Being green no longer means being cramped.
After several years of asking environmentally conscious motorists to sacrifice hip, head and elbow room to drive a car with high mileage and low emissions, automakers finally are moving into the mainstream with larger hybrid gasoline-electric models -- including sport utility vehicles.
Toyota Motor Corp., the first to market a hybrid car when it introduced the Prius compact sedan in Japan in 1997, will be the first to hit the streets with a heftier hybrid when it launches a bigger, second-generation Prius later this year. The new model, announced at the New York Auto Show this month, is a five-passenger, mid-size hatchback aimed at the same segment as conventional family cars such as Honda Motor Co.'s Accord and Ford Motor Co.'s Taurus.
So far, the biggest hybrid in the market is Honda's Civic hybrid, a five-seat compact that is a bit larger than the current Prius in exterior and front seating dimensions. Those two sedans and Honda's two-seat Insight sports coupe are the only hybrids available today.
But that's about to change -- in a big way. New hybrids are expected to stream steadily into showrooms in the next few years, spurred in part by the California Air Resources Board's decision last week to push for tens of thousands of new hybrids as part of the state's controversial zero-emission vehicle rules.
The Prius mid-size will be followed next year by hybrid versions of two current sport utilities: Ford's Escape compact SUV and the Lexus RX 330 from Toyota's luxury brand.
Japan's No. 1 automaker will follow the Lexus with a mainstream Toyota version about a year later, said Don Esmond, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales USA in Torrance and general manager of the importer's Toyota division.
Systems Will Vary
General Motors Corp., which once partnered with Toyota to develop new powertrain technologies but decided to go its own way in the hybrid segment, says it soon will have three types of hybrid systems applicable to cars, SUVs and pickup trucks.
Hybrids use two or more power sources, usually a gasoline engine augmented by one or more electric motors. Some, called "mild" or "weak" hybrids, use the electric motors for auxiliary power and to restart the gas engines, which shut down when the vehicle stops.
Beefier "full" hybrids also use the electric drive to provide extra power when climbing hills or passing other vehicles. Toyota's system also can provide low-speed propulsion in an all-electric mode -- a feature Ford says its system will offer.
Dodge, a division of German-American carmaker DaimlerChrysler, plans to release a mild-hybrid version of its full-size Ram pickup next year as a 2005 model. The truck will shut down its turbocharged diesel engine when it comes to a stop -- at red lights, for instance -- to reduce emissions and boost fuel economy by 10% to 15%. It will be able to generate electricity for auxiliary use by campers and contractors and will use the electric motor to assist the diesel when accelerating, but otherwise it will operate as a conventional internal-combustion vehicle.
Other automakers have said little about their plans to compete in the small but growing hybrid niche, but industry watchers believe that unless some- thing happens to derail the movement, most major brands are expected to go green by the end of the decade.
They'll have to if they wish to remain competitive.
Although Toyota's and Honda's combined hybrid sales last year barely registered -- 36,000 cars out of 16.8 million passenger vehicles sold -- analysts figure the total will hit nearly 60,000 this year and about 100,000 in 2004. Toyota alone says it expects to be able to sell 36,000 of the new Prius sedans in the United States in 2004. GM has said that it would have the capability to put various types of hybrid systems into 1 million vehicles a year by the end of the decade if consumer demand proves sufficient.
Although there is a lot of talk about a zero-emission future with cars and trucks running on hydrogen-powered fuel cells, most in the industry say widespread retail sales of such vehicles remain more than a decade away, and will depend heavily on development of a nationwide hydrogen fueling system that experts say could cost as much as $400 billion.
In the interim, "hybrids are the transitional vehicle," said Frank Khoshnoud, a Detroit-based auto industry specialist with accounting and consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. "They give us that transition where we can get the fuel economy and emissions reductions that we need and provide a platform for testing a lot of the electric drive and control equipment that fuel cell cars will require."
Not everyone is sure that hybrids have a bright future. David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said he hasn't been persuaded that the industry can overcome the $4,000 to $6,000 additional cost of packaging two power and drive systems in a single vehicle.
