Ask Dr. Green: Where are the "green" cars?

A few weeks ago, Earthteam received a great question from Elizabeth Price at St. Mary's High School: "With all this talk about electric vehicles in today's expanding hybrid market, what's the deal? Are electric cars an important part of the green transportation industry, or have they not caught on as successfully as may have been expected? And whatever happened to those hydrogen fuel cell stations?"
I've actually been following this topic for a while now, and, especially in the midst of the primaries, with the various candidates making promises about fixing this issue, I did a little more research. So here's my attempted response to this very important and very complicated question.

While great strides have been made in the pursuit of a truly "green" car, especially in Europe (see the Smart cars and their various miniscule competitors) and Asia (Toyota and Honda are continuing to pioneer alternative energy research), a lot of these advances haven't made it to the US for various reasons. One major reason is a political one: it's no secret that the Bush administration has significant ties to the American oil and automobile industries, and importing new green energy technology (and imposing new green energy standards) would hurt the bottom lines of oil giants. Another big factor that shouldn't be underestimated, however, is the question of whether American culture and the American people are ready to commit to hybrid, fuel-cell, and e-85 vehicles. It might seem like a no-brainer in the Bay Area--where there are just as many Priuses on the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley as there are SUVs (maybe more). But American car culture is so deeply ingrained in people's thoughts, and Americans do love their SUVs. Thus, while legislation in favor of higher fuel-efficiency standards has been gaining a bit of steam (notably in California), and though the demand for hybrids has increased in recent years, neither of these factors have been enough to effect a major shift in the market, especially toward electric cars. There might be a change on the way, though.

This year's election is a big one for many reasons, not the least of which being the environment. The three front-running candidates--Clinton, Obama, and McCain--all have bold environmental plans, and the two Democrats are promising to devote major time and money to the issue of making our transportation more efficient. Clinton, for example, pledges to raise the fuel-efficiency standard to 55 miles per gallon in the next 20 years; whether or not that'll be achieved with electric cars is better left to the engineers. But a change in administration will almost certainly lead to better fuel-efficiency legislation, and as the market for fuel-efficient cars increases (and as the price of gas continues to soar), I predict that more and more companies, even American ones, will reconsider electric vehicles as a major business opportunity. 

Consider Chevrolet. Anyone seen those commercials? They're making a lot of noise about their new fuel-efficiency research (see image above). Chevy has been talking about their Volt concept for quite a while now--the good-looking, sporty sedan that runs on gas, E-85, biodiesel OR electricity. But whether it'll get made any time soon...that's the real question. As is whether other companies will follow its lead, or whether American consumers will buy into the idea.