And the greenest car of the year is … a diesel-powered Volvo (UK)

Guardian ^ | Jun 8, 2009 | Adam Vaughan

[decimon]

The winners:

Supermini

Fiat 500 Start&Stop £9,700, 113g/km, 58.9mpg

Small family car

Volvo S40 1.6D DRIVe S £17,495, 104g/km, 72.4mpg

Family car

Toyota Avensis 2.0 D-4D T2 £17,545, 135g/km, 55.4mpg

Executive car

BMW 318d ES £24,235, 123g/km, 60.1mpg

MPV

Citroën Grand C4 Picasso 1.6 HDi £19,095, 140g/km, 53.3mpg

4X4

Lexus RX450h SE-L £50,460, 148g/km, 44.8mpg

Sports car

Mini Cooper S £16,575, 149g/km, 45.6 mpg

Luxury car

Audi A8 2.8 V6 FSI SE £49,970, 199g/km, 34.0mpg

Technology

Vauxhall Ampera

Editor's award

Tesla

[decimon]

Short, interesting article.

[raybbr]

Are ANY of these available in the U.S.? Or, do restrictions disallow their import?

[CodeToad]

Nice looking car.

[decimon]

Are ANY of these available in the U.S.? Or, do restrictions disallow their import?

Dunno. I think the newer diesels meet our requirements but I don't know.

[NavyCanDo]

If I had to pick a “Green Car” then let it be the:

1958 Cadillac Series 62 Sedan
or
1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz

Both pictured here:
http://www.billsretroworld.com/cars.htm

But I would prefer the 1957 gray and white Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible. But there is that dang color thing. What would it cost to paint it green?

[decimon]

Nice looking car.

Yeah, it is. Can't tell how big it is. As far as I can tell, the Volvo S40 is on the same platform as the international Ford Focus which, as far as I can tell, remains different from the U.S. Ford Focus.

[decimon]

But most people bought six cylinder vehicles and for the same reasons they do today.

[bw17]

I’m not sure where they’re getting their numbers, but the Lexus RX450h gets around 28 mpg...not 44.

[B Knotts]

This is a British news source, so they are using Imperial gallons.

The Volvo above would get 60.3 mpg in US gallons.

[B Knotts]

Also, there is a difference between the way the come up with the numbers. The US equivalent to 44 mpg is 36 mpg, which is still a lot higher than 28.

[43north]

The EPA won’t let us have small, fuel-efficient Diesel vehicles.

They’d rather that we fill up our landfills with toxic dead batteries and burn lots of gasoline for some strange reason.

Well, maybe not so strange. They are liberals and when have liberals EVER done the right thing?

[Gay State Conservative]

VW sells a diesel in this country that gets,IIRC,40+ mpg.

[decimon]

I’m not sure where they’re getting their numbers, but the Lexus RX450h gets around 28 mpg...not 44.

Is that for gasoline or diesel?

[decimon]

VW sells a diesel in this country that gets,IIRC,40+ mpg.

IIRC from past threads, the newest one is 50 state legal.

[IYAS9YAS]

I caught some coverage, briefly, yesterday of the 24 hours of le Mans. There were turbo diesels racing. They were doing well, according to what I saw. They really sounded strange compared to the gas engines.

[surely_you_jest]

Are ANY of these available in the U.S.? Or, do restrictions disallow their import?

The Mini Cooper S is available in the US. I have one. They're now owned by BMW and sold through some, but not all, of their US dealers.

[Steven Tyler]

0bama wants Fiat to bring the Fiat 500 start/stop to the US.
It will meet 0bama’s new CAFE satandards.
It’s like the government motors car in Iowahawks video

[neocon1984]

They forgot to add that Volvo drivers (gross generalization alert) are the slowest and most annoying drivers on the highway. Plus they usually have libby stickers on their car.

[RayChuang88]

We'll never have more diesel-powered cars until there are cheaper ways to reduce diesel emissions--primarily NOx gases and diesel particulates--to EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 certification at a more reasonable price. The German solution is to primarily have injections of urea gas into the exhaust stream to neutralize the NOx gases, which is an EXPENSIVE solution.

Fortunately, work by Ricardo UK has shown that a modified turbocharger/exhaust gas recirculation system could make turbodiesel engines far cleaner without needing urea injection, and with the right engineering could make the engine even meet the even more stringent CARB Super Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle standard. That change will make it possible for very large-scale adoption of diesel powered cars in the USA.