Sustainablog

If you’ve kept an eye on the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program (which will end on Monday), you know that it’s been a huge success on a number of fronts: hundreds of thousands of people have traded in older, less fuel-efficient vehicles for new models with better gas mileage, and some auto manufacturers are even rehiring. Of course, the program’s had its downsides, also: dealers have complained about slow reimbursements, and some environmentalists have worried that the fuel economy requirements weren’t quite stringent enough.

Portland, Oregon-based businessman Joe Doebele has another complaint about the program: there’s nothing in it to get commuters to shift from four wheels to two. Rather than just throw stones, though, Doeble decided to do something about this shortcoming: he’s started his own “cash for clunkers” program at his cargo bike shop Joe Bike.

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An environmentalist praising an American car maker and a NASCAR driver in the same post? Fasten your seatbelts!

On Monday, a team of drivers, including hypermiler Wayne Gerdes and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards successfully completed the 1000 mile challenge, taking a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid 1005 miles on less than a single tank of gas. (Full disclosure time, my company, BLU MOON Group, does some work with Carl Edwards, but we weren’t involved in this event.) The 1000 mile challenge was also a fundraising event for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Here’s the best part, though; they made it over 1000 miles with almost 1/3 tank of gas remaining and achieved more than 80 miles per gallon from the same Fusion Hybrid that you or I can buy. Pretty cool, right?

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Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas’ Editor-In-Chief, talks about electric cars, car kits, and new battery technologies with Steve Heckeroth, electric vehicles expert and owner of Renewables.

Click Play Below,or

Make this Easter a Green one.  700 new chemicals are untested for toxicity.  Check out the new batch of Alternative Autos.

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With two seats, two wheels, and a maximum range of 25-35 miles (at 25-35 mph), the P.U.M.A. (which stands for Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) won’t work for your next road trip. But this new concept vehicle, a joint project of GM and Segway, may be just the ticket for the driving most of us do on a daily basis.

The vehicle was introduced to the media on Tuesday at the New York Auto Show, and Segway CEO Jim Norrod described the P.U.M.A. as “…a dramatically different approach to urban mobility”:

Read the rest on the Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered blog.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on the Clean Fleet Report on April 7, 2009.

Intermodal solutions allow people to effectively navigate major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo. Subway and light-rail are especially effective, but expensive to build. As cities grow, change, and morph, not every potential route can be served with subway and light-rail. Bus rapid transit is a cost effective way to duplicate some of the benefits of light-rail, at a fraction of the capital expenditure. Buses, taxis, car sharing, bicycling, and walking are all parts of the solution. For many, cars are their preferred way to get around, yet if all transportation were cars then cities would be frozen in gridlock.

High-speed rail integrates all these systems together and moves people from city to city at high-speed. When the distance is only a few hundred miles, high-speed rail coupled with city transit beats airplane and car every time.

Now an 800 mile high-speed rail network is being started in California. Because it depends on local and public-private partnership funding, as well as state and federal funding, it will be built in sections. First online are likely to be areas that are currently overwhelmed with passenger vehicles crawling on freeways that should be renamed “slowways.” Likely to be among the first in service are the Orange County - Los Angeles section and the San Jose - San Francisco section.

San Jose provides an example of current transportation problems as well as the future promise of high-speed rail integrated with intermodal solutions. Currently, during rush hour, cars crawl from all directions into San Jose, the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley. Vehicles overload some of the nation’s busiest highways - 680, 880, 101, 280, 87, and 17.

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Beijing authorities have announced that driving restrictions will be extended another year, as part of the city’s overall strategy to reduce airborne pollution and traffic congestion, according to reports from China’s state-run media. The plan hopes to take 930,000, or roughly 20%, of Beijing’s over 3.6 million vehicles off the road each weekday.

Starting Monday, April 13, cars will be banned from metro roads one day per working week, depending on the last digit of their license plate. There will be no restriction on weekend driving.

This measure represents the most strict action taken since lifting a ban that was put in place one month prior to and during the Olympics, wherein vehicles were prohibited from driving in Beijing every other day, as officials scrambled to achieve decent air quality and clear roadways for the competing athletes and attendees. Read the rest of this entry »

A recently passed New York City law cuts down the acceptable limit of vehicle idling time in school zones from 3 minutes to 1 minute. According to an AP report, the law also gives additional city agencies the ability to issue violations and creates a way for officials to track those violations.

Idling in school zones is not a city problem, only. Take a look at any suburban grammar school, like the one my sons attend, and you’ll see an after school mess of idling cars and school buses. What does this say about our culture?

• We aren’t concerned about the waste of our natural resources?
• We’ve got money to burn in our gas tanks?
• We don’t care about the pollution we’re creating, even when it’s harming our children?
• We’re too darn lazy to turn our car engines off?

Yep, all of the above.

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St. Louis-based Enterprise Rent-a-Car announced last week they will add nearly 5000 gas/electric hybrid cars to it nationwide rental fleet and designate 80 locations as “hybrid branches” - centers with a high concentration of hybrid vehicles available. These branches will be located in 24 major markets across the country including 10 of the nation’s busiest airports.

This latest addition doubles the number of hybrid vehicles available in what is already the nation’s largest fleet of fuel efficient rental cars. Along with its sister companies Alamo and National, Enterprise fields nearly 450,000 cars in their combined fleet that achieve 28 mpg or better, 230,000 cars get 32 mpg or better, and 425,000 cars have earned the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay certification.

For $1.25 per rental, customers can opt to offset their vehicle emissions for a charge of $1.25 per rental. The fee helps fund certified offset projects with TerraPass. Through their charitable fund, Enterprise will match customer donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million annually.

Enterprise also actively supports alternative fuel research through the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (I had the opportunity last October to chat with Dr. Richard Sayre, the Institute’s newly-named director ). An overview of this and other environmental sustainability programs in which Enterprise is involved is explained on their website KeystoGreen.com.

So does all this make Enterprise green - or is it just greenwash?

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Coca-Cola Enterprises, the largest bottler of Coca Cola beverages, will more than double the size of its hybrid electric delivery fleet to about 327 green truck on U.S. and Canadian roads. The company plans to add 185 hybrid electric trucks and is also launching a new vehicle that is much larger than those in its existing fleet.

The majority of the hybrid vehicles currently in its fleet are 12-bay box trucks with a 33,000 gross vehicle weight. With a gross combination vehicle weight of 55,000, the new hybrid electric tractors are comparable to standard bulk delivery trucks used by the company. Coca-Cola Enterprises said that the jumbo hybrids use 30 percent less fuel and produce about 30 percent fewer emissions than standard tractors. The tractors were developed by the Eaton Corporation, Kenworth Truck Company and Cummins Engine Company. Read the rest of this entry »