2016 Green Car of the Year Finalists Announced

67 thoughts on “2016 Green Car of the Year Finalists Announced”

• This list feels like it would have been a solid offering 3 or 4 years ago, but with so many fully electric offerings out there today, and with Tesla blowing the cap off the Consumer Reports rating scale and awkwardly absent here, I’m having a hard time swallowing this list, but here we go:

  That pretty much summarizes my feelings too. Feels like a bunch of losers got together and decided to make special awards for themselves.

  • the biggest losers are not in the list, how come?

    • Which ones are those?

      • I’ll give you a hint. One of them have diesel hybrids.

    • They’e running for president.

      • HAR!

  • I agree, what a bs “award”. Awarded for what? For sustaining the petro-economy, making people think that burning fossil fuels is ok now.
    This is spoken of course by a true “do what I do and we’ll all be fine” person, me. I drive a Chevy Spark. Electricity from the sun (sometimes) and 0 emissions.

    • I feel sorry for the people who are trying hard to fit into pure BEV’s and still ended up using an ICE car or renting one for the long distance trip. The pure BEV’s are not fit for this current time and for the next 10 years as your only car. We own a Spark EV, a Chevy Volt and a Sienna. We only use the Sienna for interstate long distance transport when there are 5 or more of us in the minivan. Very comfortable seating for long distance trips and cheaper than riding airplanes for all of us and still renting van at the destination. I like the 2016 Volt the best for my daily and weekend commutes. Fueled primarily by the sun and I don’t get the hassle of renting another one for my weekender trips to anywhere in America. As soon as the Chevy Bolt arrives, I’ll trade in our Spark EV for it.

      • My only misgiving (as I don’t own the Volt yet) is the heat situation in winter. My feet get cold! Having a warm steering wheel and seat may not be enough to counter frost-bitten toes.

        • Electric socks. Plug ’em in… ;o)

          Actually, I wonder if electric mats might make sense. Make them smaller, insulation on the bottom so most of the heat goes up, run them off a timer.

      • No regrets with our 2 EVs…Leaf + Mercedes B-Class ED. Can’t wait for the Tesla Model 3 but honestly that’s more because I want a Tesla than I need the extra range…

      • The LEAF has a locking feature that locks the charger to the car until it is fully charged and then it unlocks automatically so someone else can use it.

        • Ohhh, nice!

      • A compelling argument but I’m not convinced entirely for a few reasons:
        The batteries should be almost as big as a BEV, in a Hybrid Plug In. The ratio of electricity used from the fossil fuel generator vs the battery varies depending on how the car is used. In some situations, gas is mostly what you use because you’re in a situation without an option. Taxis for example. Then there is the additional hardware, maintenance and cost for that. If the bodies were glass and you could see inside, the Hybrid has twice as many moving pieces.
        You’re application of the transport options available to you is flawless for now, but ultimately we’ll move almost entirely away from fossil fuels, at least to the extent that burning them continues to deplete our world situation. Lets see what the weather brings us in the next 2 years or so.

        • I’m thinking 2020 perhaps even 2019, and the economics on full BEVs become compelling enough to leave the training wheels at home – the PHEVs gas generator! And this is from a former Volt Gen I owner who plans to get a Volt Gen II next month.

  • This list has about as much credibility as Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award.

• Why is Honda suicidal on hybrid? The I-DCD is missing in action, the Civic hybrid dropped… What are they thinking?

  • Both moves had me at a loss for words – honda drops the hybrid AND their gas only car gets on the list…uhhh. Oh well, at least we can support the volt 🙂

  • They are working on a pure electric and some plug-in hybrids. The Honda hybrids have not been very good and were subject to a lawsuit over their overstated MPG.

  • They’re thinking they don’t need to be able to sell cars in California?

    • If we don’t manage the water thing they won’t be selling out here. I’m all for Keystone: Just run it East West and fill it with water instead of crude. We just happened to be here when Gov J. Brown (would he run for pres?) told the major car companies to build and sell some 0 emission cars or leave, right now. For a while, you could ‘lease’ a Honda Fit all electric car for a song (about $60/month) and they would pay for everything including insurance. They wanted the cars back.
      Chevy dealers were given one or two Spark EV’s and didn’t know what to do with them. When I signed my lease, they supplied the wrong car and lost their deposit, they also paid the first month and gave me a Bosch level II charging station for my garage. The state sent me $2500 cash and 95% of our electricity (here in Palm Springs) is free, we have about 30 public stations with a summer population of 40k. (Most of whom don’t drive electric, there’s less than 100 EV’s would be my guess)

      • We’ll know by June just how boned Cali is. Hopefully they get record precipitations with El nino which will give them some time. It’ll take double the record to nearly end the drought though and that’d do more harm than good short term.

        • The good news is the water insecurity will keep out the frackers and the drilling boom. The last thing California needs is more earthquakes.

  • Honda has a full line of hybrids with DCT in Japan including a Fit that’s rated at 86 MPG (Japanese rating, probably ~50 EPA).

    They don’t sell ANY of them in the US because gas is so cheap here and tax incentives are based strictly on battery size. (In Japan hybrids don’t get subsidized either, but there are incentives in the form of fewer fines for ownership compared to a normal car)

• As far as I can determine, no Tesla has ever even been in the running for this award. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Car_of_the_Year
  The BMW i3 won last year, which appears to be the only time any fully-electric car won the award.
  My favorite is in 2009 the Jetta TDI won. At least Green Car Journal rescinded that award recently.

  • Looking around on the web I found a few things. From the Tesla forums in 2012 –

    Green Car Journal cars –
    ” All are affordable mass-market products that provide drivers full functionality and mainstream appeal, paving the way for making a difference in fuel use and overall emissions in daily driving.”

    Tesla would not meet the affordable and mass-market requirements.

    ” I asked them once what are the criteria and they have nothing to do with the actual car, but with capabilities of the companies, especially the capability of producing huge number of cars using same platform (not the actual production, just the capability). This means that winner this year will be Ford (again).”

    http://my.teslamotors.com/fr_BE/forum/forums/2013-green-car-year-without-model-s

    Realistically this looks to be an unimportant award given by an individual who sometimes published a journal and sells it for $5.99. Sometimes it’s quarterly, seems to have gone long periods with no publication.

    For some reason (price?) the guy who runs the journal doesn’t seem interested in the Tesla. A site search shows almost nothing about it. He does seem to be interested in lower fuel use but seems to have dismissed Tesla as too expensive as a large scale solution. (Which is true.)

    • While digging around on GCJ I found this interesting piece –

      “VW and Audi are returning their Green Car of the Year® awards in the wake of Volkswagen Group’s admission that it deliberately deceived government authorities about emissions from the Audi A3 TDI and VW Jetta TDI. Concurrently, Green Car Journal has rescinded these Green Car of the Year® awards honoring the 2009 VW Jetta TDI and 2010 Audi A3 TDI diesel models. This is the first time this has occurred in the award program’s decade-long history.

      The magazine points out that these models were selected as Green Car of the Year® for compelling reasons including high fuel efficiency, reduced carbon emissions, a fun-to-drive nature, and the ability to meet 50 state emissions requirements with advanced diesel technology. However, as VW Group has now admitted, its on-board software programming intentionally caused in-lab emissions testing to read significantly lower nitrogen oxide emissions than these vehicles actually produced on the road. Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board emissions certifications used in the process of determining award eligibility were thus incorrect, and have since been declared invalid by these government agencies. This means both models would have been ineligible to be finalists in their respective award years.

      In returning its award, Audi of America President Scott Keogh advised the magazine, “Audi has won hundreds of races and thousands of awards throughout its history. But we only want to win fair and square. Therefore, in light of recent developments, we believe the only right thing to do is to return this important recognition of environmental stewardship. We are determined to compete – and hopefully win – Green Car of the Year® awards the proper way in future years.””

      http://carsofchange.com/features/vw-audi-return-green-car-awards/

  • Way back during the first energy crisis, (1979 through 1982 or so) people were scrambling for new technologies too. (I’ve never stopped) Climate change was a subject of conversations also, so oil generally was looking like a wrong strategy. Out of now where, Fiat came up with this home/heat/AC/electrical system that statistically zoomed to the front of the line as the most practical energy solution for houses in moderate climes;
    A concrete pad outside supported a super insulated building the size of a tool shed. Inside, a four cylinder gas (over head valves, maybe) rattled away at it’s favorite rpm. That drove a generator, or a heat pump, or both. The motor’s water jacket heated water for the house, excess heat in the room was vented into the house etc.) The emerging solar people were in tears.

    • It took a bit of Google digging, but amazingly, that product still exists today (but uses a Fiat 500 engine running on natural gas now). See http://www.totem.energy/features/?lang=en

    • Yes, the Totem. Ahead of it’s time, and made by a company that never dared to be a market leader or, even worse, innovator.

• I vote Volt. No contest.

  • 2heavy.

• ” the gas engine kicked on every time I pounded the pedal to the floor. Per the technical consultant from Audi, this was because the car assumed I was in an emergency, so brought all the ponies — both gas and electric — to the table to get the car moving.”

  LOL. You know he made that up on the spot.

  • I did have that “wtf…I said ELECTRIC drive only” look on my face 😀

• Clean Technica / Gas2 should start our own Awards for the “Clean Car of the Year”. It’s interesting to me that Tesla is out given they are selling as many or more cars than any other EV out there and very close if not more than the Volt so…larger “green” impact especially considering they use NO gas EVER.

  • I agree.

• PLEASE!! Learn to proofread.

  Last paragraph:
  The gasoline only version of the Honda Civic makes the list with its
  “hybrid-like fuel economy,” while, behind the curtain, Honda drops the
  hybrid Civic option in 2016. Ironically, the hybrid Civic offered today
  achieves 44 mpg city, 47 mpg freeway (hint: better mpgs than the 2016
  Civic) whereas the 2016 gas-only version gets just over 40 mpg. I’m no
  scientist but that seems like a downgrade. Here, have an award. Huh?

  • I see no issue…but I wrote it so I’m likely still blind to the felonious offense. What’s the issue?

    I was just trying to say that the gas only version gets worse mileage than the hybrid… They no longer make the hybrid. Net = best available Honda Civic mileage is worse in 2016 vs 2015.

    • I liked the sarcasm at the end of saying “I’m no
      scientist but that seems like a downgrade. Here, have an award.”

    • Ironically, the hybrid Civic offered today achieves 44 mpg city, 47 mpg
      freeway (hint: better mpgs than the **2016** [is this supposed to be 2015?] Civic) whereas the **2016**
      gas-only version gets just over 40 mpg.

      Please learn to proofread!

      • No…my point is exactly that the 2015 hybrid mpgs was better than the new 2016 will be. Net – last year I could buy a hybrid civic with 44-47mpg…this year I can only buy a 40mpg gas only civic. Apologize it was not more clear.

• Thanks for the detailed response Bob, well written. To agree with some of the other I would vote Volt from this list easily. If CleanTechnica were to run a similar poll I can almost guarantee Tesla would be included and could be crowned king without a vote tally =P.

  I dont think the major manufacturers will take Electric’s seriously until they are legislated to do so. Even with market pressure I fear the ramp up of electrics to the huge scale the big manufacturers produce today will take longer then it should.

  • I mostly agree with your second statement. Tesla is kicking major manufacturers in their sensitive parts in the luxury segment today and are just around the corner from doing the same in the luxury SUV segment (X5, Audi Q5/Q7, Mercedes G series, Porsche Cayenne etc etc). In 2 years, they’ll take on the mainstream market and do the same there.

    So…I agree that mandating change through legislation would be faster (assuming we could get it past the climate denying republicans which is a whole separate mess) but I can guarantee you that it will be more fun watching them eat their own garbage when Tesla cleans them out over the next 5 years 😀

    • I never remember total vehicle sale totals but I do remember that they are orders of magnitude larger than Tesla or other luxury manufacturer’s production numbers.

      How many gigafactories would we need to supply all new vehicle sales in a year? Regardless of manufacturer someone has to produce these EV powertrains and batteries. It is this huge barrier that makes me believe it will take a long time to convert without continuing pressure from legislation mandating it.

      I agree EV’s are quickly gaining momentum and that is seemingly certain to continue but it’s still very early on. I am excited to think my next vehicle purchase/lease may be an EV in 3-4yrs but I still very much feel in the minority. I am hard pressed to find someone who wants to even hear me talk about an EV let alone someone who has considered one or has any desire for an EV. It’s going to take a lot of effort to get EV’s in front of people, let’s hope Tesla can continue to do that successfully and other manufacturers will follow…

      • 67.53 million in 2014. 22.22 million light trucks. Call it 90 million.

        Gigafactory 0.5 million. LG Chem building for 0.45 million. Let’s set 1 GF = 0.5 million. We’d need 180 GFs at 100%l EV production.

        How soon do we want to get to 100% electrics per year? 20 years? Start 9 GF a year, on average. Something like 4 in China to cover Asia, 2 in the US to cover NA, 1 in South America. 1 in Africa. 1 in Europe.

        From year to year move the numbers around as needed. Some years put one of China’s in India or one of the US’s in Canada and one in Mexico. There are 196 countries, it’s less than one GF per country. ;o)

        I have no doubt that the market will drive the change from ICEVs to EVs, given that things continue as they are going. The important question is whether the market will drive the transition as fast as we need it to move.

        China is putting a thumb on the scale and tipping it toward EVs. I suspect several European countries will as well. I think within 10 years the US will have pretty much forgotten about “denial” and will be caught up in “prevent”. I also think that by 2025 car manufacturers are going to see declining interest in their ICEVs and see higher profit margins in EVs.

        I wouldn’t be worried about not many people being interested in EVs right now. The options are kind of limited, either low range or high price. With three long range, affordable announced for sales within two years we’re reaching the end of EVs ver. 2.1. 2.2 should be when people really start to get the message.

        • Breaking it down by country like that made a huge problem seem very achievable, thank you.

        • Looking for some perspective.

          We built 200 million square feet of office space a year in the early 2000s and after the peak building period we dropped down to about 150 million square feet per year.

          The Gigafactory will be 10 million square feet. What we aren’t building in office space (200 million – 150 million = 50 million) would equal 5 Gigafactories per year.

          In the US we buy about 8 million cars per year. 16 GF would fix us right up. Build them in 3 years, we could.

      • Agree that traditional vehicle sales dwarf EV sales – even Tesla. My comment was not concise but I was attempting to say that Tesla sales are at the top of all EV sales without taking the price into consideration. I would also say that they are likely supporting more miles driven without gas (what’s greener than that?). Perhaps they were thinking that 1,000,000 40mpg civics would save more gas than 35,000 Teslas and that’s probably accurate but I just have a hard time calling anything that burns gas as the primary mode of moving it around Green.

        I’m in California which is on the forefront of EV adoption and I’m encouraged everyday by the number of EVs I can count on the way to work/home/groceries/beach etc. It used to be fun to find one…two maybe three. On the way home from the airport the other day, I saw 18 teslas and a slew of other EVs (I was looking specifically for Teslas as it was the day after the autonomous driving update went live) but either way, adoption is coming.
        I also believe battery production will be there. While battery production seems to be the limitation for the Bolt (or whatever the production model will be called), I have a hard time believing they are not building out for an EV explosion. Tesla is…BYD is and if others are not, that would be a mistake that would take 2-3 years MINIMUM to catch up from leaving BYD and Tesla to gobble up share and reinvest in more battery production capacity with virtually no competition.

  • Haha, am planning such a poll now, and think you are right. But we’ll see… 😛

• consumer reports gets 44MPH with the gas Mazda6
  so why is the Civic on this list ?????

• I think with the new 2016 Nissan Leaf getting 107 miles to a charge, and the new Chevy Bolt getting 200 miles to a charge the time is now to get rid of plug in hybrids, and dirty gas cars. The Volt is already electric, so take the gas engine out and double the battery, and you can go 106 miles on a charge. In addition we need to build a national network of solar power electric charging stations like the Fastned network in Denmark. I’m trading in my Toyota Prius in next year, and buying a used Nissan Leaf for $10.000, a fraction of the $25,000 I paid for my 2014 Prius. Since electric cars lose their value so fast after 3 years, the unbelievably cheap deals on used ones make them superior to dirty gas cars, which cost much more to maintain.

  • Unfortunately not everyone everywhere can be satisfied with 100 miles range. I foresee an evolutionary approach. GetBolt-sized batteries with a range extender. The range extender will get smaller and smaller and it will disappear eventually. But in the short term, I see a bright future for PHEV and EREV.

    • There becomes a point at which battery cost falls far enough and rapid chargers are common enough that PHEVs simply make no sense. We could be very close to that point right now.

      The horizon plots battery pack costs (not cells). It is expected that Tesla’s current pack cost is somewhere between $200 and $250/kWh. Once the Gigafactory is running it is expected that battery pack costs will be around $170/kWh. GM’s cost should be similar, perhaps $10 to $15 higher.

      • In the meantime, Bosch is selling it’s pedelec battery pack for 1500$/kWh. Look, I love to be optimistic, but as for now, PHEV do make sense. I bet this will last for 10 to twenty years, you say it’s a matter of a couple of years. We’ll see.

        • I have no idea what Bosch has to do with anything.

          Last October Tesla was paying Panasonic $180/kWh for cells.

          http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/battery-storage-costs-plunge-below100kwh-19365

          GM has said that their battery cost will be $145/kWh.

          http://cleantechnica.com/2015/10/05/chevy-bolt-battery-cells-145kwh-new-chevy-volt-with-autonomous-driving/

          Rule of thumb, about 30% on top of cell price for pack price. Bump $180 and $145 up 30% and see where that puts you on the graph.

• I am slightly off topic here, and not a car guy, but here is a question. Why don’t they build a propane Volt hybrid? Since the gas can go stale and is used little why not propane which is cleaner and lasts almost indefinitely without making engine problems? Its cheaper too. Now that diesel has such a black eye, will we see this kind of hybrid?

  • It’s not exactly true that it does not make engine problems. You need the proper seat valve rings. Not impossible to do, but one has to think about it.

    Then there is the problem of storage space. In hybrids there are already batteries, frequency converters etc. that steal lots of room, so finding place for an LPG bottle is not so easy. All things being equal, I’d rather have that place used for additional batteries/ev range rather than a fossil container.

• “Hands-down the Volt is the most effective gas-saving hybrid on average-length daily trips in the world. The Volt stands to help American manufacturing, the environment, and energy security.”

  http://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/chevrolet/2016-chevrolet-volt-review

  • So we know Zach is a Tesla fanboi and you are a Volt enthusiast. I’m just waiting for the pics of your volt tattoo.

• Like any awards, I couldn’t care less.
  I’d rather see a least green 2016 list. Shaming the use of those 10x less efficient’ll do more than promoting the green. These lists don’t recruit buyers but a least green might deter them. In my opinion of course.

• This is a pretty sad list. Why not include the Leaf with the slightly increased range?

• Car of the year awards, green or not, only include new models or significantly redesigned models. The Tesla Model X may not have been available soon enough to be evaluated. Of the cars listed, the greenest car is the Chevy Volt with 53 miles of EV range.

• why are electric ‘wheel’ motors not used? They seem to work in bicycles. One could dispense with the weights of transmissions and differentials. One could have 4 wheel drive. The internal combustion engine could be focussed on recharging the battery pack so it could be tuned to its exact peak power on its power curve, housed in a sound proofed unity. It could possibly be quite small, almost interchangeable, certainly on larger vehicles and we could reduce noise pollution in highway trucks, buses and sports cars!

  • It’s a good question. I have no answer.

    Two companies have developed them and supposedly proved that they work. Perhaps it’s something we’ll see later. Or at least motors for each wheel with connecting half shafts.

    The ICE is likely to fade away as battery prices drop and capacity climbs.

    • Apart from unsprung weight issue there are at least two other problems.
      (i) A road wheel has a hard life running through water and dust all of which has to be kept out of the motor itself and yet the sealed motor cannot be allowed to overheat. You also need to find room for the brake disc and not be so bulky at to limit the steering lock if FWD, not impossible but extra work. Some heavy cables need to get to the wheel and they may carry lethal voltage (but you could limit that to 48V, then the cables are even thicker).
      (ii) Because the drive is direct the torque for moving off from zero speed is limited. Taking off going up a steep hill could prove tough. A tesla has a 9:1 reduction drive but in wheel motors don’t (you could get a similar result by having say 27 phases instead of the usual 3 but that might prove hard or impossible to arrange in an in-wheel motor, I’ve never heard of anyone trying that).

  • Unsuspended mass. You want as little mass below suspension as possible. And, all else being equal, even in the e-bikes the crank drive has an edge on the wheel motors.

    • “A stock 2007 Ford Focus was compared with an identical vehicle modified with 66 lb (30 kg) of ballast fitted to each wheel. The weight was distributed between rotating and nonrotating unsprung masses as to broadly replicate Protean Electric’s PD18 (18-in diameter) wheel-hub-motor unit. The project plan included three phases of analysis and testing.

      Phase 1 focused on modeling of different modifications, including suspension spring, bushing, and damper rates, and different tires and pressures, and their effects on the IWM-equipped vehicle. It was determined that simply fitting a standard Focus ST suspension (an upgrade on the stock base car) would be a good practical solution.

      In phase 2, the stock vehicle was modified with the Focus ST suspension. This setup included revisions to the front and rear spring rates, dampers, and the rear antiroll bar. In phase 3, the Focus with the modified ST suspension was retested. The process included a subjective vehicle assessment, objective ride and handling tests, on-road shake measurements, and two-post shaker rig measurements.

      The studies concluded, and the presenters argue, that while the vehicle carrying the greater unsprung mass at each wheel did display perceptible differences compared with the stock vehicle, those differences were minor and can be mitigated using “normal engineering processes within a product development cycle.”

      By fitting the upgraded ST-level suspension to the car replicating one equipped with Protean PD18 in-wheel motors, the vehicle’s handling and on-center tracking were improved back to reference. Overall, the effort conducted by Protean Electric, Lotus Engineering, and Dunamos may help convince skeptics that the addition of 30 kg of unsprung mass per corner will not adversely impact overall vehicle dynamics and can be addressed fairly easily with cost-effective countermeasures.”

      http://ev.sae.org/article/9493/

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