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Hi everyone, I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was a lovely one. In this issue, we take a gander at the LA Auto Show to see if the new hybrids on display are turkeys (I know, I have to stop the holiday metaphors), and give a little primer on the “greening” of rental cars in preparation for the holiday travel season. Plus some new members of the “Who’s Got Hybrids?” family, and a fresh update on fuel economy and the Energy Bill.
Have a wonderful and safe holiday season!
Scott Nathanson
UCS National Field Organizer &
HybridCenter.org Administrator
In this issue:
 It’s down to the wire—but it looks like we’ll finally have votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate on the final Energy Bill in the next few weeks! Negotiations on improvements to Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are still ongoing. While things generally look favorable, potential 11th hour threats remain—ranging from weakening the 35 miles per gallon by 2020 standard, to using the new fuel economy standard as a tool to preempt both the Supreme Court mandate that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulate automotive global warming pollution and the states’ right to adopt the California clean car standards (shout-out to New Mexico, who adopted the standards this week!). Please take action today to help ensure that key elements in this Energy Bill remain strong.
With a final decision on fuel economy standards in Congress imminent, it’s time to take a look at what else is on the horizon. One of those items is a major initiative by the Bush administration called “20 in 10.” I asked UCS Vehicles Washington Representative Eli Hopson to give a little primer on the subject. Here’s what he had to say:
After the Supreme Court directed the EPA to regulate global warming pollution from automobiles, the president combined global warming reductions with an effort to reduce gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. This would be done in two parts: increasing vehicle fuel economy and increasing the volume of renewable fuels used.
 If the president delivers what he's promised, his proposal would take the nation a long way toward reducing its dependence on oil and cutting global warming pollution. But, given that the Supreme Court had to force the Bush administration to regulate heat-trapping gases in the first place, Congress is going to have to keep a close eye on the regulation, and enact guaranteed fuel economy increases and a low carbon fuel standard to ensure progress.
The level of the administration’s commitment to reducing global warming pollution will be tested when they announce their decision about granting the waiver to allow California and 12 other states to regulate global warming pollution from cars and trucks. Now that the administration has accepted the Supreme Court's decision on global warming pollution there is no excuse to hold up state efforts to cut pollution under the Clean Air Act.
Here’s what to watch for when the “20-in-10” regulation comes out:
Improvement in Vehicle Emissions
There’s also no guarantee that the oil use reduction levels proposed by the president in the State of the Union will actually be met, as the auto industry has been furiously lobbying to reduce the increase in federal fuel economy standards below the four percent annual improvement upon which 20 in 10 is based.
Carbon Reductions Required from Fuels
Not all alternative fuels are created equal. If alternative fuels are made from coal instead of renewable resources—such as grasses and other so called “cellulosic” sources—the president will not meet his goal of reducing global warming pollution from cars, trucks, and SUVs. Making gasoline or diesel from coal would nearly double the amount of global warming pollution produced from gasoline today. In contrast, cellulosic ethanol could reduce global warming pollution by 80 percent.
Unless significant reductions are required from both vehicles and fuels, the administration won’t be living up to the promise of 20-in-10, and will likely fall short of the president’s goal.
We’ll have a lot more on this in the months to come, so stay tuned…
- GM’s two-mode aims to outshine Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive: At this point, it seems like no one can overtake Toyota as the hybrid leader. But General Motors is clearly putting on the best show in town right now. At this month’s Los Angeles Auto Show, GM showcased its first two-mode hybrid models. The automaker asserts that its hybrid technology—which is an adapted version of the system it developed for use in municipal buses—works better than Toyota’s single-mode hybrid technology for towing and pulling heavy loads. Indeed, Chrysler, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are all banking on it to an extent, as these companies have teamed up with GM for hybrid drivetrain development rather than Toyota or Honda. In the next two years, these four automakers will release at least nine trucks and SUVs that use the two-mode hybrid system, but how many will be muscle hybrids? For more information, check out the Hybrid News Center.
 Plugin hybrid tests galore: These days, it seems like everyone is testing a plugin hybrid. For example, the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Lab kicked off a year-long testing program to evaluate the urban performance of 13 converted Toyota Prius plugins. Next spring, the California Energy Commission and the state Air Resources Board will select 100 lucky Northern California households to participate in a large-scale consumer study of plugin hybrid performance. The participants, chosen from AAA membership rosters, will be given an 8-week loan of a converted Toyota Prius plugin. As you may recall, California serves as the testing site for many other advanced technology, non-production vehicles including the Toyota and Ford plugins. For more information, check out the Hybrid News Center.
- Ford’s moves on greener wheels: This month, Ford Motor Company President Bill Ford expressed some “buyer’s remorse” on the promise of ethanol. Ford also outlined a broad plan for making its vehicles cleaner and more fuel-efficient. Significantly, a range of mechanical and design advances are central to Ford’s near-term blueprint, including the use of new turbocharged direct injection engines, advanced electric power assisted steering systems, aerodynamic improvements, and weight reductions. Ford will also continue to explore the potential of plugin and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as well as the possibility of pairing different levels of hybridization with diesel and gasoline engines. The automaker intends to introduce the new Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrid sedans in 2008. To learn more, visit the Hybrid News Center.
 Last month we were checking out the crazy concepts at the Tokyo Auto Show. This month’s Los Angeles Auto Show was marked by some of the usual suspects: the debut of stylish muscle cars like the 480-horsepower Nissan GT-R and the display of futuristic advanced technology vehicles like the Honda FCX Clarity fuel cell sedan. Yet, the biggest splash at the show was made by the “mega-hybrids” on display, featuring the two-mode system on the Chrysler Aspen SUV, Dodge Durango SUV, Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, GMC Yukon SUV, Cadillac Escalade SUV, and Chevrolet Silverado hybrids.
The use of hybrid technology on large vehicles like the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid pickup, which boasts a robust 332 hp 6.0L V8 hybrid drivetrain and a 6,200 pound towing capacity, may seem incongruous, but there is actually real potential here. As we have shown with our UCS Guardian SUV blueprint and our UCS Vanguard minivan design, there are many cost-effective conventional technologies yet to be used to make larger vehicles more fuel efficient. And as the Ford Escape Hybrid and Mercury Mariner Hybrid are showing through both their fuel-efficient redesign and resulting sales boom, larger vehicles can use hybrid technology effectively, and lucratively, when focusing on fuel economy.
 The issue here isn’t the technology. As I remarked to a journalist who asked me about the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid winning the “Green Car of the Year” award, if the prize was strictly for the two-mode hybrid system they developed, GM should win hands-down. But, as with just about every drivetrain advance in the past three decades, the problem has been in how GM has chosen to apply the technology.
I personally don't think the problem with the Tahoe is in the fact that they're trying to make larger vehicles more fuel efficient through hybrid technology—everyone has different needs. Indeed, GM and its two-mode development partners are betting that big hybrids will be popular among consumers who want to save fuel without compromising on storage space or towing capability. That’s not a bad bet with gas prices where they are. What makes the Tahoe a wasted opportunity is the fact that it is a muscle hybrid. As I’ve noted before, the standard Tahoe that most consumers buy has a 5.3 liter engine. The hybrid version has a LARGER 6.0 liter gas engine.
The great thing about hybrid technology is the fact you can downsize the gas engine, and have the electric motor compensate. So where's the V8 replaced with a turbocharged V6 engine (something Ford is doing more of, as I mention in DCN Newsbytes) then attached to the two-mode system? Where's their smaller 4.8 liter engine, or something even more downsized? Nowhere. Why aren’t they just using the 5.3 liter? Instead, you strap some great technology to an even thirstier engine, which robs large SUV consumers of something they could have gotten—a big SUV with standard sedan-level fuel economy.
That would have been an American Revolution—what we got was business as usual.
I think our California Policy Coordinator, Dan Kalb, summed it up best in his auto show evaluation printed in the San Francisco Chronicle:
The major auto manufacturers may be working hard to "green" their images, but they have done disappointingly little to actually green their fleets. Most automakers display a small handful of clean, green cars at auto shows, but their plants, marketing plans, and sales forces still focus mainly on the same old gas guzzlers that spew out far more global warming pollution than necessary.
They're stuck in neutral when our country needs to reduce its dependence on oil more than ever. The time is long overdue for significantly higher miles-per-gallon standards at the federal level and clean car incentives for consumers here in California. Since the automakers won't clean up their cars on their own, our elected officials should require them to.
 Susan Stephens of Kooskia, ID is thrilled with her new Toyota Prius. She admits, “I find I'm driving better and slower as I see what great mileage I'm getting AND I don't need any more speeding tickets!”
 Stefven Fout of Merrimac, WI feels like singing when he drives his Toyota Prius!
If you own a hybrid model or know of anyone who does, please remember to tell them to submit their testimonials today! Also remember that if you have an existing testimonial, and you’d like to update either the picture or the text, feel free to send me an email and we’ll be happy to make those changes for you.
Traveling for the holidays? Planning on renting a car? Well, your options are increasing. You might be able to rent something OTHER than a PT Cruiser this time! (I don’t know about you, but I have literally been given a PT Cruiser the last five times I have rented a car.) Rental companies are increasingly “getting into green.” Here are a few tidbits on hybrid rentals:
- For some years now, a California-based company called EV Rental (run through Fox Rent-A-Car) has been renting hybrid vehicles around California and other select states.
- Enterprise Rent-A-Car has purchased 3,000 Prius Hybrids this year, with another 1,500 on order.
- Hertz purchased 1,000 Prius Hybrids this year and expects to have 3,400 in its lots nationwide by the end of 2008.
- Budget Rent-A-Car (the original company working with EV Rental) has also stated that it will have 1,000 Prius vehicles available this year.
- Avis has added the Toyota Prius Hybrid and the Nissan Altima Hybrid to their collection of rentals, mostly in California, Washington, Oregon, and Washington D.C.
- Alamo Rent-a-Car has 650 Toyota Prius Hybrids in their fleet, mostly available in Western states.
 There is, however, a line between giving consumers genuinely green choices and blurring the distinctions among “clean” vehicle choices. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is case in point. Enterprise is touting the fact that 41,000 of its vehicles are so-called “flex-fuel” vehicles that can run on E85 fuel (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline). They have even opened a branch in Washington, D.C. where half of the vehicles they rent are flex-fuel. Indeed, the sign at their D.C. location states that “This location proudly offers environmentally friendly vehicles that run on VeraSun E85 fuel.”
Making the claim that the VeraSun E85 fuel is environmentally-friendly would in itself be debatable, as the jury is still out on the total carbon benefit of corn-based ethanol. Indeed, estimates for ethanol’s carbon footprint range from a 30 percent decrease to a 20 percent increase in carbon emissions. As we note in UCS’s first dedicated report in its “Smart Bioenergy” series, Biofuels: An Important Part of a Low-Carbon Diet, what the fuels market needs for its long term viability is to “count carbon and make carbon count” through the development of a strong low carbon fuel standard.
Even if we assume that the E85 fuel currently available is more environmentally beneficial than gasoline, and that one would be able to fill up on exclusively E85 (a very difficult proposition in most areas of the country), the claim that these flex-fuel vehicles are “environmentally friendly” is highly misleading.
For example, let’s take a look at the 46 mpg Prius against one of the most fuel-efficient flex-fuel vehicles around, the Chrysler Sebring, rated by the EPA at 22 mpg. First, remember that ethanol provides less energy than regular gasoline, so on E85 the Sebring actually gets only around 16 mpg. So let’s take a look at the best estimates for the carbon footprint of a Sebring running on 100 percent E85 against the Prius running on gasoline.
In the end, the only place the flex-fuel Sebring and the Prius are similar is in the fact that the EPA estimates that the Prius gets 46 mpg, yet through a loophole for flex-fuel vehicles in federal fuel economy regulations, the Sebring gets credit for, ironically enough, 46 mpg, no matter what fuel it is being run on. This gives Chrysler and other flex-fuel automakers a license to lower the overall fuel efficiency of the options they offer consumers and still meet their regulatory requirements.
We will have more on this in an upcoming Hybrid Watchdog, but suffice to say that until the automakers actually start producing fuel-efficient flex-fuel choices, renter beware the green label on E85 vehicles. I’d call ahead to some of the actual rental locations for your destination (given the limited availability of hybrids and the ease in which rental car companies are used to swapping out vehicle types) and make sure that location has the option(s) you are looking for on the lot before you rent.
Enjoy the season, everyone, and I’ll let you know how things turned out on the Energy Bill next month. Fingers crossed!
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