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| EMISSION DECISIONS
January 27, 1998The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript |
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What's down the road for American cars? Detroit auto makers are developing a variety of new technologies in a push to reach zero emissions.
A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
November 18, 1997
The Department of Transportation allows for the disabling of air bags.
August 20, 1997
The race to create electric cars.
August 8, 1997
The development of smart cars promises to change the way the world drives.
April 29, 1997
The controversy surrounding air bags.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of transportation.
OUTSIDE LINKS
The Department of Transportation homepage.
TOM BEARDEN: Marvin Rush is a cinematographer on the TV show "Star Trek Voyager," which takes place aboard a starship 300 years in the future. When it's time to go home, Rush jumps into another futuristic vehicle, an EV-1 electric car. General Motors began leasing these cars in California last year.
MARVIN RUSH, Electric Car Owner: It's a great car. They just built so many great features into this car.
TOM BEARDEN: The EV-1 runs off a large battery, which is recharged from the electric power grid. The body is made of plastic to reduce weight.
Electric cars. Faster than you think.
MARVIN RUSH: It's fast. People think electric cars are slow, but the EV-1 is a rocket ship. It's really fast--zero to sixty in 7.6 seconds, which means that almost every other car on the road is my rear view mirror.
TOM BEARDEN: But Rush also likes the fact that the car doesn't have a tailpipe.
MARVIN RUSH: I like clean air. I really like blue skies. And I live near a mountain that in the summertime I can't see it because there's smog. And I know that I'm doing something. And I'm proud of that fact, and I'm glad to be a part of it.
TOM BEARDEN: GM introduced the EV-1 in California last year, but only about 300 people have leased the vehicles, which have limited range, about 80 miles on one charge, and are relatively expensive at $399 a month. Critics charge that electric cars aren't really pollution free either because
they use electricity produced by power plants that often burn fossil fuel. At this year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, GM introduced a new battery which extends the range to 160 miles. Other auto makers also offer electric vehicles. Ford has an electric Ranger pickup truck, and Toyota is now selling an electric RAV-4. But pure electric cars at this stage of development still have limitations that raise questions about their mass marketability. That's why the vehicles that got the most attention at the auto show are hybrids, cars that use combinations of power sources like small combustion engines and electric motors to produce much more efficient and much cleaner transportation.
Hybrid cars: the more immediate solution to car emissions.
ANNOUNCER: The ESX-II produces 70 miles per gallon. And that's combined city and highway, and, unlike electric vehicles, the battery is charged as the car is driven.
TOM BEARDEN: Chrysler's Peter Rosenfeld.
PETER ROSENFELD, Chrysler Corporation: In a hybrid configuration there's usually a combustion
engine and a battery pack, and those two are combined. And in between them is a computer that tries to make each one of those systems operate at its peak performance level. When you get into the car and you hit the accelerator pedal, typically the car will start in battery mode. And as it hits the right efficiency level, when that engine can operate at its perfect level, the computer will turn on the engine, or switch over to using that engine as you propel yourself down the road. Then if you hit the accelerator, again, as you're trying to pass somebody, the battery pack may come in for some extra power. The result is reduced emissions because you have each system operating at its peak efficiency and more fuel economy.
TOM BEARDEN: Chrysler, GM, and Ford claim these hybrid cars will ultimately be able to get 70, 80, or even 100 miles to a gallon of fuel. They say they have plans to begin producing hybrid cars within the next four to six years.
SPOKESMAN: The screen on the center console of the dash will tell the driver exactly what the vehicle is doing in terms of using the gasoline engine or the battery power through the electric motor, or, in fact, recharging the batteries during braking.
TOM BEARDEN: Toyota already has a hybrid car for sale in Japan. It's called the Prius, and
Toyota claims it gets 66 miles to the gallon. It uses a 1.5 liter gasoline engine and batteries. Toyota hopes to bring the car to the U.S. within the next three years. But at the moment, the car is heavily subsidized. The purchase price is $17,000. But it costs nearly $40,000 to build. That would come down if production is ramped up.
All of these new car announcements took place against a background of increasingly stringent emission regulations in the U.S. and the recently signed global warming treaty. If ratified, the treaty would commit the U.S. and other industrialized nations to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. David Cole is the director of the Institute for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan. He says the hybrids are the most viable approach in the short term.
DAVID COLE, Auto Industry Analyst: We do a forecast every two years that looks out five and 10
years into the future of the industry. And the forecast that the industry is providing us for things like say hybrid vehicles in passenger cars or hybrid--this is an internal combustion engine coupled with an electric drive train that they expect by the year 2007 to see 5 percent of the vehicles produced in this country of that hybrid configuration. And that's a very significant number in terms of where we are today, the programs that are underway.
TOM BEARDEN: But hybrids still pollute. Regulators say nearly zero pollution vehicles are needed to counter the eventual growth of population. Most observers think fuel cells are the long-term answer.
Fuel cells: the long-term answer?
TOM BEARDEN: Fuel cells have long supplied the electricity that runs American spacecraft. These fuel cells extract hydrogen from fuel and then combine it with oxygen; the chemical reaction generates electricity.
SPOKESMAN: This was an electric vehicle powered by a fuel cell. The efficiency of a fuel cell in terms of energy in to power out at the wheels is just in excess of 50 percent. Now compare that to the fuel efficiency of any of the other vehicles here at the North American Auto Show, which is about 18 percent.
TOM BEARDEN: Ford has invested $450 million in a joint fuel cell development project with Mercedes Benz, and GM is working on a fuel cell it thinks will be ready for production in 2004. But they are all quick to admit that much development work remains. Ross Witschonke directs Ford's new generation of vehicles program.
"The automobile is a very severe environment for new technology. And so we have a great deal of testing to do to be sure that this vehicle offers all of the quality and reliability and durability that our customers are looking for."
ROSS WITSCHONKE, Ford Motor Company: There's many, many new things that we're learning about it, and we have to develop. The automobile is a very severe environment for new technology. And so we have a great deal of testing to do to be sure that this vehicle offers all of the quality and reliability and durability that our customers are looking for.
TOM BEARDEN: The fuel cells the auto makers are looking at use hydrogen, but hydrogen is highly flammable. An exploding fuel cell nearly killed the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.
GEORGE OLAH, Chemist: It works most of the time, but it's sophisticated technology and if something goes wrong, you can have a disaster.
TOM BEARDEN: Prof. George Olah won the 1994 Nobel Prize for his hydrocarbon research. Olah and his colleagues at the University of Southern California are working on a fuel cell that doesn't extract hydrogen; it chemically burns methyl alcohol.
GEORGE OLAH: It's a very convenient way to store energy and produce a safe and convenient fuel.
TOM BEARDEN: Other scientists are skeptical of the auto maker's motivations. Ronald Hwang is the director of transportation at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, California.
"Detroit is fundamentally driven by profits. They will build clean cars if they think that there's going to be a market for clean cars in the future."
ROLAND HWANG, Union of Concerned Scientists: I think what we're seeing
out in Detroit is far from Detroit embracing a new religion, embracing environmental values. Detroit is fundamentally driven by profits. They will build clean cars if they think that there's going to be a market for clean cars in the future. And what's driving a lot of the announcements that we see today is that the fear that in the 21st century some of these auto companies will not survive because they don't have the right technologies.
TOM BEARDEN: The auto makers say they have many reasons to be serious about the new technologies, environmental reasons as well as business reasons. But they also freely acknowledged that the internal combustion engine is far from dead. Ken Baker is vice president of global research at General Motors.
KEN BAKER, General Motors: You may see 20 to 25 percent of the vehicles worldwide with advanced propulsion systems within the next 20 years. Of course,
it's got a tough act to follow because we've done a very good job with the internal combustion engine. You know, it's like 96/97 percent cleaner than when we started in an unregulated internal combustion, and it's twice the efficiency. And people are very used to having a gasoline-powered vehicle. So that's why I think that the majority of vehicles, at least for the next 25 years, will probably still be internal combustion engines.
MARVIN RUSH: There's a little slot on the nose right here. You just open this up, and there's a little plastic paddle.
TOM BEARDEN: But Marvin Rush says people are fascinated by the EV-1, that he's constantly being asked about it. He thinks people will demand alternatives much more quickly than 25 years from now as they learn more about electric vehicles.
MARVIN RUSH: I believe that Americans, when they're confronted with the reality of it, that they can do something, they can actually do something tangible, they will do it. It's a matter of time and thoughtfulness.
TOM BEARDEN: And perhaps also a matter of regulation. California already has a law on the books requiring that 10 percent of all new vehicles sold in the state after 2003 have zero emissions. And several Northeastern states are expected to follow suit.
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