Fuel Efficient Cars

With oil prices skyrocketing out of control, the need for more fuel efficient cars is growing.

If you do decide to become a car owner, make sure to choose a fuel efficient vehicle that is easy on your wallet and the environment. If you don’t need a gas guzzling SUV then don’t buy one. If you have the money, why not splurge on fuel efficient vehicle that will save you money in the long run?

Cars are like appliances when it comes to energy savings – they come with EnerGuide labels that show city and highway fuel consumption ratings, and an estimated annual fuel cost for that particular vehicle. Visit http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/cars-light-trucks/buying/energuide-label/5744 to see an interactive example of an EnerGuide label, or http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/tools/fuelratings/ratings-search.cfm to compare fuel consumption ratings of different vehicles.

According to Natural Resources Canada (http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/cars-light-trucks/buying/most- efficient-vehicles/17257), the following cars are the 2012 winners of the annual ecoENERGY for Vehicles Awards: You may have noticed that a lot of these vehicles are hybrids, and there is good reason for that. Hybrids are cars that use two different sources of energy to run. Gas-electric hybrids are the most commercially available, and use a combination of an internal combustion engine and a battery. A common misconception about hybrids is that they have to be plugged in to charge the battery; in actuality, the battery is recharged using energy from the engine that would normally be lost.

Plug-in hybrids also exist, but they are an added feature of regular hybrids so that they can be recharged overnight when energy production is the cheapest and the greenest.

While these cars can be more expensive than conventional automobiles, they are not as exorbitant as some might believe. Costs for these vehicles range from $22,000 to $103,000, and the payback period is only a few years because of their fuel efficiency. Their fuel efficiency also conserves fossil fuel resources, and reduces toxic air emissions by about 30% compared to conventional vehicles.

What about the battery?

One of the biggest environmental concerns regarding hybrid cars is battery toxicity. Many skeptics are wondering if hybrid cars merely shift the environmental impacts of driving from greenhouse gases to toxic leachate released by hybrid car batteries. After researching the overall environmental impacts of lead batteries used in regular cars, compared to the nickel metal hyrdride batteries in hybrid cars, the conclusion is that both have their problems, but lead batteries are worse.

Lead is a toxic heavy metal that causes a number of environmental and health problems when it is disposed improperly. While nickel hydride batteries are much less dangerous than lead batteries, they are a probable carcinogen, and may pose other environmental challenges in terms of nickel mining and proper recycling. Research is underway to develop commercially available lithium ion batteries for hybrid cars which would be an improvement from current batteries. For the time being, some car companies like Toyota offer monetary rewards for returning the nickel metal hydride batteries so that they can be recycled.

What about Electric Vehicle?

As the name suggests, electric vehicles (EVs) run using electric motors. These cars convert 75% of the energy from batteries to power the car; whereas, only 20% of the energy in gasoline is converted to power conventional cars. Unfortunately, there are a few caveats with EVs.

While EVs have the potential to reduce fossil fuel consumption because they use electricity instead of gasoline, the real environmental impact of driving EVs depends on the source of energy that is used to produce the electricity. If the energy for the electricity is generated using a renewable resource like wind or solar power, then the environmental impact of driving is significantly reduced; however, if the energy used to produce the electricity comes from burning coal or natural gas, then driving still has negative environmental impacts.

Other reported disadvantages of EVs are the driving range which is the distance a car can travel before it needs to be ‘refuelled’. In an EV, this distance is approximately 150 – 300 km; in a conventional car, it is close to 500 km. Recharge time is also important, taking approximately 4- 8 hours to fully recharge the battery in an EV.

While there are drawbacks to fuel-efficient vehicles, technology is constantly improving, and there is huge potential for these cars to reduce our overall environmental impact. In the future, the use of biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells, and innovative technologies may also help to significantly reduce our ecological footprint.