Editors of Consumer Reports can't shake addiction to gasoline cars, SUVs, pickups

KILLER CARS: Once again, the editors of Consumer Reports' widely anticipated Auto Issue seem to be ignoring climate change and the deadly impact of tailpipe emissions.

 

Only 3 environmentally friendly

cars make annual Top 10 list

 

Editor's note: I've revised and corrected the lead paragraph to indicate that the first gas-electric hybrid car sold in the United States, a Honda, arrived in 1999, and that Toyota introduced the Prius hybrid in 2000.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- More than 20 years after the first gas-electric hybrid car arrived from Japan, Consumer Reports is introducing readers to "our Green Choice designation."

In her column on Page 8 of the annual Auto Issue, a smiling Marta L. Tellado, CR's president and CEO, tells readers about "our Green Choice designations" -- dubbed "clean-air cars" -- denoted by a green leaf in the ratings pages.

"We will now incorporate data to identify how vehicles stack up when it comes to the amount of greenhouse gas and other pollutants they emit," which damage our health and the environment.

Leafing through the issue, all of the vehicles marked with that green leaf are either gas-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius or fully electric, like the Tesla Model 3.

But only two hybrids, both from Toyota, and that lone Tesla Model 3 are among CR's Top 10 in the April 2021 Auto Issue.

The 2018 Auto Issue from Consumer Reports was the first to include an all-electric vehicle, even though a 2010 MIT study concluded 58,000 Americans die prematurely every year from tailpipe emissions.

And Tesla's Model 3 was the only fully electric vehicle on the 2020 Top 10 list.

Addicted to gasoline

Every single vehicle in the Top 10 should be either a gas-electric hybrid or electric, which have the least impact on our health and our climate.

Yet, for some unfathomable reason, the editors of Consumer Reports continue to recommend cars with gasoline engines, and large gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups, when there is a wide range of hybrids and electric cars available.

The magazine boasts the staff of its Auto Test Center "anonymously buy the vehicles, just like a consumer would, and we never base our ratings on models borrowed from the manufacturer."

Nor does Consumer Reports accept any advertising, so an auto issue that goes completely green won't affect the bottom line at the nonprofit Consumers Union, publisher of CR.

Caving in to Big Auto

Still, the magazine's auto testers cave in to automakers who have been slow to introduce hybrid and electric cars and trucks.

For example, the 2021 Toyota Sienna Minivan is being sold in the United States only as a gas-electric hybrid, and a gas-electric version of the 2021 Ford F-150 pickup -- the best-selling U.S. vehicle -- gets raves in an online CR report, but neither is on the Auto Issue's Top 10 list.  

The cover of the April Auto Issue shows three vehicles, including the new and unproven electric Rivian RIT pickup truck, and the fully electric Ford Mustang Mach-E, an SUV, the first Mustang with 4 doors.

The third vehicle is the Toyota RAV4 Prime, a plug-in hybrid.

But the RAV4 hybrid doesn't make the Top 10 list, either.