The Federal Trade Commission held a public hearing Tuesday (Jan. 8) on how to regulate "green" advertising and they still want to know what you think. You can watch web-casts of the workshop and anyone is invited to submit comments before the January 25 deadline. Details on how to file a comment electronically, by paper or even confidentially can be found at the FTC website here.

As the New York Times reports, the FTC has not updated their green advertising guidelines or "green guides" since 1998. More than $54m was spent last year on carbon offsets, the Times writes, and there are growing concerns about about the level of "green washing" in paid media (i.e advertising that claims to be green or environmental but really isn't). The Times article on the FTC workshops includes many companies using carbon off-sets and the ad above for Volkswagen's Forest. The ad says VW will offset the first year of carbon emission of every car they sold for four months last year. What do you think about that ad?

For once, I am not going to ask you to post your opinion in our comments, tell the FTC what you think instead. Personally, I like Norway's system for regulating green ads but I doubt we would ever do that in the U.S.

[Source: New York Times]

The FTC released a report with the reasons behind the gas price increase in 2006. Live in a cave and don't recall the increase in gas price in 2006? As shown in the above graph, the weekly average gas price started the year at $2.28 in February. It quickly rose to an average May to September of $2.90, an increase of .62, peaking at $3.02 in August. 42 percent of Americans thought Bush did it.

The FTC report gives 6 reasons for the increase in oil prices. 1. Summer demand. 2. Price of crude. 3. Price of ethanol. The FTC says the first 3 account for .47 of the .62 increase and were easy to calculate. The last 3, .15 of the .62 increase, are more complicated and exact impact on price harder to calculate. 4. Transition from MTBE to ethanol 5. Refinery problems and finally 6. Demand that's not seasonal. Go below the fold to read more.

[Source: Bloomberg, FTC]

Be skeptical! Out of 93 fuel saving devices or additives were recently tested in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by the EPA, and out of those, just 10 were found to increase fuel mileage, and then only slightly. Unfortunately, 4 of those 10 also increased emissions. The results of the report are that none of the tested products met with approval from the EPA. The moral of the story is that these days, manufacturers have probably done what they can to make your mileage as high as it can be while delivering the performance that you demand. Outside engineers likely can't improve one aspect of the vehicle's performance without hindering another. The moral of the story: don't buy the hype, and don't buy their products.

So, what should you do? The source article, from the Detroit News, suggests a few tips that are likely well known to our readership. Namely, keep up with your manufacturer's maintenance schedule and slow down. It goes without saying that controlling your right foot is free.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Most Americans love seeing the phrase "plug 'n play." The alliteration bounces off your lips while the words magically translate to "no set-up required." Well, mostly. Every now and then, you have to turn a skeptical eye to a claim or product and here we may just need to turn two. In a recent press release, Brazilian technology company Abcesso announced that they would begin exporting an add-on component that essentially turns your standard gas-only car into a flex-fuel vehicle. The product is called AutoFFV. "Auto" because the unit is 100 percent fully automatic - plug 'n play. Once plugged in, your car will be able to run on "any mix of Gasoline and Ethanol."

To Abcesso's credit, they spend some time on the FAQ section of their website defending both ethanol and the AutoFFV. They claim that neither the fuel nor the product will do any damage to your car. They also visit the ol' cold start problem and say that the system software taps the temperature sensor and adjusts accordingly, so no issues should arise. As for the dashboard warning light problem they say that the "'check engine light' in Dodge/Chrysler vehicle will not occur with the AutoFFV system." Not sure why they don't mention Ford, as it's their flex-fuel cars which are currently under the magnifying glass of the NHTSA and FTC.

In any case, from what I can tell, very little has been done to address the use of ethanol blends as high as E85 in modern engines that weren't designed for them. Most reports I found discuss the benefits and safety of E10 while disregarding any blend much higher. Perhaps, we'll have to wait and see.

[Source: Abcesso]