The 2008 "Green Car" Awards

Hello Plbmak

there is a hot discussion going on here:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/14678/Weight-Reduction-in-Automobiles-to-Reduce-CO2-GHG

see what you can get from there

Fair comment, but weight is a separate issue (cars are getting heavier because of safety issue's). I'm interested in engine technology. Whenever I look at a US designed engine, with a few exceptions, they look very low tech.

Actually, I think the issue is expectation, what does the US in general expect from a green car?

Colour....

(Only if it's that special green that was left laying about in the shed, and so became famous!)

Those 'few exceptions' may be the ones designed by British engine consultancies!

The Zap-X can travel up to 350 miles between charges. The Zap-X was designed by lotus and has a top speed of 155mph. Zap electric cars are the only all-electric cars in production currently in the US.

http://www.zapworld.com/electric-vehicles/electric-cars/zap-x (Sorry! Link no longer available.)

Must be the thought that counts. I also have a high performance car (made in Germany) that produces 400 hp (when needed), but can get me 31.8 highway mpg at 67 mph.

The actual 22 mpg is simply a joke for highway, but 20 mpg city mileage is actually a pretty good number for that vehicle (if it is real).

If I'm to go green I would want a lot more than 20mpg. We have a lot of IC engines that get a lot more mileage than that. What is it? A Tank?

You've got to look at the percent increase which was probably in the neighborhood of 100%! Name any other car/SUV/Truck that has improved so much. Don't look at the absolute numbers you'll just get depressed.

I think you missed this line from the article:

"Selection was based not necessarily on how green the car is (in other words, how fuel efficient they are), but also for being firsts. The Tahoe was first to production for the joint two-mode hybrid system co-developed by BMW, GM and DaimlerChrysler."

Sounds like the selection criteria for hosting the Olympics.

When you can get a Civic Hybrid with the size and carrying capacity of the Tahoe, the mpg will fall like a rock from 60 to about...um... 20.

and Jay Leno was part of the panel...

I agree though, it is a f-i-r-s-t → increasing the fuel efficiency along that lines on a large vehicle.

This strikes me as absolutely obscene. A 15 mpg Hummer would be a big improvement over the H1, but that hardly makes it green. These SUVs are used 90% of the time to carry one person around. Doing so at 20 mpg efficiency is anything but green.

That the Malibu was nominated is practically beyond belief -- it gets 2 mpg better than the non-hybrid model -- an incredibly small increment.

The article reads like a spoof!

If you paid the same price for petrol in the states as we do.......

Yeh I've just noticed my 20quids worth has now had to become 30quids worth to keep the same fill up interval.......still I'm sure Gordon Brown will put it to good use (falls of chair crying...)

They have to make up for not being able to sell honours anymore, or have anonymous donours....wait! What am I saying? Is that illegal?

Since I've been trying to find a car with decent gas mileage lately. I've come to the conclusion that even the so called green cars in the US are not really very green.

If I could afford the initial outlay of $$$$ for a high performance sports car I'd buy one of them. They seem to get the most mileage from a gallon of gas. Except most require the higher grade fuel and the insurance is very $$$$. I've even looked into the Smart car that is going on sale in the US this month. Its gas mileage isn't all that great in it self considering the size of the thing.

It does annoy me as well that US based car companies don't seem to be trying very hard to make their cars as "green" as they could. I live on the east coast of the US and have a couple vehicles for use under different circumstances. I drive a 2007 Ford Mustang GT as a daily driver except in winter (gets about 24-27mpg highway and about 18 city), a 1997 Ford F-350 turbo diesel (gets about 16mpg, but weighs 8500lbs) for when I need to pull my trailer with all my tools and my 2000 Harley Davidson which I ride for fun and often in the summer (gets 45+mpg). My brother drives a 2004 Ford Focus getting about 35mpg (the hybrid version only gets about 40mpg...what's the point?)

I know there are much more efficient choices for me out there, but I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting a fun car that has good performance and good fuel economy (as some have already posted, there are European cars with 400+hp that get better fuel economy than my 300hp Mustang).

I may sound like a conspiracy theorist but, I do believe that there is some merit in the argument that US car manufacturers are allied with the large oil companies. Case in point: when I bought my Mustang, I was informed that I would only have to pay for the oil filter when I take my car in for an oil change as long as I own the car! I jokingly said at the time (kind of jokingly, kind of serious) that this was the way the oil companies repaid the American car companies for keeping their efficiency down.

The US has a lot of resources at our disposal (and I'm not talking oil), we have one of the most geographically diverse countries in the world and a decent sized population so why can't we use some of that ingenuity and those resources and actually IMPROVE some of these cars?

You can't tell me that with the billions of dollars that these companies spend on "research and development" that they haven't figured how to get a 300hp car to get 30+mpg...! If this is the case, and they really can't figure it out, then I think they should clean house and fire all of their R&D people and start over from scratch, if you gave a chimp a few billion $ and some time, it could probably figure out a way to make it work!

I think the basic reason is that fuel is sooo cheap for you guys it has never been an issue until now.

You'd have a heart attack if you paid our (heavilly taxed) prices.

JimR79, I agree. Follow the money and the political power and you can see that there is something rotten going on when it comes to saving energy and alternative energy. Try to get a loan to build an underground or earth-sheltered house and the banks refuse to loan money, calling them "basements". In some places you are not allowed to build better than "code". Try putting passive solar panels on your roof or solar electric generating in your yard. Try to dig the ditches for a geothermal heat pump. Put up a windmill to generate power and see how fast you get stopped. All those things make you less dependent on the utilities, whose profits will drop, making less income to tax. Politicians depend on taxes [redistribution of your money] and corporate campaign donations.

The Ford Model T got 25 mpg and we have "improved" the internal combustion engine to where we can actually get exactly the same mpg. True, some very complex, highly developed IC engines can get more mpg, but they are expensive to build and maintain.

Hydrogen storage is a problem for vehicles if you want the same range as with gasoline or diesel, the storage systems are too big. Calculate the energy density of hydrogen and how much it takes to drive 400 miles nonstop, then estimate the miles driven by all cars and figure how much H is needed. Okay, how do you make that much H? Build a lot of electrical generating plants using nuclear power, or burning coal, or big hydroelectric dams. Listen to the shrieks of outrage from the environuts. The plants will not be built.

For the same reason we cannot convert to pure plug-in electric vehicles, it would require too much electricity. A few cars OK, they will be expensive, will usually have to operate within 150 miles of home base, because going farther requires a 6 hour recharge somewhere. Shorter range EVs would be cheaper, but then their owners would have to have a second IC car for every other trip. Having AC and heat, power steering and brakes also eats up their range.

What we need is a car which is not expensive, has the 400 mile nonstop range, quick refuelling, has high mpg, is lower in emissions than IC cars, less complex and is able to use a variety of fuels with minor modification for each. Something that can be phased in gradually. No one power source is perfect, so it will have to be a hybrid. Start with a plug-in EV that can go 50 miles on electric power, that takes care of about 80% of your driving as most places you drive are less than 25 miles from home. Then use a small steam engine to run a generator which will keep the batteries charged as needed. Steam is more efficient than IC engines and less polluting. Thermoelectric use of waste heat increases the efficiency. Since fuel is only used for about 20% of driving the average mpg would be excellent.

No, the boilers used in steam cars did not explode. A water tube boiler to drive a 4000 lb car was 28" dia. X 13" H and some of the new designs for steam engines of the same power would fit in a large shoebox. A sealed condensing system would lose very little water. There would be no wait for steam pressure, since the car will use an electric motor to turn the wheels or the electric motors can be built into the wheels. If the motors are in the wheels, then no differential gears and the speed of each wheel can be computer controlled. Before you put the idea down, please do the research, too many people are ignorant about steam power.

I got a lot of this from beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk who has done some research on the steam-electric hybrid idea. Would love to see someone try it.

This is fascinating. I drive a '97 F150 pickup (I haul a lot of stuff). I regularly get 20+ miles to the gallon. My secret...I keep my foot out of the accelerator and leave early enough that I can drive a little slower. I've noticed a major difference in fuel economy between 60 and 70 mph. My wife wanted an suv, but I talked her into a minivan due to the better fuel economy. I'm just not sure why everyone over here wants an suv. If I'm not hauling stuff or the family, I ride my motorcycle.

In the 1980s some US manufacturers built prototypes of diesel driven cars, even a V5, the fuel pump took the place of the 6th cylinder. If these had been accepted, and I appreciate manufacturers probably had interference from the oil companies, the US would be as far ahead as Europe and the UK where about half of all car sales are now diesel driven. Here in England, I have a Skoda estate, same engine as a Volkswagen and Audi, with a 1.9 litre turbocharged direct injection diesel producing 130 bhp with plenty of torque in the mid range, that consistently does nearly 60mpg (imperial) in mixed driving, 1.5 tonne weight, over 110 mph top speed, 0 to 60 mph in 11 secs. I've just driven through town about 8 miles using all 5 gears, stop start up to 30 mph, driving on the governer (not touching the accelerator) and got 52 mpg on the trip computer. No, I'm not bragging, and it's not the only engine available, just stating the European state of the art on economy, new versions do up to 70 mpg. When VW bring their diesel hybrid out, I wonder what fuel consumption that will give!!!! The US will just have to badger their manufacturers to get their cheque books out and invest in a few diesels and make the oil go a little further. We can't afford Gordon Brown's fuel taxes to stay petrol driven, £1.05 a litre now. Just think, no ignition starting problems on a cold winters morning, even direct injection auto diesels have starter glow plugs.

A 'Green Car' has nothing to do with the specific fuel consumptions as mentioned by you, though it is desirable that its value be minimal. A 'Green Car' is a car which has zero toxic emissions.Incidentally, cars in India give 12 to 25 km / litre.

-- S. Saran, India

Oh, yes if only we could get zero toxic emissions. In the meanwhile we strive to minimise the toxic emissions and part of that is minimising the fuel consumption. As of yet, we can't achieve zero toxic emissions with reciprocating engines, (nor I guess with hydrogen or fuel cells either) so any emissions will be increased if the fuel consumption is higher - all other things being equal.

The thread originator invited discussion on 'green car' and fuel consumption, so ventures into NOx, CO, CO2, Sulphur, smoke etc. have not been discussed.

Specific fuel consumption is more academic and more relative to bench testing at set engine speeds and loads to be examined graphically and compared to other competitor engines.

My previous employer did a lot of consulting work in India to design and develop state of the art engines for Indian manufacturers and I'm trying to think which Indian car would achieve 25km/litre ( 71 mpg?)

Actually, there is a direct relation between fuel consumed and CO2 emitted. Perhaps we will sometime have a zero emission vehicle, but for now, all fossil-fuel vehicles create greenhouses gases by the ton, and electric vehicles simply shift the location of the pollution (and in the US, where most power is generated with coal, slightly increase CO2 emissions per mile driven).

In terms of CO2 created and resources consumed, your typical Indian cars are much greener than this "award winner". The picture looks even bleaker if we include the energy use, resource use, and pollution created in building a 3 ton vehicle vs a one ton vehicle. We can do a lot better, and in my view giving a green award to a vehicle that consumes and pollutes so much more than your ordinary vehicles is a travesty.

But compare the safety of said Indian vehicle against the US vehicles. We as a nation have placed a higher value on human life than other countries and hence our government has mandated ever increasing safety for our vehicles. Thank goodness they haven't caved in to the risk averse among us because I still love to ride my motorcycles, downhill ski, waterski, jump out airplanes, . . . . . etc.

While as a person this writer HATES arguments on such TRIVIAL issues, this being and ENGINEERS" forum, FACTS are to be presented. Please see the results of an American government study on HOW SAFE AMERICAN CARS are:

http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0802/et0802s18.html

A few of the main conclusions are here:

"The combined risk of SUVs is significantly higher than that of most popular cars on the market today."

"The safest small cars, the Volkswagen Jetta and Honda Civic, are as safe or safer to their drivers than the average SUV. On the other hand, the Chevy Cavalier, Ford Escort, and Dodge Neon are roughly twice as dangerous to their drivers as the Jetta and Civic."

Let us not arrogate ourselves to the point of proclaiming things as "sacrosanct" without knowing the TRUTH, and without WORLDLY wise knowledge...please!

We as a nation have placed a higher value on human life than other countries and hence our government has mandated ever increasing safety for our vehicles.

I wish either the cause or effect side of this statement were supportable. That we have caused the recent death of 600,000 (and counting) in Iraq for no apparent reason suggests that the first part of your statement may be false. Our experience in Vietnam suggests the same, as does our indifference to the atrocities committed against people around the world if we have no strategic interest in helping out. We are not evil incarnate, but suggesting that we are somehow better than other countries seems both arrogant and difficult to support.

Most of the safety features in our cars were developed elsewhere. The safety cage, crumple zones, and the three point seatbelt were all developed and promoted by Volvo. Back when Volvo was actively selling safety in the 60's, Lee Iacocca was travelling the halls of Ford, proclaiming "Safety doesn't sell!" Volvo continues to lead, with innovations like SIPS (side impact protection system) WHIPS (whiplash protection system) the first rollover protection system for SUVs, etc. For many years quartz halogen lighting was not available here (but was available in Europe) because it did not meet our "safety" standards.

Per an IIHS study, of the 15 safest vehicles in America only one is from an American car company. Topping the list of the deadliest vehicles is the Chevy Blazer (which should have a safety advantage by virtue of shear mass, but does not because of poor engineering). Eight of the deadliest cars are from American car companies.

Hi Ken, firstly, excellent answer! I can find no flaw in you argument!

The points about safety are very well made, and I believe the same thing applies to the design of engines. I firmly believe an efficient engine design has to be better then an inefficient one, and who else would argue against that statement other then the big US manufacturers? The daft thing is, GM and Ford have some very good engine designs over here in the EU, the Ford Zetec in particular is a favorite of mine. This engine is used in racing applications, so can't be accused of being weak. And if you compare the power to weight ratio of this engine to a big Chevy pick-up's V8, the Zetec looks pretty good! (Even the Torque figures!)

I believe that the problem is that it's NOT a V8. OK. So design an efficient V8!

Of course, that might mean investment. They could always try to sell the idea of a smaller, lighter engine.

Or they can bumble along with there heads in the sand and pretend that foreign competition will never sell in the US.

Have you ever heard about the British bike industry? We used to have one, you know......

The first "Green car" was the Ford Model T which could get about 25 mpg. We have improved cars since then to get 20 mpg and the average fleet mpg to 25 mpg. I laugh at the inherently polluting IC engine.

A steam engine is more efficient and cleaner and, if used to run a generator to keep the batteries charged in a plug-in electric vehicle, would greatly increase average mpg and lower emissions.

We have improved cars since then to get 20 mpg and the average fleet mpg to 25 mpg.

The fleet average in the US is only 20 mpg, and has headed downward since 1985 or so. A pretty dismal state of affairs.

A couple of things i have noticed that were not mentioned were the fact that we americans are obsessed with Big and the american car companies are well aware of this. Have you noticed how the fullsize pickups are in a war to have the biggest truck in the world. when i was a kid,and (forced to wear a helmet on my motorcycle) I noticed that at 60 mph my helmet would pull back suddenly against my neck. I learned that at that speed wind resistance doubles and every 10 mph above that it doubles again.If you drive a behemoth of a Ford superduty you are pushing a bill board down the road. At 90 mph my mileage is terrible. worse than when towing a 8000lb trailer at 75mph.

The other thing that truly bothers me is that we use a parts per million standard for pollutants. And i truly believe that we have gone well past the point of any benefit.I believe that if they went to a parts per mile that they could get the mileage up considerably.I built a water vapor injection unit for a truck in 1979 and got better mpg that my new fuel injected one does now. and without overdrive.

AAAAHHHHAAA, that explains why Ford, having taken over Range Rover and Land Rover, never intended to offer them in the Green Car awards and therefore were free to make them bigger, flat fronted, bland and looking like CIA wagons gone wrong, and use up all the remaining available liquid fuel stock. Not only that but with the blacked out windows, they limit vision inwards and outwards and have become dangerous laughing stock in the shopping parks.

Developed originally as an alternative to the tractor, shouldn't they also run on paraffin.

Can anyone please advise on the size of the total carbon footprint (worker resources, manufacture, sales, distribution) created by the manufacture of a new big 2.5, 3 tonne big pickup, compared to a normal 1.5 tonne car, and also the comparison of their fuel carbon footprints.

Can anyone please advise on the size of the total carbon footprint (worker resources, manufacture, sales...

Without knowing the specific materials and processes involved, the manufacturing carbon footprint of one vehicle over another would be hard to pin down, but it reasonable to assume that it relates quite directly to mass. However if you give a lot of attention to materials and processes, you can make dramatic reductions. For instance, cast aluminum can easily be made from recycled aluminum at a small fraction of the energy required for generating aluminum from bauxite.

With fuel efficiency, the comparison is much more straightforward. Twice the fuel used means twice the carbon footprint -- it's a direct relationship (assuming the same fuel is used in each). So a Prius (at 45 mpg) has 1/4 the carbon footprint of a very large SUV (at 11 mpg).

If this writer is not wrong about the basic intentions in the discussions here, it pertains to the idea of bringing out efficient and less polluting car that could be practically offered at commercial levels of manufacture.

Although this writer is not a manufacturer nor a designer of cars, and is also not interested in any competitions, as one who is working on the larger aspect of utilizing science, technology and engineering towards creating greater developments in the underdeveloped sections of the world societies, has been looking at CARS too in that manner. The intention of studying the design/ performance/ efficiency aspects of an automobile is to see and arrive at PRACTICAL and GLOBAL methods by which the automobile could be made a more benign and more environment friendly vehicle to the majority of people in the world (not merely to the small groups in countries such as US or other highly "energy guzzling" nations)

The entire discussions here seem to be biased around ONE MARKET - that in the United States. We must appreciate that the world IS NOT restricted, especially in the present day "Globalized" and "no-respect-for-boundaries" economy, to just one nation; even if it is a fact that the US is way ahead in economic and all other human index growth factors.

Look at these factors: China and India together have a population of about 2.5 billions (China about 1.3 billion and India about 1.2 billion), whereas the US does not have even 300 million population. The average per capita of China is about $1000 + and that of India is about $500 + (that of the US is about $40, 000). Now, when we talk of cars (especially so called "Green cars"), again it is totally biased in definition, purely looking at the US as the ONLY Nation Standard. To compare: on the basis of the US per capita energy consumption as being 1, China has a score of <0.1 and India has a score of <0.04

From an engineering and economics angle, what would any one in the two countries (China and India) say about the US cars? The hypothetical answer would be: All American cars are heavy steel structural "boxes" averagely weighing about 2 tons, carrying around averagely one person and guzzling petrol/ gasoline/ diesel which we in India and China (in India for example, we pay $5 per gallon!!!) pay through our nose

Look at this heavy traffic congestion in one of the Indian Cities:

Could any one here, talking so much about "Green Cars" come up with a CAR DESIGN solution to ease this disastrous situation? It takes, for example, about one hour to move about 12 km (7.5 miles) in a city like Bangalore.

In fact, this writer did have some discussions (through personal mails exchanged) with one of the more active "Green Car Buffs" here - "kenfry"

Let us make these discussions more practical and meaningful, by not just merely "talking" and making unscientific comments; but here is an opportunity for any one interested in GLOBAL BUSINESS to come up with an appropriate "people's car that would practically give 100 mg in actual driving conditions in a city like Bangalore, India (where the average daily vehicle registration is about 800+, equivalent to over 240, 000 per annum). This is just one city in India. We have over 20 such cities, and another 500 cities growing at about half that level!

Any one there! ... to take up the challenge?

In the late 1970's I proposed the following.

Laying cable just below the surface of the roadway that could be accessed by automobiles through the process of induction instead of direct contact.

Tonight, rethinking the possibilities, I would add a storage device so that the automobile could be driven off grid and a onboard meter to bill the operator. I would use the 50 or 60 Hz cycle commercial power grid as the power source.

I would also take emag and turbine propulsion off the rails and out of the sky and put it in evacuated tubes; replacing most air travel with this technology. Under evacuated conditions the potential speeds would dwarf that of a modern airliner. New materials science has me rethinking the possibility of neutrally buoyant tubes, suspended at optimum depths to cross large bodies of water.

Gavilan