ISRAEL21c.org sees the future of transportation in Israel, and it’s all green. Through Shai Agassi’s innovative “Project Better Place,” Israel will become the first country to mass produce electric cars.

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With the issue of global warming taking on international importance in recent years, unsurprisingly the focus has fallen on car drivers, with cars seen as one of the major contributors towards global warming. Green cars have been held up as a potential solution, one that motorists should be embracing.

But are green cars actually ‘green’?

Firstly, let’s take pure electric cars. Unfortunately these electric cars are anything but good for the environment. The electricity that they run on is produced in power stations, where only 30-40% of the energy is converted into electricity. Transferring this electricity along electric cables then results in a further 30% being lost to heat energy. So by the time this electricity reaches an electric car a huge amount of the energy has already been lost. Good for cutting down inner city pollution but efficient it certainly isn’t.

Recently hybrid cars have been preferred, cars that contain both an electric motor and a petrol engine. The battery for the motor is powered by the energy generated from braking. When it comes to being ‘green’ these cars in theory offer many more environmental benefits.

In practice this isn’t necessarily the case. Consumer magazine Which? tested four hybrid cars by driving them throughout London. The results were disappointing, as mentioned by George Marshall-Thornhill, senior researcher for Which?, “Some of these should have performed much better.” And this is all without mentioning how to dispose of troublesome electric batteries.

Then there’s the cost of hybrid cars. The Toyota Prius is the most popular hybrid car and can be purchased for around £17,000. However, with fuel economy claims in doubt and 55% of people believing that green cars are too expensive, there is still some way to go before green cars arrive on a large scale.

The facts are that green cars use more energy to produce, are harder to dispose of, their fuel economy claims have been doubted, and they are simply too expensive. The age of the green car has not arrived yet.

Charles Cridland
http://www.articlesbase.com/automotive-articles/how-green-are-green-cars-99629.html

With more and more vehicles roaming and zooming through the streets and roads, it is not very likely that one day we will find ourselves waking up to a foggy environment. Smog would surely fill the air and children would no longer remember what it was like to live in a place where the breeze was fresh and air was very clean.

This has been one of the great concerns of the auto industry. Despite being the culprit behind creating vehicles that would bring about dirt and smoke to the environment, auto manufacturers are now concerned about the welfare of the environment as well as of the people. That is most certainly they have created the Zero Air Pollution which they believe would be one of the best ways to reduce pollution.

Now ZAP, the world leader when it comes to electric cars, have set out to Europe to bring about the good news that would surely reduce the number of smoke belching machines on the streets. Steven Schneider, ZAP’s chief executive officer also came with the batch of vehicles to Europe so as to be able to further discuss the benefits of having electric cars. Though electric cars may not have easy to find replacement parts like Ford parts, these cars do provide a lot of benefit to both man and environment.

“With large car and gas dependent automakers closing plants, gas prices soaring and growing public awareness of the need to switch to alternative energy, ZAP’s global market position is stronger than ever. We hope to forge partnerships with some of the automotive industry’s most respected companies,” says Schneider.

During ZAP and Schneider’s stay in Europe, they would be presenting the various aspects of building electric cars as well as the advantages and disadvantages that this type of vehicle has. Important people in the European continent and from the auto industry would be enjoying the information that would be shared with them.

Ricardo Machado is the president of a Brazilian auto making company and he states, “In Brazil, we recently won the support of the Rio de Janeiro government that will help ensure we break sales records. We expect to create four thousand new jobs and boost Brazil’s economic infrastructure. We hope to parlay this great business plan by bringing on European partners as well.”

Joe Ratzkin
http://www.articlesbase.com/automotive-articles/popular-electric-cars-drive-to-europe-57927.html