I have been hearing about green cars and hybrids for years now. Actually I have been hearing about them ever since Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio made it so ultra cool to be a celebrity and not drive a Range Rover.
Until I researched green cars I really wasn’t sure what they were all about; do you plug them in at night? Do they just have really good gas mileage? Is a hybrid car the same thing as a green car? And they’re so tiny how can they cost so much? So that is when I began to research green cars.
First of all there are different kinds of green cars. There are electric cars, hybrid cars and green cars. An electric car is just that a car you literally plug in and it charges. Electric cars have incredible gas mileage but of course there is that inconvenience of plugging it into charge the electric aspect of it. The power in electric cars has also been criticized especially when taking off at a stop sign or stop light.
Hybrid cars were apparently designed to be a compromise between the standard gas-guzzling car of this century and the power-limited electric cars. Now that you understand a little bit about green cars you can start deciding which is best for your first green car purchase.
The top five green cars by green rating (which means they’re as green as they come however are not ranked on comfort, affordability or performance) are:
1. Civic Hybrid
2. Prius Touring
3. Civic GX 5-speed
4. Tribute Hybrid Grand Touring (this is an SUV)
5. Mariner Hybrid (this is also an SUV)
The top three, being cars, all have green ratings in the 80s. The 4th and 5th in the rankings, being SUVs have ratings slightly lower at 76 however for those of you who have children or pets and need more space this is the perfect green option for you; a hybrid SUV.
The average cost of the first three is around $25,000 but these do come with leather and navigation so even though you’re going green you certainly aren’t skimping on class or style. The average mile-per-gallon for the Civic Hybrid and Prius Touring are 45/40 and 45/48 respectively and the average mile-per-gallon for the SUVs is 31/34.
As you see you have really no excuse not to go green with your vehicle as you can choose from class and style or rugged and sport-utility.
