I was watching the L.A. Auto Show on ESPN a couple weeks ago, and saw a few environmentally friendly cars that we may be seeing in the future.
One that I thought was particularly cool was th Volvo Recharge Concept Car.
It’s a plugin hybrid which in and of itself is really nothing new. Even the estimated range of the car isn’t any better than what is expected from the GM Volt model.
However, the innovation in this car is that the lack of a conventional engine and a transmission.
Instead, it has four smaller motors that drive each wheel individually. This not only saves a lot of space (which Volvo is using to add additional safety devices of course) in the vehicle and eliminates the need to a transmission but it also helps with performance giving this vehicle acceleration similar to that of a sports car. It’s definitely not your typical Volvo.
Normally I’d tell you to be on the lookout for this car in 2010 since just about every other cool fuel efficient car is coming out that year, but alas, that isn’t to be the case here. Volvo isn’t saying when exactly it’ll be released but they’ve said it’ll likely be 2015 before a significant number of these cars could be on the road.
Here’s a cool video from Volvo about the Recharge Concept and how it works.
With gas prices having hit $4/gallon and with no relief in site, I think we’re all looking for alternatives so that we’re no longer dependent on the volatile oil market. There is a lot of talk about alternative fuels these days so I thought I’d take a few minutes to give you the lowdown on the major contenders to replace to replace the gasoline currently swishing around in your tank.
So let’s take a look at the four alternative fuels most likely to take over as the dominant fuel in your vehicle.
Electricity
We use electricity to power just about everything else so why not your car? Just add a few more batteries and you’re good to go, right? Well, sort of.
Advantages of electric cars
Electric cars have a lot of advantages. First there’s that whole no emissions thing. Just think about how that would help with smog in major cities. Some will argue that since in the United States most of our power comes from coal, it’s just switching from one fossil fuel to another, and they’re partly right, but they’re missing the point.
The power grid gets cleaner every decade. Right now billions are being invested in both solar and wind power so your electric vehicle actually becomes a “greener” car to drive the longer you drive it.
Also, keep in mind that electricity generated at power plants is generated far more efficiently than in an internal combustion engine. Even if it does happen to be from coal or natural gas, it’s still cleaner than burning gasoline in your car’s engine.
Also, keep in mind that reducing our dependency on foreign oil is just a smart thing to do.
One of the really cool things about an electric car is never having to visit the gas station. A fully electric vehicle can be charged from a standard 110v outlet in your home in just a few hours.
Disadvantages of electric cars
With the numerous advantages that electric cars have to offer, it’s not without its fair share of downsides.
Probably the biggest concern right now is the lack of range with electric vehicles. GM’s Volt line is expected to come out in 2010, but those cars are only expected to have a range of 40 miles before the gasoline engine needs to kick in. That’s enough for your daily commute or running errands around town, but not much else. 100% electric cars (i.e. – no hybrid gas engine or alternative fuel source) such as those made from companies like Tesla fare better with a range of about 200 miles, but that’s still far below a typical gas powered car even if it is a gas guzzling SUV.
Then there’s the whole issue of how long it takes to “refill” or in this case recharge. Current lithium batteries are going to take 4-6 hours before they’re fully recharged. Again, not a problem if you plug it in for the night, but not a whole lot of fun if you’re driving across country on a road trip.
Then there is that little nagging issue of where we’re going to get all that power. Let’s face it, the power grid in the United States is already stressed. If we all switched over to electric vehicles, we’d crush it. We would have to build a lot more power plants which would likely be fossil fuel burning plants like coal and natural gas to cope with the extra demand placed on the grid. It’s good for reducing our dependency on foreign oil, but still not exactly a “green” option… at least not yet.
Infrastructure
While it’s easy to say that the infrastructure is in place for electric vehicles, that’s just not true yet. I know I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but we simply can’t crank out enough power right now to just switch to electric. Refineries would have to be replaced with power plants.
However, one company has a novel solution where for an extra $20k they’ll install solar panels on your roof which will provide plenty of electricity for you to electric car.
Then there’s that whole recharing ordeal. Nobody wants to hang out with “Daryl” the gas station attendant for four hours watching tumbleweeds blow by while the batteries on the electric car recharge. I’ve seen some research from some of those MIT geniuses about carbon nanotube capacitors that can be recharged in seconds, but they’re still little more than a glimmer in the theoretical physicists’ eye – cool if it can be commercially viable, but still a big question mark.
Until the recharging issue is solve, electric vehicles are unlikely to be more than a niche player in the alternative fuel game. Electric vehicles will likely need to be paired with another kind of fuel for the foreseeable future to make them practical.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Hydrogen fuel cells have been looked at as the fuel of the future for decades now.
What’s so great about running a vehicle on hydrogen? Easy, when burned in a fuel cell engine, the only emission is water vapor – you could put the water in a glass and drink it.
Advantages of hydrogen fuel cells
Hydrogen is abundant – in fact it’s the most abundant element in the known universe. On Earth it doesn’t float around as hydrogen all that readily, but through electrolysis it’s pretty easy to get all the hydrogen we’ll ever need from water. And since it goes back to water when it’s used, it’s not like we’re using up the water either. This is one fuel source we’d never run out of.
It’s also a highly efficient fuel. Hydrogen has the highest energy content per unit of weight of any known fuel.
Disadvantages of hydrogen fuel cells
Hydrogen also comes with its own list of drawbacks though. In this case, the major issue is storing the stuff. If you want enough hydrogen to power your vehicle, you’ve got two choices, compress it or make it cold until it turns into a liquid. If you can make it a liquid, you can store a lot more of it in a tank, but hydrogen doesn’t become a liquid until you get down to -252.87 Celsius (-423.17 Fahrenheit). That’s darn cold! And keeping it that cold requires a pretty significant amount of energy. Compressing it is currently a better choice, but it requires larger storage tanks (which increase weight).
The other disadvantage of hydrogen is that it burns so efficiently (yes, I know I said that was an advantage) – so efficiently that it’s keen on blowing up as any Hindenburg aficionado is well aware. But then again, gas blows up too, so you won’t actually be driving a 70mpg 2,000lb missile down the Interstate anymore than you are now.
Infrastructure
I was reading an article a few days ago that said the cost of getting an infrastructure in place would require somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 billion in subsidies. We have a massive network of gas stations that would need retrofitting with tanks to store hydrogen, but the bigger issue is making hydrogen on a massive scale. We don’t really have that.
Hydrogen has a lot of promise as a fuel, but it’s probably the furthest away from reaching its potential as a fuel.
Compressed Air
Compressed Air is a perfectly viable alternative fuel that you really don’t hear much about.
For those of you who took an Industrial Arts class (shop class) in high school, you’ve probably built your own version of an air powered car using some balsa wood and a CO2 canister, but for those not so cultured, here’s a Youtube video showing these fun little toys (I’d make my own video, but mine was reduced to splinters in a crash.)
So if you think about it using compressed air to, say, turn some pistons in an engine and make it run wouldn’t be too terribly difficult either.
All you need is a tank with enough air in it and you’re good to go.
Advantages of compressed air
The more I think about compressed-air cars, the more excited I get. Let’s talk about the fuel source first. It’s air – the same stuff we breathe. You fill up your tank with an air compressor – that’s it – you’re done.
Now let’s talk about emissions. It uses compressed air. When you uncompress air, it’s just air – the same stuff it was before you put it into a tank in the first place. That means zero emissions.
Unlike with electricity which takes hours to recharge, it only takes about three minutes to fill up your tank with a service station air compressor. It’s been estimated the cost would be about $3 to fill ‘er up for a full tank of air. The cool thing is that a lot of air vehicles are being made with on board compressors so you can plug the unit in your standard plug at home and the tanks will full recharge in about 4 hours. It’s like getting all the benefits of electric without the drawback of not being able to recharge quickly.
Lastly, compressed air vehicles can be significantly cheaper than their gasoline powered counterparts. While most alternative fuel vehicles add a significant chunk of change to the final price of your vehicle, air powered cars are actually cheaper.
Disadvantages of compressed air
While compressed air may sound like a pretty sweet deal, it does have a few drawbacks. So far all compressed-air cars have been small, and they are made out of aluminum, not steel to save on weight.
Also, the current range of 100% compressed air vehicles is only a little over 100 miles at the moment which makes them impractical for long trips. The American company Zero Pollution Motors plans to release their vehicle as a compressed air hybrid which also comes with a conventional gas engine which can actually extend the range of the vehicle to 800 miles.
Infrastructure
If compressed air vehicles did start to catch on, the infrastructure changes would be relatively minor. Refueling stations would need to invest in pumps that dispensed compressed air instead of gas which wouldn’t be too difficult. My guess is the hardest part would be for the government to figure out how to tax it.
Since it uses just air, no refineries would need to be built – air is freely available all around us. We just need to bottle it up and it’s ready to go.
Biofuels
I’m lumping all of the biofuels into this category. I’m talking about ethanol (whether its made from corn, sugar cane, kudzu, switchgrass, or algae really doesn’t matter) and biodiesel (made from vegetable oils).
Advantages of biofuels
The advantages of biofuels are that they’re something we’re already familiar with. You fill up your tank with a liquid that gets squirted into a little chamber and it burns making those ponies under the hood make those noises that get teenage boys all hot and bothered.
There’s also that whole “foreign oil dependency” thing. I don’t know about you but giving billions of dollars each year to countries that hate us and want all us “infidels” to die a slow and painful death really doesn’t bring visions of sugar plums dancing in my head when my head hits the pillow at night.
Biofuels can fix that little issue. The United States is a vast country with a whole heck of a lot of land that can be used for growing stuff… not necessarily corn, but something. Switchgrass is suitable for growing in climates where it’s too dry for corn. Kudzu grows all over the south whether they want it to or not, and algae is a nuisance in lakes and coastal waters all over the country. All of these are being looked at as excellent candidates for ethanol conversion.
Plus, not shipping oil thousands of oils in massive tankers would mean no oil spills, and don’t kid yourself, they happen all the time… just not in America. That’s certainly a more environmentally friendly thing to do.
Disadvantages of biofuels
Americans like to drive – there’s no doubt about that. However, we also like to eat. And while there are several non food plants being looked at for ethanol the main way to make ethanol in this country is to use corn. If it’s not used as food for people, it’s used as food for cows or other livestock which then become food for people. Using corn for ethanol has caused corn prices to rise dramatically which leads to an increase in food prices since nearly everything on the store shelves has corn as an ingredient. (Just look at how many things have corn syrup in them.)
Then there’s the little nagging issue about converting corn into ethanol not being efficient. Right now optimistic estimates are that you get 1.25 unit of energy back for every 1 unit you put in. Less optimistic ones say it’s actually energy negative meaning it takes more energy (diesel fuel used to run tractors that plant and harvest the corn and trucks used to transport it) to produce ethanol than you get in return. Obviously, scientists and engineers are trying to make the process far more efficient and think they can get up to a 7 to 1 return on energy units, but right now they’re nowhere close.
And while biofuels are certainly greener than their fossil fuel brethren, they’re not exactly zero emission fuels. You certainly don’t want to breathe that stuff coming out of your tailpipe even if it does smell like french fries.
Infrastructure
In terms of infrastructure, very little would need to change at your local gas station. A gas pump is a gas pump whether or not it’s pumping gas, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, or refried beans (now that stuff’ll give ya gas).
We’d either need to build new refineries which is already in progress for ethanol plants across the Midwest or we’d need to retrofit the old ones designed to make gasoline. Either way it’s a fairly expensive process, but it wouldn’t require much adaptation on the consumer’s part since your engine would sound, smell, and drive the same as it always has.
Any of my long time readers will remember that one of my first posts was about an Air powered car in India.
At the time it really wasn’t much to get excited about especially for speed crazed American drivers. The vehicle only had a top speed of 68 miles per hour and a range of just 125 miles.
Also, it was only available in India, but it looks like a compressed air hybrid might be heading to the United States in late 2009 or 2010.
And this new compressed air car comes with far more impressive credentials.
Top speed – 96 mpg
MPG – 106
Range – 800 miles +
Half the CO2 emissions of a Toyota Prius
I’ll admit that since that post a year ago I’ve ignored compressed air cars but Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) has rekindled my interest.
One major advantage that a compressed air car has over an electric car is the refueling time. Current and upcoming electric cars require several hours to get recharged, which is fine if you’re just running errands around town or taking short trip, but it’s entirely impractical if you’ve got a road trip planned.
However, a compressed air tank can be refilled in about 3 minutes at a refueling station, but you can also take it home and plug it in and the onboard compressor will refill the tanks in about 4 hours (about $2 of electricity). It’s like getting the best of both worlds.
Another reason to like the ZPM Air Car is that it’s reasonably priced. Right now ZPM is expecting their 6-seater to cost less than $18,000. Contrast that to the $100k Tesla Roadster or even the $23k Toyota Prius and you can see why this compressed air thing just might work.
So why do we have to wait until at least late 2009 (probably 2010 – all the cool stuff is coming out in 2010) to see this vehicle hit the streets?
It still has to pass U.S. safety tests, and that takes time. So I certainly hope this thing makes it to the mass market in 2010, but I also wouldn’t be shocked if this thing got delayed… it seems to be happening a lot with all of alternative fuel vehicles.
Here’s a cool story from CNN about these air powered cars.
I came across a news story yesterday about the new BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics X5 Concept Vehicle (talk about a mouthful to say…) and was pretty excited. Finally, a company is coming out with a diesel hybrid vehicle.
It reminded me of a conversation I was having with some friends back in December about why I thought was the best progression for us to not only lessen our dependency on foreign oil but to use less oil in general.
I contended that since electric and hydrogen fuel cells aren’t quite ready for prime time that we should take advantage of what we currently have available to us - diesel engines. Diesel powered vehicles are no longer the smelly, noisy vehicles you may be picturing. In fact, many of the new diesel cars are just as quiet as their gasoline powered counterparts.
And to give you an idea of how much more efficient diesel cars are than gas powered vehicles, the VW Polo (not available in the United States… yet) is a diesel powered cars that gets 70mpg+. Compare that to a Prius which only gets about 50mpg at best, and you can see the advantages that diesel has over gasoline and even over gas hybrid cars. Not only that, but the Polo sells for less than $20,000 while the Prius starts at $21,500.
So my thought is that in the short term we should be aiming to drive diesel cars, then diesel hybrid cars, and diesel plug-in hybrid cars. Adding hybrid capabilities and other technology on the horizon to efficient diesel engines could easily push some vehicles into the 100mpg range. And at the kind of mileage you probably wouldn’t care that diesel costs more than gasoline.
Making these changes would greatly reduce the amount of oil we use and need to import on a daily basis, and none of it requires any technology we don’t already have. Heck, just having everyone switch to diesel would make a dramatic difference.
And from there we could move towards fully electric vehicles which draw their power from our electric grid which is a far more efficient way to generate power than to use our internal combustion engines. Also, leaving power generation to the power plants is also far more enviromentally friendly.
And while I just posted about hydrogen fuel cell cars yesterday, I’m not convinced that hydrogen fuel cells are the future of our vehicles. However, I’d be happy to see us driving hydrogen fuel cell / plug-in electric hybrids. That way, we’d still be leaving the bulk of the power generation to the electric grid (trust me, that’s a good thing, the power grid is constantly getting cleaner and more efficient unlike our engines) and we’d still be able to drive across the country by filling up with hydrogen, and our cars would be zero emission.
And while that may be a bit far out right now (probably 20-30+ years), diesel hybrids will be here shortly. Let’s get back to talking about the BMW X5 that inspired me to make this post in the first place.
A typical BMW X5 that you can buy today gets about 18mpg. It may be a pleasure to drive, but it gets crappy gas mileage just like so many of its SUV brethren. The new BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics on the other hand gets over 40mpg with its diesel hybrid engine. In addition to the the hybrid system (which is an innovation in this vehicle itself), it also takes advantage of solar panels mounted on the roof to help charge the batteries, and even the wheels and tires are designed to help you improve gas mileage.
Right now it’s looking like you’ll have to wait until 2010 to get one of these in the United States, which as you already know if you’ve been a long time reader here is going to be a great year for “green” cars.
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Before you get too excited, though, Honda only plans on producing 200 of these vehicles over the next three years. (For comparison’s sake, Toyota makes about 200,000 Prius’ each year.) Also, unless you live in Southern California or Japan, your chance of getting one of these vehicles is pretty much zero, since Southern California is the only place in the U.S. with enough hydrogen equipped filling stations for such a vehicle to make sense.
The Honda FCX Clarity runs by combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and as a by product produces only water vapor.
While you may not be getting a fuel cell vehicle anytime in the near future, this is still a big step in the quest to make hydrogen cars a reality. Honda has said they hope to begin mass producing these vehicles in ten years – so hopefully by 2018 seeing a fuel cell car driving down the street will be as common as seeing a Prius now.
As you know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I think plug-in electric hybrids are a far more viable option for the near future than hydrogen cars, but I do hope that my children are able to drive fully electric cars or electric hydrogen hybrid cars since they’d give off zero emissions and would allow us to be fully self sufficient as a nation in terms of our energy needs.
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Now here’s something you don’t see everyday. A car that gets 300mpg, can travel safely at highway speeds, can actually hold two adults, and doesn’t need solar panels.
It’s called the Aptera Typ-1, a three wheeled, highly aerodynamic car that can get up to 300 miles per gallon for the first 100 miles. This thing can actually drive across the country on a single tank of gas.
And while you can’t get one just yet, you can reserve yourself a production slot when the Apteras do start rolling off the assembly line by putting a $500 deposit on your credit card, but only if you live in California. Right now the website says that they expect to start delivering these vehicles to their new owners in about 12 months.
It comes in two configurations - all electric or plug-in hybrid. The all electric version can only go 120 miles on a single charge, and costs about $27,000, but the plug-in hybrid version can drive over 1000 miles on a single tank of gas and costs just under $30,000.
If I lived in California, this would definitely be on my list of vehicles to consider buying in the near future, and I hope they’re able to expand to make these vehicles available to the rest of the country soon… I want one.
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Whenever I tell anyone that I hope my next vehicle is a VW Jetta TDI, they all ask me two questions - 1) what the is it and 2) why would you want to drive a diesel when diesel prices are ridiculous.
Let’s start number one. The VW Jetta TDI is simply a diesel powered Volkswagon Jetta that gets more than 50mpg with a diesel engine - no complicated hybrid technology involved.
And for number 2… with diesel prices reaching $5/gallon why in the heck would anyone want to buy a diesel powered vehicle anymore? Well, first of all, it’s twice the gas mileage that most vehicles get and is even better mileage than the Toyota Prius gets. Also, diesel vehicles have proven that they tend to last a long time, typically easily reaching 200,000 - 300,000 miles. And if anything ever needs servicing on diesel vehicle it’s certainly going to cost less since most mechanics are quite familiar with diesel technology - the same can’t be said for hybrid technology.
Of course, the coolest thing about diesels is their ability to run on far cheaper fuel - vegetable oil. Instead of paying $4 or $5/gallon you can actually get your costs down to as low 46 cents per gallon for fuel.
Filling up the tank for less than $10? You can count me in. Now can you see why I want one?
And this can make getting that diesel powered truck a far more attractive option. Yesterday I was talking about how SUV and truck sales have plummeted with diesel trucks dropping $5000 in value or more. To me that screams opportunity. I could get myself a diesel truck (which always get better gas mileage than their conventional gasoline counterparts anyway) for far less than I could have a few months ago and start running the vehicle on vegetable oil and still pay far less in fuel costs than those Prius owners. Not only that, I wouldn’t be burning any fossil fuels so it’s far more enviromentally friendly.
So have I piqued your interest yet?
Well, if you think it’s worth a try, here’s what I’d recommend you do. You don’t need to go out and do a complicated biodiesel conversion to get started. Instead, you can get this really cool product called the “Diesel Secret” which is a fuel additive you add to the oil you’re going to use as fuel. You don’t need to perform any conversions on your vehicle. You just put in the fuel additive and run the oil through a filter and you’re all set. When it’s all said and done it takes just a little more time than normal to fill up your vehicle, but you end up only paying $.46/gallon or so and many people have reported that it actually makes their diesel engine run better than it did on regular diesel they purchased at the pump.
You can learn more about the Diesel Secret fuel additive here. If you are thinking about buying a diesel or you already own one, I’d definitely recommend taking a look at it.
Are you considering buying a hybrid car? Do you want the reduced cost of the higher gas mileage or the feeling of knowing that you’re causing less pollution to the environment? Either way, you might want to hold of on that purchase for a while. A new type of engine is being designed that can get even lower gas mileage than a hybrid vehicle and they are set to be available soon. What’s this wonderful invention? It’s the plug-in hybrid.
A plug-in hybrid can be thought of as a hybrid between a regular hybrid car and an electric car. It can take long trips just like a hybrid car, but it can cost as little to run and be as environmentally friendly as an electric car if used only on short trips. A regular hybrid car has an electric and a gasoline engine. The electric engine charges through the gas engine, instead of being plugged in. A plug-in hybrid has an electric and a gas engine as well, but the electric engine is charged by being plugged into an outlet. This way, you can primarily use the cheaper and more environmentally friendly electric engine when making short trips. For longer trips, the gas engine takes over. This means the plug-in hybrid is cheaper to run and more environmentally friendly than a regular hybrid, but it doesn’t die after a few hours (unless you forget to put gas in) like an electric vehicle.
You may be thinking, “How is this any cheaper than a regular hybrid engine? Electricity costs money too!” The truth is electricity is a lot cheaper than gas. While gas has been consistently jumping above $3/gallon, the amount of electricity required to get a car as far as a gallon of gas costs about $1! And if you only take short trips in your plug-in hybrid, you’ll rarely use your gas engine and get close to this price for your mileage all the time. Imagine how much money you could save.
Many people may argue that a plug-in hybrid isn’t really more environmentally friendly than a gas engine or regular hybrid because pollution is produced during the production of electricity. The truth is, extensive studies have been done to compare the pollution output of a gallon of gas and the amount of electricity required to power an electric engine just as far. These studies have shown that through the entire process, electric vehicles produce significantly less pollution to travel just as far. And unlike a normal hybrid car, a plug-in hybrid car doesn’t produce its electricity by burning fuel, making it significantly cleaner than normal hybrid cars.
Hopefully this information will help you make a more informed choice about your next vehicle. Happy driving!
We’ve become an SUV loving country. After all what could be better than a vehicle that’s got plenty of room, goes just about anywhere, and makes you feel safe when you’re driving? The trouble is SUVs are gas guzzlers and they also aren’t great for our environment. However, that’s been changing over the past few years with the release of several models of hybrid SUVs. (Clean and efficient diesels are on their way too, but they’re not here yet.)
The Ford Escape – It is available as a FWD or 4WD unit. The 2WD gets 31 mpg in town and 36 mpg on the highway; while the 4WD gets 29 mpg in town and 33 mpg on the highway with a cruising range of 400 to 600 miles. Base price is $26,900 US.
A stock 2.3 liter, four cylinder engine is combined with a 65 kilowatt electric motor for a total of 155 HP. It has an electronically controlled automatic variable transmission; rack and pinion steering with electric power assist; and power assisted ABS 4 wheel disk brakes. Fuel capacity is 15 gallons/60 liters and it comes with 16” aluminum wheels.
Standard equipment includes air conditioning; ABS; roof rack; power windows, doors, and mirrors; AM/FM stereo with 6 disk CD; keyless entry; driver and front passenger air bag; intermittent wipers; and perimeter alarm.
The Lexus RX 400H 2WD – It gets 27 mpg in town and 31 mpg on the highway with a cruising range of 450 to 530 miles. Base price is $48,500 US.
The Lexus RX 400H comes with a stock 3.3 liter four cylinder engine, which is combined with permanent magnet electric drive motors for a total of 268 HP. It has electronically controlled automatic variable transmission; rack and pinion steering with electric power assist; and power assisted ABS 4 wheel disk brakes. Fuel capacity is 17.2 gallons/65 liters and it comes with 18” aluminum wheels.
Standard equipment includes dual zone automatic climate control, ABS, 8 speaker sound system with 6 disk CD, slide moon roof, power tilt, garage door transceiver, part time all wheel drive, voice activated navigation system, memory system, remote entry system, and accessory power outlet.
The Toyota Highlander – It is available as a FWD or 4WD unit. The 2WD gets 28 mpg in town and 33 mpg on the highway, while the 4WD gets 27 mpg in town and 31 mpg on the highway. Base price is $33,000 US.
It comes with a stock 3.3 liter double overhead cam V6 gas motor with 4500 rpm electric drive motors for a total of 268 HP. It has electronically controlled automatic variable transmission; electronic power steering; and ABS 4 wheel disk brakes. Fuel capacity is 17.2 gallons/65 liters and it comes with 17 1/2” five spoke aluminum wheels.
Standard equipment includes dual power tilt, moon roof with sunshade, roof rack, intermittent wipers, remote keyless entry, advanced airbag system, digital climate control system, power heated outside mirrors, and optional 4WD.
If you need a big SUV, then there are options available like the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid which gets a 25% fuel mileage improvement over the conventional gasoline powered SUV. Part of the savings come from the hybrid engine while part comes from the V-8’s ability to deactivate cylinders when not needed.
There’s quite a range in pricing between these hybrid SUVs; so you’ll want to do your research and find out which unit best meets your needs and provides the best value.
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We are all concerned about the environment and doing our part to take care of it. Of all the purchases we make, the purchase that will have the greatest impact on the environment will be the car we decide to buy. Hybrid cars are an affordable and innovative way to help protect our environment and benefit from the increased fuel mileage.
Only a few years ago talk of hybrid cars had consumers stepping back unsure; but today hybrids offer a practical choice for consumers, and more and more consumers are jumping on board.
A hybrid car has a small engine that is fuel efficient, which is combined with an electric motor that aids the engine when additional power is needed during acceleration. The electric motor gets its power from battery banks which continuously charge while you are driving.
Energy is conserved when you stop because the engine is shut off automatically. Then, when you apply gas, it automatically restarts.
The hybrid car also uses a more advanced aerodynamic lightweight body, and combines it with low roll resistant tires that are stiffer and narrower to help reduce drag.
There are several hybrids currently available in North America. This isn’t a comprehensive list but some of the more popular hybirds on the road today are the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Honda Insight, Toyota Prius, the Toyota Camry and the Mercury Mariner. There are also Hybrid SUVs available - the Ford Escape, the Lexas 400H and the Toyota Highlander, and the Saturn Vue.
Toyota currently dominates the hybrid market, having captured more than 75% of the total hybrid market. However, with new entries from American auto makers, it may be difficult for Toyota to so thoroughly dominate the hybrid market.
Now that consumer support for the hybrids has arrived, auto manufacturers are increasing the pace at which they introduce hybrid models. In 2006, the Honda CR V SUV, Saturn Vue, Hyundai Accent, and Kia Rio are being introduced as hybrid models. In 2007 we will saw the release of the Toyota Camry, Honda Fit, Mazda Tribute, Chevrolet Malibu, and Nissan Altima; and this year we should see the Ford Fusion and Mercury Millan available as hybrids.
If we had a crystal ball that could see into the future, there’s a good chance that what we’d see 20 years down the road would be freeways, highways, and streets that were full of hybrid vehicles. In fact, it’s likely that our gas guzzling vehicles of today are about to go the way of the dinosaur as more hybrid cars make it to market.
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Whenever I tell anyone that I hope my next vehicle is a VW Jetta TDI, they all ask me two questions - 1) what the is it and 2) why would you want to drive a diesel when diesel prices are ridiculous. 
