In a city with over 2 million vehicles and rampant pollution problems, it's easy to assume that green car technology is non-existent. However, while it may be a while before the streets of Cairo are crawling with hybrid and electric cars instead of smoke-belching buses and gas-guzzling SUV's, green automotive technology has begun to make subtle inroads in the city's driving culture. Between the growing popularity of natural gas technology and the introduction of environment-friendly features into new models of conventional vehicles, it seems that Egypt is well on the way to eliminating the "black cloud of pollution. The largest area of growth in green vehicle technology has been in the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative fuel. Besides being the cleanest burning fossil fuel, at about a third of the price of regular gas, CNG is also quite economical. In fact, the technology surged in popularity, particularly with taxi drivers, after 2008's fuel subsidy cut, which caused fuel prices to soar as much as 57 percent for the highest grade of gasoline and 35 percent for lower grades. "I decided to convert my taxi to natural gas because it made more sense financially; prices changed so fast that people weren't paying higher fares even though fuel had gotten so expensive, so I needed to find a solution and natural gas seemed like the best way to cut costs, explained Amr Mahmoud, a Cairo taxi driver. It has been easy for drivers to convert to this up and coming technology: Cairo hosts the first CNG service station in Africa and the Arab world. There, car owners can have their vehicles converted to run on natural gas for about LE 400 with the option of payment in installments for lower-income drivers. Over 100,000 vehicles in Cairo run on this technology currently, with government-owned natural gas company Egas pushing to have 300,000 by 2012. Accompanying this rise in natural gas fuel usage, there are plans for a three-fold increase in the number of NGV fueling stations to 390 locations around the country. While about 70 percent of the vehicles run on natural gas are taxis, about 17 percent are privately owned vehicles, indicating a broad trend towards natural gas usage across income groups and vehicle models. Nancy El-Husseiny, an upper-class homemaker, decided to switch her BMW sport utility vehicle to natural gas after hearing about the technology. "In Cairo we are always complaining about pollution and traffic without doing anything about it. I thought switching my car to natural gas would be a good way to actually take action and help the environment - and I save a lot on fuel now too, she said. Motorcycles are also being targeted for conversion to this technology. The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency has partnered with Industry Canada in a $1.4 million program to convert Cairo's estimated 300,000 motorcycles to natural gas technology. There are also plans to encourage the conversion of diesel vehicles, particularly mini-buses, to CNG in the near future. In addition to the rising popularity of alternative fuel, green automotive technology is gaining a presence in Egypt via new vehicles with enhanced gas mileage and other environment-friendly features. Companies such as Mercedes and Land Rover have taken pains to introduce green features into their newest models. The Mercedes C-class, for example, was awarded environmental certification for its compliance with international standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which seeks to encourage the introduction of environment-friendly features in vehicle design. "Land Rover is committed towards a sustainable environment and takes its responsibility to the environment seriously. We are committing efforts in four key areas: sustainable manufacturing, e-terrain technologies, conservation and humanitarian projects and CO2 offsetting, explained Land Rover Egypt Marketing Manager Mostafa Salah. An industry leader in the fight to offset CO2 emissions, Land Rover has implemented a broad plan to introduce green technology throughout the region. Aside from developing ever more efficient models, the latest being the LR 2, Land Rover is also investing approximately $980 million in a variety of sustainable technology projects. In an interview with Daily News Egypt, General Motors Egypt Managing Director Rajeev Chaba said the company's research and development is conducted by source plants in Korea and Japan. "The next generation of trucks we will launch in 2010 and 2011 in Egypt are going to be CNG compliant. Likewise, even in the existing cars like Lanos and Aveo, we have done the testing and ensured that we have natural gas compliance in these vehicles. We are promoting more CNG-compliant products in this country, he said. The carmaker is looking at making its vehicles conform with higher emissions standards than prescribed by the laws of Egypt. "The law of this country specifies that they should be Euro 1 compliant, but most of our cars will be Euro 2 compliant. Here I would like to request that the government body and manufacturers look at emission laws of this country. "We have the products globally which can be Euro 3, 4 or 5 compliant, we have the technology available but we cannot introduce the technology because we don't have the adequate fuel. The fuel here has a sulfur content, so through the refining here we need to control the content of the fuel to ensure that we can have a better emission vehicle in this market, he added. But what kind of impact can these changes really have on the environment? According to a report by the Air Pollution Research Department at the National Research Center in Cairo, natural gas technology in particular has the potential to reverse some of the damage caused by vehicle emissions. The report found that, "compared to petrol, CNG has a vital potential to reduce CO, HC and CO2 concentrations in exhaust released from electronic fuel-injection and well-carbureted engines by an average of 73 percent and 66 percent, 39 percent and 31 percent and 21 percent and 19 percent, respectively. For a city as polluted as Cairo, these numbers offer hope for a cleaner and greener future, but is the present trend towards environment-friendly driving an indication of a rising awareness about environmental problems, or purely a matter of economy? Increasingly, the answer is both. While the technology's popularity may have been kick-started by consumers' dwindling incomes, the environmental benefits are a welcomew side effect of a natural financial decision. With environment-friendly automotive technology being offered as both a cheap alternative to gas and as part and parcel of favorite car models, going green in Egypt is getting easier. -Additional reporting by Amira Salah-Ahmed
