(Source: Autoblog)

When the next step in the road to 35 mpg by 2020 CAFE standards was announced recently, those in the know made it clear that the Obama administration’s upcoming goal of 27.3 mpg by 2011 would not be hard for automakers to meet. In fact, the 2007 average was already 31.3, so the 2011 goal would not require any change in product lineup (more difficult changes are scheduled to come into effect down the line). The 2011 standards were so light, in fact, that the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) took the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Department of Transportation to court last week, saying that the Obama administration’s standards “ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming.”

“These low standards, which ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming,” said Kassie Siegel, who directs the organization’s climate law project.

The group asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to declare that the administration violated a federal law requiring that fuel economy standards be set at the maximum feasible level, in light of current technology, economic impact, and the nation’s need to conserve energy. The same court ruled in a similar lawsuit in 2007 that the Bush administration’s fuel standards for light trucks and SUVs for the 2008 through 2011 model years were invalid.

The Project P.U.M.A. prototype on 18th Street in Manhattan.

 (Source: Wheels Blog – New York Times)

When General Motors unveiled Project P.U.M.A. in New York on Tuesday (with partner Segway), it was showing not so much a vehicle as a vision for a new transportation system. And that’s high risk, high reward, because as much as new concepts are needed, they’re excruciatingly hard to actually put in place. Our highways are haunted with unfulfilled visions, from electric station-cars to statewide hydrogen-refueling networks.

 

For David J. Friedman, research director for the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the P.U.M.A. has possibilities, though what he called “the massive monitoring and managing of traffic to minimize congestion and maximize road usage” has been tried before; the general category is called Intelligent Transportation Systems. G.M. experimented with hands-free Buicks on automated highways in 1997, but the efforts were thwarted by high costs and driver confusion.

“We need to design our cities around something other than two- or three-ton vehicles,” said Mr. Friedman. “The data suggests that by 2030 half of the built environment in the U.S. will be new. What if we designed new suburban towns with integrated shopping so you could walk, bike or use a P.U.M.A. to get around, with conventional vehicles only for longer trips?”

 

(Source:  New York Times; Photo: Jay Mailin/Bloombern News)

Obama’s Top Auto Industry Troubleshooter

After 26 years as one of the most politically connected investment bankers on Wall Street, Steven Rattner finally took a job in Washington — only it is not quite the one friends and business associates thought it would be.

(Source: Treehugger)

Img: Daniel Sparing @ Flickr

The Dutch and the Danish pass back and forth the crown for best cycling country. Now new research (from the Dutch) shows Holland to have the safest cycling roads (graph after the jump). Here’s how Tineke Huizinga, State Secretary of Transport, views the bike:

“The bicycle oils the wheels of the municipal traffic system. Cycling means arriving at work, school or the gym in a more alert frame of mind, feeling creative and positive.”

That may seem like a subjective statement, but the Dutch have found cyclists do have fewer sick days. And, amazingly, cycling safety is NOT give the highest priority in Dutch planning.

(Source: Business Week)

Image Courtesy: African Development Bank

International donors and lenders on Monday pledged $1.2 billion for projects to improve road and rail links between eight southern African countries.

The aim is to reduce transportation bottlenecks and bring down costs along the main trading routes through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Botswana and Mozambique.

Bad delays at national border crossings, along with road taxes, have led to high prices for shipping products to regional and international markets, especially from landlocked countries like copper-rich Zambia. Vehicles also require frequent repairs due to poor road quality.

World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy told participants at a two-day conference that there was an urgent need for Africa to speed up the completion of a North-South transportation corridor.

International lending institutions and donor governments promised $1.2 billion toward the project — with half coming from the African Development Bank over the next three years.

The World Bank pledged $340 million, with additional support from the European Union and Britain.

 (Source: Hurriyet Daily News)

ISTANBUL – In an attempt to escape banks, some transportation firms change their vehicle identification numbers and the color of the trailers in their fleet. Such irregularities are eroding trust in the industry as a whole, says Murat Tokatlı, chairman of the Association of Trailer Manufacturers. ’Our customers are unable to obtain funding for trailers,’Tokatlı complains

Some transportation companies that are in distress and unable to pay their loans resort to fraud, eroding confidence in the sector, the head of a Turkish association has warned.

These firms change their vehicle identification numbers and colors of the trailers in their fleet in order to escape from banks. Such irregularities erode financial institutions’ trust in the transportation industry, said Murat Tokatlı, chairman of the Association of Trailer Manufacturers, or TREDER. “Therefore, customers are unable to obtain funding for trailers. This forces producers to shoulder costs and risks.” 

Tokatlı said 1,000 trailers and 300 trucks are “lost” at present due to the irregularities. He also said some firms have new traffic registrations for previously-used vehicles after having small producers change their vehicle identification numbers and colors. 

Erosion of confidence 

“Such irregularities started six months ago. The losses deriving from this have reached 25 million euros. The vehicles we produced get lost, and another brand new vehicle emerges. Such moves are completely in violation of the manufacture, amendment and assemblage regulations for vehicles,” said Tokatlı. 

Irregularities in type approval certificates have also been an ongoing issue in the sector, Tokatlı said. Despite obtaining just one type approval certificate, some firms produce many vehicles, he said. 

Explaining the irregularities, he said; “Some producers manufacture a type of product without having its certificate. Then they purchase the certificate and have the vehicle’s traffic registration. Besides being against the law, this also is a threat for safety. It is crucial to establish an audit mechanism.”

Commenting on financing problems stemming from the irregularities, he said; “The irregularities have eroded the trust of finance institutions into the transportation sector, which is the purchaser of trailers. The customers are unable to obtain financing for trailers. Maybe half of the trailer sales in Turkey are made with producers’ loans. The sector is under threat, and therefore we are obliged to provide the funding. Producers shoulder the cost and risk of the financing.”

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Associated Press via Yahoo! News)

WASHINGTON – U.S. highway deaths in 2008 fell to their lowest level in nearly 50 years, the latest government figures show, as the recession and $4 per gallon gas meant people drove less to save more. Safety experts said record-high seat-belt use, tighter enforcement of drunken driving laws and the work of advocacy groups that encourage safer driving habits contributed to the reduction in deaths.

Preliminary figures released by the government Monday show that 37,313 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year. That’s 9.1 percent lower than the year before, when 41,059 died, and the fewest since 1961, when there were 36,285 deaths.

A different measure, also offering good news, was the fatality rate, the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.28 in 2008, the lowest on record. A year earlier it was 1.36.

“The silver lining in a bad economy is that people drive less, and so the number of deaths go down,” said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “Not only do they drive less but the kinds of driving they do tend to be less risky — there’s less discretionary driving.”

Fatalities fell by more than 14 percent in New England, and by 10 percent or more in many states along the Atlantic seaboard, parts of the Upper Midwest and the West Coast, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Americans should really be pleased that everyone has stepped up here in order to make driving safer and that people are paying attention to that,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

(Source: Deutsche Welle)

Denmark is a leader in climate policy, but the Danes are also among the highest per capita users of energy in the world. The government in Copenhagen is now trying to change that.

When Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen came to power in 2001, he didn’t seem at all interested in the environment and climate protection.

Currently there are only about 200 climate-friendly autos on the nation’s streets, but that should grow to 100,000 within two years.

 The Danish energy corporation DONG and the American company Better Place are planning to invest 100 million euros ($135 million) to build up infrastructure in the country for electric cars. The idea is to make it just as fast to charge up a battery as it is to fill up a tank of gas.

 The head of the Danish electric auto association, Per Moeller, is very pleased with that plan, and confident that Denmark can become a pioneer in this sector.

 “We have really good conditions for it here: no extreme climate changes and a flat landscape,” he said. “Denmark is certainly one of the countries in which it would be the easiest to introduce electric cars.”

The batteries to run these cars of the future have another advantage. They can be charged during the night when energy from wind turbines is available but isn’t being used much, essentially turning them into important energy storage devices.

Mike Zara @ Flickr

 (Source: New York Times)

Like many other air traffic controllers, Michael Pearson was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration in the early 1980s to help replace more than 10,000 striking air traffic controllers who were fired en masse by President Ronald Reagan.

(Source: McKinsey Quarterly ;Video:  The Auto Channel @ YouTube)

The fastest way to reduce America’s dependence on oil imports is to convert petroleum-driven miles to electric ones by retrofitting the SUVs and pick-ups now on the road with rechargeable batteries. Here’s how.