Report reveals 2010 will be green year for US car firms

The US car industry finally seems to be cleaning up its act, according to ratings data published by automotive environmental monitoring service WhatGreenCar.

The site reported that its environmental rating for 2010 vehicles, based on known data, has improved by 6.6 per cent, more than tripling last year's improvement of 2.1 per cent.

WhatGreenCar rates vehicles by assessing the environmental impact of both the fuel cycle - the production, extraction, transportation, refining and use of fuel - as well as the vehicle cycle, which covers the manufacture, assembly and disposal of the car in question.

The ratings span a scale of zero, the most environmentally friendly, up to 100, the most polluting. As of this week, Lamborghini is the most polluting car range, according to the service, and has made no improvement over last year. Conversely, Mini is the most environmentally friendly vehicle range, with a rating of 45.1, representing a 10.1 per cent improvement over last year.

Numerous other high-profile manufacturers also delivered considerable improvements in vehicle efficiency and environmental friendliness.

Chevrolet was the brand with the biggest improvement, increasing its score by 20.3 per cent, compared to its 2009 vehicles. It was followed by GMC, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Mercury, Kia, Ford, Accura, Volkswagen, and Suzuki, respectively.

GM, which owns the Chevrolet range, has said that it expects the Chevrolet Volt, its plug-in hybrid car, to deliver a city fuel economy of a least 230 miles per gallon on a single charge per day. The company has said that at the average US cost of electricity (11 cents per kilowatt hour), a typical driver would pay around $2.75 to drive 100 miles. However, the Volt is likely to be a 2011-year vehicle, rather than a 2010 one.

The new data comes just days after the Obama administration formally adopted new fuel-efficiency rules that will require new cars and trucks to deliver an average fuel efficiency of 35.5mpg by 2016 – a move that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil and be equivalent to taking 42 million cars off the road.