Sleek and aerodynamic, it knifes through the wind at over 160km/h, making no more noise than a microwave oven. Its primary "fuel"- and exchangable solution of electolytes and metals-is cheap, abundant, and virtually inexhaustible. ITs emissions are low in volume and all but free atmospheric pollutants. Its air conditioning system contains no zone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. Even its paint is non-toxic.

This is the quintessential "green car"- plaseing, prctical, and most important, environmentally benign. The ideal versionmay not become reality for another 20 years, but companies arond the world have amny of its components on the test track, with others either in the laboratory or on the drawing board. And a number of automakers-Volvo, Gerneral Motors, Mercedes and Mazda, amoung others-have working approximations of a "green car" already built.

Man made pollutions of the atmosphere has been implicated in everything from acid rain to global warming and depletion of the ozone layer. Cars, with thier toxic emmissions and CFC-producing air conditioning systems, are acknowledged by most experts to be a part of the promblem.

In response, many of the world's industrailzed countries have introduced tough emissions standards. In the United States, for instance, the state of California has mandated that by 2003, 10% of the cars sold in the state must produce no exhaust emissions whatsoever. Some countries, notably Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, give tax incentives and charge lower registration fees to owners of cleaner cars.

American manufacturers already fit car tailpipes with catatic converters, which reduce exhaust emissions by literally buring pollutants before they can escape. Toady's converters cut emission of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons by 96% or more, and reduce emission of nitric oxides by at least 76%. Engineers atthe AC Rochester Division of General Motors in Flint, Michigan, estimate that thier converters alone have claned exhaust streams of 30 million tons of hydrocarbons, 150 million tons of carbon monoxide and 10 million tons of oxides of nitrogen. Frims like W.R Grace & Co, based in New York City, meanwhile, are developing "quick heating" cataytic convetters, which use a jolt of electricity to attain a temperatire of 371 degrees celsius in as little as eight seconds. And Nissan, the Japanese automaker , is reducing emissions with techniques ranging from computerized valve controls to more precise timing of fuel injection. According to experts at AC Rochester, air quality continues to improve as new vehicles are equpped with the lastest emission-control technology and older cars are junked.

But catalytic converters aren't the only solution.Some companies are working to replace gas with different fuels altogether. AC Roschester is already producing ethnol- and methanol-tolerant fuel-handling systems for racingcars, for test fleets in the U.S and for the Brazilian market. Variable fuel vehicles(VFV), supplied by the General Motors and Mazda to the state of California as part of an experimental program to test thier effectiveness in highway use, run on a methanol-gasoline combination. And Toyota is manufacturing cars fueled by natural gas, Which produces emissions that are relatively benign.

IT maybe possible to reduce emissions still further by taking a lseeon form the early automotive pioneers who bult electric cars which, it seems, gernerate virtually no toxic emissions. They maybe on the market soon: Gerneral Motors sleek Imoact sportster should start rolling off the assembly line in the next few yaers, and a Chrysler electric-powered  TEVan(T is the model name, E stands for electirc) is expected to be on the market in the mid-1990s.

Electric cars do, of course, have drawbacks. At present, even the most powerful can go only about 120k/h and run perhaps 90 minutes before needing an eight hour recharge. Thier lead-acid batteries might last only 40000km; theh they have to be replace at a cost of $1500 or more.

Tha's one reason why automotive visionaries are looking to vehicles fueled by hydrogen, the most abundant material in the universe. BMW has bulit an experimental 735iL sedan with a3.5-liter, six cylincer engine that can run on either liquid hydrogen or gasoline. Daimlerbenz has tested both a 2.3 liter four cylincer engine that runs on hydrides-metal alloys that release hydrogen as they're heated-and a larger "hybrid" enginethat runs on gasoline in criusing speeds, swtching to hydrogen when idling. These test, in which over 100 vehicles were driven under everydayconditions on the streets of Berlin, showed according to Dr. HAns-Ulrich Hoss, Daimler's head of hydrogen research, that "the opertaion of vehicles with hydrogen is possible and controllable".

even suppoters such as Hoss agree that proucing enough hydrogen to power a large fleet would require a Herculean effort. In the shirt term, it could take more energy, both literally and figuratively, to produce large quantities of hydrogen than the hydrogen itself would provide.

It remains to be seen which of the many appraoches to a green car will win out on the test track and in the market place. Although there may be debate over which appraoch or combination of approaches  will ultimately prove friendliest to the environment, nearly everyone agrees with JOe Coluci, Head of Gerneral Motors Research Laboratories fuels and lubricants department in Warren, Machigan. " to achive public acceptance," Colucci says, cras and the fuels they burn "will have to be environmantally sound."

Design for Disassembly

Call it the disapperaing car.its toxic components have been eliminated , its plastic labeled for recycling, its bumpers and fenders designed to be easily and neatly detached. When its days on the raod are over, it will for all practical purposes cease to exist, with each and every one of its parts recycled for use in a new vehicle.

The concept is called design for disassembly, and it is the sine qua non of any vehicle that aspires to be truly green. What good does it do, afterall, to build a car that's environmentally friendly during its operating lifetime only to have it clutter the landscapeonce it has gone to the grave?

The problem-what to do with dead cars-is massive. In western Germany alone, 1.9 million cars come to the end of the road every year, and the cost to dispose of thier hard-to-recycle components0-batteries, air conditioning refrigerators, tires,etc.-is expected to rise from $18 to $400 a ton in the next five years. Environmentally conco=ious lawmakers are beginning to clamour for action: in Germany, for example, amnufacturers have been told they must have a vehicle recycling program in operation by 1994.

Carmakers everywhere are working hard to respond. In Englanda dn the UNited States, car batteries are being recycled. France's Peugeot is gearing up for a "whole auto" approach to recycling, in which entire vehicles will ground into a "homogonous granulate" that acn be used to make sement. And Himont Advanced Materails in Fankfurt is working  on three-piece, easily disassembled dashboard made only one kind of plastic, thus making it esier to recycle.

The untimate goal, of course, is a green car that can be 100% recycled,from hood ornament to tailpipe. A number of new cars are getting clsoe. Volswagen Says that its Audi 100 is almost 100% recycleable, tic body that can be disassembled from its metal chassis in only 20 minutes.

Experts say that design for disassembly m,ay ultimately save as much as 50% of energy used to manufacture an automobile, and reuce worldwide auto watste by a hefty 3 million tons. It's a concept whose time has come out-not only for automakers, but for other industries as well.

Bill Lawren  

Source : Newsweek 17 June 1991

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