What really is the greenest car?
December 13, 2009 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
iambuf questioned:
Hybrids certainly have the best gas mileage and, as far as I know, some of the cleanest emissions (for gasoline engines), but I have heard that with a life-logic breakdown the environmental trace is much privileged, frequently due to the battery.
I know riding a bike and compelling transit is exponentially ‘greener’ than driving, but IF one had to handbook…
What about export used cars? That is very green from a levelheaded waste side. And if you buy a used car that gets excellent fuel efficiency, like an ancient civic, I have to wonder if that is greener than export a new hybrid…?
My only additional thought is export cleaner burning diesel engines, like some of the new volkswagons, in view of the fact that diesel has historically better fuel efficiency, so if they find a way to hegemony their dirtier emissions (which it seems like VWs did..?) that seems like a excellent selection too.
Any additional view?
Be grateful all!
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
I have a Honda Civic GX. It is the only uncommon fuel vehicle that comes frankly from the manufacturer to the consumer that is unfilled right now. It uses natural gas for fuel, the same nartural gas delivered to homes to heat them. It puts out less of each emanation than the hybrid translation of the same car and has been determined to be the cleanest and greenest car that is unfilled to the general public in the United States. By and large it expels about half the emissions of that same hybrid.
You can buy gripping vehicles if you want to wait on a list for a long time or accept one that is only officially authorized in your neighborhood side streets, but these are not matter-of-fact in view of the fact that you can’t just walk in buy one that is completely functional as an only vehicle.
Here are a few examples of custom made gripping cars that use a solar battery to payment their batteries, that would be the greenest car unfilled if you may maybe really get one.
Can’t beat these ….
I like the 65 Mustang.
With a life logic breakdown the greenest car would be any used car that is about the be turfed. If you can then fix it up to meet air emanation principles you’ll be laughing. The amount of energy looked-for to manufactured goods any type of new vehicle basically outweighs the amount of gas or no matter what fuel logic this vehicle would use with fixed driving for many being.
I place of protection’t found any data on life logic breakdown of car manufacturing from support to burial chamber, but i am extremely fastidious that the amount of energy and pollution caused by this logic would outweigh the poor fuel efficiency. You have to take into tab all from the vital mining administer, to the energy used to dispose of this vehicle with its helpful time.
If you can get additional use out of an ancient car it will be more energy efficient in a support to burial chamber life logic breakdown.
(But you may subdue worry about community environmental costs like oil leaks, and terrible emissions.)
The emotionally caught up source shows a very very vital life logic breakdown on a new car, so observably any new car you buy you must go with a hybrid, gripping, diesel, or possible smart car alteration.
The Geo Metro and Honda CSX both got better mileage than any hybrid I know of now. They didn’t have all the extras cars come with ordinary now. My brother drives horribly, any speeding on the freeway or in stop and go conveying and he gets around 40 mpg in his ford investigate. Lithium is a rare element (pricey) and I guess accurate to 100% of car batteries will be recycled so the trace isn’t as huge as some aver. Corning has made a filter of some type that cleans up diesel emissions sweet well.
A 1982 get out of Omni gets better gas mileage than a Prius.
The greenest car would be one running on carbon unenthusiastic fuel. Such a fuel would be phony gasoline or diesel synthsized by Fischer Tropsch synthesis of syngas from a biomass gasifier.
Such a gasifier produces the syngas which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen by pyrolysis and can use anything that burns as feedstock, even ancient tires and dried dirt.
The administer converts 51% to 80% of the carbon in the feedstock to fuel while traditional bio fuels like ethanol and biodiesel only converts a fraction of the food part of the sow which in itself is just a fraction of the sow therefore converting less than 3% to fuel, even algae to biodiesel only produces up to 50% conversion and the byproducts of the traditional biofuels all relief their carbon as CO2 in a few fleeting being.
The spin-off of gasification, charcoal when used as a soil ammendment celebrated as biochar will sequester some of the carbon so ensuing in a net reduction of atmospheric CO2 for at smallest amount thousands of being (we don’t know how long it will remain established for, all we know is the biochar from the Indians of the Amazon thousands of being ago is subdue established and sequestered.
The phony fuels may maybe be delivered owing to unfilled distribution infrastructure and used in unfilled vehicles without modification effectively turning all vehicles green. What it doesn’t do is boost the market for new cars and therefore profit for auto manufacturers.
So the extent is to stick with unfilled vehicles but chat our gasoline production to biomass to liquid technologies and reduce the carbon in our ambiance or promote the hold of strain new vehicles whether they be hybrids, hydrogen, gripping, CNG or flexfuel below the guise of life green, allowing the automakers to boost their production and their profits, maintenance auto staff employed but all at the expense of the background in view of the fact that he increased production itself contributes a generous amount of carbon and these technologies are at best carbon neutral.
It’s ironic that the path most public deliberate green really increases the CO2 levels significantly and only marginally slow down the once a year boost in CO2 while the selection that most public see as polluting (maintenance unfilled vehicles but unreliable to BTL) really removes CO2 from the ambiance.
The best key would be batter to BTL with the unfilled gas guzzlers, let the gas guzzlers sterile up the ambiance a bit by running on the carbon unenthusiastic fuels ie.: let the SUV owners pay to sterile up their own mess and then phase in the newer cars at a snail's pace so as not to make the auto industry disadvantaged on even privileged production and sale excise.
See the American Assembly for an Energy-Efficient State’s Green Book. They rate vehicles on both their fuel state and their emissions. The greenest vehicles unfilled in the US for 2009 are:
Make and ModelSpecifications aEmission Ordinary
MPG: City MPG: Hwy Green Score
HONDA CIVIC GX1.8L 4, auto [CNG]cTier 2 bin 2 / PZEV243657
TOYOTA PRIUS1.5L 4, auto CVTTier 2 bin 3 / PZEV484553
HONDA CIVIC HYBRID1.3L 4, auto CVTTier 2 bin 2 / PZEV404551
SMART FORTWO Changeable / COUPE1.0L 3, manual [P]TIer 2 bin 5 / ULEV II413649
TOYOTA YARIS1.5L 4, manualTier 2 bin 5 / ULEV II293646
NISSAN ALTIMA HYBRID2.5L 4, auto CVTPZEV353346
You can also use the US EPA’s Green Vehicle Handbook (no subscription looked-for) to equate vehicles in each rank for the best in fuel state and emissions.
The VW diesels are subdue not sold new in states with California emanation principles, as they are subdue too dirty (NOx and PM). But Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen all have some diesels that be eligible as well yet to be lean-burn equipment vehicles for a US tax credit.
Here’s a lot of myth, Inner-city legend, and propaganda out here on hybrid vehicle batteries and vehicle production, thankfulness to a flawed marketing paper by CNW and a poorly researched apprentice newspaper attitude condition that keep being paid quoted…
Anyhow, I recommend conception:
Hummer versus Prius: “Dust to Dust” Report Misleads the Media and Public with Terrible Knowledge:
Prius Versus Hummer: A Nickel for Your View:
“I read an condition stating the Prius has a of poorer quality impression on the background than a Hummer in view of the fact that of the giant pollution bent in making the car’s batteries. Right?” :
Charitable In rank: No, the Hummer Really Isn’t More Energy Efficient Than A Prius, Let’s Place This “Argument” To Rest:
Ordinarily the mythic “condition” from The Mail on the nickel in the hybrid cars’ NiMH batteries is quoted from a now retracted condition. The renunciation that clears up this bit of propaganda is at:
(They were using data from the ahead of schedule 1970′s about the INCO-Sudbury nickel mine, which was more than 20 being before the first hybrids looked-for NiMH batteries, and the sow has greatly cleaned themselves up and reforested the area in view of the fact that then. If you were to add up the amount of nickel in the million+ hybrids sold in view of the fact that 1997, that total is subdue less than 1% of the planet’s once a year nickel production (far more nickel is used for stainless steel, for model).)
(Even the journalism apprentice author of the much-quoted apprentice newspaper condition has posted a followup here: and the newspaper had to come forth a clarification: )
What you heard is incorrect – the more gripping a car is (from hybrid to plug-in hybrid to completely gripping), the smaller its time carbon trace becomes.
Only 5-10% of a car’s time energy use comes all owing to production and disposal, while 80-90% comes all owing to surgical course of action. See pages 4-5 in the link below.
So what that tells you is the car with the most energy efficiency is the car with the lowest by and large carbon trace. Gripping motors are far more efficient than domestic combustion engines, so that’s hybrids and gripping cars.
As for the battery, they’re completely ecological, so they have a very small carbon trace.
As for new ‘sterile diesels’, they force be a positively environmentally friendly selection. Better than gas cars, but probably not as excellent as hybrids. You have to bear in mind that the new equipment which makes them ‘sterile’ also makes them more pricey and reduces their fuel efficiency.
A bike made from Rattan
The (German?) “Twike” must be a serious contender for greenest. It’s a 2 place _pedal_car_ which is electrically helped to go 55 ish. It is not too sweet and, at $35000 in the US, it isn’t just so low-cost. See link below.
I find reflect it would be cool to get a workout inane to work! A modest exercise would do me some excellent.