Over 60 hybrid, electric and biofueled vehicles from throughout the U.S. and Canada competed in the 2005 Tour de Sol - the 17th annual sustainable-energy and transportation festival and competition, demonstrating that we have the technology today to power our transportation system with zero-oil consumption and zero climate-change emissions. Each vehicle showed new ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil while reducing harmful pollutants.

“Each year, the Tour de Sol highlights the largest innovations in alternative-energy technology and advanced fuel vehicles, showcasing the future of the clean-energy and transportation industry,” said New York State Gov. George E. Pataki. “Over the last 10 years, we’ve invested unprecedented funding into the research and development of clean-fuel technology and currently deploy more than 4,300 clean-fuel vehicles in our state-operated fleets. I’m proud that many of the cars and components featured in this year ’s Tour de Sol are being developed right here in New York State, creating new markets and jobs for the 21st century while helping to clean our air and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

“The students, businesses, New York State government officials, auto companies producing advanced vehicles, and people using new hybrid and biofuel vehicles in the Tour de Sol are the new American heroes of the 21st century,” said Nancy Hazard, executive director of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association in Greenfield, MA, organizer of the Tour de Sol. “Every American is a winner because of their efforts to design, build and use advanced vehicles that aim to reduce imported oil and climate-change emissions today - offering an alternative solution to the energy and climate-change crises that threaten life as we know it”

The most interesting overall vehicle was the novel “plug-in” hybrid demonstrated by Valence Corp. and EDrive in Monrovia, CA. This is a modified Toyota Prius with a much larger battery pack than the normal Prius, and charged with external grid power. On a 150-mile run, this vehicle achieved 102 MPG on the gasoline used, but also used 9 kilowatt-hours of electricity required to charge the special lithium-ion batteries, which cost less than $1 to recharge. Although this vehicle would be relatively expensive to buy if available today (due to extra battery cost) plug-in hybrids may become a viable future technology.

Three top-placing teams — West Philadelphia High School, Quebec Advanced Transportation Institute (ITAQ) in St. Jerome, Quebec, Canada, and Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA — demonstrated incredibly low greenhouse-gas emissions by running their vehicles on biodiesel. The ITAQ entry got 67 MPG in a diesel Mercedes SMART vehicle.