Autoblog Green reports that Honda UK has upbraided UK parents for not car pooling to school. "Nearly half of all parents who drive their children to school, take only one child in their car," Honda chided potential customers. "As a result there are over five million empty seats on Britain’s school run every day." What's more, "If these same parents drove a people carrier, like the six-seat Honda FR-V [you know, just for example], a staggering 942,596 cars would vanish from the roads during the school run." That's quite a claim (and a VERY strange image). But wait! There's a less Honda-intensive solution. "Honda’s research found that parents are able to share lifts – 60 per cent said they knew of another child within 500 metres of their home that attended the same school as their own child." That's the kind of PC stat that made us check the source: an internet opt-in survey on tickbox.net. Still, it's plenty clever PR. And we reckon it's only a matter of time before Honda's green strategy ramps-up on this side of the pond.  

American greenies don't hold a monopoly on Hummer hatred. China Car Times reports a Mazda6 club outing encountered a Hummer H2. In a move that would make Greenpeace proud, the school of 20 Mazdas surrounded the H2 and forced the driver to slow to 30kph (about 18mph). They were so proud of their actions they videotaped the entire incident and put it on the internet. Hummer-positive internet viewers tracked down the license plate numbers on the Mazdas and posted the drivers' names, home addresses and telephone numbers along with negative comments. The Mazda drivers should just be thankful the H2 driver didn't put it in 4wd low and pretend he was a tank driver in Tiananmen Square.

In an email to 67K employees, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) encouraged employees to buy more fuel efficient vehicles. Although the email mentions several American products– Ford Ranger, Dodge Caravan and Ford Escape Hybrid– it recommends twelve fuel-sippers: the Honda Fit, Civic, Civic GX and Civic Hybrid; Toyota Prius, Corolla and Camry Hybrid; Nissan Altima Hybrid, Kia Rio/Rio 5, Hyundai Accent and Elantra. Speaking to The Detroit News, Chrysler's Jason Vines asked "Can you imagine the Japanese government sending out an e-mail encouraging employees to buy American cars?" Without addressing the political hot potato, HHS spokesman Bill Hall dismissed the controversy as a simple misunderstanding. "People are reading more into this than is here. If people are taking this as an endorsement of vehicles, that's unfortunate." Let's see… employees of a federal agency get an email from HQ with a list of twelve specific cars prefaced with "when stopping for a vehicle consider these models." If that's not an endorsement, this is not a blog post.

This Sunday's Times carried a report from "The People's Republic of Richmond" describing the effects of the London Borough's anti-car jihad, which includes proposals to charge residential parking permit fees according to a vehicle's CO2 emissions. The article paints a vivid picture of a city under siege by its own government. "Across the road, carpet retailer Martin Herdman has erected 1,000-watt speakers outside his shop that emit an air-raid siren blast whenever parking wardens are spotted in the vicinity — usually four or five times a day. An underground network of fellow retailers and residents phone in alerts, and children on bikes cycle ahead of the wardens to give warning." The rest of the piece offers the usual examination of government hypocrisy (300 parking spaces for city council staff) and greed. The most telling quote comes from a sports car-loving immigrant. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful," Zoran Jokic told the Times. "But now I live in a borough that takes away another little freedom every day. In this country we are cramped by people and cramped by legislation. It irritates me considerably, but at least in this society I still have the freedom to speak out and raise my concerns.”

When the temperature of the gasoline crests 100 degrees, the fuel loses roughly one percent efficiency. That may not sound like much, but OilWatchdog.org says its a freakin' scam. "At the higher end of fuel temperatures, 105 degrees, the energy loss is nearly a dime a gallon. Drivers' losses boost the bottom line of oil companies." Needless to say, the group supports the "hot fuel" class action lawsuit against ExxonMobil. They're also offering a free, official-looking "motor fuel ripoff notice" which you should "put on your car or anywhere it will be seen by many. Not, of course, on gas pumps, which could be construed as posting without permission." (This next to the words "STICK IT TO BIG OIL.") In the interests of journalistic objectivity, The LA Times also slams the oil companies for not adjusting prices by temperature ("The oil industry gets a lot of abuse, much of it without merit. But it's on the wrong side of the argument in this case."). Open-minded readers may wish to explore the issue over theoilddrum.com, which proclaims that "hot gas is hot air" and uses (gasp) science to make the point.

"Wow, I can actually feel better about my carbon footprint!" So proclaimeth an unknown supporter on Carbonfund.org's website. According to Environmentalleader.com, VW's down with that. The environmental campaigners report that the German automaker will supply the "fund" in Carbonfund's plan to buy and reforest 1,100 acres of the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, Louisiana. In case you're wondering how they do the math, "the offsets will be based on the average annual emissions for each different type of model sold in the four-month period." It's not an open-ended deal; VW will cover carbon emissions for vehicles sold from September 1, 2007 until January 2, 2008. But the company invites new owners to keep paying for their guilt environmental impact by continuing the offset arrangement into the new year. In fact, VeeDub's putting a "carbon calculator" on an official micro site hosted by… Carbonfund.org.   

The Detroit Free Press (and just about every other media outlet on planet Earth) reports that U.S. presidential hopeful John Edwards wants you to surrender your SUV. Speaking at a forum sponsored by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Mr. Edwards said if he was emperor president he would order ask Americans to turn in give up their gas-guzzling SUVs and "drive more fuel-efficient vehicles." Of course, the millionaire friend of the working class didn't address the exodus' impact on the United Auto Workers, or how he might dispose of all these abandoned vehicles. On a related topic, Edwards defended his $6m energy-sucking 28,000-square-foot mansion by saying he's worked hard all his life and has always supported workers– especially those who built, clean and maintain his energy-sucking 28,000-square-foot mansion. (OK, I added that last part.) And all those people who worked hard to buy a gas-sucking SUV? Apparently, that's different.

The Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD) is a German environmental organization that advises corporations, lobbies governments and generally represents for Mother Earth. And just for fun, each year the VCD names the Eurozone’s most “environmentally-compatible” car. For the second year in a row, the 68K member pressure group has bestowed that honor upon the European Honda Civic Hybrid. The Toyota Prius scooped second. The Temple of VTEC (we are not worthy) reports that The Civic and Prius were the only compact cars to make the VCD’s Top 10; the remaining eight were mini and super-minis. The diminutive VW Polo BlueMotion was the only diesel-powered motor to make the grade. Oh, and if you haven’t tried Google’s translation service, we highly recommend you click on the first link above for further insight into VCD's goals (e.g. “We approach the vision of a lasting and futurable mobility only with the help of many particulars.“).   

C/net News editor Michael Kanellos tackles that most filmic of questions: who killed the electric car? His answer: no one. Well, not intentionally. Kanellos rejects the idea that there was a carmaker-led conspiracy to kneecap battery-powered transportation.  "The most innovative things they've come up with in three decades are the cupholder and the Lee Iacocca goggle glasses. These people are going to engineer a global conspiracy that eludes regulators around the world, financiers and competitors?" Kanellos says electric car technology simply couldn't meet the demands of the average consumer. Or, as he puts it, "consumers are cheap and don't want to be inconvenienced by a car that will die on the freeway before they get to Ikea's produce and burger stand when they're driving from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe." 'Nuff said?

Who said you can't have your cake and drive it too? Wired Magazine continues the top ten transport trend (thanks Forbes) with its list of "The 10 Fastest Green Cars on the Planet." They range from the ridiculous (muscle-powered FM-4 HumanCar) to the ridiculous (1200hp, ethanol-powered SVS Power Dodge Viper). The list also includes Audi's LeMans-winning diesel R-10 TDI, Ford's record-setting fuel-cell Focus and (of course) the "Where is it Now?" Tesla Roadster. Unfortunately, very few of the cars on Wired list are street-legal or in production. Even fewer qualify as anything remotely resembling practical transportation. Still, gearheads and greenies together forever? As Rodney King famously enquired, "Why can't we all just get along?"

While Boston Globe columnist Tom Keane wants to save the planet as much as the next guy, he's fed-up with green policies that make things worse. To wit: Logan Airport's new policy blessing hybrids with preferential parking– which encourages people to drive to the airport rather than use mass transit. Keane attacks other green laws: prohibitions against urban density (that push sprawl to the 'burbs), Brookline's proposal to double excise taxes on SUVs (which can be more fuel efficient than cars), carpool lanes (which slow down the majority of drivers and create more pollution), cloth diapers (whose cleaning requires more energy than disposables "in some cases") and carbon trading (which encourages consumption by relieving guilt). Kean's rant against "environmental backfire" is a welcome sign that common sense may finally be entering the debate over planet-saving public policy. And if you believe that, I've got a hydrogen-powered BMW 7-Series I'd like to sell you.

Having watched the UK morph from a nation of car-lovers into a country of downtrodden, guilt-ridden motorists, I read student scribe Andy Thompson's anti-car diatribe in The Daily Utah Chronicle with a deep sense of foreboding. The globally-warmed college curmudgeon labeled the automobile a "social epidemic," decried our nation's $135b highway spending as "a giant subsidy to the oil and automobile industry" and called for a mass transit system beside every American highway. Although Thompson's diatribe shows scant regard for the facts– The Big Three are not the "rip up the trolley tracks" political force of old and DaimlerChrysler is no more– a larger, more worrying question looms. Will America's college campuses be the starting point for a Euro-style anti-car jihad? Er, no. At the conclusion of his piece, Thompson dreams of the day when the "automobile is a luxury — one that everyone owns, just uses about as often as you take the boat out." Whew!

In the 60's, Chrysler built 50 experimental turbine-engined cars and put them in the hands of consumers for real-world testing. The turbine program ended abruptly, the victim of emission standards. Now, over 40 years later, emission standards are the driving force behind Chevy's new test fleet of 100 fuel-cell-powered Equinoxes. Popular Science reports that rumors of Chevy's "Project Driveway" are about to come true: GM will select drivers in Orange County, California; Westchester County, New York; and Washington, D.C. to wring-out the hydrogen-powered clean machines, free of charge, for up to two years. (The areas were chosen for their access to hydrogen filling stations, gloves mandatory.) If you're interested in applying for the test program, go to www.chevrolet.com/fuelcell/. And if you're PC lucky enough to be selected, please let us know.

I swear I'm living in an episode of The Twilight Zone written by Kurt Vonnegut. Submitted for your consideration: a wealthy family in Stoke-on-Trent England possess the country's largest carbon footprint. "Their annual energy bill of £3,000 was five times the national average," The Daily Telegraph notes. "The central heating was left on for 24 hours a day. Nothing in their home was recycled, and their carbon-unfriendly inventory included 15 televisions, 30 game consoles, six computers, three DVD players, three fridges, a laptop, 16 spotlight bulbs in the kitchen alone, and two cars (a gas-guzzling 4×4 and a Mini)." The Fowlers are whisked off to a "House of Correction" in Wales where they live for four days without running water or electricity. They fish garbage out of a lake, walk across a pile of burning coals (symbolizing their fossil fuel consumption), watch a pig being killed (and eat it) and fertilize their vegetables with their own urine. Upon their return, they discover an "eco-mower" sheep, an electric car and a pedal-powered washing machine that only works with cold water. Did I mention that this was all done for a reality show called "Outrageous Wasters?" That's it, I'm off to the hot tub…

As Robbie Burns might have put it, "The best-laid plans o' mice an' politicians gang aft a-gley." A study conducted by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants and reported in Financial Post reveals that Canada's eco-Auto program has backfired. The legislation was designed to lure Canadians out of their SUVs into hybrids and other more fuel efficient vehicles. Instead of increasing sales of the fuel sippers, buyers are turning to large pickups. The program places an excise tax of up to $4k on SUVs and other gas guzzlers like sports cars. However, because a pickup is a "need" for work rather than a "transportation choice," they're exempt. Sales of small pickups are up 18 percent so far this year, while large truck sales have increased 14 percent. It's only a matter of time– and not much of it– before the loophole cinches shut.