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Hello again everyone, and welcome to our decade-closing edition of Up the MPG. In this edition, we’ll cast a hybrid eye on the diesel that won this year’s Green Car of the Year award. Then we’ll take a look back at some of the DCN highlights as the 00’s come to a close.
Hope your holiday season was a happy one and that you have a Happy New Year!
Scott Nathanson
UCS National Field Organizer &
HybridCenter.org Administrator
In this issue:
Earlier this month, the Green Car Journal named the Audi A3 TDI the Green Car of the Year, marking the second year in a row a diesel vehicle has won the award. The Audi A3 TDI, which uses the same powertrain as last year’s winner, beat out a slew of hybrid vehicles—the 2010 Honda Insight, 2010 Mercury Milan Hybrid, and 2010 Toyota Prius. Diesels have become much cleaner in recent years and have a bright future, but, this win had me once again shaking my head.
 Let’s do a quick comparison of the environmental performance of the Audi A3 TDI and one of its fellow nominees, the Mercury Milan Hybrid. To start, the Audi A3 TDI gets a combined Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated fuel economy of 34 miles per gallon while the Milan Hybrid, which is bigger, gets 39 miles per gallon.
Next, let’s use data from a government website, fueleconomy.gov, to compare the improvement in energy security and environmental performance of each vehicle with its conventional counterpart. The data on this site accounts for the fact that it takes more oil to produce a gallon of diesel than to produce a gallon of gasoline, making the benefits of diesel less than you would expect form just looking at the fuel economy. By using a more efficient engine that is fueled with diesel and not gasoline, the Audi A3 TDI reduces its oil consumption by 19 percent and reduces its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent. That sounds pretty good. But when you compare driving the Milan Hybrid to the conventional Milan, the Milan Hybrid reduces its oil consumption by 36 percent and reduces its greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent. Much more impressive.
To take it a step further, let’s directly compare the oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of the Audi A3 TDI and the Milan Hybrid. Once again, the Milan Hybrid comes out ahead by using 24 percent less oil and emitting 24 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, when you’re talking “green car” you can’t simply talk global warming pollution and mpg. Smog-forming emissions are also a major concern as today’s vehicles are certainly not “virtually emission-free.” And diesel, while greatly improved, is harder to clean up than gasoline. The TDI rates a mediocre 6 out of 10 on the EPA’s smog-forming emissions scale, while the Milan Hybrid rates a solid 8, and the Insight and Gen. 3 Prius rates a very strong 9.5.
So why did the Audi A3 TDI receive this award? Probably because of the fuel economy improvements of the A3 TDI over the A3 that runs on gasoline. But as I point out above, there’s so much more to the green car picture, and diesel cars still cannot match the combination of reduced global warming and smog-forming emissions that gasoline-electric drivetrains offer.
I get a lot of questions about diesels versus hybrids, so if you’d like to read more about this, check out our more in-depth look at last year’s winner, the Volkswagen Diesel Jetta compared with the Honda Civic Hybrid.
- More and more hybrids on the way: The recent L.A. auto show saw a flurry of announcements about the release of new hybrid vehicles. Among them, Infiniti will release a hybrid version of the M in mid-2010, Fisker will release its plug-in hybrid the Karma in the third quarter of 2010 (which is a slight delay from previous announcements), and Hyundai will release the Sonata Hybrid in 2011. These hybrids join a long list of hybrids and plug-in hybrids already set to be released in the next two years from Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Dodge, Honda, Buick, Chevrolet, and Porsche. To read more about the L.A. auto show and hybrids on the way, visit the Hybrid News Center.
 Details of Honda CR-Z Hybrid leaked: In the age of the Internet, it’s not easy to keep secrets. A copy of the sales brochure for the Honda CR-Z Hybrid was recently posted online, giving the exact specs for the highly anticipated hybrid sports coupe. It will have a 1.5-liter V-TEC engine rated at 114 horsepower and 107 lb-ft of torque and an electric motor providing an additional 13 horsepower and 57 ft-lbs of torque. Its 0-60 time is said to be 9.7 seconds. The CR-Z is expected in showrooms in late spring, 2010. To read more about the Honda CR-Z Hybrid, visit the Hybrid News Center.
- Just in time for Santa, hybrid snowplow makes debut: For local governments looking to save money in fuel costs and to reduce pollution, the hybrid snowplow might be of help. Just outside Denver, Colorado, a local government has outfitted an International Model 7300 hybrid truck with an orange plow, making it the first hybrid snowplow in the United States. If it can handle the difficult snowy roads of Colorado and use 30-50 percent less diesel fuel than a conventional snowplow, then it could eventually replace the county’s snowplow fleet. For more hybrid news, visit the Hybrid News Center.
Okay, so the Driving Change Network has only been around since ’06, but everyone else is singing the ole’ “end of the decade” song and I want to get in on the fun. The past four years have certainly been full of notable events and activities from our intrepid crew, so let’s take a look back at some highlights and see just how far we’ve come (and how far in some cases we have yet to go).
- April ’06: DCN is a go! Our friend Bill Nye’s HybridCenter Earth Day Challenge netted us some 500 “Who’s Got Hybrids?” testimonials and with some shameless self promotion of our nomination for the Webby Award, we won! We also ushered in our DCN Rapid Response activities, getting hybrid owners to use their standing to challenge inaccuracies in the media about hybrid technology. This is a device we’ve be using to great effect together ever since.
 July ’06: We began our dialogue with Ford about hybrids on a down note when the company abandoned its pledge to produce 250,000 hybrid vehicles by 2010 (just think of where Ford would be in relation to its competitors, including Toyota, if it had stuck to its guns). We also dipped our toe in the blogging water, reporting on two DCN members’ postings about their road trips—especially interesting was the real-world comparison between the Maynard’s Prius Gen. 1 and 4-Runner.
- October ’06: Our newsletter gets a name when Thomas Maxwell’s “Up the MPG” wins the DCN vote for best e-newsletter name. We also received feedback from both members and Ford on the issue of temperature and fuel efficiency in hybrids. It’s an issue that engineers are still working on even in the new models.
- December ’06: We took on the key issue of hybrid mpg and the EPA’s fuel economy estimates. Vehicles Engineer Don MacKenzie debunked the myth that more accurate fuel economy tests prove that hybrids aren’t worth the money. Our young Mr. MacKenzie is up at MIT now, and his wife is expecting their first child--congrats Donnie Mack! I have to say that I think one of the things we have done best together is proving that when hybrid technology is used effectively, it is a win-win for consumers and the environment. We’ve come a long way from the “Hummers are better for the environment than hybrids” claptrap.
- March ’07: After some 30 years of stagnation, we started to see a crack in the fuel economy standard ice with the introduction of the Fuel Economy Reform Act of 2007. With dogged and determined work from UCS analysts and advocates, our allies on Capitol Hill and in the environmental community,—and you—we made history as the little bill that could ended up attached to the larger 2007 Energy Bill and signed into law.
 April ’07: The Earth Day Challenge is back, and this time we targeted Toyota in what would be the start of a recurring theme (some would say personal obsession)—the hybrid minivan. In many ways, the challenge was a success, as we demonstrated to Toyota that there was a huge market in America for expanding fuel-efficient hybrid options, and a Toyota USA representative responded directly to UCS saying that they agreed. On the down side, the 35mpg Estima Hybrid remains exclusively available to Japanese consumers. We also celebrated a huge win in the Supreme Court when a 5-4 decision said that the EPA can, and must, regulate global warming emissions from autos as pollution under the Clean Air Act. DCN members had a lot of fun over the years reminding the Bush Administration of this fact, but I’m getting a bit ahead of myself now.
- June ’07: DCN members turned up the heat on Congress for stronger fuel economy standards with a creative twist: our “Receipt Revolution” resulted in hundreds of gas receipts landing in the mailboxes of senators and representatives throughout Congress.
- July ’07: DCN members continued to pressured their representatives to strengthen fuel economy standards with good effect, as Prius owner Wayne Flick calls out Rep. John Salazar in his local paper. We also began an important conversation about hybrid incentives, noting the importance of any hybrid perk rewarding performance, not merely the hybrid name.
- December ’07: Our hard work was rewarded in December when President Bush signed into law the first meaningful increase in fuel economy standards in 30 years. But to ensure that no good deed goes unpunished, Bush then instructed the EPA to reject the waiver California needed to implement its clean car standards.
- February ’08: We whacked EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson but good on his agency’s “Flow of the River” blog, netting a direct online response from the EPA on HybridBlog, and a story in US News & World Report. Our activities were a part of the significant pressure building from inside and outside the EPA on this decision—and it ends up paying huge dividends in ’09.
 June ’08: DCN members “sweat the details” as we challenged the Department of Transportation’s attempt to use ridiculously low gas prices to undermine the cost-effectiveness segment of the new fuel economy standards. We also made an important discovery that has stayed constant throughout even the worst of auto-sales times—demand for fuel-efficient hybrid models is here to stay.
- July ’08: We heard exciting news that the hybrid minivan may be here by 2010 —NOT!
- January ’09: The perfect storm—new president + auto industry in crisis = historic national clean car standards!
- April/May ’09: Our Hybrid Watchdog took on “Cash for Clunkers” and our Getting there Greener report shed new light on hybrids and summer vacation.
- September ‘09: Up The MPG delved into the fine points of plug-in hybrids by examining the assertion that the new Chevy Volt will get 230mpg. A significant update to the Hybrid Timeline showed that muscle hybrids may be waning, but they aren’t gone yet.
- November ’09: DCN and UCS activists sent more than 50,000 messages supporting a strong final rule by the EPA on their clean car standards, and we pushed Ford to break from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s science-denying stance on climate change. Both messages were heard loud-and-clear from the respective targets.
So what started as a small voice for cleaner cars, has grown stronger, and our demands for accurate science, real clean car choices, and strong fuel economy standards have played an effective role in moving the market forward more than I really could have imagined when we started all this together. Of course, even with all the success we’ve had together, I still blame each and every one of you for not working hard enough to get me my hybrid minivan! Okay, I’m just kidding, but I’m really, really tired of my Saturn wagon…
The nation’s capital was blanketed in snow last week, which meant I had to spend the better part of two days digging out my Prius (I’m an Atlanta boy, so this white stuff falling from the sky is strange and frightening to me). With that on my mind, I decided to tip my cap to my fellow Prius owners that kept chugging along despite a good snowstorm. Remember to help us expand our “Who’s Got Hybrids?” family in the New Year by sending in a photo and telling your hybrid story. Also, please ask your hybrid-owning friends to join us.
 Jan and Durl Kruse of Urbana, IL had to be a little bit creative when their Toyota Prius Gen. 2 got buried in 16 inches of snow (16, HA!, we got 24!). Since they didn’t have a shovel, they ended up using a cookies sheet to dig their car out!
 Jon Gay of Cambridge, MA looks like he’s having a great time shoveling out the pathway to his house. Up next is digging out his Toyota Prius Gen. 2. He says through snow and sleet, his Prius is great!
 Jason Koontz of Rock Island, IL says that’s his Toyota Prius Gen. 2 under all of that snow. We’ll have to take his word on that. He drove his Prius from Rock Island IL (shout out to the Quad Cities—Go River Bandits!) to Syracuse, NY and says it handled the snow well.
Enjoy Auld Lang Syne, and get ready for 2010 to enter with quite a hybrid bang!
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