doesn't make much sense here...
mpg only tell us how many oil it needs,
but how about amount of the electric power or other fuel to form "hybrid"?
i think this should be included to determine a "greenest" or "eco" car.

Seeing a Chevrolet Silverado on theis list is just insane. I curretnly own a 05 Scion XA that gets 32-38 MPG. I know the new XB and XD are in the same mpg range. Wonder how much hevy paid for the #10 spot?

The green cars are the ones that over the life cycle of the vehicle, from getting raw materials from Mother Earth, until its final deconstruction causes the least negative impacts on Mother Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere and ecological systems. The only ones that meet this requirement on this list are 2009 VW Jetta SportWagen TDI, 34 mpg (30 city, 41 hwy); 2009 MINI Cooper 32 mpg (28 city, 37 highway), Not sure what the Honda Fit is or the BMW, but if they use a normal engine, they may qualify. Every other vehicle on this list is made up of exotic and very toxic chemicals, many of which are harvested in ways that cause far more negative ecological impacts on Mother Earth than even strip mining of iron, copper and coal (Because when they are done strip mining, they put everything back in place). The disposal or recycling of which causes even more harm. Every last component on these vehicles that seperates them from the normal cars requires so much additional energy and processing and human labors to far more than exceed the environmental benifits of using less gasoline. Please do some descent research before claiming things are green.

I'd say Toyota Yaris with it's 36-39mpg should be in that list!
There might be an error on the prius who has a higher mpg in the city than on the highway, which is an awkward score.

I find this list uninteresting and not sure how this list is generated. But I know Green Car Journal awarded the Jetta TDI Green car of the Year.

http://www.greencar.com/articles/v [...] r-year.php

Go Bio!! I drive a 99 6.5L Diesel Sub and a 2003 Jetta TDI and have ran Bio for over 3 years now in both, not sure if anything would convince me to drive anything other than a Diesel. Especially since new tech in Algae Bio is well on it's way of being a reality.

What about the Toyota Yaris. I have a 5 door hatch back Yaris. It gets 39 MPG and costs $12,000.00 USD. The Prius gets 45 MPG and costs $30,000.00 because the demand is so high. In 10 years the Prius will need new batteries and the old ones will go into the junk yard. I don't think you will see too many Used 10 yr old Prius's for sale since the batteries are $7,000.00 USD. I figure the Yaris is cheaper per mile because it costs so much less initially. In 10 years my Yaris will still get 39 MPG.

The Honda fit is not a hybrid, thus the reason I bought one in 2007. (I didn't want to have to replace a US $5,000 battery around 120k miles, and/or suffer from the electronic system failures of the early Toyota Prius.)

The Honda Insight wasn't an option in 2007, and the VW and Mini cost too much for my budget.)

(At least with the 2008 and under year models) I would recommend the Fit as a "roomy mini car" with "lots of carrying capacity" due to the ability to completely fold the rear seats down. (Note, the quoted statements are quoted because it is, still, a mini-car. Thus, don't expect SUV/Minivan carrying capacity.)

Mine already has 60k miles. I haven't had any mechanical issues, it requires oil changes/regular maintenance every ~8.5k miles, and the factory tires are just now about to be replaced.

Usually most hybrids have higher mpg in the city than on the highway, most of the hybrids in the list do so.

re: 2009 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid | 21 mpg (21 city, 22 hwy)

you gotto be kidding

It makes an incredible amount of sense, considering all of these hybrids run purely off of gasoline. While they may do different things with it (such as converting much more to electricity and storing that in batteries), petrol is the only thing going in.

Plug-in hybrids would obviously change this completely, as they would draw energy from other sources, however this does not apply to any mainstream vehicle currently available for purchase.

All you guys are ABSOLUTELY right on !!

Silverado Hybrid ?? WTF. Yaris 2 door coupe 36 mpg not make the list ?? WTF. Yeah - Jetta TDI WAS Green Car of the Year, (should be 44 mpg highway) translation: #1 !! WTF. And where's the '10 Honda Civic (34 mpg) or the Corolla 2 Door Coupe (34 mpg) ?? WTF !!!

I have now lost a significant amount of respect for KBB.

Btw - Am I the only one who thinks hybrid cars (in general) are retarded since the destruction of their components is exponentially more toxic to the environment than a convention internal combustion engine? Additionally - using electricity to charge your battery is just sucking power from a fossil fuel based power plant (unless you jack in to Hoover Dam or San Onofre) and due to the laws of electrical transfer over a cable network, Efficiency is WAY lower than just running a conventional internal combustion engine. Q.E.D.

For those that care to, go read KBB's selection criteria and you'll find that it is an opinion piece. They included vehicles like the Silverado Hybrid because not everybody can live with a Prius or a Mini. The Silverado Hybrid is the first hybrid option for people that require a pick-up for day-to-day operation, i.e. contractors, skilled trades workers, etc. Prior to this vehicle, they had no fuel efficient options. That makes it significant enough in KBB's eyes to include it in their list.

For all you diesel proponents, I'll play the devils advocate for a moment. Modern diesels, the newest, lastest, greatest, and *greenest* diesels with their particulate filters and urea injection, are still only required to meet Tier 2 Bin 5 emission regulations. What does this mean? Well, diesels have finally caught up to where gasoline powered vehicles were 5+ years ago! Sure, the higher fuel economy afforded by a diesel may give a reduction in greenhouses gases, but they still spew far more carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, and other various hydricarbons when compared to most gasoline engines.

There is more to *green* than fuel economy numbers and carbon dioxide emissions.

No VW Polo Bluemotion??
80 MPG..

Do you get Top Gear in USA? s12 ep4 illustrates 3 cars that have unbelievable fuel consumption. Jag XJ diesel(53mpg)which is a 2ton+ car, Subaru Legacy diesel(63mpg) and VW polo bluemotion(80mpg). The Fords and the Chevy are terrible choices here. This looks so strange!!! In Europe there are literally scores of cars with better consumption than the cars here!

A hybrid with a 20 mpg rating????? Completely pointless. If you want to save fuel? Don't buy an SUV! The oil used to produce this car and the hazardous materials given off by the battery manufacturing process render this worse than most petrol cars. In my mind having these American manufactured cars on a list of green cars is terrible! Their union's demands render them uncompetitive inferior cars for the money. Having them on this list may be advertising or sympathetic gesturing but if we came up with the 10 greenest cars in South Africa we'd trounce anything on this list.

My Ford Fiesta 1.4l gets better MPG than all of these cars too. Pathetic.

What is also utterly perplexing to me is how there can be a 335d on here when BMW sell a 320d which has far better fuel economy!! And for argument's sake, the 120d!! Which is lighter!

blahblahblah.
Americans are the stupidiest people on this planet and I'm American.

You want to see how cars should be made? Look overseas where 60mpg in things like a Jaguar is common.

We are choked into believing that 40mpg is a struggle to achieve and we better be thankful for it. Give me the cars that are sold in other countries and I will be running around getting 80mpg and in a hell of a lot better car than a crappy Prius.

What no smart car??? Ohh wait for being a tiny sized wanna be car that can only fit 2 people, it gets an amazing 36mpg. For something that small you would think it would get twice as much.
My wife has an 08 nissan sentra. She does mostly city driving. She gets 31-32mpg. When driving on both city and highway she gets 34-35mpg. The Sentra has a computer that tells you your mpg. Plus I double check when she fills up how many miles she has gone.
We paid 14k for the car brand new. This sentra is bigger than all the old ones. And yet it get much better mpg than these little silly cars. And we paid half of what it would cost to buy a hybrid and yet we are getting "Hybrid MPG" Go figure.

The US market is driven by whining US automakers who whine that it is too expensive to make any advancements, then when the US government mandates an advancement, the US automakers make the same advancement they were whining against part of their advertising and tout it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. They are two-face hypocritical idiots that are only surpassed in stupidity by the congressional representatives that they manage to convince that the advancements they are fighting against really are too expensive. That is why the US auto industry has virtually fallen apart, and I say, good riddance.

If they were willing to stop pissing and moaning that they need to make more money and think about being responsible corporate citizens, we would be better off. But hey, there's money to be made out there even if you screw every customer you have.

BTW - I live in the US.

KBB and other such concerns only complicate the matter by making it "chic" to own a car that has more horsepower than the average car driver needs. That is why there is "crap" on this list from KBB.

And if you live in Disinformation Junction, don't forget that Hummer is more green than Prius over the life of the vehicles.

...lame. Finally got my county to adopt permits for driving modified golf carts on public roads. I modified my go-cart to be street legal with turn signals, lights and a horn. Hydrogen gas produced from my solar power array being fed into a 50 HP rotary engine. My emissions? a big fat zero. Cost to recycle? The only thing that really needs replacing is engine seals and other worn components, so basically zero again! You can BURN hydrogen gas. ...ugh, I'm really considering writing an article and sending it to toms, cause I am SICK of the crap that hydrogen gets from people who haven't even experimented with it yet!

Amen to that.

The term "Responsible Corporate Citizen" is nearly becoming extinct nowadays.

The job of Corporate America as of recently is to swindle and rape your consumers for as long as possible before they realize it and take action.

Then hide behind a strong defense of lobbied politicians, and if worse comes to worst, grab a parachute check and move on to the next pool of blood to suck.

Hybrids are not more green. Sure, if you ignore the manufacturing and only look at the fuel and oil consumed during operation they look good. The mining for battery raw materials, which are extremely toxic, transportation and manufacturing, not to mention no one is still quite sure what to do when all the batteries that will start going bad in about 5 years and needing replacement. I don't have the article anymore but had read about a year ago that a study concluded that the actual green cost for a prius, from the start of production process to end of life is worse than a Hummer. Wake up, think about things, demand better.

Might I suggest that you further research that article? If you do, you will find that it was written by an industry shill who was paid to produce dis-information that they substantiated with 20+ year old data.

I'll even help you out with this link.

What's that old adage? Believe only half of what you see and nothing of what you hear?

The article you are speaking of is emblematic of the problems that I spoke of in my comment. Personally, I think it unfortunate that people buy into garbage like that without further research.

This is wrong. Even with the loss of power do to transmission, full electric vehicles running off of coal power are more efficient per amount of energy produced. The losses in transmission of power are more than made up for in the efficiency of the electric motor (vs a traditional I.C.E.). Add the fact that coal plants are significantly less damaging to the environment per unit of energy produced than an internal combustion engine (due to economies of scale) and it starts to make sense. Of course the damage caused by producing / replacing batteries is a whole other story (as mentioned by a few people here).

I would have to say that most small cars (Fit, Yaris, Sentra, Civic, etc) are much less harmful to the environment than their hybrid brethren. This is even more true for the diesel models. The particulate emissions of modern diesels are only slightly higher than their gasoline powered equivalents, but their consumption is significantly lower.

The US version is seriously gimped in fuel economy. European versions out-frugal it by almost that much.

And I'm seconding all the talk about the lack of Yaris on the list.

If you all watch topgear s12 e4 youll see that European cars are far more efficient than American cars. Dont know why...40 mpg is basically the lowest you can get in a European car and Americans struggle just to get near that.