Top Six Best Eco-Friendly Cars on the Road
We got all Car & Driver recently, inspired, perhaps, by the recent Paris Auto Show (or maybe we’re all just grease geeks at heart). And more than ever, we’re fascinated by the idea of hydrogen cars—along with GM, BMW, and basically every car company on the planet. Anything that drips safe steam from its exhaust pipe is okay by us.
But we’ve never quite got the eco-friendliness of how the hydrogen will get to the general public, should this concept take off. From what we understand, fossil-fueled electricity is used to create the hydrogen, which then must run through a totally new infrastructure that must be built using fossil-fueled equipment, with materials that are transported by—you guessed it—fossil fuels. Doesn’t sound too sustainable to us.
With worries that we were somehow missing the big picture, we checked in with Drive Clean California, which is the state’s promotion arm for energy efficient vehicles. They hooked us up with some valuable info, such as the CaH2Net Hydrogen Production Fact Sheet and the CaFCP Well to Wheels information sheet (be prepared, it’s 12 pages).
But we’re still not convinced. Doesn’t it seem to make more sense to build electric cars, use our existing electricity infrastructure to fuel them and work on creating solar/wind alternatives to fuel that grid?
Obviously the jury’s still out, but while we’re still in the dark ages and driving cars that use—egads!—gas, here are our picks for best cars of 2008, with a little help from Drive Clean California:
The Honda Civic GX uses compressed natural gas, gets a possible 36 miles to the gallon, is eligible for a Clean Air Sticker that gets a single driver into the carpool lane, a $3,000 grant from the Fueling Alternatives program and a $4,000 tax credit from the IRS. At just under $25,000, it’s pretty darned affordable, too.
The Volvo V50 uses regular old gas, but it can get 28 miles to the gallon and comes with a 15-year warranty on the emissions system. $31,450.
The Toyota Highlander Hybrid is our dream car since with seven seats it can comfortably transport the entire EcoStiletto staff and still get 27 mpg. $33,700.
The Lexus 400h is also a hybrid and ranks equal to the Highlander in energy efficiency, though it’s two seats less and about $10,000 more. $42,680 (AWD).
The Nissan Altima 2009 hybrid gets 35 mpg and that same 15-year warranty. $26,650.
The VW Beetle, which, along with the Mini, is a multiple mom’s fantasy car for after the kids go off to college. It can get 28 mpg and the same warranty. $23,125.
And then there’s the Tesla Roadster, which is totally impractical for anybody remotely interested in transporting anything but driver-plus-arm-candy, but is simply the coolest electric car out there and can get—are you sitting down?—135 mpg. That’s what we’re talking about! Let’s make more of those. But, um, bigger! With room for car seats! $98,000.
