Are there any other types of cars available to US buyers other than hybrid, gasoline, and diesel?

Question

I was just wondering if there were any other options available to US car buyers other than gas, hybrid, and diesel? I would like to purchase a hybrid due to the gas efficiency and how they help the environment, but I didn't know if there were other types of "environmentally" safe cars out there available to buy.

Answer 1

It depends on how you define car.  In the Phoenix area many people use two or four seater upgraded golf carts to run local errands.  These must meet certain requrirements to be licensed to operate on public roads.   They are all electric.

Answer 2

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/f*g/byfuel/by... for a list of cars that do not need gasoline.  (All hybrids so far in the US are fueled by gasoline...)

Strangely, flex-fuel vehicles are on the list.  These run on either E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline), or on regular gasoline.  However, since there are so few E85 fueling stations, most of these vehicles are only ever run on regular gasoline (while the automaker gets a CAFE credit for an alt-fuel vehicle)...

If you are looking for used, you have greater options in CNG, LPG, and electric.

You may also want to look into biodiesel, or doing a veg. oil conversion of a diesel vehicle.

You may also have more options by looking into home-conversions, or vehicles produced by smaller companies (like the Tesla EV).

But if you are looking for a new vehicle, I'd suggest looking at http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicle/ , where the vehicles are rated by both their emissions and their fuel economy, and sorted by their various vehicle types (small car, large car, pickup, small SUV, large SUV, minivan, etc.).  So if you need a certain vehicle type, at least get the least polluting and best MPG model of that vehicle type!

Answer 3

No, unfortunately there are not. There used to be electric cars available but they stopped making them available to consumers, they even refused to renew people's leases as I recall.

They are working on other options like Hydrogen but so far nothing for the consumer.

So your options are gasoline, hybrid, diesel and now some vehicles that can run on ethanol as well. Diesel is a nice option in that it allows you to also use bio-diesel. There are lots of bio-diesel cooperatives around so you might want to look into that. Hybrid is good because the internal combustion engine (i.e. gasoline) is actually more efficient than the electric engine between the speeds of 35 and 60. Therefore, using the electric below that speed is wise. However, once you go over 60 miles per hour your efficiency drops dramatically. I believe it is 10 percent for every 5 miles. There are many of us out there that have started hypermiling, in other words staying below 60 to increase gas mileage. If you recall the gas crisis in the 70s the federal government made the national speed limit 55 for this reason, to save gas. Once it wasn't a crisis anymore, and the oil companies wanted to make more money, states were allowed to raise the limit again.

There are definitely more fuel efficient cars available out there so don't give up hope. The hybrids are a good option too but you may want to consider the total birth to death cost of your vehicle meaning how many resources went into making it as well as how much to run it. When one looks at it this way, a Hummer ends up being a better environmental choice than a Prius because the Hummer will run for hundreds of thousands of miles while the Prius only around 100,000. Sad but true.

Answer 4

If you got the money we can build it.