Honda Drops From Top of Annual Green Car List

Just the Facts:

• Mitsubishi i is the first electric car in 12 years to top the annual green ranking.
• Honda Civic Natural Gas ties with the Nissan Leaf EV for 2nd place after eight years in the top spot.
• Full-size Chevrolet, GMC and Ford cargo and passenger vans are "meanest" in the land because of poor fuel economy.

WASHINGTON — Mitsubishi's new electric city car has booted Honda's compressed natural gas Civic from the top spot in a key annual ranking of the country's greenest vehicles, becoming the first EV in 12 years to occupy the throne. The CNG-powered Civic had topped the list for eight consecutive years, and the defunct EV-1 from General Motors was the last electric car to garner the green crown.

It's a pretty significant accomplishment for the brand-new Mitsubishi i, said Shruti Vaidyanathan, head vehicle analyst for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The Washington-based environmental lobbying group has been producing its annual green car guide for 14 years.

Seeing an electric car atop the list again means "electric cars are becoming more prominent" even though there are still huge issues with range and refueling infrastructure, she said. Actually, Mitsubishi — which just launched the four-seat subcompact "i" in the U.S. in January — has sold only a handful of the cars so far, mostly to fleet buyers. It is the second EV to hit the retail market, following the Nissan Leaf. Several more all-electric cars, including the Toyota RAV4, Tesla Model S and Ford Focus EV, are due to be introduced later this year.

The 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas fell to 2nd place in the ACEEE ranking, tied with the Leaf. The online guide rates more than 1,000 vehicles based on a "green" score derived from fuel efficiency, tailpipe emissions, emissions from the fuel and vehicle manufacturing processes, the health impact of those emissions and a number of other environmental factors. There are 12 vehicles on the group's "greenest" list.

The Mitsubishi EV achieved a green score of 58, followed by the Civic Natural Gas and the Leaf at 55 points each. The Mitsubishi i is rated by the EPA at a fuel-efficiency equivalent of 112 mpg of gasoline, the Leaf's rating is 99 mpg-gasoline equivalent (mpge) and the Honda's is 32 mpge.

The Toyota Prius and Honda Insight hybrids round out the top five, and they and other conventional hybrids account for half of all the spots on the group's "greenest" list. Small, highly efficient gasoline-powered cars occupy three of the top 12 slots.

There are no domestic brands on the ACEEE's "greenest" list. But a number of American cars, including the Chevrolet Sonic and Ford Escape Hybrid, top their respective classes.

At the other end of the scale, domestics dominate. The "meanest" list is topped by a pair of General Motors full-size cargo and passenger vans, the Chevrolet G3500 Express and GMC G3500 Savana, with Ford's E-350 Wagon in 3rd place.

In all, domestic models account for nine of the dozen "meanest" vehicles this year — a list that in the past has featured a number of exotic European cars. This year, the worst of the Europeans — Bugatti's Veyron — only managed to take 3rd place in the "meanest" ranking.

Inside Line says: While the Mitsu is at the top of the green heap this year, it's a boutique car that's not intended to be a volume seller. But there are other highly efficient cars and trucks that consumers with a green bent can consider, and ratings like the ACEEE guide help draw attention to them. — John O'Dell, Senior Editor, Edmunds.com