CARB Unveils DriveClean, a New Web Tool to Help Consumers Pick Green Cars : Gas 2.0

CARB Unveils DriveClean, a New Web Tool to Help Consumers Pick Green Cars

Written by Susan Kraemer

Published on November 20th, 2009

Posted in Carbon Emissions, Fuel economy, Policy

California has just updated its Air Resources Board website to give consumers a wide range of information about all the alternative power cars coming out next year, from electric cars to diesel hybrids.

The new site—driveclean.ca.gov—offers well-organized data that ranks vehicles according to various emission and cost characteristics and provides tools to compare models on a variety of qualities, including the new incentives that low carbon emission vehicles qualify for: up to $5,000 for cars, and up to $15,000 for electric trucks or vans.

One aspect of the site is revolutionary: For the first time Americans will be able to compare models based on how many grams of CO2 each spews per mile.

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Last year the California legislature passed regulations to make auto makers put what amounts to an Energy Star sticker on their showroom models that provides information on fuel economy. For easy web comparisons, CARB has now put the same auto rating system on the revamped website.

Armed with this knowledge, consumers can choose the least polluting cars on the market. You can even run calculations to compare the running costs of different options, based on how many miles you actually drive.

The site is ready for next years all-electric vehicles like the LEAF and the Volt from the major automakers, and the hybrid-electric page offers many choices, but there is a strange omission. There is no mention of all the currently available neighborhood electric vehicles like GEMs, ZAPs and ZENNs, or freeway speed three-wheeled NMGs (all available at Go Green Motors in Berkeley for example) or even, for the most fortunate among us, the Tesla Roadster.

What ever is with that, CARB?

Electric cars are the very definition of low carbon drives, especially for Californians who are between 14% and 57% renewably powered—and that’s if you don’t have your own solar roof supplying 100% of your power.

Interestingly, to use the fairly understated site you need a reasonable level of web-sophistication. Take a squint at the orange GW and SS above the list of cars in this screenshot. Do those tiny orange initials really say “click me” to you? Me neither. But for lack of anything else to choose to find out just what 10 or 7 or 9 is of, you’ll click there, and find out all you need to make a great buy for your next vehicle.

You might not be in the market for a car right now, but this is a site you should bookmark for later.

Source: GreenCarCongress