Next stops: Illinois; Kentucky; and South Carolina. Seattle and Portland soon!
I just got back from participating in a portion of the Portland to Portland Green Test Drive which also included a meeting with the Volkswagen of America marketing and engineering folks in Herndon, Virginia. I was very excited to learn more about the new clean burning diesel technology and where VW is taking their research and development over the next few years.
But first, a little background as to what we're doing with the Green P2P, and why.
What are we doing? We've put together a team of folks that are driving both a Toyota Prius and a new clean burning diesel Jetta 9,000 miles accross the country. Our team is putting both cars to the test and evaluating their performance in all kinds of conditions, from the bitter cold of the Northeast winter, to the desert heat in the Southwest.
Why is what we're doing important? One of the top mandates of the new administration is to move this country in the direction of green energy. Couple that with the bailouts being given to auto makers, and the need for more information and discussion about new and existing POV's becomes an obvious topic. While hybrid electric is extremely viable for light duty passenger vehicles, particularly in urban environments, there needs to be other solutions for other types of transportation needs. Hybrid technology and clean burning diesel represent two of the most "work ready" solutions today.
Further, it is our belief (and many agree with us) that our energy future must come from MULTIPLE energy resources and the addition of true clean burning vehicle technology opens to doors to a much wider choice of fuel stock (including BioFuels) than hybrid gasoline engines alone.
So why is this news NOW? The new "clean burning" technology in use by the Jetta is 90% cleaner than the previous generation of technology producing less than 0.05 NOX gram per mile which NOW - FOR THE FIRST TIME - MEETS OR EXCEED ULEV STANDARDS IN ALL 50 STATES. This clean burning technology is now squarely on par with Hybrids and provides A REAL ALTERNATIVE for consumers to consider.
The goal of our test drive is to give consumers (both through a first hand look and interactive technology as we drive), a SIDE by SIDE look at the real benefits of each of these vehicles under a variety of conditions and criteria.
So what are some of things that VW is up to? First, they're expanding the number of vehicles that use this clean burning technology. We saw a clean burning Tiguan (Sport Utility), a clean burning Rabbit (aka; Golf) and there are others to come.
Second, and even more exciting to me, is the planned NEXT GENERATION of clean burning vehicles. As noted above, the current generation of clean burning is 90% more efficient than the previous generation, but VW isn't stopping there. The next generation slated for 2010, VW aims to gain another 50% efficiency and thereby meet the SULEV (super ultra low emissions) standards which are considerably tougher than the current ULEV ones.
All of which is great news for consumers (more choices), AND the environment.
P.S. the cars were pretty darn fun the drive too, did I mention that?
5 comments: