In late April Ford Motor Company and TerraPass announced "Greener Miles", a program offering Ford vehicle owners the opportunity to offset the climate impact of their driving through the support of projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Through Greener Miles drivers can calculate the amount of CO2 emissions they generate in one year of driving by visiting www.terrapass.com/ford. Customers then have the opportunity to purchase an offset that supports the production of renewable clean energy from wind or dairy farm methane.

Fact is the average fuel economy of Ford's fleet is 18.8 mpg, dead last among the top six automakers in 2005--for the fifth straight year, according to the EPA.

The blatant disregard and contempt Ford's engineers pay to fuel economy and efficiency means that Ford's vehicles release more CO2 into the atmosphere than all of Mexico--yes, the entire country of Mexico!

To make matters worse the EPA is known to OVERestimate fleet MPG [link]. Since industry games the US government, its known EPA ratings are the result of 1970s-era test assumptions that don't account for how people drive today. Ford, like most automakers, is also known to test prototype vehicles that can yield better mileage than a consumer can get.

According to US Consumer Reports to get a good (honest) idea of your mpg you need to, "discount the EPA sticker numbers for city travel as follows: conventional cars and trucks, 30 percent; larger hybrids, 35 percent; diesels, 36 percent; smaller hybrids, 42 percent."

Ford is playing games and peddling gimmicks in its new partnership with TerraPass.

If Ford wants to reduce CO2 and get serious about climate change it will increase its fleet overall MPG and not peddle spurious offsets based on cooked mpg numbers.
by: ProfMKD @ 11:42 am