California is well known as a leader in automobile policy, particularly when it relates to the environment. This means that no matter where you live, it’s always good to stay up-to-date on what California is trying because there is a good chance it’s eventually coming to you.
Buying a new car is complicated. You have to consider price, financing, safety, fuel efficiency, reliability, type, size, color, history, options, and insurance costs. Starting January 1st, 2009, all new cars in California will have an Environmental Performance (EP) label. Add that to your list.
The new label scores a vehicle’s Global Warming and Smog emissions from 1-10 with the HIGHEST score being the cleanest vehicle. A score of 5 is the average for all new cars in that cars class. The Smog Average is more like a median for all new cars available, not new cars sold. The Global Warming Average is more like a mathematical average. If you’re really interested in how the averages are calculated, go here.
This is great, right? Well, yes and no. For people that are buying a car because it is better for the environment than other cars, this is wonderful. Unfortunately, that’s not most people and there’s some history here to back up this point. When Toyota released the Prius, they marketed it based on environmental friendliness because they thought that’s what would sell the car. When gas prices started increasing and Toyota saw their Prius sales increase, they realized that people were buying Prius’ because they wanted to save money on gas and the environmental component was secondary.
Don’t get me wrong, the EP label is a welcome addition to the wealth of information we already have available about cars. However, if we really want people to buy more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly cars, put a label on the car showing them how much money they will save in gas – that’s what people want.
Here’s a suggestion for car buyers. Use some logic and intuition to determine what car is right for you. I haven’t seen the data, but I’m guessing that fuel efficiency correlates really well with Environmental Performance. If you use only use safety, reliability, fuel efficiency to choose the car and then buy a used car so you don’t get stuck with the new car premium, you’ll probably get a car that’s great for you.
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