The 2010 Lexus HS 250h doesn’t drive by itself, but properly tricked out it comes pretty close. And the HS 250h does this while getting the sort of fuel economy associated with a much less comfortable, much less elegant, much less golllleee compact car.

Lexus HS 250h

The HS 250h is a hybrid luxury car designed from the ground up, not a slap-dash modification of an existing Lexus. The Lexus lineup generally offers power and performance. The HS 250h is the first Lexus with a four-cylinder gas engine.

Its Atkinson-cycle engine is mated to a two-motor hybrid system, creating an 187 horsepower vehicle. The power plant also meets the California SULEV and federal Tier 2 Bin 3 exhaust emission standards, which means that it emits 70 percent fewer emissions than the average new car. No small carbon reduction there.

The driver will only notice that the car moves quite briskly. Don’t think you can drag race the BMW 335d (still our favorite green car) in the next lane, but acceleration should never be an issue.

The HS 250h has a drive-mode switch to shift between Normal, Power, Eco and EV mode. Power mode offers a bit more oomph, but not a lot. The EV mode, under certain circumstances allows the car to be driven short distances at low speed using only the electric motors. It’s useful for winding your way through a parking garage or hauling the kids through the neighborhood to the community pool.

The EPA fuel economy estimate is 35 miles per gallon city and 34 mpg on the highway. We got 34.6 mpg in a week of driving, according to the car’s trip computer.

The interior is what you would expect in a Lexus: comfortable and well crafted. The navigation system, climate control and sound system are controlled with Lexus’ exclusive Remote Touch controller, which is part computer mouse, part joystick. It’s fun to play with at stoplights.

The $3,900 Tech Package includes lane assist and dynamic radar cruise control that do everything but steer the car for you.

The HS 250h has 10 airbags, including knee airbags for driver and front passenger, side curtain airbags, and both front and rear seat-mounted side airbags.

Another footprint reducing feature: A bioplastic using plant sources as raw material is used in a number of injection-molded, foam and board components throughout the car, including trunk compartment trim, cowl side trim, door scuff plates, seat cushions and the package tray. About 30 percent of the combined interior and trunk are covered in bioplastic.

This is Lexus’ first dedicated hybrid, and while it is aimed at a luxury market, the company kept pricing in the mid-30s. It is available in standard and premium models, with suggest retail price tags of $34,200 and $36,970, respectively.

Options such as the $3,900 Tech Package, which includes dynamic radar cruise control, can quickly add to the tab, however. The loaded test car had a sticker price of $48,876.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

The EPA has issued a new fuel economy guide for consumers that goes beyond the already standing website, fueleconomy.gov.

The new guide singles out the best-in-class for fuel efficiency in various categories, such as Fuel Economy Leaders: 2010 Model Year (yup, the Prius number 1, but hey luxury lovers, did you know there are two Lexus’s on the top 10 list?)

There’s also a list of the Lowest Fuel Economy Models: 2010 Model Year. Sorry Bentley, Lamborghini and Mercedes lovers, this is where the buck stops. You want to be green, you’ll have to build a new engine to go with those calfskin seats.

The EPA website also points people to the Green Vehicle Guide. This guide looks at both a car’s fuel efficiency and its tail pipe emissions, helping consumers to understand that the greenest, most eco-friendly cars both save on fuel consumption and have cleaner emissions.

The Green Vehicle Guide allows you to plug in a vehicle (pun unintended) and a state to pop up the air pollution and greenhouse gas scores for virtually any new model car you’re considering buying.

We checked out the Honda Insight, in Texas, and found that the new hybrid sedan is rated either an 8 or 9 (on a 10-point scale, with 10 being the best) depending on the engine  for air pollution, and a 10 for greenhouse gas emissions.

Switch your selection to a Chevy Suburban 1500 and the scores dip, to 6 for air pollution and 4 for greenhouse gases for the ethanol 5.3L engine but only 1 for the gasoline-powered 8 cylinder.

So depending on whether you plan on attending environmental rallies or having a family of 8, you can use this guide to decide if the Suburban, the Insight or any other car is right for you.

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.

Palmer says he made the trip “to demonstrate that clean technologies are available now to curb global warming,” according to an Environment News Service report that goes on to summarize some of the developments so far at the conference — which include a pledge from Brazil to drastically slow deforestation and a plan to curb illegal logging in an effort to preserve more trees for carbon dioxide capture.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now  | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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 it to the U.S. in recent months.

Video: See the five finalists

“This is an exciting year for ‘green’ cars because of the many innovative and advanced models now emerging,” Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal, said in a statement. “In fact, this year’s selection of nominees was more challenging than in years past because of the auto industry’s greater emphasis on greener vehicles and the number of potential vehicles to consider. For the first time, we’ve also seen a pair of clean diesels and a small gasoline model giving hybrids serious competition.”

Fuel efficient diesels have long been popular in Europe, but the engines have only recently been re-engineered to meet tough U.S. standards. The BMW 335d gets 33 miles per gallon and features a complex three-piece emissions system. VW uses a system developed in cooperation with Audi and Mercedes-Benz that temporarily captures particulate emissions before burning them off in a later part of the engine cycle.

The 2009 Green Car of the Year will be selected by a jury that includes Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club; Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council; Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of Ocean Futures Society; automotive expert and Tonight Show host Jay Leno; and automotive icon Carroll Shelby.

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?

Just as the iPod has become synonymous with digital music players, Toyota’s Prius is the primary 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.

The separate Prius brand would be sold only in the United States.

Meanwhile, Toyota is continuing to develop other alternative fuel programs for the future. At a recent Toyota Sustainable Mobility Seminar in Portland, Ore., company officials announced that four RAV4 electric vehicles will be used by the City of Portland and the state of Oregon to develop an electric-charging infrastructure in preparation for the arrival of future zero- and low-emission vehicles. Portland State University will use the vehicles to shuttle people from mass-transit terminals to downtown and suburban locations.

The company also is planning to unveil a natural gas–powered Camry hybrid concept vehicle at the Los Angeles Auto Show next month.

And in September, Toyota began testing a plug-in Prius hybrid on public roads in the United Kingdom. The prototype is similar to the current Prius, with the exception of a second nickel-metal hydride hybrid battery pack that provides greater electric power. With more electric power in reserve, the vehicle is capable of operating in pure-electric mode longer and faster than the current Prius.

Toyota also says it is accelerating development of plug-in hybrid vehicles equipped with lithium-ion batteries. The company will begin sales to fleet customers at the end of 2009.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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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 cell, resulting in a vehicle with a range of more than 300 miles that emits nothing from the tailpipe but water vapor.

Source: Chrysler

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• Chrysler’s green machine

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By Clint Williams

Let’s be honest: For most folks, conservation implies sacrifice. Maybe even a little discomfort. Turn down the thermostat to save energy, your feet are cold.

There is no sacrifice involved driving the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid. Not after you write the check, anyway. In fact, Honda this year is adding some nice touches. The most important addition is electronic stability control, now standard. Options now include leather-trimmed interior, heated seats, navigation system, XM satellite radio and Bluetooth® HandsFreeLink®.

The Civic Hybrid is powered by a 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine and a 15 kilowatt electric motor, producing a combined 110-horsepower. That horsepower is harnessed by a smooth continuously variable transmission. Acceleration is best described as adequate, but this isn’t a sports car.

Steering is reassuringly crisp and overall handling is good, helped by a rigid body frame and fully-independent MacPherson strut front suspension and multi-link rear suspension.

The leather-trimmed interior is handsome and the bright, glowing digital displays are very easy to read and have a spaceship look. There are plenty of nooks for storage. Rear legroom is surprisingly generous if there are two adults in the back. But if there are three, the third passenger needs to be the shortest one in the group.

But people will buy this car to save gas. The Civic Hybrid has an EPA-estimated fuel economy of 40 miles per gallon in city driving and 45 mpg on the highway. The test car fell a bit short of that, getting 37.8 mpg, according to the dashboard trip computer, in a mix of city and highway driving typical to suburban life.

That is still significantly higher than a Civic EX-L with a five-speed automatic transmission that gets 25 mpg city and 36 mpg highway.

The higher fuel economy of the Civic Hybrid comes at a cost. The top-of-the-line hybrid tested has a sticker price of $26,750 – $3,195 more than a comparably equipped EX-L edition.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

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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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By Clint Williams

Imagine a day of running errands – grocery shopping, dropping off the dry cleaning, hauling the kids to T-ball practice – that doesn’t include a stop for gas. Now imagine a week. A month. Three months. Six months. A year. Five years.

That’s the promise of the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric car expected in dealer showrooms November 2010. Powered by a T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack, the four-passenger Volt will be able to travel 40 miles on a charge.

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Video: Watch an overview of the Chevy Volt

That’s enough range for the bulk of daily driving, GM officials say, citing a U.S. Department of Transportation survey that found 76 percent of drivers commute 40 miles or less daily.

Drive a Volt and the only reasons for stopping at a QT are Slurpees and microwave breakfast burritos.

But those driving a Volt won’t be limited to in-town driving. A 1.4-liter, four-cylinder engine to be built in Flint, Michigan serves as an onboard generator, kicking in to charge the battery after 40 miles and giving the Volt the range of a conventional automobile.

The Volt isn’t a gasoline-electric hybrid, GM’s Cristi Landy points out repeatedly during a day-long introduction of the car last week at the Texas Motor Speedway near Dallas. The Volt, she says, “is an extended-range electric vehicle.”

Electricity powers the front-wheel-drive Volt all the time and at all speeds. Hybrid cars on the road now such as the Toyota Prius or Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid use a combination of an electric motor and gas-powered internal combustion engine to make them go. The electric motor is used at low speeds or to boost acceleration. Once you’re up to freeway speeds, however, it’s the gasoline engine that is doing all the work. That explains why the EPA mileage estimates of the Prius are higher for city driving than for highway driving, the flip-flop of what you might expect.

Green Right Now auto writer Clint Williams and GM’s Cristi Landy talk about the landmark Chevy Volt at an appearance at Texas Motor Speedway outside Dallas.

Chevy may be stepping up on publicity for its upcoming Volt plug-in, but it isn’t the only American automaker finally throwing itself convincingly into the green marketplace.

In a surprise announcement yesterday, Chrysler showed off not one but three vehicles that, at least within a certain range, can get users around without using a single drop of gasoline.

The three models — a sports car called the Dodge EV, an EV Jeep, and a minivan named Chrysler EV — are touted in this promotional video in which chairman/CEO Bob Nardelli (citing the company’s “social responsibility” to provide environmentally friendly products) boasts, “we intend to deliver on that responsibility faster and more broadly than our competition.”

Chrysler hopes its ENVI initiative will beat its competitors to the punch by making electric vehicles that use existing designs instead of designing new models from scratch. Frank Klegon, Executive Vice President of Product Development, claims that “in 2010, we will deliver at least one vehicle model to consumers in North America, and then soon after that in the European markets.” But the company has its sights set on offering “a full-range of vehicle options” soon afterward.

There’s no word yet on details like pricing, and executives won’t even say which car will be offered for sale in 2010: the sports model, an all-electric that can run more than 150 miles on a charge and goes from 0-60 in under 5 seconds; or one of the other two, which are “range extended Vehicles” that (like the Volt) supplement electric systems with a small gasoline engine which kicks in after a certain mileage.

According to the New York Times, these ambitious plans may depend in part on the government saving some of its Wall Street bailout cash for environmental priorities: “While Chrysler is committed to electric vehicles, Mr. Nardelli said the project would benefit directly from a proposed $25 billion federal loan program for the United States auto industry.”

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