Cars and Drivers

This Is the Car That Pollutes the Environment the Least

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: April 12, 2022 11:12 am

The future of green cars has become confused. It may be boosted by rising oil prices triggered mostly by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the federal government may drop some emission regulations to put less pressure on car companies to sell fuel-efficient cars.

What cannot be stopped is the investment the industry has made in electric vehicles (EVs). Tesla has gone from obscurity a decade ago to a company with a market cap of $1 trillion. Its chief executive officer, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world. And Tesla will sell close to 500,000 cars in 2022, both in the United States and in other developed nations around the world.

Every major car company is chasing Tesla. While some may say they want to help the environment, this may not be their primary motivation. The expected demand for EVs has caused major U.S., European, Japanese and South Korean manufacturers to make at least half their fleets electric by 2030. This, in turn, will require tens of billions of dollars in investment.

Another factor that could drive EV adoption is the availability of public charging stations. There are over 100,000 gas stations in America and just a few thousand for EV charging stations. That creates a convenience hurdle.

Some car companies have chosen an alternative way to reach the fuel-efficient consumer. They have made and marketed hybrids, which run partially on gasoline and partially on electric engines.

For its recent The World’s Cleanest and Greenest Cars report, financial services comparison website Confused.com used vehicle certification agency data from 2015 to 2021. Among the measures used were petrol/electric or petrol/diesel, producing a maximum of 75g/km of CO2 emissions for hybrids and zero fuel consumption (mpg and 0 CO2 g/km) for EVs.

The car with the lowest emissions was the Nissan Altima SV/SL. Here are the 10 most fuel-efficient cars: