2011′s Greenest Car? Not the Chevy Volt
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011The 2011 of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) Green Book, the source for environmental rankings of cars and trucks, was released a couple of weeks ago, and, in an interview with PlugInCars.com, ACEEE’s Transportation Director, Therese Langer expressed her enthusiasm with this, the fourteenth annual edition.
“This is the most exciting Green Book in a decade for me, because there are so many vehicles in the running,” she said.
The ACEEE uses a precise methodology to calculate the environmental impact of all cars and trucks, but this year’s results held some surprises. First of all, for the eight year in a row, the greenest car in America is the Honda Civic GX, which runs on compressed natural gas. This win was in spite of competition from new electric vehicles like the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, and the all-electric Nissan LEAF.
In fact, said ACEEE Vehicle Analyst Shruti Vaidyanathan, “The Chevy Volt came very close to not making the list.” This was partly due to the vehicle’s weight, which is about 500 pounds greater than that of the LEAF or the Toyota Prius. Heavier cars generally take more energy to produce and propel.
The non-profit ACEEE also examined the Volt’s road behavior, and according to Langer it wasn’t great.
“The Volt running on gasoline doesn’t have terribly impressive fuel economy. It’s rated at 35 mpg in the city and 40 highway, explained Langer. “If you think of it as a vehicle that is roughly two-thirds electric and one-third gasoline, as an electric vehicle it does pretty well, but not quite as well as the LEAF.”
That “two-thirds EV and one-third gas” description is based on data about the typical driving habits of American motorists, as used by the Society of Automotive Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“As a gasoline vehicle, the Volt does okay, but there are a whole lot of gasoline vehicles that beat it out,” Langer elaborated. “So when you take the fact of those two things together, it comes out about where you think.”