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A bit of a response:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-makower/hybrids-and-cleaner-vehic_b_15394.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-makower/hybrids-and-cleaner-vehic_b_15394.html</a><br>
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<td class="author"><img src="cid:part1.01080302.09010307@cfmc.com"
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<td class="byline"> <a class="authorname"
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-makower">Joel Makower</a>
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<span class="date">02.10.2006</span>
<h2> <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-makower/hybrids-and-cleaner-vehic_b_15394.html">Hybrids
and Cleaner Vehicles: No Good Car Goes Unpunished</a> </h2>
<div class="relatedcats"> READ MORE: <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/2006">2006</a>, <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/new-york-times">New York Times</a>,
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/global-warming">Global
Warming</a> </div>
<p><img src="cid:part4.07000406.08010200@cfmc.com" align="right"
hspace="6" vspace="6">This week, <i>Wall Street Journal</i>
columnist Joseph White opined that "hybrid mania is about over," noting
that some consumers apparently are deciding that these energy-efficient
vehicles aren't, as it turns out, the greatest things since the
horseless carriage. On the same day, over at the <i>New York Times</i>,
environmental writer Matthew Wald seemed eager to put a damper on the
growing interest in ethanol as an alternative fuel by pointing out that
-- <i>surprise!</i> -- it takes energy to make energy. And with
unflinching predictability, the environmental blogging crowd adopts an
indignant "get real!" stance toward any car or auto company effort that
isn't -- well, Toyota's Prius.</p>
<p>So much for kicking our addiction to oil.</p>
<p>When it comes to finding alternative solutions to America's long
love affair with Middle East oil, it seems that no good deed goes
unpunished. After years of berating the auto industry for dragging
their collective heels on producing energy-efficient and
alternative-energy vehicles, there seems to be precious little
tolerance for anything short of perfection. True, time is short and the
list of environmental, health, and global security problems associated
with our unabated petroleum use is depressingly long. But getting from
here to there isn't easy. There's no single, silver-bullet solution but
rather -- and refreshingly -- an increasingly diverse menu of options:
competing technologies, fuels, and vehicle choices.</p>
<p>So, why shoot down anything that isn't Nirvana?</p>
<p>I won't attempt to answer that question, except to note that auto
makers -- especially American ones -- have teased us in the past with
"green" solutions, only to pull the plug, as it were, on such
technologies -- GM's EV-1 electric car, for example, or Ford's Think!
line of vehicles. Not to mention most car companies' historically
dogged refusal to acknowledge or address energy and climate issues in
any strategic, holistic way. So, healthy skepticism is in order.</p>
<p>But it's hard to dismiss the fact that the landscape has shifted.
Nearly every major auto company has either introduced a hybrid model or
plans to do so in the next two years. GM, Ford, and others are touting
"flex-fuel" vehicles capable of running on standard gasoline or on E85,
a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline (or on any combination
thereof). Cleaner-burning diesel engines are forecast for the American
market. The blogs I track -- <a href="http://www.greencarcongress.com"
target="new">GreenCarCongress</a>, <a
href="http://www.hybridcars.com%22" target="new">HybridCars.com</a>, <a
href="http://www.evworld.com" target="new">evWorld</a>, <a
href="http://biodieselblog.com" target="new">Biodieselblog</a>,
and others -- are chock full of daily stories of technological
advancements, product introductions, company acquisitions, and market
research data documenting the nascent but growing industry interest in
environmentally friendly transportation. At this week's Chicago Auto
Show, from where this is being written, hybrids and flex-fuel vehicles
are front and center.</p>
<p>So, why take potshots?</p>
<p>It's one thing when an environmental activist posts a knee-jerk
reaction to some car company's initiative. That's to be expected. (In <a
href="http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/7/112747/5158"
target="new">this blog post</a>,
however, the writer curiously cites an overwhelming demand for a GM
T-shirt promoting E85 as "proof" that the company is merely attempting
to "greenwash its ethanol efforts" in light of its "monumental
financial woes.") I get the style: it's purposefully venomous. After
all, what's a campaign without a villain? But I'm unclear what the
"campaign" is in this case. Can only financially strong companies do
green things? Can only small, fuel-efficient cars adopt alternative
technologies?</p>
<p>It's another thing altogether when mainstream journalists, in their
seemingly insatiable need to create controversy under the guise of
"balanced reporting," pull together facts into a story line that
doesn't make sense. In the case of the <i>New York Times'</i> Wald --
a veteran and highly respected reporter -- he begins <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/science/07fuel.html"
target="new">his recent look</a>
at corn-based ethanol by extolling its virtues -- "a clean-burning,
high-octane fuel that could end any worldwide oil shortage, reduce
emissions that cause global warming, and free the United States from
dependence on foreign energy." But then, he adds:</p>
<blockquote><i>There is only one catch: Turning corn into ethanol takes
energy. For every gallon that an ethanol manufacturing plant produces,
it uses the equivalent of almost two-fifths of a gallon of fuel
(usually natural gas), and that does not count the fuel needed to make
fertilizer for the corn, run the farm machinery or truck the ethanol to
market.</i></blockquote>
<p>Unlike oil, of course, which comes out of the ground, ready for use
in our gas tanks, delivered to our neighborhoods -- all energy-free.</p>
<p>Seriously, Wald has stated a fact but missed the point. <i>All</i>
fuels require energy -- usually oil and natural gas -- to acquire,
refine, and bring to market. And studies show that the "net energy
balance" -- the amount of energy it takes to produce a gallon of fuel
compared to the energy that gallon produces in vehicles -- makes
ethanol and other biofuels superior choices. For example, according to
a <a href="http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html"
target="new">U.S. Agriculture Department study</a>,
the net energy balance for gasoline is a 19.5% loss, whereas ethanol
made from corn is a 34% gain. That is, producing a gallon of gas <i>uses
more energy</i> than that gallon produces, while a gallon of ethanol <i>produces
more energy</i> than it took to make it.</p>
<p>And it's unlikely that the oil calculations include the vast sums of
energy used to wage wars simply to keep oil flowing. Meanwhile,
researchers are actively looking for ways to make ethanol from far less
energy-intensive plants and waste products.</p>
<p>So much for the "catch" about ethanol.</p>
<p>That's not the end of it. Another <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/business/08leonhardt.html"
target="new">same-day <i>Times</i> piece</a>
by auto writer David Leonhardt notes that selling hybrids allows car
companies to make more gas-guzzlers, since federal laws mandate
manufacturers' average fuel economy. Technically true, but that's a
pretty cynical view of why hybrids are being marketed. And it doesn't
explain these cars' phenomenal growth rate by enthusiastic buyers.</p>
<p>And then there's the <i>Wall Street Journal's</i> case that the
bloom is off the hybrid rose. The proof: Honda is re-launching its
Accord Hybrid, which met with underwhelming success its first time out
due to its high price and substandard performance. Honda, somehow
having missed the news that hybrids are no longer selling, at least
according to the <i>Journal</i>, has seen fit to re-introduce a new
and improved hybrid Accord nonetheless.</p>
<p>And so it goes. The steady drumbeat of negative stories about
positive developments creates a drag on innovation and does little to
embolden automakers to continue their efforts, never mind ramping them
up or taking on even more daring feats. (Who, for example, will see fit
to introduce a flex-fuel plug-in hybrid, capable of getting many
hundreds of miles per gallon of oil?)</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting for a second that we accept, blindly and
indiscriminately, everything green that car companies put before us.
And I'm not saying we should be thankful for small measures,
halfheartedly executed or marketed. Auto makers need to be prodded,
even forced, to accelerate the clean revolution. And it will take a
village -- including policymakers, protestors, activist shareholders,
opinion leaders, and environmental bloggers -- to get them moving in
the right direction. But car companies also need encouragement and
support, even when their efforts fall short by some measures. To simply
dismiss all good-faith efforts as inadequate is a classic case of
making perfection the enemy of the good.</p>
<p>The road to clean-car future will be bumpy, with plenty of false
starts, roadblocks, wrong turns, and dead ends. It will be a longer,
more circuitous journey than anyone cares to take. </p>
But the alternative is paralysis, to stay stuck where we are. And where
we are today isn't anywhere we want to remain. <br>
<br>
Peter Khoury wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid6AD99DB0-DF82-4CE9-9463-426827A07EF7@curious-peter-george.com"
type="cite">
<div style="margin: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#666666" face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.4px;"><b>DAVID LEONHARDT</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="7"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 26.7px;"><b>Buy a Hybrid, and Save a Guzzler</b></span></font></p>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"
size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11.5px;">Published:
February 8, 2006</span></font></div>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">SOME of my favorite people drive a Prius.
They bought the car, obviously, because they were worried about the
planet. But the fringe benefits are pretty nice, too.</span></font></p>
<br>
<img src="cid:part5.04040401.00040407@cfmc.com">
<div
style="margin: 0px; text-align: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11.5px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; min-height: 12px;"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 11px;"><br>
</span></div>
<div
style="margin: 0px; text-align: right; font-family: Times New Roman; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11.5px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; min-height: 12px;"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 11px;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 12.8px;">Just how stingy?</span></font></div>
<br>
<div
style="margin: 0px; font-family: Times New Roman; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12.3px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: ; min-height: 15px;"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><br>
</span></div>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Prius drivers can use a carpool lane in
some places even when no one else is in the car. No matter where
they're driving, they coast down the road in a whisper-quiet hum unlike
anything else. Best of all, even if no one likes admitting it, they get
to enjoy the cool-kid cachet that comes with being an early adopter of
a fad. No other vehicle has had a recurring role on the TV show "Curb
Your Enthusiasm."</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Now President Bush has taken the hybrid
craze to a whole new level. To cure our addiction to oil, he said last
week, we must invest in hybrid cars, hydrogen cars, even cars that run
on wood chips and grass. Energy technology is having its big moment.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Too bad the benefits of our new cult car
have been so exaggerated.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Let's start with the obvious advantage of
hybrids. When you drive one, you burn less gas than you would in a
regular car. A typical driver of a Prius will use about 250 fewer
gallons of gasoline each year than somebody would in a </span></font><a
href="http://edmunds.nytimes.com/new/2005/toyota/corolla/100394564/review.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Toyota Corolla</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;">, which gets 29
miles a gallon. That's doing everyone else a favor because gas use has
other costs — like global warming and American troops stationed
overseas — that nobody fully pays at the pump.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">But the favor is not nearly as big as
hybrid owners imagine, for two reasons. First, hybrids have the most
overblown mileage ratings in the auto industry. In the government's
road tests, which are conducted in a world without much traffic or any
air-conditioning, the Prius gets 55 miles to the gallon. Consumer
Reports says the car really goes 44 miles on a gallon of gas. When I
used one last week — and there is no denying that it's a great car to
drive — I got 45 in Manhattan and on local highways.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">This is just the beginning of the story.
The more time you spend looking at the economics of the hybrids, the
less comfortable you get.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">The most important reason is a government
policy that, amazingly enough, seems almost intended to undercut the
benefits of efficient cars. In 1978, Congress set a minimum corporate
average fuel economy, known as CAFE, for all carmakers. Today, the
minimum average for cars is 27.5 miles a gallon. (For S.U.V.'s and
other light trucks, it is 21.6.)</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">YOU can guess what this means for hybrids.
Each one becomes a free pass for its manufacturer to sell a few extra
gas guzzlers. For now, this is less true for </span></font><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=TM"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Toyota's</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"> cars, because
they're above the mileage requirement. But Toyota's trucks and the
American automakers are right near the limits. So every </span></font><a
href="http://edmunds.nytimes.com/new/2005/toyota/highlander/100413881/review.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Toyota Highlander</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"> hybrid S.U.V.
begets a hulking Lexus S.U.V., and every </span></font><a
href="http://edmunds.nytimes.com/new/2005/ford/escape/100407984/roadtestarticle.html?articleId=102403&inline=nyt-classifier"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Ford Escape</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"> — the hybrid
S.U.V. that Kermit the Frog hawked during the Super Bowl — makes room
for a </span></font><a
href="http://edmunds.nytimes.com/new/2005/lincoln/navigator/100463366/review.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Lincoln Navigator</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;">, which gets all
of 12 miles a gallon. Instead of simply saving gas when you buy a
hybrid, you're giving somebody else the right to use it.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">The hybrid, then, is just about the perfect
example of what's wrong with our energy policy. It's a Band-Aid that
does a lot less to help the earth than we like to tell ourselves. When
Vice President </span></font><a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/dick_cheney/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Dick Cheney</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"> dismissed
conservation as "a sign of personal virtue" a few years back, a lot of
environmentalists were disgusted. But that, sadly, is what a lot of
well-meaning hybrid owners are driving: an expensive symbol that
they're worried about our planet, rather than a true solution.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">You can consider yourself a conservationist
and still see the logic in this. As Jon Coifman, the media director of
the Natural Resources Defense Council, says, "We're not going to kick
our oil addiction with good will and personal virtue. You do need
market signals, and you do need rules. And you need virtue. You need it
all."</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">The simplest idea in economics, I think, is
that people respond to the incentives they are given. It's why market
economies have done so well. So if we have decided that we need to use
less oil for our own good — which seems to be the case — we need big
incentives to change our behavior.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">A substantial gas tax would be the
simplest, with other taxes being cut to keep down the overall burden.
Car buyers could drive whatever they wanted, as long as they were
paying the full cost of their gas, and automakers would respond with
creative products. If we're not capable of having a serious discussion
about new taxes, the second-best option would be lavish incentives for
companies to sell a fuel-efficient fleet.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Jonathan Skinner, an economist at
Dartmouth, has a nice way of thinking about this. Forget about the 250
gallons of gas that a Prius saves relative to a Corolla. An S.U.V. that
gets 16 miles a gallon, like the </span></font><a
href="http://edmunds.nytimes.com/new/2005/cadillac/srx/100380716/review.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;"><font
class="Apple-style-span" color="#00165e">Cadillac SRX</font></span></font></a><font
class="Apple-style-span" face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16.4px;">, uses almost 600
fewer gallons annually than an 11-mile-a-gallon Hummer H2, because
small differences add up when gas is being burned so quickly. It's the
person deciding between those two vehicles who needs some extra
incentives.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Instead, the government is giving $3,000
tax credits to hybrid buyers and opening carpool lanes to them. As a
result, some people are buying cars they don't need. So get this:
Americans are now replacing perfectly good cars, like the Corolla, in
the name of conservation.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">There is one sign of improvement. The
Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it is fixing its
fuel-economy ratings. The stickers that appear on the windows of new
cars will soon show more realistic mileage numbers.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px;"><font class="Apple-style-span"
face="Times New Roman" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-size: 16.4px;">Unfortunately, the E.P.A. is in charge of
only the stickers. The Department of Transportation makes the
fuel-economy rules — the ones that actually matter — and it's not
planning any changes. It will proceed with the fiction that the Prius
gets 55 miles to the gallon. This is our energy policy.</span></font></p>
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