Thinking about this decade and its cars, it’s easy to look back and say what could have been done to avoid the collapse of the auto industry. Take GM, for instance. In the months after 9/11/01, Americans were in a patriotic frenzy. Imagine if GM had stood up and said something to the effect of, ”We want to lead American automakers in reducing our need for foreign oil.”

GM could have placed itself in a position of leadership to create smaller cars and drive America toward sustainability. What it did, of course, is ramp up production and marketing of the Hummer brand.

That essentially sums up the decade, as American love for SUVs kept growing along with our vehicles’ size. Even sedans kept growing. The Honda Accord grew from a compact sedan to a large sedan. The Toyota Camry did the same. The Honda Civic became as large as older Accords.

American excess was in prime form, all the way until the summer of 2008, when $4-per-gallon gasoline and $5-per-gallon diesel sucker-punched us in the wallets. Suddenly $125 fill ups sent us whining to the automakers, demanding small cars with great fuel economy. Of course, those didn’t exist here yet, save for the suddenly popular Toyota Prius hybrid.

High fuel prices were followed immediately by the near collapse of the world’s financial system, which sent GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Other automakers have survived free-falling sales numbers as they scramble to introduce more fuel-efficient vehicles.

In short, the 2000s have seen transformation like never before in the auto industry. I’m betting these 10 years will go down in history as the years that changed the auto industry forever, from gas-guzzling excess to world-saving efficiency.

What are your favorite cars from the 2000s? As much of a symbol of excess as it is, I still love the 2002 Chevy Suburban 2500!

-tgriffith

1. The ML 450 Hybrid (shown here) is announced for sale in the U.S. with a 275-hp V6 and two electric motors. When both motors are needed, the system can generate some 335 hp and 381 lb-ft of torque, which ought to get you up to speed nicely. “During braking and coasting, one motor acts as a generator, slowing the SUV and recovering kinetic energy.” So says GlobalMotors. Mileage is reported to be 21 mpg city and 24 mpg highway.

M-B has decided to make the car available only for lease, not purchase—an interesting gambit, perhaps related to its battery technology (nickel-metal-hydride, not lithium-ion). Run down to your Benz dealer and fork over $659 a month for 36 months or $549 a month for 60 months if you want this baby.

2. Rent-a-smart: Daimler AG CEO Dieter Zetsche has announced a pilot program called cars2go for renting smart cars in Austin, Texas. (smart is a separate brand owned by Mercedes-Benz.) Rent ‘em for a few hours or a day and return them whole to a designated location. When the company tried this in Ulm, Germany, users paid “19 euro cents per minute including taxes, insurance, mileage and fuel.” If it works in Austin, other cities may get the program.

Smart sales have been way down in the U.S. after an explosion in 2008 when the cars were first offered. Down 70.4 percent last month (compared to a year earlier), sales of 661 cars in October just ain’t going to cut it. Too bad, because the car is selling elsewhere; I’ve even seen a few here in Oaxaca, Mexico. Maybe the rental program will take off, and Autoweek says Daimler is considering a four-seat smart, to be built with Renault.

3. Daimler also debuted its “third-generation Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel-cell-hybrid bus at the site in Hamburg, Germany, where 10 of the buses enter service next year.” While we don’t ordinarily review buses in this column, this big boy was said to “perform outstandingly” and represents a tremendous push forward in fuel-cell technology and infrastructure. The Citaro has been tested in the European Union since 2003 and uses some 50 percent less hydrogen than its predecessor. “Practically maintenance free,” the Citaro has a long operating life. Get on the bus.

The Nissan Leaf EV, which we have reported on, made its U.S. debut Friday at Dodger Stadium in L.A. Said the whimsical Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s Chief, “This is not a golf cart—it’s a real car.” We should hope so: At $25-33,000 per industry estimates, it should do more than carry two of you, your clubs, and liquid refreshment. We think the Leaf sounds like a winner, and it will get to 60 mph in less than 10 seconds (says Nissan), with a wide network of charging stations planned in the U.S.

GM, naturally, is going a different route. Bob Lutz, the company’s marketing chief, told The Car Connection that a big ‘ol front-drive Chevy Impala will be coming to compete with the Ford Taurus. “Lutz also hinted at a hybrid option for the new Impala, stating that the car will be compatible with GM’s hybrid technology.” You can all stand up and cheer, hybrid fans.

And finally, a Washington group of heavy-hitters called the Electrification Coalition has announced plans to raise more than $120 billon in federal funds over eight years to get 120 million EVs on the road and on the grid by 2030. Details are here. The idea is to combat the nation’s dependence on oil and bring serious leadership to bear.

The initial investment would be targeted at a handful of cities, or “electrification ecosystems,” designed to show the viability of both the plug-ins and the electric grid they would interact with. The first phase would last four years and invest in six to eight cities that would essentially serve as large-scale demonstration programs. The second phase would then extend to an additional 20 to 25 cities.

What do you think, folks? Can the Electrification Coalition succeed?

—jgoods

2010 Volvo S60

What’s Volvo’s place in the world?

Ask consumers and they might say “Volvo makes safe, semi-luxurious family haulers.”

Ask Volvo and you’ll hear something about emotional appeal, sporty design and dynamic driving properties. It seems like all carmakers who call themselves luxury these days want to capitalize on the whole “dynamic driving properties” thing. The thing is, BMW pretty much owns that place. And if Volvo gets sold to a Chinese company as planned, well, let’s just say China isn’t a country known for developing world class driving dynamics.

Regardless, Volvo’s new S60 sedan is set for its big unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show next March, with production starting in summer 2010 in Belgium.

Volvo CEO Stephen Odell says,

The all-new Volvo S60 is sculpted to move you. It looks and drives like no other Volvo before and the car’s technology will help you to be safer and more confident behind the wheel.

Volvo’s marketing department would be proud, as phrases like “sculpted to move you” sound good in press releases but are otherwise meaningless. The car does look better than previous generation Volvos, but we’ll wait and see about those driving dynamics.

Speaking of questionable driving dynamics, GM is starting up Hummer production again in Louisiana.  Since the deal closed to sell Hummer to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., General Motors can begin producing 2010 versions of the H3 and H3T. The only changes to the ‘10 models will be E85 capability across the line and some new color choices. No word on when production of the H2 will start again, but expect the new H3 to hit dealers in December.

In news from the auto spying field, Leftlane has spy photos of the 2011 Chevy Aveo (or possibly Viva), which could see production by the end of 2010, and the 2011 Toyota Sienna, which will debut at the LA Auto Show next month.

Finally, and this would fall under the category of  ”Cars Going Soon,” my much loved Pontiac G8 GXP is just about extinct. GM reports via Twitter that only 16 are left on dealer lots, so if you want one, better act fast before these are strictly sold at collector car auctions.

Lots to look forward to in the coming months and years! Will you be test driving anything listed here?

-tgriffith

There are two reasons for this—the country’s short-term and long-term needs. First is the necessity for federal highway funding. The system has been short-changed for a long time, and the condition of the country’s roads, bridges, and tunnels is scandalous. The present 18.4-cents-per-gallon gas tax is inadequate to fund even present maintenance levels. Sen. Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) has put the handwriting on the wall. A new highway bill will be adopted, possibly by spring of next year. Somebody has to pay for it.

States like West Virginia are considering imposing their own gas taxes, as their infrastructure crumbles. With the economy stumbling and people driving less, gas tax revenues have declined everywhere. Plus, revenues get reduced as more fuel-efficient vehicles take to the road.

Which leads to the other, equally powerful, long-term exigency: The government must support in some fashion the electrification of the car industry and the infrastructure to serve it—or that brave new world simply won’t happen. There has been much written on how federal government should or should not fund industrial policy, but without it you can kiss oil independence and a clean environment goodbye.

A lengthy, interesting, and mostly convincing article in Inc. explains how the Chevy Volt (unskinned, above) and other EVs represent “connected vehicles,” cars built on a principle of networked systems requiring a new way of conceiving and building automobiles. Vertical integration, the industry’s traditional pyramid approach, is fast disappearing.

Today, however, car companies look less like pyramids and more like hubs and spokes connecting product teams: teams networked across the globe to one another and to myriad suppliers, a little like open-source software designers.

Makers of EVs will not only require new components, both hardware and software, but will need to face the enormous challenges of developing energy distribution and the grid. At the same time, there is and will be an explosion of great business opportunities. The future belongs to those who can network these new opportunities.

The auto industry will never again be a land of giants like GM but a landscape of small-business innovators. And it will be the government’s business to encourage and support these efforts at the outset. Funds will come from your pocket, once again, and higher gas taxes (in some form) are surely in your future.

Are you ready to pay higher gas taxes next year? Why or why not?

—jgoods

Luxury buyers will thus be asked to kick in to help GM defray the cost of the lithium-ion battery packs (which may run $10-12,000 for the Volt). My bet is that they will because the Converj—if it looks like the concept (as Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said it would)—will become the first dramatically styled car that GM has produced in a very long time. And the performance, one assumes, will be more than adequate.

Performance is the name of BMW’s game with the 2010 ActiveHybrid X6. According to John Voelcker of Green Car Reports, the world’s most powerful hybrid doesn’t drive at all like a hybrid. The technical details are kind of amazing, and the car performs, achieving 62 mph in 5.6 seconds (equivalent to the xDrive 50i). Freeway driving produces around 21 mpg, and the ride and handling, says John, are “smooth” and “tenaciously gripping.”

The downside of the vehicle is clearly its dog-eat-dog looks and the fact that it will set you back about $90 large or more. Oh well, that’s what it costs to buy nearly three tons of high-performance hybrid.

As tgriffith told you, SEMA produced a bunch of weird cars, as it always does. This 3-wheeler is called the eVaro, in development by Future Vehicle Technologies since 2006. Plug it in for up to 90 miles of travel, and do 0-60 in under 5 seconds (probably not both at the same time). The rated mpg is anywhere from 92 to 275. Your mileage may vary. They want to sell 10,000 of these things, which seems a mite ambitious, but it is truly an advanced concept.

Finally, it seems that hybrid sales really stepped out in October, beating the car market as a whole substantially. Details are on Edmunds’ Green Car Advisor:

Sales of Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Toyota hybrids were up 12.1 percent, while sales of conventionally powered cars and trucks were flat. The one-month picture was even rosier, as October hybrid sales jumped 22.5 percent from September’s, versus a 12.1 percent hike in sales of conventional models.

Autoblog Green carried an interesting piece covering “The Business of Plugging In” conference in Detroit. Despite persistent high battery cost and infrastructure problems, the future looks bright, especially for hybrids.

[J.D.] Power’s good-news predictions: the number of hybrid models available in the U.S. will increase from 22 today to more than 100 by 2015, and the number of “pure” (battery only) EV models will swell from one (the Tesla roadster) to at least 13 by 2012. Bad news for pure EV fans: Power says just 0.5 percent of sales (fewer than 100K units) will be pure EVs by 2015.

This doesn’t account, however, for any breakthrough in battery technology which, I’m betting, will happen within two years.

Anyone want to challenge that two-year prediction? Battery technology will improve markedly and relatively soon: Do you agree?

—jgoods

Now we have a far-out proposal from industrial designer Alberto Villareal for a fuel-cell-powered, drive-by-wire, solar-paneled (on the roof) taxi called MX-Libris (above), which may be just radical enough to do the job. The car won the Red Dot Design Award in 2008, and two Mexican firms have shown interest. Funding would come from the Centro de Transporte Sustentable, which promotes green transport. Go, Alberto!

Toyota FT-EV-II

Why do most electric cars look so ugly and commonplace? Do their designers deliberately turn out plug-ugly plug-ins because of some kind of group-think? These and other questions are delightfully addressed by Alice Rawsthorn in a New York Times piece. They are boring and ugly, she says, because of the problems inherent in new-car design, the reluctance of the industry to experiment and take chances, and the fears engendered by the huge investments required. As ever, however, there can be no reward without risk. Tesla has done it. Why can’t others?

New (U.S.?) Mazda 2

The Japanese want to take the lead in green car technology and production, and they are making noises as if they can and will do it. In particular, Mazda is working on the feasibility of diesels for the U.S. and, not surprisingly, they are looking at VW’s ability to market the diesel here with some success. The Mazda2 might be a diesel candidate, and there has been much speculation on what the 2008 World Car of the Year will look like, what will power it, etc., when it comes here. The car will get to the U.S. most likely in late 2010.

Honda CEO Takanobu Ito spoke out last week to a group of journalists (we mentioned it here) on Honda’s commitment to hybrids, EVs, fuel cells, and a really green, i.e., hydrogen-powered, sports car, “not like the Lexus” (the V10-powered, $375,000 Lexus LFA supercar). Plans include hybrids for the larger Honda models (Accord, etc.), but all this will take time. In any case, the CR-Z is coming soon, and that is good news.

Proof that green technology is catching on comes with the increasing competition for manufacturing facilities. Reva, the Indian carmaker, announced it was opening a plant in upstate New York; the Nissan Leaf will be made in Tennessee as well as Japan; and Fisker is redeveloping a GM plant near Wilmington, which event will naturally be announced by Delaware arch-booster Vice President Joe Biden.

Finally, we were caught up last week by a Wall Street Journal piece on “Five Technologies That Could Change Everything.” One of these is truly pie in the sky (space-based solar power panels), and another would trap and bury CO2 underground. The rest are: advanced car batteries, utility storage, and next-gen biofuels. Each clearly involves the concept of storage, which, as all car gurus know, is what finally, instrumentally, enables our vehicles to move. The costs and engineering challenges will be enormous, but in the end what choice do we really have but to move ahead? Just where to put the bets down will be the first problem.

How about letting us know what kinds of energy topics you would like to see covered in future Green Updates? Please leave us a comment.

—jgoods

All-electric MINI E is a blast to drive:

The great failure of all electric models to this point has been their weakness in encouraging desire. How much wider a take-up might there have been for the gawky G-Wiz [shown here] if it didn’t resemble something that Laurel and Hardy had just driven through a sawmill? It’s been like the old joke about Superman. If electric cars are so smart, how come they wear their underpants outside their trousers?

Focus BEV to test in London: Ford seems to be on the same page as MINI and is testing out 20 new Focus Battery Electric Vehicles with household drivers for three months. Early next year, a charging infrastructure will be installed. A somewhat different BEV appeared on “The Jay Leno Show” last month.

Michigan needs plug-ins: But it needs the infrastructure and coordinated development, too. Such is the theme of a current Motor City conference with some big-wigs.

“We talk about public utilities. We talk about cars. But we haven’t really talked about them together,” said David Cole, chairman of the Automotive Research Center in Ann Arbor. “What we’re going to be seeing is a merging of these two industries.”

Along these lines, GM’s FastLane Blog has an interesting webchat that featured Tony Posawatz, Vehicle Line Director for the Chevy Volt. We learn particular details about the Volt as well as some considerations about the future of EVs from Felix Kramer of the California Cars Initiative. Worthwhile exchanges in that chat.

There are still plenty of questions about the Volt, many of them critical, as put forward by CNN’s Alex Taylor here. Mainly these focus on cost/benefit issues, and we can’t help thinking the car comes up short.

Nissan’s V-Platform Coming to the U.S., maybe in 2011; to Thailand, India, and China in 2010. And Nissan wants to sell 1 million a year. It’s a low-cost, low-weight car that Nissan’s betting heavily on to compete with the Fiesta, among others—a world car. Nissan also made news by announcing its commitment to a “next-generation battery,” i.e., lighter and less expensive. These will be produced at the New Smyrna, Tennessee, factory and sold to “whoever is interested.” So says CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Infiniti jumps into the electric competition: The firm is reportedly working on a small car to compete with the Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series, as is Lexus. The comments came from an “insider” at the Tokyo Motor Show who also claimed that the new car would share powertrains with the Nissan Leaf (which kind of makes sense).

Honda is also considering going electric, per CEO Takanobu Ito. He still likes hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars for the future, but they will be a long way off. One factor influencing his change in strategy may be the poor showing of the Insight against the Prius, at least in terms of sales.

Toyota Sai hybrid launches in Japan: Showing for the first time in Tokyo this week, the Sai is a larger and more luxo Prius, it seems, and is sister to the Lexus HS 250h, which is now on sale in the U.S. Whether it will come here is not known, but the two very similar cars will compete against each other in Japan. What was that old line about the inscrutable Japanese?

DOE funding for three-wheelers approved: Which means, according to Autosavant, that companies like Elio Motors and Aptera can finally get development money. Three cheers, and let this be a counter to Giles Smith’s complaint about weird styling.

For those people that complain that everything on the road looks the same these days, the rebuttal to your complaint is a three-wheeler. All of the three-wheel vehicles in the pre-production pipe look like nothing else on the road today.

Three-wheeled cars certainly don’t look like anything else on the road today. But should they? Do you want cars that look like cars or like airplanes (the Aptera)?

—jgoods

I haven’t found much worthwhile analysis of any of these things. We seem to be too busy promoting newer, bigger, more powerful cars. In other words, conducting business as usual.

But as government intervenes (properly or not) to create standards and promote greenness, other even less-noticed costs—sometimes hidden, sometimes not—will be added. The Detroit News has written recently about how newly evolving state and federal standards will change vehicle design and add cost—lots of cost—in order to achieve worthwhile environmental goals.

The paper came down hard on the California Air Resources Board for its “cool cars” rules that require new windows for cars by 2014 to keep out 45 percent of the sun’s energy, thus requiring less air conditioning and less fuel. One problem is that the proposed metal oxide coating interferes with cell phone and GPS use, along with “ankle bracelets for parolees,” of which there are plenty in California.

The initial standard will cost $111 over the life of a vehicle; the 2016 standard will add $250 to the cost of each vehicle. California says it will take five to 12 years for consumers to recoup the costs from reduced gasoline use.

The good part is that by 2020, the Board predicts 700,000 metric tons of CO2 will not be put in the air. That’s the equivalent of taking 140,000 cars off the road for a year. Regarding the communications problem, the Board says let ‘em use antennas.

The new federal fuel standard is going to cause even more problems but, again, with big benefits down the road. Expect lots of opposition from the auto industry. The detnews.com’s first paragraph makes it pretty clear where they stand:

The Obama administration’s proposed standards for fuel efficiency and tailpipe emissions will raise vehicle price tags by more than $1,000, depress sales by 58,000 and cost more than 5,000 auto industry jobs in 2012, a government analysis said Tuesday.

However, the EPA tells us that fleet standards of 34.1 mpg will be required by 2016, tailpipe emission standards will be fixed for the first time, 950 million fewer metric tons of greenhouse crap will not go into our air, and car owners will save some $3,000 in fuel per vehicle. The big number: $60 billion over five years for the industry to implement these regs.

EPA thinks that the plan

will eventually boost auto sales by 65,480 vehicles through 2016 and add 5,795 auto jobs because [of] stronger consumer demand for fuel-efficient models—especially if fuel prices rise. The agency acknowledged, however, that “the possibility exists that there may be permanent sales losses” because consumers may keep vehicles longer as a result of higher prices.

The jury, of course, is still out, and the industry will have its chance to comment (and soften) the proposals. But you can bet they will be enacted in something like their present form. The problem is, as with the healthcare legislation being proposed, nobody can offer a clear, convincing analysis of the cost/benefit equation. We just don’t know enough.

So it seems to be a question of which side has the more compelling case: controlling big costs in the short run or gambling that the long-run benefits have to be worth it. Where do you come down?

—jgoods

Way back in March we excitedly reported on the possibility of a new sports car co-developed by Toyota and Subaru.

Today we have some news that builds on that excitement, if Toyota’s FT-86 concept (shown above) is indeed the result of this “Toyobaru” partnership. The sports coupe, which will debut this month at the Tokyo Motor Show, was reportedly designed by Toyota but utilizes Subaru’s horizontally opposed boxer engine.

The resulting design is, well… HOT.

Toyota has been in need of something exciting for a long time, which CEO Akio Toyoda readily admits.  The FT-86 concept reportedly seats four and is a front-engine, rear-drive car with a dedicated chassis and Subaru’s 2.0-liter boxer four cylinder engine.

Imagine that baby paired with a 6-speed manual and you’d be crazy not to dream of tearing off the line at stop lights and testing the car’s limits on mountain roads while enjoying primo fuel economy.

Plus, just look at it! Anyone else see a little Aston Martin in the hood? The FT-86 looks sharp, especially in the custom “shoujyouhi” red paint.

And about that paint… check out what Autoweek was told:

Sports cars have to be red, but we wanted a new red,” chief engineer Tetsuya Tada said. “So we came up with shoujyouhi red, the traditional red color of a Japanese monkey’s” backside.

Probably could’ve done without that unfortunate comparison, but I’m still gaga over this new Toyobaru’s looks; even if it’s the color of a monkey’s butt.

If all goes according to plan, the car could be available in 2011 (there’s no guarantee this version will arrive in the U.S., but we hope). Pricing should come in somewhere north of $20K but south of $30K.  I’m predicting a huge sales success as the price, design and performance are sure to provide a heavy dose Toyota excitement.

Would Toyota’s FT-86 concept meet your expectations for a joint Toyota/Subaru sports car?

-tgriffith

We talked about “Volt Contenders” back in March; one of these was the Think City, a less than Volt-sized EV that may be coming to production in the US in 2011. The Detroit News reviewed a pre-production version (around $30K in Europe, not cheap!) and found the car “almost adequate” for driving around the city: good interior space, OK acceleration, easy and quick recharging. The top speed was only 63 mph, however, and so accelerating onto a freeway was something akin to exercising a death wish. Passing? Passing what? But the car is good for the city and for short hops. Still not the “electric car for the masses… [which] no one has offered yet.” Figure another two years at least for that.

Myers Motors has been around for a while. They are trying to make a splash with another pint-sized machine, this one a glorified motorcycle really, again for in-town use. The three-wheeled, two-passenger NMG2 will go on sale late in 2010, and the company is running a contest for a name (no maligna gasolina?). The car has a 60-mile range, will do 75 mph and costs less than $30K. I like it. The letter from Myers’ president (on the website) makes the point that some 70 million people commute alone and drive less than 40 miles to work. That sounds like a reasonable niche market—if they can be convinced to ride in an enclosed three-wheeler.

E-Wolf E2 Concept, Electric Ferrari-killer

E-Wolf E1 Electric Roadster, for 150-lb driver

At the other end of the madness scale is a concept from German firm E-Wolf called the E2, supposedly to evolve as a supercar in two years (544 hp, 2000 lbs, “to compete with the likes of Ferrari in the performance arena”). Well, guys, judging from the E1 which was shown at Frankfurt (150 hp, 1100 lbs, “can only accommodate drivers weighing up to 150-pounds”), you’ve got a ways to go.

More practical, maybe, is Volvo’s move to put more plug-in hybrids on the streets and a fleet of test cars. The firm announced it would start selling plug-ins by 2012 and showed a V70 with two charging ports—one in front for home charging, the other at the rear for fast-charge (1.5-2.5 hours) stations.

The Power

In order to get electric cars to a sizable market, you must have power companies that not only feed the grid but use the product. Otherwise, it’s a Catch-22. The New York Times reports that

FPL Group, the company that includes Florida Power and Light, and Duke Energy, which serves 11 million people in the South and Midwest, together operate about 10,000 vehicles. And they said this week that by 2020 all new purchases of fleet vehicles will be plug-in hybrid or all-electric.

Clearly, that is putting one’s money where one’s mouth is. The ridiculous situation with ethanol is just the opposite: Farm-state senators (Ben Nelson, D-Neb., among them) are pushing to increase the amount of blended ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent, while the automakers are fighting it, citing the many cases where too much ethanol damages or disables engines.

It isn’t bad enough that we use corn almost entirely for ethanol, which is terrible for all kinds of environmental, agricultural and economic reasons. The industry has been totally unwilling to commit to biofuels or cellulosic ethanol, and is now getting set to inhale some $787 million in federal money for biofuel research, which it would not do on its own. Instead of priming the biofuel pump, federal money is serving as a substitute for private capital and encouraging the farm states to continue their misguided policies. End of rant, for now.

Applause, however, for GM which announced last week that it was partnering with the Reva Electric Car Company of India to develop the market for electric vehicles in India. Well, why shouldn’t they, you ask, with over a billion people as a market? RECC, we understand, has done work on infrastructure, biofuels and has test marketed electrics in many countries as well as India. Working on alternative propulsion strategies and fuels, GM has also reached out to world markets. It could be an ideal combination: Volts in Mumbai!

How soon can we expect EVs to penetrate the market for short-commute cars in our cities? We know you have an opinion.

—jgoods