Automotive Blog

There’s no doubt that the hybrid sector is the most hotly emerging aspect of automotive production, fueled (if you’ll pardon the pun) by growing environmental concerns and rising gas prices. Not all hybrids are created equal, however, and recently a Lexus ad campaign was banned in the United Kingdom for what was perceived to be misleading information about the RX 400h’s emissions levels.

There will be a new entree on the hybrid menu later this year when the Smart FourTwo, a micro hybrid, comes to the United States. Smart cars have been gaining in popularity in Europe for some time, but it will be interesting to see if the tiny vehicles with 1-liter engines and a minimalistic 71 horsepower can find acceptance in the SUV-crazed United States.

The Smart FourTwo will be equipped with start/stop technology. The vehicle does have a combustion engine, but the engineers claim that by shutting down the engine during idling periods, the FourTwo will use 13 percent less gasoline.

I’ll admit I think the Smart cars are cute as all git out, and I’d love to be able to drive one. But I’ll also admit that living in Texas, the land of over-sized SUVs, great big pick-ups, and scary Moms with big hair and bigger suburbans, I’d probably be too scared to actually take a Smart car out on the road for fear of getting squashed like a bug.

Americans don’t just take personal transportation as a right, they take it as a divine right, one they want to express according to the nostrums bigger, faster, sexier. Will a Smart car that bears some resemblance to a Tonka toy find an audience outside small environmental enclaves in Oregon? Don’t hold your breath for seeing them in droves in the Lone Star State, but I still harbor my small hope that some day . . .

Posted on June 6th, 2007 by Shorty
Filed under: alternative fuels |

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