Auto makers turn several shades of greenAUTO SHOW: EARTH-FRIENDLY VEHICLES
Auto makers turn several shades of green
With no silver-bullet technology in hand, the industry is working on a variety of alternatives, JEREMY CATO writes
JEREMY CATO
Just two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded, with 90 per cent certainty, that human activity is driving global warming. Those findings were of only passing interest to the car business.
The truth is, as far as the auto industry is concerned, global warming has been a business reality for some time now. The greening of the auto industry is fully under way.
Whatever your personal beliefs are on global warming, says General Motors vice-chairman for product development Bob Lutz, a critical mass of consumers and government officials agree with the IPCC, and that means "we have to behave as if it were real."
For the auto industry, the environment has become a business opportunity but also a massive scientific and engineering challenge. GM vice-president Beth Lowery, the company's chief environmental officer, puts it this way: "From a business-plan standpoint, our job is to bring cars and trucks to the market that reduce CO{-2} emissions, and that's why we have our whole advanced technology plan."
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That plan encompasses new technologies and alternative fuels and is aimed not only at climate change issues, but also at energy security and making personal transportation available for people all over the world in sustainable ways.
GM, of course, is not alone in its plans. Honda and Toyota have been industry leaders in introducing fuel-efficient vehicles. They were the first auto makers in the world to put fuel-thrifty, low-emissions hybrid vehicles into showrooms.
Ford, meanwhile, was the first Detroit-based auto maker to begin selling a gasoline-electric hybrid, the Ford Escape, and has long been the only auto maker to publicly state that it believes in man-made global warming.
And just two months ago, Nissan unveiled a comprehensive green technology-development road map for the next four years. Nissan's long-range goal is to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from its new vehicles by 70 per cent over the next several decades to 2050.
But in the car business, nothing has more impact than a rolling example of what's coming and what's planned. That is why nothing lately has managed to capture the imagination of the public as powerfully as GM's Chevrolet Volt concept vehicle.
The Volt, a plug-in electric car whose battery is charged by an electrical socket or a small gasoline motor, was the star of last month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. One survey found that, by a 2-to-1 margin, visitors to that show were more interested in the Volt than any other vehicle.
Unfortunately, the Volt (for which there is only one prototype) will not be on display at the Canadian International Auto Show, opening today in Toronto. But it symbolizes GM's short- and medium-term environmental plan, and consumers are definitely intrigued.
The irony is that for decades auto makers have fended off nearly every attempt by various governments to reduce the fuel consumption of cars and trucks. They have also long opposed the introduction of "green" technologies, dating back more than four decades to the most basic of emissions control devices, the catalytic converter.
And in the past two decades, as far as fuel economy is concerned, the car business has used its engineering savvy to do exactly the wrong thing for the environment -- maintaining fuel-economy levels, rather than improving them, even as light vehicles have gotten bigger and more powerful.
Since 1987, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the horsepower of the average vehicle has doubled (to 219 from 118 hp) and the weight of the average vehicle has increased almost a third (to 1,879 kilograms from 1,460). Yet while power and weight have gone up dramatically, the car industry has kept a lid on fuel economy. In fact, the EPA says today's average vehicle gets 21.0 miles per gallon, barely changed from the 21.1 average in 1987.
To be fair, auto makers have been playing within the fuel-economy rules and responding to marketplace demands. They have collectively sung a chorus against government mandates to dramatically improve fuel economy even as buyers for most of the past two decades flocked to buy SUVs and pickups. The words of that chorus have mostly stressed a voluntary approach to "green" issues based on marketplace demands -- Adam Smith's "invisible hand" slapping the planet squarely in the face.
The free-market types who run the world's car companies have noticed that the wisdom of the marketplace has begun to emphasize better fuel economy and lower emissions. This is what buyers in increasing numbers say they now want. So the invisible hand is belatedly pushing the car business into becoming the "green car business."
Global warming concerns play into these buyer trends, but so do spiking pump prices, which last year poured nearly $40-billion (U.S.) in profits into Exxon-Mobil's coffers. As gas prices have risen, so too has consumer interest in various types of Earth-friendly vehicles. At the same time, sales of gas-guzzling large autos, especially big sport utility vehicles, have tanked.
Other factors are pushing the industry to go green. First is the fact that Americans, who live in the world's largest auto market, have become acutely aware of energy security issues as the war in Iraq has intensified and relations with oil-producing countries such as Iran and Venezuela have deteriorated.
In Canada, all the main political parties say environmental policy will be a major factor in the next federal election. In poll after poll, Canadians say they are concerned about the environment and worry about global warming.
The car companies have heard people talking about hybrids, diesels, ethanol and fuel-cell vehicles. They know there is interest, and where there is interest there is a potential customer.
The challenge for the auto industry is that, for now at least, there is no silver bullet, no single solution that will result in an affordable and completely Earth-friendly vehicle that meets customer needs not just now, but for the next decade or two. Instead, as we look ahead we see a variety of alternatives. The auto industry as a whole is working on all of them, with varying degrees of success and intensity depending on the interest and ability of individual companies.
Here is a rundown of some of these alternatives. They are real, or coming, and they all reflect the fundamental belief that whether or not the auto industry supports and embraces the IPCC's position on global warming, the car business is committed to offering green alternatives for the driving public.
Hybrids
Toyota was first in the world with a production-ready, gasoline-electric hybrid, launching its Prius in Japan in 1997. Since then Honda, Ford and General Motors have also come to market with various types of hybrids, many of which are on display at this year's Canadian auto show.
The Prius has been joined by the Accord and Civic hybrids, the Saturn Vue crossover, the Ford Escape and the soon-to-arrive Nissan Altima Hybrid, just to name a few. Even Toyota's luxury arm, Lexus, is in on the act with the RX400h, the performance-oriented GS450h and soon the flagship LS600h hybrids.
Not all hybrids are equal, though. At the most basic, this technology captures energy lost during braking and coasting, and stores it in an onboard battery pack. When you accelerate, that power can be recovered and used to run one or more electric motors linked to the power train. This is often called "electric supercharging."
Most hybrids, such as the Honda Civic Hybrid, also are able to stop their gasoline engine automatically when idling at a stop light. They then instantly restart when you touch the throttle. So-called full hybrids, such as the Prius, have the added ability to run on electric power only, usually at slow speeds and for relatively short distances.
Hybrids are expensive, requiring every full hybrid to have two complete power trains, a big battery pack and high-tech computer controls and support systems. The generators, motors, control systems and batteries add up to thousands of dollars of extra cost compared with a gasoline-only vehicle.
Hybrids also took a hit when it was found they were not as fuel-efficient as originally advertised on the window sticker. The posted fuel economy numbers now are more realistic. Hybrids are best for drivers who spend a lot of time commuting in heavy, stop-and-go-traffic. If you largely cruise on the open road, they're not the best option.
Diesels
Europeans love them. This fuel-efficient technology now accounts for more than half of all Western European car sales. The best modern diesels are nothing like the diesels we had here in North America during the early 1980s. Those were noisy, smelly and poorly engineered models, many prone to catastrophic failures. Not so today. The diesels coming to showrooms now are quick, smooth and reliable, though not always easy to find. Nor is the fuel, which can often be found only at truck stops.
Mercedes-Benz is leading the industry in North America with its latest Bluetec diesel technology found in its E-Class and others, which are on display at the show. Rival European makers are right behind, though. Mercedes-Benz's sister company, Jeep, will also begin offering a Bluetec diesel on its Jeep Grand Cherokee model.
Flexible-fuel vehicles
With this type of technology, we are going back to the future. Flex-fuellers have been around from the earliest days of the automobile: Henry Ford's first automobile, the 1896 Quadricycle, could run on ethanol as well as gasoline or a combination of both.
Today, while there are a number of alternatives -- including propane and compressed natural gas -- the auto industry is pushing hardest for consumers to embrace ethanol, an alcohol not much different from classic moonshine.
Ethanol vehicles are popular in Brazil, where it's distilled from sugar cane. That country has about six million vehicles on the road capable of running on ethanol. In North America, ethanol is used not as a primary fuel but as a blending agent to reduce emissions. Most vehicles built since 1970 can handle a blend of 10 per cent ethanol/90 per cent gasoline, which is good for the environment.
Which brings us to the next step in flex-fuel vehicles: A number of them are capable of using what is called E85 -- 85 per cent ethanol/15 per cent gasoline. They include GM's new Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra pickups, among many others, which will be at the show.
With ethanol, the big challenge isn't finding vehicles capable of running on moonshine; in fact, the Detroit-based auto makers offer plenty of them. The issue is availability. Right now, there are only two ethanol pumps in Canada and about 1,000 in the United States.
Critics of ethanol say it makes no sense to produce ethanol from corn, the current source for most ethanol in North America. That is neither energy efficient, nor environmentally friendly.
Ethanol is more appealing if it is produced using genetically modified biocatalysts that break down cellulose in biomass. This enables ethanol production from a wide range of plant life.
Hydrogen
Here we are discussing not hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, but rather vehicles with a traditional internal-combustion chamber engine capable of running on liquid hydrogen rather than gasoline, diesel or any other fuel source.
At the auto show, you can see BMW's 260-horsepower Hydrogen 7, a luxury 7-Series sedan powered by a 6.0-litre V-12 engine whose emissions are cleaner than the air you breathe. BMW AG plans to put 50 hydrogen-powered 760Li cars on North American roads this year. The idea is to gather real-world feedback about the Hydrogen 7 from selected consumers.
The bi-fuel Hydrogen 7 is in essence a BMW 760i which, at the push of a button mounted on the steering wheel, is capable of alternating between gasoline and liquid hydrogen. It has a range of about 200 kilometres on hydrogen and an additional 500 km on gasoline. In hydrogen mode, the engine emits only water vapour and traces of nitrous oxides or carbon dioxide.
To store its hydrogen fuel, there is a 30-millimetre-thick, 200-kg cryogenic fuel tank capable of holding 170 litres of liquid hydrogen at -254 degrees.
Fuel cells
Many experts are convinced we are heading toward a "hydrogen economy," using this lightweight gas as the ultimate, clean alternative to petroleum. The only emission from a hydrogen-powered vehicle is water vapour.
BMW and Ford are among the manufacturers studying ways to burn hydrogen in the time-tested internal combustion engine. It works, and with relatively modest modifications. Prototypes are being tested in Europe and the United States. The BMW Hydrogen 7 on display at the Canadian show is one example.
Longer term, the bet is on the fuel-cell vehicle, or FCV. Fuel cell "stacks" combine hydrogen and oxygen, from the air, to produce water vapour and electric current. That's why the fuel cell is often referred to as the "refillable battery."
GM, Toyota, Honda, Ford and DaimlerChrysler are all known to have aggressive fuel-cell development programs in place. But no one believes we will see competitively priced FCVs in showrooms before at least 2015, if not later, though some auto makers, notably GM, have promised a production-ready FCV will perhaps be available as early as 2012.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel fuels, typically produced from waste oils such as those discarded by your local fast food chain, have promise, though this technology is in its infancy. Most modern diesels can handle a biodiesel blend, though, and there are certainly more biodiesel pumps in Canada than ethanol pumps.
Proponents also say that by converting just a portion of industrial, municipal and animal wastes -- using thermal processes now coming into commercial operation -- North America could produce millions of barrels a day of biodiesel.
Pure electric
At its heart, GM's Volt is a pure electric vehicle with an on-board charging system.
But the Volt and other planned "plug-in" hybrids will require significant advances in battery technology -- advances that GM officials concede have yet to happen and for which there is no firm timetable.
The Volt requires a lithium-ion battery pack that does not yet exist. GM's Mr. Lutz says there are challenges to be overcome in battery durability, energy density, charging efficiency and cold- and warm-weather operation. But he says GM believes the battery companies will solve the technical problems within a few years.
The promise of a plug-in hybrid is that it can dramatically increase fuel economy. The trick is that with a plug-in you charge your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket. If your drive does not exceed, say, 30 km, it is possible to conduct an entire commute on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery. If the battery runs dry, the gasoline or diesel motor kicks in to recharge the battery as you drive along in gas/diesel engine mode.
jcato@globeandmail.com
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