By John Addison (10/7/10) Energy efficiency, renewable energy, and information technology are all helping the U.S. overcome a severe recession and keep more people from losing their jobs. From our San Francisco roof deck, I am encouraged to see energy efficient homes, solar roofs, and electric buses gliding by. I am also discouraged to see [...]
By John Addison Ford Focus EV Gets Green Plant Ford’s (F) new Focus Electric Car and Plug-in Hybrid will be built in one of the auto industry’s greenest manufacturing plants. Ford is working with Detroit Edison (DTE) to install a 500-kilowatt solar photovoltaic panel system at Michigan Assembly. The system will be integrated with a [...]
By John Addison, original report at Clean Fleet ReportElectric cars and hybrid cars are prominent here at the LA Auto Show. GM highlighted big plans for the Chevy Volt. Toyota, owning some 65 percent of the U.S. hybrid market, displayed the Prius Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle (PHV) along with a growing family Toyota and Lexus hybrids. [...]
By John Addison (11/10/09, original post Clean Fleet Report) The new 2010 model hybrid cars offered in the U.S. are destined to sell with gasoline prices rising. Toyota (TM) dominates the list including new models from Lexus. There are also impressive offerings from Honda (HMC), Ford (F), Nissan (NSANY), and Chevrolet (GMGMQ.PK). Your top 10 [...]
By John Addison (8/3/09). Nissan (NSANY) will be the first to have thousands of affordable freeway-speed electric vehicles on the highways. The new 2010 Nissan LEAF is a comfortable compact hatchback that seats five. Although Tesla will be the first to have a thousand freeway-speed EV on the roads, the $100,000 price tag is out [...]
By John Addison (7/23/09). Ford has returned to profitability, benefiting from increased market share which is the likely result of improved mileage. Ford earned almost $2.4 billion for the quarter, but it was the result of a large one-time gain associated with the debt reduction actions completed in April. The pre-tax operating losses were $424 [...]
This is my first time to drive on a race track and I’m wondering if these are my final moments on planet earth. Here at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca I take the Andretti Hairpin and learn to accelerate in successive turns. After accelerating uphill, I enter “The Corkscrew” where I cannot see the sharp [...]
By John Addison. Toyota’s (TM) global market share leadership has been helped by the success of its hybrids. Looking to a future that will increasingly emphasize fuel economy and lower emissions, Toyota will put 500 plug-in hybrid Priuses on the road in 2009. Competition is just getting started in hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles. [...]
By John Addison. Toyota achieves a record 50 miles per gallon with the new 2010 Prius, which just made its formal debut at the North American International Auto Show. This article also covers Toyota’s latest plug-in hybrid and EV announcements. Since the Prius was first went on sale in Japan in 1997, continuous improvements have [...]
By John Addison. The four-door sedan continues to be a popular vehicle for fleets and for individuals. These sedans often deliver the right amount of space for 4 or 5 passengers and enough cargo space for a taxi. The following 10 four-door sedans have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per mile of any vehicles available [...]
By John Addison. Solar is powering more vehicles. American’s have reduced their use of petroleum 5 percent this year. So far, petroleum reduction is the result of fewer miles traveled solo as people cut travel to deal with high gas prices and a slowing economy. At the margin, however, solar power is replacing oil. There [...]
By John Addison (8/7/08). Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe spoke about his dream of building a car that could cross the United States on a single tank of gasoline. A plug-in hybrid running on E85 would potentially use only one gallon of gasoline every 500 miles in a blend with five gallons of ethanol, with the [...]
By John Addison (7/31/08). In 1971, a bright engineer, Dr. Andy Frank, was looking to the future. He knew that oil production had peaked in the U.S. and that cheap oil would later peak globally. He calculated how to get 100 miles per gallon, and then he built a hybrid-electric car. A few years later [...]
By John Addison (6/17/08). Last week, I test drove of the new Volkswagen Jetta TDI Diesel. It accelerated on to the freeway faster than my Toyota Prius. Driving freeways and stop-go city, I wondered which would be the bigger seller, the new European turbodiesels or the Japanese Hybrids. For Detroit, May was the cruelest month, [...]
