What Will the Greenest Cars Be?

Posted by Tara Lohan at 11:00 AM on September 7, 2007.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous driving a vehicle I was told cost about a million bucks right now. On the outside it looks like a Toyota Higlander -- but on the inside it's something special.

What I was driving was known as an FCHV, a fuel cell hybrid vehicle and it was among a half dozen or so alternative and cleaner fuel vehicles that journalists were getting to test out an the annual Society of Environmental Journalism conference.

The fuel cell hybrid drives pretty much like a regular hybrid. This particular Toyota was bigger than a GM sedan I'd seen earlier -- more like an SUV than a Prius. The FCHV has a fuel cell instead of a gas engine, along with the battery. It has that same super light feel, super quiet drive as a regular gas/electric hybrid and it comes with a computer monitor that shows what is being powered when.

Other than being a million bucks at the moment, the FCHV has some other hurdles to get over in order to make it to market -- which the rep showing off the car tells me will be at least another 10 years.

Right now the biggest problem is infrastructure -- not nearly enough places where you can get hydrogen at the pump. In California, one rep tells me, there are 20 places -- mostly around L.A. Critical mass comes at 200 he says.

These vehicles also have a pretty low range at the moment -- going for only about 100 miles instead of 300 before needing to be refueled. And, one of the biggest problems may be changing public perception. Right now, you can't drive them over bridges and park them in closed areas -- they are basically considered to be explosives.

And then there is the question of how environmental they are. Not requiring gas is a huge plus. The reps tell me the hydrogen fuel cell in this vehicle is made from water -- but how much and from where they don't know. And the kind and amount of energy it takes to split the hydrogen off the water molecule is another mystery. However, a car that emits water out the tailpipe is super exciting.

Less exciting was GM's Tahoe hybrid -- full-size, eight passenger, gas/electric luxury SUV. I'd much rather hop in my own regular gas powered Acura then this mammoth touted as 'green' and getting gas mileage barely over 20 mpg. The technology they used to make it though is beneficial and is currently being used in about 800 buses in 50 cities. And unless you need to seat eight people regularly and tow a boat, then this vehicle is a definite pass.

The opposite of the Tahoe, was a Prius retrofitted by the utility company PG&E with the help of Energy CS to be a plug-in. The car is, essentially, a Prius with a tail-like cord that comes out of the trunk and hooks into any regular electric outlet. The beauty of this car is that when you plug it in you get a super great bonus of being about to drive 20-40 miles using zero gas. Or, more typical for longer rides and commutes, is using up the plug-in battery and then the car goes into regular hybrid mode.

The rep tells me it gets 100 miles per gallon of gas during a typical commute (plus cost of electricity) and the cost of driving is 2-4 cents/mile vs. 8-20 cent/mile for a traditional gas car. Just make sure you aren't plugging into a power company run by coal-burning plants.

Plug-ins may be more of a consumer reality soon, with Saturn and a few others promising to get them on the market. We should be pushing for this technology as well as pushing for our utility companies to be getting their energy from renewable sources.

And, perhaps the black sheep of the event -- although a nice looking sheep at that -- was the folks from Diesel Technology Forum, pushing clean diesel vehicles.

I took a drive in a Mercedes E320 that runs on ultra-low sulfur diesel, which has 97 percent less sulfur than the original diesel. This vehicle gets on average 23 percent better fuel efficiency in town and nearly 50 percent better on the highway, compared to its gas cousin. This technology is also being employed by Volkswagen and BWM. It is equipped with a NOx trap and special filter to cut the pollution. He also said that the version of the Jetta they are working on now is likely to get better mileage than the Prius.

I have to admit driving the Mercedes blew the Tahoe and Highlander out of the water. And I even watched a woman put her face in front of the exhaust pipe and take a deep breath. She seemed convinced. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too -- but I'm still skeptical with diesel. I think we can do better.

Of course, none of this addresses the problems of our drive, drive, drive consumer culture. But we'll save that for another post. In the mean time I'll hold my breath for a fuel cell or plug-in hybrid camper van.

Tagged as: green cars, hybrid, fuel cells

Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.