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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By John DeFore

While this past weekend’s Los Angeles Auto Show had autophiles lusting after tomorrow’s hot wheels, a very different California event just celebrated a company working to make yesterday’s cars a lot greener.

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By Clint Williams

With highway fuel economy of 30 mpg, the Suzuki SX4 certainly conserves gasoline. And, more importantly these days, this compact sedan conserves cash. A comfortably well-equipped SX4 - complete with standard touch-screen navigation system - rolls off the dealer lot for less than $16,000. That makes it financially competitive in its class, and as economical as most cars featured in our “30(cars) Over 30(mpg)” gallery.

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By Harriet Blake

New York City taxi cab owners and drivers are finally closer to being on the same page in the debate over hybrid vehicles.

At a press conference Friday [Nov. 14], New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an incentive program designed to create an entirely green fleet of cabs by 2012.

Financial incentives will be awarded to taxi fleet owners who buy hybrid vehicles, and financial disincentives for those who continue to use non-hybrids. Hybrid cars work on a mixture of gasoline and electricity from batteries.

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By Clint Williams

Don’t be fooled. Gasoline prices won’t be bumping around $2 a gallon for long. Driving a car with good fuel economy still makes sense. Higher mpg means lower operating costs for the household budget and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Happily, car shoppers today have a myriad of options among fuel frugal 2009 cars. You can find something getting 30 mpg or better on the highway at nearly every dealer lot. In some cases, you’ll have to settle for a trim line with a smaller engine and manual transmission to hit the 30 mpg mark.

Here are 30 with 30 mpg:

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By Tom Kessler

Green Car Journal editors have chosen the five finalists for the 2009 Green Car of the Year award. They include two “clean” diesels — the BMW 335d and Volkswagen Jetta TDI — the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Saturn Vue 2-Mode Hybrid, and the Euro-bred smart fortwo. The winner will be announced Nov. 20 at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

According to the Journal’s experts, the five models are important milestones for their manufacturers. The VW and BMW clean diesels signal the advent of highly efficient, advanced diesel sedans that meet emissions requirements in all 50 states. Ford’s Fusion Hybrid is the American automaker’s first hybrid sedan. Saturn’s Vue 2-Mode represents the first time GM has used its two-mode hybrid system in a V-6 front-drive platform. The smart fortwo is fuel efficient micro car from Europe that just made ti the U.S. in recent months.

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By Clint Williams

Jennifer Drukker expected people would stare at her new car. What she didn’t expect was this: “I was at the first stop light after I’d driven off with the car. It was literally the first time I came to a stop after driving off with the car,” she recalls. “The driver of the car next to me rolls down the windows and starts shouting questions.”

If it seems an extreme response to a Chevrolet Equinox, a fairly mainstream SUV, consider that the paint job includes the word “fuel cell” on the sides.

Fuel cell vehicles that turn abundant hydrogen into electricity are one promising alternative to gasoline-burning, toxic-fume-spewing internal-combustion engines. Widespread availability of such cars - which emit water vapor instead of greenhouse gases and stuff that’s flat out unhealthy - is years in the future.

But for Jennifer Drukker, Jamie Lee Curtis (yes, that one) and a handful of other drivers, the future is now.

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By Tom Kessler

Just as the iPod has become synonymous with digital music players, Toyota’s Prius is the only car people tend to think of when it comes to hybrid electric vehicles. The Prius alone accounts for 75 percent of the hybrid cars sold in the United States, according to Toyota.

With Honda taking aim at the same market with its redesigned, very Prius-looking Insight, it appears Toyota may try to extend its lead by turning Prius into a line of cars much like its Scion and Lexus brands. The New York Times reports that James E. Lentz III, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., is lobbying Toyota executives in Japan to make the move.

Lentz may well have the clout to pull this off: Americans buy 65 to 70 percent of all Toyota hybrids sold worldwide. The Times says Lentz doesn’t know when Toyota might approve the project but talks will continue next month in Japan.

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Chrysler’s 2008 ecoVoyager Concept is a four-door, four-passenger vehicle that is simultaneously sleek, futuristic, and distinctively American. Its one-box design - and the absence of a traditional powertrain setup - allowed designers to make uniquely efficient use of the cabin’s parameters. The ecoVoyager also mates an advanced lithium-ion battery pack to an advanced hydrogen fuel [...]

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