How Green is Your Car? - Part 3

By Ceri Balston

Alternative Fuels

The car industry is almost completely dominated by the petrol and diesel engine. There are however some alternatives already available and many others coming in the not too distant future.

Hybrid Cars - These cars have two engines and use a combination of alternative and traditional fuels. A petrol engine is used when the car needs power to pull away from a stop or for high speeds, and an electric motor running off a battery (which is charged when the car brakes and decelerates) is used at all other times such as cruising around a city.

Hybrid cars are extremely quiet and are particularly beneficial due to their low emissions in cities. The most popular hybrid and the only model available in South Africa is the Toyota Prius (see above) which boasts an extremely impressive fuel efficiency of under 5 litres/100km.

Electric Cars - There are two great benefits of electric cars; they are extraordinarily cheap to run and they have zero emissions, not a C or an O to be seen anywhere. It is of course important to bear in mind that the electricity that they're using may have been generated by a highly polluting coal powered station, but hey we can't have it all.

Although electric cars are not commercially available in South Africa there a few models buzzing around the streets of Europe. One of the most intriguing, and bizarre looking, is the G-Whiz (see right). This little car, developed by GoinGreen, can be plugged into standard electrical wall sockets and takes 6 hours to recharge. According to GoinGreen the cost of the electricity to run this car for one year is the equivalent cost of just one tank of petrol.

There are however a few major drawbacks with this technology. First is a question of range; the G-Whiz for example can only travel for 70km before needing to be recharged. The second issue is one of power; electric cars are simply no match in terms of top speeds, to petrol and diesel powered vehicles (the G-Whiz has a top speed of just 70km/hr).

Despite these significant drawbacks this car, with its suitability for short commuter trips, could I believe have a major impact in South African cities. We can look to London for example of what can be achieved, there commuters are encouraged to adopt the G-Whiz with owners exempt from road tax, congestion charges and parking costs. With these savings in mind the G-Whiz is not only the cleanest form of commuter transport but it's also the cheapest.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells - Although still a relatively new technology it is thought that this will be the future fuel of choice. Fuel cells work by making electricity via a chemical reaction between hydrogen (stored in liquid form in the fuel cell) and oxygen (from the air). The only by-product of this reaction is water, CO2 emissions are zero.

There are of course still some significant drawbacks to this technology which need to be addressed before we see the demise of the petrol engine. These include; range - which, accordingly to Toyota, is currently limited to 300km; cost - until economies of scale come into play this will continue to be an expensive technology; refueling network - current petrol stations will need to install hydrogen tanks and pumps.

Parting Words

So there we have it, if you're thinking of getting a new car and want to go as green as possible you now know where to go to get the information you need. Buy small or buy hybrid, import a G-Whiz from the UK or maybe just sit on your hands for a few more years and wait for the technology to catch up with your needs, both financial and vehicular, the choice is yours.

Ceri Balston is the editor of online alternative lifestyle portal Harmonious Living. Visit http://www.harmoniousliving.co.za.

<<< Back to Part Two - Fuel Consumption and CO² Emissions

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