Welcome to the Green Corner of the askaprice.com blog and yes, we do have a green corner. If you listen very closely you’ll actually hear rushing water and the gentle humming from our green corner bee hive and even the purr of a G-wiz taking men and women wearing hemp suits and shoes made entirely of cork to our in-house Zen garden for some hummus and green tea.In all seriousness, we feel that the push to kill the world a little less is a serious one and no more so than in the automotive industry. With new taxes on heavily polluting vehicles coming in and a whole range of new and extremely exciting environmentally friendly automotive technology in vehicles it has never made more sense to ditch the 4x4 for something a little more eco friendly, and cool. The bees would also thank you for it, if they could.So to kick things off, I’ve decided to present you with a list of our favourite ‘green’ cars, a top 10 (everybody loves a good list), and so here it is – enjoy!
1. Toyota Prius – Perhaps the most obvious choice to some but then the Prius has been the most consistent and popular Hybrid car to date. The range is excellent particularly the range topping T Spirit model which comes with more technology than Bill Gates’ living room, as standard.
2. Tesla Roadster – “anything with zero emissions that can do 0-60 in less than 4 seconds is a winner in my book." – A direct quote from a colleague who works at a green car leasing company and I’d have to agree. The Tesla is possibly the coolest all-electric car yet and whilst its sale is limited in the UK this is only down to the limited number of power points available.
3. BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics – A premium German saloon with the C02 emissions of a supermini, that’s got to be a good thing right? Yes, yes it has and particularly as it retains all of the trim levels and features of the existing 3-Series range. Business drivers take a serious note.
4. Toyota iQ – A tiny and very cute city car that can fit a 5 a side football team in (allegedly) that was named ‘Green car of the year 2010’ by the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) and you’d suspect that those guys know some stuff about ‘green cars’.
5. Lexus RX450h – The only luxury SUV to come within the very important 160g/km CO2 rating and that’s all I have to say about that.
6. Golf 1.6TDI Bluemotion – Europe’s best selling car now comes with free Road Fund Licence in the 1.6TDi Bluemotion range because of their low emissions. Not quite as good as zero emissions but then you’ll also get great fuel economy with the Golf (74.3 miles per gallon) so it’s a great start.
7. Lightning GT – A British built zero emission electric supercar with over 500bhp and a 0-62mph time of less than 5 seconds – do I need to continue?
8. Smart cdi ForTwo – If the ability to park lengthways against a pavement isn’t enough for you then an official (official Mercedes-Benz mind) fuel economy of 85.7 miles per gallon should just about do it.
9. Honda CR-Z – Ok so it’s a sporty coupe with real green credentials. Now that I’ve got your attention, the CR-Z doesn’t just look cool it’ll also give you 56.5 miles per gallon from its Petrol-electric hybrid engine. But it looks great and that should be enough for anyone.
10. Mini E – We are throwing you a curve ball with the electric Mini because it isn’t actually ever going on sale but we really couldn’t resist putting it in the list because a) it’s a Mini and b) its electric which makes it the coolest thing since cheese slices. 40 of these were given to the UK public to test in 2009 (sadly not to me) and the Electric mini paves the way for an electric car from BMW at some point around 2015-ish.Right, so that’s that then, a list of ‘green cars’ but because we feel slightly guilty about leaving you with a car that you will never actually own I have decided to give you one more frankly astonishing green car to whet your ecological appetite. Check, this, out.....
The Porsche 918 Spyder – Ok, so it may still be a concept but this gives you an indication of what is to come in terms of green technology. It’s a hybrid, so not totally electric, but it promises a 0-62mph time of 3.2 seconds and its stunning so it’ll do just nicely if you like that sort of thing, which I secretly do.Now if you feel like I’ve missed anything off the list then please feel free to shout at me loudly in the comments box and if there are any green automotive issues that you would like to see us tackle here in the Green Corner Commune, or GCC, then we’d love to hear from you.Stay green.Andrew BeattieAskaprice.com Head of ContentFollow us on Twitter –
www.twitter.com/askapriceI hope you have found this information useful and if you have any other tips you’d like to share then we’d love to hear your comments.