Article taken from Times Online. To view article, click here It's astonishing how suddenly and absolutely the motor industry has been converted to the green cause. The "environment" used to be regarded as that boring blurry thing that flashed past between Esso stations. Now data about fuel economy and CO2 emissions takes precedence over performance criteria such as torque and acceleration. Reading press packs and auto manuals, you could almost mistake car manufacturers for environmental charities.
The Range Rover, for instance, traditionally the preferred choice of vehicle for people for whom "climate change" is something you achieve by twisting an aluminium knob beneath the stereo, now comes with exhortations for owners to "go responsibly" and stickers boasting that new models are carbon-offset. Then last week Tesla unveiled the Model S, an electric saloon car that, unlike most other electric cars, does not have the aesthetic appeal of a bread bin and is being billed as the world's first mass-produced electric car that can travel up to 300 miles on one charge.
Elsewhere, the Porsche Cayenne, a car with the looks and fuel consumption of a Second World War landing craft, is now available in a frugal diesel version; Top Gear, which previously would have no more given airtime to an eco car than reviewed a new lipstick from L'Oréal, recently found time to review an electric vehicle; Honda has released the Insight, an affordable alternative to the Toyota hybrid Prius (see review on page 4); even F1 cars now feature energy-saving kinetic energy-recovery systems (Kers), where energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat loss during braking is captured and used during acceleration.
All these developments collude to raise a question: are we at a tipping point? Could the emergence of green motoring be a silver lining to the mushroom cloud now emerging from the remnants of the global car industry? Is the industry capable of showing, as Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla put it, "that it is possible to create a compelling electric car at a compelling price".
You could certainly argue the point. But you would probably be deluding yourself, because whatever the enthusiasm of the industry, few of these environmental developments yet stand up to scrutiny.
The diesel versions of the Range Rover and Porsche Cayenne, for instance, are significantly more frugal than the petrol equivalents, but still about as green as Bart Simpson. And while there are plans to produce 20,000 of the Model S Teslas a year, the company has yet to secure finance for the project. Moreover, despite orders from George Clooney, Matt Damon and Arnold Schwarzenegger, only 250 models of its predecessor, the Tesla Roadster, an electric two-seat sports car, have been delivered so far, and when Jeremy Clarkson reviewed it on Top Gear, he loathed it, complaining about a brake failure, moaning the Tesla took 16 hours to recharge - not the claimed 3.5 hours - and concluding that "it absolutely does not work".
The fact is that genuinely green motoring remains a distant hope, not least because no one has yet found a practical way of creating energy and vehicular motion without generating harmful by-products.
But, having said that, there are some encouraging signs, such as Honda's release of the Insight, an affordable alternative to the market-leading hybrid, the Toyota Prius. Also, meaningful amounts of money are now being invested in green car technology, with President Obama pledging $2.4 billion for vehicle battery and plug-in electric vehicle development, Gordon Brown promising £100 million to develop the technology and infrastructure needed to make electric and low- carbon cars a practical reality, and President Sarkozy of France saying that he will allocate ?400 million (£371 million) of public money over four years for research and development of low-emission vehicles.
Smug hybrid drivers like to imply they are doing the planet some good, whereas the truth is that they are, at best, simply not causing as much damage as the rest of us. (Even this is debatable: according to one report, if you take into account the energy used in producing and disposing of vehicles, the petrol-swilling Jeep Wrangler is actually greener than the Prius). And while SUV owners risk having their cars vandalised by environmentalists, the reality is that some SUVs are less polluting than supposedly greener small cars (The Mini Cooper S, for instance, does around 33mpg on the combined cycle of city and open road driving, while the BMW X3 2.0d will give you around 39mpg).
Thankfully, such enervating exchanges are largely a thing of the past. The industry has accepted the importance of environmentally responsible motoring and the conversation now generally revolves around the relative merits of battery-powered electric vehicles versus hybrids versus hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, a conversation that in some ways reflects the competition that took place a century ago between cars powered by petrol, steam and electricity.
There was a clear winner that time, but now the positions of various individuals and organisations are only just beginning to emerge. Jeremy Clarkson, for instance, is arguing that hydrogen cars, such as the forthcoming Honda FCX Clarity, which don't need charging, can be fuelled normally and produce only water as a direct emission, are the only feasible solution. In contrast, many industry analysts back electrification because they believe it will be too expensive to set up a system of hydrogen fuel stations. Meanwhile a recent report published by J.P. Morgan put the emphasis on hybrids, predicting that the global market "will rise exponentially" to 9.6 million in 2018 from 500,000 units in 2007, regardless of the current economic downturn.
The only certainty at this stage is rapid evolution, with Deutsche Bank forecasting in a recent report that motor vehicle technology will "change more significantly over the next five years than it has in the past 100". But for green motoring technology to truly succeed it will need to be at least as good as what we already have, and until manufacturers are regularly producing environmentally friendly vehicles as reliable and familiar as what we are used to, the revolution will remain a fantasy. Electric cars are only emission-free in the way that the NHS is cost-free - the catch comes somewhere, just not at the point of delivery. Unless the electricity that charges the car also comes from renewable resources, it will have its own carbon footprint.
Nevertheless, if you had to choose the best method for extracting energy from fossilised hydrocarbons, then even a great belching coal power plant is more efficient than having each vehicle in the country carry around its own mini-petrol furnace. Electric cars win every time.
Aside from a few brave experiments, this argument is moot though - in the near future even most "green" cars are going to be based on the internal combustion engine, they will just be using it in a more sensible way. That is the principle behind petrol hybrids, such as the Toyota Prius.
There is confusion about hybrids. They may have an electric mode, but they are not, as some people think, a full electric car with a nice petrol boost if you feel like going fast. At the moment hybrids work by smoothing out inefficiencies in the internal combustion engine - and they absolutely require their petrol mode. In a normal car, every time you brake you throw away energy - in a hybrid the braking process turns that kinetic energy into electrical energy in the battery, which can then later help the car along.
The results are impressive. The latest Prius, out in the summer, will have CO2 emissions lower than almost any car on the market, including many considerably smaller models. It will doubtless also become the new shibboleth of lefty chic. But if Hollywood A-listers upgrade from their old Prius - or even from their old Hummer - then this might be a false environmental economy.
Buying a car, any car, remains a deeply un-environmentally friendly act. Cars are complex mechanical devices, and they require a lot of energy to manufacture and ship. Before it leaves the forecourt, the average car has already produced 600kg of CO2. Given this initial addition to the atmosphere, it would take 15,000 miles of driving before buying the new Prius made more sense than opting for a second-hand Ford Focus.