With the gas prices climbing with no end in sight, I've been doing a lot of thinking about alternative fuels.
Hybrids are a necessary stage in the evolutionary process, but I feel that the current hybrids available right now are targeting the small car market, which in my mind doesn't make a lot of sense, because those cars are aiming at the 10 to 15 thousand price point, and making a 20 thousand hybrid against smaller cars that are already fuel efficient isn't really going to save all that much gas. What needs to happen is hybridizing or going to alternative fuel on trucks and SUVs. Far and away as a class they have the worst fuel economy.
I've had my Celica for 2 years now, and I'm planning on keeping it for a very long time. That being said, I've been thinking about the environmental impact of my vehicle lately, and how I use about 25 gallons of petrol a week. In a year, I use about 1300 gallons averaging about 27 miles per gallon, travelling about 35,100 miles a year. I'm only one person, with a fairly fuel-efficient car. If you start thinking about the rest of the state or the country, we're talking billions of gallons of oil a day. So I started thinking about doing a conversion to Compressed Natural Gas. Unfortunately, the only place I can find are places that do it to larger vehicles (think big rigs and Caterpillar equipment), not smaller personal vehicles. Electric conversion would require far too much work. So, this will be my car until I purchase a hybrid or alternative.
Enter the Toyota Volta. 402 horsepower, 38 miles per gallon, a 3.3L V6 engine. Hybrid gasoline-electric. Italian-designed carbon fiber body. The automotive press is figuring about 90,000 for this one, although no pricing has been announced -- after all, this is simply a concept vehicle, possibly coming out in 2007.
No one ever said saving the world was cheap.
Leave a comment