Until GM’s stylish EV-1 came along, electric vehicles (EVs) looked like they were made in shop class. Back then, very few people actually thought about owning an EV. Though many electric dreams have been literally crushed, green-thinking and/or peak oil-aware drivers now look to EVs as the natural successor to traditional fossil-fuel sucking and CO2 spewing motorcars. But are they worthy?

Clean Green Cars (CGG) is providing some rhetorical ammo for Porsche's fight against changes to London's Congestion Charge. CGG worries that the new emission-based charges are likely to increase CO2 emissions and congestion. That's cause Londoners are snapping-up what Clean Green calls "Congestion Charge Busters:" vehicles whose tailpipe emissions (120g/km of CO2 or less) give their owners a free ride. Some 200 British new car models qualify; in the last year, their market share has increased from 5.4 percent to 7.4 percent. Clean Green reckons that number will soon soar to 10 percent and beyond. While that's a good thing, it's possibly a bad thing. Congestion charging was supposedly designed to get people to drive less— not buy higher mileage cars and keep on driving. Or drive even more. Clean Green Cars recommends that London kill the exemption altogether and implement a graduated scale of charges: £4 for the lowest emission cars, £8 for moderate emission cars and £12 for vehicles that spew over 225g/kms of carbon. Fare enough?

Lil' Abner once featured a car that ran on smog. Unfortunately it needed fossil fuel cars to provide enough smog for fuel. The New York Times reports F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr. are proposing Green Freedom, a scheme, err, concept, to remove carbon dioxide from the air and turn it back into methanol, gasoline or jet fuel. "Everything in the concept has been built, is operating or has a close cousin that is operating," claims Dr. Martin. But (there's always a but) the process requires a great deal of energy. Producing 750,000 gallons of smog-based gasoline a day would require a a $5 billion conversion plant. Oh, and a dedicated nuclear power plant. The process would only be profitable when refined gasoline hits $4.60 a gallon (been to Europe lately?). Venture capitalists will be lining up for this one.

According to The Economic Times, Tara Shankar Ganguly, grandson of the founder, has revived defunct Bengal Enamel (don't ask) as a new-age electronics and telecommunications firm. Under the brand name Tara, Bengal is teaming with Chinese EV maker Aucma to develop battery-powered two-wheelers, three-wheelers, small cars, even buses and lorries (OK, trucks) to provide Western-style freedom and mobility for India's middle class. At present, Tara has more names (Titu, Micro, Mini, Tiny) than actual vehicles. But with a price of only Rs 99,999, the four-seat Tiny seems positioned as a Nano-killer. Yes, the four-seat Tiny will cost one less rupee than the one lakh ($2,500) Tata Nano. Other Tara models could range as high as Rs 5.5 lakh (~$13,750, I guess). While no one (other than us) is talking about range, and the Tiny must be recharged daily at a 220 Volt/15 Amp socket, it should nip along at a respectable 50 to 70kms an hour. So the Tiny by name (and by nature) will go fast enough for its intended market, but will it sell fast enough to sustain Tara's renaissance? We'll keep an eye on it for you. 

According to American Honda VP Dan Bonawitz, Honda is the BMOC when it comes to automotive innovation, and that includes hybrids, clean diesels and fuel cells. As EV World reports, just don't put an E in front of Honda (either automotive or pharmaceutical). The Japanese automaker's investigating various electric drive technologies and may still introduce a hybrid-electric CR-Z sports car, BUT Honda isn't impressed enough with current battery technology enough to pursue a true electric vehicle. Bonawitz would rather talk about the new, improved FCX Clarity, in which the fuel cell system and battery pack take-up no more space than a gasoline-electric hybrid power plant. Bonawitz estimates that Honda's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is three times more efficient than an equivalent conventional gas burner and 2.5 times more efficient than a compact hybrid. He rates the Clarity's EPA combined cycle at 68 mpg with a 60 percent reduction in CO2 emissions. Bonawitz also claims that the Clarity's tank-to-wheel efficiency has been improved to 60 percent. For some reason, he glosses over the hydrogen production inefficiencies. Until that process stops being a net energy loser, the fool cell label sticks.

Bill Reinert was born in coal-miner's daughter country, worked in the engine rooms of Navy subs, survived a $6 pot bust and earned degrees in biopsychology and energy engineering from the University of Colorado. Reinert also serviced telephone towers in the Rockies, harnessing solar panels and windmills to charge batteries to conserve expensive, airlifted diesel fuel. After years of pitching his ideas to his [new] bosses at Toyota, Reinert helped design the Prius hybrid, and continues to work on hybrids for Toyota's US operation. As part of a lengthy "End of the Oil Age" feature on Bloomberg, Reinert reveals himself as a bit of a doomer, with well-worn predictions that we may descend into Mad Max territory. Framing Reinert's work, he Sierra Club complains that Toyota has moved backwards on being green. And the money men say trucks and SUVs are still ToMoCo's core business. "The company earns about $6,000 before taxes in the U.S. on an SUV," David Healy of Burnham Securities insists. "That compares with a $1,000 profit on a Corolla and a small loss on a Prius." Selling 181,221 hybrids may be impressive to outsiders, but if Toyota is losing money on each Prius… Is Reinert's baby still the way forward? That remains to be seen. 

In the Falls Church News-Press, editor and retired CIA analyst Tom Whipple continues with part four of The Future of Our Cars. Unlike the suitably skeptical Victor Juarez G., Whipple finds the plethora of speculative EV announcements nothing but encouraging: "… there is no practical alternative for personal mobility with the speed, flexibility and comfort that we have become accustomed to except the electric car." Assuming battery technology keeps pace, he writes, massive solar, wind, ocean and biomass power will provide enough juice to keep us happily motoring in all shapes and sizes of EVs, plugin hybrids and serial hybrids (which he calls "extended range" vehicles) like the oft-delayed Tesla and Volt. Whipple doesn't mention "Cleantech" by name, but warns that if we can't build a green infrastructure, or reliable batteries, we face an era of austerity and conservation. Perish the thought.

Claiming that America's economy is lurching ever more quickly from economic bubble to economic bubble, the founder of iTulip predicts a surge in alternative energy and infrastructure spending – sort of a green bubble. Writing for Harper's [sub], Eric Janszen defined the main economic drivers of "the cleantech bubble:" the need to recover from recession, weakness in the dollar, loss of petrodollar liquidity, loss of energy security and peak cheap oil. As a result, consumers will be faced with a bewildering array of fuels and vehicles: biofuels, electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, photovoltaics, wind turbines, ocean wave energy, geothermal energy, clean coal and even nukes. Janszen sees these technologies becoming the hot, overvalued commodities of the new bubble. At the same time, he predicts corporations will plan and (God forbid) implement the new energy infrastructure to power expensive new vehicles and public transit. Responding in the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas – USA , commentator Dave Cohen notes that venture capitalists (VC) are already looking to invest in what they call “the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” Fortunately for cutting edge companies like Tesla Motors, there's a VC born every minute.

According to EV World, smog-choked Mexico City requires taxi companies to replace their rides by their (the taxi's) tenth birthday. This year alone, some 30k Mexican taxis will become autobanditos. Looking for green creds, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has mandated that ten percent of the new, replacement taxis must be hybrids, ten percent must be electric vehicles (EVs) and ten percent must run on compressed natural gas. It sounds crazy, but thanks to the $8k hybrid premium, Mexico's warm weather and the average cabbie's 200km daily drive, EVs might just work. Hence a consortium of RUTAS UNIDAS (bus and cab operators), Electro Autos Eficaces de Mexico (EAE) and Azure Dynamics (AZD) is developing the eLECTROTAXI®. Like they had to lower case the "e". And while we're at it, let's call this thing what it is: a Nissan Sentra taxi conversion. In a refreshingly honest statement, consortium spearhead Victor Juarez G. (no relation to Kenny G) cautions against speculative announcements. Sr. G says that premature prognostications by Phoenix and Tesla have been harmful to the EV movement. Amén.

In the recently released 'Kheel Plan' for New York City, professional arbitrator, environmentalist and social policy gadfly Theodore W Kheel explicitly, and repeatedly, refers to free public transit as the carrot, and congestion pricing as the stick. His free transit plan seeks to reduce traffic in the City's central business district by a third, thus shortening travel times both for those that do still drive, and for those taking the bus or subway. Lanes no longer needed for cars would be given over to bicycle commuting. Many of the plan's goals are worthy and the means may be effective in the short run. But Kheel ignores the possibility of a huge surge in public transport use, and City drivers' unwillingness to leave their carcoons. In any case, Kheel's financially liberated transit commuters would have to rely on "additional policing" to deal with the vandals and criminals currently deterred by fares. Good luck with that.

The New York Times reports that AG Michael Mukasey is getting sued. Not for anything to do with waterboarding; for non-compliance with a 1992 law requiring that VINs of totaled cars be recorded in a National Motor Vehicle Title Information System. Despite that law being signed fifteen years ago, not all states participate, not all junkyards and insurance companies report as required, and unwitting consumers still end up with seriously wrecked cars that have been cosmetically rebuilt. Originally the DOT was supposed to protect unsuspecting folks just looking for a cheap ride, but it accomplished so little that Congress turned to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1996. Now, three consumer groups are suing the DOJ. Some consumer advocates claim that insurance companies have impeded enforcement because they make a tidy profit selling salvage vehicles with no recorded crash history. Other advocates say the insurance industry has been cooperative. Yes, well, an alliance of state AGs sued State Farm for not reporting 30k titles, settling for $40m but no admission of guilt. [TTAC welcomes reader/architect Donal Fagan's first blog post]