The changing breed of green vehicles

Many people believe that if you want a fast car then unfortunately you’re going to have to go for a pretty uneconomic and environmentally unfriendly car, or the fabled gas guzzlers. As of late there has been a lot of pressure on the motor industry to “get green” and many cars now run on electricity or a newer hydrogen based fuel it means that many of us are soon going to have more options when we pull up to the pumps on the petrol station forecourt.

Those who choose to drive a cleaner vehicle were originally thought of as not wanting a fast car, certainly not a sports car but with new developments there are a growing number of high performance cars running on electricity rather than petrol. One such car is the Tesla Roadster, it looks like a sporty two seater like the Mazda RX-8 but runs on electricity, no need for petrol pumps, just plug it in to a dedicated socket and let it charge, your car is then refuelling in a similar way you would with your mobile phone!

The safety worry with electric cars though is that there is an astounding lack of moving parts compared to the traditional car design and so generates hardly any noise at all. This is likely to be a problem as some motoring authorities say that a car should be loud enough to make pedestrians aware of their approach and so many of these electric cars are being fitted with loudspeaker systems that imitate a loud car engine sound. One manufacturer even allows you to select the “voice” of your car, whether it’s the guttural roar of a Ford Mustang or the harsh scream of a Ferrari!

The benefits of driving a cleaner car though seem to be a lower road tax for one as well as better fuel economy and cheap car insurance, it’s been touted that these new cars can go hundreds of miles between filling up a full tank of fuel and obviously if you are driving economically.

One more extreme of going green is the car that Honda has made, the FCX Clarity. One of the biggest complaints about motoring is the harsh fumes being pumped out by cars, the Clarity however runs on the fuel of Hydrogen and Oxygen, the only thing being expelled by the Clarity is H2O, or water.

The energy created from the two elements powers an electric engine and is a great step forward in the field of fuel-cell technology, the only concern is the lack of hydrogen filling stations but should the technology become more popular over time there could be hydrogen pumps along side unleaded and diesel some day soon.

With global warming and carbon footprints becoming a major issue the world of motoring is often being ushered to being greener and with revolutionary thinking like this there is a chance that the wider population will consider a more economic vehicle for their next purchase rather than the gas guzzler we drive at the moment.