Alternative-Fuel Vehicle Recommendations?

Ellen Spertus asks: "My husband and I lease a pure electric GM EV-1, which we love, and need to replace our second car, a conventional Honda Accord, which recently died. We'd get a second EV-1, but GM has stopped making them. I haven't been able to find any available all-eletric car with the range (>=50 miles roundtrip) and speed (>=65 mph) that I need. Does the Slashdot community have any experience, wisdom, or advice on choosing an alternative fuel car?"

"I'm currently considering:

• Toyota Prius, a hybrid sedan
• Honda Insight, a hybrid two-seater
• Honda Civic GX, a compressed natural gas (CNG) powered sedan

We test drove a Toyota Prius today, and it seems like a nice car. It's said to provide a quieter and more comfortable ride than the Honda Insight, and it uses pure electric power at low speeds. The Honda Insight, on the other hand, has better gas mileage. I could refuel either at regular gas stations. The Honda Civic GX would need to be refueled at special stations, but there are many where I live and work, the San Francisco Bay Area. The GX is the lowest in emissions, which would qualify me to drive alone in the carpool lane. All of the cars are about the same price, around $20,000 new. Used cars are also available."

Comments

BIODIESEL

[carlhirsch]

Biodiesel is one alternative energy means that I think has real potential. Apparently there's all sorts of new grants available for folks wanting to get involved.

Just don't try to start that french fry grease up on a cold morning.

Re:BIODIESEL

[TheRedHorse]

To learn a little bit more about Biodiesel try HempCar.org, the hemp car (as the title may suggest) is a car developed to run on hemp as a Biodiesel. They are currently driving it across Canada. Sure, not a commercial solution and probably not legal in the US. but it gives you an example of one Biodiesel solution.

Re:BIODIESEL

[Mr. Slippery]

Isn't there a fundamental problem with biomass fuels, that it would require a large increase in the amount of farmed land?

Since we've got a lot of farmland right now that we're paying people not to farm...and since crops for biomass fuel are generally easier on the soil than food crops...and since a lot of what would otherwise be waste can be converted to biodiesel...I don't think that's a problem.

Re:BIODIESEL

[SWroclawski]

This is unnecessary.

Diesel vehicles will work with biodiesel "out of the box". In fact, biodiesel is the original fuel that diesel engines were designed to use, oil-based fuels came after the engine and refining techniques were used to make it simulate the naturally occuring oils.

Also, biodiesel is less harsh than oil-based diesel, helping the car last longer.

As to the smell- while biodiesel does have an odor, so does petrol.

- Serge Wroclawski

Have you considered?...

[redfieldp]

The The Honda Civic Hybrid ? It uses gas and electric, and gets pretty sweet mileage, plus its battery is self charging....

The technology's a little old...

[Anonvmous Coward]

...but what about the Flintstones car? Methane emissions were low and it ran on calories. =)

Ethanol

[Lord_Slepnir]

If you live in the Midwest, it's very feasable to use a conventional gasoline car, just fill it up with ethanol. It burns cleaner, hotter, and more effeciently than traditional gas. More importantly, you will be supporting a fuel source that can be grown out of the earth, and unlike oil, you won't be giving your money to a foreign dictator or Texas oil-baron.

Re:Ethanol

[swb]

I'm not opposed to fuels created from plants grown in the ground.

The bad things with Ethanol are:

1) Its a false economy. Subsidized by lots of taxpayer dollars (direct, and indirect via forcing it into mixtures with gas). Its really just a crutch for farmers who can't quit the corn habit and ADM, which can't quit the free-government-money habit.

2) It mostly (exclusively?) uses corn as its source, and I'm not convinced that corn is the best crop to provide a fuel source. What about hemp or some other crop that might require less insecticide, fertilizer, etc etc.

3) It's kind of fuel-intensive to make. Planting, harvesting, fertilizing, insecticiding, AND DISTILLING all take machines that use fuel. If you get 20 gallons per acre (totally made-up) and you use 20 gallons per acre (again, totally made up) to make it, how "fuel efficient" is it?

4) There have been complaints about ethanol wreaking havoc with engines. I'm pretty sure I've seen warnings in owners manuals not to use too high of an ethanol concentration.

I'm sure there's a plant-to-fuel combination thats a winner -- low mechnical input to growth and harvesting, low energy input to distillation. Unfortunately I don't think ethanol is it -- its a way to get more money to corn farms in the midwest with some marginal pollution and oil dependency benefits.

Re:Ethanol

[M-G]

It also contains less energy per gallon, so your MPG goes down when burning ethanol. So you have to have more tanker runs to the gas station, more electricity spent pumping that fuel into your car, etc. for the same number of miles driven.

Re:Ethanol

[mikec]

It is questionable if ethanol saves any oil at all. In a good year (with high corn yields) ethanol production is slightly energy positive. That is, the energy content of a gallon of ethanol exceeds by approximately 16% the energy that goes into producing it. In a bad year, when yeilds are lower, it can easily require more than 80,000 BTU to produce a gallon of ethanol. (See, for example, this study. It is also questionable if ethanol reduces CO2 emissions. From that standpoint, it would probably be better to grow trees, which would recycle more CO2 than any reduction due to CO2.

Re:Ethanol

[mikec]

Sorry, I accidentally submitted before it was done.

It is not at all clear that ethanol saves any oil at all.

In a good year (with high corn yields) most studies show that ethanol production is slightly energy positive. That is, the energy content of a gallon of ethanol exceeds by approximately 15% the energy that goes into producing it. In a bad year, when yeilds are lower, it can easily require more than 80,000 BTU to produce a gallon of ethanol. (See, for example, this study.) On average it's probably about a wash. It would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to requiring ethanol producers to use ethanol instead of fossil fuel for all steps in production.

It is also questionable whether ethanol reduces CO2 emissions. From that standpoint, it would probably be better to grow trees or hemp, which would recycle more CO2 than any reduction due to burning CO2 rather than fossil fuels.

Re:Ethanol

[maniac11]

>From Washington Post
washingtonpost.com

Ethanol's Ambitions
Tuesday, April 16, 2002; Page A18

THE ETHANOL lobby is normally content to fleece taxpayers in two ways.
First, it promotes public payments to those who grow the corn from which
ethanol is made: Right now the House and Senate are cooking up a terrible
farm bill that would lock in 10 more years of subsidies. Second, the lobby
has used the tax system to penalize gasoline that is not one-tenth made up
of ethanol: Motorists who fill their cars with ethanol-free gas pay around 5
cents extra per gallon. Some might reckon two federal favors enough, but the
ethanol folks think bigger than that. A provision recently inserted into the
Senate energy bill by Sen. Tom Daschle, the majority leader, and Sen. Jeff
Bingaman, the energy committee chairman, would mandate a big jump in ethanol
use and give ethanol producers protection against environmental liability.

This outrage is disguised in reasonable garb: It is part of an effort to
promote renewable sources of energy. But ethanol, though made from corn, can
only loosely be thought of as renewable, since making it consumes nearly as
much non-renewable oil as the ethanol replaces. Moreover, ethanol's
environmental benefits are debated: Including it in gasoline reduces carbon
monoxide emissions but can increase smog. In any case, a sane policy on
renewables should give promising alternative energy sources a government
boost, but it shouldn't pour billions in taxpayers' cash into products that
will never be remotely viable. Remember, ethanol already gets government
help: Since 1996, crop subsidies alone have been worth nearly $30 billion to
the industry. Increasing this help would be going too far, even if ethanol's
environmental merits were more certain.

Both ethanol's drawbacks are reflected in the Senate's legislation. The bill
creates a "safe harbor," protecting industry from suits arising out of
defective additives in gasoline -- hardly a sign of confidence in ethanol's
environmental merits. It also mandates increased ethanol consumption --
again, hardly a sign that ethanol expects to gain market share on its own --
requiring that gasoline refiners step up their use of ethanol from the
current level of around 1.7 billion gallons a year to 5 billion gallons by
2012. This mandated tripling of consumption might cause shortages and
therefore price spikes, especially since the ethanol market is dominated by
three producers, which could find ways to orchestrate scarcity and pocket
windfall profits. The biggest producer is Archer Daniels Midland, which in
1996 pleaded guilty to a charge of price-fixing and was fined $100 million.

The four Democratic senators from California and New York are calling this
ethanol provision what it is: a scheme to funnel money to agribusiness and
corn states at the expense of the rest of the country. One amendment to
limit the ethanol mandate was rebuffed last Thursday, but there may be
another chance today. The Senate should back the effort to remove the
ethanol provision from the energy bill, and Sen. Daschle should not resist,
despite his farm-state loyalties. Democrats have been trying to score points
against the Bush administration by demonstrating the link between corporate
lobbyists and the White House energy policy. If the Senate's Democratic
leaders now use the energy bill to funnel money to Archer Daniels Midland
and its ilk, they'll look like hypocrites.

Re:Ethanol

[corvi42]

What about hemp [...]

Well hemp would be less effective than corn, because ethanol is made from the fermentation of sugars, so the more sugars in the plant - the more ethanol yielded. Yes, one can make alcohols from grains, but the yield is less. Fruits yield more alcholos per volume than grains - corn yields more than hemp. Something ideal might be sugar cane.

Re:Ethanol

[Geek In Training]

I don't disagree with the pro-ethanol enviromentals, nor the anti-subsidy libertarians... but let's try to take this one at face value:

"3) It (Ethanol)'s kind of fuel-intensive to make. Planting, harvesting, fertilizing, insecticiding, AND DISTILLING all take machines that use fuel. If you get 20 gallons per acre (totally made-up) and you use 20 gallons per acre (again, totally made up) to make it, how "fuel efficient" is it?"

Any it does not cost money to survey, drill, extract, store, transport, store again, refine, store again, transport again, store again, and then dispense petroleum distallates (crude -> gasoline)? Just because half of that labor is done at far lower cost than farm workers (who have a strong lobby with bought politicians) by workers of oil companies who have their own competing political pawns?

Once again, elements of truth and elements of rhetoric in both arguments. Yes, ethanol burns cleaner and is renewable. Yes, it currently costs more to produce... for a number of reasons. But in either case, it costs money to make money, right? It takes energy to produce portable energy as well. The true technological advantages and disadvantages of ethanol may never be known, thanks to this political in-fighting.

Sidebar: what about the organized labor lobby for highway workers who pour asphalt every four years on every major road in the US? They have successfully negotiated a decades-long congressional moratorium on deployment on an asphalt replacement made out of the chopped up bits of discarded tires; millions of which fill up plots across America. The cost is half as much, and has twice the durability. So there would be less asphalt produced, and half the labor needed. WE CAN'T HAVE THAT, CAN WE??? Jimmy Smith won't be able to lean on his shovel for fiften minutes out of every hour then go back to grinding up the old road surface for $23 an hour (and pay his union dues) if we take away half of his work!!

Fascinating, how we let the lawyers, politicans, and corporatists rule us; and all the opposition that is out there are corrupt organizations masquerading as consumerists, special-interest groups, and employee-rights advocates, who are mainly just socialists who get a capitalist-sized paycheck. And we just sit around taking it, saying we'll vote for the other guy.

Hint: There is no other guy.

My experiences with the Prius

[Ryu2]

I'm a very happy owner of the Toyota Prius... I've actually gotten about 55 MPG in city driving, assuming I'm not in a hurry, above even the manufacturer's figures. It has been 100% reliable thus far.

I was considering the Insight, but it's only two seats, and two doors as you mentioned, so I decided to go with the Prius, as it's basically the same size as any other compact sedan.

I was looking into pure electric and gas cars, but decided not to at this time, because sometimes I like to take long-distance trips (eg, between the Bay Area, and LA, or to Nevada/Las Vegas) and there are no electric or gas refueling stations for long stretches outside urban areas, making long-distance road trips impossible with these vehicles' current range.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/ It might be useful for you as well, although it's geared more towards current owners.

As for the car itself, It's proven to be 100% reliable thus far in the 14 months that I've had it, and I've been averaging 50 MPG or so. It definitely is worth it, at least for me, since I commute about 45 miles a day round trip.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. If you want an independent assessment, john1701a.com has a lot of info on it from a owner. The group groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/ has a lot to offer as well with many helpful people.

Finally, since this is /. after all, there's a growing subculture dedicated to "hacking" the prius (eg, installing MP3 players that integrate with the onboard touchscreen system, or even wiring video input into the screen, installing cameras for seeing when you back up, etc... :-) )

how about an electric porsche convertible?

[avi33]

This one seems to fit the bill, but it just blows away the others in the style department. Too bad that breathy carburated engine sound is replaced with, well, nothing...

http://www.renewables.com/ElectricSpyder.htm

EV1 == very interesting ride

[jamesmartinluther]

I took a test drive at the local Saturn dealership and, well, I was amazed at the smooth (and very powerful) acceleration. I had expected anemic performance and what I got was a rather wild drive through the city. While the need to recharge the battery and small size may be serious drawbacks, the sheer joy of taking this car for a spin really made me think about applying for one.

It is disappointing that electric cars are not yet economically viable. Just take one for a test drive and you will see that there is a lot more work to be done in improving personal transportation.

Prius

[dattaway]

My mom had her Prius for a year and loves it. Recently, they took a trip to Minnesota and the cost for gas during the trip was insignificant. While highway driving consumes more fuel due to aerodynamics, I have often been able to get more than 80mpg through the city. If you trick the accelerator pedal, you can get it to run off batteries for several minutes before the engine starts charging and giving a boost.

The only problem she had with the car so far was running over accident debris that slashed a rear tire. Other than that, its supposed to have an incredible warranty. Something like 10 years. Toyota knows this is an experimental car, so they want to know what kinds of problems we have. None so far.

Bumper Stickers

[mgarraha]

Seen on an electric car in Michigan:

MY OTHER CAR BURNS FOREIGN OIL

Re:Bumper Stickers

[Xaoswolf]

The local theatre group here did a skit like the commercials about not doing drugs where people would come up on the stage, the focused a spotlight on them and say things like
"I support a foreign terrorist regieme, but what do I care, I like driving my SUV"
In the end, they gave a message about buying foreign oil.

How does a Honda die?

[gelfling]

What did you do drive it into the Pacific? I leased 3 of them and they were Russian Trucks. Indestructible.

At any rate the Civic HX is a gas only and gets about 80-85% of the mileage of the Civic electric hybrid. The insight is more of a concept car - only two seats no back at all no storage really. The Prius is an Echo with a different powerplant to give you a sense of the bigger size.

Toyota is supposed to be delivering a hybrid next year if I remember correctly. Probably based on a Corolla floorpan.

a couplet of ideas

[Pauly]

First, the Corbin Sparrow really seems to taking hold in places like Los Angeles and to a lessor degree Atlanta.

However, the lowest emissions vehicle around is a bicycle. I mean this in all seriousness. The Bay area has a uniquely nice bicycling climate, and since you already have one car, you don't have to give up the occasional hauling-of-big-stuff cars are good at. And don't underestimate the health benefits of such daily exercise. I love it since you don't have to take extra time out of your day just to go to the gym.

In the Bay Area, there's even a service to shuttle bicycles over the Bay bridge for $1.

Still delighted with my Prius

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

After a year of driving it (on the rare occasions when I can get it away from my wife) it's still an utterly satisfying car, with super-ultra-low emissions (SULEV) and high gas milesage as icing on the cake.

Society of Automotive Engineers voted it best engineered car of 2001. I think it's the car Dilbert would drive.

The Honda Civic hybrid is the most direct competition. The Prius transmission is more elegant and *may* last longer, and the availability of pure-electric drive means the engine never needs to do destructive low-speed operation once it's warmed up. You may prefer the feel of the brakes on the Civic, and in ten years I bet it's easier to find Civic parts than Prius parts.

other ideas

[dmcmaine]

I've done a bit of research in my quest to find my next car and here's what I found:
-The current hybrid vehicles, IMO, offer a false ecomony due to their higher sticker price and uncertain disposal/replacement cost for the batteries +/- 8 years down the road.
-Looking at the Honda lineup it would make more sense economically to purchase the Civic HX Coupe or any other of the other non-hybrid Civics (or 4 cylinder Accords for that matter).
-Take a look at Intellichoice.com and fueleconomy.gov and do some calculations to determine the real, long term cost of a number of other vehicles (Ford Focus, Honda, Toyota, Saturn, etc)and see how it stacks up to the hybrids.
-The one caveat is that you need to know what happens what it is time to replace the batteries on a hybrid car.
-Lastly, check local rebates for buying a hybrid vehicle in your area, that might make up the initial cost difference in buying a hybrid vehicle.
Good luck!

Jetta TDI has better mileage

[Coolfish]

The Jetta TDI has better mileage than the Civic hybrid.. in fact i believe it has the best mileage for any vehicle that still uses a fossil fuel of any sort.

http://www.vw.com/engine/index.htm?locnav=jetta

Car pool access

[jchristopher]

As you noted, single drivers in dedicated natural gas vehicles (NGVs)can use the carpool lanes in California. This is a HUGE perk and not to be overlooked.

At last check, this benefit was not available to hybrid electric vehicles. Especially in a large metro area like San Francisco or Los Angeles this perk alone can pay for itself.

The California Air Resources board provides a list of vehicles eligible for the carpool lane perk - choose carefully because not all alternative fuel vehicles are eligible!

A good resource to learn more is NGV.ORG (I've linked to google's cache... this is a small box, please don't hammer our server.) which provides a list of cofunding opportunities available for natural gas vehicle owners, including tax breaks and rebates from the state of California.

Good luck in your search!

Biodiesel

[otis wildflower]

Hi,
Hybrids really don't count IMHO as 'alternative fuel' vehicles, since they use two fuels that are exceedingly ordinary: gasoline and electricity. They should qualify for partial EV credit, and they're great for reducing fuel consumption, but without E85 they just aren't 'alternative fuel'.

I would recommend a late-model Volkswagen diesel and biodiesel as a true 'alternative fuel' vehicle. Diesels are more efficient, create less CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and last FOREVER. I just recently purchased a Mercedes diesel with 362000 miles on it, and I expect to get at least another 130000 miles on it with proper care and feeding. My car can't take 100% biodiesel without some fuel-line upgrades (bio eats rubber away since it's more oxygenated than petro) but any diesel since 1994 can take 100%. Another option, particularly in colder climes or with older cars, is B20, which is 20%bio/80%petro. Biodiesel doesn't contain sulfur, and is naturally oxygenated enough to prevent smelly particulate exhaust. In fact, tailpipe exhaust smells like french fries ;) Biodiesel is actually technically non-toxic and very hard to burn, and IIRC can be drop-shipped anywhere, so I _THINK_ you could even have it delivered to your house in large drums.. It's expensive (~$3/gal) but it may be worth it to you if you want to contribute to (a)saving the ozone layer and/or (b)keeping US$ out of the hands of despotic Arab states (and their terrorist pawns)..

Couple interesting Wired links on biodiesel:
here and
here

Even non-biodiesel is a better global environmental choice than gasoline/petrol since it's less intensive to refine. Diesel creates more NOx, large-particulate exhaust and sulfur (which lead to smog and acid rain), but the balance of impact is in its favor overall due to the efficiency of diesel engines. Also, if we could press for low-sulfur diesel, NOx could be handled with catalytic converters.

Oh, did I mention that biodiesel can be made from any biological substance that contains triglycerides? Hempseed, soybean, even used cooking fats can be 'cracked' into biodiesel, leaving glycerin. What to do with the glycerin though, that's the main Q...

How about Corbin Motors?

[zaren]

Corbin sells an electric-only model, the Sparrow; they were in the Jet Li movie, "The One", in the final scene about "the cleanest city in America":

Sparrow's Specifications

* Onboard battery charger
* Three-wheeled vehicle registers, insures and parks as a motorcycle
* 1350 lbs. curb weight, 72-inch wheel base, 57 inches vehicle height
* 70 mph top speed, 20-40 mile range
* $14,900 retail price

The Sparrow II has a 30-60 mile range and a $16,900 retail price. Corbin also advertises a gas-powered car, the Merlin, with "a 300 to 400 mile range on a tank of gas and a projected 70 to 90 miles per gallon", but it won't be out until the fall of 2003.

Have Prius ... love it.

[Dr. Zowie]

The Prius isn't alternative-fuel -- just alternative-powertrain. It has loads of cool, geeky features that work together to make ... (drumroll) an ordinary 4-door family car. While I don't have a family (yet) it's nice to be able to throw some friends in the back. Basically, they've used the high-efficiency powertrain to give you a conventional 4-door car with Geo-Metro-like efficiency.

I've put about 11,000 miles on my Prius in the first year of ownership. About half of them are highway miles on roadtrips; about 10% of them are short (1-2 mile) hops in town. Its lifetime fuel economy is about 48MPG. Range is about 500-600 miles. On the highway it consistently gets over 45 MPG (and I'm not gentle on the throttle -- 70-80 MPH on the level, and I floor it when I'm crossing the Rockies -- I live in Colorado). In town it gets 35-38 for the first mile or two, until the engine is warm -- then more like 48-52.

The Prius has no transmission at all -- just a second differential that shunts power between two electric motors/generators and the engine. (How it works). It's all drive-by-wire: the gas pedal is just a rheostat connected to the drive computer.

The engine has a lot of cool stuff to it: an off-center crankshaft, variable compression ratio, and (ISTR) noncircular pistons. Because of the differential it runs at more or less whatever speed the computer wants, regardless of how fast you're going.

For me (in Colorado) a pure EV was right out because of the low energy density of batteries -- it's hard to climb mountains in a pure EV. The Prius battery is used for load leveling on the engine (gas engines run best when the load is conditioned). Climbing over about 2000 feet vertical at freeway speeds drains the battery, but the computer handles it gracefully and the car just slows down to about 55 mph (on a standard 7% freeway grade). Conversely, coming down more than about 1000 feet of altitude will fill the battery to the top from regen braking, and again the computer does the Right Thing, using the engine as a conventional compression brake rather than blowing up the battery pack.

So even though the Prius isn't designed for mountain climbing it works acceptably under even strenuous climbing conditions. The interior is roomy and holds five people with no trouble. The trunk is adequate. The ride is quiet, and the gas mileage sure doesn't stink. Cornering is very good: tight turn radius and surprising traction given the high-mileage tires. Clearance is adequate but low: it's 4 inches under load, though the bottom 2 inches is just a flexible plastic air dam -- so you can get over 5" high obstacles without killing the car.

The Insight gets better gas mileage, looks cooler, and has better acceleration when you actually want it (though I imagine Prius ROM mods will come out one day that boost the acceleration -- the computer really does use conservative settings), but it's also really tiny -- the Insight is more of a "geek sports car". Toyota went out of their way to make the Prius look-and-feel like a basic (if plush) family car, and they succeeded.

Honda Civic Hybrid is great!

[supernova87a]

Here's the Honda website on the hybrid civic.

I test drove this model a few weeks back, and it was an absolute pleasure.

The best part? Pulling up to a red light, and sitting there in complete silence, without wasting any gas. Ahh...

Insight, if you are careful

[Lumpy]

The Honda Insight is a neat car, there are serious problems with it though...

The battery pack is replaced often.. If you get one get the hyper-extended warrenty, as you will be replacing that battery pack many many times.. my friend has had his 18 months and has replaced his 3 times.... and from what I hear this is not uncommon for insights that are used as a daily driver in anyplace that is not 70-72degF all the time. winter causes the packs to die horribly.

weight limit.. I CANNOT ride in his car (Ok I'm a fat ass..) as I with him exceed the car's weight limit completely... most any american couple will do this unless you are in souther california and live the bolimic lifestyle or are not normal weight (180 - 230 lbs typical american weight.)

finally , they ding really really easy. a pop can has thicker metal. dont lean on it, dont fart at it dont even look at it funny as it will ding/dent instantly.

home made diesel

[paradesign]

my friends dad, down in dallas tx, makes his own diesel for his vw. he uses the leftover oil from fast food places, that apparently just give it to him. heres a link on another guy whos doing it linky linky he says he does it to recycle, not really for emisions reasons.

my chouce would be the hybrid electric civic or the vw tdi based cars, friends of mine say they are wonderful.

If I were in your shoes....

[TrumpetPower!]

First a disclaimer: I'm unemployed right now (please check out my resume and hire me!) and driving a '68 VW camper. I can't afford a new car, but that hasn't stopped me from looking.

The Honda Insight is a fascinating car. It's as if Honda took every neat new technology they've been working on and crammed it in. Unfortunately, it's small--just a two-seater--and expensive--in the low $20Ks.

For that much money or less, you can get a Volkswagen with the TDI engine. The two-door VW TDIs (the Bug and the Golf) get better mileage than any other car sold in America except for the Insight. You can drive non-stop from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles on one tank of fuel, and that's a trip I personally would take at elast two days to drive. They're also among the least-polluting cars available, though there are cleaner ones out there. The Bug has (one of?) the highest safety ratings you'll find.

The catch? They're both turbocharged diesel engines. Wait! Don't run away! A diesel engine doesn't have to be the awful, smelly, polluting nightmare you're all thinking of. When properly engineered, as is the TDI, it's superior to gasoline:

• Proper fuel management, catalytic converters, filters, etc., can reduce emissions to well below the current average for the American fleet (the TDI makes use of every trick in the book in this regards).
• Diesel takes less energy to produce. Even if you get the same miles per gallon on diesel and gasoline, fewer barrels of oil were refined to make the diesel.
• Diesel fuel has more energy than gasoline. You can drive more miles on that gallon of diesel than on a gallon of gasoline.
• Diesel engines have much more torque than gasoline engines. Americans buy horsepower but drive torque. The Bug with the high-power gasoline engine will do 0-60 MPH faster than the diesel (but not by much) and has a higher top speed, but the diesel will easily beat the gasoline in 0-40.

But the real thing to do with one of these cars is run it off of biodiesel instead of petroleum-based diesel. Biodiesel is a high-cetane (the diesel version of octane) fuel made from vegetable oil. It's non-toxic; you could drizzle it over your salad...though it'd likely taste awful. The maufacturing process is very similar to the soap-making process; if you've ever made soap in your kitchen, you can make biodiesel in your kitchen. Biodiesel and petroleum-based diesel can be blended in any ratio desired simply by pouring them together.

The real advantage to biodiesel, however, is that every pound of carbon put into the atmosphere via the tailpipe had been previously removed from the atmosphere by the plant. No increased CO2! (Petroleum-based diesel pumps carbon from the ground and puts it into the air.) And, because the plant pulls more carbon out of the air for itself (instead of just its seeds), each pound of biodiesel results in a net decrease of atmospheric CO2.

In essence, biodiesel is the solar storage mechanism everybody keeps looking for. Run all those trains, trucks, and power plants from solar power (by way of corn and soy) and reduce dependence on oil all at the same time! All the infrastructure is already in place....

So, buy a car with a TDI engine, and you get incredible mileage and have the option of using either fuel you can find anywhere or a very environmentally-friendly fuel.

Now, if only somebody would give me a job, I'd go out and buy one....

b&

Re:Jetta TDI has better mileage

[Coolfish]

Way more expensive, and there are no production models as of yet...I.E.: No pudding to find the proof in.

erm, both cars are in production. in fact i could have bought a '99.5 Jetta TDI a while back but it just didn't have enough balls.. but it's still a sweet car.

and I read a review in the local paper that compared the two cars, and they found that they got better mileage in the Jetta.. so anypoop.

It's a great little car

[GMFTatsujin]

I recently had the pleasure of riding in one of these cars, and they're way nifty. Four of us drove from Washington DC to somewhere in central Pennsylvania and back again (about 4 hours at highway speeds each direction) on about half a tank of gas. It lasted a long time between tanks in the city too, even with all the stop'n'go driving of DC. I was *incredibly* impressed.

It had plenty of amenities too (CD player, AC, power locks and windows), rode quietly, was comfortable enough for a long trip, and didn't feel like it would blow away in a strong breeze. If I hadn't already purchased a new car 2 years ago, I would seriously consider one of these.

Of course, my opinion doesn't substitute for research, but on an aesthetic level I was happy as a passenger, and on a techie level I was all tingly at the thought of the reciprocating brake system recharging the batteries as we glided (glode?) to a halt.

GMFTatsujin

Ethanol is no solution, it's part of the problem

[Spamalamadingdong]

Between fertilizer, pesticides/herbicides and fuel required for cultivation, a gallon of ethanol yielding 77,000 BTU of energy requires inputs totalling about 131,000 BTU (if memory serves). In other words, it's a complete boondoggle.

Re:Bogus Environmentalism

[Xeger]

This isn't quite true. While I agree that electric cars are not final solution, they do have a number of benefits over dead-dinosaur cars. Let's look at it from a thermodynamic standpoint. Your gasoline engine is a very good engine indeed if it achieves 20% efficiency. This means that 20% of the energy liberated from the gasoline goes toward doing work (spinning your wheels), and 80% escapes into the surrounding environment, as waste heat. In contrast, the electric motor(s) that power your EV are more along the lines of 80% efficient. This means that a whopping four-fifths of the energy coming out of your batteries is directly converted into work! That's four times as efficient as a gasoline engine. Electricity may not grow on trees, true. But most methods of generating electricity are far more than efficient than 20%. Nuclear power has a bad rap, but if done properly it's quite safe. Advances in solar power may soon make it a viable option, and there are a whole slew of experimental technologies out there--nuclear fusion, fuel cell, zero-point--enough that one of them will pan out.

Alternative options

[m_chan]

For our next vehicle, my wife and I are considering the Ford Escape Hybrid. Overly-wrought flash page without much detailed info, but they basically say it will be an gas/electric combo SUV that gets ~40mpg and they will have a 4wd option, which is something that we actually need and use regularly as an avid skiers and hikers. We need the cargo space for my two large dogs, which rule out existing hybrid solutions; We currently drive a Ford Explorer and await a more fuel-efficient yet not entirely anemic solution.

Also, we drive an all-electric vehicle which though outside of the poster's requirements, may warrant consideration for anyone doing short-haul driving in sub-35 mph zones: the line of vehicles from GEM

We have been driving one for about 3 months now and use it for commuting to our offices and to downtown Portland. Neither commute requires us to exceed 25mph.

It has more pick-up than you might think. In the rain, the vehicle does a pretty good job of keeping water off you (my model doesn't have doors). There are doors available, similar to what you would see on a Jeep CJ, as an aftermarket accessory. It is an ideal neighborhood car.

Here are answers to some of the common questions we get, often in traffic.
Q. What the hell is that?
A. A GEM electric car, manufactured by Global Electric Motors, a division of DaimlerChrysler Corporation. The specific model I have is the GEM E825 Utility Vehicle (Short Box).
Q. Is it street legal?
It is on streets with a speed limit of 35mph or below.
Q. How fast does it go?
A. 25 mph.
Q. How far can you drive it?
It varies based on the terrain you are driving it on and the ambient temperatures, but I have driven it over 15 miles on a charge. The stated range is 35 miles.
Q. How do you charge it?
It charges on household current.
Q. Stats?
A. From the GEM website
Curb Weight: 1160 lb. with batteries
GVW: 1850 lb. (Gross Vehicle Weight)
Width: 55 inches
Wheelbase: 71.1 inches
Length: 116 inches
Height: 69.5 inches
Turning Radius: 13 feet 7 inches
Q. Is it fun?
A. You betcha.

Get a RAV4 EV!

[cdaveb]

You've missed one of the best options currently on the market for electric car shoppers in California- Toyota has made the RAV4 EV available to the general public for lease or purchase (previously it was only available to fleets). I got one a few months ago and it's been great. Gets 80-100 miles range, max speed 78mph, has a backseat unlike the EV1. I miss my EV1, but the RAV4 EV is a pretty good car and I think it's the only compelling pure electric currently on the market for the general public. The one annoying part is that the RAV4 EV uses a small paddle charger, and there aren't as many of those as the large paddle ones that the EV1 uses. I've never needed public charging myself, but I don't know if that's an issue for you. I suggest checking with Toyota of Palo Alto about the car- they are one of the best RAV4 EV dealers in the area and know their stuff better than most.

On a semi-related note, in response to all those Slashdot readers who keep spouting the same crap everytime an electric car comes into discussion- yes electrics are cleaner even if you do have fuels like coal as the source (which is not a significant part of the power mix in CA) because it is much easier to clean fuel at one place than in every vehicle, and if you want to calculate environmental effects of the production of fuel, don't forget all the effects of making gas . Additionally, if you have the option of selecting your power source like we did (we chose Commonwealth Energy) you can in fact get your power from clean sources.

Several options for you

[ecloud]

Here are some links for you:

Toyota RA4 EV - yes it's an SUV but the NiMH batteries are supposed to last 100,000 miles, maintenance free; and it gets 126 miles to the charge; and it has all the creature comforts. I think it's kindof ironic all this high-tech stuff is being put in an SUV. Just think how much better the range would be if they'd put the same powertrain in a sports car with good drag coefficient and low frontal area. But, as far as I can tell this is the best new EV that you can actually buy right now. Only in California, unfortunately. I presume for charging it uses the GM paddle system like your EV1 but haven't confirmed that.

You could just get a used one on ebay; I was very tempted to bid on this but decided to wait on an electric for now. Here's an electric S10 pickup. I test drove one of these once; it's a lot like an EV1, same technology in a pickup. Supposedly you can buy these in California too, but I'm not sure whether new or used. Otherwise they tend to show up as surplus from electric-company fleet programs now and then.

How has your service from GM been? I was tempted to buy one of these S10s but I figured GM has been acting like they want to forget that they ever had electric cars, so what are the chances of getting good service 5 or 10 years from now? And these things are too complicated to fix yourself, probably. Whatcha gonna do if the inverter fails? AC drives are not common in conversion EVs, and tend to be rather pricey.

Finally, if you're not on the EV mailing list, you should be. You will get a ton of good advice there; most of the subscribers are hard-core electric vehicle hobbyists who build their own conversions at home.

And congratulations on having a brain and being willing to put up with all the stupid naysayers out there, or the ones who keep repeating the same tired old objections about powerplants using fossil fuels (nevermind that they do it so much more efficiently than even the best IC engine) or "why don't you connect a generator to the wheels and make your own electricity." I'm always surprised how otherwise seemingly-smart people will laugh at you when you mention something about electric vehicles. Every new technology has to have its pioneers. And in the long term the earth isn't giving us much choice about switching away from fossil fuels anyway. This is why I do not advocate hybrid vehicles. You can conserve gas with those, but I think in any conceivable future there will always be some alternative way to generate electricity, so maybe electric cars are here to stay in one form or another.

And motorcycles?

[Tenebrious1]

in fact i believe it has the best mileage for any vehicle that still uses a fossil fuel of any sort.

My Suzuki motorcyle would get over 50MPG on the highway (as long as I kept it under 85mph). Even the Honda Goldwings with the 1.6L engines were rated at 50MPG on the highway. Many mopeds and scooters get even higher mileage, some in the 100MPG range. Of these, some don't qualify to be ridden on an interstate, but most are vehicles that require plates and license to operate.

eCycle (oops, is that a deep link?) is working on a hybrid motorcycle that gets 180MPG (using diesel by the way). Pretty cool machine, I'd love to try one out, but with a top speed of 80, it would barely keep up with traffic on NY/NJ highways...

Re:Biodiesel and California air

[johnny cashed]

Diesels do have greater NOx emissions/unit fuel burned. However, Diesel are lean burn engines (hince the greater NOx) and are more fuel effecient. I would not say that they have "vastly" higher particulate emissions, gasoline engines have particulate emissions, but their soot is finer, and not visible (to the naked eye).

Modern Diesel cars do have catalytic converters, and other emission controls which enable them to have better emissions than gasoline fueled cars. If fueled with biodiesel, they have even better emissions.

So many cars

[Jordy]

Just a note ahead of time. Some of the cars listed below are only available in certain parts of California and are only available in relatively low numbers.

Pure Electric:

2002 The Nissan Altra EV (pilot?)
2002 Ford Thi!nk City
2002 Toyota Rav4-EV
2002 Lido Motors Lido
2002 Ford Ranger EV (fleet only?)
2002 Nissan HyperMini (pilot only?)
Selectria Force (out of production?)

Hybrids:

2003 Honda Civic Hybrid
2002 Honda Insight
2002 Toyota Prius

Web Sites of Interest:

EV World
US DoE Alternative Fuel Car Buying Guide (many listed)
US DoE Alternative Fuel Vehicle Listing (many listed)
California ZEV Buyers Guide

More poillution than a Hybrid ...

[CDWert]

You gotta love people that dont have a clue,
PURE electrics are responsible for the generation of more polution than comprable hybrid vehicles.

No ? Just look around at EV sites and it wont take you long to realized that generating electricity at a plant ??? miles away, transmission loss and all the fun add up to MORE FRIGGING polution in the generation of that electricity than a hybrid creates.

Not to metnion the long term battery and chemical disposal issues. Thats a whopper too.

Wait for one of the Borax Powered Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicles from Chrysler. Cost is supposed to be low, and emission zero.

Barring that look at some of the hybrid vehicles.

Sometimes I have to question peoples motives of EV , if its convinience thats OK, my neighbor has been using the same elctric lawn mower for 20 years, its easy, quiet cheap, the only thing he spends money on is a new extension cord every 3 years or so after he's chopped his umpteen times. If you are looking at an EV for enviromental reasons, PLEASE get a clue. PURE EV pollute more than hybrids, and some more than LEV.

My favorite action by an enviromental group was the guys in Calif, that burned an allotment down under construction. POINTS , 1 for burning, 2 like inscurance isnt going to pay and end up cutting more trees to rebuild ? 3, the fumes from all the insulation cooking ? 4 we deforest more area to rebuild an allotment "TREE HUGGERS" were protesting the cutting of trees ?

I would seriously wait for the Chryslers to be sold they seem AWFULL SLICK !

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/auto/article/0,1254 3, 212456,00.html

If you havent seen or heard about it ....

Just get a VW TDI (Golf, Jetta or Beetle)

[ProfBooty]

Get a Volkswagen TDI model (http://www.tdiclub.com/). In the US they have TDI jetta's, beetles and golfs (nearly every model in europe has a TDI, passat, lupo etc). In the US they are only rated for about 90hp(and 155hp of torque stock, they can get up to 115hp fairly easily), but get 49MPG (over 700miles a tank) for highway mileage. The TDI lupo (only in europe) is rated for 90MPG and costs far less than a honda!

They do offer a 150hp TDI engine in europe which still gets really good gas mileage, but won't run on current US grade diesel (which is real poor). There is even a TDI GTI! VW/Audi sells six different diesels in Europe (1.2l, 1.9l - 90hp, 1.9l - 110hp, 1.9l -115hp, 2.5l - 150hp, V8 3.3l - 225hp[available soon]) compared to only the 1.9l - 90hp available in North America. When mentioning these horse power figures though, we must also think where this power is available. On the 1.9l 90hp it peak torque is available at just 1900RPMs with 155 ft/lbs torque up to the V8 3.3l which generates 355 ft/lbs torque between 1800 and 3000RPMs. I guess we can only dream of these really high output models.

Diesel is good, unfortuneatly it got a bad name in the US due to the amount of black smoke earlier cars and big trucks would put out (about 2% of US cars are diesel compared to over 25% in Europe. A properly tuned diesel shouldnt spew black smole and has gobs of torque which is great for driving around town(you won't win a drag race).

VW is really the only auto manufacturer who still offers diesel cars, and their prices start around 15k. Plus you get a car which is much nicer than a civic both on the in and outside.

I expect more manufacturer's to bring diesels over to the US once the fuel standards increase.

On a side note, is there any technical problem which has stop diesel electric hybrids in cars (they have diesel electric trains). Seems to me you would get a more fuel efficent car than a gas electric.

Re:Just get a VW TDI (Golf, Jetta or Beetle)

[RevDobbs]

Hear hear. With in the last couple of issues of Car & Driver, the TDI VW's were found to be much more efficient, and fun to drive, than the Honda Insight. Also, you can by a VW, where as the hybrid vehicles usually come with a fairly restrictive lease (or so I've been told).

I got stuck driving a Toyota Prius for a couple of days while my car was in the shop. No acceleration, almost dangerously top-heavy with a short & narrow wheelbase & width, the car was absolutely no fun to drive. The high-efficiency diesels are the most practical way to go.

YMMV.

Re:Just get a VW TDI (Golf, Jetta or Beetle)

[bgarcia]

On a side note, is there any technical problem which has stop diesel electric hybrids in cars (they have diesel electric trains). Seems to me you would get a more fuel efficent car than a gas electric.

I guess the quick answer is "no". But just FYI, a diesel-electric train works differently than a gas-electric hybrid car.

The diesel engine in a train does one thing: it turns an alternator to produce electricity. This electricity is then used to run the electric motors to turn the wheels.

The hybrid cars usually still have the engine hooked up to the wheels using a driveshaft, and the electric motor just supplements the engine (or vise-versa).

Re:Just get a VW TDI (Golf, Jetta or Beetle)

[DutchSter]

On a side note, is there any technical problem which has stop diesel electric hybrids in cars (they have diesel electric trains). Seems to me you would get a more fuel efficent car than a gas electric.

Perhaps it has to do with the way the gas/electric hybrids operate. The hybrids frequently kill the engine when it isn't needed. This is fine if you have a big enough electrical system to accomidate it. In fact these hybrids are super efficient in that area.

Diesels on the other hand take a bit more juice to get going, even with the new TDI technology. Perhaps this shifts the balance away in favor of having to run the engine more often, ofsetting the potential gains. From a technical standpoint, diesels are much more suited to continuous operation. One big reason emergency vehicles where persuit speed isn't critical (ambulance, fire truck etc) use diesel is that they are content to be idling at the scene for hours at a time. (This is in addition to the availability of low RPM high torque). Gas engines on the other hand, build up carbon and the plugs can get fouled up if they idle for too long. Most police departments get rid of their vehicles well before 100k miles, in part because of the loss of performance due to excessive idling. Yet, my town will keep firetrucks until the bottom rusts out 20, sometimes 30 years - then they sell the engine to the public/another department and convert the leftover body to scrap metal.

That is also your tradeoff; while diesels are well suited for extended idle situations, they aren't as well suited for frequent on/off use. Instead, this is where they get their buildup, constant temperature fluxuations in the engine block and short runtime. Think about the train (as someone else did) - they fire that sucker up in the morning and don't shut it down until they get wherever, even if they are stopped for an hour. On/off every other block is quite a different usage :) And this is the big advantage of hybrids - they start and stop the engine frequently in the course of normal operation.

Parade

[SubtleNuance]

You might like to have a look at this Parade here

Specs include:
Range : 60miles(EV60)/150miles(EV150)
Acceleration : 8 seconds for 0-60 km/h
Top Speed : 110km/h


Made in Korea.

Re:fryer oil

[raddan]

Here's an article about a couple of Hampshire College boys who converted a diesel VW bus into a completely fryer-oil vehicle. Apparently, they also set up a company to make diesel-to-fat conversion kits for diesel vehicles with venture capital, but I haven't heard anything about it lately.

Apparently, since many of the restaurants they got their fat from had to pay to have their fry grease removed, they were more than happy to give it away for free. The article sez they drove clear across the U.S.

Site your sources

[DaveWood]

This is really important stuff. You may very well be right, and I'm extremely interested in what you're saying, but with specific information like this (where everyone's memories are contradicting each other) it's all meaningless unless you site your sources!

-Dave

Re:Ethanol is no solution, it's part of the proble

[Ian Bicking]

The first page of the sited article quotes exactly the given numbers:

Pimentel's report, to be published in the 2001 edition of the Encyclopedia for Physical Sciences and Technology in September, says that producing ethanol is more trouble than it's worth: 131,000 British thermal units of energy are required to produce one gallon of ethanol, but a gallon will only give you about 77,000 Btu of fuel energy.

In other words, producing ethanol results in a net loss of energy.

So, I guess, ethanol is not a renewable energy source -- not because it is not renewable (it is), but because it is not an energy source.

Re:a couplet of ideas: My cycling experience

[Prof_Dagoski]

I've been doing the cycling thing ever since college. My experience is that a ten mile commute is very doable. The best part is that you wind up in killer shape from that. Ideally you'd live on the temperat west coast or the southwest. I dunno too much about the weather patterns of the Southeast, but I'll assume there's a couple of months out of the year where it's too hot to ride. When I lived on the west coast, my bike journeys were almost always in excess of eight miles due to various circumstances. Eight miles is pretty pleasant and fun unless you have to ride through mountains. Fifteen miles is doable, but not if you're on a tight time table and certainly not every day. Living out in the midwest the main problem I have is weight gain during the the two to three months where it's just too cold an snowy to ride. I find that if I'm dressed right, I can ride somewhat comfortably down to 15 degres F. After that I say F*** it. Getting back in spring takes a month before I'm totally with it. The other positive thing about cycling is that public transpotation is increasingly accomadating bikes. In Ann Arbor where I live the buses now have racks. In Philly where I'm going to be living, the trains let you bring bikes aboard during non-peak hours. This really extends your range. The other cool thing that I see happening in urban areas is that cities and conservation groups are making bike trails along rivers and other green ways. Depending on how they're laid out both can really cut down your time even if they don't cut down your mileage. No stoplights and no traffic after all. One not so postive development is that moutnain bike manufacturers are no longer putting brazings on frames for racks sturdy enough to mount panniers. The big thing right now is disc brakes whose fittings supplant those for racks. I replaced my panniers when they wore out with Dana Design Bomb Pack because it's a big day backpack that does not push your head downwards when you sit on the bike wearing a helmet. 'Course I'm still riding the same old bike, but I dream of getting a new one.

Re:Some Quick Math

[sterno]

Alright, now that I sit and think about the numbers some more, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Got it from the government. Which may not speak highly to it's accuracy but anyhow:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hsfaq.htm

Specifically they show motor fuel usage about halfway down the page:

In 2000, gallons of fuel consumed were:

128,883,609 (Gasoline - highway use)
33,376,587 (Special fuel - highway use)
162,260,196 (Total fuel - highway use)
2,971,636 (Non-highway use)


Actually I just realized I added those up incorrectly and total use (according to them) is actually lower by these numbers. It should be Total fuel plus non-highway use. But I agree with you that this number doesn't make sense, so I'm guessing there's an order of magnitude that they aren't making clear. So hunting elsewhere:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

Okay, so from there we get 360 million gallons of gas every day. Sounds like a more realistic number. So multiply that and we get roughly 130 billion gallons of gas every day....

So, nevermind then, if we took every single piece of arable land we wouldn't come close to the amount needed. So go with hydrogen, there's plenty of that around :).