I’ve climbed aboard the hybrid bandwagon and this week I’m taking a little road trip to Washington, D.C., in a Honda CR-Z. I expect to see plenty of other hybrids along the way as hybrids sales in the United States have suddenly taken off – I’ll give you one guess why.
According to Edmunds.com, sales of hybrids plus a handful of electric cars have increased 37 per cent since the beginning of the year. That’s about 78,500 in the first quarter of 2011. It’s still a drop in the bucket, but it’s encouraging for Toyota’s Prius, which is up 50 per cent from last year, followed by Honda and Ford. Sales of the little two-seat hybrid sports car that I’m driving, the CR-Z, are up 80 per cent from last year off a very small base.
Apparently the action is in fleet sales, especially for delivery vehicles. Outfits like United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx are going hybrid to save fuel costs. Those two, along with three other big fleet users, aim to have about 10 per cent of their 275,000 vehicles as hybrids or all-electrics in the next couple of years. Even Canada Post, with the largest delivery fleet in Canada (7,300 vehicles), is getting into the act with a deal for four all-electric trucks from Navistar.
Since 2008, U.S. President Barack Obama has consistently promoted the goal of having one million advanced technology vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. Critics didn’t give him a chance of hitting the number and it’s still a long-shot, but not impossible.
As to the “drop in the bucket” reference, one million vehicles in five years isn’t much compared to the 50 million to 75 million new-vehicle sales predicted in the United States over the same period – less still compared to the 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads today.
However in 2016, U.S. corporate average fuel-economy standards are to be set at 30 miles per gallon (7.8 litres/100 km) and auto makers know even tougher standards are ahead. So everybody’s going to be flogging hybrids, not just Obama.
Flex-fuel incentives
Another thing I’ll be looking for on my road trip are E-85 pumps.
There are millions of vehicles on roads in Canada and the United States that can burn a blend of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent gasoline but there’s almost nowhere to fill them up, especially in Canada. However, the Obama administration said last week it will provide incentives to U.S. gas stations to install more pumps that blend in ethanol as part of its program to boost consumption of renewable fuel.
It wants 10,000 flexible-fuel pumps nationwide during the next five years. This makes the farmers who supply the corn to make the fuel very happy. It’s interesting to note that the funding for this is coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
An artificial leaf
It’s called faux-tosynthesis (what a cool name) and it comes from an MIT research team. It claims to have created an “artificial leaf” that uses the sun’s rays to produce energy.
Photosynthesis, you’ll recall from Grade 6 science, is a process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds using the energy from sunlight and spits out hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is the stuff that can be put through a fuel cell to create electricity. A Grade 6 teacher might find my explanation a bit weak but you get the idea.
Chemist Daniel Nocera said, “A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries.” He’s not talking about using it for fuel cell cars – but in the distant future, who knows?
