A used car- more environmentally friendly than a new one?

By Ben Weiner
Chapter Communications Fellow

When buying any car, picking something environmentally friendly will, without question, benefit you. Getting good gas milage and putting out less exhaust will show in your wallet as well as in your carbon footprint.

For a new car, this is getting easier- the EPA has regulated beautiful and truthful miles per gallon impact sheets on them. You can find the sheets on every passenger side window of every car at every dealership in america. A used car is not the same story.

I’m a young person and my current car is used- I’m the third owner. Without being specifically car-savvy (thanks dad!), I wouldn’t of been able to know what I was getting at all, let alone when it comes to the environment.

So used cars have a few advantages- obviously a lot of money can be saved, but when it comes to ‘going green’ you have to keep in mind the energy to create and ship the car. (BTUs, a measure of energy consumed, play a large role in these ‘calculations’- obviously everything here is qualitative and subjective. Take it with a grain of salt.)

For example, a Toyota Prius, the model of an environmentally friendly hybrid vehicle, takes about 113 million BTUs to produce. So if you think of that in terms of gallons of gas (each of which has about 113,000 BTUs of energy) that’s 1,000 gallons of gas- Chuck Squatriglia at WIRED termed that ‘carbon debt’. In the Prius’ case you can’t pay that debt off until you’ve done about 46,000 miles in your new car.

Squatriglia said to avoid that buying a used car is an easy way to avoid that ‘debt’. So if you get a used car like mine, a beautiful 1995 Acura Integra, which gets between 24 mpg city/29 mpg highway and leans towards the 29 more of the time, you’d have to go nearly 90,000 miles- the average driver’s milage over 6 year- to reach the carbon savings of my 20 year old car.

So how do you find an environmentally friendly used car? Here’s some good places to start:

• Find your fuel economyI’ll admit it- I had to look up the fuel economy ratings for my car, which I’ve owned for almost half a decade, online so it would be accurate in this blog post. But I’ll assure you, its easy!

Have your year, make, model, and trim ready and just go on to FuelEconomy.gov- it took me a total of 2 minutes. Whether looking on craigslist, at CarMax or from a friend-of-a-friend, copy down the information you need for each vehicle you like. Go home and do a little research- it’ll do you and the environment good!

• Look for something nice for you and the earth

You’ll see that my resource from WIRED above is a few years old now- 2008 was two presidential terms ago! There are far more hybrid cars in the used car pool now than there were then. You can find one of the prius’ past its ‘carbon debt’ in great shape for a decent amount of money!

• Save money- and the planet

Everything you do when buying a used car to save cash will also help you save the earth. Purchasing a car small enough is one of the big ones: if you buy more space than you need, you’re paying extra and taking a toll on the environment. Beyond that, finding your hidden gem used car- the one that the Grandmother took perfect care of and sat in the garage barely used for years- is also great for the environment. Maintenance is king here!

I hope that this guide can help you pick out a wonderful, reliable and eco-friendly vehicle to be your next ride. Happy driving.

(References: [1])