Thursday, February 17, 2011

Prius More Green? You Must Be Delusional.

According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy's 2011 list, The Chevy Volt came in as No. 12 on this years top green cars list.
Factoring in fuel economy, emissions at the tailpipe and power plants, also, the vehicles impact via manufacturing and disposal based on the car's weight. The organisation arrived at their controversial rankings.
The first place award went to the natural gas powered Honda Civic GX (a full time fossil fuel burner) with Nissan's all electric Leaf coming in at number 2.  Based on a ratio recommended by the Society of Automotive Engineers the ACEEE assumed the Volt was driven 64% percent of the time on plug in electricity and 36% of the time on gasoline.  
Shruti Vaidyanathan, a spokeswoman for the ACEEE said, "As a gasoline vehicle, the fuel economy's not stellar."  Of course all of us here at The Volt Blog know this revolutionary vehicle isn't meant to be used regularly as a gasoline powered car!  The genius of the Volt is that gasoline need only be used when necessary, and if you need to use it regularly well then, the Volt is probably not the car for you.  Of the Volt's overall score 40% was based on the car's weight.
"I find it kind of laughable," GM spokesman Rob Peterson said when told of the organisations ranking system.  "It's one group's interpretation of a measurement of 'green'."  Peterson objected to the rational that the Volt's weight should count so heavily against GM's revolutionary vehicle.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's annual ranking of 'green cars' 

1 - Honda Civic GX

2 - Nissan Leaf

3 - Smart ForTwo
4 - Toyota Prius
5 - Honda Civic Hybrid
6 - Honda Insight
7 - Ford Fiesta SFE
8 - Chevrolet Cruze Eco
9 - Hyundai Elantra
10 - Mini Cooper
11 - Toyota Yaris
12 - Chevrolet Volt

So, time for you all to chime in, what do you think of the ACEEE's rating system? My rebuttal is, try driving anyone of these cars except the Volt and Leaf 15,000 miles a year without carbon emitting fossil fuels.
Thanks for reading the first blog on my new site and come back everyday for new stories on the Volt!

20 comments:

  1. Well, I have a hard time believing that this new company at GM volt.com will be able to find a daily blogger, anyways. In regards to the article, how can you rank 10 full time gas burners as more green over a car that that people have already driven thousands of miles on 2 gallons of gas. Where are these peoples common sense?

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  2. Corvette Guy, Rashiid Amul, George S. Bower, Nasaman, Dave K, Michigan Guy, Tagamet, and others, If you fellow Volt-heads make the pilgrimage to my new blog.. Welcome!

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  3. IT Guy, thanks for being my first commenter! I hope to see you here regularly!

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  4. Good luck John, you keep at it and maybe this thing could work. Gonna take a lotta work though, good luck.

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  5. This is really pathetic.
    They should have looked at the way they did their calculations. Nevermind the Volt coming in at 12 (I strongly disagree), but the Leaf being less green than the Civic?!? Give me a break.

    Hi John. Glad to be here.
    Looks like GM-Volt is dead. What a shame to let Lyle's site go down like that.

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  6. John@TheChevyVoltBlogFebruary 17, 2011 at 1:22 PM

    Hey Rashiid! Good to see you. Who knows if Gm-Volt is dead, it's still early, but regardless, I'm gonna do my best to keep this string of daily stories going. I like you and many of the other regulars am truly fanatical about the Volt and what it can do for our world. Help spread the word that this will at least be a daily source for new Volt info and stories. Maybe someday GM will be inviting me to events. I'm already making a list of interesting ideas and angles I can write about.

    Thanks for being the first regular to comment here. By the way, you got a request from the woman at verticalscope to email you. I'm interested in finding out what that's about.

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  7. I guess if you were looking at the fact that natural gas is an energy source and a pure electric car has to be charged losing energy in the process, then maybe you could say a natural gas car is greener than an electric. Assuming the electricity comes from a dirty source. I welcome electric cars however because I believe our grid will continue to be cleaner each year. I also could buy 8 solar panels or a small wind generator and my electric car would be 100 percent clean. It seems to me to be rediculous to put a natural gas car at number one when there's really no hope of this car being on lots waiting for someone to buy it for years or even decades if ever.

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  8. Also it seems so subjective to create an electric to gas ratio for the volt that puts it at 36 percent gas. If your using gas 36 percent of the time with this car, then maybe you shouldn't be using this car. My guess is the average buyer of the volt will be using gas 20 percent of it's miles max.

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  9. 1.Leaf
    2.Volt
    3.Honda Clarity

    no question

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  10. John, I'm glad to be here and will visit everyday.
    Thanks for the heads-up concerning Helena.
    I just emailed her.

    John, are you using Wordpress? This has a different feel to my blog.

    @ Anonymous...I agree. And I honestly don't see how it can be any different. It baffles me really.

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  11. I guess I am just one of the "others", but I am starting to look for a new place for information about the Volt since there is nothing new at gm-volt..........

    :-)

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  12. John@TheChevyVoltBlogFebruary 17, 2011 at 2:25 PM

    This is Blogger by Google, what's your blogs address Rashiid?

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  13. John@TheChevyVoltBlogFebruary 17, 2011 at 2:31 PM

    Welcome Jim I! I'm gonna do my best to scour the net each day and bring as much pertinent and informative info as I can about the Volt to this site each and everyday.. I'm not gonna lie, I don't have any inside access like Lyle did but I am obsessed with this car and who knows, maybe someday they'll be contacting me. And I won't pull any punches if that were to happen and I felt the company were doing things wrong here or there.. But hey, I'm getting way ahead of myself, delusions of grandeur and what not. Feel free to comment, spill your guts! And Please make sure to bookmark us! (or I!)

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  14. John, I should have said old blog.
    It has been gone for a couple of years now.

    Blogger by Google. I had forgotten about this one.
    It's free, right?

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  15. So the 41-MPG highway Smart FourTwo, which gets shipped over from Germany, is the third greenest car in the world because it weighs so little?

    I've been part of a few cradle-to-grave studies, and these guys are either way understaffed or hilariously overstaffed. I read the front page of their methodology, and it's a mess. Incorporating details without being thorough is lazy science, and will doom you to irrelevancy every time.

    [Anonymous]'s mention of the Clarity is spot-on. If the Civic GX is allowed on the list despite being unavailable and unfuelable, why aren't other vehicles in various stages of release/development? Invisible niche / concept cars don't belong on this list. It feels like an annual effort to apply a feathery nudge to a titanic industry.

    Also, thanks for posting more than just a link, John - you're bookmarked!

    NPNS! =D~~~

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  16. Thanks for the thoughtful and informative comment JDSV!

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  17. And Rashiid, Jim, IT guy, Bill, Flower and others. Felt I better not leave you guys out. At least theres one place on the net where common sense prevails.

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  18. It truly is amazing how the Volt can be considered #12. it’s also amazing the weight has something to do with the car. so if was made out of gold, it would fail the "disposable" test. I'd say the lithium battery will be highly sort after, and in fact can be reconditioned at the end of its warrantied life span.

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  19. Excellent points Xiaowei1, It's obvious the batteries will at least be recycled, and GM is patenting a process to recondition the cells in the batteries.
    Thanks for visiting, please visit again!

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