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On Route to a Greener Future – Montréal International Auto Show
If you’re planning a visit to the Montreal Auto Show, be sure not to miss “On Route to a Greener Future,” a new attraction entirely devoted to environmentally friendly solutions in personal transport.
And while you’re feeling green, why not visit the Green Wheels section of Auto123, which takes a specific look at the Show’s eco-friendly features.
You’ll find a section devoted to green cars like the 2009 Jetta TDI Clean Diesel. You get a good overview of the latter as well as video commentary from people who were lucky enough to test-drive one at the Show. At time of writing, the Jetta TDI obtained a 78% score from experts and 94% from the general public.
Additional sections on Clean Diesel, hybrids and PZEV technology can also be consulted.
2 Comments
Comments
Yeah, as we progress in a sustainable direction there will be a phase out / transition period for many practices (we are still phasing out CFC’s and will not be complete until end of next decade!). 30 years ago my car was “undercoated” with used engine and gear oil. It was re-coated because it “washed away” overtime.
There is another way to ask questions of business owners around issues of sustainable business practices. Over the past couple of decades our habit has been to ask “Why are you doing that…?, pollution, labor practices etc. rather than “What are you doing”.
For the most part many are trying to reduce their corporate footprint. Today doing so is just good business.
January 24, 2009 by Sour Kraut
Here is the other side of this Green strategy that the manufacturers don’t talk about. While the public pressure has been on forcing the manufacturers to constantly produce vehicles with better economy there are other simpler ways to decrease the environmental footprint of the car industry.
Lets take automotive dealerships. For many years waste fluids, (engine oil, tansmission fluids, hydraulic fluids, antifreeze et. al.) were simply dumped on site. If it leached into the ground through leaks, all the better. Out of sight outof mind. Sometimes it was used as a crude, (but effective I might add) undercoating. Then companies came along that would actually purchase these used fluids for recycling. At the same time other companies started producing waste oil furnaces. Car service facilities were faced with a choice. Sell the stuff to recyclers for 2-4 cents per litre or burn it in a waste-oil furnace and heat your facility essentially for free. Duh, which one would you choose. Free heat or 3 cents? The problem is these furnaces, while expensive, are not very efficient. How can they be when the quality of the fuel they burn is so low? Most of the furnace’s technology and cost goes into filtering the fuel before it is burned.
So, if VW and the rest of the industry were truly concerned about the environment, they would look at their own operations first.
This issue though is probably the hardest to overcome. Dealerships are independent businesses being run by independent business men and women. Convincing them that, “Hey, by the way we want you to ditch you free dirty heat source and put in a new furnace and burn clean fuel and this will probably cost you another $100,000 or so per year in a time of recession!” is not going to go well.
But, that’s the cost of looking at total solutions to the environmental problems rather than pinning it all on the “Big Bad Car”.