Forbesauto.com has come up with the list of the 10 filthiest cars on the roads today. The list was made up from the Environmental Protection Agency’s ranking from 1 to 10 (1 being the most pollution). Most cars have a rating of 6, but the Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Prius, and the Ford Escape Hybrid have the highest ranking at 9.5.  The ranking is done by the amount of “health-damaging, smog-forming airborne pollutants a vehicle emits.”  ”These primarily include nitrogen oxide, which combines with hydrocarbons to create smog; carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde.” 

And the winner of the dirtiest is the Volkswagen’s Tourareg V10 TDI.  It has the lowerst ranking of 1 for pollution.  It emits 12.4 tons of greenhouse gases annually.  Burning 1 gallon of gasoline emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide according to the EPA. 

The rest of the list is as follows:

2. Hummer 2 

3.  Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD, which emits 11.1 tons of greenhouse gases annually  

4.  Mercedes-Benz GL320 CDI

5. Mercedes-Benz ML320 CDI and Mercedes-Benz R320 CDI are tied for 4th

 These cars and many others will have cleaner cars with their 2009 vehicles, but some still need to work on it to get cleaner cars for the future.

According to detnews.com, a writer named Scott Burgess wrote an article entitled “Rating the hybrids: A look at the best and worst, and what’s coming next” giving his opinion about hybrids.  There are two reasons to buy a hybrid. The first reason is to get better gas mileage and the second is to better help the environment. More and more people are buying hybrids. Most of these people are buying hybrids in order to help their gas mileage since gas is upward of $4.00/gallon.  Burgess wrote about whether hybrids were really worth it if you were just buying the car in order to save on gas mileage.  Hybrids cost on average $5000 more than non-hybrid cars.  Plus, hybrids in general do not “do their best work on open highways.”  They offer the best stop-and-go mileage in the city because most cars can run on electric motors on speed under 25 mph. 

The top-selling hybrid, the Toyota Prius continues to sell millions of cars and who can beat 48 mpg highway and 45 mpg city?  Burgess said his only “gripe” with this hybrid is that the interior “feels cheap and space is cramped.”  According to Burgess, here is the list of hybrids that he recommends.

1.  Ford Escape - FWD, great mileage, and alot of space.  The 2009 version will have even better mileage and more power.  

2.  Honda Civic - comfortable compact with great ride and handling

3.  Toyota Camry - “best appointed hybrid that gets more than 30 mpg combined mileage”

4.  Toyota Highlander - “big people hauler, still frugal with gas”

Burgess also shares with us the hybrids he does not recommend:

1.  Saturn Vue Green Line - engine shuts off when stopped. no electric motors.

2.  Lexus LS 600h - it’s a luxury car but the ticket price is $100,000

3.  Saturn Aura/Chevy Malibu - “these “hybrids” muddy the water with two-mode hybrids.  the four-cylinder, six-speed transmission Malibu matches the hybrid sibling on the highway.”

So, even though this is just one persons’ opinion on hybrids, you can take this information with you when you go to look at a new car and specifically a hybrid.

www.autospies.com/news/Nissan-GT-R-uk-pricing-announced-27192

In case you missed it, the first Nissan GT-R was delivered in the United States yesterday morning.  According to an article on autoweek.com, the delivery of the Nissan GT-R was a big event that took place at 12:01 a.m. yesterday.  The first customer, Daryl Alison, took ownership of this car in a dealership in California.  Alison owns several Nissan 350Zs and other sports cars and paid the sticker price of $72,900 for the black premium Nissan GT-R model. 

The arrival of the Nissan GT-R to the United States has created alot of buzz over the last several months.  This is a 480 horsepower supercar, that was lapped at Germany’s Nurburgring in just 7 minutes, 29 seconds.  There will be about 2400 Nissan GT-Rs to be sold in the United States, and 1700 have already been reserved. 

What’s most interesting to me about the Nissan GT-R is that the comments made on the article at autoweek.com, were not positive. I would say that about 9 out of 10 of the comments were that the car was very ugly.  I guess 1700 Americans do not feel this way since they have already reserved the GT-R, but we’ll have to wait and see if the other 700 cars sell as quickly when people really get a good look at them.

For those of you that missed it, you should be sad, it seems that the place to be in Ypsilanti, Michigan this weekend.  According to detnews.com, at the 17th annual Camaro Superfest people and cars came from Michigan, Ontario, and seven other U.S. states.  One couple from Nottingham, PA drove 550 miles to get to the car show. They love to come and even with the gas prices as they are, wouldn’t miss this event.

The Southeastern Michigan Camaro Club puts on the Camaro Superfest, and the cars are displayed along the Huron River in Riverside Park. The cars are separated into classes by year and body style and the winners of each class get a plaque.  “We try to make as many classes as possible so we can have a lot of winners,”  said event chairman Benny Hensel.  The popularity of this event has declined since 1992 when the last Camaro was introduced, but Hensel hopes that the numbers will get better again next year when GM introduces a new Camaro next year.   So if you missed this event this past weekend, make sure you mark your calendar for next year, especially with the new Camaro to be shown off as well!

I just read an article today on MSNBC.com called “Squeezing gas for the very last mile.”  It was an interesting article because it talked about how people are becoming somewhat crazed in order to save gas mileage.  There is a relatively new term out there called hypermiling.  According to hypermiling.com, it is a method of increasing your car’s gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices.  One idea to hypermiling is to drive at or below the speed limit. Anything higher than 65 miles per hour is burning a great deal of gas. It’s ideal to go 55 to 60 or even less. Another idea is to turn off your air conditioner and make sure that your windows are closed. It takes alot of energy and gas to have your windows open. Now, it’s alittle unrealistic that you will not use your air conditioner and keep your windows closed tight, but you get the idea. One driver in Maryland actually got pulled over on I-95 and the trooper asked him why he was going so slow. When the driver stated that he was trying to conserve gas, he ended up getting a ticket for not going the speed limit and basically for hypermiling. Hypermiling is supposedly saving some folks alot of gas. According to the MSNBC.com article, there are several claims of approaching 100 miles per gallon and one hypermiler says that his Honda hybrid usually gets about 70 miles per gallon and sometimes 80. Now that’s good gas mileage!  So, if you are interested in slowing down and trying to save some money, go to hypermiling.com and get some tips!  Good luck!

The Chevrolet Beat

According to MSNBC.com, General Motors is considering bringing their new mini car, the Chevrolet Beat, to the United States in the future.  According to leftlanenews.com, General Motors had introduced this vehicle along with two others at the New York Auto Show last year.  Currently, the Chevrolet Beat is not being made, but will be in the near future.  This vehicle is about the size of the Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris.  General Motors is doing some research and studying the options with this car, but they will not be bringing these cars to the U.S. anytime soon. It will first be rolled out in other global markets.  The Chevrolet Beat will be made in South Korea.  General Motors says that it needs to make the car meet the U.S. standards for emissions and safety before it can sell it in the U.S.  According to leftlanenews.com, here are the minimum specifics that are being given about the Chevrolet Beat right now….it will be a front-wheel drive, three-door hatchback, powered by a 1.2-liter turbocharged engine with an automatic transmission.  No other specifics have been given about the Chevrolet Beat, but I’m sure more details to follow soon.  Looks like a neat looking car that is small and compact and probably fuel efficient.

On Detnews.com, there is an article written by David Shepardson of the Detroit News Washington Bureau.  The article is called “Automakers: NHTSA fuel economy increase will cost up to 82,000 jobs.”  The article is about how the NHTSA is making the fuel efficiency standards quite high, and the automakers are furious about it because they say that this will really hurt their companies.  The NHTSA wants the fuel economy requirements to be 35.7 mpg for passenger cars and 28.6 mpg for light trucks starting with the 2011 model year.  According to the automakers, this is too excessive and this “goes beyond what is technologically feasible and economically practical.”  The automakers say that this proposal could eliminate anywhere from 9,000 to 82,000 jobs and reduce auto sales by as little as 98,000 vehicles or as many as 856,000 vehicles. 

Here is the question to ponder……clearly we are at a crossroads in the American society with the price of fuel quickly becoming less and less affordable to the average American.  So the question is this….do we move swiftly to a 35 mpg vehicle, some say yes, it will drive down the price of gasoline, our dependency on foreign oil, and help the environment, or do we move gradually to minimize the impact on the business community and our economy?  What do you think??????