While Good Green Cars readers might not mind that Ferrari has pulled out of the Detroit show, you might find it interesting that Nissan/Infiniti has also decided not to bring any cars, and has even asked local dealers not to put up a display. The manufacturer has a hybrid program and plans to introduce electric cars to Oregon in the near-ish future. I was hoping to see those EVs, at least in prototype form, in Detroit this year. I also don’t see Mitsubishi on the press conference schedule, which means no up-close-and-personal time with the adorable iMiev.

What we can expect to see are the new Ford Fusion hybrid, the new Honda Insight, and the new Toyota Prius, all of which have a bunch of buzz surrounding them. Ford is also expected to talk about — but not have on hand — the new EVs it plans to build. I’m sure Chevy will be bringing the latest incarnation of the 2011 Volt PHEV, and that Chrysler will have its lineup of potential EVs on display.

Keep this blog bookmarked for the next week or so, as I report firsthand on the green goings-on in Detroit.

After hiring out its design arm to create chassis for Tesla and Chrysler’s electric vehicles, Lotus has hinted that it may throw its own hat in the EV ring. The Financial Times reported — and Edmunds.com’s Inside Line passed it along — that Lotus CEO Michael Kimberley said there may be an electric Lotus “shortly.”

According to the Edmunds blog post, “shortly” may be as soon as the Geneva auto show in March. The concept EV wouldn’t be fully functional, but it would give potential buyers an idea of what a 300-mile-range EV from the British sports car manufacturer might look like.

Looking at Lotus’s current lineup, I think we can assume it’ll be along similar curvy lines. And the company already has a tradition of model names that start with E (Elise, Elite, Evora, Europa … ), so coming up with a clever EV name should be a snap.

Image provided by Lotus Designs, from its 2009 calendar. As far as Good Green Cars knows, it’s not the EV Lotus is talking about, but, you know, it could be.

The BMG gets inside the car, too, and plays with the tech features, like iPod integration and the futuristic dashboard readouts, which look like they were designed by Tony Stark. That’s “Iron Man” to the less geeky of you.

The video is about three and half minutes long, the perfect length for a Friday afternoon snack break. The car is set to debut at the Detroit auto show, and I’ll be there, blogging like crazy. Come back in about ten days to see what this sucker looks like in the metal.

The Chevy Malibu Hybrid is the gas-sipping car for people who don’t want to look like an eco-freak. It’s a pretty big four-door sedan with lots of space, a solid feel, and comfy seats. Grandparents and salespeople will love this car. It’s not an incognito hybrid, though: there’s the green hybrid badge on the trunk and a large hybrid decal at the top of the back window.

This car got a little extra testing this week, as we got a load of snow dumped on us here in the Pacific Northwest. I drove the hybrid — carefully — on slick and snowy streets when it was safe. The traction control worked beautifully as long as I was going slowly. When the snow got deep, though, the Malibu stayed parked in the driveway for five days.

As a result of driving in less than optimal conditions, I didn’t get the best mileage. The EPA says the Malibu Hybrid should turn in 26 city, 34 highway, but I averaged in the low 20s in the time I had the car. The most helpful green feature in nasty weather was the automatic shutoff, which was indicated by a flashing green “ECO” light in the dashboard. The Eco mode shut down and restarted smoothly.

The Chevy Malibu Hybrid starts at $26,345, which seems par for the hybrid course. If it makes you, the consumer, feel any better, it’s not the most expensive Malibu trim level available. There’s a 3.6-liter V6 LTZ version that starts at over $26,000, making the hybrid look like a good value all around. Too bad Chevy lists it as having “Very limited availability.”

The police force in Sherwood, Oregon, is trying out a new all-electric cop car for a year. Sherwood’s EV of choice is the E-Z-Go with black and white po-po livery on its doors. An article in the Sherwood Gazette says that the department is leasing the car free of charge for a year. At the end of the year, the police department will decide if it wants to purchase the car for $14,500.

Where did the cops get this crazy idea? From the city manager, Jim Patterson. He has an E-Z-Go of his own that he uses to commute to work. The idea for the EV squad car is to save on gasoline costs for the city and reduce the environmental impact. There won’t be any high-speed chases in the E-Z-Go, but there could be some silent stealth missions on the agenda.

The drawback of the E-Z-Go that the Sherwood police are leasing is that it is, at heart, a golf cart. The company threw on some doors, and the police will be adding a light bar soon, but the casual observer is going to say, “Hey! That cop is driving a golf cart!” While the low-power cart will be great for community policing and undoubtedly better for the environment than a fully loaded squad car rolling slowly along city streets, the E-Z-Go doesn’t do much for the perception of electric vehicles as the cars of the future.

Regardless, big ups to Sherwood for taking a step in the right direction and giving an EV — even one with limited power and design sensibilities — a chance.

Image by Ray Pitz/Sherwood Gazette.

B20, B100: Seen at diesel pumps, these designations indicate the amount of biodiesel blended with petroleum-based diesel. So B20 is 20% biodiesel, 80% low-sulfur diesel, while B100 is 100% biodiesel.

Biodiesel: Diesel fuel made at least partly from non-petroleum sources, such as used restaurant grease. Most diesel-powered vehicles can use biodiesel without conversion or alteration of the engine.

Bioethanol: A vehicle fuel based on starchy plant materials, commonly corn in the U.S. It has a lower emissions rating than petroleum. Also known as ethanol.

CAFE Standards: Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Each automaker must average the mileage of every vehicle it builds. The standards were enacted in 1975 to increase overall fuel efficiency. The standard for 2009 is 27.5 mpg for cars, 20.7 mpg for light trucks, and 23.1 mpg for trucks under 8500 pounds.

Diesel: A petroleum-based fuel that gets higher fuel efficiency than gasoline. It tends to have more tailpipe emissions, but technological innovations in the past decade have nearly erased this concern and dropped diesel emissions to near gasoline levels.

E85: A fuel blend that contains 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline.

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency. Together with the Department of Energy, the EPA issues mileage and emissions ratings for all cars sold in the U.S. See FuelEconomy.gov.

Extended Range Electric Vehicle: A type of PHEV where the car drives entirely on electric power, but there is a small gasoline engine on board that runs a generator to provide electricity for the batteries and electric motor. The addition of the gasoline engine allows the electric motor to go further on a charge.

Ethanol: A high-octane, low-emissions fuel long used in racing. Now it’s made from renewable plant materials and can be used in regular vehicles, though it gets lower fuel economy ratings than gasoline.

EV: Electric Vehicle. These cars have only batteries and an electric motor–no gasoline or other fuel required, and no emissions are released into the air. They are refueled by plugging the batteries into an outlet.

Flex Fuel: A vehicle that can accept regular gasoline or an ethanol blend, such as E85.

Fuel Efficiency: Using the least amount of fuel to drive the farthest number of miles. This can be measured miles per gallon, which is standard in the U.S., or in gallons per mile, which is more common in the rest of the world.

Hybrid: In the automotive sense, this is a vehicle that has a gasoline-powered engine and an electric engine that work together to deliver better gas mileage, usually 40+ mpg. The batteries are recharged by systems like regenerative braking. The 1999 Honda Insight was the first commercially available hybrid; the Toyota Prius became the first popular hybrid car.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell: These cells use hydrogen gas and air to create an electrical current to power a vehicle, with only water as a byproduct. Creating an infrastructure of hydrogen fueling stations has been an obstacle to the manufacture of hydrogen-powered cars.

ICE: Internal Combustion Engine. The same old gasoline-powered engine we’ve been driving all our lives.

Liquified Natural Gas: Natural gas that has been cooled to form a transportable liquid. Vehicles that run on LNG cannot use any other type of fuel with major modifications.

Lithium Ion: A type of battery used in cell phones, laptops, and electric cars. These batteries store a lot of energy for their weight.

LNG: Liquified Natural Gas.

MPG: Miles per gallon. The number of miles a car can travel on one gallon of gasoline or other liquid fuel.

NHTSA: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The NHTSA administrates the CAFE Standards, based on fuel efficiency data from the EPA.

NiCd: Nickel Cadmium, sometimes called NiCad. A type of rechargeable battery used in electric cars.

NiMH: Nickel Metal Hydride. A type of rechargeable battery used in electric cars.

PHEV: Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. See Plug-in Hybrid.

Plug-in Hybrid: A vehicle that has a gasoline-powered engine and a bank of batteries that can be recharged by plugging them into an outlet. These vehicles usually use the electric motor for 40 or so miles, then the gasoline engine as a backup. The supposedly forthcoming Chevy Volt is a PHEV.

Vehicle to Grid: Technology that allows electric utility companies to reclaim small amounts of energy from plugged-in EVs. Boulder, Colorado, has a pioneering VtG program.

Water Car: Proponents of the idea of running a car on water say it’s a similar energy conversion process to hydrogen fuel cells. The conversion of energy, though, seems to lose a lot along the way, making any benefit null.

A few of the problems with EVs in winter:

• Some, especially conversions, don’t have a heater
• The locks on older cars used for conversions can freeze up
• Lead acid batteries left in the cold lose 10-20% of their range

A few benefits of EVs in winter:

• They don’t have to warm up - “instant on” no matter the temperature
• Newer lithium, NiCd, and NiMH batteries lose less power than older lead batteries
• All batteries can be charged in a toasty garage with minimal power loss

One OEVA member said his ZAP car drives fine in the snow for his short commute, and another has a factory-built Chevy S10 pickup with a little diesel-powered heater, so he does fine. One guy mentioned that he’d put so much time into his conversion that he couldn’t bear to drive it in questionable conditions, so he drives his “store-bought” car when it’s snowy out, but one other guy said he’s got a battery-powered quad that he plays with in the snow.

So it looks like EVs aren’t much better or worse in the snow and ice than gasoline-powered cars. But the EVs can plug in overnight rather than take a trip to the gas station, and they emit zero pollution. So they do have that going for them.

I checked in with my informal panel of experts, the Oregon Electric Vehicle Association, whose members drive hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs. According to these road-tested experts, I wasn’t imagining things, but I didn’t have the whole story.

First of all, Oregon adds ethanol to the gasoline in winter, which reduces fuel economy by about 4%, which I had forgotten about. Second, the snow and gravel would increase friction, which would lower the mpgs. Hybrids also lose energy heating up the whole engine and keeping it warm. Hybrid drivers can combat the drop in mpgs by turning off the defrost and heat while idling to get the gasoline engine to shut off as it does in more pleasant weather.

Several OEVA members also mentioned that everyone, hybrid and conventional car drivers alike, have been driving more carefully in the snow and ice. The techniques we use to avoid sliding into parked cars are the same ones that save gas overall and extend the range of electric vehicles:

• Start very slowly
• Take your foot off the gas far from the stop sign
• Keep a huge gap between your front bumper and the next car’s rear bumper

One final word of caution: Hybrids are usually fitted with low-rolling-resistance tires to maximize the mpgs. These are pretty awful in winter weather, so if you’ve got a hybrid and live in an area that sees a fair amount of fluffy white stuff, it’s probably worth it to invest in a set of snow tires.

The first thing to note about my week with the Honda Civic Hybrid was that it was very cold. Not negative-degrees cold, but well below freezing cold. I wondered if the hybrid engine or fuel economy would suffer when the car and the street were icy. I’m not sure if it was the weather or my driving, but my mpgs came in way below the EPA estimate.

Over the week, I drove about 120 miles, and I managed to average 31.5 mpg combined city, highway, and icy roads. The EPA rates the Civic Hybrid at 40 city, 45 highway. Handling, however, wasn’t compromised, and I was glad to have stability assist, ABS, and 4- and 5-star crash ratings. Not that I crashed. The car is just fine. I’m an excellent driver.

The Honda Civic Hybrid makes heavy use of its Integrated Motor Assist technology, which uses an electronic motor mounted between the gasoline engine and the transmission for extra power. Honda says the electric motor can propel the car from a stop to 35 mph, but I had a hard time keeping the internal combustion engine from kicking in, no matter how carefully I drove.

The car does have an auto stop feature that cuts the gasoline engine out almost as soon as the car is stopped, and it starts back up seamlessly when it’s needed. A blinking green “Auto Stop” indicator in the dash lets the driver know that the car is supposed to be absolutely silent.

The poor-ish mileage was my only complaint with the Honda, and that was likely a function of the weather, not the car. But if you live in an area with regular harsh winters, you may only get 30 or 35 mpg with the Civic Hybrid. Keep in mind, though, that these days we’re calling anything above 30 mpg pretty good.

In honor of hypermilings achievements as both a word and a lifestyle in 2008, here are the top 10 hypermiling techniques:

1. Do not idle. Shut the engine off if you’re going to be waiting for 30 seconds or more.
2. Do not accelerate quickly. You’ve heard it before: no jackrabbit starts from stop lights.
3. Properly inflate your tires. Keeping air in your tires reduces friction and increases fuel economy.
4. Take ‘er easy. There’s a reason the feds set the speed limit at 55 during the gas crisis of the 1970s — it’s the best speed for the best mileage on the highway.
5. Clear out the car. Every pound counts, so clear out anything that isn’t needed, especially if it’s on the roof, where it can create drag.
6. Keep it in tune. Oil changes, regular maintenance, and the like will keep your mpgs as high as possible.
7. Ride the ridges. In bad weather, drive with your tires on the higher center of the road and the white line to stay out of the rain- or snow-filled ruts. Be careful with this one.
8. Make a trip chain. Don’t run six separate errands; do one trip with six stops to keep the engine warm.
9. Make right turns. Do like UPS does: plan your route to have as many right turns as possible to minimize idling time while waiting for traffic to clear for your left turn.
10. Hybrids only: Maximize the electric motor. Start slow and keep the car running under electric power for as long as you can, usually up to 35 or 40 mph.