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Tahoe and Yukon Hybrids: Sensible or Stupid?

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by Starre Vartan · 08/02/07

I was embarrassed. There’s no other way to describe how a green, treehugging, environmental blogger such as myself felt clambering into a Chevy Tahoe outside a restaurant on the West Side of Manhattan recently. This ‘full-size’ (read that as gigantically huge) SUV was a hybrid, true, but its slightly lower emissions did nothing for the fact that driving one of these things through New York City streets makes you feel like a road hog, no matter how obsequiously you try to maneuver. Not to mention the flit of panic that cruised across my brain as I thought about parallel parking it (but no matter, it would hardly fit in a parking space on the street anyway). And be not fooled: I have city-driving skills. I’ve been driving in Manhattan since I was 17 (that’s 13 years of competing with taxis, avoiding pedestrians, and lots and lots of street parking).

I was ensconced in the driver’s seat of the not-yet-released hybrid Tahoe because GM invited me. I’ve been writing about how to live sustainably for years now, and I thought that despite my lack of love for SUVs, I should go and try one of the hybrid models out. I’ve driven my friend’s Prius quite a few times, so I know how hybrid engines handle, and I wanted to compare. The hybrid Tahoe is similar to the Prius in that also shuts the engine off at stops, utilizes braking energy to recharge the battery, and runs on battery-only at low speeds, all of which save gas. As soon as the foot hits the pedal, it’s go time, with nary a lag, in the Prius, anyway. Except that this time I was driving a super-sized vehicle, so it still took awhile to get 5,500+ pounds going.

This is the gps thing that also shows you how your car works, in case you’ve bought a hybrid without really understanding what it is (which I’m sure will happen)! But also nice to have a visual to show your friends and family while explaining how your crazy newfangled truck works.

While I was busy praying that nobody I knew saw me driving the Tahoe through the already-congested streets (I realized that I was taking up the space two cars could drive in!), my lovely guide, Mary Sipes from GM, was telling me about how this car was mainly sold to women, who either buy or influence about 85 percent of car-buying decisions. I realized with a depressing thought that us ladies were probably responsible for the whole SUV craze. Because we want to feel safe, and most importantly, we want our children to be safe (even though SUVs, with their high rollover rates, and poor rear-crash protection stats are anything but safer for kids). Still, many people still think that driving the biggest behemoth on the road is smart, ignoring completely what that means to the safety of other drivers when you crash into them.

I am especially sensitive to this last point. I drive a 1997 Saab 900, which is a smallish, zippy car (with not-that-great gas mileage, yes I know! I make up for it by not driving much, as I ride my bike and take the train 80 percent of the time). About six weeks ago, a woman in a glowing gold Cadillac Escalade backed into my parked Saab while I was waiting on line for gas (the irony does NOT escape me here). She was going about five miles an hour and totaled the driver’s side of my car with her bumper. When she hopped out (she was the solo occupant, natch) she apologized profusely, exclaiming that, “The sensor is supposed to tell me when I’m going to hit something behind me!” I guess looking over her shoulder was too much trouble, but it taught me an important lesson: you don’t want to be in an accident with a large SUV. There’s the weight differential, which automatically puts a smaller car at a disadvantage no matter what, and then there’s the fact that her bumper was just about level with my chest as she backed towards me.

It was a scary and sobering experience. The stats back me up. According to a 2005 report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that looked specifically at crashes between cars and SUVs, “The car occupant death rates went up as the weights of the SUVs and four-door cars went up, but the increase by weight was much steeper when the collision was with an SUV.” And this from a 2002 Washington Monthly article, “When a car is hit from the side by another car, the victim is 6.6 times as likely to die as the aggressor. But if the aggressor is an SUV, the car driver’s relative chance of dying rises 30 to 1.” To feel safe did I need to be driving a huge SUV too? Were our highways now turning into an SUV arms race? You aren’t safe unless you have the biggest truck?

Ms. Sipes told me that there is now what GM calls vehicle-to-vehicle compensation in the new 2007 and 2008 hybrid versions of the Tahoe and Yukon, which is, “Three brackets, mounted to the frame, which manages energy in collisions with smaller vehicles. It’s really simple.” Too bad they didn’t add those earlier; they could’ve saved some lives.

Back at my test drive, I noticed I had to stop much more often since I couldn’t wiggle through spots I would have been able to in my Saab, which made it slow-going. It reminded me of the news article I read that stipulated that the popularity of SUVs was increasing congestion especially in suburban areas, since fewer of the larger vehicles could make it through an intersection in a given amount of time (3-4 SUVs could go through a light in the time it took 5-6 cars).

But onto the main reason I was here. Ms. Sipes was telling me that the fuel economy in the city for the new Tahoe and Yukon (same car, different styling), was 40 percent higher in the city, 25 percent higher on the highway, with the hybrid engine. Which is good news since the non-hybrid version only gets about 13-15 mpg in real-world city driving conditions (up to 20 mpg highway driving).

The little gauge at the upper left tells the driver if she’s driving economically or not. Hard braking and crazy acceleration will take you out of the ‘green zone’.

While I suppose it’s a step in the right direction to put a hybrid engine in a gas-guzzler, I couldn’t help reflecting on the history of the American auto industry, which has vehemently fought fuel-economy standards since the oil crisis of the 1970′s passed us by, leading to the pathetic fact that overall, cars and trucks miles per gallon efficiency has flatlined in recent years. There was a fuel-economy bill that was filibustered by the Senate in 1991 that would have raised standards by 40 percent over a decade. If adopted, we would now be saving over a million barrels of oil a day (not to mention taking a chunk of CO2 out of the global warming equation). Why was it fought so hard in the Senate? Because Ford and GM thought it would affect their profits. It is exactly this lack of foresight that has caused the American car companies to lose market share. To their new Tahoe and Yukon hybrids, I say, too little, too late.

At this point in the climate-control game, hybrids, especially on such large fuel-suckers, are a feel-good choice for soccer moms, not a serious solution. What we need now is cars that run on batteries that we can charge up at night from our solar panel, wind turbine, microhydro system or even coal-burning power plant (still cleaner than burning fossil fuels in an internal combustion engine, according to this information.

Good thing GM’s working on the Chevy Volt. Now that’s a car I can get behind without embarrassment, and it looks like it’ll even fit in the streets of New York.

This puppy’s got hybrid decals all over it but it’s promotional only. The final model will have three slightly less obnoxious silver tags on various parts of the truck, because as Mary Sipes said, “Hybrid drivers want other people to know they’re driving a hybrid.”

Article reprinted with permission from The Huffington Post. Images by Starre Vartan for Eco Chick.

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Call Your Representatives About Renewable Energy!

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by Starre Vartan · 07/30/07

Ok, normally I try not to post too much of this kind of stuff, but I can’t urge you all enough to contact your representatives (if you’re not sure who they are, go to this site.)

From MoveOn:

Did you know the U.S. right now gets only 2% of our electricity from clean energy sources like solar and wind? We have the technology. We know people want it. We just haven’t had the political will.

But Congress is voting this week on H.R. 969, a bill that will dramatically boost solar and wind energy. If it passes, it’ll be like taking 37 million cars off the road.1 Along with the rest of the energy package, it’ll be the biggest step in two decades toward a clean planet and affordable energy.

Big oil and coal are fighting the bill hard, because it would undercut their stranglehold on our economy. That’s why Congress needs to hear from the public that clean energy is a priority.

The bill requires utilities to increase the percentage of electricity produced from wind, biomass, geothermal, and solar energy sources. If it passes, utilities nationwide will produce 20% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. This bill alone will reduce 511 million tons of global warming pollution.

See full text at Grist, with citations (for some reason I can’t find it on their site anywhere…)

If calling makes you nervous, just remember that aside from a hand-written letter, a call is the next best thing to get your voice heard. It’s easier to use scripts if you’re short on time. Here’s a sample message you can leave: “Hello, my name is ____ and I live in_____. I’m calling to urge Rep. _____ to cosponsor the H.R. 969, the Udall
(D-NM)-Platts (R-PA) renewable electricity standard.”

It takes less than a minute, and you’ve gotten your nudge in there for 20% by 2020. Do it today before they vote!

At the very least, sign MoveOn’s petition.

car, cars, coal, electric, electricity, Energy, farm, Global Warming, oil, Pollution, produce, reduce, Technology, Vote

Did You See the Snowman Last Night at the Debates?

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by Starre Vartan · 07/24/07

I thought the Dems debates last night were the best I’ve ever seen (I watched them streaming on Cnn.com since I don’t have cable). That the questions came from real people via YouTube was THE BEST IDEA EVER! (and the videos submitted by us crazy citizens were funny, sad, poignant, and most importantly, touched on really tough issues!)

So first off, CONGRATS to all those questioners that I share the great USA with…YOU made me proud to be an American (the politicians, well, they were being politicians, you know?. Of course the highlight was the snowman/global warming question! Check it out!

(Answers taken from the NYTimes transcript of the debates.)

COOPER: It’s a funny video. It’s a serious question. Congressman Kucinich?

KUCINICH: Well, we have to understand the connection between global warring and global warming. Because when we start talking about wars for oil, we’re essentially keeping the same approach to energy.

(APPLAUSE)

So I’m saying we need to move away from reliance on oil and coal and toward reliance on wind and solar.

KUCINICH: Anderson, that’s the basis of my WGA, Works Green Administration, where we take an entirely new approach to organize the entire country around sustainability, around conservation. We don’t have to have our snowmen melting, and the planet shouldn’t be melting either.

COOPER: Are the people on this stage, are your fellow candidates, are they green enough?

KUCINICH: No. And I think that the reason is that if you support, for example, in Iraq, if you say that Iraq should privatize its oil for the U.S. oil companies, then what you’re doing is you’re continuing a commitment to use more oil. If you believe that all options should be put on the table with respect to Iran, that’s about oil.

So we need to move away from reliance on oil…

COOPER: Time.

KUCINICH: … and that’s really connected to our defense policy, and I’m the one who gets the connection.

COOPER: All right.

(APPLAUSE)

WHY didn’t other candidates answer such an important question???? Too hard???

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Deathy Hollows

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by Katie Kish · 07/22/07

Harry Potter books give me a headache. I’ve read all of them and finished Deathly Hollows this morning.
Spoiler: I was extremely disappointed that Harry didn’t die. It would have been too cool.

The only good thing about this particular Harry Potter book was the way in which the publishers/author went out of their way to ensure that it is one of the most environmentally friendly books ever published.

The orders for Deathly Hollows have surpassed the 2.5 million copy mark at Amazon.com and just over 1.3 million from Barnes and Noble. In June the export orders from Bloomsbury Publishing were 17% above what they were for the sixth book The Half-Blood Prince. Scholastic released a record breaking 12 million copies.

Millions of Potter fans eagerly awaited the release at 12:01, some dressed up and some freezing cold – such as the Australian man who jumped into a cold ass lake to get his pre-purchase receipt. Before the release a publishing company accidentally released 1200 copies and a man sold a copy on ebay for $250. The wikipedia entry had the entire plot line detailed nearly a week before the book was ever released. I personally recommend reading the wiki and not the book…

A book this big is bound to kill a lot of trees. But instead 16 publishers used eco-friendly paper including Scholastic who wasn’t going to but then faced a boycott. This initiative saved 200 000 trees and avoided almost 7.9 kilograms of green house gases. This is the equivalent to taking 1 577 cars off of the road. In all the book spurred the development of 32 new eco-papers, 6 of which were made exclusively for the book. In comparison, in 2003 you could find one publisher printing on eco-friendly paper, but now the Harry Potter initiatives have prompted 300 publishers to adopt new and better environmental policies. This could inspire other companies and publishers to do the same saving many forests – including Canada’s own Boreal that loses a lot of life from book publishing.

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renourish!

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by Ann Benoit · 07/20/07

Finally! A comprehensive green resource for graphic designers! I was delighted to be forwarded a link to renourish.

renourish is a resource for the graphic design industry. When green design is usually discussed, most people think of buildings, products or even cars, but what about packaging? Shouldn’t magazines, business cards, brochures and websites be green? At renourish, we’re helping to start the conversation on green graphic design by providing defintions, tips, and links to sustainable resources designers can use to make their work a little greener.

Brilliant! Renourish has great topics that run the gamut of paper, ink, printers, packaging, green design firms, sustainable living, etc. Having all of this info in one place is genius. Although green design is something that most designers are concerned about and interested in, I haven’t come across a comprehensive site like this before. I would like to see the site eventually include green vendors (other than paper & printing). I’ve been compiling my own list lately and I think that would be a great resource to have accessible to more designers.

Another green design link to check out run by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Designers) here.

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