1985 Buick Century, Gross Polluter, by Flickr user head36

1985 Buick Century, Gross Polluter, by Flickr user head36

We're a week late (sorry!) with our recap of our five most popular blog entries for the month of April (plus the first week of May) on GreenCarReports, but we figured it's an end-of-week kind of thing. So here we go:

# 1: BREAKING: House Agrees on Cash-For-Clunkers Bill. A pure news item where we did our best to detail the (not yet complete) terms of the compromise Cash-for-Clunkers bill that the US House of Representatives has apparently agreed to. Bottom Line: Tradeins have to get combined EPA ratings of 18 mpg or worse, and the replacement has to get 22 mpg or better, with the highest reward ($4,500) for the greatest increase in mileage. Different standards apply for cars, light trucks, and other commercial vehicles.

# 2: Pollution Perspective: One Giant Cargo Ship Emits As Much As 50 MILLION Cars. Uncontrolled emissions from the world's cargo ships are a much, much greater source of airborne pollutants than most people realize. Bottom Line: Expensive emissions control equipment that adds hundreds of dollars to the price of a car feels almost futile when just one enormous cargo ship, burning the equivalent of road tar, can emit as much every year as 50 million vehicles. Sigh.

# 3: The New 2010 Rabbit TDI Diesel...Or, Is It a Golf Again? This one seems to have become a perennial favorite, and it even rose a notch this month. We luv VW diesel fanboys. Bottom Line: Despite the firm denial from Volkswagen representative Steve Keyes that we added to the piece at the time, we were right: The 2010 Volkswagen Golf won't be a Rabbit after all. Ha!

# 4: 2011 Ford Fiesta:  Green Cars Get Good, Really Good. Our first road test of the new global subcompact car Ford will sell in the US roughly a year from now. Bottom Line: We tested a European model, so we can't say for sure how much it'll be changed to comply with US regulations. But so far, we like what we see, a lot.

# 5: National Cash-for-Clunkers Plans Move Ahead, But California's Already There. One of a few earlier articles we did on the clearly controversial clunkers legislation, this one described how California's ongoing program actually works. Bottom Line: Yes, we know it's sort of silly to offer the owner of a collector car like a 1951 MG TD a few hundreds dollars to destroy his car. But, take a deep breath, everyone: It's voluntary. V-O-L-U-N-T-A-R-Y. No one has to do it.

Have a nice weekend.

San Francisco Bay cargo ship, by Flickr user Bernard Garon

San Francisco Bay cargo ship, by Flickr user Bernard Garon