Green Options

Subaru’s AWD Hybrid Concept Car

Based on comments made at the Tokyo Motor Show by Ikuo Mori, president of Fuji Heavy Industries (the company that makes Subarus), Subaru is well on their way to releasing their first gasoline-electric hybrid in 2012.

We’ve covered the numerous benefits of ethanol-based fuels over and over on this blog, but rarely through the eyes of the gearhead speed-junkies that make up the core of America’s automotive enthusiasts and enthusiast press.   If you’ve spoken to this bunch, you already that most talk of climate change and Peak Oil concerns fall on deaf ears.  What matters is power, everything else is irrelevant.

Of course, it’s easier to simply ignore this group, but the (sad?) truth of the matter is that many consumer still make their purchasing decisions based on what their “car friends” tell them.  In short:  this group, more than any other, is a group that must be reached for the “green car” movement to really take hold.

Enter:  Dyno-Comp.

Subaru has become the latest in a long line of car manufacturers to start producing electric cars.  The Japanese company plans to start selling a compact all-electric plug-in number called the Stella EV in Japan over the coming weeks.

Unusual for such a compact EV, the Stella boasts four seats and a top speed of 60 mph, which is likely to prove just about bearable to drivers using it as a second car for city use (photo gallery after the jump).

New diesels will get better mileage and have cleaner emissions than your average car. Pictured above: 2009 Jetta SportWagen 2L TDI Clean Diesel.

Later this year (see the timeline below), we will finally begin to see an influx of new model diesels in the United States. While diesels make up 50% of the market share of vehicles in Europe, they’re still trying to shrug off the stigma of being dirty, noisy beasts here in the US. So what changed?

ABG recently reported on the fact that the new Subaru R1e has recently been spotted tooling around the streets in New York City as part of an official trial in the US, which is an extension of the 40 (soon to be 100) car trial currently taking placing in Japan.

In light of this new development, I thought it would be prudent to show off some of the most exciting features of theR1e, beginning with the fact that it is an all electric version of a production car made by major manufacturers to be affordable and useful to average citizens (though these needs might be a bit different depending on the market).

It’s exciting enough in and of itself to see a major initiative from a major manufacturer (yeah yeah, the Volt, sure), but this car is pretty sweet on its own.

More after the break!

We all know that fast cars are fun and fuel-sipping cars are environmentally responsible, but is there a middle ground?

Short of expensive electric sports cars like the Tesla Roadster, there may be a solution to be found in diesel. Not only can diesel cars be fueled with waste vegetable oil, biodiesel, or some mixture of these fuels, but diesel engines produce a lot of torque and get better fuel economy than their gasoline-powered brethren.