Green Vehicle Disposal – Automotive News Blog

Standard Auto Wreckers – Niagara Falls New York – Nov. 2, 2011

We are proud supporters of America Recycles Day this month on the 15th.  It is a great time to spread the word about how important the auto recycling industry is to the future of a greener planet!  According to the Automotive Recyclers Association, the industry’s international trade association, just about everything in your car – from the floor mats and instrument panels to the upholstery, aluminum and steel – can be recycled for use in a new automobile or other consumer products.

Approximately 84% of each vehicle is recycled and during this process six million tires and millions of gallons of antifreeze, oil, gasoline and oil are recycled.  Automobile recycling recovers enough steel to produce almost 13 million automobiles and saves an estimated eleven million gallons of oil that would otherwise be needed to manufacture new automobile parts.  We spoke with David Gold (owner of Standard Auto Wreckers) and he said, “Most people don’t realize it but auto recycling is the original green industry and automobiles are currently the most recycled consumer product in the entire world”.

The efforts of automotive recyclers not only preserve natural resources and conserve landfill space, but they also reduce air and water pollution that would otherwise occur in the manufacturing process of building new cars.  We would like to tip our hat to David Gold and the rest of the auto recyclers in our network and across North America and the world.  Keep up the good work!!!!

Zoom, zoooooom!  The car, nicknamed “Electric Blue” was built by BYU engineering students and was competing in the Streamliner E1 class. Streamliner cars are typically long, low to the ground, slender and bullet-shaped. The E1 class also has a weight limit of less than 1,100 pounds. Because electric cars rely on heavy batteries, engineering a speedy vehicle at such a light weight is very difficult. That’s why there were no prior certified speed runs for this class, although unofficial standards reached the 130s.

Republicans are calling on Congressional investigators to expand their probe of the Obama Administration’s “green energy” loan program to include Fisker, the start-up electric car company that received more than $500 million in federal support but is assembling its high-end sports sedan in Finland.

“We need to extend the investigation,” Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who sits on the committee that has been investigating the government’s loan program, told ABC News in an interview for reports on World News and Nightline that air tonight. “If they couldn’t find someone to build the car in the U.S., then don’t do it. Find another way. Find something else.”

Read the full article here.

I was shocked as will most readers be.  Which is more environmentally friendly: a motorcycle, with its little motor, or a car, with its big one?

The surprising answer, as it turns out, is the car, according to a segment on the Discovery Channel series MythBusters, which opened its new season on Wednesday.

On the show, the MythBusters tested three cars and three motorcycles, one each from 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. They measured fuel efficiency as well as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitric oxide emissions. Kent Johnson, an assistant research engineer at the University of California-Riverside, oversaw the analysis of the data that showed harmful pollutants from the tested motorcycles exceeded those from the cars tested, the university reports.

Read the entire article here.

It is pretty much anticipated that over the next 20 years everyone will be considering a green car!  As more variety and styles become available more people are taking the leap over to the green-side!   Do green cars make sense – dollars and cents?

Jessica Anderson is an associate editor for autos at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

“It’s kind of a mixed bag depending on which green car you buy,” she says. “You may end up saving more money than the gasoline version of the car or you may not.”

For its September issue, Kiplinger ran the numbers – the cost of ownership for the average driver over a five-year period. The question: do the fuel savings make up for the higher sticker price of a green vehicle.

“We figure five years is enough because it’s the typical length of ownership for most people, and if you haven’t seen your gas savings by five years, you’re probably going to be very frustrated,” says Anderson.

She says they were surprised at how well the two electric vehicles, the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf did when compared to the closest gas-powered match. They compared the Volt with the Chevy Cruze LTZ and the Nissan Leaf SV with the Nissan Versa S Hatchback.

“And while both of them cost about $18,000 more than the gasoline models, the Volt comes within $1,500 of Cruze’s ownership costs over five years, and the Leaf is only $800 more than a Versa over five years because they do save so much,” Anderson says.

Hybrids are the most popular green machines. They do cut gas use. They are good for the environment. But what about your pocketbook? Anderson says they’re all over the place – depending on the model.

“You can be getting a really great deal like the Mercedes-Benz S400 hybrid. It’s actually the cheapest S-class that you can buy. And you save about $7,000 over five years. Conversely, another popular model, the Lexus LS600 hybrid, it costs more than $36,000 more than its gasoline counterpart and you lose all of that. It does not save money over the gasoline engine.”

After looking at all the numbers, Anderson tells me the decision whether to buy a green vehicle has a lot to do with what you want.

“If your goal is to be good to the environment, the premium and the savings is not going to be something that is ultimately a make-or-break situation for you. But if your goal is to save money, run the numbers, really do as much as you can to find out about the long-term costs because some of the green cars will save you a lot and some of them really won’t.”

Make sure to do your research and find not only a car that will help the planet stay green, but one you will enjoy driving!