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Making Green Sexy?
Mike Ahlf
Not dressing Kermit the Frog up in a snappy suit, but
taking the reverse approach to energy efficiency; starting with the things people want, and improving them.
When I was younger, the most fuel-efficient cars on the road were made by a company called Geo. Geo's line of cars sported better gas mileage than most. Unfortunately, they were also the butt of ridicule, being unfavorably compared to go-karts and riding lawnmowers in terms of engine power. The end result was disappointing sales and the dissolving of the company.
In like vein, the hybrid car has become a niche market, but it's not become mainstream yet. Attempts by gas-guzzling, energy-inefficient, glory-and-attention-seeking celebrities to get people to all go out and buy hybrid cars haven't succeeded, for the most part. Why? Because people see the hybrid car - incorrectly or not - in much the same way they saw the Geo; an underpowered vehicle that, while fuel efficient, might not deliver when they needed it to.
Schwarzenegger says:
"We don't have to take away the cars from the people. Instead, what we have to do is make those muscle cars and those SUVs and those hummers environmentally muscular."
Ultimately, I think this makes a lot of sense. An engine conversion such as
this offers the option to drastically increase fuel efficiency (by reducing engine knock and allowing the use of higher compression on lower-quality fuel). Hybrids, made right, don't have to look like bicycle-wheeled go-karts or odd square-ish contraptions.
Theoretically, once the technology is finished - because the conversion rates aren't there yet - it might be theoretically possible to alter the roofs of vehicles, adding a network of solar cells to them. One imagines that the 8-9 hours a car usually sits in the parking lot is a pretty good amount of sunlight energy that could charge the batteries of a hybrid/electric vehicle.
Will an SUV with a higher-efficiency conversion be as efficient at carrying one person from point A to point B as, say, a two-person hybrid/electric car? Probably not. But if you can't get someone to drive the latter, better to try to get them to drive the former than spend years fruitlessly yelling at them and just making the problem worse.
Observations
I think the bigger issue with Hybrids is the upfront cost. I know a lot of people that aren't latte-drinking faux-environmentalists that are interested in hybrids but can't afford one. Part of it is the price differential, but for people my age one of the issues is that there isn't as much of a "used car" supply yet since the technology is as new as it is. If there is such a market by the time I am next looking for a car, I'll certainly give it a gander.
My only question about the tactic of making bigger cars more environmentally friendly is whether that will simply lead to bigger cars or people trading up for a bigger car that gets the same mileage as their current smaller one. I think it would be a good thing, regardless, but I don't know that it will be a real solution to the emissions problem.
Valid point on the lack (as of yet) for a used-car market of hybrids; I really wouldn't suggest someone owning a used first-generation hybrid, as they were working the bugs out of the designs, and for a lot of the buyers like my family (who generally buy a 4-5 year old car on the used market and run it until it becomes too cost-inefficient to repair) the brand-new cost of a hybrid is well beyond their reach at the moment.
As for the idea that making the big cars more environmentally friendly would make more people "trade up" to a bigger model with the same fuel efficiency, I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing; you'd wind up with more people who have a bit more versatility in their vehicle (I like my sports car, for example, but I'd love to have more cargo space on many occasions). It would also make a more serious dent in the "high-occupancy SUV" market - the minivan market - which is a large chunk of the inefficent vehicle count, but in which people wouldn't really "trade up" because they're already on the larger end.
One other interesting part of the equation is the shell game of CAFE standards.
As it turns out, a station wagon - though much more streamlined and less susceptible to wind drag as compared to a minivan - has to be classified as a "car" under CAFE standards, while the minivan can be classified as a "light truck." The cars were supposed to average a whopping 27.5 MPG over an entire manufacturer's line, while the "light truck" could average 20.7... and thus the doom of the station wagon, which usually averaged 22-24 mpg.
Thanks to changes in the law recently, the station wagon's starting to come back (the Subaru Outback, and Volkswagen's got a couple models, and the PT Cruiser and various knockoffs). That could be a good thing; I think the wagon offers a lot to drivers, and has the most potential to have its fuel efficiency boosted.
/As for the idea that making the big cars more environmentally friendly would make more people "trade up" to a bigger model with the same fuel efficiency, I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing; you'd wind up with more people who have a bit more versatility in their vehicle (I like my sports car, for example, but I'd love to have more cargo space on many occasions). It would also make a more serious dent in the "high-occupancy SUV" market - the minivan market - which is a large chunk of the inefficent vehicle count, but in which people wouldn't really "trade up" because they're already on the larger end./
It wouldn't be a *bad* thing, exactly. It's just that I am more interested in limiting emissions than I am people getting bigger and better cars without having to pay more for gas.
The Hummer convinced me that the larger end can always get larger. People will get minivans instead of SUVs, vans instead of minivans, three seatrows instead of two, and eventually four instead of three.
I'd prefer see policies aimed more at adding incentives for people to buy leaner cars. Because of the different classes the CAFE standards do more harm than good as you point out regarding Station Wagons (which I've long considered one of the most delicious ironies of environmental debate). The focus has been on trying to get each kind of car to be more efficient rather than trying to get people to stop buying more car/truck than they generally need.
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