We Obsessively Cover the Green Scene…

Utah, we have a problem. That's the conclusion of a report from the publication Nature saying that methane leaks from US natural gas fields may be anywhere from two to three times as large as previously estimated.

As much as four percent of the natural gas production at a field near Denver is escaping into the atmosphere via methane leaks, Nature says, citing researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado in Boulder. Meanwhile, a Utah field may be leaking as much as nine percent of its natural-gas production.

These numbers are too high to be good for the environment, and the production leaks could indicate that expanded production of natural gas may outweigh the other environmental benefit of both reduced oil consumption and fewer coal-fired electricity plants. Natural gas fields had previously been though to leak about 2.4 percent of their production, while Princeton University researchers said last year that anything less than a 3.2 percent leakage rate would indicate that natural gas production is environmentally beneficial.

Thus we can see a problem for increasing the number of natural gas vehicles. With lower leakage rates, more natural gas production could be considered beneficial in both the energy and transportation industries because natural gas's abundance in North America could cut America's dirty foreign-oil dependency. Honda, for example, makes a natural-gas powered Civic (now called the Civic Natural Gas, formerly the Civic GX), while General Motors is among the automakers producing natural-gas powered trucks. There are about 1,150 compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling stations in the US, almost a quarter of which are in California, according to the US Department of Energy. If the natural gas production is dirty, then using more of it isn't the solution.

There's nothing cowardly about the yellow Smart Fortwo being introduced at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show. Why the bright color? Daimler says it's in response to both trends in car colors and customer demand for more personalization on the city car's higher-end Passion trim level. The newest Smart edition has been christened Cityflame. It features eye-popping pearlescent flame yellow side body panels and black safety panels and roof and 15-inch black alloy wheels.

The interior repeats the yellow and black color scheme. There's yellow imitation leather inserts and stitching on black leather seats and yellow stitching on the black three-spoke faux leather steering wheel with paddle shifters. There also are special edition black and yellow floor mats embroidered with the word Cityflame.

Daimler is producing just 2,400 Smart Fortwo Cityflame vehicles, available in either coupe or cabrio. All have a five-speed automated manual transmission with a 70-horsepower, 1.0-liter, three-cylinder in-line turbo gas engine which produces 68 lb-ft of torque. Starting price is 14,490 euros ($19,300 US at today's exchange rates) for the coupe and 17,580 ($23,500) euros for the cabrio. Daimler has not announced whether the Smart Fortwo edition cityflame will be imported to North America, but we may learn when the big show starts tomorrow.

Jonathon Friedman had his day in a San Francisco court, then Jurist Frank Drago had his say, declaring Friedman guilty. The case centered on a sheaf of corporation papers that Friedman used to make a statement about corporate 'personhood.' Driving in a carpool lane in the Bay Area, Friedman was pulled over for not having at least two people in the car. His response was to show the officer his business papers and, citing US Supreme Court decisions that have affirmed that corporations are people, said he indeed did have two people in the car and so was, in fact, carpooling.

The case went before the traffic referee, and the officer who issued the ticket even showed up to defend it. Friedman's attorney, Ford Greene, pointed to the "constitutionally vague" correlation between the California vehicle code that defines a person as "natural persons and corporations" and the carpool lane signs that demands cars in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane be occupied by "two or more persons."

The jurist wasn't interested in all that "novel" malarkey. Drago said, "Common sense says carrying a sheath of papers in the front seat does not relieve traffic congestion," then declared Friedman guilty. Now, we're not constitutional law scholars, but it's been a while since we heard "common sense" used as the sole litmus test for extracting the intention of a law and assigning guilt – and we wonder if that's the same common sense that was used to declare corporations people in the first place.

No matter, Friedman said he expected to lose, and that he'll be appealing the ruling within 30 days.

The weather may have cooled off in the Valley of the Sun, but not the sentiments of some Phoenix-area owners of Nissan Leaf electric vehicles.

A town hall meeting that Nissan executives held with about 50 Leaf owners who felt scorned by the automaker for the EV's battery performance doesn't appear to have appeased many of the customers, according to the MyNissanLeaf blog. One attendee named "Volusiano" wrote that the meeting was "all for show" and that a recent expanded warranty from the company "does not remedy anything at all for the hot climate owners."

Another reader remarked that the meeting represented "allota [sic] wasted exec brass time just to blow us off." KPHO, CBS's Phoenix affiliate, reported that the meeting was off limits to the media but quoted Nissan executive Andy Palmer saying the meeting represented a "start of a dialogue" between the company and car owners who've said that high heat has caused the battery to lose capacity at a quicker rate than advertised.

Last month, Nissan said a new warranty policy would repair or replace degraded batteries with new or remanufactured batteries that have at least 70 percent of their capacity, as Nissan originally promised. The first rumblings of a problem came last summer, when Phoenix-area Leaf owners started complaining about EVs whose single-charge driving range had dropped as much as 50 percent from a year before. Given the contention surrounding the issue, this town hall will likely not be the last.

And they're off! UK-based Drayson Racing Technologies is the first team to commit to Formula E Holdings's plans to run an all-electric Formula One-style racing circuit starting next year.

Drayson, which will be one of 10 teams that are expected to compete in the circuit, plans to devote two drivers to the circuit and is "talking to a number of the world's leading racing drivers." While the cars are being developed by Spark and McLaren, Drayson may start building its own cars by 2015. The standard car will be an updated version of the Formulec EF01 electric-racing prototype first shown at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. That prototype was said to have a 155-mile-per-hour top speed and a 0-to-60 acceleration time of three seconds.

Formula E plan to hold 10 road races during the first full year of the circuit and said last month that the first race as part of the series will take place in Rome, with street demonstrations expected to start later this year. Check out a short video with Lord Drayson and read the team's press release below.

MindDrive is asking for crowdfunding to get a film produced about at-risk youth driving a converted electric car coast to coast. MindDrive, a nonprofit organization based in Kansas City, MO, works with at-risk high school students in an experiential hands-on way – through building an electric car, for example.

Fifteen at-risk high school students from Kansas City were brought into a project and coached by mentors on how to design, fabricate and covert a 1977 Lotus Esprit into an all-electric car. Once it was finished, they participated in a cross-country public education campaign called "Electrifying Education Coast to Coast," driving the Esprit from San Diego, CA to Jacksonville, FL. Students were featured in numerous newspapers, television news shows and blog stories across the country.

Linda Buchner, the president of MindDrive, narrates a short video (available below) intended to increase awareness of the project and to raise funds and get their story out, but it's going to be an uphill fight. So far, $2,175 of the $30,000 target has been raised and there are only six days left. "The students have accomplished so much, and so we need to finish this for them," Buchner says in the video. Also available below is a second video from the final day of the field trip, where students and mentors talk about their experiences.

What's needed to make the movie a reality? A professional film crew was hired to travel with the team, and documented the trip by conducting interviews with the students and the mentors along the way. There are also plenty of shots of terrain and interested groups they kids met along the way. For the movie, organizers would like to shoot more to describe the back story, having the students explain how they were doing before the MindDrive project. Also needed are a documentary filmmaker to edit the feature-length film, and production of an original music score. This is where the IndieGoGo request comes in.

Once completed, their dream is to market the video to film festivals and television channels. MindDrive is hoping the movie will inspire others to get involved in education in a hands-on, experiential way. If it results in more cool, retro EVs, we're all in favor.

A US district court judge in California threw out a class-action lawsuit from owners of Toyota Prius and Lexus HS 250h hybrids who had filed a claim against the Japanese automaker over a 2010 recall involving the vehicles' anti-lock braking system, Bloomberg News reports.

The claim, made by four vehicle owners on behalf of the rest of the owners, related to a 2010 recall that involved a software update for the vehicles' anti-lock brakes. The judge denied the claim because the plaintiffs suffered no injury, thus ending three years of litigation. A Toyota spokeswoman told Bloomberg News the company was "pleased" with the court's decision.

In early 2010, Toyota – at the time also reeling from floormat/unintended acceleration issues involving both Toyota and Lexus models – said some Prius models sold in January of that year had a braking-system design issue that had later been corrected. Both the US and Japanese governments that year required Toyota to investigate the issue, which involved a short, temporary loss of braking during the transition between regenerative and friction brakes on slick or bumpy surfaces.

Tesla Motors has confirmed that the all-electric Model S luxury sedan will have a CHAdeMO quick-charging adaptor when the model goes on sale in Japan. The news was first reported in Japan, where CHAdeMo is the winning fast-charging option. The adaptor will make it possible for Tesla owners to recharge at almost 1,900 quick-charging stations across the country, Green Car Reports notes, where CHAdeMO is the DC-fast charge standard for models like the Japanese-made Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i.

More than 20 Tesla stores in Japan will start selling the model later this year, though no pricing has been announced. Tesla hasn't said whether CHAdeMO adaptors will be available for US versions of the Model S, which in November won Motor Trend's 2012 Car of the Year award.

The CHAdeMO quick-charging standard was established in 2010 and is supported by Nissan and Mitsubishi as well as Toyota. US and European automakers such as BMW, General Motors and Volkswagen are supporting the newer SAE Combo standard because of its ability to have a single charging port for both standard and fast-charging stations. Tesla doesn't like either of these protocols, and developed its own Supercharger technology, which is why an adaptor is necessary in the first place. No similar adaptor for the SAE Combo connector has been announced.

Unless Tesla Motors can secure outside funding, the company will be in dire financial straits during 2013, says MarketWatch tech investor John Shinal. In fact, if Tesla hadn't received hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government in 2012, its financials would already be gasping for air, he said.

Tesla is a candidate for stock market collapse this year, unless it can secure additional cash, Shinal said. Despite its sketchy numbers, Tesla has managed to move its stock value up more than 30 percent since early November, he acknowledged. Tesla's stock has moved within a tight range, between $33 and $35 a share.

Shinal said the Tesla's financials were worse off than struggling post-IPO internet companies Zygna and Groupon. "As of September 30, Tesla had cash and short-term securities of $86 million, down from $280 million at the start of the year," he stated. "That leaves Tesla with less than six months' worth of cash, given that it burned through almost $200 million during the first nine months of 2012." Tesla had "no comment" about all this when contacted by AutoblogGreen.

Tesla Motors very much needs strong sales of its Model S, and to do that it will need to continue to ramp up production so sales meet the company's funding needs. Tesla might also need to find more outside investors, similar to the relationships established with Daimler and Toyota. Tesla could tap into its reputation for providing advanced electric vehicle powertrain technology, and could seek investments from other established automakers.

Despite Shinal playing Chicken Little, Tesla's financial conditions were starting to look a bit brighter in late 2012. It is paying back its federal loan earlier than anticipated and has indeed started ramping up production volume to take advantage strong demand. We agree with Shinal that 2013 will be a benchmark year for Tesla, whichever way things go.

No one's ever accused Bob Lutz of underselling his products, and the former General Motors Vice Chairman – a key development force for the Chevrolet Volt – is at it again with Via Motors. Via, which will present three new full-size extended-range plug-ins at Detroit's North American Auto Show next week, will show off a truck that will have, as Lutz puts it in a one-minute video, "the torque of a monster truck" and "the fuel economy that makes a Prius looks like a gas guzzler." Ah, that's the subtle Lutz we know and love.

In case you were curious, Via Motors announced on Facebook it will keep the subtle theme going at the press conference next week in Detroit thanks to ... a hologram of Thomas Edison. You can see a preview video below and then imaging "the ground breaking life-size hologram conversation between Thomas Edison and father of the Chevy Volt, VIA's Bob Lutz." We cannot wait.

The Via X-Truck will have fuel economy of up to 100 miles per gallon, according to the company. Via will also show off what Lutz calls a Cadillac Escalade-class SUV that will get fuel economy of more than 100 miles per gallon. You can watch the video below.

A report in the Financial Times says that in Iran in 2006 there were 1,500 dual-fuel cars – those that can run on gasoline and on natural gas. In only seven years that number has climbed to 2.95 million. To serve them, where there were once just 60 refilling stations there are now 2,500. The switch to the alternative fuel has well publicized causes, namely the oil and financial sanctions enacted against Iran due to its nuclear research programs.

The sanctions have driven down government revenue – a recent report says government income is down by 45 percent in the last nine months due to reduced oil exports, which the Iranian government immediately refuted – as well as the value of the local currency, the rial, making it more expensive to purchase gasoline. The FT article quoted one Iranian saying that whereas 20 liters of fuel cost him $10.80, filling his tank twice a day with natural gas only cost a total of $6.50.

The move to natural gas isn't exactly new, with a program put in place a decade ago to bolster its use. Five years ago the program was given an additional $3 billion to accelerate the transition, the same year that another round of sanctions was approved by the United Nations. The move away from petrol use helps keep consumption down, staving off a full-blown gasoline emergency – Iran has huge oil and natural gas reserves, but it needs to keep gasoline demand in line with its domestic processing capacity since the sanctions also cover the importation of petrol.

With Iran seemingly committed to enduring the current sanctions and the potential of more, the FT piece figures natural gas will continue to play an important role in Iran's economy. That might be expected even if sanctions were to go away: Iran's fuel shift means that the country of 80 million now has more natural-gas-powered cars than any other country in the world, topping natural gas powerhouse Brazil and population powerhouse India.

It shouldn't be surprising that a company with the word electric in its name would want to plug into the growth of EVs. Even so, when General Electric announced in 2010 that it would buy 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015, the sheer size of the bulk buy made headlines, for the size of the commitment and because half that number would be from General Motors, including the Chevrolet Volt. Since then, GE has purchased thousands of the new Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid.

Now, apparently, GE's fleet managers want a wider range of options, especially for their trucks. So, GE is taking a slight detour, and adding in some fuel-efficient compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles into its purchases for its own corporate fleet and the vehicles it leases to others, according to Bloomberg News. GE owns 30,000 vehicles for its own employees, and leases 1.4 million to other businesses through its GE Capital Fleet Services arm.

Even though EV, PHEV and hybrids are a small percentage of the total GE fleet, the decision to add more CNG vehicles is partly a financial one. Simply, electrics and hybrids carry a premium over gas and CNG. The GE decision could be good news to Honda. The Honda Civic CNG won the prestigious Green Car of the Year award at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show. It also costs more than $10,000 less than the Volt.

The Obama administration made a big deal about how it had a long-term plan to green up the federal vehicle fleet back in early 2011. Even with that big target, the overall number of hybrids is going down. And, after spending time buying fuel-efficient US cars, the Obama administration has been turning more to hybrids from foreign automakers – just like the general public – rather than fuel sippers from Ford or General Motors.

According to a Bloomberg report that used data from the General Services Administration, the overall number of hybrid and electric vehicles the US government bought last year went down by a third to just 1,801 vehicles. Over half of them (54 percent) were from Hyundai, Toyota and Mitsubishi. The number one vehicle by volume? The Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. The US government also purchased vehicles like the Mitsubishi i and the Toyota Prius. Among US civilian buyers, Toyota claimed the four most popular hybrid spots and the Sonata was fifth.

The stated plan is for the Federal government to only buy alt-fuel vehicles by 2015, but the numbers and percentages of the fleet have been dropping. Bloomberg's numbers show that the Feds bought 8,139 alt-fuel vehicles in 2009, 6,467 in 2010 and then 2,645 in fiscal 2011. The early number were buoyed by stimulus spending.

Honda has announced that it will invest $23 million in its Marysville, Ohio facility to support production of the upcoming 2014 Accord Hybrid sedan. According to the manufacturer, this means approximately 50 new jobs will be created, and the whole investment will result in a 95,000-square-foot expansion of the Marysville plant.

The Accord Hybrid joins the decidedly homely Accord PHEV (pictured) this fall, using a 2.0-liter i-VTEC Atkinson cycle four-cylinder engine mated to a 124-kilowatt electric motor. Honda has yet to release official power or fuel economy figures for the non-plug-in hybrid version of the Accord.

Honda currently operates four manufacturing facilities in Ohio, with the combined capacity to build up to 700,000 cars and light trucks each year. The Japanese automaker also has a facility in Greensburg, Indiana, where the Civic Hybrid and Acura ILX Hybrid are built.

Scroll down for the official press release.