Green car of the year 2008 announced – 1300 cars shamed

The Toyota Yaris has been named Green Car of the Year 2008 by the Environmental Transport Association. The least green car is the Dodge SRT-10 sports car. The announcements come ahead of the start of Green Transport Week (14th – 22nd June)

The Environmental Transport Association has looked at over 1300 models of car currently on sale in Britain and examined their power, emissions, fuel efficiency and even the amount of noise they produce to create the definitive guide to buying the greenest vehicle.

The Car Buyers’ Guide was first published by the ETA in 1992 in response to requests from its growing membership and has since become the environmental benchmark for the car industry and the public, championing the greenest cars in Britain.  See the guide at http://www.eta.co.uk/car_buyers_guide

The results are as follows:

Overall Winner:          Toyota Yaris

Overall worst:             Dodge SRT-10

Category Winners

Supermini:                 Toyota Yaris

Small Family:             Honda Civic Hybrid

Small MPV:                Renault Modus

City:                            Citroën C1

Large Family:            BMW 3 Series 320d Saloon

Sports:                        Vauxhall Tigra, MY2008 2-door Convertible

MPV:                          Ford S-Max

Executive:                  BMW 5 Series 520d Saloon          

Off road:                     Toyota RAV4

Luxury:                        JAGUAR XJ 2.7L Diesel Saloon

Andrew Davis, director at the Environmental Transport Association, said: “With the increasing costs of motoring and the threat to the environment there has never been a more important time to choose greener cars.As well as recognising the best performers, the guide ‘names and shames’ the worst offenders in terms of damage to the environment with the 8-litre-engined Dodge SRT-10 being named overall worst car. 

Increasing numbers of people are making informed choices about cars, particularly in terms of carbon emissions and the damage caused to the environment, but research commissioned by the ETA shows eighty-four per cent of British drivers are unprepared for the radical changes to road tax rates which will see a million people pay more than double over two years. The graduated rates of vehicle excise duty in 2009 will be based on a car’s emissions, but the research reveals that only 16 per cent of people know the current tax band into which their vehicle falls''