Determine the Emissions and Monthly Costs of Your Next Car With the Carbon Meter
If you want to prioritize sustainability when buying your next car, a user-friendly website called Carboncounter has done the hard work for you. With interactive charts and charts, you can see how over 600 vehicles add up in two key areas: greenhouse gas emissions and expected monthly payments.
The first is fairly easy to understand; this is all old data based on a 2016 study combined with new car data that Carboncounter owners manually added to the site based on the study parameters. Virtually all 2021 models from all manufacturers should be in the website’s database, as well as 2020 models that have not been updated over the next year.
As Carboncounter describes:
“Greenhouse gas emissions make up the entire life cycle, including the manufacture of cars and batteries, as well as raw materials for supply chains.”
The average monthly cost of site ownership takes into account three main factors: how much you spend on maintenance (ideally no more than one or two large maintenance projects per year, the cost that the site is divided by 12 months to calculate its figure.) And gasoline, as well as depreciation and the actual cost of your vehicle (both, plus a monthly amount). The results are displayed graphically, with monthly costs on the abscissa and greenhouse gas emissions on the ordinate:
The two small horizontal lines at the bottom of the chart represent emission targets for 2030 and 2040 (2030 above; 2040 below). Ideally, all new cars will be below the top mark over the next decade. While it may seem discouraging that there are so many cars missing, this is only the beginning of 2021. There is plenty of time for manufacturers to move towards greener production and emissions, including a stronger push for electric vehicles.
And if you don’t like how Carboncounter gets its stats, or you need more custom stats for your particular condition, you can dig right into the site’s formulas and make some changes:
I found it helpful to simply click on the “select state” filter to get more personalized data for California – where everything seems to be ten times more expensive than anywhere else. Below are a few handy sliders that I could use to adjust my yearly mileage (doesn’t currently exist, it looks like), how much I drive in cities versus highways (none / a lot) and how long I plan to keep my car for. until I sell it for a more accurate calculation of wear, among other variables.
Carboncounter works best when you tweak its values for your personal driving settings. However, once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to see how the potential cars you’re looking at stack up. Use this to communicate your next big purchase, or bookmark the site and come back when you’re ready to explore new brands and models. While you’re still eligible to buy some kind of over-the-top gas guzzler, hopefully it at least gets you thinking about the potential environmental implications (and cost) of your alternatives.