Frankly Green

California to Require Climate Friendly Car Windows

While I support the idea of reducing emissions, I think there are better ways to do it than to make mandates like this. Rather, I would prefer to see incentives for the automakers to address all aspects of emissions (not just glass). How about simply tightening overall emission requirements and let the auto makers figure out how to accomplish it. Glass may be one approach but there are certainly others. Sad thing is that most automakers, especially U.S. automakers, have been reactive, not proactive. Companies like Toyota have eaten their lunch. And companies like Tesla have gained real traction. Innovate or die!

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Carmakers, cell phone firms complained about sun-reflecting glass
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California air regulators voted unanimously Thursday for a mandate requiring auto manufacturers to include sun-reflecting glass on all vehicles sold within the state by 2014.

The move by the California Air Resources Board was intended to keep cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles cooler during hot weather, reducing the use of air conditioning.

That was expected to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"The end result of it is the customer gets a car that's more comfortable to ride in, air conditioners don't have to work as hard, and the atmosphere will be happier because we won't be emitting as much carbon dioxide," said board chairwoman Mary Nichols.

Toyota's Plug-in Hybrid

  -- we may start seeing them by the end of the year.
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More than 10 years ago, Toyota took a look at the alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles -- battery electrics, fuel cell, hybrids, diesel -- and made a decision that, for now, at least, hybrids was the way to go.

They built the Prius, now in its third generation, and we know the wild success that car has had. But it's still not enough. Even though the 2010 Prius is rated at 50 mpg on the highway, the nascent plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) industry has shown that you can get the equivalent of 100 mpg.

Now Toyota says it's making its own PHEV and it will available for lease by the end of 2009.

Video: New Crop of Electric Cars

Save Energy, Take the Car

In the race for fuel efficiency between cars and mass transit, put your money on cars.

By Patrick Bedard
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Some things everybody knows, just knows. Like the WMD Saddam had in his back pocket. Everybody just knew he had ’em.

Everybody just knows that mass transit is cleaner than cars, too, and saves fuel. And once again, everybody’s got it wrong.

Video: Greener Cars of the Future

Lithium Batteries Charge Ahead

Thanks to Terry G. for sending in this article!

Researchers demonstrate cells that can power up in seconds.

Geoff Brumfiel
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Two researchers have developed battery cells that can charge up in less time than it takes to read the first two sentences of this article. The work could eventually produce ultra-fast power packs for everything from laptop computers to electric vehicles.

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have found a way to get a common lithium compound to release and take up lithium ions in a matter of seconds. The compound, which is already used in the electrodes of some commercial lithium-ion batteries, might lead to laptop batteries capable of charging themselves in about a minute. The work appears in Nature1 this week.

Making Hybrids Even Greener

November 5, 2008
San Francisco Journal
By Felicity Barringer

Link to Article at NYT.com

Thanks to my father for sending this article!

SAN FRANCISCO — The fig tree and the philodendron are the first things that meet the eye in the repair bay of Luscious Garage. Then the two Toyota Priuses come into focus — one with a slightly dented rear door, the other on a lift with two tires off and rusty brake rotors exposed. Then comes the eerie sense that something is missing: grime.

“You could eat off her floor,” said Sara Bernard, the customer in need of brake repair.

The only hybrid specialty garage run by a woman has opened in the Bay Area, which has more Priuses — 70,000 as of 2006 — than most states. And while its owner, Carolyn Coquillette, has a preoccupation with cleanliness that may not be unique in a mechanic’s shop, her ubiquitous recycling containers (for paper, plastic, rubber, metal and oil) and the solar panels on her roof set Luscious apart. So does its specialty: giving hybrid owners the option of going fully electric.

A Fond Farwell - Sir John Whitmore

My father sent this to me with this note: Dear Frank, This is terrific.  I think I may have told you that Sir John and I had adjacent lockers in The Driver's Club at Goodwood and had a number of conversations about the environment.  Sir John said that he wondered if he even should, as an environmentalist,  be racing.  He taught at UCSB, physics, I believe, and I've seen his work featured in their publications.
Thanks, Dad!

In his final contribution to Telegraph Motoring, John Whitmore decries the arrogance of motor industry bosses

By John Whitmore
Telegraph.co.uk

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Few people with even a passing interest in motoring will have missed the media speculation about whether the big three American motor manufacturers are going to be bailed out by the U.S. Government to the tune of another $25 billion. The previous $25 billion was a loan approved in September to be used to fund investment in developing more fuel-efficient vehicles. Republicans, who favour the economic need over the environmental one, want to divert the existing the existing loan, whereas the Democrats want the bail-out to be an additional $25 billion.

But why should they be bailed out at all? The have continued to make obsloete, consumptive vehicles long after their sell-by date, they failed to invest in ecological vehicles soon enough, and they failed to anticipate the market decline due to shor-sightedness or was it obstinacy? Why should the American taxpayer fund their follies?

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Thomas Friedman: Win, Win, Win, Win, WIn...

New York TImes
Op-Ed Columnist
By Thomas L. Friedman

Link to Article

How many times do we have to see this play before we admit that it always ends the same way?

Which play? The one where gasoline prices go up, pressure rises for more fuel-efficient cars, then gasoline prices fall and the pressure for low-mileage vehicles vanishes, consumers stop buying those cars, the oil producers celebrate, we remain addicted to oil and prices gradually go up again, petro-dictators get rich, we lose. I’ve already seen this play three times in my life. Trust me: It always ends the same way — badly.

So I could only cringe when reading this article from CNNMoney.com on Dec. 22: “After nearly a year of flagging sales, low gas prices and fat incentives are reigniting America’s taste for big vehicles. Trucks and S.U.V.’s will outsell cars in December ... something that hasn’t happened since February. Meanwhile, the forecast finds that sales of hybrid vehicles are expected to be way down.”

Making Bay Area Friendly for Electric Cars

Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer

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Bay Area environmental leaders are counting on a $1 billion investment to build the nation's first electric vehicle network - with service stations to recharge batteries and garages to swap depleted batteries for fresh ones - and finally make the gasoline-free cars practical.

The Palo Alto-based company Better Place says its network of electric-vehicle charging stations will cover the Bay Area by 2012. In exchange for the investment from Better Place, the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland announced plans Thursday to collectively create cohesive regulations for electric vehicles that will apply to cities and counties throughout the region.