Ask Patty Green Car Carnival: March 26, 2008

April is Earth Month, and the New York Auto Show started us on our Earth-Aware mindset a little early by presenting a wide variety of eco-friendly and alternatively fueled production cars and concepts. We’ve gathered up an assortment of our green favorites here so you can enjoy them as well. Ask Patty strives to be Earth Friendly members of the automotive world every day, so we hope you’ll enjoy this AskPatty Blog Green Car Carnival, where we provide a midweek fix of female-friendly news and interesting automotive tidbits from around the ecofriendly blogosphere.


Lady Liberty opened this year's New York Auto Show with an announcement that she would be ending her 100-year love affair with the automobile and declared her undying devotion to biking, walking and mass transit. According to StreetsBlog.org, Lady Liberty used the auto show as an opportunity to reject the automobile's eleventh-hour pleas that it intends to moderate its wasteful ways saying "'Green car' is an oxymoron, and I've had it with morons." Wowzer. There’s one angry lady!

Chevy’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Equinox continues its auto show tour to the New York Auto Show and onto the Marketwatch news site. From the outside, the Chevy Equinox fuel-cell vehicle looks a lot like any other sport utility vehicle, but under its hood, the differences abound. While General Motors has yet to release any specific plans to put the Equinox into general production beyond 100 “Project Driveway” test vehicles on the road this year, the car provides a glimpse of the alternative technologies – including Saturn’s plug-in hybrid, Tahoe hybrid, and the Chevrolet Volt concepts -- in prominent display at this year's New York Auto Show.

A new challenge with a 10 million U.S. dollar award as the carrot at the end of the stick was announced Thursday by the X Prize Foundation at the New York Auto Show. The foundation's latest challenge is to design and build a "viable, clean, and super-efficient" car that people actually want to buy and that will "help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change." (Isn’t this the same thing our traditional manufacturers are attempting to accomplish?) To date, 64 international teams have accepted the challenge, which is sponsored by Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. Their innovative vehicles will compete for multi-million dollar prize in the culmination of the challenge: two long-distance stage races that reflect real driving conditions, to be held in 2009 -- the Qualifying Race and the Grand Prize Final. In the races, the cars will have to hit a minimum speed and achieve a fuel efficiency of at least 100 miles per gallon of gasoline energy equivalent. They must also be ready for production on the market. In other words, no concept cars.

Subaru of America Inc. showed off its R1e electric car, saying it's fun to drive while also being easy to charge and emissions free. According to IHT.com, the R1e promises a range of 50 miles and claims to achieve a top speed of 65 mph. It can charge to 80 percent capacity in 15 minutes using a dedicated charger, or be fully charged overnight with a regular domestic outlet. According to Tim Mahoney, Subaru of America's chief marketing officer, the vehicle's lithium-ion battery has an estimated life of 10 years or 100,000 miles.

Mitsubishi Motors is showing its battery-powered i MiEV at the New York International Auto Show this week, as well as its clean diesel-powered Concept-cX[2] compact which is scheduled to make its European debut in 2009. The i MiEV is a 100% electric vehicle, which uses high-energy density lithium batteries to power its compact, lightweight motor. Mitsubishi has been operating a test fleet in Japan since October 2006 to determine i MiEV's overall performance under actual driving conditions and its market acceptability. According to AutoBlogGreen.com Mitsu plans to start a fleet test program of the I Miev in the United States this fall working with several power companies in North America, MMC continues to stride forward in making the EV a practical proposition on a global scale.

BMW’s 118d with EfficientDynamics -- a compact hatchback powered by a four-cylinder diesel putting out 143 hp and promising more than 50 miles per gallon -- was named the World Green Car of the Year at the New York Auto Show last week. To be eligible for the 2008 World Green Car award, a vehicle must achieve economy better than 47 miles per gallon, feature technologies specifically designed to increase fuel economy or decrease emissions, and meet or exceed strict new tailpipe emissions requirements in Europe and the United States. Sold in Europe, the 118d is not yet projected for the American market; while many automakers are bringing new diesels to the U.S., usnews.rankingsandreviews.com wonders whether Americans will buy them. Who wouldn’t buy this one?

MotiveMag.com showed us Saleen’s impressive new concept vehicle, the S5S Raptor as made its world debut at New York. The Raptor has a 5-liter, supercharged V-8 that gets 650 horsepower, and is powered by E85 cellulosic ethanol. This is the same ethanol formula, stated Saleen President and Chief Executive Paul Wilbur, that is the official fuel of the 2008 American Le Mans Race Series and the IRL. The higher octane rating of E85 results in more power, promising to will send the Raptor screaming to 60 mph in a g-force generating 3.2 seconds. “With ethanol power,” said Wilber, “the car is both mean and clean!”

Jim Hand and Hand Motors were presented with the 2007 Dealer Innovation Award by the National Automobile Association and USA Today at the New York Auto Show. The award is given to an automobile dealership which has taken a leadership role in the community to save energy, reduce utility costs, and help protect the environment. Hand well-known in the area for the efforts both he and his family have made to energy efficiency in the community. The dealership saves about $15,000 a year by heating its service department with waste motor and vegetable oils instead of traditional heating oil. In 2007, Hand Motors installed new lighting fixtures which reduced electricity costs by about 30 percent. The dealership also uses motion detectors in key areas to cut electricity use and serves as a recycling drop-off point for plastics, batteries and compact fluorescent light bulbs. In all, Hand expects to save about $30,000 a year in energy costs through the dealership's "reduce, recycle and carbon-offset program" program. That’s awesome! Let’s give Mr. Hand a big round of applause!

Honda is promising to release two dedicated hybrids for the U.S. market in 2009. One of them should be based on the Concept CR-Z we’ve seen at recent auto shows, and the other is expected to be revealed at the Paris Motor Show in the Fall. According to Yahoo! Green, these two cars should beat the Prius for efficiency, but their price is yet to be determined. Left Lane News says when the new model launches in Europe in Spring 2009, it will have an estimated sticker price between €16,000 and €20,000 ($10,300 to $13,000). Bring it on!

As the first Teslas roll off the production line and into the hands of some rich guys, Yahoo! Green thinks it's time to take a look at the  electric roadster's competition, identifying a list of other hot green cars worthy of the ecofriendly millionaire’s garage. The list includes the too-expensive-to-tell Rinspeed sQuab, the $600,000 Venturi Fetish, the $300,00 Lightning GT, the $100,000 Tesla Roadster, and Fisker’s $80,000 Karma. Out of the price range for the average consumer, but still exotic enough to put them onto the wishlist of many car fans. The fact that they’re eco-friendly is just additional frosting on the proverbial cake.

According to Yahoo! Green, the Vatican has listed an updated collection of modern new sins, such as causing environmental blight and genetic manipulation, and specifically opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and human cloning. Under Pope Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the Vatican has become progressively "green," and has installed photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity and hosted a scientific conference to discuss the ramifications of global warming and climate change, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels. Additional guidance has recently come from Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man, who told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics. Let’s all pray for a greener automotive future, shall we?

In honor of this week’s green car theme, we’re wrapping up with something in a different shade from our usual pink car finale. This week’s green car is courtesy of glamgirlcars.com, who found this Beetle buggy in Eqypt.  She says “It looks like a perfect car for Shrek, but I liked it as well.” We agree.

And that's it for this week's AskPatty Green Car Blog Carnival! Make sure to submit your article for next week's "Automotive Advice for Women Blog Carnival" using the online form or by emailing Ask Patty at info@askpatty.com.

By Brandy Schaffels
Editor

And that's it for this week's AskPatty Green Car Blog Carnival! Make sure to submit your article for next week's "Automotive Advice for Women Blog Carnival" using the online form or by emailing Ask Patty at info@askpatty.com.

By Brandy Schaffels
Editor