Cars & Transportation

Lester R. Brown

While most people may decry record-high gasoline prices, Earth Policy Institute, we see it as big nudge to redesign our urban transport systems, as I discuss in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. Respiratory illnesses are rampant. In the United States, the number of hours commuters spend sitting frustrated in traffic-congest...

Image Credit: Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times

NYC Improves a Major Mid-Town Street
New York City, which recently unveiled a plan to be more bicycle friendly and is considering a bike-share program, will soon boast a bicycle and pedestrian friendly public esplanade along one of its most famous streets, Broadway. When the new street, to be called Broadway Boulevard, is opened in August, it "will run from 42nd Street to Herald Square" and "change that section of...

Fuel Thieves - Reincarnated From 1981 Oil Crisis
Large scale fuel theft is a nasty problem that hits the poor and elderly hard. Happened before so we should not be surprised. Won't be but a few months...certainly by winter...that it'll surface in North America. Scotland is in the grip of a new crime wave with organized thieves stealing tens of thousands of litres of fuel each day from farms, homes and petrol stations across the country. Record oil prices have made fuel a targeted commodity for gangs of criminals. Thieves are reselling the stolen fuel through independent, rural petrol stations or selling directly through...

Tesla Electric Roadsters Finally Ship to Customers
As they say, if you never fail, you're probably not trying. It took a long time, and some even lost faith in the young company, but Tesla has now "broken the logjam", in the words of Ze'ev Drori, its president and CEO. Tesla electric Roadsters are now shipping. "Already 9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week" until December when production should ramp up to about 25 per week. There are currently 27 Roadsters in various stages of asse...

photo: Getty Images

Usually when we talk about transportation emissions causing climate change here at TreeHugger, we focus on CO2 emissions or methane emissions—the usual suspects in the global warming discussion. In regards to cargo shipping, companies are investigating how much slowing down ships can reduce emissions. A new study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado shows, however, that it’s not just the carbon emissions from cargo shipping which are a serious global warming concern, but also the soot these s...

Electric Cars: You Want 'Em? We've Got 'Em!
Over the past 3 years, we've written about many electric cars here on
TreeHugger. We think it's time to look in the rearview mirror, so here's an overview. If you see anything you like, just follow the links to see the original articles.

Electric Roadster by Tesla Motors
The electric car that made a lot of people do a double-take (in a good way). Yes, it's expensive, and yes, it's only a two-seater, but it can make people want it like few other green cars, and someone has to pay the early-adopter 'tax'. Our first post abou...

Caught at a Red Light
Last night I was biking home from the movie theater when I got caught at one of those red lights that cyclists dread. If you are a cyclist, you know the situation: you're on a small road and need to turn onto a larger road. Unfortunately, the light only changes if a car trips a sensor under the road. Your options now are limited: you can either run the light, wait for a car to trip the sensor, or climb off your bike and push the cross-walk signal (if there is one.) Well, at first I waited for a car to come, to no avail. Nor did the street have a cross-walk signal. My only option was to run the light, but as a law abiding cycl...

Former Intel CEO Andry Grove recently wrote an interesting piece on energy. His angle is not totally green, but it's worth reading. Here's a good quote:

"New technology often shows up in this manner: it is not completely satisfactory in the beginning, but good enough to get going. The first personal computers, for example, were little more than toys. They fascinated cognoscenti and hobbyists, but compared to the mainframe computers that were the workhorses of that time, they were limited. PCs quickly grew in capability and eventually reached parity with mainframes and then surpassed them in efficiency and computing power. Such approaches, of starting low and moving up, have been nam...

When Warren first reported on Kite For Sail’s innovative yacht propulsion system back in 2007, the company had apparently slated the next five years for further R&D. However, with rising gas prices hitting the headlines daily, it seems like the Maui-based yachting enthusiasts may be bringing their technology to market earlier than expected – they are now accepting down payments on orders via the Kite For Sail website, with delivery expected in the next 6 months (a full system will set you back between $3,320...

This years Coachella festival was the first of its kind with its own train and train station. To help reduce the carbon footprint of a 3-day music festival held in the desert, organizers found a way to make one giant carpool – that came in the form of the Coachella Express. After a year of planning between Coachella, Global Inheritance, Golden Voice and Amtrak, this train idea got, well, rolling....

When does a fanciful concept of an electric commuter car actually become the real deal? Possibly only when the first few or the first few hundred start rolling off the assembly line. Nissan and Renault have been making the rounds of the auto shows showing off the robot-assisted electric Pivo 2, but last week the Associated Press reported that Portugal has agreed to set up a network of electric charging stations and the Pivo 2 is going to be released there in 2011. It's a bit hard to imagine this funky, funny-looking bug-like vehicle anywhere but in a Pixar movie.

"Laminated" lithium-ion battery
The Pivo 2 is reported to have four wheel-based engines and a robot ins...

The truth about vehicle fuel efficiency is coming out: at last! Of course, Senator John Warner would not want to ask the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) - the Agency which for decades has been officially charged with determining and publishing fuel efficiency estimates for vehicles - to determine the optimal highway speed for fuel savings, because...you know...USEPA might actually promulgate a regulation. (Joking of course.) [Senator] Warner has asked the Energy Department to determine the most energy-saving speed — and the potential fuel savings — if a new national limit is imposed...

High gas prices have had some positive effects, such as increasing the popularity of mass transit, cycling, and compact cars, as well as reducing the amount of miles that Americans drive. However, as the NY...

Tesla Motors Gains Credibility
Making cars is hard, and Tesla is trying to improve its luck by hiring Mike Donoughe, a former Chrysler executive who has shown in the past that he can get things done. He will become Tesla Motors' Vice President of vehicle engineering and manufacturing. Mr. Donoughe could have got a job at any car company, so it's a good sign that he thinks the future is in electric cars, and it's also a vote of confidence for young Californian electric car company.

Next Step: Model S
And Tesla will need all the smart people it can get if it wants its

Electric Mini Cooper: Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Following VW's announcement that it would make a limited number of its 1-Liter 282 MPG car, BMW says that it will build 500 electric Mini Coopers for the Californian market. Now the optimist might say: "That's great! They're more likely to go from limited to full production than from nothing to production!". The pessimist is probably thinking: "Ok, California has a mandate for automakers to make 7,500 zero-emissions cars by 2014. That's probably why we...

Electric Scooter Taxis in Paris
If you find yourself in Paris and need a taxi to move around the city without luggage, think of City Bird's Electri-City service. City Bird itself is the first French motorcycle taxi service, and they have just added a couple of Vectrix electric scooters to their fleet.

Because of the limited range of the electric scooters, they can only be booked to go to locations inside of the city. Of course, you could always take the subway, o...

Mitsubishi's i MiEV Electric Car is Ahead of Schedule
A couple months ago, we got our hands on Mitsubishi's roadmap for its i MiEV electric car. The plan was to lease a few units to fleet customers first in 2009 and then launch it in 2010 (with a focus on Japan, but also in North-America and Europe), but reality is turning out better than even the optimists thought.

Japanese Launch: Summer 2009
The new plan is to launch the retail version of the i MiEV electric car in Japan in the summer of 2009. The reasons are "...

Next Generation Prius to be Made in USA
Toyota has just announced on its blog that the next generation Prius hybrid (certain models of which might have solar panels) will be made in the US, becoming the second Toyota hybrid car made in the country after the Camry hybrid, which is made in Kentucky.

Blue Springs, Mississippi
"As part of a sweeping set of changes that reflect the state of the automobile business in the United States, Prius production will begin here in late 2010 at a brand...

If you’re a college student or recent grad out hunting for a green job or internship there’s a new online community launched by Experience, a career-advice and job search services provider, that’s aimed just at you. In fact, it hopes to help various organizations nationwide hire interns for positions that help support environmental protection and the development of clean energy sources as well.

...

Water-Powered Car Saga
Last month, we wrote about the Genepax 'Water Car' and were surprised by how many people were ready to believe that it truly worked with water as the only fuel without special explanation or evidence from those who make the claim. Right now the post has 124 comments, which is higher than average for TreeHugger, and a significant portion of those talk about rewriting the laws of physics and such.

A Q...

Image via Sparking Tech

We're looking for a full-time blogger who can cover the latest, hippest, greenest gadgets and electronics. We are looking for someone who has in-depth knowledge and passion about this topic, can identify and explore current and emerging trends, un...

In yet another sign of how gas prices are affecting the economy, several states, including Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma, have begun offering free gas for life instead of the usual cash prizes in lotteries. Of course, there's a catch: in Florida, for instance, free gas for life means that "each winner will be awarded 26 prepaid gas cards, each worth $100, every year until death." Interestingly, in Florida the free gas will go to the second-prize winner, while the first prize winner will win a cash prize. What's i...

My friend Carey is a single Portland, Oregon mom with a mortgage, a short commute to a full-time job and two school-age daughters. That translates to a fairly mainstream transportation need. She's also my choice for TreeHugger of the week because as of about two months ago she finally found a way to mothball her Honda and get off the gas roller coaster ride by buying a Zap three-wheeled electric vehicle.

Part of a personal transportation network
Carey is nothing if not pragmatic. She surveyed the small playing field. Of the five electric vehicles currently for sale, Zap seemed the...

According to this article, hypermiling is both a "fad" and a cause of road rage. We think it's important to avoid generalizations and keep things in perspective.

The "Hypermiling Causes Road Rage" Argument
Firstly, we're pretty sure that a lot more road rage incidents are caused by aggressive and foot-heavy drivers than by hypermilers. So while it is perfectly justified to blame those specific hypermilers that drive in dangerous ways, something we don't recommend, we must be careful not to put all of them in the same basket. Hypermiling is not one single thing, but r...

map of voyage courtesy of Kenichi Horie

Does the future of ship propulsion lie in the waves themselves?

Ship powered by two fins, has other green tech
Completing what he calls the longest voyage in a wave-powered ship, Kenichi Horie has finished a 4,800 mile, 110-day voyage from Honolulu, Hawaii to Wakayama, Japan. Though equipped with engine and sails for emergencies, Horie’s 31-foot catamaran relied on power generated from two fins at the bow of the ship to propel it through the water. The hull of his ship was recycled aluminum and all electric power, used for navigation equipment, radio and a personal com...