Bear in mind John Prescott’s 200-yard trip in a gas-guzzling Jag to make a speech on the dangers of worldwide warming nearly a decade ago?
How occasions have changed.
The government yesterday showed its commitment to green transport, adding more than 100 plug-in vehicles to its fleet of automobiles.
Government departments and agencies such as the Property Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Workplace and the Ministry of Defence will use 140 ultra-low emission autos as component of a £5m investment to decrease emissions.
Danny boy, the exhaust pipes are calling…
The Government Vehicle Service, which supplies automobiles for ministers, will also add 4 low emission vehicles to its fleet, with Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, proclaiming: “This is the appropriate factor to do for both the environment and the taxpayer.”
But these in the corridors of power aren’t the only ones joining the ‘green revolution’. The £5m investment will also go towards take-up by the wider public sector – such as councils, police forces and the NHS – of plug-in automobiles.
Some of it will be utilised to pay for charge-points to be installed to permit the cars to be charged at work.
Bandwagon on the run
Of course, the government would like us all to jump on the green bandwagon, and offers generous financial incentives for performing so.
If you have got a ULEV – and ultra low emission vehicle – then you will spend no fuel duty and no automobile excise duty (road tax, to you and me).
Also, you don’t have to pay the Congestion Charge when you’re driving in London, or stump up for advantage-in-sort tax if you’re utilizing the car for enterprise. You can even park for free at a ne2rk of public charge points.
Taken for granted
The wonderful green giveaways don’t finish there. The Plug-in Auto Grant applies to any vehicle which can be charged by electricity and gives 25% off the expense of a auto, up to a maximum of £5,000.
The Government announced a additional £200m for the Plug-in Car Grant in April 2014, which will stay at its current level till 2017, or until at least 50,000 cars have been sold, whichever is sooner.
While all this might sound good sufficient purpose to swap your automobile for a greener alternative proper now, bear in mind that green vehicles aren’t without their downsides.
The grant could be generous, but automobiles that are type to the environment are expensive.
For instance, according to the site nextgreencar.com, a Peugeot iOn Electric 47kW Automatic 5 door electric automobile will set you back a hefty £21,216, including the grant.
The tiny MIA Electric 18kW Automatic 3 door, meanwhile, expenses a hefty £14,996, once again such as the grant.
Not-very-residence on the variety
Even if expense is not a problem, then restricted mileage could be. Most battery electric automobiles enable you to drive a maximum of 100 miles a day, so if you drive more than this your best bet is probably to be a plug-in hybrid which can use each electrical energy and fuel.
There’s also the situation of exactly where you can charge your automobile.
There are at present only around 8,000 charging points in the UK, in 3,154 various locations. You can verify the internet site Zap-Map.com to find out if there’s 1 where you need to have it.
Provided the limited number of stations offered, it’s possibly not surprising that there are presently only around 20,000 registered electric cars on UK roads.
Street of dreams
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Progress could be slow, but it seems inevitable that take up of green cars will continue to gradually boost.
The latest round of Government funding for charging infrastructure enables you to apply for funding to install a public on-street charge point at a appropriate place close to exactly where you live.
Your initial stop ought to be to contact your local authority to ask if they have signed up to the scheme. If they haven’t, ask them if they would be willing to. They can uncover out a lot more by contacting the Workplace for Low Emission Cars.
Driverless vehicle technologies has sophisticated rapidly in current years, and most significant automobile companies are operating on their own versions.
In the US, Google is deep into road trials of its autonomous automobiles, and Apple is rumoured to be pondering of joining the fray.
Questions to be addressed
But an innovation as revolutionary as driverless automobiles begs a lot of inquiries:
who is accountable for the automobile?
who is liable in the event of an accident?
what occurs if the car’s computer systems are hacked?
can a driverless car operate with no-one particular in it?
can you use an autonomous automobile if you are blind or partially sighted, or otherwise physically impaired?
what about when you are more than the alcohol limit?
Changing attitudes
Then there’s a whole clutch of concerns about the behaviour of other road customers.
For instance, will pedestrians quit utilizing crossing and just step out into the road, safe in the expertise that cars will cease for them?
Exact same applies to cyclists, and drivers of ‘normal’ vehicles.
If so, what will be the effect on targeted traffic flow and congestion?
And what about carjackers? Step in front of a auto you fancy, and it will roll to a quit at your feet. Deeply worrying for anybody to contemplate, specifically these with youngsters on board, and ladies driving alone.
Pilot programmes
As the world adjusts to the driverless phenomenon, the government is backing 4 trials in Greenwich, Milton Keynes, Bristol and Coventry to measure the achievement of the technology, decide the insurance and legal implications and gauge the public’s reaction.
It hopes for a strong return on its investment of £19 million from a worldwide market that is anticipated to be worth billions in the next decade.
In the meantime…
The autonomous Meridian shuttle will run in Greenwich and appears a bit like an elongated golf buggy.
Then there’s the prototype driverless pods in Coventry and in Milton Keynes, trundling amongst the railway stations and shopping centres.
The Wildcat is most likely the most thrilling car. It’s a modified military jeep becoming tested in Bristol.
In the trials, a totally certified driver is on hand to take more than the controls if essential.
Cracking the code
The subsequent step is a code of practice, due in the spring, that will supply the framework for tests in actual-life scenarios.
A complete assessment of domestic regulations will not take place till 2017 and will most probably involve alterations to the MOT test and amendments to the Highway Code.
The review will also appear at the legal implications of a collision involving a driverless car and think about regardless of whether a greater common of “driving” need to be demanded of automated vehicles.
“I propose we wash all our cars – over 550 000 every year – with virtually no water. I further propose that we wash every car in less than 30 minutes. And I do not want to hear one complaint from a customer!”
Imagine the expression on the faces of the Combined Motor Holding (CMH) board when CEO Jebb McIntosh expressed his goal for the water and electricity depleting wash bays in their national ne2rk of vehicle dealers and First Car Rental.
McIntosh laid down the challenge after he personally studied the environmental impact of the many CMH wash bays. At 200 litres of water per car and many litres of washing detergents that had to be disposed of responsibly, it was a clear challenge for cost saving by the group.
The CMH team accepted the challenge and today the CMH Green Machine can be spotted in wash bays across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, the United Arab Emirates and even the United States. A CMH Green Machine uses only 750 ml of water per wash (and only to rinse the washcloths), which means the CMH saves over 199 litres per car or over 100 million litres of mostly drinking water per year.
CMH Green Machine is a compact all-in-one wash bay solution that dispenses an environmentally friendly wax through a pressurised system. The wax suspends dirt away from the vehicle’;s surface and is wiped away with a special microfiber cloth, which is regularly rinsed. The wax, cloths, environmentally friendly wheel, mag and window cleaner and an industrial vacuum cleaner are all contained in a compact push-trolley design that is small enough to fit between parked vehicles.
By redesigning the business of cleaning cars, CMH Green Machine has seen greater saving than even they anticipated.
“We calculated the saving in water and electricity as well as in disposing of expensive high pressure pump systems and dirt traps. We even thought of the saving in detergent, but our clients surprised us with their innovative use of the Green Machine,” says Steve McCulloch, General Manager of CMH Green Machine.
In one example, McCulloch explains, the dealer converted the old wash bay into extra service bays, while the wash teams could clean vehicles where they were parked for service. In another, the dealer assigned a Green Machine to each department, to ensure that no “I was here first” fights broke out between representatives of the new car sales, used vehicles and servicing departments and hence cars could be cleaned much faster.
The CMH Green Machine is available for purchase or on a rental option that includes service and training. In one study Kempster Auto in the Bluff in KwaZulu-Natal realised a drop in their utilities bill of over R6 000, which more than paid for the use of their 2 CMH Green Machines.
“Ultimately our greatest achievement is not the cost saving. We realised that this new environmentally friendly car wash system created opportunities for entrepreneurs to start small businesses and wash cars at hotels, shopping malls and in corporate parks and we are very proud of that,” says McCulloch.
McCulloch and his team is currently expanding its ne2rk to other products, while the interest from countries such as Namibia and the United Arab Emirates have significantly expanded the reach of this local innovation.
“We have noticed a great need for our solution in other water-stressed countries and we see a great opportunity there. At the same time we are converting our national footprint in South Africa to also serve our clients with any other consumables, such as office supplies,” says McCulloch.
Mix pious intentions with dreary mechanical bits and then stir in some driving misery, and the result is a “green car.” Green not in the color of its paint, but in the environmental virtue of its engineering and marketing. Green as in economical with fuel but stingy on exciting, great with emissions but lousy to pilot. Green cars are hybrids, diesels, and electric vehicles stripped to the point of generating a rotted ox cart appear luxurious. Except that was then—you know, like, 3 years ago—and this is the green auto now.
The 1st- and second-generation greens sacrificed enjoyment on the altar of efficiency. But we’re into the third generation, and the technologies that have defined the greenies are becoming leveraged to make better-driving cars—and even exciting ones. Some of the very best automobiles in the globe proper now are bright green.
So with optimism beating in C/D‘s stainless-steel heart, here are 10 current production automobiles (arranged alphabetically) that mix all sorts of politically appropriate goodness with solid driving excitement. But wait, there’s much more: We’ve also incorporated 2 a lot more automobiles from the 1980s that have been ahead of their time. None of these green automobiles suck.
Audi A3 TDI Diesel The sweet-driving A3—it beat both BMW and Benz in its 1st comparison test—begat the superb S3 performance sedan. All A3s are based on the identical MQB architecture as the equally good 6th-gen VW Golf. The TDI engine is the exact same 150-hp turbocharged 2.-liter 4-cylinder diesel used in so several other VW Group items. Plus, the A3 sedan appears adorable. No, we haven’t driven it as of this posting, but there’s no way this car sucks. (It’ll be accessible here as a 5-door hatch next year, as well.) A3 TDI Assessment | Investigation ››
BMW i3 Since BMW introduced its “Neue Klasse” back in 1962, the organization has zealously tried to—and largely succeeded—sustain a constant character across its lineup. A 3-series drove a lot like a 5er that was a lot like the stately 7. But the new i3 throws all that out and starts over without any assumptions about what a BMW is or must be. The i3 has skinny tires on massive diameter wheels, uses a structure produced up of carbon fiber and aluminum, and the interior appears as if it have been ripped out of a glass property perched more than the Pacific at Large Sur. No, it is not M3 rapidly, and the twin kidneys slapped on the front are just ironic, but this vehicle is innovative and interesting in the techniques all automobiles must be. All that and it still feels like a BMW at its core. i3 Evaluation | Research ››
BMW i8 The i8 plays supercar brother to the vehicle above, applying all the philosophical and engineering daring of the city vehicle to the job of engineering a brilliant 2-seater. (Yes, it has 2 further seats they are there only to mock the owner or host his modest dog.) It is a plug-in hybrid that looks like next year’s Frankfurt auto show idea auto and feels in contrast to something else on the road. And has there ever been one more automobile carrying a 3-cylinder engine—just like the Mitsubishi Mirage!—that runs from to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds and via the quarter-mile in 12.4 at 113 mph? i8 Overview | Analysis ››
Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Preserve this in thoughts: The C7 Corvette is a 460-hp beast powered by a 6.2-liter LT1 V-7 It is capable of topping 180 mph. It carries EPA mileage ratings of 17 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway when equipped with the 6-speed manual transmission. But thanks to tricks such as cylinder deactivation, it’s capable of sipping fuel even much more parsimoniously than that. Early this year, writing for our sister publication Common Mechanics, this author took a Corvette on an economy run up California’s Central Coast and accomplished an astonishing 37.3 mpg with the A/C off and holding a steady 55 mph with cruise manage. For a automobile with this considerably efficiency, it is unprecedented. On a graph of vehicles rating green potential on 1 axis and blood-red speed on the other, the Corvette is a solitary outlier. CORVETTE STINGRAY Review | Investigation ››
Chevrolet Spark EV For an all-electric conversion, the Spark EV is among the really ideal in its segment. (Much more accurate, it is the extremely very best, having won a 6-way EV comparison test.) It handles and rides much better than some of its peers that had been engineered solely as electric cars. But what does not suck most about the Spark EV is this: If you reside in Oregon or California (and have solid credit), you can lease one for only $ 199 a month with $ 949 down. The lease covers 36 months and 36,000 miles, and it is 1 of the most thoughts-bogglingly strong offers ever provided by a vehicle manufacturer. SPARK EV Evaluation | Study ››
Ford Fusion Energi Plug-In Hybrid Chevrolet’s Volt is a fine plug-in hybrid, but it wears its green cred on its sleeve. It is just too obviously attempting to be virtuous. On the other hand is Ford’s Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid, which, for most commuters, can carry out the very same all-electric chores as the Volt most of the time but does not shout about it. Plus, even even though it deserves a larger trunk, the Ford is roomier inside than the Chevy. And that doesn’t suck. FUSION ENERGI Assessment | Investigation ››
Honda Accord Hybrid The Accord rises to our 10Best Cars list every single year with the regularity of the sunrise. Every Accord is built with the impregnable structure of a dimethylhexane molecule, rides far more comfortably than an Eames lounge chair, and drives with the satisfying subtlety of an Eric Clapton chord adjust. And the hybrid is among the very best of the existing breed. Constructed about a 141-hp 2.-liter Atkinson-cycle 4-cylinder paired with a 166-hp electric motor, the result is an easygoing 196 total method horsepower that is delivered by means of, properly, what amounts to no transmission at all. It is a clever and silken drivetrain that amplifies the Accord’s character and tends to make its efficiency exciting. This is a mid-size sedan that starts at about $ 30,000, runs from to 60 in 7.2 seconds and is EPA rated at 50 mpg in the city and 45 on the highway. It does not draw attention to itself due to the fact it appears pretty considerably like any other Accord sedan, but it may possibly properly be the greatest gas-electric hybrid accessible anywhere. ACCORD HYBRID Assessment | Research ››
Porsche 918 Spyder Operating on electricity alone, the 918 Spyder is EPA-rated at the equivalent of 67 mpg. That indicates this is a automobile its owner could theoretically use to bop back and forth to operate every single day never ever employing any gasoline at all—just like a Nissan Leaf. So spend your $ 847,975 with a clear conscience that you’re undertaking one thing very good for the environment. Then go uncover a freeway on-ramp and let the 608-hp 4.6-liter V-8 celebration down with the 2 electric motors you’ll watch the air about the automobile froth up as it uses all 4 wheels to claw from rest to 60 mph in a staggering 2.2 seconds. Basically put, this is the quickest production car we’ve ever tested. The Ferrari LaFerrari could however match the feat—we have however to test that one—but the McLaren P1 fell a half-second shy. Both of them are hybrids, as well. 918 SPYDER Evaluation | Research ››
Tesla Model S The city of Santa Monica, California, is not where the all-electric Model S is assembled, but it is exactly where the auto is employed. You see them all over, waiting outside Crossroads College for showbiz progeny, along the curb at Entire Foods, at each and every pilates studio. They’re constantly becoming driven by tiny tiny females in exercise clothes and brand-new sneakers with purple laces. But does any person in Santa Monica realize just how good a auto the Tesla Model S genuinely is? It’s quickly, it delivers usable variety, it appears excellent, and it rides like its air springs were filled with breath exhaled by Jessica Alba. It’s practically as well good for Santa Monica. MODEL S Overview | Study ››
Volkswagen Golf TDI Diesel Here’s a basic formula: combine the all-new 2015 Golf’s sweet chassis and impeccably completed cockpit with the established torque production of VW’s 2.-liter turbo-diesel 4, and the result is a sweet and creamy frappé of automotive virtue. Select the 6-speed manual transmission and the EPA prices it at 30 mpg in the city and 45 on the highway. Go for the 6-speed dual-clutch automatic and these numbers sit at 31 mpg city and 43 mpg highway. Diesels may possibly not inflame the soul like a higher-revving gas-burner, but they’re now so civilized and effective that it is difficult to care. GOLF TDI Assessment | Investigation ››
BONUS: Great OLD GREENNESS
1979–1985 Mercedes-Benz 300TDBy twenty-initial-century requirements, the old W123-series Mercedes wagon feels as if it have been engineered on an anvil. It’s a steel box on 14-inch wheels powered by a 120-hp (or much less) 3.-liter turbo-diesel inline-5. It is not just slow, it is agonizingly slow. But it is bulletproof, efficient, and now supported by a vast neighborhood of biodiesel enthusiasts who have their W123s running on every thing from KFC chicken fat to lawn clippings. And the wagon still turns heads.
1988–1991 Honda CRX HF As you study this, Honda dealers are pushing the last of the ill-fated Insight 4-door hybrids off their lots. But a quarter-century ago, Honda did green appropriate with the ultra-effective, mechanically supersimple, and entertaining-to-drive 2-seat CRX HF. It is a miracle of lightweight pondering combined with a simple 1.5-liter, 8-valve, 62-hp 4-cylinder engine and tall gearing in its 5-speed manual gearbox. Using current 2014 EPA approaches, the 1991 CRX HF is rated at 40 mpg in the city and 47 mpg on the highway. Those are numbers of which Honda ought to be proud. And it is a car Honda must in no way have stopped constructing.
Better 20 years late than never ever: According to Reuters, Ford is organizing its initial devoted gas-electric hybrid model for the 2019 model year, to compete directly against the Toyota Prius. (The C-Max doesn’t count, considering that it was initially sold in Europe as a typical MPV.)
Given that Toyota’s reigning hybrid champ hit Japan in 1997 and made a beachhead on our shores for 2001, a lot more than 3 million copies have been sold, like much more than 800,000 from all 4 model variants final year. The unnamed sources say that Ford plans to make about 120,000 of its hybrid every year. Those exact same sources say the hybrid will be based on a new “C2 international compact architecture” that Ford will also use for the subsequent Concentrate and Escape. Reuters was less particular on powertrains, only to say they’ll be “adapted from Ford’s present hybrid models.”
If this all shapes up as reported, it will mark a main departure from the normal Ford practice of modifying gasoline-powered vehicles to accommodate hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or full-electric powertrains on the same assembly line. It would also mark a shift from the philosophy of offering green-leaning vehicles that don’t make its drivers appear like revolutionaries aside from battery packs intruding into cargo space, Ford’s hybrids and electrics are typically demure. Of course, the Prius’s egg-shaped aesthetic—not to mention 2 decades’ worth of confirmed efficiency—have created it the go-to hybrid for most shoppers, and Ford desires to get itself a piece of that.
The Blue Oval, however, will have to be careful that it does not adhere to the path of Honda and its Insight the Insight featured a dedicated, semifuturistic physique and was the 1st mainstream hybrid on the American market, but the nameplate was steamrolled—twice—by the Prius juggernaut. And now that even nonhybrid mid-size sedans are achieving 40 mpg, Ford marketers have really the challenge. Whatever takes place, it’s about to get actual again in the Whole Foods parking lot.
The safety of road users at intersections and traffic lights have become a major concern. The biggest threat remain blatant lawlessness amongst drivers and them not obeying the Rules of the Road!
Amongst the types of Road Traffic Crashes that are most dangerous are the T-Bone crashes where one vehicle collides at speed into the side of another. The side-walls of a vehicle offers much less protection than the engine and airbags situated at the front of a vehicle.
One of the causes of these crashes are the so-called “Red Light Accellerators and Green Light Anticipators” – Some drivers increase speed to try and get across the lights that has just turned red whilst others start driving too early in anticipation of the light going to turn green!
This is best illustrated by the above video sent to the Arrive Alive website!
View Video
Also view:
Crash Types and Types of Injuries
Safe driving at Intersections / Intersection Safety
In a surprise reversal, an appeals court judge has ruled that New York City can indeed force all of its taxi drivers to buy Nissan NV200 vans, marking yet yet another stalemate in an 18-month court battle over the city’s “Taxi of Tomorrow.”
In October when Nissan rolled the very first vans to dealers, a judge ruled that the Taxi and Limousine Commission had no authority to establish 1 taxi model after the Greater New York Taxi Association complained the van wasn’t handicapped accessible or a hybrid. Current regulations require all new taxi purchases to be hybrids and for any taxi van to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act—both of which Nissan, which successfully won a $ 1 billion contract with the city in 2011, had not completed with the NV200 taxi.
As we’ve reported, taxi organizations and drivers just do not want to be told to get one automobile, regardless of the car in query. The Commission has approved 47 autos for taxi service (there’s even a few Mercedes and Lexus cabs roaming about) and until Nissan sells a hybrid NV200, taxi drivers can shop from any of the hybrids on that list. Even though an all-electric e-NV200 is now on sale in Japan, that Leaf-based model is still far from any U.S. debut.
The most current ruling, according to Bloomberg News, is a “legally acceptable response to the agency’s statutory obligation to generate a 21st-century taxicab consistent with the broad interests and perspectives that the agency is charged with guarding.” Nissan, which spent years building the NV200 taxi to the Commission’s specifications and has been loaning unmetered yellow vans to journalists, has stayed out of court and kept quiet on the rulings. Expect one more volley by the Taxi Association.
