Ford's contribution to cutting carbon emissions

As one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world, Ford has an important role to play in protecting the environment. Due to the huge numbers of Ford cars on the road, the contribution the manufacturer makes to emission levels is extremely sizeable and any change that it makes to its models can have a significant impact on how many pollutants are released.

In the past, Ford has not played an active part in cutting the emissions which are thought to be causing climate change. In fact, in 2002, it was found to be the 7th most polluting corporate body in the US. However, things are now changing quite dramatically, with Ford turning its experienced hand to producing more environmentally-friendly vehicles.

Ford's eco-friendly efforts
After a number of false starts with electric vehicles, such as those created under the Think City project in Norway, Ford concentrated its efforts on cutting the emissions of its existing range of vehicles. It revealed that it was aiming to improve the fuel efficiency of its cars by 25% by 2005, making them both cheaper and more environmentally-friendly to run.

Whilst the details of this improvement are not known, what can be said for Ford's efforts is that it managed to make its cars, SUVs and trucks the most fuel economical vehicles in the United States. In the last few years, further progress has been made in this area with early introductions of hybrid-electric vehicles, such as the Ford Escape. Unfortunately for Ford fans in the UK, these cars are as yet only available in the States.

Ford is looking seriously at hybrid vehicles as one possible solution to reducing the effects of its vehicles on the environment, and even stated that it was aiming to produce 250,000 hybrid vehicles a year by 2010. However, around a year after this aim was revealed, the manufacturer admitted that it may have miscalculated and that the actual figures were likely to be lower.

However, this doesn't mean that there won't be lots of hybrid Fords on the roads; its new Fusion model is one of the most eagerly awaited cars of its range. Again, UK Ford fans must curb their enthusiasm, as it is the US Fusion car which will be hybridised, not the mini-MPV Fusion with which we are familiar.

However, Ford has more up its sleeve than just hybrid vehicles. It has also been busy working on a range of flexible fuel cars and trucks which can run on a range of fuel blends, such as 85% ethanol / 15% diesel all the way through to pure diesel. Whilst these would potentially be very successful, the lack of service stations which supply biodiesel mixes is a problem. The number of such service stations is on the up though, so there is hope for cars which run on flexible fuel, such as the Ford Focus. Read more about the Ford Focus.

Its other alternative fuel vehicles use a range of technologies, such as engines that can be switched between dual fuel tanks (one for diesel and one for compressed natural gas). Ford has also made its shuttle buses run on hydrogen.

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