The Big Question: Why is the world so slow to produce environmentally-friendly cars?

[arenean]

From The Independent newspaper:

The Big Question: Why is the world so slow to produce environmentally-friendly cars?

[izzie]

1. Because the CEO's of these co. were making money not doing it.

Lets face it the overseas co. have been smarter. One has to wonder why the stock holders keep voting in the leaders of these co. When they slowed the Ak. pipe line down because the oil was not high enough you could see this coming. Oil was going to go up and that was back in the late 80's. I do not know about you but I started buying cars that used little gas then. The writing has been on the wall if we just looked at it. It is like the water wars are coming even if my kids think I am a little nuts about the subject.

[notesdev]

2. Because the US doesn't buy them

many of them, at least.

US car buyers have had an accelerating interest (double pun intended) in larger and larger vehicles, to the point where individuals commute alone to work in vehicles capable of comfortably seating 10 or more people.

There's a little divine justice involved in so many of these people now being unable to afford to fuel those vehicles, and unable to sell them. I had long advocated a tax and special licensing requirements for any vehicle more than twice the weight of an average passenger car, due to the risk they pose to others and the added wear and tear on the roads.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Because there is no such thing?

Every species, but especially ours, has always impacted environments to one degree or another, and that was using just our two legs. We're not going to decrease our impact on the environment by making it possible to expand our movement ability. That has never happened, isn't happening, and will never happen.

If we tell ourselves that we're trying to make an environmentally friendly car, we're fooling ourselves in the same way that we tell ourselves that we can regulate our rapacious global machine of proconducsumption.

[GliderGuider]

4. Agree

I'm constantly amazed by our eager complicity in our self-deception about the real state of the world and the consequences of our actions.

[diane in sf]

5. Interlocking boards of directors between the auto, oil and chemical companies.

Cars will never be fabulous environmentally, but they could be a lot better if they were electric plug-ins, and had injection molded plastic carbon fiber bodies instead of stamped and painted sheet metal (the paint process is one of the most polluting and stamping metal is very energy intensive--also plastics can be made of anything with carbon--not just oil).

[NNadir]

12. Oh good. A nonsensical conspiracy theory.

Let me guess. You read Amory Lovins crap from Walmart at night.

Where, exactly, is the hydrogen hypercar.

[diane in sf]

17. No, not a conspiracy, it's called planning for mutually assured profits.

[NNadir]

18. Really? And your evidence for this is what?

Never mind. I really don't want to know.

I am opposed to the car culture in its entirety for physics reasons. I am appalled when "lipstick on a pig" fossil fuel apologists - Amory Lovins is the most odious example, but there are many other anti-nuke fundies who are equally as morally void as that Walmart/Rio Tinto greenwasher - try to pretend that some dumb ass scheme to make "light" cars is "green."

It's frankly disgusting.

Almost every issue in serious energy analysis is mysterious to fundies. For instance, there are zero fundies who read the primary scientific literature, because basically, fundies hate science. Nevertheless, in the scientific journal Energy - which doesn't cover dumb conspiracy theories by the way - "Methodological aspects of the definition of a 2kW society" (Haldi and Favrat Energy 31 (2006) 3159–3170) discuss in significant detail.

Included in the discussion, along with a bunch of stuff on the "We lie to ourselves and say thatrenewables will save our Grandchildren if they don't mind cleaning up our appalling mess" theory of the universe, are the following remarks, all of which are over the heads of conspiracy theorizing fundie anti-nukes:

Official statistics usually take nuclear energy into account at the primary energy level as the thermal energy ‘‘technically’’ (therefore depending on the technology used, which is not satisfactory for a correct primary energy definition) released in the reactor core. This definition, based on the (partial) analogy existing between fossil and nuclear fuels, does not take into account the important differences mentioned above between these two types of ‘‘fuels’’. In particular, it does not allow to coherently consider the fact that the ‘‘energy potential’’ of a given uranium mass can, for example, easily be multiplied by a factor 50–60, by means of the breeding process...

Note that the 2000 watt society is a conservation scheme. You can always hear a plethora people lieing to themselves (and to everyone else) by proposing on the internet - where lots of energy is burned - that conservation is sacred and achievable.

Note that this scheme would require the average person on the planet to cut his or her energy a tiny amount, about 400 watts, but it would require Americans to cut their consumption to a sixth of what it is now. On the other hand, it would allow Ugandans to increase their energy consumption by a factor of 40.

Do you have any idea how much power 2000 watts is when compared to a car?

You don't?

Why am I not surprised?

It's about 2 horsepower. This means that in a 2000 watt word, driving a 50 horsepower Prius for an hour would require that one consume no fuel of any kind for any purpose. I'm including the fuel that is used to pump the waters of the Hetch Hetchy to San Francisco to flush the toilets there.

I'm including cooking fuel, lighting fuel and of course the energy consumed by people who don't actually own any of the renewable devices they're always prattling on about to post their wishful thinking all over the internet while they trash - irrationally - the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free energy.

You scratch an anti-nuke and you find carbon apologetics underlying the surface.

Green car...??!!!!

I don't need some elaborate fantasy about evil corporate executives out of "Mother Jones" to oppose the car culture. Some corporate executives are not good men, but on the other hand, others are sincere hard working men with a vision for a better world.

To my mind the worst freak among corporate executives is none other than the anti-nuke fundie Amory Lovins, CEO of the ignorance factory known as the Rocky Mountain Institute - effectively a division of Walmart. If public lying (as opposed to lying in court) was a crime, Lovins'd be rotting with his old pal, Enron's Jeff Skilling, in prison.

[hunter]

6. If we didn't have roads and highways cars wouldn't be such a problem.

I propose we permanently close all bridges and tunnels to automobile traffic, from the lowliest highway overpass to the Golden Gate.

Cars are only part of the problem. Roads and highways destroy the environment too. If people can't commute to a house in the suburbs, there won't be a house in the suburbs.

[kristopher]

7. Good question, crappy article

My answer would be that technology adequate to replace fossil internal combustion engines hasn't been ready until now.

Batteries have increased in ability to store more power and recharge quickly even as they declined in weight. Industrial scale wind and solar technology has brought their costs down to the point where they are ready to deploy in numbers that will allow them to displace fossils for meeting all growth in demand. That deployment should provide a competitive manufacturing base that produces quantities sufficient to force renewable costs down even more. Right now supply is lagging up to three years behind demand for large wind turbines. Concurrent with that we have increasing fossil fuel prices to to global increases in living standards and impending legislation designed to charge for carbon emissions, another upward pressure on the price of fossils. The way things are shaping up that carbon charge is looking more and more like it is going to be extremely aggressive.

The time is now.

[tinrobot]

8. New technology is expensive.

Why waste money on research?

[BeFree]

9. Volume

The more gas they sell, the better. And the more taxes collected.

We just now are entering an era where those two important factors are being displaced by other more important factors. Very much too late, but it is progress.

[Eagle_Eye]

10. The car market is about performance, not the environment

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As long as people have the money to buy high performance cars the manufacturers will continue to make them.

The only way to stop people from driving high performance cars is to outlaw them.

[CRF450]

15. Most newer sports cars get about the same as most regular cars.

My Trans Am averages around 22mpg, and has reached 31mpg on the highway. My dad's Crown Vic also has a smaller, much less pwoerful v8, yet it barely gets anymore mpg than my car. Fuck off with that "outlaw this/that" bullshit.

[tinrobot]

22. 22mpg is hardly fuel efficient.

We can do a LOT better than that.

[CRF450]

23. Yet the vast majority of cars (even regular ones) average around that much.

So dont just assume that only performance cars get crappy gas milage. High powered engines today, even the 400hp v8's are much much more effecient than they were in the 60's while capable of delivering gobs of power. Todays cars are just so damn heavy, thats why they havent improved much in fuel effeciency.

[tinrobot]

24. Which is another sad fact.

It's true that a lot of "economy" cars get crappy mileage. But that's still no excuse for any car to get crappy mileage, even a muscle car.

There are cars on the market today that get over 50mpg, and yet, people still buy the gas guzzlers because they have "gobs of power". Sad that so many people need to use cars as a way to feel powerful.

[CRF450]

25. Thats another problem too ya know

Low income people would hardly be able to afford a new economy car, sure theirs many more affordable used ones out their with good mpg, but they're going to be pretty hard to find with these $3.50+ gas prices. I cant really afford one myself now that I have a house, my car and truck are paid for.

I didn't buy mine to feel powerful, being a performance enthusiast I like speed, and not only that, a fine driving car, not one thats fwd, underpowered and handles like crap like pretty much how all the econo cars are currently.

[NNadir]

11. The idea of an environmentally friendly car is on its face ridiculous.

It's a lie people tell themselves.

[suziedemocrat]

13. No doubt in my mind - "they" don't want fuel efficient cars.

I have a 1996 Chrysler Sebring convertible that gets around 30mpg on the highway. I just bought a new Suzuki Forenza - lighter, smaller engine, and 11 years newer (more time to develop fuel efficient technologies - right?) that gets about the same mpg on the highway.

What's up with that?

[GliderGuider]

14. What's up with that?

That tells me that we are about at the limit of the technology, given peoples' expectations about the acceptable configuration of an automobile.

There are some more efficient vehicles in Europe, but they tend to be very small, and diesel powered. Even then, their fuel efficiency isn't breathtakingly better - the tiny Smart ForTwo with a 1 liter gasoline engine gets about 50 mpg on the highway, at the expense of having only two seats, little luggage space and poor acceleration.

Don't sweat it, though. Just keep driving what you have until the gasoline is gone or you can't afford it any more (whichever comes first), then stop driving.

[CRF450]

16. Yup. In many ways, I think we're pushing the effeciency limits of the internal cumbustion engine

Theirs still many improvements to be made, but I dont think effeciency is goin to be much greater in a car weighing 2 tons.

[roflwaffle]

20. mileage

The gas ForTwo is relatively inefficient on the highway due to it's horrible coefficient of drag. The lack of space allows for easier parking/maneuvering in the city compared to longer cars that are able to carry more since it is, after all, a microcar. The diesel ForTwo gets 70+mpg equivalent over the local driving cycle. Driving one of those efficiently can net http://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=3857&highlight=smart+cdi">over 100mpg. http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/04/14/ahhh-spring-european-diesel-cabrios/">Here's a list of vehicles/mileage to get a good idea just how much more efficient vehicles in Europe are compared to our 17mpg average in the US. There's also the 3L Lupo that pulled around 100mpg at 55mph in a publicity run around the world. It isn't produced anymore due to the 1.4L TDI powered Polo being able to pull similar mileage figures with more power/less cost IIRC. Hopefully VW will make a few 1L cars in 2010 (~250mpg two seater), but I wonder if gas prices will get high enough. The BMW convertible at 44mpg/170hp seems kinda nice. I bet someone driving efficiently average near 60mpg in it.

[gear_head]

19. the electric car is coming n/t

[Terry in Austin]

21. The Bigger Question: Why do we assume cars of ANY kind?

These discussions treat car-centric culture as a given. If you start with a faulty premise, you'll reach a faulty conclusion.

Fave quote of the day from http://globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_193_its_happening">Richard Heinberg: "We don’t need alternative cars; we need alternatives to cars, starting with ways to reduce our need for travel in the first place."