Honda to Nissan: My Green Car Is Greener Than Your Green Car

It’s a battlefield out there. A green one, but a battlefield nonetheless.

Honda’s natural-gas-powered 2001 Civic GX has become the second auto to be awarded “partial” zero-emission vehicle, or P-ZEV, status by the California Air Resources Board.

But Honda hates being second. So it points out that the Civic GX’s natural gas power earns it more points in the green car race than rival Nissan scores with its P-ZEV Sentra CA’s gasoline power plant.

Although the Nissan was the first P-ZEV, Honda gets to claim that the GX is the first to be certified by the air board as an “advanced technology” P-ZEV, a category that recognizes its use of something other than gasoline as a fuel.

Vehicles with P-ZEV ratings run cleaner than anything except electric cars and earn partial credits toward an auto maker’s zero-emissions vehicle quota in California in 2003 and beyond.