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A Goodbye From ScottN
HybridCenter.org has been up and running for six years now, and I’ve had the privilege of having fantastic conversations about the past, present, and future of clean car technologies with you. But while our HybridCenter.org resources—such as the Hybrid Scorecard and Hybrid Timeline (I’ll get to the latter in a minute)—are continuing, we have decided that it is time to close out our Driving Change Network (DCN) newsletter.
 Instead of the monthly DCN, you’ll be able to hear from and interact with the advocates and engineers of the UCS Clean Vehicles Program through the new UCS blog, The Equation. So no more middleman whining about hybrid minivans (note the fantastic parting gift my colleagues sent me over on the right—I think I have a new nickname…). Now you get to go directly to the source, and as often as you want. The blog highlights from each month will now be featured in The Pulse where the Driving Change highlights used to be. I think you’ll enjoy this new format and the opportunity to hear from the different parts of our Clean Vehicles team, and from the rest of the universe of UCS experts.
And, as DCN closes out, so too does my tenure here at UCS. It has been more than eight amazing years that I have served here as liaison for clean car issues to the public, and I will treasure the time I have spent here and the incredible progress we have made together. But while I move on to new challenges, know that the work to transform transportation is in no way complete, and I know I leave you in the best of hands as these important efforts continue.
Thanks for all your hard work, your friendship, and the fun.
Scott Nathanson
UCS National Field Organizer &
HybridCenter.org Administrator
P.S. I’m working on Senior Engineer and Mazda 5 owner Don Anair to pick up the hybrid minivan mantle for me—don’t be afraid to voice your support for that on his blog!
 One of my last parting gifts to UCS was to hunker down with our fantastic intern Jennah Bedrosian and web guru Colleen MacDonald to do a full update to our comprehensive Hybrid Timeline.
While I’m proud of the many things the HybridCenter.org has to offer, I have to say that this “labor of love” is my favorite. Why? Because, frankly, there is really nothing else like it out there. While you can get updates from time to time from the many news sources that cover the hybrid market, there really is no place other than our Hybrid Timeline where you can get a full sense of where the hybrid market came from, and where it is going.
The nice thing about the Timeline is also the not-so-nice thing—it has become much more difficult to keep on top of as automakers more fully embrace hybrid technology. Indeed, this page can be a little daunting for the uninitiated given how rapidly it has expanded. A tip for you is to really focus your eye on our “Hybrids on the Horizon” section, as well as the “Non-U.S. Hybrids,” to get a sense of how the overall market is forming up and what choices automakers are making (or not making) for American consumers.
Here are a few of the most notable tidbits from this last update:
Rules do help push the market forward: Our Hybrid Scorecard gave a decent overall review of the Honda Insight, meriting a “Good” Hybrid Value for its 24 percent improvement in global warming emissions over a Honda Fit, at a $4,000 price tag for the technology. It seems the 2012 version is going to change things a bit, as Honda has retooled the Insight to improve its efficiency and reduce emissions. Debuting at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, Honda claims it has reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the previous model's 108 grams-per-kilometer (g/km) to a claimed 96, an 11 percent improvement.
While I’d like to claim that the Hybrid Scorecard had something to do with this, it was really European regulation that made it happen. The 96 g/km would put it under the 99 g/km threshold to qualify for European tax exemptions. It’s just another example that when benchmarks are set, it helps engineers push improvements to the market that much more quickly. I think this also shows that even with “conventional” hybrid technology, current “efficiency-oriented” vehicles still have significant room for improvement to boost efficiency and cut emissions at a cost-competitive price.
Luxury hybrid market starts to shift (in a good way): This, to me, is an interesting one, as our Hybrid Scorecard chided a number of automakers for continuing to go with “muscle over miles” in their application of hybrid technology. The response by the automotive community has often been “you can’t have it all!” Uh, well…yes, we can. The Infiniti M Hybrid was the first luxury hybrid that really tried to make this happen. Indeed, Infiniti just boasted about the M Hybrid’s world record acceleration, yet it also took pains to achieve significant fuel economy gains, meriting almost 30 miles per gallon (mpg)—another record…at the time.
Enter the new Lexus GS 450h. Before this upcoming model, the current GS 450h seemed more a holdover to the days when the Lexus hybrids were all style with little substance. At 23 mpg, the 2011 GS 450h netted only a 13 percent reduction in global warming emissions over its conventional counterpart. No more. The new GS 450h looks like it will not only improve, but will actually beat the M Hybrid by attaining 30 mpg (Lexus is claiming a 30 percent efficiency improvement over the current GS 450h). Moreover, the new GS 450h will very likely have another major advantage over the M Hybrid—fewer smog forming emissions.
The M Hybrid merits only a 6 of 10 on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) smog forming scale, the lowest ranking of any hybrid on the market. Given that the current GS 450h gets an 8 of 10 like most of the Lexus hybrids, it looks like Infiniti has a little tweaking to do if they want their “halo” car to win the race to the top of the green luxury hybrid mountain. That said, it’s a great development to see two automakers embrace the challenge of making hybrids that give luxury owners the performance they want while also delivering the efficiency that hybrid technology has to offer.
 And in the spirit of “out with the old” comes BMW’s announcement that it is killing the X6 ActiveHybrid, the cellar-dweller among the luxury hybrids on the Hybrid Scorecard. BMW asked consumers to pay almost $8,000 more for hybrid technology in a car that got only an 11 percent reduction in global warming emissions, and rated only a 6 of 10 on the EPA smog forming scale.
They then had the chutzpah to load over $13,000 in forced features on top of it all. BMW seems poised to make a more significant move toward efficient hybrids with their 5 Series, as well as their exciting i8 plug-in coupe. It will be interesting to see if BMW joins the trend toward the kind of luxury hybrids that the market is demanding.
The same could be said of our other bottom feeder, the Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid. As the Hybrid Scorecard shows, this astronomically-priced muscle hybrid is of little value, and does Volkswagen a disservice as by being its only hybrid, painting the manufacturer as one that only sees hybrids as a “performance enhancer.” That’s not a good reputation for its upcoming Passat and Golf hybrids to inherit.
We’ll see whether Volkswagen decides to start backing away from muscle hybrids as well when their more efficient varieties start to hit the market. Incidentally, it looks like any plans to hybridize the Beetle are now out, which I think is a bit of a shame, as that model seemed an ideal “sporty” but not “sports” car application for a hybrid drivetrain.
The (Hybrid) Empire Strikes Back (in a good way): While Toyota is still the uncontested king of hybrid technology, there’s no doubt that there’s been an increasing amount of spirited competition from other automakers. Ford passed the Toyota Camry Hybrid in miles per gallon with the Ford Fusion Hybrid, then smartly applied that drivetrain to the MKZ Hybrid and sold it at no cost premium—giving the Lexus hybrid sedans some real competition. Hyundai and Kia entered into the fray, also jumping over the Camry Hybrid in mileage and undercutting the price with the Sonata and Optima Hybrids.
 Honda couldn’t break the Toyota Prius mpg mark, but they did bring two less expensive hybrids to market: the economy-minded Insight, and the sporty CR-Z. Even Mercedes showed it could bring value (if not extraordinary efficiency) to the hybrid market by downsizing the gasoline engine and selling their S400 Hybrid for less than its conventional counterpart. As I mentioned, the Infiniti M Hybrid showed you could indeed get a hybrid with both serious zip and meaningful increases in efficiency. And, of course, GM’s Volt and the Nissan Leaf have beat Toyota to the plug-in punch.
But while the rebels have taken some very nice shots, they failed to hit the exhaust port, and Toyota is coming back strong. I already noted what its GS 450h has in store. On the non-luxury front, the new 2012 Camry Hybrid is going to get 41 mpg—an unattained goal of Ford, Kia and Hyundai—propelling it into the lead for mid-sized sedan efficiency. And now, countering Honda’s moves, comes the expansion of the Prius, with its upcoming Prius C compact promising to better the 50 mpg of the Prius at a lower cost.
Next year we’ll see the Prius Plug-in hit the market, as Toyota, which once looked to cede the plug-in market to others, has embraced it with an alternate vision—shorter battery range combined with the optimal efficiency of their regular hybrid drive. With the Volt and Leaf already out there, and now Ford bringing the C-Max to America as an all hybrid brand—including the plug-in Energi—I would say the game is afoot for both conventional and plug-in technology.
Instead of the “race to the bottom” we saw in years past when standards were lax and actually pushed automakers toward more powerful, more thirsty vehicles, the new pattern of standards are pushing automakers to get better. Now automakers are pushing each other to provide real options, making the future of hybrid technology a very exciting race to the top.
And there’s no better view of it all than our very own Hybrid Timeline—go see it all for yourself.
Well, friends, at that I think I’ll call it a day. Again, thank you for all you’ve done both for, and with me over the years, and stay tuned to the fantastic work coming out of the Clean Vehicles program in the years to come.
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