KEY POINTS:
Chances are that this long weekend finds you tooling - maybe slowly - down the highway to beach or bach, trying to reconnect with that relaxed Christmas holiday feeling.
Take a look at what you're driving, because the car of the not-too-distant future is likely to be markedly
different. You may even be powering it up for your weekend away by plugging it into the power socket in your house.
Driven by fuel efficiency legislation, the cost of fuel and a need to be kinder to the planet, carmakers are looking to downsize and green-up their products.
The car of the near future will be smaller, quieter, cleaner but not necessarily slower. Car engineers have discovered that electric motors provide instant power and rapid acceleration from a standstill.
Honda, Toyota and Lexus are among those working on hybrid-powered sports cars they aim to have on the market by 2011.
And at this month's North American International Auto Show, former BMW and Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker (now an independent car builder) unveiled a plug-in hybrid luxury four-seater sedan capable of reaching 100km/h in a sports-car like six seconds.
Fisker hasn't revealed fuel-efficiency data but claims it is "more environmentally-friendly" than a Toyota Prius, the world's best-selling hybrid. Named "Karma", Fisker's car combines a four-cylinder engine and lithium-ion batteries which have a range of 80km. Once the batteries are used up, the engine powers a generator that drives the car.
Even in the United States, the bastion of V8 petrol-engine, sedans are giving way to smaller high-tech petrol and diesel engines, some mated to electric motors in hybrids.
Even Cadillac is rallying to the "downsize me" cry, and looking to a 2.9-litre turbo-charged V6 diesel for its mainstream sedans. The company says only 10 to 15 per cent of cadillac buyers insist on a V8.
The meat, as one motoring writer put it, of this year's trade show in Detroit, was the diversity of the manufacturers' solutions to the alternative fuel question.
While ecologically-minded engineers agree that the long-term future of the automobile involves some kind of fuel cell, the industry is taking a variety of routes along the way to that destination.
NEW GENERATION BATTERIES/ PETROL OR DIESEL-ELECTRIC HYBRIDS
Lithium-ion batteries pack a far greater punch than standard nickel-metal-hydride batteries but there's work to be done yet to iron out shortcomings such as their explosive tendencies.
The third version of the Toyota Prius the world's best-selling hybrid can be charged from a socket at home as well as from the brakes and the engine while driving, but its release has been delayed.
Mercedes-Benz sees the short-term future as diesel but will also offer a hybrid, using a diesel engine to supplement the electric motor.
'CLEAN' DIESEL
Americans recall their diesel flirtation without affection. Petrol engines were hastily converted to diesel in the aftermath of the 1973 oil shock. Hard to start, noisy, smelly and lumbering, they were forgotten a decade later when oil prices returned to earth in the United States.
Not so in Europe where the high petrol prices created a following for diesel's 30 per cent better fuel economy and greater torque. Thanks to European car makers Fiat, Bosch, Volkswagen and others which invested heavily in diesel research and development, the modern turbo-charged diesel bears little resemblance to those of old.
German manufacturers and Mitsubishi are betting on diesel being the short-term answer and will see potential in figures that show that whereas one out of two new cars in Europe is a diesel, they account for less than 3 per cent of cars and light trucks in the United States.
BMW has introduced two models (the X5 xDrive35d and 335d) with its Blue Performance turbocharged six cylinder oil burners, and Mercedes-Benz has announced diesels will be available throughout its range of SUVs.
Modern diesels produce one-third less greenhouse gases than their petrol equivalents and a recent change to European Union emission standards has led to manufacturers reducing soot particles and nitrogen oxide in the exhaust pipe.
"If you told me 10 years ago that I'd be putting 'clean' and 'diesel' in the same sentence, I'd have said you were out of your mind," Margot Ode, director of the Office of transportation and Air Quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, told Popular Mechanics. But its happening. Oil refineries are now producing what's called ultra-low sulphur diesel with sulphur concentrations of only a few per cent of diesel cars of the 1970s.
To compare efficiencies, Popular Mechanics tested a turbo-diesel (2007, 1.4-litre VW Polo Bluemotion) and a hybrid (2007, 1.5-litre Toyota Prius, petrol-electric) and found the diesel had better fuel economy (by 38 per cent) and emitted 5 per cent less greenhouse gases.
Mercedes-Benz is selling a diesel version of its popular E-320 model in the US, the first to meet emission standards of all 50 states and earlier this month, all leading European, Japanese and Korean car companies had clean diesels on display at the Detroit show. But they are yet to be joined by American carmakers who are concentrating on subsidised technologies such as a flexi-fuel vehicle that can run on either a blend of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent petrol, or straight petrol.
BIODIESEL
Made from vegetable oils or animal fats, can be blended with traditional diesel. It's possible to use the waste product from restaurant and takeaway deep fat fryers to run some diesel vehicles but this type of vegetable oil is not considered fuel grade and requires serious investigation and vehicle modification.
BIOETHANOL/FLEXI-FUEL
Henry Ford designed the first mass-produced automobile, the famed Model T Ford, to run on pure anhydrous (ethanol) alcohol and described it as "the fuel of the future".
Ethanol is cleanercleaner burning than petrol and produces less carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide emissions and produces fewer greenhouse gases that cause global climate change.
Almost half of Brazilian cars can use 100 per cent ethanol as fuel (includes ethanol-only engines and flexi-fuel engines), while US flexi-fuel vehicles can run on a blend of up to 85 per cent ethanol mixed with petrol (E85). Brazil supports its ethanol fleet with a large-scale operation that produces ethanol from domestically grown sugar cane.
The growth of flexi-fuel vehicles in the US is in response to legislation requiring that 7.5 billion gallons of renewable biofuel be blended into petrol by 2012, along with associated heavy subsidies and tax credits.
Such is General Motors commitment to E85, it has gone into partnership with Coskata with the aim of reducing the cost of producing ethanol in the US to as little as US$1 a gallon (a third less than for corn-based fuel).
Coskata aims to make the fuel from non-foodstocks such as wood chips and other waste products.
HYDROGEN-POWERED
Plain old water is the only emission from hydrogen-powered cars but is prohibitively expensive and hydrogen production is still CO2 intensive.
Chrysler has unveiled a small family car that had a battery-only driving range of 64km but combined with hydrogen power, could travel almost 500km.
CUT-OFF CYLINDER ACTIVATION
Engines are being redesigned to optimise fuel efficiency. With this system, the car uses all of its cylinders when it needs it, for take-off or overtaking for example, and automatically shuts down cylinders when it doesn't. The cut-off had been offered in V8s. Honda has introduced its Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) system to its new V6 Accord.
By monitoring factors such as throttle position, vehicle speed, engine speed and gear selection, the system selects the required power, engaging all cylinders making the full 202KW engine available, or cutting back to four or three cylinders.
Honda says necessary adjustments to ignition timing, torque and the like are automatic, and transition between three-, four- and six-cylinder is unnoticeable to the driver.
PLUG-IN HYBRIDS AND ELECTRIC CARS
Toyota and Chevrolet plan to have plug in cars in showrooms in 2010. They can be recharged overnight. Toyota is yet to disclose the range of its system but General Motors says its Volt electric car will have a battery-only range of 64km which exceeds the daily commute of most motorists.
The Volt also has a small petrol-powered generator to recharge the battery which extends its range up to 1030km.
The Dodge Zeo concept vehicle turned heads at the Detroit show, with acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h comparable to a Holden V8 at six seconds, and an electric-only driving range of 400km. The Zeo (it stands for Zero Emissions Operation) is made of aluminium and powered by a bank of batteries housed under the floor.
Though such cars of the future are small, industry leaders are warning that they won't be cheap.
SAVE YOUR ENERGY
New Zealand's fuel policy is aimed at encouraging us to buy vehicles that are more efficient in both economy and pollutants - and to use the car less.
The NZ Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy sets a target of 170g of CO2 emissions per kilometre by 2015 for light vehicles entering the fleet, compared to the current average of 210g of CO2/km.
The 2015 target figure equates to average fuel consumption of 7.0 litres per 100kms. By comparison, the US has a 2020 target of 6.7 L/100km, compared to its current average of 8.5L/100km.
New measures will be required for NZ to meet its target. A discussion document proposing a fuel economy standard is due to be made public soon.
Options aimed at changing consumers' driving and car buying habits also being investigated or implemented include: an energy efficiency star rating label for car purchases, the Ministry of Transport's Low Carbon Diet campaign and Land Transport's campaigns encouraging parents to walk their children to school.
New Zealand is committed to increasing biofuels sales, with a target of 3.4 per cent of fuel sales by 2012.
