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.”

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.

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.

In the wake of this fuel economy frenzy, articles were written (including one by me) about the plight of the large truck. Pickups and SUVs were left on the lot by new-car buyers, despite deep discounts and dealer incentives to get these things to go away and make room for the smaller cars people wanted.

But now, though we all talk a good eco-game, truck sales are inching back up. This despite the fact that all signs point to the current low-ish price of gas being an anomaly. Not to mention that whole reducing the ol’ carbon footprint idea. Here are the top five vehicles ranked by sales in May and November, according to industry publication Automotive News, with city and highway mileage plus the annual carbon dioxide output numbers from the EPA:

May 2008

1. Honda Civic (53,299 sold, 25/36, 6.3 tons of CO2)
2. Toyota Corolla (52,826, 26/35, 7.3 tons of CO2)
3. Toyota Camry (51,291, 21/31, 7.3 tons of CO2)
4. Honda Accord (43,728, 21/31, 7.7 tons of CO2)
5. Ford F series (42,973, 14/19, 11.4 tons of CO2)

November 2008

1. Ford F series (37,911)
2. Chevy Silverado (29,534, 15 city/20 hwy, 10.8 tons of CO2)
3. Toyota Camry (25,224)
4. Toyota Corolla (21,807)
5. Honda Civic (17,690)

The first thing to note about the Nissan Altima Hybrid is that it makes use of the Toyota hybrid system. Nissan is working on its own proprietary hybrid system, but in order to enter the HEV market ASAP, they leased the technology from Toyota and dropped it into the Altima, giving the car an EPA mileage rating of 35 city, 33 highway. Not too shabby for a four-door sedan.

But not too smooth, either. The Altima hybrid has a keyless, push-button start. It only takes a second to turn the car on, and a green “ready” light lets the driver know the electric motor is good to go. A few seconds later, though, whether you need it or not, the gasoline engine kicks in — very noticeably. The first time it happened, I wondered if I had done something wrong.

Since the hybrid system was thrown into the Nissan Altima almost on a whim, the gauges lack the depth of fuel economy information seen in other hybrids. The center gauge does display “EV Mode” when the car is running under electric power only, which makes for a fun mpg challenge for the driver. The key is to stay in EV Mode for as long as possible, or to get EV Mode to kick in while driving around. I found that with careful pedal work, I could do most of my Christmas shopping on electric power. That was cool.

The Nissan Altima Hybrid gets good marks for its safety — five-star ratings for front and side crashes — and its low carbon footprint. But the integration of the hybrid system into the existing Altima leaves a lot to be desired, especially at a base price of $25,070. I assume the Nissan hybrid system of the future will work more seamlessly in its own cars.

Top image courtesy Nissan USA.

When I got back to the States after my vacation in diesel-clogged Buenos Aires, I had a Ford Escape Hybrid waiting for me to test drive. I don’t think I’ve even been so happy to see a low-emissions vehicle in my life.

Before we get to the mpg, a note on space: The Escape fit all of our suitcases, camera bags, backpacks, and whatever else in the back seat and cargo area, with plenty of space for a regular-sized driver (me) and a six-foot-plus passenger. It was far less crammed than the airline seats we had just happily left, and we had satellite radio.

When the Escape is started, the gasoline engine comes on, so there is an audible cue to let the driver know when to stop turning the key. In case that’s still too quiet for you, there’s the little green car-shaped light with a double-ended arrow under it in the dashboard to let you know the vehicle is ready to go. (This comes in handy when stopped at very long red lights and the gas engine drops out. The electric motor is silent, but ready to do your bidding at the green light.)

The home screen of the display has a little map, radio information, and an mpg meter. For more detailed mileage information, you can call up the HEV screen, which shows a diagram of the engine, electric motor, the battery, and the front wheels. A green outline shows which elements are in play at any time, and the status, i.e., “Idle with Charging,” is spelled out at the bottom of the screen.

The Escape doesn’t have the pep of the Mini I tested a few weeks ago, but I did take it on a variety of roads — surface streets, interstates, and state roads. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my average fuel economy to budge from 30 mpg. Wait — I did get it to 29.9 mpg while I was passing a string of trucks. This is less than the EPA combined rating of 32 mpg, but still good for an SUV. The EPA also gives it an 8 out of 10 emissions rating.

That kind of mileage and low emissions come at a price, though: the Ford Escape Hybrid starts at $29,305. Hybrids are still hard to find on the lot, as they are expensive to build and popular to buy, so price breaks and dealer incentives are going to be equally as scarce for the Escape hybrid. But if you can find and afford it, the Ford Escape hybrid is a great SUV.

The Los Angeles Auto Show just came to a close, and not surprisingly, manufacturers brought a lot of green cars to the event. There were high-mpg gasoline cars, electric cars, clean diesels, and more. (Ferrari and Bentley also brought expensive gas guzzlers, but I’m willing to bet the market for those is pretty small.)

Here, then, is the Good Green Cars round-up of the enviro-friendly autos that were at the L.A. Auto Show.

• Ford hybrids: Ford brought the all new 2010 Fusion hybrid and 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid to L.A. The cars are nearly identical but for a few styling cues and trim levels, and they share the new lighter hybrid system found in the current Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs. The cars can go 47 mph on electric power only, according to Ford.
• Hyundai Blue Drive: This isn’t a new engine technology; rather, it’s Hyundai’s strategy to reach a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2015. It includes the 2010 Sonata hybrid, high-mileage “Blue” versions of the 2009 Accent and Elantra, and a future crossover with a gasoline direct-injection engine.
• Lexus hybrid SUV: The 2010 Lexus RX 450h gets its first update since its introduction, with more horsepower and better exhaust-heat recovery. It also gets its own distinctive grille. No further word yet on whether Lexus could be Toyota’s all-hybrid brand in the future.
• Mini EV: The Mini E plug-in electric vehicle made its official debut in L.A. Only a handful will be available anytime soon, and those will be tested by private and corporate customers in California, New York, and New Jersey. The Mini E can go 150 miles on a charge, with a top speed of 95 mph.
• Volkswagen diesels: VW expands its clean-diesel TDI technology to the latest Touareg SUV, which means it passes California’s stringent emissions laws. The EPA rates it at 25 mpg, and it will be available in all 50 states. This is the same technology that earned the Jetta TDI the “Green Car of the Year” award at the show.

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s call-in show, “Think Out Loud,” was about the future of the automotive industry this morning. The program focused on the state of Oregon, and most of the guests and callers were from the state, but the show had a lot to say about where personal transportation is headed in the next decade for the entire U.S.

The show, which aired Monday, December 1, was called “A Sustainable Auto Industry.” Guests included John Viera, Director of Ford Sustainable Business Strategies; Mark Perry, Director of Product Planning for Nissan North America; a representative from Governor Kulongoski’s office; and an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s College of Business. So they had their bases covered.

Highlights of the show (though you should listen to the whole thing):

• Viera says Ford will not go back to making so many trucks, no matter what the price of gas is. The company apparently is trying to learn its lesson and produce for the tomorrow instead of yesterday.
• Perry says Oregon will be one of the first launch markets for its new EVs in 2010. Yay!
• He also said Nissan wants to have 10% of its sales to be EVs by 2020 — that’s about 100,000 vehicles in the U.S.
• My favorite phrase came from Chris Warner, Kulongoski’s transportation adviser. He says there is no silver bullet, only “silver buckshot,” which includes alternative fuel cars, bikes, walking, public transportation, and whatever else the future holds.

A lot of basic alternative-fuel questions were answered, like shifting emissions from the tailpipe to the smokestack, and the recyclability of electric-vehicle batteries. It’s a good listen for newbies and alt-vehicle veterans alike.

A Sustainable Auto Industry

Two years ago, Les Schwab started working with suppliers to get the toxic lead weights out of the tires used on passenger vehicles and light trucks. The tires with lead weights will be used first, but the company expects to be fully stocked with steel-weight tires by the middle of 2009. Les Schwab has more than 400 locations in seven western states, so a change there can have an impact on the industry and the environment.

In addition to the steel weights, Les Schwab is a major tire retreader and recycler, as well as one of Oregon Business magazines “Best Places to Work.”