From John Kaye
Your correspondents seem to only look at the fuel consumption figures to determine the environmental cost of a vehicle (8 April, p 24 and 29 April, p 23). They do not seem to take into account the life of the vehicle, the energy used to both make and dispose of it, or the reusability of the parts in a vehicle.
Market researchers in the US have done a “dust-to-dust” analysis of the environmental costs of vehicles on the US market. The report at http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/ suggests that the cost of hybrid electric cars is much higher than their fuel consumption implies.
In Europe we use many more diesel-powered cars than the US, further reducing the significance of the headline-grabbing fuel consumption figures.
Wokingham, Berkshire, UK
