Decades before carbon emissions dominated today’s headlines, the U.S. was already deep into a far‑reaching effort to clean up tailpipe pollution. This push targeted the familiar culprits of urban smog: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, unburned hydrocarbons and other VOCs, particulate matter, and a mix of toxic compounds. These weren’t abstract concerns. They were pollutants people could see and feel in real time.
Smog‑choked skylines and the unmistakable symptoms that came with them – coughing, wheezing, tightness in the chest, irritated eyes and throat, and worsening asthma – made the problem impossible to ignore. That direct connection between what came out of a tailpipe and how people felt walking down the street is what drove implementation of the Clean Air Act and the early and sustained campaign to cut criteria emissions, a campaign that continues shaping cleaner vehicles today.
Electric cars are an obvious option since they emit zero localized emissions. But as we know, electric cars are an unfolding story with a growing, though still minority, percentage of a light-duty U.S. car population that now numbers some 290 million vehicles. The vast majority are gasoline internal combustion…thus the importance of cutting their emissions as much as possible.
This thought takes us back several decades to a feature we published detailing just how clean internal combustion vehicles could be. In the decade before that time, conventional wisdom was that alternative fuel vehicles would be the most likely path to achieving environmental harmony on the highway. If you wanted to achieve zero emissions – or more realistically, near-zero emissions since even an electric car has recharging emissions from the powerplant – then you were looking at a battery electric vehicle. Another likely option seemed to be a natural gas–fueled car, something that was an option at the time with vehicles like Honda’s ultra-clean natural gas Civic GX.
Things change. Today the focus is again on electrified vehicles. But as our report noted back then, an increasingly cleaner‑running generation of gasoline internal combustion vehicles still deserves a place in any strategy aimed at reducing emissions and delivering cleaner cities and a healthier environment.
Supporting this perspective were the conclusions of a 2002 University of California, Riverside program – the Study of Extremely Low Emission Vehicles (SELEV) – which illustrated how new advances in internal combustion engine technology were reducing vehicle emissions to levels considered impossible just a few years earlier. This technology wasn’t just in the concept stage. A handful of 2003 and 2004 model vehicles with conventional internal combustion engines were certified by California as PZEVs (Partial Zero Emission Vehicles)…cars that ran so clean they were awarded partial credits toward that state’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate at the time. PZEVs not only achieved incredibly low tailpipe emissions but zero evaporative emissions from their fuel system as well.
Cars meeting this emissions milestone at the time of the study included mainstream models like the BMW 325i, Ford Focus, Honda Accord, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Jetta, and Volvo S60 and S70, when equipped with specific engines. Some of these PZEV models were sold only in California, while others were available there and in other like-minded states such as New York and Massachusetts. This signaled the beginning of an important trend in ever-cleaner-running gasoline models.
Ford’s early‑2000s Focus PZEV served as an example of just how far internal combustion could be pushed. Building a gasoline car that edges toward zero emissions isn’t about one breakthrough, but rather a rethinking of the entire combustion and fuel‑handling system so every component contributes to cleaner operation. Ford engineered the Focus PZEV to meet SULEV limits and virtually eliminate evaporative emissions, refining airflow, fuel delivery, combustion stability, and sealing throughout the powertrain.
The 2.3‑liter engine at the heart of the program demonstrated the payoff. Lightweight materials, improved intake airflow, better fuel atomization, tighter valvetrain control, and a redesigned exhaust and catalyst system all worked together to deliver cleaner tailpipe output. Ford also re‑engineered more than a hundred components in the evaporative‑emissions pathway to keep fuel vapors contained. The result was an engine that ran cleaner, made more power, and used fuel more efficiently, a clear demonstration of how much internal combustion can achieve when every detail is aimed at cleaner air.
Dr. Joseph Norbeck, then-director of UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT), identified the importance of the university’s SELEV findings at the time: "Ten years ago, nobody thought gasoline ULEVs (Ultra Low Emission Vehicles) and SULEVs (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles) would be possible," pointed out Norbeck. "Now they're becoming common, and it's clear the emissions reductions they offer are significant.”
The SELEV program launched in 2000 at CE-CERT in partnership with Honda, Chevron, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and the Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association. It represented one of many programs at CE-CERT, an innovative research and education center founded at the university in 1992 with the aid of a $10 million endowment from Ford.
CE‑CERT developed the technology to measure emissions at far lower levels, a milestone in an era when scant emissions posed real measurement challenges. This capability allowed researchers to accurately quantify the performance of ULEVs and SULEVs. Beyond the SELEV program, the center was also involved in developing an integrated research effort examining the economic, environmental, and social implications of evolving automobiles, fuels, and transportation.
The significance of the SELEV program is that the emissions achievements it documented prompted a broader reappraisal of what’s possible with gasoline internal combustion vehicles. Just as important, the ultra‑clean gasoline models studied were not a one‑time anomaly. They marked the beginning of a trend that continues today. Most major automakers selling vehicles in the U.S. now offer several, and in many cases many, gasoline models that run this cleanly.
Of course, continuing to run on fossil fuels doesn’t speak to energy diversity, as some pointed out at the time, and that’s a good point. And today it could be added that combustion vehicles don’t eliminate carbon emissions like electric vehicles, though today’s significantly more fuel‑efficient gas models do produce far fewer carbon emissions than in the past.
If extremely low emissions and cleaner air in our cities is the goal, then the progress already achieved, and still being achieved, with the internal combustion vehicles we’ve driven for more than a century deserves recognition. With continued advancements in combustion technology and the emerging potential of carbon‑neutral synthetic fuels, advanced internal combustion engines may well remain an important and strategic part of our driving future for decades to come.
The fully electric, five-passenger Lucid Air luxury sedan is a study in superlatives. It has generated significant attention thanks to some impressive numbers: up to 1,111 horsepower, 0 to 60 times as quick as 2.5 seconds, sub-10-second quarter-mile times, and an EPA rating of 125 MPGe. Its charging-system technology allows for 900-plus volts of fast charging, capable of quickly energizing the battery for up to 300 miles of range in just 20 minutes. Then there’s the Lucid Air’s groundbreaking EPA rated driving range of up to 520 miles, far beyond any other electric car on the road today.
It features an overall length of 195.88 inches and 116.54-inch wheelbase are nearly identical to a Tesla Model S. It’s narrower than the S by about an inch, lower in overall height by an inch and a half, and its key interior dimensions are about an inch or so bigger than the Tesla. Lucid reports the Air has a very slippery 0.21 coefficient of drag, nearly the same as the 0.208 Cd of the Tesla S.
Lucid was able to create generous interior room within that sleek body package by designing the Air around its Lucid Electric Advanced Platform (LEAP), which positions the batteries low in the floor and makes use of relatively small motors, in terms of exterior dimensions. They produce up to 670 horsepower yet weigh just 163 pounds.
The Lucid Air is offered in four models, from the $77,400 Air Pure to the top-of-the-line $169,000 Air Dream Edition. The Dream Edition is the first available — reservations are closed, but there is a waitlist for the hopeful — with all-wheel drive, dual electric motors producing a combined 1,111 horsepower, and the aforementioned EPA rating of 520 miles. As a first edition it has exclusive paint and interior materials, special 21-inch wheels, ‘future-ready’ hardware for eventual Level 3 autonomous functionality, and the ability to receive over-the-air updates. The $139,000 Air Grand Touring and $95,000 Air Touring models also have dual motors and AWD, while the Pure is rear-wheel-drive with a single motor and the option for dual motor/AWD.
Inside is a 34-inch, 5K glass cockpit display with touch controls for wipers, lights, navigation, climate, and the audio system. A retractable Pilot Panel display in the lower center of the dash augments the cockpit display controls. Touch controls for media and Lucid’s DreamDrive are built into the steering wheel. DreamDrive is Lucid’s suite of driver assistance and safety features, which receives information from a total of 32 cameras, radar, LIDAR, and ultrasonic sensors positioned around the car. Among the interior options that are now, or will be, available is a glass canopy roof and an Executive Rear Seating Package with the ‘jet-style experience’ of two reclining back seats. Miniaturizing the Lucid Air’s powertrain has made room for a spacious bi-level rear trunk and a front trunk that Lucid claims is four times larger than other electric cars.
Lucid Motors is headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley with its cars assembled at a 500-acre greenfield manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona.
We are all enamored by the advanced technologies at work in vehicles today. And why wouldn’t we be? The incredibly efficient cars we have today, and the even more efficient models coming in the years ahead, are testament to a process that combines ingenuity, market competitiveness, and government mandate in bringing ever more efficient vehicles to our highways.
It’s been a long and evolutionary process. I remember clearly when PZEV (Partial Zero Emission Vehicle) technology was first introduced in the early 1990s, a breakthrough that brought near-zero tailpipe emissions from gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles. That move was led by Honda and Nissan, with others quickly following. Then there were the first hybrids – Honda’s Insight and Toyota’s Prius – that arrived on our shores at the end of that decade. Both technologies brought incredible operating efficiencies that drastically reduced a vehicle’s emissions, increased fuel economy to unexpected levels, or both.
Of course, there were first-generation battery electric vehicles in the mid-1990s that foretold what would become possible years later. That first foray into EV marketing was deemed by many a failure, yet it set the stage for the advanced and truly impressive EVs we have today. Those vehicles may not yet be cost-competitive with conventionally powered vehicles due to very high battery costs, but that doesn’t diminish the genius engineering that’s brought them to today’s highways.
Even conventionally-powered cars today are achieving fuel efficiency levels approaching that of more technologically complex hybrids. Who would have imagined popular cars getting 40 mpg or better, like the Dodge Dart, Chevy Cruze, Mazda3, Ford Fiesta, and many more in a field that’s growing ever larger each year?
VW and Audi have proven that clean diesel technology can also achieve 40+ mpg fuel efficiency while providing press-you-back-in-your-seat performance, and importantly, doing this while meeting 50 state emissions criteria. That’s saying something considering diesel has historically had a tough go of it meeting increasingly stringent emissions standards in California and elsewhere. Yet, with elegant engineering by these automakers and their diesel technology supplier Bosch – plus this country’s move to low-sulfur diesel fuel late last decade – ‘clean’ diesel was born.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention natural gas vehicles. There was a time when quite a few automakers were exploring natural gas power in the U.S., but that faded and left Honda as the lone player in this market with its Civic Natural Gas sedan. Now others are joining in with dual-fuel natural gas pickups and vans, benefitting from advanced engine technologies, better natural gas tanks, and a sense that with increasing natural gas reserves in the U.S., demand for natural gas vehicles will grow. As Honda has shown with its Civic, it’s possible to operate on this alternative fuel while also netting admirable fuel efficiency.
All this advanced powertrain technology is important. It makes air quality and petroleum reduction goals achievable, even ones like the ethereal 54.5 mpg fleet fuel economy average requirement that looms for automakers by 2025. There’s no doubt that advanced technologies come at a cost and reaching a 54.5 mpg average will require the full range of efficiency technologies available, from better powerplants and transmissions to greater use of lightweight materials, aerodynamic design, and answers not yet apparent. But I’m betting we’ll get there in the most efficient way possible.
Ron Cogan is editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of CarsOfChange.com