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Automakers drop support for Trump effort against California emissions

WASHINGTON — Toyota, Fiat Chrysler (now known as Stellantis following its merger with Peugeot) and other major automakers said on Tuesday they were joining General Motors in abandoning support for former President Donald Trump's effort to bar California from setting its own zero emission vehicle rules. The automakers, which also included Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Mazda and Subaru, said in a joint statement they were withdrawing from an ongoing legal challenge to California's emission-setting powers, "in a gesture of good faith and to find a constructive path forward" with President Joe Biden. The automakers, along with the National Automobile Dealers Association, said they were aligned "with the Biden administrationÂ’s goals to achieve year-over-year improvements in fuel economy standards." Nissan in December withdrew from the challenge after GM's decision in November shocked the industry and won praise from Biden. On Monday, the Justice Department asked the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia to put the California emissions litigation on hold to "ensure due respect for the prerogative of the executive branch to reconsider the policy decisions of a prior administration." Biden has directed agencies to quickly reconsider TrumpÂ’s 2019 decision to revoke CaliforniaÂ’s authority to set its own auto tailpipe emissions standards and require rising numbers of zero-emission vehicles, as well as Trump's national fuel economy rollback. Asked to respond to the automakers' action, White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said in a statement that "after four years of putting us in reverse, it is time to restart and build a sustainable future, grow domestic manufacturing, and deliver clean cars for America." California Governor Gavin Newsom praised the automakers on Twitter for "dropping your climate-denying, air-polluting, Trump-era lawsuit against CA" and urged them to join the voluntary framework. TALKS WITH BIDEN Separately, an industry trade group on Tuesday proposed to start talks with Biden on revised fuel economy standards that would be higher than Trump-era standards but lower than ones set during the prior Democratic administration. The Trump administration in March finalized a rollback of U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards to require 1.5% annual increases in efficiency through 2026, well below the 5% yearly boosts under the Obama administration rules it discarded.

Finalists for 2014 Green Car of the Year announced

The list of finalists for the 2014 Green Car of the Year has been announced, and in a genuinely bizarre twist, there's only one hybrid and no electric vehicles among the five contestants, despite the arrival of cars like the BMW i3 and Tesla Model S. Taking the place of the EVs are a pair of diesels, repping a technology that last won a Green Car of the Year award in 2009, when the Audi A3 TDI took the title. No diesel was in the running for last year's award.
Naturally, both of the diesel finalists are fielded by the Germans - with BMW's 328d and Audi's A6 TDI getting the nod. In the case of the 3 Series, BMW installed a 2.0-liter, turbodiesel, capable of delivering 180 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque, while returning 45 miles per gallon on the highway. Audi and its larger, 3.0-liter, V6 turbodiesel produce quite a bit more grunt, with 240 hp and 428 lb-ft of grunt, but net a very impressive 38 mpg on the highway in the A6.
Finalists for this year's awards include two diesels, three gas-powered cars and a plug-in hybrid.

Hydrogen could deliver one fifth of world carbon cuts by 2050, industry says

BONN, Germany — Increasing the use of hydrogen in power, transport, heat and industry could deliver around one fifth of the total carbon emissions cuts needed to limit global warming to safe levels by mid-century, a report by the Hydrogen Council said on Monday. To encourage industries to use hydrogen, Toyota and Air Liquide helped set up the Hydrogen Council, a global lobby launched in January this year. Its 27 members include automakers Audi, BMW, Daimler, Honda and Hyundai, and energy firms such as Shell and Total. The council said using hydrogen for transport, energy generation, energy storage, industry, heat and power could cut annual carbon emissions by 6 billion tonnes by 2050. "This would ... contribute roughly 20 percent of the additional abatement required to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius," the council said in a report released on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference in Bonn. To achieve a two-degree limit this century agreed by governments in Paris in 2015, the world must reduce energy-related carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050. The report said one in 12 cars sold in California, Germany and Japan were expected to be powered by hydrogen by 2030. By 2050, hydrogen could power 400 million cars, 15 million to 20 million trucks, around 5 million buses, a quarter of passenger ships and a fifth of non-electrified train tracks, as well as some airplanes and freight ships. Achieving this shift in transport and other sectors would require investment of $280 billion by 2030, with about $110 billion to fund hydrogen output, $80 billion for storage, transport and distribution, and $70 billion to develop products. Fuel cell vehicles combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity to power an electric motor, producing water as a byproduct. However, making hydrogen from fossil fuels, a common route, also produces some greenhouse gas emissions. So far the take-up of hydrogen vehicles is tiny and industry experts say their wider use is years away, with high purchase prices and a lack of refueling stations the major barriers. But some firms, such as miner Anglo American and carmaker Toyota, are pushing for fuel cell cars to play a role even with the rise of battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs). Woong-chul Yang, vice chairman of automotive research and development at Hyundai said EVs and hydrogen fuel cell cars were needed because EVs were better for city driving and fuel cell vehicles better for longer journeys.