‘Green Book’ Offers Chapter and Verse on Clean Machines of 2002
The annual “Green Book” guide to environmentally friendly model year 2002 passenger vehicles was released Tuesday, and in a big change from years past, eight of the dozen top-scoring cars are powered by conventional gasoline-burning, internal-combustion engines.
Since the first guide was published five years ago, the top of the list had been populated almost exclusively by electric vehicles, gasoline-electric hybrids and cars using alternative fuels such as compressed natural gas.
But improvements in engine and emissions-management technology are making gasoline-fueled vehicles ever-cleaner, and the “Green Book” recognizes that, said coauthor John DeCicco, a senior fellow at Environmental Defense.
DeCicco and coauthor James Kliesch, a transportation analyst with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, bemoan the auto industry’s continuing push for profitable pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles--heavyweights that gulp fuel.
Overall, they said, these vehicles have kept the auto market “headed down the road of environmental harm” because of reduced fuel economy that increases dependence on foreign oil and contributes to greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
The book, published by the nonprofit ACEEE, rates cars and trucks not only according to tailpipe pollution and global-warming emissions but by pollution from auto factories and refineries as well.
Thus it is that the only zero-emissions vehicle in the top 12 this year, Toyota’s electric-powered RAV4 sport-utility, wound up in third place after the “Green Guide” authors factored in pollution from the production of electricity needed to charge the batteries.
The “greenest” car, Honda’s Insight hybrid, uses a small gasoline engine and an electric motor but produces its electricity with an on-board generator that is cleaner than a stand-alone power plant, DeCicco said. In second place was Honda’s Civic GX, which uses compressed natural gas to fuel an internal-combustion engine.
The nine others in the top 12 (all with four-cylinder gasoline engines), in descending order: Toyota Prius hybrid with automatic transmission; Honda Civic HX, 1.7-liter with manual; Toyota Echo sedan, 1.5-liter, manual; Nissan Sentra CA, 1.8-liter, automatic; Honda Civic, 1.7-liter, manual; Mitsubishi Mirage, 1.5-liter, manual; Toyota Corolla and its Chevrolet Prizm twin, 1.8-liter, manual; and Saturn SL, 1.9-liter manual.
In addition to singing the praises of the greenest vehicles while tracing the ups and downs of the auto industry’s efforts to clean up its act, the “Green Book” aims to provide environmentally conscious shoppers a guide to the best choices in various categories of transportation.
Thus, while noting that trucks are, by their nature, dirtier than cars, the book provides truck shoppers with ratings for pickups, SUVs and minivans and finds that some do pretty well.
The V-6-powered Chevrolet Venture minivan and its Pontiac Montana and Oldsmobile Silhouette siblings, for example, outscore many large and mid-size cars. So do the four-cylinder version of Toyota’s full-size Tundra pickup and the six-cylinder version of Ford’s F-150 pickup.
“Consumers have planet-friendly options throughout the market, including trucks and SUVs,” DeCicco said.
Along with the summary green scores, ACEEE’s “Green Book” details each model’s fuel economy, health-related pollution effects, global-warming emissions and estimated fuel expenses.
Copies are for sale at many major bookstores or can be ordered from ACEEE for $8.95, plus $5 for shipping and handling, at (202) 429-8873. The book also can be obtained online at www.greenercars.com. Although the full-text version must be purchased, the Internet site provides lists of the dozen meanest and greenest vehicles, as well as the top-rated vehicles by class, at no charge.
