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When Fast is Clean: A guide to eco-friendly cars and concepts
by Darren Krape
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Rent a Hybrid
On your next vacation to the United States, see how practical environmentally friendly cars have become by renting one!
The leader in environmentally friendly rentals, EV Rental Cars, has locations across the country, many in the larger metropolitan markets, and offers a wide range of vehicle choices, from the compact Honda Insight to the more spacious Toyota Prius sedan. |
Been There, Done That
Environmentally friendly automobiles have certainly had a rocky beginning these last few decades. Poor marketing, consumer apathy, and unrefined technology has all too often typified each false start. The General Motors EV-1 for example, an all electric car the company spent one billion USD to develop, failed to reach beyond the enthusiast market due to its impractical short range and high initial cost. Other potential gasoline replacements have been and still are, hampered by similar problems, as well as the lack of a consumer supply infrastructure.
Suffice to say, the future, at least in the near term, belongs to gas-electric hybrids. Utilizing an innovative combination of electric motors and an internal combustion engine to provide power, hybrids increase fuel efficiency while lowering emissions. Hybrid vehicles are only recently beginning to gain wider appeal and consumer attention, particularly due to the efforts of Japanese auto-makers, especially Toyota, the leader in gas-electric hybrids, and Honda. Hybrid's economic price, a well equipped model can be had for under 20,000 USD, have also helped spur sales. American and European automakers are lagging behind in their production of hybrids, but several of the major players have such autos in the pipeline. Partly this is due to these manufactures, especially GM and Ford, devoting greater resources to next generation technologies, such as hydrogen power, rather than focusing on the nearer, evolutionary, steps typified by hybrid technology.
 What are hybrids?
Before going into an overview of the various hybrid offerings in the current marketplace and those offerings destined for future markets, lets take a look at just what exactly is hybrid technology. The current crop of vehicles, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius for example, focus primarily on drivers who need a smaller and highly efficient vehicle, a configuration in which hybrids excel. Due to the small size, they weigh less and allow for a very aerodynamic design, both important requirements to improving efficiency. The Honda Insight has a very slippery drag coefficient of 0.22, even the current Porsche 911 has a higher number, coming in around 0.30.
 However, with their small engines, current hybrids are unlikely to concern the engineers in Stuttgart - at least, not yet. Here is why, unlike their internal combustion counterparts, electric engines produce peak torque at zero RPM, making them ideal for initial acceleration. As the torque drops off with greater acceleration, the gasoline engine kicks in. With 0 to 60 times in the 12 second range, the current crop of hybrids certainly are hardly speedy. This will change in the very near future though. Both Subaru (a division of General Motors) and Honda debuted new hybrid powered compact sports cars this year. With more manufacturers jumping onto the hybrid bandwagon, look for the offerings to become more diverse and far more interesting in the next few years.
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