Featured The ‘greenest’ car in America might surprise you

"Green Score?"

A $55,000 Lexus BEV is "greener" than a $27,000 Nissan?

...yeah.
I believe that.

 

Every expert has a hidden agenda.
There are powerful forces at work constantly pushing propaganda to slow the elimination of fossil fuel vehicles

 

These 'experts' .... tacitly saying anything running gas from the winner Toyota list will be greaner than most ev's ... even though many ev owners may refuell at home via fully amortized solar PV. Gasoline on the other hand can be twice as cheap or expensive turning on what state you buy it in. And most drivers being in california, can be paying a whole lot more than some in southern states pay . Kind of fishy.
Has Art Spinella been reincarnated?

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Im even more surprised by the Rav4 Prime. I know everyone seems to love this car but at the end of day its still a SUV and quite heavy and big in comparison.

 

The Prius Prime was number one in 2020 and 2022, and #3 for 2021. I'm guessing it wasn't on the 2023 list for the same reason it wasn't a car of the year contender; availability for testing.

Maybe to you. The ICE model is only 60 pounds heavier than the Camry. Which is longer to the Rav4 being taller. The PHEV will add weight, but it's size and weight isn't much different than the EV SUVs on the list.

 

Well I'll tell you what I have RAV4 hybrid 40 MPG is just amazing for the size of car. I think for the shorter trips we do these days, probably as good overall MPG as the Gen2 Prius we replaced. we do not have as much MPG debit for the first 10-mins seems less cold weather impact ...more steady Eddy. Gen2 still was fav car for us.

 

How are they figuring that a Prius Prime's annual fuel expenses are less than all of those EV's listed? The only way is if they figure electric is more expensive than gas. And if that is the case, then the regular Prius should be cheaper to run than the Prime PHEV. I'm only referring to their annual fuel costs. Other "green" factors effect where they place on the list.

 

Good thing I bough mine before this report came out:

• March 26, 2019 - Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus.
• August 2023 - Used 2017 BMW i3-REx.

I bought these cars thanks to Munro Associates, tear-down analysis. So far, Munro has been spot on as both cars are fully meeting my requirements.

As for this 'report', <MEGA SIGH>.



Bob Wilson

 

Heretic !!

Yes - short range (10 minutes or less) drives do kill hybrids until they warm up.
Nothing in paoer that addresses these dynamics.
A plug-in though? Warm up on frosty mornings can be avoided altogether. Then your spouse will go & muck up all your savings by indiscriminately running the heater - in stead of seat & steering wheel heaters (sigh).

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Much of it is based on GREET.

If you want to really know how they figure these scores.
https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/publications/researchreports/t1601.pdf
How We Determine Ratings &#8211; Greener Cars

 

It appears they excluded Tesla?
They also list the ‘runner ups’ in a separate list. That list excludes PHEVs & EVs because ‘not everyone has access to charging’.

This organization also used 50,000 miles for the life of a vehicle years ago. They updated that over the last decade. However, anyone that used that for calculations…. Well, let’s just say I am skeptical of their rankings.

It also appears they included the airborne pollution from electrical generating plants, but not the pollution from oil refineries?

 

I don't find it too hard to believe. The capabilities of the car are nicely matched to the needs of the driver. It even has an EV range that is just a bit above what an average commuter needs for a daily commute plus errands. The 3500 pound Prime is about 1500 pounds lighter than the Tesla Model 3 with the long range package. That includes about 200 pounds for the Prius 4 cyl engine and the transmission.

The "Estimated Annual Fuel Cost" is a red herring since there is no correlation between the cost of anything and how green the car is throughout it's life cycle.

But the smaller battery that is sized to match it's projected use means less energy is wasted when accelerating or through internal discharge. On the other hand, a car with a 2000 pound battery is likely to need only a fraction of that capacity on a daily basis. Even if it's not used daily, some car models, such as tesla, actively heats or cools the car and/or it's battery pack to prevent damage when charging. I don't know if that energy is included in the calculations for kWh per mile.

And last, but certainly not least is the fact that the calculations of pollution generated has to include the upstream pollution as well as the tailpipe gasses. To power every EV on the road from the grid you must use available fuels. Currently that means a very large percentage of the electricity comes from natural gas which still puts out about half of the pollution as a petroleum powered car for each mile traveled. But again, it's hard to find a direct correlation between pollution released by Natural Gas extracted from fracking and how much is actually needed to move a 3500 pound Prius Prime or a Ford F150 Lightning.

 

Another way to look at it might include the ecological cost of producing brand-new cars. I'm feeling pretty good about maintaining a single vehicle for a quarter century, thereby eliminating the need to mine the materials to make me a new one before I finally gave in this year for a commuter PHEV.

 

As the former owner of a 2017 Prius Prime who traded it in for a 2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus, there are a few details that should be corrected:

Facts and data to share:

• My Tesla Model 3 Standard Range with driver, two small dogs, and tool box weighted 3,800 lbs at the Cat truck stop scale.
• The Prius engine and transmission each exceeds 200 lbs. Overly optimistic estimate omitted the exhaust, catalytic converter, and fuel system.
• The "Estimated Annual Fuel Cost" is from the combined highway and city mileage times the average expected miles. My benchmarks met almost exactly the EPA MPG and kWh/100 mile numbers for both the former Prius Prime and Model 3 Std. Rng. Plus.
• The 25 mi EV range of the Prius Prime was all but useless as my daily work commute was 20 miles. Worse, the Prius Prime only charged at slightly over 3 kW making charging take way too long versus the 7.2 kW of the Tesla.
• The energy wasted does not account for the substantially higher, regeneration braking of the Tesla over the lethargic Prius.
• About pollution, the USA Energy Information for Alabama:
  • "Natural gas . . . accounted for 43% of the state's net generation in 2022." Natural gas is CH[4] whose combustion produces the least amount of CO[2] relative to H[2]O.
    
  • "Alabama's two nuclear power plants, with a total of five reactors, produced 29% of the electricity generated in the state in 2022."
  • "Coal ... 18% of the state's total generation in 2022." Coal has a fraction of the energy consumed in refineries making gasoline and other petroleum products.
  • "Twenty-three hydroelectric dams . . . provided 7% of the state's net generation in 2022."

Other than these facts and data, no problem. But I would volunteer my August 2023 purchased, 2017 BMW i3-REx has benchmarked 106 mi EV and 88 mi gas. Since arrival in Huntsville, I've put about 7,000 mi on it and the engine only runs every 60 days as part of the maintenance cycle. It still has half of the tank of gas filled since arriving in Huntsville. My gas benchmark was performed driving the BMW from Palm Beach Florida to Huntsville Alabama.

Bob Wilson

 

A point many overlook is with a home L2 charger and attention to detail a Prius Prime owner can easily drive over 90 miles a day on all electric. Plug the Prime in every time at home after every use and you can easily double or triple its estimated electric range and do almost all your driving within its electric range.
If you do use a little gas it is getting close to 60 mpg - an extraordinary mobility vehicle.
There are only two vehicles in the world that can match an - over 30 mile electric range + close to 60 mpg on gas + over 600 mile range on gas + electric! Engineering marvels!

 

I really didn't, because I refuse to believe that there's MORE carbon throughput in manufacturing and operating a Leaf than there is for a Lexus.

I'm not surprised that a Prius would be REAL-WORLD green.
Even the wireless version gets most of 60mpg and they've squeezed just about all of the icky gasses out of the exhaust.

Also.....it's a SMALL CAR with fairly BASIC features!
Not many polar bear tears required for their production.

Oh.
I get it now.
2016 data.

When all else fails......
Pimp for the people that pay you off and cite some report that you hope nobody will read......

 

Follow the money . Who funds the group (in DC) that created this list ....



From there? ... lots of shell companies? hmmmm

Why Congress Is Calling for an Investigation Into Environmental Slush Funds &#8211; InsideSources

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As @Trollbait pointed out, the Prius Prime has been at the top of the green list quite often. If you accept (and I know that not everyone does) that producing the batteries is rather carbon intensive, even though the EV will soon make up for that hit by virtually zero emissions, you could make about 11 Primes with the lithium that goes into one EV that has road tripping range. So, the more local miles on the Prime compared to road trip miles, the greener it is.

Where they got that annual fuel cost is a mystery, but I'm guessing it got pulled from a place no one wants to sniff.

 

The 50k mile might be taken out of context. Fed emission regs have life time limits for cars in addition to when new; emission controls do wear over time. Used to be 50k, but it has been extended out over time. The ACEEE was using that for calculating what the cars emitted; ex. use the new numbers up to that mileage, then the worn out ones after that point.

Supposedly they were including a battery replacement for plug ins, but not hybrids, a decade ago. We've discussed these ratings at times in the past.

Fuel costs are using EIA averages. Grid mix is by state weighted for model sales, but it uses federal data, which is two years out of date. They got to be using greater EV utilization for the PHEVs.

Car and battery weights are used for calculating production and scrapping impacts.