Featured Introduction to Greenercars

Over the years I've become skeptical of advocacy groups that claim to rate, rank, and give awards. Too often, I've found the ratings and rankings lacked transparency and seemed disconnected from empirical data but happily, that is not the case with Greenercars.org.

• open evaluation criteria - How We Determine Ratings | Greener Cars although their coefficients aren't posted, it is clear they are data driven.
• easy access to vehicles - GreenerCars Ratings | Greener Cars it appears they use the same downloadable "test car database" that I've often used for my narrow studies. In contrast and to their credit they have institutionalized these data using their evaluation criteria for all of the cars.

Now their focus is narrowly based upon pollution and vehicle efficiency and that is good. But it isn't clear they are using the vehicle volume, passenger and luggage, or range as part of their criteria. Still, there is more to like than dislike about their approach.

I learned about this group from this: Hyundai Ioniq Award

	Make and model	Specifications	Emission standard a	MPG city	MPG hwy	Green Score
1	Hyundai Ioniq Electric b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	4.67	3.79	64
2	BMW i3 (60Ah) b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	4.08	3.3	64
3	Toyota Prius Eco	1.8L 4; auto	Tier 3 Bin 30 / LEV-III SULEV30/PZEV	58	53	62
4	Fiat 500E b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	3.59	3.07	62
5	Nissan Leaf b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	3.67	3	60
6	Chevrolet Bolt b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	3.78	3.27	59
7	Kia Soul Electric b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	3.55	2.73	59
8	Toyota Prius Prime c	Electric (Li-ion bat.) / 1.8L 4; auto	LEV-III SULEV30	4.26 / 55	3.58 / 53	59
9	Toyota Prius c	1.5L 4; auto	LEV-III SULEV30	48	43	58
10	Ford Focus Electric b	Electric (Li-ion bat.)	Tier 3 Bin 0 / LEV III ZEV	3.56	2.84	58
11	Honda Accord Hybrid	2.0L 4; auto	Tier 3 Bin 30 / LEV-III SULEV30/PZEV	49	47	58
12	Kia Niro FE	1.6L 4; auto	LEV-III SULEV30	52	49	58

Now there are other practical aspects of cars that make one purchase take priority over another. For example, having actual cars for sale. The timing flaw of this report is coming out before the first Monroney sticker Ioniq at a dealer. But Hyundai has been exploiting this weakness for a long time ... 'cry wolf' or "squirrel".

Bob Wilson

 

They are trying to resolve the MPGe vs MPG issue by posting what appears to be mi/kWh . . . without the units identified. The values <10 are mi/kWh and higher numbers are MPG. It is confusing and doesn't really solve the problem in a clear and unambiguous way. But I appreciate them posting the raw numbers.

My approach has been to use local to Huntsville gasoline retail, $2.20/gal Plus, and home electrical rates, $0.10/kWh, to calculate $cost/10 miles. It so happens our BMW i3-REx comes in at $0.25/10 miles electric and $0.60/10 miles gas as of the summer 2016. But we know other regions have substantially different rates for both.

Bob Wilson

 

Check the source reference. There were a number of footnotes and that was actually "Prius Prime (c)" with a reference to footnote "c". When I cut-and-pasted to make the PriusChat table, some things were lost in the translation. I would go back and fix them but the edit clock expired.

Sorry,
Bob Wilson