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Meet the Greenest and Meanest vehicles of 2016

If you've been keeping track, you won't be surprised with the number one entry in this year's list of greenest cars from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). In fact, the top three spots on the 2016 list are all the same as they were in 2015. After that, things get interesting. For one thing, this is the first Greenest list that doesn't have any purely internal combustion engine powertrain on it. Hybrids, yes, but if you want to be one of the top 12 greenest cars this year, you'd better have some sort of electric angle. ACEEE says that the conventional, gas-powered Smart Fortwo and Chevrolet Spark just missed the cut. In a statement, ACEEE lead vehicle analyst Shruti Vaidyanathan said, "The 2016 scores are in, and plug-in electric vehicles are outpacing all other vehicle offerings in terms of environmental friendliness." Like last year, one of the noticeable vehicles missing from the green list is the Tesla Model S. One reason? ACEEE takes curb weight into account (lighter is better), and the Model S is a heavy beast. The ACEEE doesn't just look at the clean side of the ledger. It also puts out a "meanest" list. These are the vehicles that pollute the most, not only from their tailpipes, but also any pollution created during the entire manufacturing process, from mining the raw materials to the energy used to produce the vehicle at the factory. The entire list, from greenest to meanest, is done using a "cradle to grave" analysis. You can see how the ACEEE determines its rankings here, explore the entire greenest cars site here, or click through our galleries to see which vehicles are extra green (above) or extra mean (below) this year. 12: Mercedes-Benz GL550 4MATIC View 12 Photos More Electric Cars than Ever on Greenest Vehicles List Electric Vehicles Nab 9 out of Top 12 Spots in ACEEE's Environmental Vehicle Rankings Washington, DC: Despite a tumultuous year for the automotive industry, manufacturers have continued to offer exciting technology options for a growing vehicle market. Today at greenercars.org, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released its 19th annual comprehensive environmental ratings for vehicles. The following vehicles comprise the Greenest List for 2016: Greenest Score 1. Mercedes-Benz Smart ForTwo Electric Drive Convertible / Coupe 63 2. Chevrolet Spark EV 63 3. Fiat 500E 62 4. Toyota Prius Eco 61 5. Volkswagen E-Golf 61 6. Nissan Leaf S / Leaf SV 61 7. Kia Soul Electric 59 8.

Watch Formula Drift Championship leader Chris Forsberg drift a 1975 Datsun 280Z

Chris Forsberg won the Formula Drift Championship in 2009, was in the catbird seat to win it last year until the final race of the season and started this year's season with a win at Long Beach. That is how he can be provide the example for Clarion USA's tagline, "Dream like a champion."
In this three-minute video for the audio components manufacturer, Forsberg gives up the race suit for a corporate suit, then takes time out of his commute to think about what he'd rather be doing. In a 1975 Nissan 280Z with a turbocharged 2.0-liter Skyline RBDET20 engine. We're sure this has never happened to any of you before.
You can watch how dream begins - and suddenly ends - in the video below.

DC fast charging not as damaging to EV batteries as expected

As convenient as DC fast charging is, there have been lots of warnings that repeated dumping of so many electrons into an electric vehicle's battery pack in such a short time would reduce the battery's life. While everyone agrees that DC fast charging does have some effect on battery life, it may not be as bad as previously expected. Over on SimanaitisSays, Dennis Simanaitis, writes about a recent presentation by Matt Shirk of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) called DC Fast, Wireless, And Conductive Charging Evaluation Projects (PDF) that describes an ongoing test of four 2012 Nissan Leaf EVs that are being charged in two pairs of two. One pair only recharges from 50-kW DC fast chargers, which the other two sip from 3.3-kW Level 2 chargers exclusively. Otherwise, the cars are operated pretty much the same: climate is automatically set to 72 degrees, are driven on public roads around Phoenix, AZ and have the same set of dedicated drivers is rotated through the four cars. "Degradation depends more on the miles traveled than on the nature of recharging." What's most interesting are the charts on page seven of Shirk's presentation (click the image above to enlarge), which show the energy capacity of each of the four vehicles. When they were new, the four batteries were each tested to measure their energy capacity and given a 0 capacity loss baseline. They were then tested at 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000 miles, and at each point, the DC-only EVs had roughly the same amount of battery loss as the Level 2 test subjects. The DC cars did lose a bit more at each test, but only around a 25-percent overall loss after 40k, compared to 23 percent for the Level 2 cars. Simanaitis' takeaway is that, "INL data suggest that the amount of degradation depends more on the miles traveled than on the nature of recharging." The tests are part of the INLs' Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity work and a final report is forthcoming. These initial numbers from IPL do mesh with other research into DC fast charging, though. Mitsubishi said daily fast charging wouldn't really hurt the battery in the i-MiEV and MIT tests of a Fisker Karma battery showed just 10-percent loss over 1,500 rapid charge-discharge cycles.