EPA’s SmartWay makes driving ‘green’ easier

Dan Carney • E-mail

It’s not easy going "green," especially for car shoppers looking to buy a new set of eco-friendly wheels. How do you sort among the various ratings and specifications to determine which new cars are the cleanest?

There is a mind-numbing array of statistics to be weighed, including EPA gas mileage numbers, emissions scores with impenetrable names like “Tier II, Bin 5,” and grams of carbon dioxide per mile. This complex process virtually ensures that no shopper can have a clear idea of how to compare the overall “greenness” of one car over another.

Recognizing consumers’ need for a simple way to pick a clean vehicle, the EPA created the SmartWay program, which awards a SmartWay “Green Leaf” or a SmartWay “Elite Green Leaf” to the very cleanest of new cars.

The program started in 2004 as a way to rank the fuel efficiency of commercial trucks and  was so successful that in 2006 the agency decided to expand it to include passenger vehicles, said Mitch Greenberg, manager of the EPA SmartWay program.

“The primary goal for SmartWay is to create a demand for cleaner, more efficient transportation,” he said.

Of course all vehicle makers must meet minimum federal standards for pollution, as they do for crash safety. So the SmartWay program is designed to recognize vehicles with truly outstanding green credentials.

Cars are given two ratings by the EPA, on a scale of one to 10: An air pollution score and a greenhouse gas score. Vehicles that score more than 13 when the two scores are combined earn the SmartWay certification, so long as neither score is lower than a six. To get the SmartWay Elite certification, the car must score a nine or better in each category.

So far the natural gas-powered Honda Civic GX, the hybrid Toyota Prius and hybrid versions of the Civic, Nissan Altima and Toyota Camry have earned SmartWay Elite certification for the 2009 model year.

The score is a moving target to ensure that SmartWay-certified vehicles are in the top 20 percent of available models.

This will help SmartWay escape the fate of the federal "Five-Star” crash safety rating, which is achieved by most new models, robbing the achievement of any bragging rights.

Details of the SmartWay program can be found on the EPA’s Web site.

As the EPA has previously demonstrated with the Energy Star program for home appliances, consumers respond to this type of certification. Even if everyday drivers don't have as much financial incentive as commercial truck operators to shave their energy costs, many are interested in knowing which are cleanest for the environment, said Greenberg.

So far there’s no plan to place SmartWay certification on the so-called “Monroney” window stickers on all new cars which already list fuel economy ratings. But manufacturers that earn the certification are keen to advertise that fact, so they will likely apply static cling stickers to models in the showroom and lot so consumers can easily see which cars have scored a Green Leaf, Greenberg said.

Manufacturers have not yet started putting stickers on cars but are expected to do so soon, perhaps with the current 2009 model year, according to EPA.

Such support could be crucial to helping the program catch on.

“When you look at the hypercompetitive nature of our business, when consumer demand manifests itself then manufacturers engage in a race to go above and beyond mandated requirements,” said Greg Martin, General Motors’ director of global policy. 

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