emissions

  • Toyota 'Project Portal' proof-of-concept hydrogen fuel-cell powered semi tractor, for Port of LA

    The challenges of building fueling infrastructure for passenger cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are well known by now. Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai now lease low volumes of fuel-cell vehicles in selected areas of California where a few dozen hydrogen fueling stations are now up and running. The challenges for fueling may be less daunting for other sorts of vehicles, however—including heavy-duty tractors that haul freight trailers all over the country. DON'T MISS: 2016 Toyota Mirai: First Drive Of Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Sedan This morning, Toyota revealed its "Project Portal" experiment in...

  • 2015 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, 2014 New York Auto Show
    Brand-new 2015 Volkswagen TDI diesels back on sale after modifications

    If you're a diehard diesel fan, you now have one last chance to buy a brand-new Volkswagen TDI diesel car. Well, almost brand-new, anyhow: the cars in question are 2015 models, and about 11,000 of them will go on sale after they have been modified. Once they're sold, there will likely be no more...

  • Volkswagen TDI diesel vehicles owned by Phil Grate and family, Seattle, Washington
    Europe diesel sales sag slightly, continuing trend since 2012

    Despite efforts by Chevrolet to step into the void left by Volkswagen, sales of diesel passenger vehicles in the U.S. may have been permanently crippled by the VW diesel emission scandal. In Europe, however, diesel has been entrenched for decades as roughly 50 percent of the market. Even before the...

  • Zunum range-extended electric regional jet - concept design
    Electric jet startup is backed by Boeing and JetBlue

    Seattle-based startup Zunum Aero has received funding from Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures toward making its dream of electrified air travel a reality. Sometimes billed as the Tesla of the airplane industry, Zunum is developing a relatively small regional aircraft with about 700...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    Automakers seek deal to delay EPA's 2022-2025 emission rules

    Despite some alarmist reporting, President Donald Trump hasn't abolished the EPA's vehicle emission limits. Nor has he wiped out corporate average fuel-economy rules, set by the NHTSA. So far, he's done two things: signed an executive order reopening the comment period for 2022-2025 EPA emission...

  • Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee
    Clean Power Plan carbon cuts may survive, even if Trump EPA kills rule

    The Clean Power Plan’s future looks uncertain at best under President Donald Trump. The commander-in-chief appears to be urging American utility companies to pivot back towards burning coal to produce electricity. Ending the so-called “war on coal” is intended to create jobs in...

  • Cooling tower at power plant, by Flickr user Paul J Everett (Used under CC License)

    Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has gone on record saying publicly what most analysts have discussed privately: the notion that Washington can direct the energy market back towards coal is wrong. In fact, Bloomberg is willing to go further: he believes that the U.S. can still meet the reductions set forth in the Paris climate treaty it signed last year. That's regardless of whether the U.S. pulls out of the Paris Agreement, abolishes its Clean Power Plan, or any of the many other actions discussed by Trump and the other climate-science deniers now in control of the Executive...

  • 2015 Volkswagen Golf TDI SE
    Asking prices climb for used VW TDI diesels as buybacks proceed

    If you have your eyes on a used Volkswagen or Audi TDI turbodiesel, you may wind up having to pay more today for 2009 through 2015 models than you would have when they were new. At least right now, only 2015 model-year versions of VW and Audi vehicles sold with the 2.0-liter turbodiesel 4-cylinder...

  • 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor strapped to a dyno
    Trump budget slashes EPA emission testing, hits makers with higher fees

    The prospect of ongoing operations as usual continues to darken for the Environmental Protection Agency. According to a detailed internal budget document published in the The Washington Post, the Trump administration wants to eliminate virtually all federal funding for the agency’s vehicle...

  • Walmart store sign (via Wikimedia)
    Large corporations, manufacturers stick with climate pledges despite Trump

    The new U.S. president, Donald Trump, is working to eradicate every Obama policy to limit the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Having variously called the science behind climate change a "Chinese plot" to hurt the U.S. and referred to it using an expletive for bovine excrement...

  • Mark Webber driving a 2016 Porsche 919 Hybrid in London
    London's $27 entry charge for pre-2016 diesel cars to start April 2019

    For more than 13 years, London has collected a stiff charge from motor vehicles entering the congested core of the city during weekday business hours. Known as the congestion charge, the fee of £11.50 a day, or $14.50 (£10 with automatic payment, or $12.50) is levied from 6 am to 7 pm...

  • Chrome exhaust pipe
    When will it be unacceptable to drive a car with a tailpipe? Poll results

    No vehicle on earth is entirely free of emissions; even electric cars charged on renewable energy have emissions associated with their manufacturing. Those emissions, however, are a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide and other substances emitted by gasoline or diesel cars when scientifically...

  • The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]

    These do not appear to be the best of times for President Donald J. Trump, but his agenda of eliminating regulations and promoting fossil fuels continues to roll out. This week, Trump appeared at the EPA to sign an executive order that directed the agency to reopen and reassess its Clean Power Plan for reducing carbon emissions from generating electricity in each state. The event was sparsely attended and, as reported by The Washington Post, some agency employees wore buttons saying "Scientific Integrity" as a silent protest. DON'T MISS: Trump Administration goal: undo every climate-change...

  • 2012 Subaru Impreza hatchback used for Google Street View, modified to gather data on methane leaks
    Google Street View car used to spot, quantify methane leaks

    Natural gas is growing as a part of the world's grid mix, because its carbon per kilowatt-hour is much lower. But methane leaks that emit large volumes of climate-change gas into the air may offset that advantage. Now, a Google Street View car has allowed researchers to pinpoint and quantify the...

  • 2017 Toyota Prius
    How to curb climate change yourself: drive a more efficient car

    Given the current political landscape in Washington, it's not unreasonable to worry about the future of U.S. efforts to combat climate change. The Trump Administration has embarked on an explicit mission to undo all Obama Administration efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Climate-science deniers in...

  • Cooling tower at power plant, by Flickr user Paul J Everett (Used under CC License)
    Natural-gas plants cut carbon, but methane emissions can be 100 times higher than expected

    While renewable energy gets significant press as an alternative to coal in electricity generation, it isn't the main factor in decreasing the use of that carbon-intensive fuel. Thanks to its generally lower cost, natural gas is quickly displacing other fuels in the nation's power plants. In...

  • California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols (via Twitter)
    California reaffirms state emission, electric-car rules for 2025

    The California Air Resources Board voted Friday to confirm its stricter emissions standards for 2025, setting up a potential clash with the Trump Administration. The CARB vote reaffirms a decision by the EPA in the waning days of the Obama Administration to lock in emissions standards for vehicles...

  • Big square baler harvesting wheat straw for production of cellulosic ethanol
    E15 gasoline faces stronger headwinds as more states move to ban it

    While political control in Washington has changed, the debate over a mandate to blend specific volumes of ethanol into the U.S. fuel supply has not. Since its passage in 2007 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act, the ethanol-mandating Renewable Fuel Standard has attracted...

  • Nissan Sway Concept

    California is very different from the rest of the United States. All by itself, it's the sixth largest economy in the world. One eighth of all Americans live there. It's home to Silicon Valley, as well as much of the global entertainment industry, and it produces a large proportion of the nation's fruit and vegetables. DON'T MISS: A Brief History Of Smog, Which Led To Electric Cars Its Los Angeles Basin is also doomed by its geography and geology to suffer perennially bad air. Even the Spanish Conquistadors complained about the haze caused when smoke from the campfires of indigenous peoples...

  • Gas pump
    Costs to meet fuel-economy standards even lower than EPA says: analysis

    The auto industry tends to oppose, viscerally and viciously, all attempts to regulate any aspect of its products or business operations for any reason. With President Trump in the White House, the industry has succeeded in getting the comment period reopened for the EPA emission standards finalized...

  • PSA's Carlos Tavares and General Motors' Mary T. Barra
    Europe's emission limits, small cars far from global mainstream: is this why GM sold Opel?

    At the 2017 Geneva auto show, General Motors announced the sale of its entire European operations—comprising factories and the Opel and Vauxhall brands—to PSA Peugeot Citroën. German Opel and its British Vauxhall sibling have represented GM's main presence in Europe for decades...

  • Oil well (photo by John Hill)
    The oil industry doesn't care about electric cars: here's why

    It crops up in comments from electric-car advocates and clean-energy users fairly regularly. And it goes something like this: "Big Oil and Gas are on the verge of collapse, as clean energy and electric cars make them obsolete." Occasionally the sentiment is followed by an approving emoji. DON'T...

  • 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel
    French prosecutors to investigate Fiat Chrysler for 'aggravated cheating' on diesel emissions

    Fiat Chrysler Automobiles continues to be dogged by allegations that it cheated on various diesel-emissions tests. In the U.S., the company faces two lawsuits alleging that diesel vehicles use "defeat device" software to circumvent emissions tests in a similar manner to Volkswagen's cheating TDI...

  • Volkswagen ID Buzz concept, 2017 Detroit auto show
    First high-volume VW electric car must arrive by 2020, CEO says, mostly for China

    As it tries to put the ongoing diesel-emissions scandal behind it, VW Group is focusing its future on electric cars. The Volkswagen brand within the sprawling German company has developed an electric-car specific platform called MEB, and has shown multiple concepts based on it. Those include the ID...

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