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Recharge Wrap-up: Japan supports hydrogen, Fools against fuel cells, BlueIndy controversy

Japan hopes to expand the use of hydrogen energy by subsidizing fuel cell vehicles, according to The Japan News. The trade ministry plans to include the subsidies in its 2015 budget to coincide with the expected launch of Toyota's Fuel Cell Vehicle and the Honda FCEV hydrogen car. By jump-starting purchases of hydrogen cars, Japan hopes that innovation and mass-production will get a boost and the cost of fuel cell vehicles will be competitive with gasoline-powered models by the year 2025. Japan plans to have 100 hydrogen fueling locations operating by March 2016, and wants to halve the cost of building those stations by 2020. The amount of the subsidies has not yet been set. Investing website The Motley Fool isn't quite as optimistic as Japan about hydrogen cars, and is instead bullish about Tesla Motors. The Fool points to Tesla's strong stock performance, and predicts future growth will come from more car models in the future - starting with the Model X - as well as the company's proposed Gigafactory for manufacturing batteries. If Tesla's charging technology continues to catch on, that only improves its financial prospects. The article has some harsh words, however, for hydrogen: "Fuel cells are an inferior automotive technology and for fundamental efficiency, cost, and infrastructure reasons always will be mere compliance gimmicks." Yeesh. As part of a program to build charging stations for the Indianapolis EV carsharing service BlueIndy, utility company Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL) wants to raise its electricity rates an average of 44 cents a month per residential customer to help pay for its share of the project. State consumer advocacy agency Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor and consumer watchdog group Citizens Action Coalition oppose the plan, according to Greenfield, Indiana's Daily Reporter. The BlueIndy program, which is a partnership between the city of Indianapolis and battery manufacturer Bollore Group, will provide up to 500 cars for rent at 25 charging sites around the city. Those who oppose the rate hike call IPL a monopoly and say the amount of the increase is not allowed under state law and that the program wouldn't benefit working class and low-income citizens. A hearing regarding IPL's proposal is scheduled for July 23. A Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV will run the 2014 Asia Cross Country Rally, Hybrid Cars reports. The rally covers 1,367 miles of woods, swamps and mountains from Thailand to Cambodia.

CARB uses tricked-out RAV4 EV to measure air pollution in California

The old-school Toyota RAV4 EV you see above is the California Air Resources Board's version of a non-participant observer. The all-electric vehicle cruises around the state measuring airborne pollution. Since it's powered by batteries, there are no tailpipe emissions created as CARB tries to get a handle on how dirty the roadway air is. The problem, CARB says, is that it is difficult to measure air pollution levels, "during calm conditions at night and in the early morning." There are over 250 stationary air monitoring sites in California today, but the Board wanted a way to expand where and when it can test for things like ultrafine particles, carbon dioxide and nox. The original plan for the Mobile Monitoring Platform – as the RAV4 EV is officially called – was to "Investigate Spatial, Diurnal and Seasonal Pollution Gradients" on California's highways and ports. The RAV4 EV was originally expected to cost $280,000 (see pages 11-12 in this PDF from 2009), but a new report in the Modesto Bee says it had a total of $300,000 just in monitoring equipment. Michael Benjamin, CARB's chief of air monitoring, told the Bee that the MMP, "paints a thorough picture about what air quality is in any given community." More importantly, the stationary and mobile testing equipment can tell CARB when and where the air is getting cleaner. Which is the whole point, after all.

Autoblog Podcast #318

Toyota back on top, Barrett Jackson, Crowdsourcing your Dodge Dart payments, Nissan and Toyota double down on pickups
Episode #318 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Zach Bowman and Michael Harley talk about Toyota regaining the No. 1 sales crown, getting your friends and family to buy you a Dodge Dart, Barrett-Jackson, and Toyota and Nissan remaining committed to their pickup trucs. We wrap with your questions, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #318: