Everything you need to know about EVs, hybrids
Several years ago, Toronto Star Wheels, as part of its mandate to cover the automobile industry like a blanket, borrowed two electric cars for six months for comparative testing. The Star installed two chargers in its executive parking lot and a Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt took up residence there in late April 2012.
We called it Project Green and invited everyone at the Star to get involved. Their assignment? Take one out for an evening or a weekend, drive around in it and record their impressions on a rolling blog that we published on thestar.com.
The Star’s editor, Michael Cooke, was among the first to get involved. After writing that he didn’t know much about cars (“When people ask me what kind of car I drive, I say a black one . . .”), he went on to wax eloquent about the Leaf.
Office messenger Nello Merante took the Volt out for a weekend. “I often wondered,” wrote Merante, “if you would be electrocuted if you drove an electric car through a car wash? So I drove one through a car wash and I am happy to report that the answer is no.”
Former Queen’s Park bureau chief Richard J. Brennan interviewed the then-new Transport Minister, Bob Chiarelli, about cars in general and electric ones in particular. Chiarelli made it very clear right off the bat that he wasn’t a car guy. Reported Brennan:
“Chiarelli, a 70-year-old veteran provincial politician as well as the former mayor of Ottawa, sat down with Toronto Star Wheels this week to talk about a wide range of topics, from increased highway speeds — he’s dead-set against them — to his favourite topic: transit.”
We put the story on the cover anyway, but I don’t think all that many Wheels readers actually read it to the end.
In any event, that long-term test is among the many things Wheels has done over the years to keep our readers informed about electric cars and other vehicles powered by something other than gasoline and internal-combustion engines.
We were the first Canadian publication to write at length about the all-electric Tesla, for instance.
And for years, Peter Gorrie kept readers up-to-date on the latest alternative fuels and other automotive initiatives to protect the environment in his column, Green Wheels.
But, try as we might, we can’t cover — or do — everything about EVs and other hybrid-type vehicles. So a few weeks ago, I was delighted to receive in the mail a new book entitled The Guide To Electric, Hybrid and Fuel-Efficient Vehicles. Written by Quebec journalists Jacques Duval and Daniel Breton, it’s touted to be the world’s first guide to electric cars.
Published by Juniper Publishing, which is a division of Quebecor Media Inc., it is being distributed nationally by Simon & Schuster Canada. I recommend that you purchase a copy.
The publisher’s suggested retail price is $29.95. You might be able to get it for less at some bookstores or on the Internet.
Duval is well known to people interested in Canadian motor sport and is an honorary member of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.
As a journalist, he’s known to be the Canadian expert on all things automotive and has written newspaper and magazine articles as well as books on the subject. Plus, he’s been host of both radio and television car shows.
Breton is a co-founder of the Green Party in Quebec. An energy and transportation electrification consultant, he’s held provincial government positions in areas of sustainable development and the environment.
In short, both these guys are qualified to write this book.
The first section — after several introductory messages — deals with myths and realities surrounding electric and hybrid cars.
Included in this section is a subsection in which it’s stated that hydrogen fuel-cell cars really offer no positive benefits so far as saving the planet is concerned, which was a surprise to me. (Ninety-five per cent of hydrogen is apparently produced from fossil fuels, the authors say.)
There are also pages devoted to driving EVs in winter (dress warmly because you don’t want to drain your battery by turning on the heater) and the top 10 cars that are advertised as being green but really aren’t, among other things.
The authors (and there are several others, in addition to Duval and Breton) review 85 vehicles and some are not fully electric, plug-ins or hybrids.
As I own a Ford F-150 pickup, I was naturally interested in the verdict on it and was surprised at what was a generally positive review.
The F-150 is not a Nissan Leaf by a long shot, but I — apparently — won’t be stoned for driving around in it.
Having said that, it was beaten by the Ram 1500 EcoDiesel in the book’s “medallist” wrap up because the Ram had better fuel economy.
Incidentally, the four gold medallists are the Chevrolet Bolt (in the 100-per-cent electric category), the Chevrolet Volt (in the plug-in hybrid or EV with range extender category), the Toyota Prius (in the hybrid category) and the Honda Civic (in the Eco — fuel efficient category).
Now, in order to be as informed as possible, I read just about everything having to do with climate change, which is happening, but I am in the middle on what (if anything) can really be done about it.
On my living room coffee table at home, I have two books — Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Nigel Lawson’s An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.
This book, by Breton and Duval, will be the third. nmcdonald@thestar.ca