A host of new greener vehicles will be making their North American debuts at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show from Dec. 4 through Dec. 13 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Mercedes-Benz will show off the fuel-sipping E350 BlueTEC and the fuel-cell-powered F-Cell. The company also will showcase the just-launched ML450 Hybrid, Mercedes-Benz’s first hybrid SUV.

Essentially an electric car that makes its own power on board, the new Mercedes-Benz F-Cell  has a range of about 240 miles and, running on compressed hydrogen, boasts an equivalent fuel mileage of 86.6 city-highway combined miles per gallon. In 2010, Mercedes-Benz says 200 production F-Cell cars will be delivered to customers in the U.S. and Europe as part of a special lease program.

The car show also will include the E350 BlueTEC,  powered by a 3.0-liter V6 diesel with 210 horsepower that delivers 400 lb.-ft. of torque and approximately 30 percent better fuel economy than a comparable gasoline engine. Mercedes-Benz says the car uses “AdBlue injection” that makes diesel exhaust super-clean. The E350 BlueTEC will go on sale in all 50 states in spring 2010.

Making its West Coast debut at the L.A. Auto Show, the Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid uses a 3.5-liter V6 gasoline engine, two electric motors and sophisticated electronics to produce more than 46 percent better fuel economy than a comparable V8-powered ML550 model. Integrated within the modified automatic transmission, each magneto-electric motor is dedicated to a specific purpose — one for pulling away under electric power, the other specifically for acceleration. With both electric motors, the ML450 Hybrid has a total system performance of 335 horsepower and 381 pound-feet of torque.

Honda concept shows potential of ultra-compact, city-focused vehicle

Honda will present the world debut of its Personal-Neo Urban Transport (P-NUT)  at at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Dec. 2. The company also plans to demonstrate a futuristic concept for an ultra-compact, aggressively designed coupe. The Advanced Design Studio of Honda R&D Americas in Los Angeles developed the P-NUT design study model.

Mazda to Unveil All-New Small Car at 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show

The 2011 MAZDA2 will make its North American debut at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show next month. (Photo: PRNewsFoto/Mazda North American Operations)

The 2011 MAZDA2 will make its North American debut at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show as well.  The vehicle will be sold in the U.S. and Canada beginning in late 2010.

Takashi Yamanouchi, representative director, president and CEO of Mazda Motor Corporation, will debut the car to media Dec. 2. In addition to a stock MAZDA2, a selection of unique MAZDA2 vehicles will be on display to showcase the car’s creative potential and versatility, the company said.

MAZDA2 has won 48 awards and has been recognized as Car of the Year in more than 20 countries.

Chevrolet to show its green side

Chevrolet said it will affirm its commitment to fuel solutions and building refined, eco-friendly vehicles with the debut of the U.S. production version of the Cruze sedan at the Los Angeles Auto Show on Dec. 2. The Cruze, along with the much-anticipated Volt electric vehicle, will give visitors to the L.A. show a close-up view of Chevrolet’s expanding lineup of gas-friendly to gas-free products.

“With expected highway fuel economy up to 40 miles per gallon, Cruze will be extremely gas friendly while the Volt electric vehicle can be operated gas-free,” Brent Dewar, vice presidentof Chevrolet, said in a statement. “Chevrolet’s focus is on forward-looking technologies to the benefit of our customers, such as the highly efficient, small-displacement turbocharged engine in the Cruze or the Volt electric vehicle with extended range.”

The Cruze has already launched in Europe and Asia. It goes on sale in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2010 but has already logged more than 4 million miles in quality and durability testing worldwide, making it one of the most globally tested Chevrolet products prior to a U.S. launch, the company said.

Cruze is designed to achieve class-leading highway fuel economy using a new family of efficient engines that include a 1.4L turbo.

The Chevrolet Volt is an electric vehicle with extended-range capability. It is expected to drive up to 40 miles on electricity without using gasoline or producing tailpipe emissions. When the Volt’s lithium-ion battery is depleted of energy, an engine/generator seamlessly operates to extend the total driving range to more than 300 miles before refueling.

Chevrolet said it will announce plans for initial retail markets where the Volt will be sold. Production for the Volt is expected to begin in late 2010. Pricing has not been announced.

From Nov. 27-29, the Volt will be on display next to Bloomingdale’s at the Westfield Century City mall in West Los Angeles. During regular mall hours, visitors to the Chevrolet Volt display may get two free tickets each to the L.A. Auto Show, while supplies last. The L.A. Auto Show opens to the public Dec. 4.

Gee-whiz technology always starts out expensive. Graying boomers can remember paying $400 for a VCR. That first DVD player probably set you back $600. Now you can buy one at a grocery store for less than $40.

The 2010 Honda Insight is no $40 DVD player, but it proves the point: costly technology eventually becomes affordable. The starting sticker price of the Insight LX, the most basic of the three trim levels available, is $19,800. The MSRP for the top-of-the-line Insight EX with navigation system is $23,100 plus $670 destination and handling fees.

That makes the Honda Insight a couple grand cheaper than its look-alike competitor, the Toyota Prius, and the cheapest gasoline-hybrid now on the market.

Add that lower sticker price to 40-plus miles per gallon and you have a pretty economical economy car. The car tested got 41.8 mpg during a week of mixed driving, including a few episodes of harsh acceleration.

This edition of the Honda Insight has little in common with the car originally bearing the name, introduced as America’s first mass-produced hybrid car in December 1999 and later discontinued. This edition maintains fuel efficiency while adding comfort and practicality.

The car’s cabin contains the typical Honda ergonomic genius. Everything is laid out just so with the only minor gripe that the driver has to reach around the gearshift to get to the cup holder. The set up could make bringing a Venti Americano from holder to lips a bit tricky.

It’s easy to find a comfortable driver position thanks to a height-adjustable seat and telescoping steering column. The driver and front passenger will find plenty of legroom. Legroom for two rear seat riders is decent. The back seat is too narrow for three average size adults, however.

The cargo area accessible through the hatchback is surprisingly roomy and the fold-down rear seats add hauling flexibility.

The Insight is powered by Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist^TM system that pairs an 88-horsepower 1.3-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine and a 10-kilowatt electric motor that adds 13 horsepower. In this case 88 and 13 adds up to 98 horsepower for the combination.

That sounds slower than it is. Acceleration is good enough to merge into heavy freeway traffic if you’re at all paying attention. But don’t try to pass any tractor-trailer rigs when going up hill. And, as you might expect, the tiny engine complains loudly when forced to work hard.

The continuously variable automatic transmission is smooth and efficient.

But the people who drive this car are the sort of people who avoid jackrabbit starts anyway. And the Insight’s behavior modification will alter that habit if you have it. The Insight has a digital speedometer display that changes background color according to the fuel efficiency of your driving style. On this dash, green equals good. Blue is bad. Punch the pedal, the light goes dark blue. Use a feather touch, the light stays green.

As is the industry standard these days, even the base trim of the Insight comes with a long list of features: automatic climate control, power windows, a four-speaker AM/FM audio system with CD player and iPod jack and an array of airbags. The Insight EX adds electronic stability control, cruise control and an upgraded audio system with six speakers.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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

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

Fox thinks this is not just an important, historic show, but “the most significant show without a doubt” in the 21 years since the NAIAS became a designated international show.

The automakers, he believes, are thoroughly jazzed by the technological road race in front of them and ready to turn out more energy efficient vehicles faster than “even they thought they could.” (Good point there. But then what are the alternatives for the American makers? Sell the remaining inventory of Navigators to the residents of Dubai and take early retirement?)

From his perch in the balcony above the convention, Fox pointed to the evidence supporting his premise: GM’s all-electric Volt, on target for market in late 2010 (as far as we know), and soon to generate new American jobs in batteries; the Prius, enough said; the Insight, back from the dead and touted as economical too; and the promised Chrysler EVs (Fox hadn’t spotted those on the floor, but suspected strongly that they’ll be surfacing).

And don’t forget China’s whimsically named Build Your Dreams (BYD) cars, keeping the pressure on our flabby U.S. flank to build hybrids and all-electric cars in big numbers, but with smaller price tags.

“I think clearly there were some people coming here, arriving thinking this would be a gloomy funeral like atmosphere,” said Fox of the NAIAS convention. “But when they walked into that hall and heard some of the announcements being made…there’s no other show anywhere in North America like this show.”

“The word I use is hope. That’s what this show has shown us. There is hope on the horizon,” he said.

So maybe all we have to fear is fear itself? We’ll see how that flies, or drives, in the months to come.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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:

Audi TT

Gorgeous lines, 200-horsepower and a crisp six-speed manual transmission make the Audi TT a swell sports car. The fuel economy of the base 2-liter model makes it an earth-friendly sports car.
EPA estimated mpg: 22 city/30 highway

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.

General Motors has 100 Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell SUVs on the highways as part of “Project Driveway,” an extended research program that puts regular drivers behind the wheel of these costly cars for a few months.

Honda this summer began delivery of the FCX Clarity through a special leasing program expected to put another 200 fuel cell cars on the road over the next three years.

When you boil it down, fuel cell vehicles (FCV, for short) are electric cars. The juice comes from that single-proton gas once used to make zeppelins float. Hydrogen and oxygen are used in a chemical reaction that creates electricity. Think of it as the flip side to the electrolysis experiment you did in high school.

“We’re using hydrogen to store electricity,” says Mark Vann of General Motors.

For drivers, that means an electric car with the range of a conventional automobile. The range of the Equinox FCV is 160-200 miles between fill-ups. The Honda FCX goes about 270 miles.

Hydrogen as a fuel offers several advantages over gasoline. When used in fuel cells, the byproduct is water. It’s abundant. Industrial volumes of hydrogen are produced from natural gas and used to refine petroleum. Enough hydrogen is now produced globally each year to replace 56 billion gallons of gasoline, according to the National Hydrogen Association.

And hydrogen is a fairly cheap fuel. “The cost of operating the fuel cell Equinox is equivalent to getting 40 miles per gallon and paying $2.50 a gallon for gas,” say Vann.

The high amount of torque an electric motor offers compared to an internal-combustion engine means even an SUV like the Equinox is delightfully quick off the line.

“It goes faster than you legally need to go,” says Gates Clark, another Project Driveway participant. “There are no performance compromises.”

Quick and quiet. Low impact and low operating costs. Why can’t I have one now?

Honda is shifting gears in its strategy for hybrid cars. Judging from announcements at last week’s Paris Motor Show, the automaker has decided that the hybrids most likely to succeed in the marketplace are models with a standalone hybrid identity — like Toyota’s Prius, which is not available with a conventional gas engine — rather than those, like Honda’s Civic, that are already familiar in all-gasoline incarnations.

So while Chrysler’s new plan will speed up electric vehicle roll-out by building on existing cars, Honda will now focus on “dedicated” hybrid models like the new Insight Hybrid, which it expects to have in showrooms early next year. (Perhaps confusingly, this new car recycles the name of a previous Honda vehicle, a gas/electric hybrid that was discontinued a couple of years ago due to poor sales.)

The five-passenger car will be followed by two other dedicated hybrids — within the next four years, Honda intends to introduce both a compact similar to its Fit and a sports car resembling the CR-Z. The Insight’s fuel efficiency figures are not yet public, pending full EPA review, but company spokespeople have said its performance should be comparable to the existing Civic Hybrid, which gets a combined 42 mpg.

Though no price has yet been mentioned, in a press release the company boasts it will offer the Insight at “a price significantly below hybrids available today” and therefore expects to sell 200,000 cars a year, with half that in North America.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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Pushed by the dwindling prospects for fossil fuels, the auto industry is undergoing changes not seen since the days of Henry Ford. Today’s innovators aren’t just looking to gear up production, they’re trying to dial back energy use, and that’s produced a bumper crop of wild and wacky (and some not so wacky) concept cars.

Here are eight of our favorites:

Air Car

It would cost less to manufacture (and buy), less to maintain, less to fuel and there would be no emissions. The makers of this car, Air Car Factories, are either on drugs or they’ve seized the Holy Grail. Their car would run on compressed air collected by see-saw devices on the road. Each car would be refueled through regenerative driving. The Barcelona-based company expects to begin with electric models, until testing is completed on the Air Car. A green dream? We hope it’s a reality.

Nike ONE

That’s right. This is a car designed by a shoe maker. It doesn’t much look like a shoe. More like…nothing you’ve seen before. The car is intended to be “athletic.” No joke. “An athlete training to drive the Nike ONE uses a physical resistance simulator, that mimics the vehicle’s controls, along with the digital simulation within GT4 to train their muscles and mind for specific tracks and competition scenarios,” explains Phil Frank, lead designer, who said his team was inspired by the principals of Nike founder Bill Bowerman. The long term plan is that any movement by the driver would be converted into electricity through nanotechnology using a “Spark Suit.” Frank calls it “the ultimate in convergent technologies.” We agree.

Toyota Fine-S/ Fine-N

These aerodynamic hydrogen fuel cell cars would employ motors in the wheels, thereby opening up space in the cabin for passengers. The designs have been out for a while. No word on when such a car could be in production.

Honda Puyo

Honda has already hit the road with a hydrogen vehicle, the FCX Clarity, a few select models of which are being test driven by celebs in California. The concept Puyo, though, still seems from another planet. This hydrogen fuel cell car actually glows in the dark, not due to any radioactive fuel on board, but because the body is luminescent to enhance maneuverability. But that’s just where the fun begins. The whole Puyo concept is to produce a cuddly car. “‘PUYO’ is a Japanese onomatopoeia that expresses the sensation of touching the vehicle’s soft body. It is meant to convey a warm, friendly impression,” Honda reports. Looks cool too.

Chevy Volt

This much discussed plug-in is expected to be available by the end of 2010. GM promises that its lithium-ion battery will allow it to run around 40 miles on a single charge – without using any gasoline. Past 40 miles, the engine will be able to use gasoline or ethanol working along with the battery. Unlike some of the cars on this list, the Volt appears very close to production, and no wonder, GM has assigned more than 200 engineers and 50 designers to the project.

Nissan Pivo2

The electric Pivo 2 is not just a car, it’s an “intelligent life form design,” which means…we’re not sure what. But there is a “Robotic Agent” on the dashboard, a sort of alien friend who talks to you. The car is intended to be more like a living creature and less driven by mechanical design. One problem, though, while this three-seater can twirl 360-degrees, it’s not easy to envision a successful double date in this mini-car, unless one in the party is content atop the cabin.

Saab BioPower100

This turbo-charged sedan would use 100 percent biofuel in a production 2.0 liter engine, which with modifications, could produce a surprising 300 hp. The car debuted at the Geneva show in 2007. The concept explores maximizing power within an environmentally responsible vehicle.

Toyota RiN

This literally green car remains shrouded in mystery as to how it’s green, that is, how it will be powered. Toyota has much to say, however, about how the car will work to improve passengers’ awareness of their natural surroundings, improve their posture and overall health. The car’s “meter cluster” would change colors depending on your mood, which would presumably be more “serene” in this car. And…it’s cool looking.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

If plug-in hybrid cars and trucks become a common sight, don’t look for the Honda badge to be among them. Honda Motor Co. Chief Executive Takeo Fukui believes plug-in hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles don’t have enough environmental benefits for Honda to pursue, according to The Wall Street Journal. Toyota executives recently made similarly disparaging comments about plug-in hybrids.

General Motors, of course, has a high profile project to develop the gas-electric hybrid Chevy Volt. “My feeling is that the kind of plug-in hybrid currently proposed by different auto makers can be best described as a battery electric vehicle equipped with an unnecessary fuel engine and fuel tank,” Mr. Fukui told The Journal. GM is sticking to its plan to launch the Volt in the U.S. by 2010. You can track news about the Volt’s progress on the official GM site.

– Tom Kessler

UPDATE Oct. 31, 2007 – GM-Volt reported that GM’s Bob Lutz says the company has received the first experimental battery packs from its supplier and that “he hopes for 60,000 to 100,000 vehicles to be produced in the first model year.”