Most Fuel Efficient Cars In 2015 (USA)

 

Our “most fuel efficient cars in 2014” article was one of the most popular articles on the site for a long time… and now it’s time for an update. Of course, US cars just keep getting more and more efficient, especially electric cars, which lead the pack. The most efficient cars on the market are all electric cars. In fact, every electric car on the market is more efficient than even the most efficient conventional hybrid car (the Toyota Prius). Some of them are more than twice as efficient. As you scroll through the list below, note that the Prius has a MPG rating of 50.

If you are not familiar with MPGe, it is a rating created by the EPA to determine the relative efficiency of an electric car compared to a gasoline car. Technically, it means “miles per gallon equivalent.” There are various assumptions that go into that efficiency rating, and how clean your electric car actually is is largely dependent on your electricity source, but MPGe is generally good for comparing to conventional gasmobiles and hybrids.

Before jumping into the “most fuel efficient cars in 2015” list, I’ll note that there’s a full table of US and European (not rated) electric cars under the article, and there’s more information about all of these cars on our “Electric Cars 2015” page.

On to the list! Here are the top 10 most fuel efficient cars in the US in 2015 (and I will update this as more electric cars arrive on the market in 2015):

1. BMW i3 — 124 MPGe

2. Chevy Spark EV — 119 MPGe

3. Volkswagen e-Golf — 116 MPGe

3. Fiat 500e — 116 MPGe

5. Nissan LEAF — 114 MPGe

6. Mitsubishi i-MiEV — 112 MPGe

7. Smart Electric Drive — 107 MPGe & 107 MPGe

8. Kia Soul EV — 105 MPGe

8. Ford Focus Electric — 105 MPGe

10. Tesla Model S (60 kWh) — 95 MPGe

BMW i3 Wins New Zealand Car Of The Year 2015 Award

The BMW i3 has been selected as the winner of the New Zealand Car of the Year Award for 2015.

The model — which apparently costs $83,500 in the country — beat out 9 other finalists from among a shortlist created by the NZ Motoring Writers Guild. This shortlist included the Volvo XC90, the Ford Mondeo, the Audi Q7, the Land Rover Discovery Sport, the Hyundai Tucson, the Subaru Outback/Legacy, and 3 offerings from Mazda (the MX-5, the CX-3, and the Mazda2 super-mini).

The New Zealand Car of the Year (COTY) award winner is apparently selected based on rather amorphous criteria, with neither pricing or other segment criteria necessarily being factored in to a notable degree.

 provides more:

There are no categories and no specific price or segment criteria for the winning car. The shortlist is simply comprised of what the COTY Committee agrees are the 10 most worthy cars launched during the year, with the winning car chosen by a ranking system.

The NZ Car of the Year has been a joint venture between the Guild and AA since 2012. Each year an expert panel selects a shortlist of 10 cars launched within the previous 12 months, which then goes out to the wider Guild membership for voting. The judges consider styling, economy, comfort, interior design, build quality and finish, practicality, value for money and the more ethereal X-factor.

Cars must be tested by a majority of Guild members to be eligible for the shortlist and the judges vote to an established scoring system to decide one winner. The Guild has presented an independent COTY award since 1988. Past winners since partnership with the AA in 2012 include the Toyota 86 sports car, Volkswagen Golf and Mazda3.

In addition to the winning of the Car of the Year Award, the BMW i3 also won best in class for the “Compact Car” segment. Here’s the full list of “best in class” winners:

• Small car: Mazda2
• Compact car: BMW i3
• Medium/large car: Mercedes-Benz C-Class
• Luxury car: Hyundai Genesis
• Small SUV/Crossover: Mazda CX-3
• Medium SUV: Hyundai Tucson
• Large SUV: Hyundai Santa Fe
• Luxury SUV: Volvo XC90
• Utility: Ford Ranger
• Sports Performance: Mercedes AMG C 63

Tesla Crushes Nissan & GM In 2015 Electric Car Sales

I’m still waiting for all of the 2015 automotive sales numbers to roll in before publishing my monthly electric car sales report, but the numbers from most of the big players are in, so I thought it would be worth highlighting the main story.

Nissan sold 17,269 LEAFs in 2015 (including one to CleanTechnica/EV Obsession). GM sold slightly fewer Volts (15,393), but more electric cars overall (an additional 1,024 ELRs and 2,477 Spark EVs through the end of November — I’m still waiting on the Spark EV’s December numbers, since GM doesn’t bother to break it out from the gasoline Spark in the main press release and table). Ford’s numbers fall somewhere between Nissan’s and GM’s. So, basically, the top 3 electric car automakers other than Tesla each hit between 17,000 and 19,000 electric car sales in 2015.

Tesla doesn’t break out US sales versus foreign sales, but it did indicate last year that it delivered slightly more than half of its cars to the US. With something similar projected for 2015 (in which 50,580 Teslas were delivered), I ended up with an estimate of 26,566 Tesla Model S deliveries and 208 Tesla Model X deliveries (all of them so far). That puts Tesla atnearly 27,000 US electric car deliveries (and many more orders and reservations, it should be noted, especially for the Model X).

By any measure, Tesla is crushing mainstream automakers in electric car sales on its home turf, the USA. Imagine if the mainstream automakers tried as hard as Tesla and put their banks full of cash into quickening the transition to EVs…

Here’s my current spreadsheet for monthly and total 2015 US electric car sales:

Photos by Zachary Shahan 

WaiveCar — Ad-Supported Car-Sharing Program In LA Lets You Drive For Free

January 30th, 2016 by James Ayre

A new ad-supported carsharing program was recently launched in Los Angeles, giving residents the option of “renting” a Chevy Spark EV for 2 hours for free, according to recent reports.

As one should be able to surmise, the new program pays for itself via the advertising signs mounted on the roofs of the cars — that said, users are apparently billed for usage greater than 2 hours at a time (at $6 an hour).

The new service is known as “WaiveCar.” As alluded to above, it utilizes a fleet of 20 of Chevy’s popular electric compliance car model, the Spark EV. The company is apparently aiming to grow this fleet to number 200 vehicles within the near future, though.

Green Car Reports provides more:

“We’re giving to the lower-income people that need cars,” and taking from wealthy companies that pay for advertising, WaiveCar CEO Isaac Deutsch told Digital Trends.

…The WaiveCar fleet currently consists of Chevrolet Spark EV electric cars, so its business model dovetails nicely with current state policies. California lawmakers are eager to give lower-income individuals greater access to electric cars. New rules for the state’s incentive program increase the size of purchase rebates for lower-income buyers, and add income caps on eligibility. But free two-hour car rentals could be an effective solution as well, assuming WaiveCar’s model scales up successfully.

The service’s recent launch was a soft one of sorts — with availability only available in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, as of right now. Following this trial period, the service will then be expanded elsewhere — presuming that all goes well, that is.

Top Electric Car Models & Top Electric Car Companies

In our 4th article pulled from Electric Cars: What Early Adopters & First Followers Want — a new report from CleanTechnica, EV Obsession, and GAS2 — I’m jumping into which electric car models respondents were most likely to buy and most excited, as well as some implications regarding certain car companies.

Without surprise, current EV ownership matched historical EV sales fairly well — 33.9% had theNissan LEAF, 21.4% the Tesla Model S, 16% the Chevy Volt, 6.5% the BMW i3, and then much smaller percentages had numerous other electric cars.

Importantly, I think this indicates that the EV-driver respondents are quite representative of the broader EV consumer market, which bodes well for making broad generalizations from this report.

More interesting than the cars people currently have (which we already basically know anyway) were the electric cars people intended to buy and were most excited about. Naturally, these results weren’t a huge surprise either, as there are just a few very exciting electric models publicly planned for market in the coming few years, but it was interesting to see how the preferences were split. Breaking out results for each model, here are the 7 hottest electric vehicles:

Model 3

39% owners expect to buy next
55% of potential owners expect to buy
53% owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV
56% of potential owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV

Model X

12% owners expect to buy next
17% of potential owners expect to buy
13% owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV
15% of potential owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV

Model S

10% owners expect to buy next
20% of potential owners plan to buy

Chevy Volt (1.0 + 2.0)

7% owners expect to buy next
23% of potential owners expect to buy
5% owners more excited about Volt 2.0 than any other new/coming EV
5% of potential owners more excited about Volt 2.0 than any other new/coming EV

Chevy Bolt

6% owners expect to buy next
17% of potential owners expect to buy
8% owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV
4% of potential owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV

Nissan LEAF (1st-Gen)

6% owners expect to buy next
8% of potential owners plan to buy

Long-Range Nissan

5% owners expect to buy next
33% of potential owners expect to buy
10% owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV
6% of potential owners more excited about this than any other new/coming EV

There are a few other long-range and competitively affordable electric cars tentatively planned for market, but their release dates are less certain, which likely caused them to rank lower.

However, another reason they don’t have as much buyer interest or enthusiasm may be due to Nissan, GM, and Tesla benefiting from “first-mover advantage.” The Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, and Tesla Model S were the first genuinely mass-market electric vehicles in the United States. Many more of them have been sold than any other electric car models. Both early adopters and EV enthusiasts eager to join the EV movement seem to trust these companies and want to reward them for their leadership in this sector.

Potential EV Drivers

Current EV Drivers

Tesla clearly stands out, even far above Nissan and GM, in consumer interest. I had a little fun with a couple of questions about the electric car company, and the results were impressive: 54.2% of EV owners/lessees self-identified as fanbois/fangurls (typically derogatory terms), and 28.6% said they were “perhaps” fanbois/fangurls. Interestingly, almost the exact samepercentages came out of non-owner/lessee responses — 54.5% and 29.10%.

It’s unspecified why respondents were so enthusiastic about Tesla and its products, but there are several likely reasons. One is that Tesla is 100% focused on fully electric vehicles. Not only does it not produce fossil-fuel-gulping cars; it even stays away from fossil-fuel-sipping plug-in hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles. This, by itself, must endear it to EV enthusiasts.

The company, mostly via well known CEO and product architect Elon Musk, is passionate about combating climate change, air pollution, and oil dependency. This is important to many people, and we like Tesla more for its passion on this front.

Tesla has also demonstrated the ability and desire to produce extremely high-performance and innovative vehicles. The Tesla Model S has broken many auto industry records and turned the general concept of electric cars on its head. Additionally, Tesla is the only company with a super-fast charging network in place, a topic I’ll come back to later in the report.

Tesla has long held plans to release a long-range and affordable electric car. It is widely assumed that Tesla’s batteries come at a lower cost per kilowatt-hour than any other EV batteries on the market. Making that assumption, when Tesla does bring a mid-market car to production, many potential buyers believe they will be able to get “more car for the money” from Tesla than from any other automaker.

Given the reviews of the Tesla Model S and Model X, as well as Tesla’s Supercharger network, many EV enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting a Tesla model they can affordably get their hands on. Even those who have bought or plan to buy a higher-cost Model S or Model X are enthusiastic because the Model 3 will presumably bring long-range, fully electric transportation to millions of people — if all goes as planned. That would mark a huge step forward for the electric vehicle movement.

Source by..http://evobsession.com/fuel-efficient-cars-2015-usa/