From the Ground Up
'Green Machines' Tour Hits the Road
UAW & Ecology Center Campaign for Jobs & Cleaner Environment
By Claudette Juska
October/November Issue, 2004
As the first U.S.-made hybrid was un-veiled at Ford Motor Co.’s Kansas City Assembly Plant, a coalition of environmental and labor leaders launched the ‘Green Machines’ Tour, a traveling educational campaign to support new fuel-efficient technologies in the U.S.
The Aug. 4 debut of Ford’s new Escape Hybrid provided an ideal backdrop for the ‘Green Machines’ Tour kick-off event. The new hybrid makes Ford Motor Co. the first domestic automaker to introduce hybrid-electric technology to the mainstream market, and also the first in the popular small SUV segment. The Escape Hybrid gets up to 36 miles per gallon in city driving, more than a 50% improvement over the standard Escape. It also has extremely low emissions, achieving the California Advanced Technology Partially Zero Emission Vehicle (AT-PZEV) standard.
Organized by the Ecology Center,the ‘Green Machines’ Tour aims at increasing awareness of American-made vehicles that can help improve fuel economy. The campaign will also promote new policies that encourage greater investments in new fuel-efficient technologies in the U.S. The tour will bring together environmental groups and labor organizations, historically at odds over fuel-economy standards, to demonstrate their joint support for advanced fuel-efficient technologies, including hybrid-electric vehicles.
“The Escape Hybrid is a winner for both jobs and the environment,” says Charles Griffith, Auto Project Director of the Ecology Center. “There is enormous potential for revitalizing auto manufacturing in the nation’s heartland, while at the same time making positive environmental steps to reduce the release of greenhouse gases and to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. Environmental concern and supporting good union jobs can now go hand-in-hand.
The Tour’s kick-off event was jointly organized by a coalition that included leaders from the Sierra Club, the United Auto Workers, the Steelworkers, the Apollo Alliance, and the Audubon Society. The event included a press conference and an educational forum that reviewed fuel-efficient technologies, policy initiatives to promote energy efficiency, and the role of “blue-green” alliances. UAW Local 249, whose members build the Escape Hybrid at the Kansas City, Missouri, plant, hosted the event.
The Green Machines Tour will continue making stops at UAW-organized production sites throughout the fall. In addition to hybrid technology, much of the tour will focus on the production of advanced conventional vehicle technologies, including advanced engines, transmissions, and vehicle load reductions that can each improve fuel-economy by as much as 8% per vehicle. These techno-logies will in many cases be produced in large volumes and be included in millions of future vehicles, which could play a sig-nificant role in leading the entire U.S. ve-hicle fleet towards increased fuel economy.
“Environmental concern and supporting good union jobs can now go hand-in-hand.”—Charles Griffith, Ecology Center Auto Project Director
At many of the tour sites, production of these new advanced technologies has meant significant investment by the U.S. auto industry and preservation or creation of several hundred jobs. In Michigan alone, the ‘Green Machines’ Tour will be visiting up to ten plants that together have recently seen over $2.3 billion in investment and the preservation of over 1,400 jobs. Other Tour locations include sites in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. For more information about the Tour, visit www.greenmachinestour.org.
Claudette Juska is part of theEcology Center’s Auto Project team.
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