event piped in Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" - theme song of "Rocky III" -as many in the audience of about 150 people waved mini checkered flags.
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Daimler's A-Class mercedes-Benz fuel cell car on display at Road Tour finale.
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The image they hoped to convey, of course, was the hydrogen, like actor Sylvester Stallone's fictional fighter, Rocky, is a winner.
It remains to be seen, though, whether the hydrogen fuel-cell technology promoted by the tour has a chance of knocking gas-electric hybrids out of contention as the dominant alternative to fossil fuel-powered engines.
Fully fueled, such cars, which produce electricity through an electro-chemical process in the fuel cell stack and limit tailpipe emissions to mere drops of water, have traveling ranges that vary from 100 miles for Daimler's Mercedes-Benz F-Cell to about 270 miles for Honda's FCX Clarity.
General Motors announced late today that the company will invest more than $500 million in the United States to build the Chevrolet Cruze, an all-new fuel-efficient global compact car with a highway mileage target "in the forties."
Of the $500 million, America's largest automaker will spend approximately $350 million to prepare its Lordstown, Ohio, plant to build the Cruze (right) with production starting in the first half of 2010, GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson told Green Car Advisor.
Most of the $350 million will be used to consolidate the plant's two body shops into one, Tom Mock, communications manager for the plant, told us.
The rest of the investment will go into the plant's general assembly area, which will have added space when the body shops are consolidated. Mock said GM is determining what content it will put in that area to further improve efficiency.
The race to develop advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles took an expected turn today, with German parts supplier Bosch and Korean electronics giant Samsung announcing they have received all regulatory approvals to launch a joint venture to develop the batteries.
The joint venture will be headquartered in Korea and bear the name SB LiMotive Co. Bosch and Samsung each own 50 percent of the new company.
The company's objective, Bosch and Samsung said in a statement, is to "series-manufacture highly efficient lithium-ion batteries customized to automotive requirements and to market them worldwide from 2011."
Samsung has extensive experience developing lithium-ion batteries for a broad range of non-automotive applications, including notebook computers, power tools and mobile handsets.
Bosch will contribute the experience it has gained in recent few years with its "Project House Hybrid," which focused on power electronics, battery management, electrical engines and transmission systems.
The development of new, advanced lithium-ion batteries is widely regarded as the last big obstacle separating a world in which the vast majority of vehicles are gasoline powered and a world predominated by gas-electric hybrids and pure electric vehicles.
SB LiMotive enters an increasingly competitive market. Among the companies that are working on advanced lithium-ion batteries are Mitsubishi, Honda, Sanyo, LG Chem, Compact Power, A123 Systems, Continental, General Motors, and Johnson Controls-Saft.
In case you've been wondering, major automakers and the lame-duck Bush Administration have reaffirmed their joint commitment to hydrogen fuel and to getting fuel-cell electric and other hydrogen-using vehicles into the retail market by 2018.
The happy group renewed its vows during a hydrogen technology showcase Thursday in Washington.
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A pair of Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell electric Vehicles are shown in rendering of a hydrogen fuel station being installed near los Angeles International Airport.
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"With continued investment, hydrogen holds the potential to help fundamentally change the way we power our vehicles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Bud Albright, an Energy Department undersecretary, said in remarks delivered during the public showcase.
The Energy Department, Transportation Department, nine automakers with prototype hydrogen-using vehicles and a number of fuel companies and other hydrogen advocates are in the midst of a cross-country tour to promote hydrogen as the logical successor to oil for fueling cars and trucks.
The manufacturers in "Hydrogen Road Tour '08" are BMW, Daimler, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co., Hyundai-Kia, Nissan Motor Co., Toyota Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG.
A top Honda Motor Co. executive said today that the company's new gas-electric hybrid hatchback be available in April 2009.
The five-passenger hatchback will be priced below the Prius, its prime competitor, as well as the hybrid version of Honda's Civic, Richard Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., said today at the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Mich.
Colliver's comment regarding the vehicle's price confirms our earlier report that the vehicle will be available for less than $20,000. The Civic Hybrid starts at $22,600, while the Prius has a base price of $21,500.
Colliver said Honda wants to make the hybrid affordable to a new generation of buyers, but it is not specifically trying to match Prius sales. Toyota sold more than 181,000 Priuses last year, and so far this year it has sold more than 106,000.
Honda's Integrated Motor Assist mild hybrid system (right) would get a boost from new high-power lithium-ion batteries the company could start using for 2010 models.
By Bill Visnic, Senior Editor
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich
. -- Honda Motor Co. is preparing for an all-new, advanced lithium-ion battery that will allow its engineers to extend Honda's Integrated Motor Assist hybrid-electric technology to larger vehicles, a senior company executive told Green Car Advisor during an annual auto-industry conference frequented by heavy-hitters from carmakers' management ranks.
Honda has in the past been non-committal about lithium-ion, but that posture apparently is changing. And Honda recently was linked in lithium-ion talk with Japanese electronics giant and battery developer Sanyo Electric Co.
John German, American Honda's manager of environmental and energy analysis, said the coming lithium-ion battery formula -- the developer of which he wouldn't name -- does not enjoy extra capacity compared with known lithium-ion characteristics. Instead, the new chemistry is targeted at allowing the batteries to charge much more quickly.
This, in turn, will allow for an increased amount of battery capacity that can be assigned to actually powering the motor. And more power means the IMA system can be employed for larger, heavier vehicles.
The hot air that escapes from a car's tailpipe could help us use less gas.
Researchers are competing to meet a challenge from the U.S. Department of Energy to improve fuel economy 10 percent by using wasted exhaust heat as energy to help power the vehicle, according to an Associated Press article.
General Motors is close to reaching the goal, as is a BMW supplier working with Ohio State University. Their research into thermoelectrics -- the science of using temperature differences to create electricity -- couldn't come at a better time, as high gas prices accelerate efforts to make vehicles as efficient as possible.
GM researcher Jihui Yang told the AP that a metal-plated device that surrounds an exhaust pipe could increase fuel economy in a Chevrolet Suburban by about 5 percent, a 1-mile-per-gallon improvement that would be even greater in a smaller vehicle.
The mileage improvement was achieved by using the generated electricity to reduce the load on the alternator. Because it takes mechanical power from the crankshaft to move a belt that runs the alternator that produces electricity to power headlights, ignition coils, the radio and other electrical components, the greater the load on the alternator, the greater the demand on the vehicle's fuel to turn the crankshaft.
Reaching the goal of a 10 percent improvement would save more than 100 million gallons of fuel per year in GM vehicles in the U.S. alone, the AP reported.
Honda's FCX Clarity fuel-cell electric car (right) is one of 10 vehicles traveling 'cross country in Hydrogen Road Tour '08.
Ever wonder what a hydrogen fuel cell really looks like, or how a fuel-cell electric vehicle handles? Itching to try that hydrogen-burning BMW 7-Series that so far has been piloted publicly only by high profile business, entertainment and political people?
(Article modified at 6:45 a.m, Pacific Daylight Time)
Your chance of laying eyes, or hands, on a vehicle using what many still believe will be the fuel of the future increases beginning today as a coalition of hydrogen backers launch a 13-day, 18-state, 31-city, cross-country tour to boost interest in hydrogen vehicles.
We wish them well. And we hope everyone who has a chance stops by, takes a look - or a drive - and becomes a hydrogen missionary.
But there's a sad note to what is being billed as the "Hydrogen Road Tour '08."
At times, Mostly,
the vehicles will be trucked rather than driven to locations very near their various destinations on diesel or gasoline-burning commercial carriers. After being off-loaded, they'll be driven under their own power just a few short miles to the venues.
Honda will pull the wraps off its new Toyota Prius fighter -- a compact five-door hatchback sedan hybrid (right)
priced from under $20,000 -- at the 2008 Paris Auto Show in early October.
As yet unnamed, the vehicle -- Honda's first dedicated hybrid since the Insight -- is known inside the company as the New Dedicated Hybrid Vehicle, or simply the "small hybrid." It will be christened at Paris with a new nameplate, although Honda insiders now dismiss earlier speculation that it might revive the Insight name.
The small hybrid is one of four new gas-electric models that Honda plans to roll out over the next four years, as part of a broad global strategy to boost hybrid sales to 500,000 units by 2012 -- about 10 percent of its total sales volume.
Also in the pipeline is a production version of the sporty CR-Z hybrid coupe that made its debut as a concept at last year's Tokyo show and is now due to arrive in early 2010; a replacement for the current Civic Hybrid, in late 2010; and a new hybrid edition of the subcompact Fit in 2012.
The small hybrid that's coming next year is intended to be an "entry level" model that should undercut the price of the Toyota Prius by thousands of dollars. The production version of the Honda hybrid is expected to be formally unveiled in January at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, when Toyota plans to introduce its next-generation 2010 Prius.
Go to Edmunds.com's Inside Linefor more on Honda's unnamed but much-anticipated hybrid.
Honda Motor Co. today announced that its second FCX Clarity customer -- actress Jamie Lee Curtis and actor-filmmaker-composer Christopher Guest -- took delivery of the vehicle last Thursday.
The couple are the second of 200 customers who will begin leasing the vehicle in the U.S. or Japan over the next three years.
"I really wasn't expecting it to be so luxurious," the effervescent Curtis said of the next-generation, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle. "I love the interior layout, design and access to controls."
Curtis (a scream queen best known for her roles in Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train) and Guest (the unforgettable Nigel Tufnel in the 1984 "rockumentary" film This Is Spinal Tap) live in Santa Monica, California. They have owned alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles, and a strong advocates of a greener lifestyle.
Ron Yerxa and Annette Ballester of Santa Monica took delivery of the first FCX Clarity on July 25.
Honda made significant advances with this generation of FCX Clarity over its previous one. They include a 25 percent increase in combined fuel economy to 74 miles per gallon equivalent and a greater than 30 percent increase in driving range up to 280 miles.
Propelled by an electric motor that runs on electricity generated in the fuel cell, the vehicle's only by-products are heat and water and its fuel efficiency is three times that of a modern gasoline-powered automobile.
Auto dealers and consumer advocates told federal rulemakers today that a proposed 25 percent mandatory increase in fleetwide fuel economy standards is out of touch with importance buyers now give fuel-efficiency.
Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America, said rulemakers wrongly assumed U.S. drivers would continue to covet large trucks and SUVs, even though car buyers began moving to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in 2004.
"The auto industry acts as if plummeting SUV and pickup truck sales are a new phenomena," he told the National Transportation Safety Board at a Washington public hearing. "The fact is, gas-guzzling-vehicle sales have been falling off a cliff for over three years. And yet the administration's proposed fuel economy standards presumes no fall and no cliff."
As a result, Cooper said, the proposed fleetwide fuel economy standard of 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015 would fail to meet consumer demands. According to a study performed by his organization, 59 percent of those surveyed want their next vehicle to get more than 35 mpg. Meanwhile, only 1 percent of new models offer that degree of fuel economy.
Adam Lee, president of Lee Auto Malls, which has a dozen Maine dealerships, said he has seen firsthand the shifting buying trends that have resulted in across-the-board losses for major carmakers.
Lee said he has laid off salespeople while waiting for automakers to produce the type of cars Americans want. "We just don't have the cars to sell," he said. "And I'm not just talking hybrids.... Consumers are waiting for good, old-fashioned small cars."
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