Dear Sirs,

I note with interest that on August 18th 2008 your trade association, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, launched a new website at http://EcoDrivingUSA.com. I applaud the basic message that citizens of the United States of America would benefit from finding out more about EcoDriving techniques, and from then implementing such techniques themselves. However I must point out that I strongly object to the apparent attempt to secure the word EcoDriving as the trademark of the Auto Alliance. We have been using that word on our website at https://econnexus.org.uk to promote that very same message for a number of months now. Other web sites have been doing the same for considerably longer. I should be grateful if you would prevail upon the Auto Alliance to remove the offending symbol from the home page of EcoDrivingUSA.com at your earliest convenience.

I also note that the "About The Alliance" page on the Auto Alliance website states that:

This industry association is especially committed to improving the environment and motor vehicle safety.

And in addition one of their highly laudable goals is:

To be the credible resource for technical and science-based analysis enhancing motor vehicle safety, environment and energy issues with a global perspective.

Despite this when I asked them a technical question they suggested that I contact you directly, which I am now doing.

I also have some suggestions about how your company and my organization could work together to further our evidently common aim of reducing the world's dependence on energy in general and crude oil in particular, a finite resource which many experts tell us is in increasingly short supply.

1. Your company could become involved in finalising the specification of the econnexus econometer. (see https://econnexus.org.uk/projects/econometer/ for more details)

2. Your company could contribute technical information to that project.

3. Your company could contribute source code to that project.

4. Your company could include similar functionality in all new vehicles it designs, and also provide your existing customers with aftermarket equipment offering such functionality.

I welcome any similar suggestions you may have.

Yours faithfully,

Jim Hunt
Technical Consultant

Dear Sirs,

I note with interest that on August 18th 2008 you launched a new website at http://EcoDrivingUSA.com. I applaud your basic message that citizens of the United States of America would benefit from finding out more about EcoDriving techniques, and from then implementing such techniques themselves. However I must point out that I strongly object to your apparent attempt to secure the word EcoDriving as your trademark. We have been using that word on our website at https://econnexus.org.uk to promote that very same message for a number of months now. Other web sites have been doing the same for considerably longer. I should be grateful if you would remove the offending symbol from the home page of EcoDrivingUSA.com at your earliest convenience.

I also have a suggestion about how our two organizations could work together to further our evidently common aim of reducing the world's dependence on energy in general and crude oil in particular, a finite resource which many experts tell us is in increasingly short supply. The Auto Alliance could, for example, become involved in helping us to promote the econnexus econometer to EcoDrivers throughout the USA, and perhaps even further afield. (see https://econnexus.org.uk/projects/econometer/ for more details)

I welcome any similar suggestions you may have.

Yours faithfully,

Jim Hunt
Technical Consultant

We've finally made some progress with our open letter to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. I had a very frustrating few days talking to unhelpful voicemails in Washington, and helpful receptionists in both Michigan and California who nonetheless assured me that I needed to talk to someone in Washington. First of all I managed to get to speak to Candace Robinson in their communications and public affairs department, rather than just her voicemail. She passed my message on to Wade Newton, who managed to call me back successfully after a couple of false starts.

Wade told me we were barking up the wrong tree asking the "Auto Alliance" for technical information. The way he described it to me was that information is passed down to the AAM from the automobile manufacturers, but doesn't really get passed back in the opposite direction. He suggested I contact the automobile companies directly on that one. He also said that I was in the right place to talk about trademark issues, and that the person I really needed to speak to on that topic was John Whatley, the Auto Alliance's Vice President & General Counsel. I phoned the Alliance's Washington switchboard number, as Wade suggested, and given my previous experiences I was very pleasantly surprised when I got through to John straight away. However even after a nice long chat John and I didn't come to any agreement on my request for the Alliance to remove the "EcoDriving™" reference from their new website.

Following these conversations it's obvious to me now that I need to split the letter in two, and address one part to the Auto Alliance itself, and the other half to the members of the Alliance. I also need to make sure I address the letters to the right organizations. The old adage "more haste, less speed" was coined for a reason 😀

So there are two new open letters coming to this space very shortly. We'll keep a record of the early drafts preserved for posterity on our new Open Letters about EcoDriving in the USA page.

Hot on the heels of the Auto Alliance announcement about their new EcoDrivingUSA.com website, AAM member Ford Motor Company announced yesterday that it has been testing the effects of EcoDriving training. According to Ford the volunteers who took part in their 4 day EcoDriver training improved their fuel economy by an average of 24%. The individual improvements among the 48 drivers, which were verified by the Sports Car Club of America, ranged from just 6% up to an impressive 50% and more. The Ford news release claims that the large range was due to individual improvement depending:

On their driving style and ability to master eco-driving behaviors. Eco-driving instructors coached drivers to employ smoother breaking and accelerating, monitor their RPMs and drive at a moderate speed.

The training was provided by the Pro Formance Group from Phoenix, and was the start of a pilot program designed to teach EcoDriving to fleet customers. According to Pro Formance president and CEO Drew DeGrassi:

Ford is proving that eco-driving techniques are teachable and work across a broad spectrum of vehicles and drivers. It’s a great initiative for Ford to lead in this country. It’s not the end-all solution for America to obtain energy independence, but it is an important part of it.

Pro Formance's instructors mostly come from a racing background. For people who haven't had the benefit of training by these experts, Ford also helpfully provide a bulleted list of EcoDriving tips. Here at econnexus we suggest you also take a close look at our Econometer project, which is a great EcoDriving training aid. It enables you to get instant feedback from the car itself on how your driving style is affecting your fuel consumption.

You don't need a racing driver sitting next to you to become an accomplished EcoDriver!

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has just launched a new website, catchily entitled EcoDrivingUSA.com. Slightly disconcertingly the home page assures us that:

What's known as "EcoDriving™" provides easy tips for getting the most mileage out of your vehicle.

Over here in Europe we've been using the word for years, so I can't say I'm awfully pleased to see the AAM claim EcoDriving as their trademark. We've even been using the phrase here on econnexus.org.uk for a couple of months. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if their lawyers get in touch.

Apart from that though we can't quarrel with the basic message, which is that it's easy to reduce your own fuel costs and carbon dioxide emissions by 15% or more by "subtly changing your driving habits and adjusting your maintenance techniques". The alliance have managed to get Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, to provide the video for their home page. Here are some of the things Arnie had to say:

We hear a lot of ideas from politicians about lowering gas prices and fighting global warming, whether it's biofuels, offshore drilling or nuclear power. None of those will affect gas prices right now. Only you can do that.

If all Americans practiced EcoDriving the reductions in CO₂ emissions would be the equivalent of heating and powering nearly 8 cities the size of Los Angeles. We don't have to wait for the politicians to take action. Each of us has the power to make a difference, right now!

Hear, hear!

The EcoDrivingUSA site also shows a map of the United States. At the time of writing only 2 states are colored green – California and Colorado, whose governor Bill Ritter also provides a video. Only 48 more states to go, not forgetting the rest of the planet too. As Arnie puts it:

I hope you will spend some time on this site, finding out just how much you can do to help.

Now I'm going to have to go and lie down. I'm feeling a bit dizzy. For some reason I've suddenly got this strange sensation of deja vu.

Over the last few days T. Boone Pickens has held meetings with both John McCain and Barack Obama.

Yesterday Mr. Pickens was interviewed by Neil Cavuto of Fox News about those talks. Here's what he had to say:

One point Mr. Pickens made near the start of the interview is worth repeating:

Now you have the Georgian situation with Russia, and no question about that being an energy issue too. There's a million barrels a day involved in that problem.

Neil then asked Boone Pickens some more questions about his discussions with the presidential candidates, and in particular:

You're more favorably disposed to Obama now?

Mr. Pickens denied that:

It's a total nonpartisan issue. It doesn't have anything to do with politics. This is about America, is what we're talking about. And when you have got both sides saying that this is not bipartisan, then you have got a real good chance at getting something done. I think both candidates, I'm hoping they will come out and say, before election, that they will reduce, in 10 years, the dependency on foreign oil by at least 30 percent, and that does not include any conservation. I want that from both of them.

Finally Neil returned to the war in Georgia and the recent fall in the price of crude oil:

Boone, final thought on what's been happening with oil. It has been going down very quickly, even in the face of this Russian-Georgian war, even under threat of storms in the Gulf, which, in the past, just the fear alone would add a few dollars to it. It's not happening now. Is this sort of like an Internet bubble unravelling or real estate unravelling? What do you make of it?

Boone Pickens replied that he thought oil prices would increase again:

No. You have still got 85 million barrels of oil produced every day in the world. And I don't think you can increase that. So, if prices go down, maybe a temporary oversupply. We have had a slowdown in our economy. Others, Europe slowing down, too, and that cuts off demand. And you have killed a lot of demand with price. When you got up to $4 a gallon, you started seeing demand go off.

And now the United States is down over a million barrels a day on demand. And we did that with price. You know, you and I have talked about this subject a lot. When you kill demand, if you don't have supply increase, the only way you can kill demand is by price. So, no, just wait. It will be back up again. This is a temporary dip.

Bear in mind that Boone Pickens does appear to know what he's talking about in these matters. BP Capital is still going strong, unlike the hedge funds and their parent companies at Amaranth and Bear Stearns.

Today econnexus.org.uk announced their first three projects.

To help raise funds we have started two projects. The first is our 2009 Calendar, which we will start selling from December 1st 2008. Until then we will be running a competition to select 12 works of art to be included in the calendar. If you are a visual artist and you would like to find out more about entering the competition please take a look at the entry instructions and video at the econnexus 2009 calendar project page

Then there is our "Water Connects Us" album, which we will use to raise funds by listing the tracks on iTunes and similar music download websites. If you are a musician and you would like to discuss including a track of your music on the album please get in touch using our contact form. You can listen to the tracks contributed so far at the econnexus "Water Connects Us" album project page

Finally there is our Econometer, a project which could benefit from any funds raised. This is an open source project (free as in “free speech”) to develop a multi-language OBD II compatible fuel economy meter based on a very low cost hardware platform. This will allow drivers worldwide to easily and cheaply monitor their driving style so as to improve the fuel consumption of their cars, and thus reduce their fuel bills and their personal carbon dioxide and other emissions. For more information please go to the econnexus Econometer project page.

A couple of days ago Mikhail Gorbachev, last head of state of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, wrote an article for the Washington Post. Mr. Gorbachev opened that article by saying:

The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all.

He went on to lay the blame for the current crisis in South Ossetia firmly at the door of Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili and his Western backers:

What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia. In other words, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.

Now Mr. Gorbachev has given an interview on Larry King Live:

Here are some of his comments, after simultaneous translation by CNN:

I have heard the opinion of Eduard Shevardnadze. It was all at night. A little past midnight when the city was asleep. They used artillery. They used aircraft. They used all the weapons of killing. Tskhinvali was devastated by fire from multiple rocket launchers against people, against housing, against hospitals, against water and sanitation, against the energy and communications infrastructure. All of that was destroyed.

Larry then gave Mikhail Saakashvili a chance to respond to the accusation that he started the conflict by attacking Tskhinvali. Mr. Saakashvili said that:

I'm not shocked to hear it from former KGB operatives like Vladimir Putin or his former defense minister, Sergei Ivanov. Those people come from the Orwellian world, where lying is just an instrument of communication. But I'm profoundly shocked that somebody like Mikhail Gorbachev, for whom I had lots of respect in the past, well would use his appearance on your show for basically vindicating lies and deceptions.

Do you suppose that a winner of the Nobel Peace prize would lie whilst live on United States television?

According to a report in the International Herald Tribune Poland has agreed to a long-stalled deal to place an American missile-defense base on Polish territory. Commenting on the agreement Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said that:

Poland and the Poles do not want to be in alliances in which assistance comes at some point later – it is no good when assistance comes to dead people. Poland wants to be in alliances where assistance comes in the very first hours of – knock on wood – any possible conflict.

The agreement involves Poland hosting a United States base with 10 ballistic missile interceptors, launched from a hypothetical future adversary such as Iran. Early warning radars associated with the interceptors would be based in the Czech Republic.

In return Poland would receive what has been described as "enhanced" security cooperation. This includes the latest Patriot air-defense systems, which can be used shoot down attacking fighters or bombers as well as shorter-range missiles. The Patriot battery will be moved to Poland from Germany, and it will be operated by a crew of about 100 U.S. military personnel.

According to Reuters the deputy head of Russia's General Staff, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said that:

When a country accepts deploying something, it obviously takes on some obligations. Here we are talking about a military installation.

Of course, such an installation becomes a target, I'm sorry, an object of interest of the other side. So you have to be careful with it. It is always a primary target of the other side to strike such installations. So the use of such installations cannot stay unpunished.

It can only be regretted that in this most difficult situation, the American side is aggravating relations with Russia. It is a serious issue.

Officials said the agreement would be presented to the Polish legislature, although it currently seems to be unclear whether the US base would require such approval or not.

In an article in the New York Times yesterday Jad Mouawad said that:

Energy experts say that the hostilities between Russia and Georgia could threaten American plans to gain access to more of Central Asia’s energy resources at a time when booming demand in Asia and tight supplies helped push the price of oil to record highs.

American policy makers hoped that diverting oil around Russia would keep the country from reasserting control over Central Asia and its enormous oil and gas wealth and would provide a safer alternative to Moscow’s control over export routes that it had inherited from Soviet days.

Marshall I. Goldman, a senior scholar for Russian studies at Harvard and the recent author of “Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia.” says that:

Russians treasured the fact they had a monopoly on oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia, as it gave them considerable clout. By agreeing to having an oil pipeline, Georgia made itself more vulnerable.

It seems as though the policy makers hopes have now been wrecked, along with the homes of countless families in South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline is closed after an explosion on Turkish territory blamed on Kurdish separatists. It has also been reported that Russian aircraft have attempted to bomb the pipeline, although BP says that the pipeline has not been hit.

Whilst these attacks may still be disputed, Russia certainly had no qualms about using it's economic muscle two winters ago when Gazprom shut off supplies of natural gas to the Ukraine. At that time the United States suggested building a gas pipeline close to the route of the BTC oil pipeline. Now, however, Frank A. Verrastro, the director of the energy and national security program at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington, thinks it will be very hard to build a new Western pipeline. In his opinion:

For the Europeans, the Ukraine gas crisis was like a snooze alarm. We got BTC because there was a confluence of commercial and diplomatic interests, but the United States didn’t learn the right lessons. They thought that all you had to do was lean on these countries and a new pipeline would happen. But that was an abject failure. There is a shift happening in the marketplace. We need a Plan B. But we don’t have a Plan B.