Green Ride to Combat Global Warming

March 1, 2007— -- The Vanguard may one day come in many colors, but for now the minivan concept car comes only in green.

It's an environmentally-friendly, virtual vehicle that only exists on paper. But proponents say it could be built today with existing technologies.

Designers at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private science advocacy group, claim the Vanguard could reduce global warming pollution by 40 percent by combining a number of off-the-shelf technologies into one design, something they say the auto industry has been unwilling to do.

"The phase in of the Vanguard technology would, by 2030, reduce over 73 million tons of global warming pollutants from the air," said Spencer Quong, a vehicle engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It is equivalent to taking 19 million vehicles off the road."

Automobile manufacturers quickly dismissed the idea as unfeasible, adding that many of the technologies the Vanguard proposes are already on the road today.

Those technologies include smarter engines that shut off cylinders that are not being used, improvements to air conditioning systems and the use of biofuels. Designers point out that the Vanguard would run on gasoline or a combination of gas and ethanol. It is not a hybrid, which uses a combination of gasoline and electric power.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says the technology package it proposes would add about $299 to the sticker price of a new car like the Vanguard.

An industry group representing Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and others said many of the technologies cited by the Union of Concerned Scientists are already in use, and that simply combining them all in one vehicle would not achieve the claimed 40 percent reduction.

"That's not how vehicles work," said Charles Territo of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "Just by adding a certain technology to a vehicle may limit the use of another technology. You can't just start slapping technologies on a vehicle and expect it to operate in the manner that you expect it to operate."

Territo said that automakers are bringing new fuel-efficient technologies to market as they are ready.

In the United States, transportation accounts for about 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

California and 10 other states have adopted rules that require up to 34 percent reduction in emissions in the next 10 years. The auto industry is fighting the states on the grounds that the laws affect fuel-economy standards, which are the authority of the federal government.

A scientific panel told the United Nations this week that governments must provide billions more dollars in clean energy research and sharply roll back fossil fuel emissions that are heating the planet.