Green Right Now

By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

The variables that go into calculating the economics of driving a car will make your head hurt. The considerations include purchase price, depreciation, fuel economy, maintenance costs and insurance. Does the extra you pay for hybrid technology now pay off in savings at the pump over the long haul?

Anybody have a calculator?

But here is the bottom line for most car buyers: What’s it like once you slide your tush behind the wheel?
By that matrix, the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI measures up pretty well.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Just like you hunt for that Energy Star tag when examining a fridge or washer, people in California can now duck under the hood of any new 2009 model car to get an at-a-glance emissions rating.

The Environmental Performance sticker, mandated to begin on Jan. 1 for all new model cars, will include two scores, one rating the car’s smog emissions and the other its greenhouse gas output. The air pollutants for the latter include carbon dioxide emissions, which make up the greatest volume of greenhouse gases. Gas engine cars emit nitrous oxides, methane gases, hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and other emissions.

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By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

An expectation met is rare enough. An expectation surpassed is a culturally appropriate winter solstice celebration miracle.

So imagine my surprise and delight when reading the miles per gallon readout on the trip computer of the 2009 Jetta TDI during a recent holiday drive over the river and through the woods. The display reads: 43.7 mpg. That’s significantly above the Environmental Protection Agency estimate of 40 mpg in highway driving.

And we weren’t doing any of that 55 mph, coast-down-hills, hyper-miler sort of driving. We were zipping along at 70 mph or so, singing loudly along with the Christmas tunes provided by the satellite radio.

That sort of fuel economy apparently isn’t a fluke. Volkswagen hired a third party, automotive evaluation company AMCI, to test the real-world fuel economy of the Jetta TDI and found it performed 24 percent better than EPA estimates, getting 38 mpg in the city and 44 mpg on the highway.

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By Heather Ishimaru
KGO-San Francisco

The nation is working to move away from fossil fuels and toward plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. But, are we trading one limited natural resource for another? Lithium-ion batteries are now considered the best option for the next generation of cars. But where will all that lithium come from?
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By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

The MINI Cooper S proves fighting global warming can be fun.

This distinctive, diminutive cult car is fuel efficient, getting an EPA estimated 34 miles per gallon in highway driving.

But people considering a MINI Cooper - especially the turbocharged S edition - aren’t primarily interested in mpg. They’re more concerned with gpg - grins per gallon. The Cooper S offers plenty.

The turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine roars with 172 horsepower. Coupled with a clickity crisp six-speed stick shift, the tiny car is quick, quick, quick. The spec sheet says the 0-60 mph is 6.7 seconds, but it feels much faster because of the scale - just as 25 mph in a go-cart seems so much faster than the same speed in the family minivan.

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By John DeFore

When last we mentioned electric-car entrepreneur Shai Agassi, the former software wunderkind’s grand plans had attracted commitments from the government of Israel but had no traction in the States.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’ve heard the saying, “it’s easy being green.” Maybe sometimes. But not always, and not if you’re the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) agency, which finds itself tangling with a green dilemma.

DART, which serves Dallas and 11 other cities in the region, has been planning to replace its aging bus fleet with 537 shiny new buses. It’s a great opportunity to go green with the entire fleet.

But after taking bids this fall and updating the research, the agency members are locked in debate over what type of buses are “cleaner” and which ones make the most sense environmentally and economically. The answer is not readily apparent. Like potential car buyers on the threshold of a dealership showroom, the bus-buying members of DART find themselves puzzling over the new technologies and old perceptions.

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By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

Some people buy a car looking for thrills. Others want a little prestige under the hood. A lot of folks, though, just want something to get them to work and to the grocery store as cheaply as possible.

The 2009 Chevrolet Aveo5 Hatchback is a car for those people.

The Aveo5, and its sedan counterpart, get an EPA estimated 34 miles per gallon in highway driving and you can expect darn close to 30 mpg in your typical mix of run-around-the-suburbs driving. Aveo meets the ULEV II emissions standard.

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By John DeFore

Last week in Poland, attendees at the United Nations’ climate conference were greeted by an impressive creature — a car that, powered by nothing but the sun, had made a trip around the globe to meet them.

The car’s owner, a Swiss schoolteacher named Louis Palmer, intends to hang around the conference until its close on Friday, treating his vehicle like a “solar taxi” and offering free rides to the event’s “delegates, ministers and the press”; he even let UN Climate official Yvo de Boer hop in for the last few meters of his historic voyage.

For its record-breaking trek, the car traveled over 33,000 miles through 38 countries (one assumes a boat ride or two were involved as well); the trip took a year and a half.

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By Clint Williams
Green Right Now

Heated and cooled leather seats? Of course.

Touch-screen navigation system? Natch.

Killer Bose sound system? Satellite radio? Blind spot alert?

Check, check and check.

The 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid offers all this and another luxury: a clear conscience.

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The planned California High Speed Rail system, which voters endorsed with a yes vote on initial funding in November, would offer travel times competitive with air travel and less than half what comparable trips would take by car.

The concept drawings here, provided by the CHSR Authority and graphic animators Newlands & Company, Inc., illustrate how the system would work and be meshed with existing infrastructure.

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By Catherine Girardeau
Green Right Now

Despite the derailing economy, California voters got on board for reviving train service in their state November 4th by passing state proposition 1A — a $10 million bond to begin construction of a fully electric rail system running 220-mph trains between San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal and Union Station in Los Angeles.

The bond is a vote of confidence from the public and a down payment on the $40 billion-plus project that plans to run high-speed trains from Sacramento to San Diego. The plan’s boosters say it will create jobs, relieve air and highway congestion, and help the state meet its legislative mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

While detractors like the San Diego Union-Tribune’s editorial board said California’s budget woes make spending billions of dollars on a massive transportation project not only ill-advised, but “potentially the biggest boondoggle in California history”, proponents called the victory a landmark for high-speed rail nationwide.

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