How Green is Your Car? - Part 2

By Ceri Balston

Fuel Consumption and CO² Emissions

Reducing the amount of fuel a car consumes to get from A to B is not only going reduce the amount of CO² it emits but considering current rumours of the price of oil reaching $100/barrel some day soon it will also help your wallet to breathe a little easier.

The size of the car is one of the biggest factors affecting its fuel economy. The general trend is simple; the bigger the car the bigger the engine, which in turn means a bigger thirst for petrol. To give you an example the gargantuan BMW X5 with its 4.4 litre engine averages around 16 litres/100km. Compare this to one of the most efficient small cars around, the Polo 1.4 TDi which achieves a lless than 5 litres/100km.

Any decent car magazine will give you a list of stats to let you compare the fuel efficiency of the cars you're interested in buying. You may not of course be able choose the most efficient car around due to constraints like living on top of an extremely rocky mountain where the roads are particularly prone to flooding but you can at least choose the most efficient car that suits your needs. A beastly juggernaut 4x4 monster may make you nice and comfortable (and maybe a little superior with your elevated view) but do you really need it to get from Bryanston to Sandton and back again everyday. Last time I checked all the roads were covered in tarmac.

Apart from looking in car magazines to find useful stats there are also a number of good websites around that can give you a reasonably accurate measurement of how much CO² your car will emit. I'd recommend checking out www.smmtco2.co.uk. It is a UK site so not all the models that we get here are covered, at least not always under the same name, but with a little imagination and research you should be able to find the equivalent.

Why don't you use that website to compare your car to the two that I mentioned above and see where you fit in? How green are you right now? And if you're looking to buy a new car why don't you check out its fuel economy and CO² rating and make a choice that suits the environment more than your ego.

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