Buying A Car

Green resources for buying a car

Cars are a major cause of air pollution in urban areas, producing harmful substances including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons that affect air quality and add to the harmful greenhouse gases already crowding the atmosphere. There are a variety of technologies available in both new and used vehicles that aim to reduce fuel consumption and therefore emissions while driving - some of which are better at their purpose than others. There are a variety of tools available to help you select a new or used car based on its potential impact on the environment.

Green Vehicle Guide

All new vehicles sold in Australia are now required to report emissions in terms of grams of CO2/km. You can view these ratings in the Green Vehicle Guide, a car rating scheme introduced by the Australian Federal Government. It gives vehicles a green rating based on tailpipe emissions to help you when choosing a new or secondhand vehicle for purchase. The Green Vehicle Guide is based only a vehicle's on tailpipe emissions - it doesn't account for other potential environmental issues such as manufacturing processes and what happens at the end of the vehicle's life.