green industry > newsfile > japanese saloon named green car of the year 2008
Japanese saloon named Green Car of the Year 2008Posted: 13 Jun 2008
The Toyota Yaris has been named Green Car of the Year 2008 by the Environmental Transport Association, a UK not-for-profit ethical breakdown organisation. The least green car is the Dodge SRT-10 sports car.
The ETA 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.
Apart from the overall winner and loser, winners in the various categories are:
Supermini: Toyota Yaris
Small Family: Honda Civic Hybrid
Small MPV: Renault Modus
City: Citro�n C1
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
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| Toyota Yaris - Green Car of the Year 2008 |
ETA Director, Andrew Davis, 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.
Too big
�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 concern is that people are buying cars that are much too big for their real needs. �
The popularity of large 4x4s 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 UK 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.
The ETA Car Buyers� Guide is designed as an easy way to check how much CO2 a particular car emits and as a result how much road tax it will pay. The guide is at www.eta.co.uk
Note: Another green car of the year 2008 award has been by WhatGreenCar? to the Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi ECOnetic. This Focus model has CO2 emissions of 115g/km (65.6mpg on a combined test cycle) and, with a diesel particulate filter fitted as standard on the 110PS engine, a WGC? rating of 33 is claimed to be the lowest in its class and lower even than the bench-mark Prius hybrid (rated at 35).
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