Tag Archives: Hybrid vehicle

How we shift America off oil


The White House

America‘s auto industry is in the midst of a change for the better. Right now, car dealers are offering customers twice as many hybrids as they were five years ago and seven times as many cars that can go 40 miles or more on a gallon of gas. Last year, General Motors sold more hybrid cars than ever before and Ford is working hard to keep up with demand for its fuel-efficient vehicles.

That trend is a key example of how innovation helps to drive business success — and creates jobs for the middle class in America. But it’s one thing to make a car more fuel efficient. It’s another thing altogether to move cars and trucks off oil entirely.

And that’s the next step. Here’s how President Obama is proposing to get us there:

Infographic: The Energy Security Trust

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographic/energy-security-trust

At a time when the sequester is forcing laboratories and science facilities across the country to scale back on their work, we need to keep investing in research.

Because if we can meet this goal, the benefits are clear. We’ll help diminish the burden of spiking gas prices. We’ll reduce our reliance on foreign oil. And most importantly, the kind of technological breakthroughs the Energy Security Trust will work to produce won’t just create jobs — they could create whole new industries.

So if you think the Energy Security Trust is a good idea, will you share this graphic?

Higher standards, better cars. Take action! UCS


The Union of Concerned Scientists is proud to unveil the 2011 Hybrid Scorecard. More automakers are delivering real environmental benefits at good value, yet others continue to try and use the “hybrid halo” to peddle small benefits, bigger, dirtier engines, and lots of unnecessary bells and whistles. To find out how they stack up, check out the fully updated Hybrid Scorecard homepage.

Hybrid technology stands poised to play an important role in transforming vehicles in America. But only strong clean car standards will push the automakers to produce more of the hybrids that will rate high on our scorecard for environmental impact, efficiency, and value. The vehicles occupying the top of our scorecard prove such an expansion CAN be done. Strong clean car standards ensure that it WILL be done.

The Obama administration is deciding right now whether to set clean car standards as high as 60 miles per gallon (mpg) through 2025. That number matters—for our wallets and for our environment. And right now, we need big numbers of people telling the White House to deliver for U.S. consumers.

You and your fellow UCS supporters have taken public action, engaging the Department of Transportation on their blog and commenting on President Obama’s weekly address on YouTube—now it’s time to go right to the source.

We need you, and as many of your friends as you can muster, to send emails straight to President Obama telling him you want the kind of cars a 60 mpg standard can deliver.

Take Action Today!

Let’s make history together,
ScottNathanson_jpg
Scott Nathanson
National Field Organizer
UCS Clean Vehicles Program