Will people buy greener cars?
This cool car is the Saab Aero X, which runs on ethanol. Photo: Teon Harasymiv
Legions of scientists are working on developing alternative fuel vehicles – cars that can run on biofuels, solar, hydrogen, or electric power.
Some of these cars are already on the road. But when will there be enough alternative fuel vehicles on the road to make a big impact on emissions?
Not any time soon, according to Jeroen Struben, a postdoctoral associate at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He’s co-author of a recent study that asked what it would take for consumers to move away from fossil-fuel powered cars.
Struben told Earth & Sky that the challenges of alternative fuel vehicles go beyond technology. He created a model that analyzed auto consumer behavior and what he called “the physics of replacement.” For consumers to decide to buy an alternative fuel vehicle, he said the entire industry will have to mobilize.
Jeroen Struben: For example, automakers will not invest in alternative fuel vehicles if they don’t expect that the fuel providers will provide the necessary infrastructure. And for sure consumers will decide not to buy them when there’s very little choice of well performing alternative fuel vehicles and if there’s no infrastructure.
Struben also said the “tipping point” for alternative fuel cars will come when enough people see them in their neighbor’s driveway and on the highway.
The car of the future, an interview with Joe Romm, author of “The Car and Fuel of the Future.”
U.S. biofuels may stress Latin American food security
Ethanol may create worse smog than gasoline
When will the U.S. have mass transit?
MIT Sloan model: Sustained policy incentives, carbon taxes will widen alternative vehicle use
Alternative Fuels Data Center – all kinds of information about alternative fuels
Our thanks to:
Jeroen Struben
Postdoctoral Associate
Sloan School of Management at MIT
Cambridge, MA
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A good sign is that alt fuel cars are getting a cool image now.
The car emissions scare is just a scam. Drive whatever kind of car you want. The emissions are coming from the power companies and this is big businesses way of blaming people for global warming but still making money.
Blackjack … I’m not an expert here, but it’s my understanding that transportation in the U.S. accounts for something like 30% of our fossil fuel use leading to unwanted emissions.
Then I think it’s something like 30% for buildings (residential and commercial) ... and 30% for straight-up industrial emissions. With a percentage left over for everything else.
Someone else may have more solid numbers than this, but I think this is about right.
Best,
Deborah
I don’t even see any attempt to advertise greener cars but, I do see constant car ads. Hey If man were causing global warming I think there would be an immeidate ban on personal auto use.
It’s great that the industry is getting cars out there like the Aero X, which run on biofuel. It’s also good that they have the hybrid cars like the Toyota Yaris, which gets much better gas mileage than a typical fossil fuel car but still runs on gasoline. Cars like this can bridge the gap between the people who really aren’t ready to buy the biofuel cars, but are willing to buy something that still takes gasoline while being better for the environment.
According to the excellent documentary, Oil Wars, it appears that we’re all doomed. Their point is that oil reserves around the entire planet are limited, and that at the rate we are moving, we will all run out of it long before we get it together to make a switch to another source. Look forward to more wars, global warming, and long walks to whatever job you are lucky enough to find.
My personal feeling is that a documentary isn’t “excellent” if it presents such a dismal vision of the future as what you describe above. I actually believe it’s irresponsible of the film-makers to leave viewers with that impression.
Lots of smart people are thinking of ways to make the future better. Many of the world’s smartest and most thoughtful people are hopeful. For sure, the future will involve using fewer of Earth’s resources … or at least equalizing the way resources are used around the world, so that one part of the world isn’t living in luxury at the expense of billions elsewhere who are suffering in need. But I personally believe – and many people believe – we can go forward into a future that will work for most of us on the planet …
Deborah
You all might want to look at the life cycle analysis’ for some of these “green” cars. An electric car uses more energy than a gas or diesel vehicle. An hybrid is an environmental disaster.
Let the market decide. Id oil gets too scarce (governmental meddling and regulating notwithstanding) inovators will find new methods and users will switch. If we let regulation by government destroy our economy, we will slip back to a squalid existence and China will continue its growth.
We are not in danger from the burning of fossil fuels. We are in danger of being driven into oblivion by socialists and well meaning, misinformed do-gooders.
I agree, Mr. Napier, that there is no way for alternative fuel cars to succeed unless that make economic sense for the indivual who is driving it. Right now, only rich people can afford to go green.
Dear Friends,
I wish it was possible for me to agree with our friend, Benjamin Napier. That one thing cannot be. Any attempt would be like the effort of trying somehow to square a circle.
What Ben reports leads me to think humanity is soon to be presented with a forced choice situation.
ON THE ONE HAND, we have a patenly unsustainable fossil fuel economy that is endlessly expanding worldwide and polluting the planet, This has been occurring since 1859 when oil was discovered. Our global population numbers at that time were less than 1 billion people. Before that time human beings lived on Earth for thousands upon thousands of years with other life, some of which we still see today.
In a brief period of 150 years a leviathan-like economy was built and the stimulation provided by such robust productivity gave rise to a stupendous increase in absolute global human population numbers and an equally astounding increase in the consumption of Earth’s limited resources.
Humanity is approaching a crossroads. To continue the unbridled increase of human production, propagation and consumption at their anticipated rate of growth could shortly result in the reckless dissipation of the remaining resources of our planetary home, in the irreversible degradation of the frangible ecosystem services of Earth, and in the ruination of the world we inhabit as a fit place for human habitation.
ON THE OTHER HAND, humanity could choose to begin limiting increases in its production activities, thereby, limiting the increase of human numbers and human consumption. We would be choosing to live within the LIMITS TO GROWTH that are imposed upon all species by the finite nature of the world we inhabit.
Under no circumstance would we choose to destroy anything. We would not destroy the economy. We would certainly have to change it in some fundamental ways, I suppose. Personally, I would like to see Nobel Prize-type awards given to people who come up with adequate ways to make such changes. I would also like to see many more Nobel Prizes given to people who find ways to cooperate rather than compete in order to meet the needs of the human community, to preserve biodiversity from extinction, to protect the environment, and to ensure the long-term wellbeing of humanity.
THE FORCED CHOICE is sustainable limit setting of certain human activities versus unsustainable endless growth of human production, propagation and consumption.
Obviously, there is much more to say on this subject…...
Sincerely,
Steve
07/07/07
JATROPHA YIELDS TEN TIMES MORE BIODIESEL FUEL PER ACRE THEN CORN. BIODIESEL LOWERS DIESEL POLLUTION BY 87 PERCENT. I WILL BE BUYING A BIODIESEL PLUG-IN-VOLT BY CHEVROLET">HYBRID. JATROPHA DOES NOT IMPACT THE HUMAN FOOD CHAIN.