Honda Motor Co gets it. Arguably one of the most economical car makers there is, Honda Motor gets it. Honda knows that America is fat and needs equally large sport utility vehicles and minivans to ride in. Even so, Honda will scale back production on its Odyssey minivans and Pilot SUVs in the U.S. It’s not because America suddenly went on a diet, it’s because even the wealthy are feeling the pinch of high gasoline prices.

The automaker will cut production of the two units over the next three months by 10,000 units. to make up for the loss, Honda will roll out even more of its Civic subcompacts. My son drives one of these - 35-40mpg. Honda gets it.

Honda also has  an SUV-sized vehicle that goes 1,300 miles between fill-ups. Honda gets it.

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Beijing continues to pull out all the stops, stop signs?, to make the usual transportation mess more Olympic friendly, greener, too.  There’s a plan:

1. Some 500 vehicles used for shuttling between the Olympic village and venues will be powered by electricity, mixed fuel, or batteries. 780 tons of gasoline and diesel fuel will be saved. C02 will be reduced by 2,510 tons. An Olympic record?

2.  34 Olympic bus lanes will be opened up during the Games.

3. 126 ‘intelligent road sensors’ have been installed in special traffic lanes. When an Olympic bus pulls up the traffic lights will automatically change. Hang on to those puppies once the Games are over!

4. Some public transport vehicles will get the sensors, too.

5. Starting next week, Beijing will start an 0dd-even number traffic control system

6. An accident detection system is in place to speed up response time by 3-5 minutes.

In the end, the hope is that the Games run smoothly and Beijing can keep the air clean. That way neither traffic nor the athletes will be choked.

India’s Tata Motors wants to release the ‘Nano’ car this year. The price tag - 100,000 rupees or around $2,000. There are, however,

three obstacles that must be overcome.

1. construction costs  are nearly double what they were in 2006 when the car was first announced.

2. prices for materials for the car have risen comparably

3. the Indian government’s higher interest rates.

Tata Motors has already invested 20 billion ruppees, 3 billion more than it had planned just to build the factory. One unforeseen problem was flooding during the monsoon season! Still, trial production is expected this month or next and the car’s release is planned for October of this year.

Still, there is the problem of increased material prices, and even Tata subsidizes those costs, it may not be enough to keep the price down. Interest rates on the car for buyers wanting to switch from their motorbikes to a four-wheeler are expected to be around 17-18%. Imagine if they were using a credit card!

Even with all the obstacles, Tata Group is pushing ahead to provide safe vehicles for low-income families to use up all the rest of the world’s fossil fuels in a much shorter time span. The good news is that once all the fossil fuels have been used, we will have come up with an alternative.

So, why are we waiting until then?

Is it possible that a gas station, gas pump, filling station, service station (take your pick) be green? GP hardly thinks so. But, Treehugger proves us wrong. Sure enough, if a station, this one looks like a Shell station (we can really read the hell out of it), is left alone long enough it will turn green.

Is that kind of like when we die and our bodies return to ashes?

Electric cars like the i-MIEV, G-Wiz and Vectrix are where it’s at for several reasons.

1. 1% of all car journeys are over 100 miles.
2. Less than 1% of all cars on the road at any one time need a filling station
3. Just 10,000 filling stations are catering to the world’s 27 million cars rolling about
4. Electric cars can be refueled at home
5. Electric cars are sufficient for 70% of the people 99% of the time.

These figures may be good for Europe but I am not as confident that they would apply to the gas hog America. One hundred miles of driving a day has to be more than 1%. One hundred miles at a time? That’s different.

And, who pays the electric bill when these things are recharging anyway? I get the part where the cars are less polluting, but somebody somewhere is producing electricity, from coal maybe? Isn’t there a trade off here? Has anyone done the calculating?

In any event, I’m for not letting the gasoline stations turn green. Let’s rip them out if they aren’t in use instead of becoming eyesores. But then again, maybe in 20 years my little girl will point at one of these moldy old service stations and ask “Papa, what’s that?”

“Sweetie, when I was a kid we used to….”

Japanese policemen will be saving us from bad guys and saving the planet’s resources at the same time. Well, at least they will be doing the second. The truth is, Japanese police have never been too good at catching the bad guys.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will supply new vehicles, the Mitsubishi MiEV, to Japanese in Kanagawa prefecture, home to Yokohama. The electric car has a top speed of 130 kph and can travel 160km on a charge.

The mini patrol car won’t need much speed, however, because it will be used to track illegally parked cars. How fast do you need to go to do that?

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BMW may not be targeting environmentalists with their new Electric Mini but we’re really excited even though only 500 units will be produced. Chances are that you’re not going to buy one because rumors already say 490 of these models have already been leased to selected customers.

Destined for California only (hear that Bill? a test drive?) the new Mini EV will help meet the the zero-emissions vehicle mandate that requires automakers to build 7,500 non-polluting cars by 2014. It will be built in BMW’s factory in England and then sent to Munich to get the electric drivetrain installed.

“This step will allow the BMW Group to gain an initial knowledge of how mobility can be achieved efficiently using purely electrically powered vehicles,” Dr. Norbert Reithofer, chairman of BMW’s board of management, says. “Our task here is to combine the ultimate driving experience with an efficient electrified drive with practically no emissions.”

Biggest drawback I see right now is that they don’t go mainstream with it, but I suppose the Germans want to test the market, before making the investment. Would you buy one? I know I would!

Wired

I was pretty sure that shop-till-you-droppers couldn’t hurt the environment or themselves as long as the hoofed it everywhere they went. Of course, retailers have to keep the lights on, heat and cool facilities at all ungodly hours so that shoppers could get the ‘unique shopping experience.’ Until now. Shoppers don’t even have to do the walk, get exercise, kick off their high heels anymore.

In Shanghai there is a mini-metro train that runs INSIDE the mall. Exhausted ladies can hop a ride and be dropped off at Coldstone Ice Cream. Not only that, the train can go anywhere inside the 6-story home furnishing mall.

Yeah, I want to see how this train goes up and down the stairs, too. Feeling guilty? (I doubt this) But, the mall has designed the interior of the building to include many trees and water landscapes. Isn’t that nice? Shoppers can feel like they are being kind to the environment while they use up even more energy to get around.

Something tells me that malls like this are going backwards when it comes to being ‘green.’ I think malls ought to be open only during the daytime when it’s cool out and only at night when it’s hot. But, don’t tell my wife I said that.

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Mazda Motor Corp has a hydrogen-powered minivan coming to Japan for lease beginning next March.  The minivan will have hydrogen-combustion and an electric motor. Mazda is the Japanese affiliate of Ford Motor Co. The company received permission from Japan’s transport ministry to test the Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid. The Premacy is known as the Mazda5 overseas.

The minivan has a generator-powered electric motor and a rotary engine. (And, the Mazda goes ummm…). Emissions are water vapor only. Lease costs will be Y420K ($3800)/month! I think, I’ll take a his and hers.

BMW AG is Germany’s attempt to develop a fuel-cell system. Electricity is generated through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Honda’s Clarity will be available for lease in the US next month. Both cars have zero-emissions.

Beijing will follow NYC’s lead, sorta, restricting car traffic on roads during certain periods. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games are less than 2 months away. Beijing will ban vehicle traffic with odd and even-numbered license plates on alternate days from July 20th-Sept 20th. The hope is to improve air quality during the Games. Taxis, buses and emergency vehicles will be exempt.

The action is taken to fulfill Beijing’s commitment to host a “Green Olympics.”

Beijing will also ban all motor vehicles that don’t meet European No. 1 standards for exhaust emissions. Trucks not registered in Beijing will be prohibited from entering the city. To compensate motorists, owners will be exempt from taxes and road maintenance fees for three months. I wonder, what will NYC drivers get. Last year, Beijing ran a test that kept about 1.3 million vehicles off the road which in turn cut 5,815 tons of emissions.

So, why can’t the city do that all the time?

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Shenzhen is located across the river from Hong Kong. The city was mainland China’s first economically free zone in what turned out to be a successful experiment.

They are now building a new terminal at the Bao’an International Airport. The terminal will have a double skin canopy that will let patterned natural light into the space, thus reducing energy consumption. The inner skin of the roof will be made of a fine net that will allows diffused sunlight to come in creating a pleasant indoor atmosphere.

The pictures of what this airport will look like are stunning, to say the least. See the gallery after the break. (more…)