Eco Friendly Car

Lillylilly

Hi all,

Just looking for advice- I'm looking to buy an inexpensive "first" car.
I really don't want to start driving, but unfortunatly I'll need it sometimes for my new job, but I'm looking for the most environmentally friendly one- I know very little about cars other than a lower litre engine is better!!

Any ideas?!?

Thanks lads!!!

Climate Expert

Lillylilly wrote: »

Hi all,

Just looking for advice- I'm looking to buy an inexpensive "first" car.
I really don't want to start driving, but unfortunatly I'll need it sometimes for my new job, but I'm looking for the most environmentally friendly one- I know very little about cars other than a lower litre engine is better!!

Any ideas?!?

Thanks lads!!!

So you know nothing about cars. Lower litre is better? For what?

Bmw do a 2.2 litre diesel engine that does 55mpg. You can get a 1. litre fiesta and it will do 40mpg.
You have to factor :
cost
mpg
performance
then if you are a weird green
Co2 total cost from manufacture
emissions quality.

Glowing

Climate Expert wrote: »

So you know nothing about cars. Lower litre is better? For what?

Ah for gods sake, he was only making the assumption that most of us make, and to be honest, it's generally correct. Lighten up for c's sake.

OP, if you don't want to spend a lot on your car, your best bet is to stick with a secondhand 1 litre, but just minimise the time you spend in it. Try to walk or cycle when possible - by not using the car for short spins, that's what's going to make the difference ultimately. You'll only get the high MPG on the longer trips anyway. Of course, if we could all afford BMW's or Prius, then great, but they're not going to save the planet if you use them to drive 1km down the road to the shop and for every other short journey.

What i'm trying to say is that your choice of car doesn't always make a difference, it's when you use it ..!

blackbox

Glowing wrote: »

What i'm trying to say is that your choice of car doesn't always make a difference, it's when you use it ..!

It's a shame that our tax system doesn't support this notion. The annual tax on cars with large engines is ridiculously high, irrespective if they only do very little distance.

As for lower taxes on Diesel engines which have more harmful emissions...

:mad:

Lillylilly

Glowing wrote: »

Ah for gods sake, he was only making the assumption that most of us make, and to be honest, it's generally correct. journey

My name kinda shows I am a girl!!!!!

Thanks for the bits of advice though! I'm training to be a Play Therapist and will need the car for transporting my tool kit around, other than that, it won't be used!

gerky

I not great on cars but as far as I know the Toyota yaris, Renault modus and twingo would be some the more environmentally friendly cars.
But it all really depends on a lot of things such as if your buying new or used what space you need and the likes.

You might get more help from people more in the know over in the motors forum HERE

sprinkles

seen one of these being driven by a smokin' stun-bun yesterday: www.greenaer.ie

Climate Expert

sprinkles wrote: »

seen one of these being driven by a smokin' stun-bun yesterday: www.greenaer.ie

What a load of rubbish. Where do people think the electricity comes from for running one of these.

Cardinal

A grid which will be forced to change to renewable forms of power generation as non-renewable fuels become too expensive to use.

sparkyjo

Climate Expert wrote: »

What a load of rubbish. Where do people think the electricity comes from for running one of these.

obviously people know were the electricity comes from but in reality it is a lot cheaper to run than the same size petrol or diesel car due to the fact that it is about 17c per kilowatt hour to charge this car at home and anyway only a very small portion of the population could even think of one of these because you can only go about 35 to 40 k away from your house as there is no charging stations

and of course the slower you go the further you go so it perfect for the grannies

blackbox

sparkyjo wrote: »

obviously people know were the electricity comes from but in reality it is a lot cheaper to run than the same size petrol or diesel car due to the fact that it is about 17c per kilowatt hour to charge this car at home

The only reason it's cheaper is because there is so much excise duty and VAT charged on motor fuels.

gerky

I don't think she was looking for this kind of stuff, I think she was looking for a recommendation.

As regards sprinkles site, the revai is far more environmentally friendly then a petrol or diesel.
And even if you drop the vat and excise off petrol afaik it still wouldn't bring the price even close to this electric car.
And from what I know of it I would recommend it if it suits a persons needs.

Please excuse my poor maths skills but would I be right in thinking with excise and vat dropped off, an average petrol car with decent millage would still cost between 5c and 8c a mile compared to a revai which would cost about 0.04c a mile.

Again excuse my maths skills or lack of.

Climate Expert

If you want to be green as possible buy an 8 year old car that might soon be scrapped.

Pollution for cars mostly happens during manufacture.
A lot of ignorant greens don't understand that when they buy their brand new prius (which only does about 42mpg anyway)

Keeping old cars on the road is a double edged sword, big savings in the energy used in building it's replacement against greater emissions from an older engine & worn out engines pollute more as well.

PS my car's almost 8 years old, I intend to run it till it's uneconomical to repair!

gerky

Climate Expert wrote: »

If you want to be green as possible buy an 8 year old car that might soon be scrapped.

Pollution for cars mostly happens during manufacture.
A lot of ignorant greens don't understand that when they buy their brand new prius (which only does about 42mpg anyway)

I'm kinda going off topic here but if your referring to the article that claimed prius produce more co2 than hummers in their production, Then afaik that theory was well and truly shot down by several groups who did the maths.
And afaik if your driving a prius in this country and only getting 42mpg then either there's something wrong with the car or the person driving it needs to learn to drive properly.

again sorry for going off topic.

meathstevie

Once again, the Prius is not the world saver it's made out to be. If you buy any modern directly injected turbo diesel, say from a 1.4 D4D Toyota Corolla to a 320d BMW and all the VW's , Skoda's , Audi's, Peugeots, Mitsubishi's and what have you in between you will come up with fuel usage figures that are on a par with the Prius and in a lot of cases better.

From personal experience : I used to have a 1999 Skoda Octavia 90 Bhp TDI. On long distance runs it consistently done over 60 mpg while on city and mixed driving it never done less than 47 mpg. I had the car for 4 years and when I sold it on it had just under 300K miles on the clock. When it finally get's ditched over 80% of the car can be recycled. Environmentally friendly or what ?

The least economical car and environmentally unfriendly car you can buy is an underpowered one that will operate at the limit of it's capability all the time and will use nowhere near the stated fuel consumption figures it will achieve in ideal conditions.

Anyway if you're considering buying new or young secondhand ( good deals to be gotten at the moment if you haggle, even consider England or the North ) my advice would be : Skoda Fabia TDI or Octavia TDI if you want bigger. And include the Toyota Coralla in that line as well. They're all cars that will benefit substantially from the new VRT system, are boringly relaible and go on a sniff of diesel ( even with current prices cheaper than an equivalent petrol due to extremely low fuel usage ).
Even for a first car you should buy as good as you can afford. If you're going to buy a "banger" it's only going to save you money when purchasing and costing you to keep it on the road.

Dopey

meathstevie wrote: »

Once again, the Prius is not the world saver it's made out to be. If you buy any modern directly injected turbo diesel, say from a 1.4 D4D Toyota Corolla to a 320d BMW and all the VW's , Skoda's , Audi's, Peugeots, Mitsubishi's and what have you in between you will come up with fuel usage figures that are on a par with the Prius and in a lot of cases better.

From personal experience : I used to have a 1999 Skoda Octavia 90 Bhp TDI. On long distance runs it consistently done over 60 mpg while on city and mixed driving it never done less than 47 mpg. I had the car for 4 years and when I sold it on it had just under 300K miles on the clock. When it finally get's ditched over 80% of the car can be recycled. Environmentally friendly or what ?

The least economical car and environmentally unfriendly car you can buy is an underpowered one that will operate at the limit of it's capability all the time and will use nowhere near the stated fuel consumption figures it will achieve in ideal conditions.

Anyway if you're considering buying new or young secondhand ( good deals to be gotten at the moment if you haggle, even consider England or the North ) my advice would be : Skoda Fabia TDI or Octavia TDI if you want bigger. And include the Toyota Coralla in that line as well. They're all cars that will benefit substantially from the new VRT system, are boringly relaible and go on a sniff of diesel ( even with current prices cheaper than an equivalent petrol due to extremely low fuel usage ).
Even for a first car you should buy as good as you can afford. If you're going to buy a "banger" it's only going to save you money when purchasing and costing you to keep it on the road.

You mention bringing a car in from England or the North. Is a used car (say 99') on the old tax regime or the new one?

I've read conflicting reports. Some say that the new VRT and motor tax for imported cars only applies to cars manufactured in 2008. Others say that it's any vehicle registered in Ireland after July 2008.

Sorry if I'm going off topic here.

badolepuddytat

if you import a car from the UK, it will be on the new VRT system from july first.

I did the mathc on a 2005 307 1.6hdi

Irish second hand: car zone gave it at 14500-15500 and it would be in the region of 380 on road tax (I think)

UK same car, 5k sterling (6300 Euro) + new VRT rate of 16% (2400) = 8700

road tax will be 150, so over three years saving 690 Euro.

So if you are buying a 2nd hand car after july, import an efficient one and you'll save a fortune!

Climate Expert

Nice bit on Top Gear on Sunday. They showed how terribly costly it is to make a Prius with all the Nickel mining involved.

They also showed it trying to go fast and getting 17mpg in the process. A 5litre M5 following it at a snails pace (it is a Prius) gets 19mpg.

Bottom line, get an M5.

probe

Lillylilly wrote: »

Hi all,

Just looking for advice- I'm looking to buy an inexpensive "first" car.
I really don't want to start driving, but unfortunatly I'll need it sometimes for my new job, but I'm looking for the most environmentally friendly one- I know very little about cars other than a lower litre engine is better!!

Any ideas?!?

Thanks lads!!!

What about the Fiat 500 diesel? Top speed 165 km/h. Consumption 3,6 l/100 km non-urban; 5,3 l/100 km urban. 0-100 km/h 12,5 sec. CO2 111 g/km. A stylish classic that might hold its value, particularly if you opt for leather seats and take care of it.

.probe