Eco-friendly cars: what cars are the most sustainable?

Efficiency, sustainability, and eco-friendliness are common topics of discussion when it comes to cars. Everyone wants to get the most out of their new motor, so it’s a valid concern.

If you’re on a car buying journey, you too are probably debating what kind of car to go for to extract the most value for your money. Well, we’re here to help you make the right decision.

Read on as we explain the sustainability credentials of some common car types…

What makes a car eco-friendly?

First thing’s first: what are eco-friendly cars?

When talking about sustainability and efficiency, the debate usually falls under a few factors:

Emissions
Mileage
Maintenance costs

Cars that emit lower emissions than others are often cheaper to run, requiring less fuel compared to less efficient alternatives. Ideally, a car would emit low emissions, have great mileage, and cost as little as possible to maintain.

But, these rules usually intersect similarly to the “Good, Cheap, Fast” Venn diagram. For example, you can have a car that has great mileage and low emissions, but the maintenance costs will be quite high.

Cars that are good for the environment

Technically speaking, no car is inherently “good” for the environment. All of them have their own environmental impact in one way or another. Though, there are some cars that are better than others. For example:

Electric cars

Due to their low reliance on gases and fuels like petrol, electric cars are thought to be much more environmentally friendly compared to their more traditional counterparts.

Generally, this belief is true. Electric cars can be powered via sustainable energy sources such as solar power, but the production of electric cars can have just as high of an impact on our environment as those powered by internal combustion engines.

Lithium, the core component of the batteries found within electric cars, needs to be mined. This mining uses a mixture of heavy machinery and fossil fuels – causing an inherent environmental impact.

Petrol/diesel cars

Petrol and diesel cars are powered by fossil fuels themselves. This causes them to emit a range of harmful toxins and fumes into our environment while they are being driven – in addition to those emitted while the cars are being manufactured.

While engineers have carefully crafted measures to reduce this impact, such as catalytic converters, it’s impossible to filter out all of the harmful substances.

Hybrid cars

Proposed as a middle ground between gas-powered and electric vehicles, hybrid cars aim to pose all the mileage-based benefits of petrol and diesel cars, while also boasting some of the efficiency pros of battery-powered cars.

Environmentally friendly cars

Unfortunately, providing an exhaustive list of the most environmentally friendly cars is challenging for a number of reasons. With there being subtle differences in models from one year to the next, in addition to the translation of laboratory-tested statistics to the real world, providing a definitive answer is near enough impossible to do.

What can be said, though, is make sure you enquire about fuel economy before committing to a purchase. The only reliable source of fuel efficiency comes from the car itself, and thankfully, many cars have onboard computers that automatically record this information.

How to check fuel efficiency

Consult your onboard computer

The simplest way of determining your car’s fuel efficiency is to check the read out given by your onboard computer.

Different cars will have different methods to do this, but the result is usually the same. After a short time of travel, your car will automatically calculate how much fuel is left compared to how far you’ve travelled.

This will then report a MPG (miles per gallon) read out on your car’s display.

Traditionally, this information is delivered close to your odometer, as this will help you determine when a fill up is needed.

Work it out manually

If you’re driving an especially old car, or if you want to double-check that your car is reporting correctly, your other option is to calculate MPG numbers by hand.

Starting with a full tank of petrol/diesel, reset your current mileage counter to zero or take note of its current figure.

Then, the next time you need to refill your car with fuel, take note of how much you put in both in litres and cost and your new mileage figure.

After this, divide the number of miles you’ve driven by the amount of fuel you’ve filled up with in litres. This gives you the total mileage in litres. To convert this to gallons, multiply the figure by 4.544.

For example, if you drive 350 miles with 30 litres of fuel, your fuel consumption will be around 53 mpg.

Fund your next motor with MotoNovo

Whether it’s your dream car, or something more practical, choose MotoNovo for your car financing* needs. We offer a number of motor finance products from Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) to Hire Purchase (HP).

*Finance is subject to affordability checks and is only available to UK residents aged 18 and over. If you don't keep up with your repayments, the vehicle may be repossessed.