If Consumer Reports' auto editors cared about our environment, every car on their annual Top 10 list would be a hybrid or EV

COVER STORY OR COVER UP? Consumer Reports' annual Auto Issue lists only 4 gas-electric hybrids or electric cars among its Top 10 vehicles for 2022.

 

Gas hits average of $4.32 a gallon

as tailpipe emissions are killing

53,000 Americans every year

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Consumer Reports boasts about a full-time auto testing staff of "about 30" who "work to deliver exclusive insights to our members," but none of them claim to be environmentalists.

And for yet another year, the non-profit's Top 10 list in its annual Auto Issue ignores the premature deaths of 53,000 people every year from tailpipe emissions, as measured by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That compares to 34,000 a year who die in traffic accidents (based on a 2013 MIT study).

Two Toyota gas-electric hybrids, a Lexus hybrid, a Honda Accord hybrid and Ford's Mustang Mach-E -- an electric vehicle -- are the only low or zero emissions entries on CR's Top 10 list for 2022.

It's a Top 10 list, but a total of 13 vehicles are listed for some reason in the April 2022 issue of the magazine.

Safety first

"Our ratings now reward automakers that install driver monitoring systems in their cars," Marta L. Tellado, president and CEO of Consumer Reports, says in her monthly column.

Tellado makes no mention of auto tailpipe emissions and their role in global warming or impact on life expectancy.

'Green Choice'

Just last year, Consumer Reports started designating some vehicles as "our Green Choice" -- the top 20 percent of vehicles on the market with the cleanest emissions.

Unfortunately, the "Green Choice" designation came more than 20 years after the first gas-electric hybrid or green cars went on sale in the United States.

And being "clean" or "cleaner" doesn't come close to earning a vehicle a spot on the annual Top 10 list.

NO TESLAS IN SIGHT: Even though Tesla has been the best selling electric car in the United States since 2012, none are listed on Consumer Reports' Top 10 list for 2022.

Top 10 Picks

The Top 10 list in the annual Auto Issue includes a midsize SUV, Kia's Telluride, that gets 21 mpg; and a compact pickup truck, the Honda Ridgeline, which is rated at 20 mpg -- less than half the mileage of most gas-electric hybrids. 

But instead of the Honda, the so-called auto experts at the magazine should have chosen the 2022 Ford F-150 hybrid pickup truck, which is rated at 25 mpg city/highway.

And is the Kia Telluride so special that it eclipses all of the midsize SUVs with hybrid power and lower emissions sold by competitors?

Gas hits $4.32 a gallon

This year, the Top 10 list includes a total of 13 vehicles: 

Both the Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid, and the Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid with an electric range of 25 miles, are listed.

Consumer Reports also lists the Honda Accord and Accord Hybrid as well as the Lexus RX and Lexus RX Hybrid.

The Top 10 list could have done without the gasoline versions of the Honda and Lexus. 

In fact, a Top 10 list of only gas-electric hybrids and EVs makes even more sense as the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States hit $4.32 this week.

Deadly air pollution

All in all, Consumer Reports' annual Auto Issue continues to disappoint, and ignore the elephant in the room:

Premature deaths from air pollution caused by vehicle tailpipe emissions.

READ: First EV on Top 10 list

 didn't appear until 2018