1.Road map to better cars

2.Fuel sell

3.Whither battery cars?

4.Big bad batteries

5.Yearning for electric cars

6.A cheaper way?

A Greasy Wrench to the Rescue?
Battery cars are expensive and don't drive very far. Hybrids are just entering the market, and fuel cells are still on the horizon. What can we do now to reduce pollution from transportation?

According to a study of highway pollution in California, the cheapest approach is to crack down on the cruddiest cars and trucks. Using a sensor to measure carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon as cars drove past, the scientists found that a few cars were to blame for most auto pollution (see "On-Road Vehicle Emissions..." in the bibliography).

7 percent of cars produced 50 percent of the carbon monoxide -- a poisonous chemical that accumulates in the bloodstream.

10 percent of vehicles produced 50 percent of the hydrocarbons -- essentially unburned gasoline that contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, or smog. Nationally, the problem is major, says Gary Bishop, a University of Denver researcher. "What you find, almost anywhere in the United States, is that 6 to 8 percent of the cars are responsible for 50 percent of the carbon monoxide pollution, and 15 to 20 percent of the cars cause 50 percent of the hydrocarbon pollution."

Most people assume that older vehicles are the worst polluters, because they lack sophisticated pollution controls. That's true to some extent, but the researchers found that deliberate destruction of pollution controls, and failure to maintain them, was a much bigger problem.

Pollution controls on half of the filthiest vehicles had been bypassed or removed, says Bishop. In some cases, the engine had simply been replaced by one without pollution controls.

Why Not Fix the Filthiest Cars?
Repairing emissions controls may not be as glamorous as inventing electric vehicles, but it may offer the most bang for the buck. The researchers estimated that repairing emissions controls on the worst 20 percent of cars would cost $880-million -- an average cost of $200 per car. That would reduce California's vehicle carbon monoxide emissions by 61 percent, and hydrocarbons by 50 percent.

Introducing low-pollution (reformulated) gasoline would reduce carbon monoxide by 11 percent and hydrocarbons by 17 percent. But its estimated price tag would be $1.5-billion.

Although California requires that cars be inspected and maintained, the present system needs considerable tuning, says Bishop, who describes it as "a social engineering system designed by mechanical engineers." For example, although all cars must be inspected in polluted areas, most "never need it" because they have functioning controls.

Instead, Bishop proposes using the same infra-red sensors used in the California study to identify cars and trucks that really pollute, and begin fixing them.

There's a final problem with pushing battery vehicles, says Donald Stedman, a chemistry professor at Denver University who helped develop the technology for measuring on-the-road pollution. They will not replace stinky old cars, but rather new, low-pollution models. "It is easy to show that the money would be about 100 times better spent repairing old cars than replacing more or less irrelevant new low-emitting cars with zero-emitting electrics..."

Crank over our electric-car bibliography.