Energy Security and Climate Change
What We Believe Will Make a Difference
By Beth Lowery
Vice President, GM Environment and Energy
Rollercoaster-like gas prices, regional conflicts and global climate change have put energy security and environmental issues front and center of the national debate. Reducing gasoline consumption as well as our collective impact on the earth’s climate should be national priorities. These, too, are our priorities at GM and we recently told Congress what we’re doing to lessen our dependence on petroleum and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Last week, Rick Wagoner, GM Chairman and CEO, testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. He was not alone. Other key leaders of the world’s larger auto manufacturers and from the UAW also provided testimony ranging from product plans centered on advanced technology, biofuels, and the effectiveness of the three-decade old Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program (CAFE).
The hearing was a good opportunity to dispel a couple long-time myths.
Myth 1: GM really doesn’t care about the environment.
This view — a favorite of our skeptics — is simply wrong. Before the Congress, Rick Wagoner repeated our commitment to develop new vehicles, powered by new systems running on alternative fuels as the only way we’ll be able to grow our business and meet the world’s growing energy demands. Yes, it’s a pure business necessity, but, as Rick Wagoner also indicated, we believe that it is the company’s obligation to society, too.
The billions of dollars that GM will invest over the next few years is putting our “money where our mouth is.” We’re applying a broad range of technologies aimed at improving fuel economy going forward. We’re also big supporters of biofuels as the best near-term opportunity for reducing gasoline consumption, oil imports, and greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, we have more than 2 million FlexFuel vehicles on the road that run on E85 ethanol and are working with various partners to resolve E85 supply and distribution constraints. We’re making a major commitment to electrically driven vehicles, including development of plug-in hybrids, fuel cell vehicles like the Chevy Sequel concept, and range-extended electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt.
Myth 2: The CAFE program works.
This one is also wrong — really wrong.
The original intent of the CAFE program, enacted over 30 years ago, was to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption and oil imports.
However, because the number of vehicles on the road has nearly doubled since then and the total number of vehicle miles traveled has also nearly doubled… U.S. gasoline consumption has increased by 60 percent, and U.S. oil imports have increased by more than 100 percent.
These increases occurred despite the fact that automakers as a whole have increased new vehicle fleet fuel economy for light trucks by 60 percent, and more than doubled it for passenger cars. During this time, GM has improved its fuel economy more than any other major auto manufacturer.
So, how would a 4 percent-per-year increase in CAFE measure up? According to the Administration’s analysis, such an increase would save 8.5 billion gallons of gasoline annually by 2017… less than half of the projected growth in American oil consumption. In other words, even with this proposed CAFE increase, America will still be using — and most likely importing — more oil than ever, as well as producing more CO2 emissions.
On the other hand, if all of the E85 capable vehicles on the road today… along with those that GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler have already committed to produce over the next 10 years… were to run on E85, we could displace 22 billion gallons of gasoline annually. And if all manufacturers made the same commitment, we could increase the savings to 37 billion gallons of gasoline annually.
That’s more than quadruple the savings that a 4 percent per year CAFE increase would achieve… and, very importantly, enough to actually reduce America’s oil consumption by more than 10 percent versus today’s levels, and CO2 emissions, as well.
Clearly there are better solutions than CAFE increases. GM believes these solutions are within our grasp and that’s where we’re investing our time, money and resources — on things that will make a difference. The question is whether people are ready to move away from approaches that haven’t delivered results in 30 years. We hope so. Now is the time to seriously look at ways to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption and oil imports and address the critical challenges presented by CO2 emissions and GM plans to play a lead role in putting these solutions in the marketplace.
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You forgot to mention Bob Lutz’s brilliant analogy: trying to deal with the oil crisis by forcing fuel economy regulations is like dealing with the nation’s obesity crisis by forcing clothing makers to only make small-sized clothes. Any automaker who builds only small, fuel efficient vehicles that a fraction of the population wants to buy is headed for bankruptcy.
CAFE didn’t work because of the laws of unintended consequences. Since vehicles got better gas mileage, over time people were enabled to move further and further from city centers and their places of work. The “company car”, unafordable prior to CAFE, proliferated as reps began to cover multi-state areas. It is estimated that we drive 35% more today than in the years prior to CAFE’s introduction.
In which alternative universe can one foster the conservation of a commodity by making said commodity cheaper to use?
Well Beth, let me be the first to say that you are not making me feel any better about the future of General MOTORS. I don’t enjoy seeing your company, one which was so good to my father and to the generation of workers that helped you become great, use bean counting to justify your position in the world. I think it would be in the best interest of your company to take on your Asian rivals head on. You have no other rivals, except for your greedy shareholders. General Motors needs to step up, tighten its belt, roll up its sleeves and redesign the entire industry.
Please continue your upgrade of your auto industry, but spin off the trucks to GMC and open up GM Goodwrench service franchises, that would also sell used cars. Then put your money where your mouth is and build a few dozen alternative fuel “refineries”. A few biodiesel and a few switchgrass conversion facilities for ethanol production could make the USA and GM the king in the market (even the fuel market.) As you know, or should know, the growing of switchgrass is good for the C02 loading into the atmosphere and it produces approximately 1500 gallons of ethanol an acre. All this with with NO fertilizer or pesticides used to grow it. And the leftover mass can be burned for electricity. It is a winner for the first auto company to have the foresight. the link I have attached is a good one to use as a base. But Beth, corn is not the answer (1.3 gallons of ethanol per gallon of petroleum product to grow, bring to market and sell. Whereas switchgrass gives you 11 gallons of ethanol per gallon of petroleum.) IT is not even close, from a economic point of view. But you can also have the farmers growing switchgrass also using a new GM developed windmill with state of the art electric motors to generate electricity on the same land used to grow the prairie grass. Excess capacity could be sold to the gridand it could also be used to recharge the volt.
General Motors can do it! If you don’t, don’t be surprised if you don’t see Hyundai owned switchgrass farms and ethanol refineries, along with Kia windmills and motors. Somebody is going to have to change the rules and I hope it is General Motors.
Sincerely,
http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html“>http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html“>http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html
There are several problems with CAFE. One is that it tries to dictate what manufacturers sell, but doesn’t even attempt to influence what people buy. This has not only industry-wide implications as consumers balked at “downsizing” and simply bought larger trucks instead of cars, but takes no account of varying success of companies in different market segments. In many ways this can be counter-productive. Suzuki for example only sells compact cars, so even with relatively large and thirsty engines (e.g. a 2.4 L in the Aerio when no other sedan in it’s class offers more than a 1.6 L), they have no problem meeting CAFE. Sheeple buy millions of small, fuel efficient Corolla’s, so Toyota can afford to ignore fuel economy in it’s truck models, which have the industry’s worst, and can offer a 1.8 L engine as the sole choice in the xD instead of a more fuel-efficient 1.5 or 1.6 L engine. Toyota can offer a 2.4 L in the new xB and not care about economy, because millions of sheeple by Corollas. GM on the other hand is concerned about fuel economy in every model since it’s most popular models are much heavier, V8-engined fullsize trucks (partly because a V8-engined fullsize GM truck is as economical as the best V6 compact truck [15/20 for a 5.3 L auto Silverado v 15/19 for a 4.0 L man Tacoma]). Thanks to Corolla-buying sheeple, Toyota doesn’t care about fuel-economy in the Tundra. Instead of spending money, as GM does, improving the fuel-economy of it’s trucks, it can spend them on dealer incentives and other areas of vehicle development. Every sale they steal as a result helps GM meet CAFE, but worsens the nation’s fuel economy. CAFE needs to be broken down into seperate targets, not just for cars and trucks, but for narrow segments defined by vehicle type, size and payload.
The US has a consumption problem and people don’t want to accept that. All of the solutions proposed by the government center around forcing automakers to produce unrealistic fuel efficiency gains instead of changing driving behavior. People in the US are completely car dependent and most trips are made with one person in the car. Blaming the automakers is the easy way out which is why the government and Prius owners love to go that route. Regardless of how many SUVs GM offers they aren’t forcing anyone to buy them or forcing people to drive 15k to 20k miles a year. Tax breaks for hybrids are a joke because most people that buy hybrids would’ve brought them without the tax rebate and thus the rebates do little to reduce our consumption of oil. The US needs to get serious about fostering increased population density and use of public transportation. Instead of tax breaks for hybrids there should be tax breaks for families with one car, people who drive less than 10k miles a year, people who dont own cars, people that use public transportation to commute, people that live in urban areas that are not car-centric, etc. Of course since no one wants to actually work to reduce the amount of driving we do I don’t expect any of these things to happen.
Honda famously supports higher CAFE (well they don’t sell any trucks, do they?), and ’believes the most optimal use of the ethanol that we are currently producing is to blend it with gasoline at up to 10% levels (“E-10”).’ rather than the promotion or mandate of E85. Of course this is rather disingenuous—Honda (nor Toyota) as yet does not produce any engine capable of running on more than E10. GM, on the other hand has at least 13 capable of running either E85 or E100 and recently unveiled the first engine capable of running E100 without a backup gasoline reservoir for cold starting (the Saab 9-5 BioPower 100 concept). Complaints that producing biofuels takes away from food production ignores the fact that thousands of farmers are paid to not produce food crops, and that biofuel crops can be grown between food crop plantings and can replenish the soil. Rapeseed/canola and peanuts are used this way already. Sugar crops (cane, beet, maple sap) are the simplest and usually cheapest source of ethanol, and millions of acres of production are already heavily subsidized, despite a global surplus. Incentivise producers to switch to ethanol production and you no longer need trade barriers against cheap imported sugar. The overproduction of subsidized food crops in America and Europe currently prevents local farmers from increasing production in much of Africa, leading to periodic shortages. People starve because local farmers cannot compete with food aid. Converting good agricultural land in the northern hemisphere to fuel production is therefore good sense environmentally, economically and ethically. Farmers can rotate between a sugar crop for ethanol production and an oil crop for biodiesel, supplying their own fuel needs in the process.
CAFE standards were frozen in 1990 and exclude “light trucks,” which include things like the PT Cruiser. If these two glaring holes were fixed, we’d see some improvement based on CAFE standards. If they hadn’t been amended after the slump in oil prices in the 1980s, we’d be looking at a standard of something like 35mpg instead of the pitiful 27mpg for passenger cars and horrible 22mpg for “light” trucks.
However, if you’re intent on trying something new and not weaseling out of it by promoting SUVs as family cars to avoid the rules, here are some other solutions:
A fuel tax. Tax every ounce of crude going into the refineries and let them pass that tax on to the consumer. Do the same for coal and natural gas. We need to kick the fossil fuel habit, and taxing all fossil fuels at the point of entry into the market is the easiest way to do it.
This will also help to make sure our decisions are the best ones we could possibly make. E85 takes a lot of energy to produce. By putting the tax on the fuel as it enters the system, we avoid people skirting the regulations by producing fossil-fuel-intensive E85 and calling it a “green fuel” or putting up filters on a smokestack and calling it “clean coal.” (Contrary to GM’s propaganda, E85 made from corn isn’t a renewable fuel because it takes a significant amount of fertilizer, pesticide, and diesel fuel to bring it to the pump. E85 from sugar cane is a little better, and celluosic ethanol better still, but still less efficient than electric vehicles.)
We could also enact a feebate system. Under this system, we set a mileage level (say, 25 mpg) and give people a rebate of, say, $50 per mpg their vehicle averages over that level and charge people a fee of $50 for each mpg under that their vehicle averages. Under the actual system the cost of the rebates to the taxpayer would be covered by the fees, so the net cost is zero, and people are rewarded for doing the right thing.
And we need to make sure that people can’t weasel out of it by claiming the vehicle for “business use.” If we need to stop using fossil fuels, then we need EVERYONE to stop using fossil fuels, including businesses. My wife runs a home business, and write the purchase price of a huge SUV or truck off on her taxes even though she only sells makeup. This ridiculous loophole needs closed.
We also need to get rid of the loophole for “light trucks.” Everything from a PT Cruiser to an H2 is considered a light truck, and their fuel economy is just as important as someone else’s. When the CAFE standards were written, most people didn’t drive trucks. But now that SUVs have become so popular, we need to give them the same treatment as other passenger vehicles.
Finally, we need to eliminate the direct funding for certain energy types. We need to encourage people to innovate, and putting all our support behind E85 or nuclear power will only cause other systems, like electric cars or solar power, to stagnate.
However, I don’t expect GM to do anything about this. Their cash cows are big SUVs. Why would they want to decrease sales of their most profitable vehicles? If I were a shareholder, I’d be concerned if the company said it wanted to decrease any possible dividends I might see.
Corporations like GM don’t exist to do the right thing. They exist to make a profit. We shouldn’t trust them to write the rules and regulations they operate under any more than we’d trust a fox to guard a henhouse.
A couple more things I forgot in my first post:
Another idea is to implement some sort of Total Pollution Index for vehicles. Diesel cars get great gas mileage, but put out other forms of pollution. If we could total up the pollutants produced by a vehicle (NOx, CO2, Sulfur compounds, and particulates) and create an index, we could get a better idea of how these cars compare. A diesel car would get poor grads on NOx and particulates, but good grades on CO2. As long as the average was above a C, the car could be sold in the US, and above that it could provide a good comparison for car buyers.
Secondly, I think that the auto industry, the oil companies, and the huge agricultural companies want to see us switch to E85 regardless of whether it’s the best solution.
The auto industry would be able to continue building internal-combustion engines. This means all those upstart companies making electric vehicles wouldn’t have the jump on them for future vehicle developments, and they won’t have to seriously retool their factories at great expense for such a radically different design.
The oil industry wants to use E85 because they know that vehicles burning it get worse mileage, meaning they’ll use even more of it, which means more money for the oil companies. And because it’s supposedly “green,” people won’t mind if they buy a midsize car that only gets 20mpg on E85.
And Big Agriculture wants to use E85 because it comes from corn and, more specifically, can come from genetically modified corn whose seeds farmers aren’t allowed to save and replant the next year, and which needs huge amounts of fertilizer and pesticides that farmers will have to buy from, you guessed it, the same companies they bought the seeds from.
So, no, I don’t think that any of these players, GM and Toyota included, actually care about the environment. They care about their own wallets and how much fatter they’re getting. They don’t want to see other companies eating their lunch, and they definitely don’t want people thinking they can live without their cars or the fuel that powers them.
Really wrong?
Seems to me that CAFE just might be working. You say that the number of vehicles and miles driven has nearly doubled since CAFE was enacted and that gasoline consumption has increased 60%.
Hmmmm, let me think about that:
I’d say it’s likely that without CAFE, gasoline consumption would have also nearly doubled instead of going up only 60%.
If there had been no CAFE standards, and gasoline consumption had followed the same trend as vehicles owned and miles driven, we’d be in even more of a pickle than we are now.
Actually Beth, the statistics you offer make a compelling case saying its unfortunate CAFE standards weren’t even more robust.
Save 37 billion gallons annually?
I’m not so sure of that. What you didn’t tell us is that one of your heavy flex-fuel SUVs needs to burn four gallons of E85 fuel to do the work of three gallons of gasoline. That means anyone who drives a flex-fuel vehicle — and burns E85 as you’d like them to do — will watch their fuel gauges go down about 25% faster.
When you calculated that we would save 37 billion gallons of fuel, did you also take into account the fossil fuel energy (natural gas, coal, and diesel fuel) used to grow corn and reform that into ethanol. (I’m betting you didn’t.)
Isn’t the CAF√â loophole the real reason you are pushing flex-fuel vehicles?
Beth:
I have more faith in General Motors and DuPont to solve our energy problems than in the Federal Government. Between General Motors’ fuel cell, hybrid, and flex fuel efforts and DuPont’s butanol effort, hopefully the United States can become energy self sufficient and we can improve the environment at the same time. Keep up the good work and make sure you protect General Motors’ technology. I remember reading that General Motors lent the Federal Government an early model of a catalytic converter (technology General Motors developed) and the Federal Government showed it to Japanese auto executives who made drawings and photographed it and eventually copied it. I believe General Motors’ attempted to collect patent infringement damages, but the Federal Government threw this case out because the Japanese automotive companies copied an older General Motors’ design and that General Motors moved on to a newer design for production catalytic converters. Keep in mind some companies are not as honest as General Motors and would use unscrupulous means to get your technology. Remember how Volkswagen obtained General Motors’ secrete documents when Lopez defected to Volkswagen? Make sure your proprietary knowledge is protected and beat Honda to the market with superior, patented fuel cell technology. I do not want to put too much pressure on you, but the future of General Motors and our Country is depending on General Motors leading the way on the fuel technology shift coming in the automobile industry.
Respectfully,
Eric Matthew Vest
Beth: Good to see GM pointing out some of its accomplishments and the shortcomings of government trying to legislate solutions.
Can you elaborate on Myth 1 and provide some information on the recently announced Saturn Aura Green Line Mild Hybrid and more importantly the VUE Twin Mode Hybrid with a reported 45% reduction in fuel use.
It would also help if GM could give some MPG figures for the new SAAB BioPower 1.8L with Power/MPG maximized for use with E-85. This is supposed to close the MPG gap E-85 has with gasoline.
More information on the E-100 capable SAAB BioPower would also be appreciated.
Myth 2: Think you covered this well and was the first time I have seen the CAFE results quantified this way and compared to E-85’s superior benefits.
You need to add Myth 3
“E-85 from Corn is the only alternative fuel” or something like that.
I have spent some time investigating alternative fuels and what sources they may use and found:
Ethanol (as well as BioDiesel) can (and will) be made from a large variety of plant matter and many that are non food based including trees, grasses and food processing waste.
Animal waste from processing plants, sewage plants and land fills can also be utilized – cleaning the environment while providing cleaner burning fuel and jobs for Americans.
Waste oil from restaurants, junkyards and industrial plants can also be used.
And these examples are just the beginning and do not account for the efficiency gains or using solar power for production.
Granted we are not where we need to be, but in a few short years the progress has been amazing.
The U.S. needs to focus on Alternative Fuel production like we did with the Space Program in the 1960’s, if we do this not only will the U.S. be oil independent it can be the largest “Energy” exporter in the world.
Things have changed since CAFE rules were enacted 30 years ago. Before, energy was the nation’s problem, now, it’s GM’s problem. Energy distribution and supply now more than ever effects GM directly in three key areas.
1. Growth
2. Survival
3. Profitability
Now more than ever before, there is a direct relationship between energy and GM in these 3 areas. We as GM’s supporters would have wished you did not wait until energy supplies got to such a critical point before you responded to the slowly tightening noose. Now alternative fuel vehicles are a necessity not an option.
It is also apparent that the energy supply does not affect all automakers equally. True, an energy problem is everyone’s problem, but price spikes, supply disruptions and exponential growth in demand in a word, it’s GM’s problem.
So what do we do?
1. A diversified portfolio is a must, and ignoring the sub-compact and mini car market in some vain attempt to help trucks has to stop. We need the Opel Corsa in America just as much as we need the Suburban.
Just remember what I told you, the customer wants one thing – EVERYTHING. We want our cake and we want to eat it too, and we want to sell it on ebay.
2. Diversified propulsion technology. I will say it till I am blue in the face, GM needs to take and/or keep the lead in HEED. Hybrid, Hydrogen, Ethanol, Electric and Diesel.
Bottom Line!!
This battle cannot be won on a single front. But let us envision a day when GM can switch power trains between electric and diesel or hybrid and hydrogen as easily as it switches an Enclave with an Acadia on the assembly line. And may those diverse power trains become just as prolific.
Your growth, profitability and survival depend on it.
So, the Chevy Volt really was PR. You need a 400 pound battery to go 40 miles? You’ll get better returns with a larger battery and no engine. Did you fire all the battery and motor engineers? Or not have any in the first place? Or just not make them understand the point is to put product in consumers hands? Or maybe you really don’t want to bring this to market. A hybrid is much more complex and costly than a straight electric (with a rented genset or aux. battery trailer for long trips) and you know that. Don’t forget, you’re General Motors, not General Engines. If you put half the effort into producing the next generation cars that you do in resisting quality (of life) standards, you’d be a profitable company. I’m rooting for you.
Regarding oil supply & demand…
We can’t dictate policies to the global markets, put price can.
For the supply side, things are array here in the states. We allowed our big oil companies to merge. They now have no incentive to grab market share, pass along cost savings, or invest in new supplies & technologies.
To top that our irrelevant President only goes to bat for big oil, drugs, & banks in the international arena. Secretary of State Henry Paulson are always going to bat for opening up “capital” markets in China. I don’t see his automotive agenda in hand.
So in summary consider this… GM should get into the energy & oil business.
Start by building a refinery for a key market. The time is right to get environmental waivers. Line up the oil. Sell direct without dealers to control the sell price. Undercut the competition in price with a small number of stations in the selected market. You can’t lose, either the profits will be there with oil prices or big oil will drop their prices to squash you in that market. That would make you the good guys, the public would see this. Prius would be nothing compared to that.
Looks like all outcomes are winning propositions for an automotive manufacturer of large vehicles.
Dear Beth,
to achieve a further reduction of pollution GMNA also should promote a fuel, which already can be used on vehicles from Chevrolet Germany, Cadillac Europe and, in the meanwhile, as an after-sales extension, from Opel.
Well, the following website is in German, but chemical symbols are international, consequently it should be possible for anybody to interpret the chart on this website. Enjoy!
http://www.auto-zentrum-friedberg.de/autogas_umweltfreundlicher.htm
Remark: “Euro IV” is our most restrictive standard for exhaust-gases over here so far.
Not the correct spot for this but I could not resist. What a great ad for OnStar and GM:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/03/21/onstar.cdc.ap/index.html
This is why OnStar, with its low monthly fee, is BETTER THAN a DVD navigation with its high up-front cost.
Cheers,
Chris (Toronto)
“CAFE didn’t work because of the laws of unintended consequences. Since vehicles got better gas mileage, over time people were enabled to move further and further from city centers and their places of work.”…
-this is an excellent point. I wanted to add to this discussion something that I think is often overlooked. While fuel consumption is by and large a topic of grave concern for many here, I think you also need to look into the primary cause of the rise. The quote above scratches the surface of what’s really going on which is that the US in general has grown outwards and away from the cities.
This is particularly true in heavily metropolitan areas like the Northeast and West Coast regions. Simply put- the metro cores are now too expensive for most middle income residents ( 650k median house price in California) therefore people must now commute incredibly far distances to and from work just so that they can afford to live in a home of their own.
This sounds simple, but I believe it to be the root of a fundamental infrastructure problem. It now takes very little time for the average person to rack up 200k+ miles on their vehicle- a number that was almost unheard of just 20 years ago. The current infrastructure is not sustainable.
That’s why I think many US communities need to start investing in community development that encourages smarter growth patterns that presents a more viable means for people to live closer to their jobs in housing that is within their reach and requires less time on the roads and freeways. The less people drive, the less fuel they will use.In other words, investigate why certain communities don’t work well for people.
The more carefully planned a community is, the less likely there will be property bubbles that cause unhealthy stratification and socioeconomic disparity. Less economic disparity means more money in the consumer’s pockets in which they can spend on things- like cars for example.
Of course all along we also need to be focusing on fuel economy and alternative fuel derivatives. But at the same time we need to start investigating the cause of some of the rise in consumption. In my opinion, the research starts at home. Literally.
Energy security – start with the basics: have a strong 4-cylinder engine line-up in North America, not the coarse engines which are constant subject to criticism in automotive reviews. There should be many sizes, with turbo variants for the Sport models. The Solstice GXP gets better mileage than its naturally aspirated counter-part! No good reason not to have a 1.6 turbo in the Astra Red Line from the start, rather than injecting some ’sport’ into a dull car later in its lifecycle.
Beth,
Let’s look more closely at your claim that E85 saves fuel. Using the EPA figures for a flex-fuel 4WD Chevy Tahoe I found the following:
Now let’s imagine you were to take a hypothetical trip of 210 miles in that flex-fuel Tahoe.
—————————————-
Now the big question – how much energy does burning those 14 gallons of E85 consume? Was it more, less, or the same as the energy in the 10 gallons of gasoline?
How much energy was consumed making those 11.9 gallons of ethanol?
The EROEI of making corn ethanol
The generally accepted value for the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of making ethanol is now about 1.2 to 1. (That means a farmer and ethanol plant get back 1.2 units of energy in the form of ethanol for an investment of 1 unit of energy – usually in the form of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and diesel.)
Using the EROEI of 1.2 to 1, that means someone had to invest energy equal to 9.9 gallons of fossil fuels. (9.9 x 1.2 = 11.9) to make the 11.9 gallons of ethanol in those 14 gallons of E85.
Now here’s the kicker: When your Tahoe burned 14 gallons of E85 on that hypothetical trip, it would have actually burned 2.1 gallons of gasoline plus the energy of the 9.9 gallons of fossil fuel used to make that 11.9 gallons of ethanol.
Summary
I’m not confident of your claim that we could save any fossil fuel energy if all E85 capable vehicles actually burned E85.
Best regards,
Gary Dikkers
“Today, more than half of the electricity generated in the United States comes from coal.”
Source: U.S. Energy Dept.
This makes a “All Electric” car a poor solution for the near future.
The Volt which for some who may not have heard is still on track for a 2010 introduction date. The fact the Volt can have it’s gas or diesel engine recharge the batteries enable the Volt to be taken cross-country with confidence.
In the interim GM will offer the Aura Greenline 28/35 MPG before the end of 2007 for under $22,000 (with tax credit) which is comparable to a base Camry.
There will also be Two Mode Hybrid models of:
VUE
Equinox
Acadia
Outlook
Enclave
Silverado
Sierra
Tahoe
Yukon
Suburban
and if I am not mistaken
Malibu
Aura
G6
Torrent
I would bet that is more hybrid models than any other automaker and does not include the millions of E-85 capable vehicles GM will offer.
It is disturbing to see the amount of criticism of Alternative Fuels that is based upon old information or “projected” information based on Chemical theory not Bio-Chemical. These people have given up on a technology that has not even gotten started, it is like criticizing the Wright Brothers for not inventing Jet aircraft.
If any of these “experts” would take time to investigate all potential sources of fuel along with number of different types of fuels that can be derived from them they might have a different perspective.
They also need to consider that 10 years from now the alternative fuel industry will be much more efficient than it is now and the refusal to embrace it today will only delay the inevitable advances in this field.
CAFE standards will have little effect on fuel use for at least 10 years. It takes 12 to 20 years to replace the fleet of cars in the U.S. – we do not have that much time to waste.
Until we get very serious about alternative fuels we will have an oil problem.
The oil companies would love us to give them a reason to only pump out the “easy and cheap” oil reserves which is exactly what will happen. If the U.S. cut it’s oil use in half tommorrow all of the sudden there would only be half as much oil available. We to often forget how expensive oil exploration is and only the current price make it worth the cost.
Alternative Fuels are our future it is time we made it our top priority, the oil companies already have.
this doesn’t answer anything!!!
Hi Gary,
you might be interested in reading this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E85#Life_cycle_impact_of_E85_on_greenhouse_gas_emissions
The Swedish government at least seriously announced the target, to do without crude oil-imports after 2020.
Today I found something interesting. The European CO2-Rating (about 350g/km) for the VW Touareg Diesel (4.9 V10, 309 HP) is the same like for the Corvette Z06 (7.0 V8, 505 HP). Well, the Corvette is just a two-seater, but, as you can see, its engine provides nearly 200 HP more (2.1 liters higher displacement) than the Touareg. Presuming that these official numbers are realistic to a certain degree, to me this looks like a further evidence that Diesels, at least as we know them until today, are not green at all.
Rick:
Would you care to elaborate on exactly what a “Two Mode Hybrid” is?
That’s why I think putting the tax on fossil fuels, based on emissions, as it enters the system would be the best bet. That way the price of E85 would reflect the total cost of creating it, not just the subsidized cost.
Hi Noel,
regarding to your question to Rick, I also would like to recommend the following report:
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Columns/articleId=116387
The perception is that GM is resisting change, reluctant to improve economy, propping up its formerly lucrative large SUV and big truck market. No wonder you oppose raising CAFE averages – it might cut into your precious big SUV sales!
GM didn’t consider hybrids until Toyota and Honda had several profitable hybrid models. GM dismissed electrics until Tesla Motors successful introduction.
Interesting to note that the Toyota Prius has outsold the entire Hummer line every single year it was on sale. Perhaps GM should become a little more fuel efficiency minded and a little less huge monster vehicle minded.
Gereon said:
Danke sehr Gereon,
However, that website talks only about greenhouse gas emissions. When considering E85 there are at least two factors at play:
E85 may burn cleaner at the tailpipe, but when one considers that E85 is now blended using primarily corn ethanol, it is actually a terrible polluter.
The industrial corn (maize) farming used to grow the feedstock for almost all the ethanol now used in the U.S. is becoming an environmental disaster.
Those factory farms must use massive amounts of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer made by the Haber-Bosch process using natural gas a feedstock. The residue of that fertilizer then runs off into the watershed, polluting streams, water tables, rivers, and in fact, it now goes all the way into the Gulf of Mexico.
The same is true of the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides made from fossil fuel feedstock. The residue from that also runs off into the watershed, with atrazine being one of the worst.
The final point is the degradation of the soil from overuse. At one time Midwest farmers followed the practice of crop rotation, even occasionally letting a field lay fallow for a season allowing it to rebound. Their yields weren’t impressive by today’s standards, but those farmers were true stewards of the earth and their farms were sustainable without needing massive amounts of energy in the form of synthetic fertilizers and agricultural chemicals.
All that has gone by the way with industrial corn farming. And what’s worse, more and more of those industrial farms are now planting “corn-on-corn” never giving the soil the chance to recover. They instead rely on massive amounts of energy-intensive and polluting chemicals (made from fossil fuels) to keep alive what would otherwise fast become depleted, sterile soil.
It took tens of thousands of years for nature to build up the fertile, deep soil the American Corn Belt and Grain Belt were blessed with, but now factory farms are “mining the soil” and the only thing keeping that soil alive is the massive amounts of chemicals they must apply.
So while E85 may look good on the surface, deeper analysis shows it to be a dead end because:
Those who tout what may seem clean burning E85 have to look beyond the tailpipe and consider the total environmental effect of the industrial corn farming used to supply the feedstock for the ethanol.
Best regards,
Gary Dikkers
By the way: You are correct about the benefits of LPG and CNG as auto fuels. It would make much more sense to use natural gas directly as a fuel rather than to go through the complicated (and energy intensive) scheme of using that natural gas to make synthetic fertilizers, then using that fertilizer to grow corn, and then using more natural gas to form that corn into ethanol.
GLD
Comments on some comments:
“When you calculated that we would save 37 billion gallons of fuel, did you also take into account the fossil fuel energy (natural gas, coal, and diesel fuel) used to grow corn and reform that into ethanol. (I’m betting you didn’t.)”
Of course not. It wouldn’t look quite so impressive. That reminds me of the comparison between gasoline and electrics, when the gasoline transportation was ignored and the electricity needed to run the refineries was overlooked – the electricity needed to make a gallon of gas would propel an average car almost as far as a gallon of gas! So, switching from gas to electrics would save petroleum but, paradoxically, wouldn’t take much more electricity!
“Did you fire all the battery and motor engineers?”
No, but when the EV1 was canceled, many left, including their best and brightest, Alan Cocconi, who founded AC Propulsion. His Reductive Charger design was a clever way to re-use the motor inverter components for charging, thus cutting costs. His ‘Vehicle to Grid’ idea is a way to stabilize the power grid and make you money when your EV is plugged in. AC Propulsion technology is found in many current EV and hybrid vehicles, including the famous Tesla Roadster. GMs loss is Teslas gain.
“GM should get into the energy & oil business.”
Very Bad Idea. There would be no incentive to improve fuel economy if they also sold the fuel, nor would it do much for the price of fuel. Besides, with biofuels, the far lower price of electricity and the introduction of electrics and plug-in hybrids, the petroleum fuel industry will soon experience a downturn. Don’t feel sorry for the oil companies – in the long run, petrochemicals will be much more profitable.
“Would you care to elaborate on exactly what a “Two Mode Hybrid” is?”
Like the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive, the GM Two Mode Hybrid is a full hybrid system, capable of running on batteries, the IC engine, or both at once. Two Mode Hybrid uses 2 motor/generators, 2 planetary gearsets, 3 clutches, a large high voltage battery and electronic controls to replace the transmission, starter motor and alternator. Hybrid Synergy Drive uses 2 motor/generators, 1 planetary gearset, no clutches, a large high voltage battery and electronic controls to replace the transmission, starter motor and alternator.
Each has an advantage: Hybrid Synergy Drive is simpler, lighter and cheaper, Two Mode Hybrid has more low speed torque for towing and slightly higher efficiency at high speeds. That makes the Toyota design better for cars and small SUVs, the GM design is better for busses, large trucks and large SUVs. GM should make a cross-licensing agreement with Toyota, so GM could use the Hybrid Synergy design in their cars and Toyota could use the Two Mode design in their trucks.
Sorry, that’s off topic, though this is an important message. Obviously Toyota’s plan, also to conquer the Truck-segment has to face a setback…
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=120084
Hi Gary,
thanks for your response. Well, I think there’s a major difference between Sweden and the US. If I am not mistaken, Sweden plans to produce ethanol from biological leavings, e. g. waste from forestry.
Yesterday I heard on TV, that countries like Russia, Iran, Bolivia and others are planning to create a CNG-cartel, similar to the OPEC. I fear this could have tremendous impact on CNG-prices. So I think, LPG is the better alternative, since we produce it on our own. A few weeks ago I even heard of submarine bacteria, which are able to produce Propane… LPG, after all, contributes to a 20%-decrease of CO2 on each vehicle.
I agree with Katie, 3/21, 11:05 PM. Ms. Lowrey’s post just shows that the ongoing state of denial in GM is alive and well.
As to Mr. Lutz’s famous crack about obesity and clothing sizes, I let it go the first time I saw it, but not again. I find it to be another prime expression of the abovementioned state of denial, and an insult to my intelligence.
If this atitude doesn’t change, we won’t be worrying about this blog in another 10 years.
As this thread continues, however I begin to feel much better. The brilliant comments of Katie, Gereon, CM, and the always right on target Gary Dikkers and Paul saved the day for me GM is damned lucky to have you guys to keep holding up the mirror of reality in the face of spin.
One more time – you guys are AWESOME.
Thank you Rick Lupori for your educational comments as well, and anyone else whose name I may have inadvertently forgotten. Amazing.
I had no idea the “Two Mode” hybrids would be as sophisticated as CM explains above. They may propel us to buy a new car yet. “Two Mode” Equinox? My wife could get really interested in that.
Do we have any idea when that may arrive?
Hi Gereon:
Thanks for the informative link to Edmunds on the “Two Mode Hybrid”.
If Rick’s list of candidates for this system is right (and Edmunds’ list for that matter), my only concern is that it is also neded in a small car to produce the really high, Prius fighter, champion mileage numbers. Cobalt? Corsa?
Dear Noel,
the Chevy Tahoe will come up as a High-Low-Hybrid later this year. I would have to research first, but maybe other GM-Vehicles are pending. Whether this system will be available for compact vehicles probably depends on the costs for a High-Low-Hybrid. But even a so-called mild hybrid would be more than many other manufacturers will provide in the near future. I think the Saturn Aura Green Line already is a very serious competitor to the Prius, since the Aura simply provides much more value for the money at a lower sticker-price. Today I was reading a comparison test at the AutoWeek. The Aura also was beating the Camry.
Thank you for the compliments. You deserve them, too. Have a nice weekend.
I find it interesting, as another poster mentioned, that you said vehicles on the road doubled, miles driven doubled, but gasoline consumption only increased 60%, not 100% like the other two. Seems CAFE has worked great, and we need to increase the standards, especially since the technology (hybrids, diesel) is already there. GM, the more you fight CAFE, and the more you stall on the Volt, the worse you look to the public. And why do you offer no compact car hybrid? Are you on the oil companies payroll or something?
If GM really cared about “Energy Security,” it would have produced and sold a competitive small car steadily since the early 1970s oil embargo. And GM would have had the great reputation that many Japanese makers earned now. Imagine the market share gains by the competition that you would have prevented.
Instead, the out-of-touch suits at GM just continued business as usual. What is business as usual? Marketing functional, mediocre, and inconsistent small cars, not to mention amazing, sustained incompetence in management decisions.
Even now, the media articles are stating you’re trying to STOP the buzz about the Volt hybrid, because it simply won’t work because the “fantasy magical battery” you based it on simply doesn’t exist. For the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, can you create a car that could run on a banana? I mean, as soon as unleaded bananas can be invented?
After thinking about this a bit, I think that one could make a case that CAFE has actually been good for GM.
If not for CAFE, I’m pretty sure that GM’s fleet average would be lower than it is today. If so, GM would be getting beat up on by the usual suspects even worse than it is now.
I spent $70 (all the cash I had on me) to put 3/4 of a tank of regular in our 2006 Silverado yesterday. $3.03/gal at ARCO – the cheapest I could find.
It is a great truck, and a huge value for the money. We have to have it for our business, and the gas is a deductible business expense. Even so, it felt like getting punched in the stomach.
That experience is going to make a lot of people with other options think 2 or 3 times about using Silverados or Suburbans (or F150s or Expeditions) for fashion statement personal transportation.
Wait for it.
just thought i would mention the fact that the increased price in corn as a result of its use as a fuel will cause people to starve. espically in mexico and latin america. because of NAFTA, farmers in these countries cannot compete with american farmers who have the best land, technology and resources at their disposal. it is cheaper for them to buy american grown corn than to grow it themselves. this has led to a drop in domestic (for them) production. as americans begin to use more and more corn for fuel, the amount that is sold as food drops.
even if its not corn that we are fueling are cars with, the use of farmland will transition to non-foodstuffs such as switchgrass, sugar cane ect. there will still be a drop in food production.
the laws of supply and demand affect price but people need a fixed amount of food to survive. the day is not far away when people will be starving because americans have long commutes.
damn those unintended consequences
Gereon said,
Gereon,
Good for those clever Swedes. They are probably lucky corn (maize) doesn’t grow well in the Scandinavian latitudes.
Don’t know if you have been to the U.S., but in the middle of our country you can drive for miles across Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska and see nothing but corn from fencerow to fencerow. (If the farmers haven’t removed the fences so they plant corn from road to road. In some places the corn grows so close to the roads, it creates dangerous conditions late in the summer when the corn is 4 meters high and blocks visibility. By the way, corn that is 4 meters high only because of genetically-modified hybrid seeds, and the massive amount of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas our farmers use.)
Unfortunately, corn is almost the only feedstock our ethanol industry yet uses. Companies and universities are doing research to make ethanol from cellulose, switchgrass, garbage, wood, and many other sources, but none of those are near fruition and it may be years until they are practical and economical.
For the foreseeable future the U.S. ethanol industry will be dependent on corn as their feedstock.
What is ironic is that those who consider ethanol as a clean, sustainable, renewable fuel don’t consider the environmentally destructive, energy-intensive industrial farming now used to grow the corn to make that ethanol.
The truth is that corn ethanol is neither sustainable nor renewable, and that factory farming to grow corn for ethanol is a growing environmental disaster. Chemical runoff, soil depletion, and depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska, Kansas, Northern Texas, Eastern Colorado, Eastern Wyoming, and South Dakota are only a few of the adverse effects we must endure so GM can sell flex-fuel SUVs to take advantage of the CAFÉ loophole.
Many times you have stated the advantages of LPG as an auto fuel. We would be much better off had we instead devoted the resources we have poured into corn ethanol into a nationwide LPG infrastructure.
Regards,
Gary Dikkers
Noel Park said,
Noel,
Thanks for your confidence. Posts on this blog may make you feel better, but I have no expectation that anyone in a decision making capacity at GM HQ actually reads them.
I’ve been periodically checking this blog since first finding it a few months ago, and I have yet to see Lutz, Harris, Peper, Lowery, or any of the others respond — either to insightful, thoughtful comments, or to flamers.
My guess is this blog is no more than a tool their marketing department thought up, and is more than likely a pain in the neck to the decisions makers when the marketing department asks them to contribute entries.
The most we can hope for is that they sometimes have an intern read the thoughtful entries you and others have made and then compile an Executive Summary that ends up in a file somewhere.
I’d like to think otherwise, but being realistic I don’t.
Best regards,
Gary Dikkers
I would like to take this opportunity to nominate Gary Dikkers to the Board of Directors of General Motors.
Gary:
Well I hope against hope that you are wrong.
I give somebody some credit for posting your comment anyway, let alone some of mine.
If you are right, which about 51% of me says you are, at least, when the final implosion comes, nobody can say we didn’t try.
A while back, I posted a note about how GM needs to take a page from JFK’s book and “throw its hat over the wall.” The next post was from Bob Lutz about GM’s “Moon Shot.” So, at the very least, someone told Bob about my posts.
Hey! What about me?!?
Beth said:
Why would you say that?
The average vehicle fuel economy in Europe is 43 mpg. If our CAFE average was equal to their’s — instead of being only a bit more than half that — we would have to import almost no oil for auto fuel.
Since 1984 I’ve owned and driven a Mercedes diesel that averaged about 45-48 mpg, and now drive a VW TDI that gets about the same. I can’t believe the technology to do that is a mystery to you and is something only the European auto companies can master.
If Citroen, Pugeot, Daimler, VW, Fiat, and the other Euro-auto makers have learned how to do that, why is it such a burden for GM?
Could it be that it’s more a matter of attitude than technology that keeps you from pushing our CAFE up, and why you and your lobbyists constantly tell Congress it would be unprofitably expensive?
Regards,
Gary Dikkers
By the year 2020 less than 20% of ethanol will come from corn (kernels).
Ethanol does not have to be made from corn or use fossil fuels in the production process.
Ethanol is one of ten (10) available RENEWABLE Alternative Energy Fuels.
Ethanol
Butanol
Bio-Diesel
Solar
Wind
Biomass to Electric
Coal Gasification
Algae to Alternative Fuel
Hydrogen
Battery (recharge from Solar)
Six (6) of these
Solar
Wind
Biomass to Electric
Algae to Alternative Fuel
Hydrogen
Battery (recharge from Solar)
Can be used to produce the other four.
AND
Certain production methods of nine (9) of the ten RENEWABLE Alternative Fuels can use Waste products that currently create environmental problems as a Base.
Penn State has recently created a Fuel Cell that can use sewer water to create electricity at the rate of 18 watts per 260 gallons of water at a charge efficiency of 70 percent. It also cleans the water as it produces electricity using bacteria that already exists in the waste water and a simple carbon fiber brush with tubular cathodes. Please consider this is new technology and the effiency will only improve.
Purdue University has developed “hybrid hydrogen-carbon process” (H2CAR) using “Carbon-Free” energy sources the will enable the U.S. create enough fuel to meet ALL OF THE NATION’S ANNUAL TRANSPORTATION needs. This process uses NON-FOOD based Biomass of agricultural and forest waste requiring less than 10 percent of the U.S. land mass.
Cellulosic Ethanol (Butanol and Bio-Diesel) enables the use of Wheat and Corn Stalks (non-food portion of the plant.) as a base.
MIT has developed Algae based technologies that can create a variety of alternative fuels while cleaning exhaust emissions.
Note that both Penn State and Pudue are located in Corn producing areas yet have developed RENEWABLE alternative fuels that do not use corn as a base.
These are just a few of the hundreds of renewable alternative fuels that have been developed in the last few years. Additionally more efficient powertrains like the BAS, Two Mode, BioPower, Plug In and E-Flex Hybrids GM has or is developing will reduce of need for oil. Our oil needs are also reduced by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the GM Sequel and more efficient conventional powertrains like Direct Injected Gas engines, advanced Diesels and AFM.
When renewable alternative fuels are looked at with an open mind and the patience to wait the 2 to 5 years it will take to build the facilities needed to produce and distribute the fuels, our energy future looks bright.
I still believe in our farmers, scientists and engineers to delvelop whatever we need.
When i bought my first new chevy,1953 210 2 door coupe,the car cost was $1300 and gas was $.25 a gallon. now that gas is $2.50 a gallon and a equivalent car would be a Cobalt at $13,000 seems like the price of gasoline is right in line with inflation. i think a lot of people think gasoline still should be $.25 a gallon
Paul:
You bet! It would be another huge step in the right direction.
Be careful what you ask for, you might get it!
I don’t really care about the price of gasoline. I could even stand to see it go up a bit.
I care more about climate change. Using gasoline and ethanol (as it’s currently made) puts greenhouse gases into the air that weren’t there before. If someone wants to drive a huge vehicle that’s powered by entirely renewable fuel, that’s fine.
Also, I don’t want to waste my money. Gasoline, as I see it, isn’t an end product. I don’t buy gas so that I can enjoy it. I don’t keep it in jars on my mantle because it’s nice to have around. I buy gas so that I can get to things that I’d rather be spending my money on. The less money I spend getting to somewhere, the more money I can spend enjoying my time there.
The same goes for my car. I don’t want a work of art or a race car or a luxury sitting room. I want something that’s comfortable and efficient and can reliably get me from A to B for as little money as possible.
Now, I don’t expect gasoline or ethanol to go down in price, so it would be nice to be able to buy a newer car that gets better mileage, so the price I pay to move me and my family and my stuff around decreases.
Motorman:
Long term gasoline prices have gone down over time when adjusted for inflation. If the extraction companies are doing it right, the price should descend very slowly over its entire life until a major switching point. You can still buy a buggy whip, hay and horses. How do their inflation adjusted current price compare to when horses dominated rapid transportation?
Gas price is less of a factor in niche environmental vehicle purchase than you might assume. Actually building it and marketing it for hotness is more important. National security, that’s hot! (citation – Paris H.)
Rick Lupori, 3/26/ 10:32 PM:
Thanks for one of the most optimistic things I have seen in months! I needed that!
We all have to find ways to keep supplying positive reinforcement to help make it happen.
economist, 3/27, 11:32 PM:
I agree with you on gas prices and niche environmental vehicles. I have done the math umpteen different ways, and it does not even pencil out for our family to dump our paid for 15 mpg Impala SS (which has its own emotional content as well) and spend $25,000 for a 45 mpg hybrid. We drive it about 9000 miles a year, so it would take about 20 years to save back the money on $3.00/gallon gas. Eve so, show me a Volt and I’m there to buy it.
Once again, we would put down a substantial deposit today.
PS:
One more time – you guys are amazing.
I was just trying to compliment the brilliant comments of Gary and Paul by nominating them to the Board of Directors. The same goes for plenty of the rest of you as well. Clearly, I am probably the last person in the world who has any say on that issue.
On reflection though, it’s not a bad idea. How about a citizen advocate slot on the BOD? Plenty of these bloggers would be eminently qualified. The viewpoint and insight would be priceless. NOT ME, I hasten to add!
“Companies and universities are doing research to make ethanol from cellulose, switchgrass, garbage, wood, and many other sources, but none of those are near fruition and it may be years until they are practical and economical.” – Gary Dikkers
Hi Gary,
thank you again for your reply. I comprehend your explanations concerning the problems of E85-production from corn. Maybe it would be useful, if companies and scientists from the US would team up with corresponding institutions from Sweden. I haven’t been in Sweden yet, but all what we can read over here, is telling that Sweden obviously is very serious concerning its E85-efforts and seems to be well on track. If we can trust in media-reports, Sweden already might have found answers, referring to those sources for ethanol you mentioned above.
I used to visit the USA once so far. Two years ago we spent our vacation at my brother in Eastern Florida (Palm Beach County). During our sightseeing-tours I saw some sugar cane fields. My brother told me, that the demand for sugar cane has lowered, due to a declining consumption of Rum. If there are actually over-capacities, maybe these could be used for ethanol-production, either, since those fields are existing anyway.
Thank you for agreeing with me on my preference for LPG. I am absolutely convinced, it’s the best solution for conventional combustion-engines, since it’s very cheap, easy to handle and very low in pollutions. Maybe I should provide pictures of my LPG-driven Alero one day.
noel park on March 28, 2007 12:12 PM
Thank You for the kind words, you made my weekend.
I hope that more people try to find the positive in Alternative Fuels. They may not solve all of our oil problems – and they certainly will not do the tommorow and not with some problems along the way.
But – in 2-3 years (hopefully sooner) you will see them become more commonplace. To me the biggest benefit from them is not giving us energy independance or the thousands of jobs they will create.
It is the number of environmental waste problems they will help aleviate and the amount they can lower air pollutants.
I also hope it does not deter our diligence to lower our energy consumption.
In Los Angeles, butane is produced as a byproduct of oil refining. As there is no demand for it here, it is shipped to China.
I am not making this up.
Beth,
Approx when will there be an E85 capable Ecotec engine? You’ve introduced flex-fuel in 6 & 8 cylinders…don’t you think it’s the right time for those of us who prefer a 4 cylinder?
Thanks.
RH asked:
RH,
That’s a good question, but to understand the answer, you have to understand the real reason GM makes flex-fuels vehicles:
They don’t make them so drivers can save energy, or to be “green,” but because of the loophole in CAFE standards that allows them to drive their corporate average up — the bigger the vehicle they convert to flex-fuel, the more effect it has on their CAFE, and the more likely they can avoid having to pay the CAFE penalty.
In short, they get a big payback for spending a couple of hundred dollars to convert a V-8 SUV with low fuel economy to run on E85, but very little return for converting a four-cylinder car that already gets pretty good fuel economy to run on E85.
At the danger of being repetitive, once more this is how the CAFE loophole works:
Regards,
Gary Dikkers
I am not sure how GM arrived at the figure that Bluetec diesel saves only 20% of fuel with a 40% increase in cost. A Bluetec diesel car can easily get 41 mpg, which is better than a hybrid. You can sell it in USA or in Europe under the Opel brand.
First, I would like to second the nomination of Gary Dikkers to the GM board.
There are many good ideas on this board. GM’s continued resistance to increases in CAFE is very disheartening. As several people have mentioned, the stats given by Beth in the article actually show that CAFE works.
GM’s claim that compliance with the new CAFE would be impossible/prohibitively costly are total BS. If the standards are enforced on all automakers, any “costs” would not negatively effect any one firm.
You can still sell SUV’s with higher CAFE standards, just make them plug-in hybrids.
While it’s true that corn based ethanol has no future, it may get interest in ethanol up, and create enough demand and infrastructure that once better sources of ethanol are available, there will be an established market for them.
GM should have learned by now that fighting CAFE increases is a short-term solution, and a way for them to continue to do “business as usual”. Meanwhile, more forward-thinking firms (you know who I’m talking about) will just roll up their sleeves, develop more fuel efficient cars, and continue taking market share from GM.
Just putting clean diesels in their trucks, and hybrids in their cars would take care of everything.
Beth,
Approx when will there be an E85 capable Ecotec engine? You’ve introduced flex-fuel in 6 & 8 cylinders…don’t you think it’s the right time for those of us who prefer a 4 cylinder?
Thanks.
The US has a consumption problem and people don’t want to accept that. All of the solutions proposed by the government center around forcing automakers to produce unrealistic fuel efficiency gains instead of changing driving behavior. People in the US are completely car dependent and most trips are made with one person in the car. Blaming the automakers is the easy way out which is why the government and Prius owners love to go that route. Regardless of how many SUVs GM offers they aren’t forcing anyone to buy them or forcing people to drive 15k to 20k miles a year. Tax breaks for hybrids are a joke because most people that buy hybrids would’ve brought them without the tax rebate and thus the rebates do little to reduce our consumption of oil. The US needs to get serious about fostering increased population density and use of public transportation. Instead of tax breaks for hybrids there should be tax breaks for families with one car, people who drive less than 10k miles a year, people who dont own cars, people that use public transportation to commute, people that live in urban areas that are not car-centric, etc. Of course since no one wants to actually work to reduce the amount of driving we do I don’t expect any of these things to happen.
Reviewing some old posts and there are a couple of thing’s I’d like to add:
1. Despite what Gary Dikkers says, European countries have NO fuel economy standard at all, and until recently neither has anyone else. And yet, despite this they have managed to reduce fuel consumption much further. They have now though instituted a defacto economy standard by setting corporate CO2 targets, despite the abject failure of this model in the US. Politicians never learn, but then it isn’t about results, but the appearance of doing something. So how did they reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption without corporate targets? Strategies differed from country to country, but they boil down to two basic measures:
#1 tax gasoline like you tax tobacco—punitively. Nothing persuades consumers to buy more economical cars like a €200 fuel bill. Manufacturers don’t mind, they just charge $30K for a 1.8 L compact instead of a 3.6 L midsize, and people happily pay.
#2 place punitive taxes on larger engines. There have been different ways of doing this: calculating a purely nominal “fiscal” horsepower rating and taxing that—actually a protectionist measure aimed at driving out American cars with wider bores an shorter strokes; or placing punitive taxes on engines over a certain size, commonly 2.0 L—a measure aimed at punishing wealthy luxury car buyers, not improving fuel economy. The end result however was a market that favors smaller, more economical cars powered by smaller, more economical engines. Thus even today you’d be hard-pressed to find a European compact with an engine larger than 2.0 L. If necessary you increase rpm or use forced induction if you want more power, but you don’t use a larger engine, even if it would be cheaper or use less fuel. The Japanese did something similar with benefits for the development and sale of “small-size” cars with engines under 2.0 L, less than 4.7 m long and less than 1.7 m wide (which is why a Corolla is still just 1.695 mm wide when most compacts are closer to 1800 mm wide and sometimes more). Among other things they didn’t have to meet the same safety standards as “normal” size cars. In any case better fuel economy was the end result, although remember that larger European cars generally use more fuel than comparable American models. BMW and Mercedes etc. have regularly paid penalties for not meeting CAFE, while American manufacturers have not had to.
Such effective measures for increasing fuel economy are well documented and supported by most automakers, including Ford and GM. They know that someone who previously bought a $30K car will most likely still buy a $30K car even if high fuel prices or registration and insurance fees force them to look at a more economical vehicle. Smaller car, for the same money? For automakers this spells $$$$$ What’s not to like? What they don’t like is being told they have to meet certain targets when consumers don’t have a consistent reason to buy more economical cars. Even under cash for clunkers people bought more F150s than they did Corollas, and more Corollas than the plethora of more economical compacts (in a recent comparison the Corolla came 11th out of 13 compacts—it’s small, thirsty, underpowered and unrefined compared to newer more sophisticated models such as the Mazda3, Civic and Cruze). For one thing if you have a really old truck a more efficient new F150 might get you the maximum rebate anyway, and without higher fuel prices, people are less concerned about lowering their fuel bills.
2. GM continues to add more E85 capable engines across its lineup. All midsize cars now offer an E85 capable V6, at least for fleet orders. It’s not powerful, but it is economical. An E85 version of the 2.4 L Ecotec is standard on the Malibu and Aura and optional on the HHR. The E85 version of the 2.2 L Ecotec is standard on the HHR.