Jump start: the new automotive revolution.

• Author: Flavin, Christopher

For half a century, automotive technology has been subservient to the hedonistic demands of performance and style. Now, at last, the first generation of environmentally responsible cars is on the way.

At major auto shows in Tokyo, Paris, and Los Angeles during the last two years, automotive experts have been drawn to a startling conclusion: after dominating personal transportation for more than eight decades, the internal combustion engine-powered, gasoline-fueled, steel-bodied automobile may finally be losing its monopoly. Experimental low-emission cars that run on methane, hydrogen, or electricity - many with exceptional fuel economy - are now being built by more than a dozen companies.

In recent months, several small firms in Switzerland have begun building 400-kilogram (900-pound) two-passenger commuter cars made of high-tech composites. In California, a consortium of aerospace firms, electric utilities, and government agencies have built a showcase electric car with a range of up to 220 kilometers. And in Massachusetts, a small company called Solectria has begun marketing electric cars with solar cells mounted on the roof.

Among the major automakers, Mazda, Mercedes, and BMW have each built pollution-free hydrogen-powered cars, while General Motors is testing an electric sports car called the Impact. Toyota, Nissan, Ford, and Chrysler have been a bit slower, but all plan to market cars and vans that have been adapted to run on batteries during the next few years.

Taken as a whole, this is the biggest wave of automotive innovation since Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908. As the new designs go on sale in the late 1990s, they may yield the first environmentally responsible cars. Together with improved public transport and increased reliance on the bicycle and other two- or three-wheelers, the new cars may provide the foundation for a sustainable global transportation system in the 21st century.

Running on Empty

Although it emerged in the first decade of this century as a technological triumph, the automobile has become a scourge of late 20th century civilization. Tailpipe exhaust accounts for a preponderance of the air pollution that now sickens the world's cities, is responsible for extensive forest and crop damage, and produces about one-quarter of the greenhouse gases that now threaten the stability of the global atmosphere.

While cars have become substantially cleaner as a result of air pollution laws during the past two decades, their growing numbers have offset most of the gains. The world automobile fleet reached 450 million in the early 1990s, having grown by more than 100 million since 1980. Car ownership continues to grow rapidly in some areas of the developing world (particularly in parts of the Far East where incomes are booming), and has even spread to China and Russia. Despite the limited capacity of densely populated areas to accommodate them, soaring car fleets have already made cities such as Bangkok, Jakarta, and Manila among the most polluted in the world.

As auto emissions standards have been introduced and gradually tightened during the past quarter-century, the giant automakers and fuel suppliers have responded incrementally - slightly modifying engines, adding increasingly sophisticated catalytic converters, and introducing new fuel additives. However, the complexity of urban smog - a witches' brew of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates, and ozone - has frustrated pollution control efforts and led to repeated failures to meet legal deadlines for achieving safe and clean city air.

Efforts to free the automobile from its dangerous dependence on Middle Eastern oil have met similar frustrations. Although fuel economy has been substantially improved (doubling from an average of 14 miles per gallon for new cars sold in the United States in 1974 to 28 in 1992), growing automobile fleets have kept gasoline consumption rising in most countries.

Alternative fuels have also been tried. Ethanol from corn and sugar cane, methanol from fossil fuels, and even vegetable oils have been used to run cars on a limited scale. Collectively, they show a range of limitations, from high cost (ethanol) to serious health risks (methanol). Other efforts to reduce gasoline use have focused on minimal modification of today's engines and fuel supply systems, often yielding second-rate technologies such as California's flexible fuel vehicle - a compromise that doesn't perform exceptionally well on any fuel.

The rules of the game suddenly changed in March 1989, however, when California's South Coast Air Quality Management District produced a comprehensive plan to reduce air pollution in the Los Angeles basin (which is estimated to cost the region $9 billion annually in health costs alone). The plan dictated that 2 percent of the cars sold in 1998 would have to have "zero emissions," with the share rising to 10 percent by 2003.

While the idea of mandating a technology that had not yet been proven was unpopular with U.S. automakers, it turned out to be the most revolutionary rule in a quarter-century of emission controls. Around the globe, car companies realized they couldn't ignore what was happening in the land where the automobile culture began. From L.A. to Tokyo, the world's leading engineering minds began to stir.

Tour De Sol

Some of the most innovative thinking has come from Switzerland, where the first...