April 11th, 2012

In a bygone American era, Detroit shone proudly as a center of industry, home to the Model T and other symbols of American progress. The decline of the car industry in recent decades, though, has cut the city’s population in half and left poor neighborhoods in even more derelict condition. Detroit is now home to thousands of acres of vacant land, most of it unmaintained, left to collect weeds and waste. The result? Many of the city’s residents live in what is termed a
“food desert.”

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February 29th, 2012

San Francisco’s Green Film Festival kicks off this week, with 40 films from around the world and dozens of directors and speakers slated to appear at showings from March 1-7. The second annual festival also will feature US premieres of foreign films, such as Waking the Green Tiger, a chronicle of China’s rising eco-awareness, and Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws, which follows activists in Great Britain on a whirlwind of zany actions to stop polluters. See snapshots of these two films, and two other fascinating works, Urban Roots and Blood in the Mobile, below.

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January 10th, 2012

Imagine if our nation was offered a choice of how to spend half a trillion dollars of our wealth over the next two decades.
One option would be to send $350 billion overseas to the Middle East and other oil exporting countries, and the remainder on increasing oil industry revenues.
An alternative option would be to take that half a trillion dollars and invest $300 billion directly into the U.S. auto industry, put $200 billion back into consumers’ pockets, and create half a million new jobs while cutting emissions of dangerous carbon pollution.
Is this choice just a pipe dream? Is it too simplistic a way to look at things?
Hardly.

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September 2nd, 2010

Coulomb Technologies unveiled its first electric charging station in the heart of Motor City today, heralding a planned network of hundreds of free electric car charging stations for southern Michigan.
Coulomb’s ChargePoint America stations, made possible through a $37 million grant from the American Recovery Act, will be installed in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Detroit and smaller towns in the region. The stations will serve Ford, General Motors and smartUSA, all of which expect to be selling electric vehicles in Michigan within months.

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June 3rd, 2010

Ford Motor Company announced it will partnering with Coulomb Technologies to provide free in-home charging stations for some of the automaker’s first electric vehicle customers under the Ford Blue Oval ChargePoint Program.

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February 9th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Enterprise Holdings today announced that it will convert its entire fleet of more than 600 Alamo Rent A Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental airport shuttle buses  in 50 North American markets to begin using at least 5 percent biodiesel (B5). The company said it will immediately convert buses in nine markets to 20 percent biodiesel (B20) as a first step toward the company’s goal of converting its entire bus fleet to B20 over the next five years.

Joe Jobe, CEO of NBB; Dr. Richard Sayre, Director of Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels; and Lee Broughton, director of corporate identity and sustainability for Enterprise Holdings. (Photo: National Biodiesel Board)

Enterprise Holdings expects to complete the conversion to all B5 by spring of this year, with at least 50 percent converted to B20 by the end of next year. Buses in nine markets are immediately being converted to run on B20 where the fuel is centrally stored and available: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Raleigh/Durham, San Antonio and San Diego.

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January 14th, 2010

Tesla Motors has built 1000 cars. (Photo: Tesla Motors)

From Green Right Now Reports

Tesla Motors said this week that it has built its 1,000th production vehicle. The car, which bears the unique Vehicle Identification No. 1,000, is a special-edition Roadster Sport in “Millennial White,” with a unique interior and carbon fiber accents.

The car will be on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit through Jan. 24. Tesla said it will donate the $175,000 Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of this collector’s car to several charities in metro Detroit.

“A year ago right here in Detroit we had delivered about 150 Roadsters, so VIN 1,000 is a humble but important milestone for us,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a statement. “It’s fitting to do something special with this unique car.”

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January 14th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’d expect Doug Fox, the cordial co-chair of the North American International Auto Show, which opens to the public on Saturday, to have some good spin on how this event would rise above the stench of economic panic in the Motor City, and the country.

Not only did he have the goods, by the end of the conversation, I was convinced that this is a pivotal, but not hopeless time for the car industry.

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January 13th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The North American International Auto Show in Detroit, that perennial display of motor muscle, finds itself in a serious mood this year.

With every top automaker in the U.S. reporting double-digit sales declines for 2008 (and GM still teetering on the precipice) it is a safe bet that the tenor at times will be more matte gray than Corvette red.

More from GRN
Slideshow: Detroit’s green cars for 2009

But for those who seek the light at the end of the tunnel, there is much to celebrate — or at least laud — at this year’s show. And most of it is green, green, green.

“It’s the most important year ever for hybrid vehicles. We’ve had most of our major press conferences completed, and probably 80 percent of the major press conferences all revolved around hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles,” said Doug Fox, co-chair of the 2009 NAIAS, which opens to the public on Saturday.

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November 11th, 2008

By John DeFore

As more and more individuals and groups set out to re-introduce gardens to urban areas — often citing WWII’s “Victory Gardens” as proof that a large percentage of our food can come from our back yards and vacant lots — the Detroit-headquartered Urban Farming wants to push edible plants into new spaces — like walls.

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