When it is time for a new car, choose a more fuel efficient vehicle

You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid! You can find information on fuel efficiency on FuelEconomy and on GreenCars websites.

Background Information

Fuel efficiency sometimes means the same as thermal efficiency, that is, the efficiency of converting energy contained in a carrier fuel to kinetic energy or work.

Fuel efficiency can also mean the output one gets for a unit amount of fuel input such as “miles per gallon” or “liters per 100 kilometres” (l/100 km) for an automobile (sometimes called fuel economy). Here, vehicle-miles is the output, but for transportation, output can also be measured in terms of passenger-miles or ton-miles (of freight). While the thermal efficiency of petroleum engines has improved in recent decades, this does not necessarily translate into fuel economy of cars, as people in developed countries tend to buy bigger and heavier cars. Nowadays, a hybrid vehicle is more fuel efficient: that is, consumes less fuel (and produces less carbon dioxide grams) than a conventional vehicle with the same engine.

When comparing fuel consumption, it should be borne in mind that the use of different kinds of fuels has different consequences in terms of air pollution, greenhouse gas emission, and depletion of resources. When considering electric power produced from nuclear power, there are nuclear wastes produced as well. One cannot automatically say that a form of transportation having a lower fuel consumption than another is necessarily “better”.

A low emission vehicle is a vehicle that emits only 120mg/km of carbon dioxide (CO2) or less. The emission level of a vehicle is dependent on a number of factors, including engine efficiency, vehicle design, fuel type, and the driver’s ability to drive sensibly. The major fuel types available today are petrol, diesel, and alternative fuels such as LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), hydrogen, electricity, water and, in hybrid vehicles, some combination of these (e.g.petrol and electricity).

Petrol is the most commonly used fuel, and with increasingly efficient manufacturing techniques, and advancements such as unleaded and low-sulphur, petrol is more ecologically friendly today than was previously the case.

Diesel vehicles offer higher miles to the gallon and lower CO2 emissions compared to petrol models.

Alternative fuels like Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and CNG produce less pollution that both petrol and diesel. LPG is less costly than petrol and, compared to petrol, LPG vehicles offer a 10-15% reduction in CO2 emissions.

Hybrid cars typically make use of a petrol and an electric motor. The electric motor is powered by a battery, which is charged when breaking or deceleration takes place.

Electrically powered cars produce almost zero CO2, if the electricity comes from a renewable energy source. Electric cars must be charged during the night - normally 10-12 hours and have a limited range per charge. Dual fuel cars can run on LPG and petrol, and are able to switch between these fuels.

An ongoing project to inform American citizens about the disadvantages of SUV driving and to lobby automakers to start producing automobiles that are more fuel efficient, in order to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. It is headed by Arianna Huffington.

The Detroit Project is part of Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars (AFEC), a nonprofit group dedicated to decreasing America’s reliance on foreign oil. AFEC was co-founded by columnist Arianna Huffington, film producer Lawrence Bender, environmental activist Laurie David, and movie and TV agent Ari Emanuel.

AFEC mounts citizens ad campaigns aimed at getting the Detroit automakers to build cars and SUVs that are more fuel efficient, thereby encouraging US policy makers to take action and reduce dependence on foreign oil. [2]