Green automobiles

The Geo Quiz is clean and green this time. Report cards got handed out today: the Union of Concerned Scientists’ clean vehicle program has ranked automakers and their cars.

So for our quiz consider the top eight car makers in the US market, three are based here in the US, three are based in Japan, and one each are from South Korea and Germany.

The question is, where are the top three green automakers based, according to the survey? Extra credit if you guess where the bottom three are based.

The answer is 1. Japan (Honda); tied for 2. Japan (Toyota) and South Korea (Hyundai), 4. Germany (Volkswagen), and 5. Japan (Nissan). Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which conducted the survey. Also revealed? The United States is home to the three car makers that rank lowest on the list: Ford (6), GM (7), and Chrysler (8).

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LISA MULLINS: Now, today’s Geo Quiz which is clean and green. Report cards get handed out today for the greenest car companies. Five times now in the past ten years the Union of Concerned Scientists’ clean vehicle program has ranked automakers and their fleet. So for our Geo Quiz today consider the eight car makers most popular here in the United States. Three of them, in fact, are based here in the US, three are based in Japan, and there’s one each from South Korea and Germany. So the question for you today is where are the top three green automakers based, according to the survey? Extra credit if you happen to guess in which countries the bottom three are based too. Well, not a lot of time to ponder fuel economy and tailpipe emissions. There never is. We need now to introduce you to Aaron Huertas who is with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. Aaron, which automakers are the greenest in your survey?

AARON HUERTAS:  Honda from Japan, one. Toyota from Japan tied for second with Hyundai Kia, South Korean company. And fourth was Germany’s Volkswagen. But it was a lot closer this year than it’s been in past years. Toyota has really caught up. They were just one point behind Honda. And we were also surprised to see that Hyundai Kia really rocketed up in the rankings and they tied for second place.

MULLINS:  So the answer to the Geo Quiz right now, we should say, is Japan for Honda and Toyota, Korea for Hyundai which actually tied with Toyota, and Germany because Volkswagen came in fourth if you consider there was a tie between Toyota and Hyundai for second place.

HUERTAS: Right.

MULLINS: Did you look at individual car performance? Did you go for the greener cars like hybrids or were you looking at entire fleets including SUVs?

HUERTAS: We really looked at the entire fleet because the main purpose of this analysis is to keep the automakers accountable and see what they’re really doing to green their fleets. So, Honda won in part because of cards like the Civic. They sell a lot of Civics. The Civic is not a particularly green car, especially when you compare it to some of the high achieving hybrids out there like the Prius, but it’s one of their most popular cars. And the key to winning in our rankings is making your popular cars green and your green cars popular. Toyota, interestingly, if not for the Prius, would have finished lower in the rankings. They’ve sold a lot of Prius’ and that’s a very green car. But ultimately you need to make green investments, better technology investments, across your fleet, if you want to have the greenest fleet out there.

MULLINS: And so, is that not the case? I mean the companies that are highlighting their particular green cars, they’re not using the same technology across the fleet for other cars as well, or at least similarly conservation minded technology?

HUERTAS: A lot of the companies have particularly green models, but the question is how are they marketing that? Are they actually getting consumers behind the wheels of these greener cars? And I think when Americans hear about greener cars, their mind immediately leads to hybrids or electric cars. But really you look at the basic conventional cars that are out there, the four-door sedans, and there’s so much room for improvement there in making those engines more efficient and having more speeds on the transmission so the car can operate at higher efficiency over time. And we certainly dinged the US automakers, but we do want to single out Ford for making some pretty smart investments with their conventional vehicle technologies. They have an engine technology that they call EcoBoost that they’re deploying across their fleet, even in their big trucks like the F Series and that’s really going to bring up their environmental performance over time.

MULLINS: Now, by the way, what do you mean when you say you’re dinging the US automakers?

HUERTAS: They’ve finished at the bottom of our rankings pretty consistently for the past ten years. Chrysler has been a very consistent loser. It’s gotten our Dirty Tailpipe Award several times. It’s traded places with GM once. Ford is sort of the best of the worst when we do these rankings. So really these companies need to do a lot more to deploy clean technology across their fleet. We’re starting to see some turnaround with Ford and GM in particular. But Chrysler right now still doesn’t seem to have its head in the game, so we’re hoping that they’ll start to think about how they’re making better investments in green technology going forward and how they’re using their engineer’s expertise to get it out there on the road.

MULLINS:  And so what’s the consumer to do with this information? At least what would you like a consumer to do?

HUERTAS: One of the biggest steps you can take to reduce your overall environmental footprint is to get the most fuel efficient car that meets your needs. And car buying is an intensely personal decision for people, so we’re not telling everyone go out and get a Prius because it’s the greenest car on the road. If it works for you as a sedan with a hatchback, yeah, by all means, please consider it. But there’s SUVs that are higher performing than other SUVs. So, for the consumer it’s getting that most fuel efficient car that meets your needs.

MULLINS: And I wonder if there’s any new green technology that you think is unbelievably cool that may influence your next survey?

HUERTAS: We’re excited about the electric cars that are out there, particularly the Leaf which is a full electric car and we’re also looking at the Volt. And this is GM’s foray. The Volt does have a gas tank. It helps power the battery and it also powers the car during some of its cycle. So that’s not a full electric vehicle, but it’s going to be really efficient and I think consumers are going to have a lot of really exciting options out there. So we hope that hybrids and electric cards also grow to be a larger part of the fleet. And the clean car standards the Obama administration is considering right now, they can really help make that happen. I mean we can be living in a world with a hybrid in every garage, an electric car on every block and a lot of clean conventional cars out there too. That could be what the future of the auto fleet looks like. All the auto makers are becoming greener and they can all do a lot more to become greener over time.

MULLINS: Alright. Well the study is called the Environmental Performance of Car Companies. Aaron Huertas with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. Thank you very much, Aaron Huertas.

HUERTAS: Thanks so much, Lisa. This was great.

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