Like so many of the great new green cars I saw in Frankfurt, these are for Europe. Like the Lexus FL-Ch hybrid hatchback, sibling Toyota’s newest hybrid, the Auris, and all those good looking and efficient little Pugeot [Peugeot], Renault and Citroen cars.
That exclusion didn’t keep Ford from talking green at Frankfurt. It makes hybrids of course, like the Fusion and Escape and others for the world market, but the company stressed that present-day improvement in traditional technologies has also been its goal. So it touted its EcoBoost engines, which can provide 20 percent better fuel economy, and its C-Max car, coming in late 2011 after the new Focus debuts. C-Max a small 7-passenger minivan that tgriffith discussed here.
GM ran an interesting webchat last week with its departing R&D head Larry Burns, a big proponent of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Among the provocative things Burns said:
The beauty of hydrogen is that it can come from a wide variety of sources. Natural gas is an excellent source to get started (As I mentioned earlier, large amounts of hydrogen from natural gas are already used in the production of gasoline.) Very importantly, any source of renewable energy—biomass, wind, solar, geothermal—can be used to make hydrogen cost competitively with gasoline at $2.50 to $3.50 per gallon equivalence.
and
I’ve seen a tendency for people to promote one solution over another. They seem to think the question is batteries vs. fuel cells. Or fuel cells vs. biofuels. I have become convinced we need all three. Like I said earlier, it’s “and” not “or.” Unfortunately, many of the players have a vested interest in a single solution. Therefore, they over-promote one and criticize the others.
The big question, I think, is when: When will these solutions (take your pick) start to become viable in numbers/applications that can support a real market? What are your thoughts?
—jgoods
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