For literally years I have been saying that car brands ought to produce a car that “folds” when parked. One that you feel comfortable driving (we have no time for tiny cars that make you feel cramped or awkward when you drive them), but which space saves when you need to fit into a notoriously miniature city parking space.

So, I was pleased when I first read about the Hiriko. This little Spanish electric car has now been launched to the eager city market, and it does exactly hat I’ve always hoped for – it shrinks from being an already small car (clocking in at just 100 inches), to a TINY car (of just 60 inches. That’s an impressive size!

Welcome the Hiriko

And in the boot...

Sci-fi looks

Of course, if you drive the Hiriko you will, of course, stand out from the crowd. The little motor looks borderline insane, like something that just fell out of the future and into the unsuspecting Spanish streets. And, I would worry about a gang of opportunists literally carrying my little electric motor away. That said, if you can park in spaces that tiny then you will probably be willing to put up with all the ridicule in the world – after all, you won’t have to spend half an hour driving round in circle just to nab the only space that becomes available!

The Hiriko will be leased to city dwellers by the Spanish government, or retailed for $16,350.

Hybrid cars particularly of the HEV(Hybrid Electrical Vehicle) variety have grabbed the attention of the more green conscious motorists across the world, boasting claims of dramatically lowered carbon emissions and increasingly efficient levels of fuel consumption.

However with such miraculous claims come major skepticism from the more performance driven petrol heads amongst us.

As well as the particularly green savvy market, the hybrid has also attracted the attention of a wide range of Hollywood A-listers. With the Toyota Prius, for example, the likes of Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz can be seen cruising down Mulholland Drive in the £20,000 green machine. However, this coupled with a few G6 flights makes this particular group of users slightly less eco-friendly…

Yet another hybrid...

Hybrid Issues

Let’s use the Toyota Prius as our example. Despite much popularity and endorsement from the celebrity crowd, the Prius has received much criticism from quite a large group of nay-sayers. Jeremy Clarkson has on more than one occasion ‘voiced his concerns’ on a wide range of issues surrounding the green car.

A popular conversation point however lies in the facts and figures. Despite the Prius boasting a particularly below average level of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulphur oxide emissions, the brand went on to state that its emissions of non-methane hydrocarbons and particulate matter were somewhat worse than average.

In fact Toyota specified personally that during production Hybrid-only parts such as nickel-metal hydride batteries and inverters consumed more energy and resulted in greater overall emissions. Furthermore when looking at the manufacturing phase of materials in the car’s life cycle, the Prius performed worse than the class average across all five emission categories. Demonstrating that despite the car performing quite effectively during the consumer use stage, when looking at the entire manufacturing process of the vehicle from start to finish, the carbon footprint of the process was considerably larger than expected.

Toyota have since conducted entire life-cycle emissions  examinations on over seven different vehicle series in 2009/10 and have analysed the data in the hopes of improving the current green range for greater efficiency and the desired result of a smaller overall carbon footprint.

All... glowing...

Anyway, it’s awesome – and for some more pictures, have a watch of the slick marketing video to see what you missed.

Bamboo is already used in a wide range of products from surfboards to instruments, and this has led to Abbott’s suggestion of using bamboo as well as vegetable resin as opposed to convention materials. The main idea revolves around bamboo’s high strength in relation to its width and being able to convert this into reality would allow for a lightweight material that will be stronger than fibre glass and compensate for the heavy batteries fitted into electric vehicles at the minute. If this can be realise it might just go a long way to solving the low range of electric cars that seems to be one of the problems scaring off potential EV car buyers at the minute.

We don’t seem to be developing any better ideas at the minute; with fibreglass too heavy and carbon fibre too expensive, so why not? With all the advancements in the car industry; does a car made out of grass really seem like such an unreasonable idea?

The scheme is going to be rolled out from next week, with just 66 vehicles available to begin with and 33 stations; but with a view to expand to 3,000 vehicles and more than 1,000 charging stations. However, that’s just the aim for the scheme by the end of 2012!

Autolib's Electric Car

However there seems to be slightly conflicting hopes for the scheme, with Morald Chibout, Autolib’s General Manager, stating “We want to persuade people to shift from the concept of owning a car to that of using a car”. The conflict being that Autolib’s pricing structure deliberately seeks to encourage shorter journeys; with 30 minutes costing 4-8 Euros and a yearly membership costing from 10 Euros a day or 144 Euros a year. This will mean that as much as they seek to make it a viable alternative to owning a car, there are certain flaws which mean this is unlikely to happen, at least for now.

However putting this aside, for the time being, the scheme itself is a theoretically promising one, and more promise comes from the designer Pininfarina; who are a famous name behind the design of both Maseratis and Ferrari’s.

One point certainly worth raising is the need to learn from the failings and shortcomings of the Velib scheme. Despite its success, the scheme had 3,000 bicycles stolen during its first year, with vandalism being a large problem for the scheme too. If Autolib can learn from this, and make the scheme work in a way that is realistic in scale and approach, then the promise this scheme would seem to offer, could be converted into a brilliant system that, with a little refinement, has the potential to be rolled out elsewhere.

The main supporting argument is well illustrated by Edmund King, president of the AA, who stated “You will rarely, if ever, get stopped by a police officer if you’re driving at 80mph.” Thus suggesting that really an 80mph increase would make little difference, and indeed RAC have said “We think 80mph is reasonably safe.” However, there is a large underlying concern, and rightly so, that the trend is likely to continue with the new limit; should motorways be increased to 80mph, in turn motorist will increase their speeds to 90mph.

Herein the first dilemma lies; how can the motorways be better enforced with the increase than they are at the current speed limit? Motorists seem to follow an unspoken rule that up to 10mph over the speed limit makes little difference, but it would seem even the Association of Police Officers follow this rule. Despite it being down to individual police forces to enforce the law on the motorway, the most common current formula according to the ACPO is “10% plus 2mph”. This means that generally, depending on the police force, the ACPO agree that motorists travelling up to 79 mph are unlikely to be stopped.

One large argument, both against the current law and hence in favour of the new increased limit (providing increased enforcement comes with it), is that people allow themselves the same leeway on slower, urban roads as they do with the current speed limit. If we had a speed limit of 80mph, which most people seem to be adhering to at the minute anyway, but ensured better policing of the law, then it is suggested people are likely to replicate this law abiding nature on the slower roads.

Of course this itself seems self-conflicting; increasing the limit, meaning people have to slow down even more when in urban areas (especially with the suggested increase in 20mph areas), would likely lead to frustration, and as such, people finding it harder to follow the slower limits. There is a strong argument that the current 70mph limit should simply be better enforced, especially from environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth, who would see the limit reduced to 60mph, “if instead you cut the speed limit to 60mph you could save as much as 7 megatonnes of carbon a year. Even enforcing the speed limit would save up to a megatonne.”

The point that motorists seem to be driving slower now due to the need to save fuel is also a very appropriate one to raise. With the UK being not long out of a recession that hit us hard, and with a world economical crisis on the horizon, there couldn’t be a worse time to ask money-concious motorists to spend more on fuel.

In the end, as with any change in law, there are bound to be a multitude of points of view, both for and against the changes. The head of media at Greenpeace UK, Ben Stewart, certainly has an opinion on the matter, tweeting “We are governed by nincompoops on crack.” I’m not sure everyone is quite so irate (although it’s an interesting way to put across a potent message), but how do you feel on the whole affair? What are your views on the points raised and how, if indeed it does, do you think it will affect you?

Each manufacturer is trying to reduce their overall average emissions; but why is this so important to the UK motorist? Well, not withstanding the benefits to the environment and to us all, if you’re buying a company car, then the lower the CO2 emissions the lower the tax you will pay, and if you’re a private motorist, the lower the road tax.

What are these CO2 emissions? They are the gasses created by the combustion process of your car and are measured as grams per kilometre – the lower the number the better. If you really want to save look for a car with sub 100g/km as this means you don’t pay road tax at all and if you travel to or live in London you don’t pay the Congestion Charge either.

Here are a few examples of sub 100g/km cars for you to ponder:

Toyota IQ City Car

Toyota iQ City Car

Fiat 500

Fiat 500

Hyundai i10

Hyundai i10 with ‘blue drive’ technology

 

In theory the lower the CO2 of the vehicle you choose the better the fuel economy; so saving you even more money. In these difficult times it can actually pay to be a green motorist.

The BlueMotion Rollercoaster

So, although the marketing on Greenpeace’s side was ingenious, last month was a bit environmentally awkward for the huge manufacturing group, which is why this (somewhat unexpected) Auto Express award is bound to make them happier. You see, this is the first year the Auto Express awards have included a green option, and Volkswagen BlueMotion have won it. In Auto Express’s words, “The best thing about BlueMotion is how few compromises it demands. And sealing the deal is the fact it delivers genuine gains for business users and private buyers, as well as the environment”.

After all, if the future is bright, that means the future is green.

The latest move in environmental friendliness has come from Mercedes Benz, who have today announced the launch of their Green Dealer initiative. Well, I say Launched, but actually this scheme has been pioneered at their Watford dealership for three months, and is now being rolled out to the rest of the dealers in the UK.

So, what does this PR-friendly scheme actually entail? Well, actually, this is an approach that is way more in-depth than the usual recycling of paper and token gesture at turning the lioghts off of an evening. Using the Watford dealership as the model, dealers are likely to take part in a range of approaches, such as replacing existing lighting with lamps that only come on when required and using accent LED lighting to highlight its display vehicles at night, installing de-stratification fans to draw heat to ground level, updating the energy management system, and of course stocking the range of BlueEFFICIENCY cars and taking part general all-round green bits and pieces.

What do you think – does this approach cover all of the big green issues that an average car dealership could expect to encounter? Do you have any suggestions for further increasing efficiency?

Well, how about if you could get a mint condition brand new VW Camper for just £300?! It might not technically be the same, but this tent version of the famous camper looks just like the real thing, and is even the exact same dimensions!

It's almost the real thing...