"Practically" Zero Emissions Vehicles

While Subaru is generally more famous for rally shenanigans than fuel efficiency, by no means are they known for that alone. Subaru is also very friendly to the environment.

In fact, long before SUVs bore the stigma they bear today, Subaru was making what we now know as "crossovers". I'd go as far as saying they invented the genre with the original Outback.

There is very little that an SUV can do that an Outback can't. And anyone with even the slightest environmental conscience can see that. 90% of the "work" an average, soccer-mom driven, SUV does can be accomplished by a moderately sized wagon. Even those who makes an excuse to own an SUV by claiming they need the added traction of 4 wheel drive have no excuse since Subaru has that covered as well. Perhaps that's why Subaru is one of the only brands not posting losses month after moth ever since the gas price spike of last summer. They give you cake, and let you eat it too.

What's this about "zero emissions" though? Subaru's run on gas like any other internal combustion engine powered vehicles on the roads today. They aren't hybrids, and they certainly aren't EVs. In fact, due to the added weight and resistance of the all-wheel drivetrain, a Subaru vehicle will almost always be slightly less fuel efficient than a similarly sized 2 wheel drive counterpart. It's a small price to pay for drivers who live in a climate where the roads are snow and/or ice covered for 4+ months of the year.

That being said, Subarus can be "green". The Legacy model range (including the Outback) is manufactured at Subaru's production facility in Indiana, which is a zero landfill plant. Yes, a factory that produces 200,000 cars a year has 0% waste. 99.8% is recycled, and the last 0.2% is incinerated according to EPA requirements (otherwise I'm sure they'd find a way to recycle that too).

Even more interesting than that is the fact that Subaru produces three models in the Legacy range that are classified as PZEVs, or "Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles". (Yes, that's a bit of an oxymoron... it either is, or it isn't zero emissions. I prefer my own definition of "practically" zero emissions.)

What does PZEV mean though?

It means that the cars built to that standard are fanatically clean. Vehicles sold in North America are among the cleanest ever due to the uber-strict emissions laws in the state of California. PZEV vehicles are a further 90% cleaner than even that!

The only cars on the roads cleaner than a PZEV are those that run on no fuel at all, solely on batteries!

The U.S. EPA rates vehicles on a scale of 10 for cleanliness. An electric scores 10. The average new car today scores about 6. A hybrids scores about 8.

A Subaru PZEV scores 9.5!

Emissions from the tailpipe of a PZEV can even be cleaner than the ambient air in urban areas.

And all this environmental friendliness doesn't come with a premium price tag either. The PZEV equipment is standard on the base model of the Legacy sedan and wagon, as well as the lower intermediate model of the Outback.

For a full road test review of the Subaru PZEV you check out this article on Sympatico/MSN.

And then be sure to check out Subaru's official PZEV mini-site at subarupzev.ca to decide which affordable, eco-friendly vehicle alternative is best for you.

Size & Weight Matter

It sometimes surprises me how rarely people realize this, but fuel economy isn't only about the size of the engine or the number of cylinders.

Big, huge SUVs are heavy. Small, sub-compact cars are light. The bigger and heavier an object is, the more energy (read: fuel) is needed to move it around. Cars and trucks have steadily gotten bigger and heavier over the last 20+ years, and subsequently the engines have become more and more powerful to deal with this. In spite of the fact that technology has advanced, the simple fact is that a more powerful engine needs more fuel to produce that power.

Yet, the North American obsession with SIZE has blinded so many people to this fact until very recently. The trends of the past decade have dug the deep hole we're all in now, and it took $4/gallon gas to smack Americans upside the head before they finally saw the problem. Everyone wanted to buy the biggest SUV they could afford, and now suddenly they're paying the consequences.

And this was all about "want"... nothing more.

Need... what's that?

The idea of responsible car buying was so utterly far from most consumer's minds for years, and now our roads are cluttered with 6000 pounds behemoths greedily gobbling up gas at a rate of 10-15 miles per gallon.

And then the bottom fell out!

The Big 3 can't give their trucks away and it seems like every week another truck plant belonging GM or Ford is shut down and shortly thereafter plans are announced to convert said plant to producing a particular small car platform.

Excessive fuel consumption is just the plight of the large SUV either.

The "crossover" SUV is smaller and lighter than a conventional SUV. Which in itself, is a good thing. However, these crossovers are really nothing more than a conventional car chassis jacked up for a few extra inches of ground-clearance and perhaps an optional all-wheel-drive system to give them a pretense of off-road capability. In short, they are nothing more than extra heavy cars.

Take, for example, the Mitsubishi Outlander crossover SUV. It's powered by a 2.4L 4-cylinder. The same 2.4L engine that also powered the Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback a few years ago. At that time my mother was in the market for a new vehicle and insisted on getting a SUV. Her reasoning was "I can see better higher up. I feel safer in a truck. I need space for the dog." She finally decided to buy an Outlander 2WD.

Why an Outlander instead of a Lancer Sportback? I wondered that myself. For all intents and purposes, they are nearly the same vehicle with naught more than a few inches of ground clearance difference between them. Her Outlander is nothing more than a glorified 4-door hatchback.

As for her reasoning:

"I can see better higher up" - Granted the Outlander is higher. What exactly are you trying to see from that vantage point though? Sails on the horizon? She's driven standard height cars all her life prior to the Outlander and she saw fine up until that point.

"I feel safer in a truck" - the IIHS rates the Outlander "Good" (their highest rating) in frontal impact testing, yet "Poor" (their lowest rating) in side impacts. Owning a "truck" is not making her any safer in this case since the Lancer has the exact same ratings. Underneath the sheetmetal they're quite likely nearly the same vehicle.

"I need space for the dog" - the Lancer Sportback has 24.9 cubic feet of cargo capacity with the seats folded up and 61 cu.ft. with them folded down. The Outlander, the truck she felt she needed so as to get all that extra space, has 24.4 cu.ft. (seats up) or 60 cu.ft. (seats down).

So basically, like too many others, it came down to "wants" and not needs. The simple fact is that she wanted a truck and there would be no convincing her otherwise. She has no extra cargo space, and she's no more safer than if she'd have purchased the equivalent car.

In the final tally, what did her truck provide? Well, yes... a higher vantage point.

And some utterly atrocious handling to go with that higher vantage point.

By the numbers, one last thing... about 10% worse fuel economy. The same engine provides motivation to both the Lancer Sportback and the Outlander... yet the added height, weight, and aerodynamic drag of the larger crossover costs nearly 10% more at the pump.