Jun 13 2008
The Toyota Yaris has been named Green Car of the Year 2008 by the Environmental Transport Association. The least green car is the Dodge SRT-10 sports car. The announcements come ahead of the start of Green Transport Week (14th - 22nd June)
The Environmental Transport Association has looked at over 1300 models of car currently on sale in Britain and examined their power, emissions, fuel efficiency and even the amount of noise they produce to create the definitive guide to buying the greenest vehicle.
The Car Buyers’ Guide was first published by the ETA in 1992 in response to requests from its growing membership and has since become the environmental benchmark for the car industry and the public, championing the greenest cars in Britain.
The results are as follows:
Overall Winner: Toyota Yaris
Supermini: Toyota Yaris
Small Family: Honda Civic Hybrid
Small MPV: Renault Modus
City: Citroën C1 and Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo
Large Family: BMW 3 Series 320d Saloon
Sports: Vauxhall Tigra, MY2008 2-door Convertible
MPV: Peugeot 207 SW Outdoor
Executive: BMW 5 Series 520d Saloon
Off road: Toyota RAV4
Luxury: JAGUAR XJ 2.7L Diesel Saloon
A full list of best and worst cars will be available here on Friday 13th June
Andrew Davis, director at the Environmental Transport Association, said: “With the increasing costs of motoring and the threat to the environment there has never been a more important time to choose greener cars.”
As well as recognising the best performers, the guide ‘names and shames’ the worst offenders in terms of damage to the environment with the 8-litre-engined Dodge SRT-10 being named overall worst car.
“The discrepancy between the best and worst – the greenest and the least green cars in Britain today – is striking, but the market is changing and a combination of consumer pressure alongside government leadership will result in an increasing choice of environmentally-sound cars.”
“The big problem is not the Dodge SRT-10s and Lamborghinis because there are not many of them on the road,” explains Andrew Davis, director of the ETA. “The concern is that people are buying cars that are much too big for their real needs. “
The popularity of large 4×4s like the Porsche Cayenne, which is many times more damaging to the environment than for example a BMW 320d, winner in the Large Family Car category, is already on the decrease; a revised system of emissions-based road tax next year will see owners of gas guzzlers paying up to £455 per year.
Increasing numbers of people are making informed choices about cars, particularly in terms of carbon emissions and the damage caused to the environment, but research commissioned by the ETA shows eighty-four per cent of British drivers are unprepared for the radical changes to road tax rates which will see a million people pay more than double over two years. The graduated rates of vehicle excise duty in 2009 will be based on a car’s emissions, but the research reveals that only 16 per cent of people know the current tax band into which their vehicle falls.