Green Car Advisor
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August 18, 2008
Toyota has said it out loud, but apparently all the other major automakers are on board with the idea as well: everything's gonna be a hybrid before long.
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Sustainability concerns, social responsibility will double in importance in auto industry decision making over the next dozen years, study found.
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That's the message in a recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value, which found that automakers, equipment suppliers and industry consultants overwhelmingly agree that by 2020 all new vehicles will feature some degree of hybridization.
The report, Automotive 2020: Clarity Beyond the Chaos, says that sustainability will be second on a rapidly greening auto industry's priority list , closely trailing -- and closely tied to -- technological progress.
The authors say that 125 industry executives representing 85 percent of the world's major auto industry companies -- including the 10 largest carmakers -- participated in the study.
They agreed that sustainability issues will drive investments and decision-making (what kinds of vehicles to build, what performance capabilities to stress, even what paints to use) for decades to come.
Battery technology - for hybrids and, some day, all-electric vehicles - will be foremost among the factors pushing the industry to innovate, the study says.
But the driver in first place, by a long shot, is us.
"Enlightened consumers will expect their vehicles to provide information, entertainment, safety and convenience. They will demand economy, environmental responsibility and sustainability," the authors write in their forward.
And woe to the automaker that doesn't listen.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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- John O'Dell August 18, 2008, 3:30 PM
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- Green Vehicles, Hybrid, Surveys
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- Hybrid
, IBM Institute for Business Value, Sustainability
August 4, 2008
Portland, Ore., encourages mass transit with convenience and cheap fares. It costs $2.05 for the 11-mile trip from downtown to the Portland International airport on the city's electric trains.By John O'Dell, Senior EditorThere are a lot of people trying to get us to give up on the ides of independent, personal transportation - i.e., the private automobile.
But I've come away from a two-day "Meeting of the Minds" program in Portland, Ore., with a new example of just how difficult it will be to kill the spirit of independence that has made ownership and use of private vehicles in the U.S. as sacrosanct as the right to vote.
The upshot of
the program, convened to examine ways of making our cities more sustainable, was that we are rapidly approaching the point of no return - some pessimists believe we stepped over the threshold years ago.
Change Is Needed We have got to make some radical and rapid changes in the way we approach transportation if we wants our urban core, indeed our entire society, to survive the 21st Century.
It was largely an urban planning and policy wonk crowd, so while there was some enthusiasm for hastening the arrival of plug-in hybrids, (Toyota Motor Co. was a principal sponsor) there was little discussion of other green transportation alternatives that would leave people with personal vehicles.
Instead, the focus was more on things that could be done to get us out of cars, or at least out of single-occupant cars, and into carpools, transit buses, trains and other means of mass transit.
Pay to GoSuggestions abounded for carbon taxes, higher gasoline taxes, toll roads and other plans that would have us pay for the privilege of driving. Such disincentives probably would make most of us greener drivers, simply by making us cut down on the amount of driving we do in order to have a few bucks each month for things like food and rent.
I'm not opposed to such ideas - after all, if we don't change the way we do things, we sooner than later may not be able to do things at all.
Continue reading...
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- John O'Dell August 4, 2008, 9:23 AM
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- Opinion, Surveys, Transportation Alternatives
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, Mass Transit, Meeting Of The Minds, Zip Car
July 28, 2008
If you think gasoline is expensive now, thank your creator that it's not 1920.
Back then, gas cost 20 cents a gallon - and it was no bargain at that price.
The average American made $1,500 in 1920, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
If, like many Americans today, you put 10,000 miles a year on your Model T back then and got 15 miles per gallon, you'd have spent $133 annually at the pump.
Or to put it another way, nearly 10 percent of your income was spent on gasoline.
So who could afford to put a lot of miles on a vehicle back then without thinking twice about gas prices? Babe Ruth for one.
In 1920, the Boston Red Sox traded him to the New York Yankees for $125,000. At the time, the sum was the largest ever paid for a player.
Scott Doggett, Contributor
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- Scott Doggett July 28, 2008, 9:24 AM
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- Ford, Fuel Economy, Hybrid, Plug-ins and Electric, Surveys
July 10, 2008
Mitsubishi Motors gave the nod today for production of a new compact crossover model based on the popular Concept-cX that debuted at last September's Frankfurt Motor Show.
Featuring a family of Euro-5 clean-diesel engines -- including a new 1.8-liter 4-cylinder turbocharged engine that produces 134 horsepower and 207 pound feet of torque -- a high-efficiency turbocharger and a diesel-oxidation catalyst with particulate filter, the full-time AWD sub-Outlander compact will serve as the showcase vehicle for the automaker's coming enviro-friendly technologies.
The wedge-shaped compact sport utility vehicle will wear the "Jet Fighter" grille introduced with the all-new Lancer family and use a derivative of Outlander's 4-wheel-drive drivetrain. Mitsubishi says the crossover will be the missing link (or is that the "found link"?) between its SUVs and its passenger cars.
The first production model is expected to roll off the assembly line in late 2009. Whether that vehicle or any of its clones will be sold in the U.S. has yet to be decided.
Also unknown is how a group of esteemed green-car enthusiasts would respond if asked whether the grille is more characterist of, say, the gull-sucking air intake manifold of an F-4 Phantom II supersonic fighter-bomber or the gaping maw of a great white shark? There is no wrong answer, though we'll be bitterly disappointed if you pick gull-sucking air intake manifold of an F-4 Phantom II supersonic fighter-bomber.
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- Scott Doggett July 10, 2008, 11:18 PM
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- Auto Shows, Diesel, Emissions, Fuel Economy, Mitsubishi, Surveys
Toyota has said it out loud, but apparently all the other major automakers are on board with the idea as well: everything's gonna be a hybrid before long.
