Japanese Hybrid Engineer Died from Too Much Work

The Japanese labor bureau has ruled that the cause of death of one of Toyota’s top car engineers was too much work. The engineer, who had been working on hybrid technology, had been under severe pressure while developing the hybrid version of the Toyota Camry. The 45-year-old man had been getting 80 hours of overtime per month in the months leading up to his death.

From The Huffington Post:

He regularly worked nights and weekends, was frequently sent abroad and was grappling with shipping a model for the pivotal North American International Auto Show in Detroit when he died of ischemic heart disease in January 2006. The man’s daughter found his body at their home the day before he was to leave for the United States.

The ruling was handed down June 30 and will allow his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, Mizuno said.

In Japan, death from overwork is common enough to have its own word: karoshi. Working extremely long hours isn’t outside the norm there.

So, be grateful. Many bothans (I mean, Japanese engineers) died to bring us this information (er, hybrid technology).

Link [The Huffington Post]

Behind Automakers’ Petulant Resistance to Higher Car Mileage Standards

Every time the government proposes legislation to improve fuel economy standards, you can practically hear a collective groan from the automobile industry.  In early July 2008, automakers made a big fuss over proposed new mileage standards, saying they’re too tough.  The new standards would require automakers’ fleet of cars to meet an average of 35.7 miles per gallon for passenger vehicles and 28.6 mpg for light trucks by 2015.

This will be the first time the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has raised its ‘Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards’ (CAFE) since 1985, which is really appalling in itself.  That’s more than 20 years that automakers could have been working on better, more efficient cars.  Instead, they spent that time developing gigantic sports utility vehicles and heavy duty trucks, leading up to a rather sickening pinnacle in recent years with the Hummer.  What’s more, the agency’s mileage standards assume gas prices of $2.42 per gallon in 2016.  What parallel universe are they living in?

Meanwhile, many consumers feel the new standards would be far too lenient.  The Consumer Federation of America wants the standards raised well over what the government has proposed, to 39.5 mpg for passenger vehicles and 30.9 mpg for light trucks.

Even that’s not good enough.  After all, it’s obvious that car companies can easily reach these standards, and far sooner than 2015 – and what’s 35.7 miles per gallon if gas is completely unaffordable or not available at all? Those of us who rely on personal or family vehicles to get around want the auto industry to step up to the plate and start getting innovative.  Challenging times fuel innovation, and it seems like we should be seeing leaders in the industry eagerly savoring this chance to really show us what they’ve got.

What reason is there, we wonder, for automakers to drag their feet like bratty, fit-throwing children on raising mileage standards?  Why aren’t they leading the charge toward the future, with cars that meet and even exceed customers’ desires for greener, more energy-efficient vehicles?

Part of it is fear.  They’ve made good money off the market as it has been for the last two decades. They’ve built their companies around the assumption that they could continue operating like that indefinitely. Completely restructuring their businesses around making more fuel-efficient vehicles will cost them.

Their biggest excuse is that ‘it’s not feasible’.  But, that certainly seems like a weak argument when hybrids as they are today are already more efficient than the proposed standards and are set to become even more efficient as improvements to the batteries and drivetrain systems continue to be made over the next few years.  Plug-in technology is well on the way.  Other alternatives to fossil fuels are being researched and developed at this very moment, and who knows what else could crop up.

Even without raised CAFE standards, automakers will be forced to green up.  They don’t have much choice anymore. High gas prices will undoubtedly be a great catalyst for improved fuel economy, simply because automakers no longer have a choice, regardless of how they feel about the new standards. Having low gas prices for so long encouraged automakers to keep on producing huge, gas guzzling vehicles, and encouraged consumers to buy them. Over the last few decades, car companies grew to depend upon sales of SUVs and trucks as a large part of their profits.  Now, they’re being forced to reevaluate the entire industry.  That’s because consumers have dropped SUVs and trucks like they’re radioactive.

High gas prices, in effect, forced consumers to take responsibility for their share of the problem: they’re now clamoring for smaller vehicles. Consumer desire for big cars and trucks was the biggest obstacle car companies would have faced in making their fleets more fuel efficient, so the rest of the onus is on them.  That doesn’t mean that we’ll never have affordable SUVs and heavy duty trucks again – it just means that most of us can get by on smaller, lighter cars during this shift toward cleaner energy.

One thing that will likely happen during the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles is that prices will rise a bit for consumers.  Without those SUV profits, automakers will be forced to raise prices on their current lines of compact cars as well as new models that debut in the next few years.  While consumers will have to swallow those price increases up front, the vehicles will be less expensive to run over time.

The funny thing is that the Big Three automakers – GM, Ford and Chrysler – have seen huge drops in profits because they failed to anticipate this shift toward smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.  Strange, when it seems as though everyone else could see it coming from miles away, but perhaps they were too busy rolling naked in money, luxuriating in the profits brought to them courtesy of low gas prices and at the cost of the environment.  It almost seems as though they’ve engineered their own downfall, and they’re just now starting to realize it as plants close and thousands of workers are laid off.

GM, for one, is finally accepting reality and said just yesterday afternoon that they’re prepared to make hard choices in order to survive.  They plan to sell off $4B - $7B worth of assets in order to afford upcoming changes to their product line.  We hope to see more of that in the upcoming months.  The loss of jobs is, of course, very unfortunate, but hopefully those people will be able to become a part of the new, greener industries starting to sprout up.

The times, they are a-changin’, and the auto industry is going to have to change with them, just like everybody else, like it or not.  The only way out is through.  As we all try to find our way out of the Era of Oil and into a better, greener future, it’s going to be a bit painful for everybody, but there’s no doubt that it will be worth it in the end.

Link [CNN]
Photo credit: Make Your Own Gas Station Sign

Next Generation Toyota Prius Will Have Solar Panels

Toyota will be installing solar panels on the roof of the next generation Prius, set to begin production next year and released in 2010.  The power generated by the solar panels will be used to power the air conditioning system, which was previously putting strain on the hybrid powertrain.   The panels will only be available on high-end Prius models.

There have also been rumors that the next generation Prius will have a lithium battery and may get over 100mpg.  The body has been redesigned to be slightly larger and more aerodynamic.

I can’t wait to see how high gas prices are going to continue to spur innovation in all industries.  We should be seeing some extremely cool cars in the next few years, and the best part is they’ll be getting greener and greener!  With so many interesting new designs and concepts in the works right now, the hardest part will be choosing between them all.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Popular Mechanics

Toyota Can Barely Meet Demand for Prius and Compact Cars

Hybrids are so in demand right now, automaker giant Toyota can barely keep up. In fact, they’ve had to refuse giant orders for the Prius and energy-efficient compact cars from rental car companies because they simply don’t have the capabilities to produce the vehicles as quickly as they’re needed. Had they been prepared for the surge, Toyota could be swimming in profits right now, but since they had a limited stock of small vehicles, they’re actually down by 11.5% since June.

From Reuters:

Toyota executives said a dwindling inventory of vehicles, such as the Prius, Yaris and Corolla, had forced the automaker to scramble to try to keep up with demand in June, a month when industry-wide U.S. auto sales dropped almost 9 percent.

Sales of Toyota’s Prius, the top-selling hybrid in the U.S. market, fell 26 percent as dealers ran short of inventory and customers faced a six-month waiting list. Toyota said it would only partly be able to satisfy the backlog of demand from its dedicated Prius factory in Japan this year.

Production of the Prius’s battery, in particular, is putting a stain on Toyota’s ability to meet demand. The current generation Prius uses nickel-metal hydride batteries produced by Panasonic EV. Meanwhile, Honda has made plenty of profits lately due to the availability of its line of hybrids and compact vehicles. Detroit is still ailing, since the three major automakers there – GM, Ford and Chysler – failed to anticipate the need for efficient cars.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Flickr user Stephen Witherden

Green Car Rental Round Up: Who’s Going Green and Who’s Missing the Boat

Want to rent a car, but wishing you had more green choices?  As it stands, you’re in luck. Car rental companies are cautiously entering the world of green vehicles as consumers look for higher fuel efficiency ratings that will save them money on gas. Demand for hybrids across the country has skyrocketed lately as fuel prices have risen ever higher.

Some experts are telling the companies to slow down their green fleet efforts, since they’re convinced that the extra money consumers pay to rent a hybrid outstrips high fuel costs. Rates for hybrids at all of the major rental car companies average $5-$15 more per day than similar sized non-hybrid vehicles. That’s not stopping most of the major rental car companies from beefing up their fleets of green vehicles, though; nearly all of them plan to slowly increase the number of hybrids and fuel-efficient compact vehicles available to rent as demand grows.

So, who’s going green and who’s missing the boat?

Since 2006, Hertz Rent a Car has been offering consumers a ‘Green Collection’, which includes the Toyota Prius hybrid and three non-hybrid but small and fuel-efficient vehicles: the Toyota Camry, the Ford Fusion and the Toyota Corolla. The Green Collection fleet is comprised of 35,000 vehicles. All of them are reservable by specific make and model, have a fuel efficiency rating of 28 mpg or more and are available at 50 major airport locations across the U.S. For every reserved and paid Green Collection rental, Hertz contributes $1 to the National Park Foundation. They’ve pledged a minimum contribution of $1 million.

Hertz is pushing hybrids in Manhattan especially, where they’ve got 100 of them. Company officials say the stop-and-go traffic of the city provides the ideal driving environment for hybrids, since they’d primarily operate off of the electric motors.

Hertz also announced earlier this year that by the end of the summer, they’ll have spend $68 million adding another 3,500 hybrids to their fleet. They also won points with customers recently when they announced that they’re doing away with ridiculously high refueling fees starting July 1st 2008. The fees are currently as high as $8 per gallon when you don’t bring back your rental car with a full tank. Under the new rules, customers will pay fair market value for gas along with a $6.99 fee for the refueling service.

Last year, Avis Budget Group expanded its fleet to include the Toyota Prius and the Nissan Altima hybrid along with the Ford Escape hybrid. Avis’ hybrid fleet numbers 2,500 out of their total 375,000 vehicles. Avis’ foray into the green rental car world has been slow and cautious as the company tests certain markets to make sure that the demand for these vehicles is really there.

Thrifty Car Rental and Dollar Rent a Car, both owned by the Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, have made the least progress toward a greener fleet of any major car rental company. Their spokespeople have said that they have ‘a few’ hybrids and biofuel vehicles, but have had trouble purchasing more due to high retail demand. They also blame what they call their core customer group: people wanting to rent large vehicles at lower prices for family vacations and other short-term uses.

In terms of environmental initiatives, Enterprise Rent-a-Car (and its sister brands, Alamo and National) is probably the winner of the green rental car race. The company offers the largest fleet of hybrids and fuel efficient vehicles of any rental car agency in America: their fleet numbers 440,000, and that includes 5,000 hybrids and 73,000 ‘flex fuel’ cars that can run on E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gas.

In April of this year, Enterprise also opened four ‘green’ branches in Atlanta, where they have a fleet of 4,000 hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles available. In Portland, the company has five biodiesel vehicles available to rent.

They have also pledged to plant 50 million trees in national forests all over the country to offset their rental fleet’s carbon emissions. Enterprise is responsible for planting 1/7th of all trees planted in national forests in 2007. They also offer customers the opportunity to offset carbon emissions by paying $1.25 per rental, which the company will match dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million annually.

That’s not a big surprise for anyone who knows anything about the Taylor family, who own Enterprise: they’ve got a long history of environmental advocacy. They donated $30 million to the Missouri Botanical Garden in 2002, and gave $25 million to create the Enterprise Rent-a-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels, which researches biofuels.

Unfortunately, Enterprise’s efforts are undermined by a few factors. First, there’s the fact that E85 fueling stations aren’t widely available – not to mention the fact that ethanol isn’t really a sustainable alternative fuel. Another issue that all rental car companies are facing is that there aren’t enough hybrids being produced at the moment for the companies to buy, which means customers aren’t guaranteed a hybrid when they want to reserve one. Part of the blame lies on customers, too: only 1 in 10 are paying the extra $1.25 per rental to offset their carbon emissions.

Residents in some metro areas of the U.S. have more eco-options than just the major car rental companies. EV Rental Cars offers environmentally friendly vehicles in six California cities – LA, San Diego, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland – along with Phoenix, Arizona. EV is currently the only full-on eco-friendly rental car company – they don’t offer conventional vehicles. Fox Rent a Car, a discount rental car service, works with EV Rental Cars to provide green rentals to customers at all of their U.S. locations.  And, if you’ll be taking a vacation to Maui anytime soon, you have the option of selecting a biodiesel vehicle at Bio-Beetles, the nation’s only all-biodiesel rental car service.

As gas prices continue to rise, it seems safe to assume that consumer demand for hybrids will increase as well, and hopefully rental car agencies will continue to meet these needs with increasing numbers of hybrids and other cleaner, greener vehicles.

Photo credit: Flickr user Beige Alert

Eco Fail: Hybrid SUVs Just Aren’t Selling

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Ah, sweet justice for the SUV. Detroit auto makers aren’t seeing the demand for hybrid SUVs that they thought would come this year as models like the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon were released. Only 1,100 have been sold since January, and the sales goal was 12,000 for the year, putting them pretty far behind.

The New York Times has it:

Giving a four-wheel drive Tahoe a gas-electric hybrid engine raises fuel economy for city driving to 20 miles a gallon from 14.

But to get the better mileage, consumers pay a high price: $53,000, at least $4,000 more than a conventional Tahoe.

Environmentalists see the jumbo hybrids as a small step forward in the effort to reduce America’s fuel consumption.

“Is this a green vehicle? I think it could be a lot greener,” said David Friedman, research director of the vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group in Washington that focuses on the environment. “The question is whether the improvement in fuel economy is worth the cost.”

Hybrid or not, large S.U.V.’s are fading fast in a market that is shifting quickly to smaller cars and crossovers, S.U.V.-like vehicles built on a car chassis.

While the hybrid 20/21 MPG is certainly an improvement over the 14/20 the non-hybrid SUVs typically get, the fact is that the Toyota Prius gets 46 MPG currently, and a new model set to be released next year will get over 100. That makes paying the extra money for the hybrid SUV seem like a pretty big waste. Consumers aren’t willing to pony up the extra cash, and with SUVs losing popularity in general, hybrid SUVs are looking to go the way of New Coke.

Hybrid SUVs may be a tiny bit better for the environment than regular SUVs, but that doesn’t make them an eco-friendly option. We were a bit afraid that hybrid SUVs would make people think they could have their cake and eat it too, using the ‘hybrid’ angle to defend dumb shit like suburban housewives with 2 kids driving behemoth vehicles to the grocery store. So, we’re happy that hybrid SUVs are an ECO FAIL. Down with SUVs!

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Mark Graham for the New York Times

Paul McCartney Catches Lexus in a Big Time Eco-Fail

Sir Paul McCartney, or Macca as they call him across the pond, has once again proven that he’s no eco-fraud. Unlike some celebrities we know, he’s not green to be cool – he really does care. So when Lexus gifted him with a Hybrid Limousine to thank him for getting the word out for green automobiles, and he found out that said limousine was delivered by jet, he was understandably pissed.

Ecorazzi has it:

The gesture was nice, but Lexus chose to fly the car from Japan to Britain, creating a carbon footprint almost 100 times bigger than the standard method of shipping.

A source told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper: “…he was horrified after learning it was delivered by plane. Paul has always campaigned for green issues and he can’t understand why anyone would send an enormous car from Japan to Britain on a plane. “

No word yet from Lexus on this dubious choice.  They’re very generous with funding for green events and seem to have a legit interest in green options, so hopefully they’ll do something to make up for such an egregious misstep.

I’m itching to point out that any limousine, hybrid or not, isn’t a great choice when you could be riding in a far greener vehicle (though at least the Lexus hybrid limousine isn’t a stretch model). But, he’s Sir Paul, so I guess he gets away with that sort of thing – screaming mobs of fans and all. He wouldn’t want to ride in a car that a crowd of crazies could easily pick up and cart away to some secret Beatle Mania dungeon.

Link [Ecorazzi]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

SUVs Going Down in Value, Filling Up Used Car Lots due to Gas Prices

Praise be, y’all, sports utility vehicles are going down in value. Are people actually learning a lesson, here? SUVs are flooding the used car market as people realize that the behemoths are unnecessary, stupid environment killers – no, scratch, that, it’s because of gas prices. Well, whatever works, right?

Ridelust has it:

Most owners who go to a car dealership looking to trade their current ride in for something new usually come out shell-shocked when they learn what the dealership is willing to give them for their trade. Those choosing to turn in their SUV right now will certainly be finding their trade-in value far from what they had invisioned.

According to CNW Marketing Research and the AP SUV sales were down 14% in the month of March when compared to March of 2007. The darling SUV of the American Auto Industry no longer sparkles under the looming clouds of $4/gallon fuel prices. In the face of such a decline in value the only solution for many SUV owners looking to downsize may be to sell their vehicle themselves; a task many owners dread. Even diesel trucks are not immune to the declines in value.

All this has GM concerned that their ‘Green Car of the Year’, the Chevrolet Tahoe 2-Mode Hybrid will suffer a similar fate. The Tahoe Hybrid might get more miles to the gallon, but the $10,000-$15,000 markup probably doesn’t make it worth the cost, especially when depreciation is taken into consideration.

Don’t make any sudden moves, people. We are slowly sliding toward the edge of common sense and responsibility, but we don’t want to scare these SUV-loving folks into realizing they’re actually doing something good for the environment. They’re cringing as they trade in their cars, waiting for the chorus of I-Told-You-So’s, and rubbing it in could well make them want to keep their suburban monsters out of pure spite. The idea of doing things like those fruity Your-a-Peein’s doesn’t sit well with Middle America, no sirree.

Link [RideLust]

Photo credit: Flickr user reedbiotch

Hyper Efficient Car Built in 1973 Gets 377 MPG!

Damn, check this out- a guy just bought a car built in 1973 that gets 376.59 MPG.

The Seattle PI has it:

Don’t choke on your organic soy-double-decaf-fair-trade-carbon-neutral macchiato, but how does 376.59 miles per gallon sound? Makes your Honda Civic hybrid look Hummeresque, doesn’t it?

That number doesn’t come from some manta ray-shaped, wind tunnel-vetted carbon fiber space car. No, it’s from a chop-top, steel-frame 1959 Opel T-1 (think melting jelly bean, but uglier). And the record was set in 1973 in a contest sponsored by Shell Oil Co.

The car doesn’t look very comfortable, but at the same time it was made 34 YEARS ago. The Auto Industry is a bunch of wankhammers who need to get their efficiency groove on. If we could hit 376 MPG 34 years ago I’m sure we can get our current average up another 20 or 30 MPGs. We just need the people who make the cars to grow a set and take some leadership on the issue.

Link [Seattle PI]

Paris Hilton, Like, Totally Goes Green by Buying Yukon Hybrid. That’s Hot.

Hey, lookie here- Paris Hilton is going green.

Well, maybe not totally Green.

OK, she’s not anywhere near green. She’s about as far from Green as you can possibly get.

She bought a GMC Yukon Hybrid. It gets a whopping 21mpg in the city (Paris doesn’t do anything but city driving I’m guessing), holds eight people, and is the size of a small tank.

Paris has one hybrid SUV in her fleet of otherwise very un-hybrid cars, trucks, powerboats, giant houses, and jets. Big whooptyfreakingdoo. One of the most un-green people on the planet got a hybrid. Call me when she “forgets” to wear underwear again. Here’s the video:

Link [AutoblogGreen] via Ecorazzi

The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid is Big Pile of Greenwashed Steel

Inhabitat points out the very long stretch of the imagination it takes to call the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid that NY Giants QB Eli Manning won in the Super Bowl “green”. We’re talking about a giant beast of an SUV that only pulls 18 miles per gallon of gas.

Excuse me, but WTF. Since when is 18 MPG green? Sure, it’s greener than the normal Escalade, but that’s not saying much- kind of like saying Nicky is the less trashy Hilton sister.

Here’s what Inhabitat has to say…

The hybrid SUV is a classic example of the “how much is good enough” issue inherent to so much of corporations’ going green efforts. Okay, so the Escalade is greenER, but isn’t this really just a green marketing spin on a bigger issue? Should we applaud GM for even making such efforts or scold them for their continuous production of such an unnecessarily large and inefficient vehicle? The fact that it’s given as the prize for winning America’s biggest sporting event is even more troubling- we’re essentially sending the message that the best reward is misrepresented, irresponsible luxury.

I suppose the silver lining is that Eli Manning chose the hybrid SUV from a variety of Cadillacs. The Hybrid Escalade, which will be available later this year, was Eli’s “responsible” choice, however clouded in materialism it may have been. “I know it comes out in the summer. I want the first one.”

Link [Inhabitat]