Battery power dominates this year's Green Car of the Year finalist tally.
Battery power dominates the finalist list for the increasingly significant Green Car of the Year award.
The much-publicized Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt are two of the most anticipated models to land on the list, along with the new Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and Lincoln MKZ Hybrid.
But it’s not all batteries all the time, jurors have made clear, adding the 2011 Ford Fiesta, with its fuel-efficient but conventional gasoline powertrain to the finalist’s tally.
“These five 2011 Green Car of the Year finalists reflect an auto industry in transition,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com. “It wasn’t long ago when electric drive was a novelty. Now, it’s expected that auto manufacturers will include electric drive in some form among their model offerings.”
The only conventionally-powered model on the finalist's list, the 2011 Ford Fiesta.
Perhaps but the independent-minded award has made it clear that it sees no single, silver bullet solution to the need to develop more enviro-friendly automobiles. Last year, notably, the Green Car of the Year award was presented to the diesel-powered Audi A3 TDI.
And award jurors added the Fiesta to emphasize the significant potential that still exists to improve conventional internal combustion engines. The 2011 subcompact is rated at 40 mpg in the EPA’s City cycle, pushing it up into hybrid territory.
But with the first in an anticipated flood of new battery-electric models just coming to market, there were few who doubted that the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevrolet Volt would be left off the finalists’ list.
Organizers say they considered vehicles that “raise the bar in environmental performance, including high efficiency gasoline internal combustion, advanced diesel, hybrids, electrics and vehicles capable of running on alternative fuels. (But) market significance and “newness” are also factors. All nominees must be on sale by January 1 of the award year.”
The jurors on the Green Car of the Year program include comic and car fanatic Jay Leno, Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope, and Jean-Michael Cousteau, president of the Ocean Futures Society.
The award will be presented at the Los Angeles International Auto Show next month.