Fuel Efficient Cars

Long before the results were available, the actual crash test of a smart fortwo used by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was released on YouTube. You can check out that clip here. The results have been released for the Good 12-winning fortwo, and it's a bit confusing. The IIHS gave the smart a 'Good' rating for front and side-impact crashes. Ratings don't get any better than 'Good' for these tests. Unfortunately, the rear-impact whiplash protection of the smart was rated at... Read Full Story

Is The Smart Car Really A Smart Move? The Smart Car is making its debut in America and it is being received quite well. Mercedes Benz owns Smart. The Smart ForTwo went on sale in the US in January 2008. Soon you will see these little things all over the place. They are going to be very popular in places such as New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. You can park them just about anywhere. “The vehicle is designed to achieve 40 city/45 highway mpg according to... Read Full Story

By Chris Haak 10.26.2007 At the Tokyo Auto Show, Honda confirmed that the 2009 US Accord will have an optional 2.2 liter diesel engine. Boost levels, and therefore output, have not yet been finalized, but it's expected to make at least 150 horsepower and 260 lb-ft. of torque, while likely eclipsing the fuel economy of both the old V6 Accord Hybrid and the current Toyota Camry Hybrid. This will be an impressive engine for several reasons. Other than the respectable power and torque for a... Read Full Story

Being partially funded by the UK government, the eco-friendly LifeCar project is bringing excitement and more support for zero-emissions technology. The new sleek concept car is to run on hydrogen fuel cells powered by a regenerative braking system (seen in hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight). As the driver brakes the car slows down, the system captures energy which is lost in ’standard or typical’ cars and used to recharge the batteries. Unfortunately, the lightweight car... Read Full Story

Perhaps the timing is ripening for a GCBC Lowdown on the smart fortwo. Perhaps this post would be aptly named a rundown - a simple mathematical view of the new smart fortwo. Canada sees a somewhat different fortwo than that which is available to the Americans. Canada fills their Mercedes-Benz designed smart fortwo's with diesel; Americans use gasoline. Canada will be seeing the second generation of smart's, and so will the USA. But this is the first smart to clear American customs... Read Full Story

A large percentage of Earth's population hears Toyota and thinks Land Cruiser. Those people live in Africa. Over the first wwfew years of this millenium, Toyota has aligned itself so closely with the word "hybrid" that the corporation is perceived to be "very green". When it comes to automobile manufacturers in 2007, laying claim to enviro-friendliness is similar to Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Red Bull fighting over which of the three is the healthiest. Get it? Automobiles around the... Read Full Story

After filling up a gas guzzling Chevrolet rental car the other day, I thought again how we were impacting our carbon footprint and how we could do a lot better by using hybrid rental vehicles. Ever since New York City mayor Bloomberg announced his five-year plan to phase in an all hybrid taxi fleet, I thought about impacts of cars in Florida. Previously, I posted here about the current state of Florida's fleet of vehicles. Left, Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News; right, Chris Hondros/Getty... Read Full Story