Every year the greenercars.org website publishes the cleanest cars based on a factory-to-junkyard analysis. The website is a publication of the American Council for an Enrrgy-Efficient Economy which has, since 1980, lobbied governments to advance energy efficiency. Honda did quite well with 3 of its cars in the top ten (two hybrids and one natural gas). Toyota has two cars in the top ten (both Priuses). I went through the entire list and picked-out some of the more-interesting cars. The ones that surprised me I put in bold: 100 maximum score 59 SmartForTwo EV 58 Spark EV 57 Prius City 55 Leaf EV. Prius, Civic, and other compact hybrids. 54 Mirage, Fiesta (normal nonhybrid) (3 cylinders)(and cleanest manual shift cars) 54 Civic Natural Gas 52 Prius V 50 CRZ (manual hybrid) 46 Jetta TDI (diesel; cleaner than the gasoline version) 40 Ford Transit (van) 37 Tesla Model S EV (dirtier than a diesel) 37 Tacoma (pickup) 36 Odyssey (minivan) WORST: 21 Bentley Musanne (luxury sedan) 19 Bugatti Veyron (16 cylinder sportscar)
The methodology link was directly on greenercars.org's front page. Here it is (I tried copying the actual text, but my iPhone wont allow it). (shrug) greenercars.org | how we rate the vehicles
I'm not entirely sure if the greenercar website is scoring exactly according to the ACEEE or putting in their own two cents. ACEEE has a pdf that may show methods but it requires a free subscription. ACEEE | Log In for Free Access to Publications Troy ?
They go through great detail listing some of what they consider, but virtually no numbers. One of the few areas they do mention numbers is that they used to use 50,000 miles as a car's lifetime. They now use 120,000. While more accurate, the 50,000 number basically invalidates every previous score they did. Also, if they count 120,000 miles as the end of life of the battery, that is highly questionable as large car battery packs are very useful as house, grid, or other storage uses.
I agree. Without numbers the methods are hidden. 120k miles for a battery is also too low, at least for the Prius. The final score means so little as to be useless. Is a score of 55 ten percent fewer emissions than a car that scores 50 ?
From my reading it is unclear what they use as the useful life of the car. The reference to the 50K and 120K miles numbers are for estimating the pollutant rate. It does not say that they use these mileage numbers for the car lifetime. It says this: Mike
A look at the emission chart will show where the 50k and 120k miles comes from. Just going from memory here, the federal 1 through 4 bins have the same initial(50k miles) limits for pollutants. The 120k mile limits get more strict for the cleaner bins.
