It’s Easy Being Green

By: Kristen Tomaiolo
Posted In: News

Sitting down in a 2006 Toyota Prius, Catherine Zipf, associate professor of Cultural and Historic Preservation at Salve Regina, was like a 16-year-old learning to drive for the first time, examining the keyless vehicle with its new buttons and video screens, but so was the salesman. Zipf zipped down the windy roads of Bristol and Barrington glancing ever so frequently at the video screens reading the numbers trying to get the highest possible gas mileage.

“It was like a video game,” said Zipf. “I love my Prius, I can’t say it enough.”

Unhesitatingly, Zipf purchased the Prius that day in February 2006. She waited two months for her special request of red body coat.

Zipf is one of thousands jumping on the hybrid vehicle bandwagon that has made a ripple in the United States.. Hybrid technology is not new to the world of automobiles. Ferdinand Porsche first introduced hybrid technology in 1899. However with environment concerns and soaring fuel prices, Honda and Toyota launched their Hybrid car models in 1993 in Japan and 1999 in the United States. Recently, current pressures have resulted in higher demand.

Nationwide, the number of Americans buying hybrids, which can run on a gasoline engine or an electric motor, has sky-rocketed with sales jumping 28 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to nationwide auto registration data compiled by R.L. Polk & Co. The data reported consumers bought 254,545 hybrids last year as gasoline prices hit $3 per gallon, up from 199,148 in 2005. No longer strangers on the road, 18,965 hybrids have been bought in America and 28,850 globally since January 2007.

According to Paul Mika, owner of Toyota of Newport, he always suggests his customers look at a hybrid, which in turn leads to the frequently asked questions, such as: Do I have to change my driving skills or do you have to plug it in? The answer: No. Hybrid cars are about conserving fuel, so on the occasions when a person steps on the accelerator looking for some additional get-up-and-go, the electric motor engages to give the gas engine an extra boost resulting in V6-like acceleration performance, 40-60 mpg and less emissions. The battery recharges itself when gliding down hills because it turns the car’s generator. Also, it recharges when brakes are applied because the electric traction motor captures the kinetic energy that’s created. In turn, brakes will last longer. Mika says his store has yet to replace a battery. “We tell them all they need to know is where the steering wheel is, the brake is, and the gas pedal is,” said Mika.

Another concern customers have is the vehicle shutting off in traffic. The car’s two motors offer a seamless integration at times and separation at others. When the vehicle is stopped in traffic, the special gasoline engine has the ability to instantly shut off, making the vehicle silent. “I don’t know why people worry so much about that,” said Mika. “A golf cart does that and you don’t see anyone complaining.”

Franco Barbir, associate director for Science and Technology at UNIDO International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technology, in Istanbul Turkey and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Split in Croatia, says hybrid cars are more efficient vehicles because the engine is generally smaller and it operates more at its optimal power output with high efficiency.

Barbir feels these cars will be more expensive for quite some time because they are produced in smaller quantities, have a heavier frame to support weight of a battery and the recent trend. It’s all supply and demand. Although the car uses less fuel and emits fewer pollutants, Barbir says the biggest problem of a hybrid: it still uses oil.

Everyone has their reason to buy a hybrid. People from all walks of life are becoming agents of change by getting behind the wheel of a hybrid. “And if that’s not moving forward, we don’t know what is,” says Toyota.

According Mika sales have been steady since 2001 with great influxes since cars are in stock. Twenty percent of his sales have been from hybrid vehicles and 40 percent of those consumers come in with ecological concerns. Mika supports ecological concerns by sponsoring dinners for environmental councils and urging employees to walk or ride a bike to work. One time, Mika offered a contest for consumers on an arranged 10-mile route to see who got the best gas mileage. One contestant got up to 80 mpg, which is very rare. However, Mika says 42 mpg is easy to achieve.

A few years ago, Toyota released its Hybrid Synergy Drive technology to a competing car company: Ford. Recently, Ford’s sales have not been great and this was a way to help them keep up with the market says Mika. Mika says the Japanese company of Toyota was more concerned about a better, cleaner Earth that gave a hand to the American company, Ford, to make hybrid car making worldwide. Ford’s SUV Escape reached the American market in 2004, four years after the Toyota Prius. Ford released the first Hybrid SUV, which is the best-selling small SUV. Ford has committed to build 250,000 hybrids by 2010, as part of a corporate commitment to American Innovation.

This is Ford’s only hybrid model. “They came out with an SUV model first to attract people,” said Nick Brownell, sales consultant at Newport Ford. “Americans want SUVs, and to attract even more people a smaller version was created.”

All Ford’s 2007 Escapes are out of stock and Ford had to put out its 2008 Escapes much early than attended to keep up with the demand says Brownell. According to Brownell, two out of every 10 people walk in interested in the Escape. He says almost every person mentions some sort of concern for the environment. However, many people drop by just to look at the car, test drive it and ask questions. Ford customers need to wait around three months for their vehicle to arrive on-site.

Keeping up with environmental demands, Ford added a great perk to attract more ecological sound consumers: earth-friendly cloth seat fabric. The durable material is made from 100 percent post-industrial materials such as plastics and polyester fibers that would have ended up in landfills otherwise. Also, these materials are easily recyclable and give a whole new meaning of going green.

Speaking of green things, Ford, with a clever advertising campaign, has brought in the famous Kermit the frog, actor, singer, author and journalist. For over 50 years, Kermit has sung that it is not easy being green. Taking one look at the Escape, Kermit has a new message for the world: it is easy being green. “There’s no better judge of what’s green than Kermit the frog,” said Cisco Codina, Group Vice President, North America Marketing, Sales and Service of Ford.

If you’re worried about the environment, or worried about oil running low and the accompanying increases in petrol prices hybrid cars are you’re best bet, says Barbir. Hybrid cars use half the petrol and produce up to 90 percent less noxious emissions when compared to an equivalent non-hybrid car. Barbir says the key problem in America with energy is that we are totally dependent on imported oil and burning fossil fuels creates pollution and greenhouse gases. A way to avoid oil would be to turn to renewable fuels which could be produced from renewable energy such as hydrogen or ethanol. Fossil based fuels may only be a short chapter in mankind’s history. These hydrogen fuel vehicles are still being developed and America does not have the resources to support this new structure of human life.

“Reducing consumption of oil is good but may not be a sufficient solution,” said Barbir. “But, hybrid vehicles are cool; as such they are a step in right direction.”

But, hybrid cars aren’t just about saving the environment. The other 60 percent of hybrid car buyers at the Toyota of Newport “vote with their pocketbook,” says Mika. Owning a Toyota Prius himself, Mika claims a person is genuinely saving money by going hybrid even though the vehicle is $2,000 more than a regular model. The government gives hybrid owners tax rebates around $2,000 to $4,000. A person will save $1,000 to $2,000 a year on gas.According to hybridcars.com editor Bradley Berman, we’re at the tipping point about why people are interested in hybrids. He said that “the shift is from purchasing a hybrid based on ideology, whether it’s foreign oil dependency, global warming or because you’re a technology innovator. Nothing is having as big an impact as $3-a-gallon gasoline.” Nevertheless, he added, “we’re in a time of great change, and nobody knows what’s going to happen until they put hybrids out into the marketplace.”

About four years ago, Mika was told by Toyota executives that in 10 years Toyota plans to only manufacture hybrid vehicles to substantiate their dedication to hybrid technology. Also, Toyota has been testing with hydrogen energy technology in Japan creating working vehicles. According to Mika, this technology is still in experimental stages and there are kinks to fix. “We have a solution now,” said Mika. “We have the power to do hybrid and do it now, so let’s focus on that.”

Car companies are doing exactly that. With other brands such as Nissan, Mazda, Ford, Fiat, Peugeot, Audi and even Porsche, all licensed to use Toyota’s Hybrid technology in future vehicles, it’s clear hybrid is a winning formula. Toyota plans to produce more models, including a caravan, says Mika.. The Highlander SUV arrived most recently, which suited the SUV crazed American culture according to Mika.

“A Hybrid SUV is an oxymoron,” Barbir. “But, they do use less fuel.” Barbir insists people buy SUVs because they are trendy and the car and oil companies want them to keep buying bigger cars, not because they need them. He hopes the car companies will have this same enthusiasm in marketing hybrid vehicles so people will continue to buy them either to be trendy or use less fuel.

However, some people have said that Hybrid cars are a just a transitional step before we move to Hydrogen cars, or some other fuel that isn’t oil based. Barbir researches hydrogen fuel cells, which is the technology Toyota is looking toward. Barbir was a member of a team that developed the world’s first PEM fuel cell passenger car, entitled GreenCar, which was made by Energy Partners in 1993.

Fuel cells convert energy of fuel, typically hydrogen, directly to electricity. A fuel cell car is an electric car. A fuel cell car can also be hybrid when it combines fuel cells and batteries to drive an electric motor.

Although not the answer to our energy problems, Zipf feels hybrids are a promising step to the wave of the future. She believes it would be hard for a person to refute a car that saved money and polluted less. A year later, Zipf is still excited to slip into the seat of her hybrid and drive past a gas station unable to remember the last time she filled up the car. Like Zipf, her colleague James Hersh, professor of philosophy at Salve Regina, and his wife who is head of Tiverton, RI’s Conversation commission, are concerned environmentalists. They bought the 2006 Prius two months ago and drove away with it that day. “It feels good driving one,” said Hersh.

Hersh has noticed more hybrids driving by him on the roads and believes this is due to recent studies that have been released stating humans are leading sources of pollution and global warming and Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Although not fully electric, Hersh keeps the sticker “I’m electric” on his car. “I leave it on so people will think about it,” said Hersh. ” My contribution is to enrage Hummer drivers.”