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Top 5 Finalists Announced For Green Vision Award, All Feature Electric Power

 
4 1,353 views December 14, 2009

2010 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Concept

2010 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Concept

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It's that time of year when everyone is handing out awards for vehicle of the year.  We've reported on several of these awards thus far and here's another one, the "2010 Green Car Vision Award" goes to?  The award will officially be presented at the 2010 Washington, D.C. Auto Show, but the top five finalists have been announced, and all of the vehicles have some form of electric power on-board.

The five finalists include, Coda Automotive's Coda BEV, the Ford Focus BEV, the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell FCEV, the Nissan Leaf BEV, an the Toyota Prius PHEV.

Certainly there's a lot of letter lingo above so breaking down the list into categories would go like this.

In the traditional electric drive class of vehicles powered by batteries and an electric motor are the Nissan Leaf, the Coda, and the Focus.  These vehicles derive their power strictly from their on-board batteries and by plugging in for charging.  Most have a range around 100 miles.

The Toyota Prius occupies the plug-in hybrid class.  This class of vehicle can operate for a short length of time under electric power only, but also carries an onboard gasoline engine to provide additional motivation when needed.

Then there is the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell.  This vehicle utilizes an on board fuel cell stack and hydrogen gas to create electricity which is then stored in the vehicle's li-ion battery pack.  The vehicle has a range of about 250 miles.

The 5 nominees include 3 EVs, one PHEV, and one fuel cell vehicle.  Surprisingly absent from the list is the EREV Chevy Volt, but looking at the award criteria suggests that the Volt is not yet eligible to receive an award in this category.

The award is given to a vehicle - and technology - that judges deem to be the most significant of the year involved in demonstration programs or in limited production but not yet on sale in the mass market.

The winner of the Green Car Vision award will be announced at the 2010 Washington Auto Show on Jan. 26. The competition is sponsored by the Green Car Journal magazine.

Source:  Edmunds





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Comments (4)

  1. By Chris O Posted: 12/14/2009 5:03am PST

    Clearly the winner is the Nissan Leaf. The Coda's blandly styled bargain basement Chinese ICE platform limits it's market potential severely. People will forgive EV’s a lot of things but poor styling is not one of them. The Ford is a half hearted ICE platform conversion done by a third party with very limited range. Possibly done for political reasons it doesn’t seem to be backed up by any serious vision from the part of the Ford Motor Company. The Mercedes vehicle is a fuel-cell vehicle so basically an industrial smokescreen suggesting a miracle solution for some distant future while prolonging the current ICE age. It will never be available as a commercially viable product. Not now, not in 2015 like the hydrogen hype machine suggests, not ever. The Toyota PHEV would be good candidate too except that hybrids are by definition a compromise. This leaves the Leaf, a purposely build EV backed up by a car maker who really believes it is the future and intends to make it successful on a mass market scale within a credible time frame.
     
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  2. By Desertstraw Posted: 12/14/2009 8:24am PST

    The real winner is the BYD E6 whose absence on the list is puzzling.Electric power consumption: less than 18kWh/62 miles (100 km)
    0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) acceleration in
     
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  3. By  Chris O Posted: 12/14/2009 9:59am PST

    Why isn’t BYD in the list…maybe because it’s basically a fraud? A recent Wallstreet Journal article about BYD and Warren Buffett’s stake in that company stopped short of calling it that suggesting we all just deluded ourselves about BYD's intentions, but made very sure that no game changing EV’s are to be expected from that particular company any time soon. Click my screenname for the article.
     
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  4. By  Cars for sale Posted: 1/29/2010 3:22am PST

    Hybrid cars for sale are becoming more and more popular as a means to help the environment. Customer do not know however that when these cars for sale break on you the amount of money it will cost more than a car of today. This is why the car manufacturers will make so much money.
     
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