More green car options
A decade ago, drivers who wanted to go green had little choice beyond Toyota’s Prius hybrid.
Today the selection of efficient, lower-pollution cars includes a bewildering array of technologies and models hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electrics, diesels and hydrogen fuel cells. Conventional gasoline cars, meanwhile, have made great strides in going farther on less fuel.
But which technology is kindest to the planet? And which one fits your family’s budget and your commute?
Battery electric cars those that run solely on electricity are the cleanest and least expensive to operate. But they typically get only about 80 miles of driving range on a full charge. (Tesla’s Model S is the exception, traveling more than 250 miles on a charge, but it typically sells for about $100,000.)
Other drivetrains offer compelling combinations of efficiency and low emissions in a more practical, affordable package.
“Electric vehicles are the greenest choice,” said Dave Reichmuth, senior engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “But even switching to a more efficient gasoline vehicle can lead to significant emissions reductions and lower petroleum use.”
Here’s a breakdown of all the available drivetrain options.
Battery electric
For the true environmentalist, nothing beats an electric car charged by renewable energy sources. Homeowners with rooftop solar panels can literally drive on sunshine. Electric car buyers also get generous state and federal subsidies.
But even electric cars powered by the grid produce less carbon emissions than other vehicles. More surprising, the efficiency doesn’t necessarily exact a penalty in performance.
“A lot of people don’t realize that the electric motor has a lot more torque from a stop, which means the cars can be fun to drive,” Reichmuth said.
But there are drawbacks. All but the Tesla have ranges under 100 miles. They can take hours to charge. They are generally more expensive than a similar gasoline vehicle.
Hydrogen fuel cell
Hydrogen-powered cars are finally entering the U.S. auto market after years of anticipation. Hyundai is leasing its Tucson fuel cell vehicle to consumers who live near the handful of hydrogen stations in California. Toyota plans to launch a fuel cell car called the Mirai this year, and Honda will offer its fuel cell car next year.
Like electric cars, fuel cells are expensive but come with generous government subsidies to buyers. The bigger obstacle for buyers will be fueling infrastructure.
Because natural gas is used to make most hydrogen, fuel cell cars are also not as clean as battery electrics. On the plus side, they can be fueled up as quickly as gasoline vehicles and have a range of about 300 miles between refills.
“There is a path to zero emissions with fuel cell vehicles, but in reality they are about a decade behind plug-in vehicles in their development and deployment,” said Max Baumhefner, an attorney and automotive expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Diesel
Although popular in Europe, diesel has never caught on in the U.S. You see it stateside in German passenger cars, domestic pickups and in commercial trucking. But modern diesel engines are cleaner, less noisy and more efficient than they have ever been.
They also offer a great driving experience and ranges of more than 500 miles, making them ideal for those with long highway commutes. When it comes to carbon emissions “diesel pencils out about the same as an efficient gasoline car but not quite as efficient as the hybrids,” Reichmuth said.
Although only a handful of automakers sell diesel passenger cars in the U.S., the choices are good. Volkswagen, for example, offers a comfortable Jetta sedan and a utilitarian Golf station wagon. They get 36 and 35 mpg, respectively, in combined city and highway driving and easily reach 40 mpg-plus on open roads. BMW offers the sporty 320d sedan, which gets even better combined driving fuel economy, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Compressed natural gas
Once thought of as a promising transitional technology on the road to hydrogen and electric cars, compressed natural gas cars have driven into a dead end. Honda is discontinuing its natural gas Civic after the current model year, and no other automaker is stepping in with a passenger car that runs only on CNG.
Natural gas cars are only a little more polluting than a comparable hybrid, and they are less expensive to fuel. But the CNG tanks take up too much space, limiting the size of the cabin and trunk, and their driving range is limited. The CNG Civic travels less than half the distance on one fueling than the gasoline model and only a third of the hybrid.
“CNG is probably a dead technology for consumers, but still useful for fleet operations,” Baumhefner said.
Hybrid
With the exception of the Toyota Prius, hybrids have never achieved the popularity some environmental groups and auto industry analysts expected. A variety of factors hold back sales. For instance, to reduce weight and improve fuel efficiency, automakers have removed sound-deadening materials, allowing road and wind noise into the cabin, especially at highway speeds.
Hybrids cost more than regular cars. With the average price of regular gasoline now well under $3 a gallon nationally, the payback period on gas savings can be long.
Still, hybrids are a great choice for those who drive many miles — especially in stop-and-go traffic, when the cars recapture energy during braking to power electric motors that help propel the car and save gas.
Some are exceptionally well done. The Honda Accord hybrid is a full-size, family sedan that gets 47 mpg in combined driving and goes more than 550 miles between gas station stops.
Plug-in hybrid
Plug-in hybrids run on electricity until their batteries are drained and then switch to gasoline. They’re the Swiss Army knife of green cars.
“If you are a one-car family and you have a daily commute of under 40 miles then something like a Chevy Volt is perfect,” Baumhefner said. “You are driving on about $1 a gallon equivalent and displacing a lot of emissions. And you still have the extra range to go to Grandma’s on the weekend.”
The Volt has an all-electric range of 38 miles. As a group, Volt owners drive about 60 percent of their miles on electricity alone. Many drive nearly exclusively on electricity, using the gas mode only for long-distance trips. That’s why Volt carbon emissions approach the levels of fuel cell vehicles and battery-only electric cars. It’s also one of the least expensive vehicles to operate. Just $6.83 in power and fuel will take you 100 miles. Those numbers are expected to improve for the next generation of Volt, which comes out this year with an all-electric range of 50 miles.
But not all plug-in hybrids are equal. The Prius plug-in has an all-electric range of just 11 miles. The all-electric mode on the Accord plug-in is just 13 miles.
Gasoline
Don’t write off the internal combustion engine as an efficient option, especially until automakers can make alternative drivetrains less expensive and more practical. Automakers have greatly improved gas mileage in recent years and offer a wider range of economical gasoline models.
There are dozens of gasoline vehicles on the market that get 30 mpg or better in everyday driving. The Honda Civic, for example, achieves 33 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving and reaches 39 mpg on open roads. It does this while producing only about 75 percent of the carbon dioxide of a gasoline car that averages 25 mpg. The sporty Mazda3 does even better. Both cars have long ranges — more than 400 miles between refills.
These vehicles also cost less to buy than those with alternative fuel powertrains, although they produce about a third more pollution per mile than a comparably sized hybrid.
AT A GLANCE 5 myths about alternative fuel cars
Myth: Hybrids need to have expensive batteries that must be replaced periodically.
Fact: Consumer Reports and others have tested older Toyota Prius hybrids, some with well over 200,000 miles on the odometer, and found very little degradation in the batteries.
Myth: A hybrid always saves you money.
Fact: That really depends on how many miles you drive annually. Factoring tax and registration fees, a Honda Accord EX-L hybrid will cost about $3,800 more than the same trim level regular Accord, according to TrueCar.com. Based on driving 14,000 miles annually at current California gas prices, that will take more than six years to make back. But if you drove 10,000 miles a year, it would take almost 10 years of gas savings to cover the hybrid’s higher price.
Myth: Electric cars have too short a range for my daily driving needs.
Fact: Most electric cars get 75 to 85 miles per charge. Working-age adults in the U.S. drive an average 14,120 miles annually, or less than 37 miles a day. Even if you figure all those miles are just for commuting, with only weekends off, the average is still only 54 miles, well within an EV’s range.
Myth: Generating electricity to power cars causes just as much pollution as gasoline.
Fact: A battery electric car, powered by the California grid, creates about 40 percent of the carbon emissions of a gasoline vehicle that gets 25 miles per gallon, according to a UC Irvine transportation study. That includes carbon emissions from the manufacture of the vehicles.
Myth: Hydrogen refining causes too much pollution to make fuel cell cars worthwhile.
Fact: California requires that 33 percent of the hydrogen used for fuel cell vehicles in state be generated through the use of renewable energy. That means that fuel cell cars are dirtier than battery electric cars but cleaner than gasoline, diesel and compressed natural gas vehicles. Future increases in hydrogen generation from renewable energy sources are expected to make the technology cleaner.
Jerry Hirsch,
Los Angeles Times
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