From The Globe & Mail…

Could it really be so - that GM’s Hummer is more than 40 per cent greener than Toyota’s Prius? That Ford’s F-Series pickup is greener? That GM’s Silverado pickup is greener? That Dodge’s Ram pickup is greener? That Cadillac’s DTS, a full-sized luxury sedan with a V8 engine, is greener? Could it be, in fact, that seven different luxury-class automobiles are all greener - and that three of them are Cadillac models? Well, indeed, it really could be. And, if so, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s new-car incentive program is a huge environmental mistake. Oregon-based CNW Marketing Research Inc. has conducted the world’s most comprehensive analysis of the “life cycle” energy requirements of more than 100 makes and models of cars and trucks… CNW identified 4,000 “data points” for each car, ranging from the energy consumed in research and development to energy consumed in junkyard disposal. It calculated the electrical energy needed to produce each pound of parts. It calculated greenhouse gas emissions. It calculated mileage, too - adjusting for the differences between rush-hour Tokyo and rural America. The company describes this exercise as “dust to dust” analysis. CNW has now published its second annual report, a 400-page production. To keep it relatively free of technical jargon, the company expresses energy requirement as the dollar cost of energy for every mile across a vehicle’s anticipated years of use - “U.S. dollars per lifetime mile.” Thus it reports the lifetime energy requirement of a Hummer as $1.90 a mile; the lifetime energy requirement of a Prius as $2.86 a mile.

Read the entire piece here.