A bill introduced in Congress Wednesday would help drivers retire their old, inefficient cars in exchange for money to help them buy public transportation passes or newer vehicles with better-than-average gas mileage.

The Accelerated Retirement of Inefficient Vehicles Retirement Act of 2009 (ARIVA), introduced by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would offer vouchers of up to $4,500 for drivers to retire any vehicle still in drivable condition that has a fuel economy rating of less than 18 miles per gallon.

These vouchers would help make fuel-efficient cars, such as hybrids and electric cars, more affordable for everyone, but especially for those who can least afford high gas prices but also can’t afford to buy a newer vehicle with better mpg.

The bill would require that retired cars be scrapped and that the voucher go toward the purchase of a new or used car that exceeds federal fuel economy standards by at least 25 percent, or toward the use of public transit.  

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has commended the bill, estimating that 575,000 cars would be retired through the program each year, and that oil savings would reach 46,000 barrels per day by 2013.

You can follow the progress of this bill, H.R.520, through Thomas, the Library of Congress’ legislative information website. And you can read more about ACEEE’s endorsement of ARIVA here, as well as the group’s full report on the bill, Accelerated Retirement of Fuel-Inefficient Vehicles Through Incentives for the Purchase of Fuel-Efficient Vehicles.

If you’d like to speak up in support of ARIVA, contact your state senators and representatives and encourage them to co-sponsor the bill. You can find their contact information on the United States Senate and House of Representatives websites.

On Monday, Secretary of the Army, Hon. Pete Geren will host an unveiling ceremony for the Army’s new neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) in Fort Myer, Va.

The NEVs are the first six of 4,000 being leased by the U.S. Army as part of an energy security initiative. The Army will eventually have electric vehicles on 40 bases.

NEVs are light-weight battery-powered cars and trucks with a maximum speed of 35 mph. The cars will be used exclusively on bases where the speed limit is 30 mph or less.

The Army released a statement that said switching 4,000 gas powered vehicles with electric vehicles will save 11 million gallons of fuel over their 6-year service life, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 115,000 tons.

The first six electric vehicles are made by Global Electric Motors (GEM), a division of the Chrysler Corp., but the total 4,000 will be leased from several manufacturers.

The Army Times reported that the Army’s electric vehicles sparked interest from other branches of the military.

“The good news is that the Air Force and Navy have come to us and said that they want to piggyback on the order,” said Paul Bollinger, deputy assistant Army secretary for energy and partnerships.

Bollinger also told the Army Times that the Army is putting decals on the doors of the electric vehicles that say, “Army Green, Army Strong.”   

For more information about Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, read Drive an Electric Vehicle and Never Buy Gas Again.

Check out the video below. It's from Mark Templeton, who can't stop smiling because he got his Tesla Roadster. Watch it and you'll understand why.

I so desperately want one. Especially the jet black color. If Batman had an electric car, this would be it. The only problems for me are it costs about $110,000 and takes about 12 months to get one. Ha ha, like I could actually get past the first problem, right?

If you don't already know, the Tesla Roadster is an all-electric (uses lithium ion batteries) two-seater. It goes zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and gets the equivalent of 256 mpg. Its batteries will take you about 220 miles. Performance, efficiency and range — what's not to love?

But here's the best part: with the national average price of electricity being about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, you'd pay less than 2 cents per mile to drive this car. Rock.

You can learn more about Tesla Motors and the Tesla Roadster here.

Every time a Nissan executive gives a major speech, the automaker sounds more and more serious about electric cars. Last May the company announced plans to be the first automaker to sell a mass-produced all-electric and zero-emission car by 2010 (geez, hurry up and get here already!). But a recent speech from chief executive Carlos Ghosn provided more details.

“I want a pure electric car. I don’t want a range extender. I don’t want another hybrid,” Ghosn said after a dedication ceremony for the automaker’s new North American headquarters in Franklin, Tenn. “It’s not going to be zero emissions in certain conditions. It’s going to be zero emissions.” 

Not only does that statement set a substantial goal, but it’s a challenging distinction between Nissan’s direction and that of General Motors and Toyota, with their focus on gasoline-electric hybrids, which can still use fossil fuels to varying degrees. 

Another Nissan executive, senior vice president for finance Dominique Thormann, stressed that the automaker isn’t on this track for green credibility. Thormann said Nissan won’t sell the cars unless it can do so at an affordable price, and make a profit. 

For decades, Nissan has built reliable, high-quality cars that are fun to drive. The automaker does what it does very well, without overextending itself. I still fondly recall my college car, a Nissan 240SX. Oh, how I would love to have an electric version of that now! 

While many automakers talk green but don't necessarily back it up, I have little or no reason to suspect this from Nissan. If this talk of affordable, zero emissions, all-electric cars comes to fruition, it’ll be a monumental shift for the auto industry. 

Thanks to AutoblogGreen for the head’s up. To read more about Nissan’s plans, check out the two articles below from The New York Times.

Nissan Plans Electric Car in U.S. by ’10

Nissan Says Electric Cars Will Be Quickly Profitable

A recent editorial from Car & Driver editor-in-chief Csaba Csere makes a “fearless prediction” that plug-in hybrids will be “the hot rods of the 21st century.” 

Csere acknowledges that we still need a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology to make plug-in hybrids feasible, which is certainly true. But he adds that plug-in hybrids will “quickly proliferate” after that breakthrough happens. Csere is dead-on when he argues that plug-in hybrid development is ahead of that for fuel-cell vehicles. He says: 

“A reasonable person might conclude that once plug-in hybrids become common and their batteries become inexpensive purely battery-powered vehicles will leapfrog the fuel-cell machines and leave them stillborn.” 

The rest of Csere’s column is a technical, but interesting discussion of the keys to plug-in hybrid development, the horsepower from advanced batteries and electric motors, and the advantages of series hybrids (in which the electric motor and internal combustion engine are separate) over parallel hybrids (in which the electric motor and internal combustion engine are intertwined). 

And — in case you’re wondering — Csere’s name is pronounced something like “Chabba Chedda.” At least according to the forums at caranddriver.com.

What is the plural of Prius? Priuses? Prii? Prix? Priora. Just Prius? Whatever’s correct, there certainly are lots of the trendsetting hybrid car out there. More than 1 million, in fact. 

As of April 2008, worldwide sales of the Prius reached 1,028,000 units. The Prius is sold in more than 40 countries and regions, but the bulk of sales come from North America and Japan. 

According to Toyota, all those Prius hybrids have contributed 4.5 million tons less carbon dioxide pollution (the leading cause of global warming) than what would have come from similarly sized gas-only cars purchased instead of the Prius. 

And, in case you’re wondering, the official word from Toyota is that Prius works for the singular and plural forms.