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By Yet
Another Quality Measure, Toyota and Honda Are Best and GM and DaimlerChrysler -
Worst: The UCS 2007 Environmental Report
Auto on Info April 2007
By Yet Another Quality Measure, Toyota and Honda Are Best and GM and DaimlerChrysler - Worst: The UCS 2007 Environmental Report
By James B. Bleeker
Biennially, the Union of Concerned Scientists computes, from U.S. government EPA mileage estimates and the fuel type required, automobile model emissions that contribute to smog formation and global warming. These computations are performed for 10 classes of vehicles by eight automobile manufacturers (Toyota Motor Corporation, Honda Motor Company, Nissan Motor Company, Hyundai Motor Company/Kia Motors Corporation - both currently under the same ownership, Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, and DaimlerChrysler AG) that constitute 96% of the U.S. car and light truck market. After performing these computations, UCS computes fleet emission averages for the eight auto manufacturers, weighted by sales.
The most recent computations are summarized and discussed in a final report: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies, by Don MacKenzie, Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2007. This report summarizes the emissions for motor vehicles of model year 2005, the most recent year for which all of the data are available.
The Results
For the fourth consecutive biennium, Honda Motor Company ranks highest with the lowest fleet emission average at 78% of the emission average over all of the 2005 motor vehicles examined. Toyota Motor Corporation ranks second-highest with the second-lowest fleet emission average at 81%. The latter is a more notable achievement as Toyota has entries in all 10 classes of vehicles, while Honda lacks entries in 5 of the 10 classes - Large Cars, Station Wagons, Small Pickups, Large Pickups, and Large Sport-Utility Vehicles.
The following chart depicts the fleet emission averages of all 8 auto manufacturers relative to that of Toyota.
The negative percentage in the above chart depicts the percent reduction from Toyota's fleet emission average and the positive percentages depict the percent that each manufacturer's fleet emission average exceeds Toyota's. Consequently, the greatest negative percentage that is possible is -100% (if a company made only vehicles with no emissions) and the positive percentage has no bound.
Next, we do a breakdown of the pollutants into global-warming emissions and smog-forming emissions. With regard to global-warming emissions, Honda again ranks highest, for the fourth consecutive biennium, with the lowest fleet global-warming emission average at 85% of the global-warming emission average over all of the 2005 motor vehicles examined. By this measure, Toyota ranks second again (also for the fourth consecutive biennium) with the second-lowest fleet global-warming emission average at 86%.
The following chart depicts the fleet global-warming emission averages of all eight auto manufacturers relative to that of Toyota.
With regard to smog-forming emissions, Honda ranks best (again for the fourth consecutive biennium) at 70% and Toyota ranks second-best at 76%. The following chart depicts the fleet smog-forming emission averages of all eight auto manufacturers relative to that of Toyota.
From these charts it may be seen that Toyota and Honda are the most successful at engineering vehicles that minimize pollution and that DaimlerChrysler has the worst fleet emission average in all three categories and GM has the second-worst fleet emission average in two of the three categories.
The report also states that the reduction of global-warming emissions by use of E85 fuel is something very small and it appears that granting credit toward meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements by increasing production of vehicles that accept E85 fuel may be little more than a fraud on the American public. The report concludes, "Manufacturers would do much more to reduce global warming emissions if they satisfied fuel economy standards by selling more efficient vehicles, rather than exploiting the dual-fuel loophole."1
With regard to General Motors Corporation, a UCS analysis of the 2007 report remarks, "General Motors Corporation crawls out of the basement - barely. GM is the top peddler of vehicles rated at 15 mpg [miles per gallon] or worse in city driving."2
The reader may express his/her opinion on General Motors in a poll at the bottom of this news section.
1 Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies, by Don MacKenzie, Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, accessible from http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/honda-toyota-beat-detroit-in-0021.html
2 Clean Vehicles: Analysis: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car CompaniesUnion of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, at http://www.ucsusa.org/news/clean_vehicles/vehicles_health/automaker-rankings-2007.html
Sources for emission averages: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car Companies, by Don MacKenzie, Union of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, accessible from http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/honda-toyota-beat-detroit-in-0021.html, and Clean Vehicles: Analysis: Automaker Rankings 2007: The Environmental Performance of Car CompaniesUnion of Concerned Scientists, April 2007, at http://www.ucsusa.org/news/clean_vehicles/vehicles_health/automaker-rankings-2007.html
Related Web Pages Auto Manufacturer Awards and Honors Roster of Vehicles with 300,000 or More Miles Table of Toyota Reliability Percentranks Table of Toyota Reliability Grades
The following poll permits the reader to express his/her assessment on General Motors Corporation.
To view responses to the above poll, click here.
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Smog-formation emissions are determined by data on engine, transmission, and drive type and engine performance tests for each engine type. Fleet averages are weighted by sales.
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