Thursday, April 8, 2010

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Honda Planning Larger Sport Hybrid to Join the CR-Z?

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 12:21 PM PDT

In a bid to try and win some hybrid market share from Toyota and beat back the hybrid gains of Ford, Honda has adopted the stance that dominating the sports hybrid realm is the place to be. The recently released Honda CR-Z — a throwback to the cultish glory days of the beloved CRX — is the first sports hybrid offering from Honda… but it has been met with only mediocre fanfare.

Complaints that it is both underpowered AND doesn’t get as good mileage as it should for such a small hybrid have relegated it to the “meh” list of many industry pundits and green car enthusiasts alike. But, with sales surging in Japan and a higher interest among the public than we all thought possible, it may just be the comeback star Honda was looking for.

And now Motor Trend is reporting on a rumor that Honda is busy prepping a sports hybrid the size of the Accord coupe that will “dwarf the CR-Z in performance.” Add this rumor to the one that Honda is also prepping a revved up Type-R version of the CR-Z and a picture is starting to emerge of where Honda wants to take all of this.

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EIA Predicts 2.1% Fossil Fuel Emissions Increase in 2010 Due to Improving Economy

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 11:00 AM PDT

While the recent fluctuation in the price of crude oil is being driven alternately by irrational hope followed by despair, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (the EIA, yep, it’s all bean counters there) is predicting that 2010 will bring enough economic growth that global CO2 emissions will increase by a modest 2.1% and that crude oil prices per barrel will average $81 through 2010 and $85 by the end of 2011.

This follows a 6.6% decline in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2009, but will still be lower than the annual emissions from 1999-2008 when we were spending, growing and buying things on credit as if there was no tomorrow.

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Nissan Gives EV Advocacy Group, Plug In America, $25K to Expand Programs

Posted: 08 Apr 2010 10:14 AM PDT

We’ve written about Paul Scott many times on these pages. In fact, just a couple of days ago he was featured prominently in a piece about treating electric cars fairly in the new fuel economy and emissions rules recently enacted by the federal government. Personally, I’ve met him and his wife, Zan Dubin Scott, a few times and they are just two of nicest people you’ll ever meet.

As the Vice President of leading EV advocacy group, Plug In America, Paul has been a tireless supporter of shifting away from our conventionally-powered transportation sector in favor of plug ins. You may recognize his name from the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, in which he was featured as a driver of one of the original RAV4 EVs.

So it makes me happy to learn that Paul Scott and his organization have been given a $25,000 grant from Nissan to expand their work in getting Americans ready for the coming onslaught of EVs and speed their mass adoption.

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