Green Cars Are Getting a Lot of Press Lately and it is About Time We See Some Real Changes!

Green cars are coming on strong in the new model year 2010. I visited the Cleveland auto show I specifically visited with sales people from every company representing some kind of electric car, and the thing I came away with was that what we are seeing this year is just the beginning of something really big coming down the line. All the big companies are building at least one platform that will be their test market model. This is going to be good for consumers since the competition in this area is set to heat up really fast.

We are on the brink of a veritable revolution in battery technology, and the hybrid options are already quite impressive even at this early stage of the game. I was pleased to see how many full size vehicles are getting the gas electric hybrid treatment these days. Another strong field moving up fast is the plug in electric car with more than a few entries this year and more promised for next year. The newer batteries in these cars are supposed to last longer on the road and charge faster than their predecessors.

A great many companies are offering hybrids and eco friendly cars this year than ever before. I saw BMW, Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, Nissan, and many others offering at least one Hybrid car, and many of these for the first time. One of the coolest little cars I saw was this little run about called the "Wheego 2010 Whip" which is a plug in electric car. These are for sale right now, and are starting to get around. The downside to these is that they are what is called Low Speed Vehicle, and these are not legal on roads with speed limits higher than 25 mph. This one rule severely limits their ability to really make a dent in the all electric market. Darn the big oil companies and their high priced lobbyists for limiting our ability to own and use super efficient cars like this. As it stands now these are like really expensive golf carts.

So where do you even begin if you are seriously in the market for an eco friendly green car? You can go with the tried and true standards that you know work well, and a good starting point there would obviously be the Toyota Prius. There are only a few downsides to this car, and the biggest one is that it is a not a very big car. Many Americans simply will not fit behind the wheel of this extremely green but fairly small car.

At the opposite end of the green spectrum you can now get your green fix on the construction site with a Chevrolet Silverado pickup that oddly gets almost exactly the same miles per gallon on the highway as it does in the city. Mileage is 22 mpg on the highway and 21 in the city. It is still a very cool idea to hybridize a full size pickup truck since this opens up an entirely new market for auto makers to explore.

One of the most dichotomous cars at the auto show was the Hybrid Escalade. I just can't wrap my head around the idea of this super huge SUV being a Hybrid. It makes sense to offer the upper class soccer moms their shot at saving the world, but this just seems to be one of those extremes which made very little sense to me. Maybe this is an inroad to making the world a safer and happier place but I just can't see us getting there in an insanely giant SUV that is somehow magically going green. I guess what troubles me here is the gas engine is still a big V8. It would appear that we are supposed to be going away from these giant engines.

If you have ever been in a luxurious sedan there is nothing like the craftsmanship in the leather and other interior appointments but when you learn that what you see before you is a $90K Mercedes Benz S400 Hybrid that gets 21 mpg city and 26 on the highway, then you have to stop and wonder why would they do this? It is not like the owner of a car this expensive can't afford the fuel bill. It seems to me that the big companies are using this technology to round out their fleet with a car or two that can help them meet those sticky little federally mandated efficiency guidelines across their entire line of cars. Think about it, here is this super luxurious sedan that is both a hybrid and has 295 horsepower. It just seems odd to me.

Now there are some legitimately cool eco cars out there and most of them are improving over time. One of the best models to show up lately has been the Honda Civic Hybrid. At a whopping 40 mpg city and 45 on the highway (estimated) it is obvious these guys get what the green revolution is all about. These are the kinds of efficiency gains that we were promised and darn them all we want it and we want it now!

Anyone with a vehicle in this size and class hybrid that is giving us less than 30mpg highway should get out of that market immediately. Quit messing around and go back to what you are good at.

It is very simple math that if the Lexis HS250 H, a luxury sedan Hybrid can achieve 35 mpg city and 34 mpg highway then there is not a single reason that any of the offerings from GM, Ford, and Chrysler can't at least hit 30 mpg. This is a smart move for Lexus because a lot of the buyers who can afford the price of a Lexus also want to show their friends how socially responsible they are. What better way to do this than to show up in your super efficient hybrid luxury sedan. This is what I would call going green in style.

Nissan has altered the Altima into a hybrid which is not quite getting super sipper status on the mileage front, but it is a step in the right direction. This is a great platform to build their hybrid program from. It is a well established model with a strong loyal customer following.

The amazing thing I saw was the huge number of Hybrids that are now available. It seems that everyone has found some way to package a standard car into a Hybrid model and they are trying to tap into the Green marketing thing. The really sad part of this is the cars which have this Hybrid technology don't really get that much better mileage than a similarly equipped car with a high efficiency four cylinder engine.

It seems to me that the auto industry needs to put more Research and Development money into the Green technologies than they have in the past. It is obvious that Hybrids work, but what are they doing to improve the fuel economy in them? Many of them like the Ford and Mercury hybrids have been stuck at similar mpg ratings for two or more years in a row.

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