Horizontally Opposed part 2: beware of the hybrid

Ok in Part 1 all of my focus was on improving MPG and the numerous ways automakers try to get better numbers, but there is more to being green than just churning out good MPG numbers. As mentioned in part 1, some vehicles that return good MPGs can sometimes contain polluting materials. But before I jump into polluting materials let me reveal this fact, from a research I saw some time ago and unfortunately I can't remember who did the research, I remember an interesting fact, 20% of a car's Carbon Dioxide footprint comes straight from the factory. Now because this is such a huge number, if you really are conscious about the environment you would be better off with your 20 year old 40mpg eco hatch rather than buying a brand new hybrid that can deliver 48mpg. Despite common belief, modern day cars are not as fuel efficient as vehicles of the past. Even with all the vario this and that the fact that modern cars weigh so much more than vehicles of the past, the weight bogs down the engine.

Now I'm not saying you should switch to buying an 80s ecobox, these cars are heavier for a reason. I mentioned in the first edition of this that vehicles are safer now and airbags, crash structures and stability systems weigh alot. To put this in perspective, I've decided to compare old vs new, The late 1980s Honda CR-X and the 2010 Honda CR-Z

Let me start off with straight up honest facts, the CR-Z is quite possibly the worst hybrid in production today. It love how it looks and I'm quite interested in the fact that this is the only hybrid on sale with a full manual transmission. But I'm warning you that as Jeremy Clarkson said "This is organic tofu dressed up as a big juicy steak." The fact is, despite it's hybrid "green intentions" the CR-Z really is a big lump of coal.

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