EPA "Air Pollution Score"
 

What is it? I was happy, but confused, to find that my 04 RX-8's score of 6 (best being 10) trounces my friend's 04 Honda Odyssey (with a score of 2). It also trounces an 04 Honda Civic, which also had a score of 2. (??)

Does anyone know anything more about this score? Why does our car do so well? Or why do the Hondas do so poorly?* (or some of them, the Accord also gets a 6). Note I checked the same year (2004). I looked at lots of other cars and their scores were all over the place.

EPA describes the score as:
"The Air Pollution score represents the amount of health-damaging and smog-forming airborne pollutants the vehicle emits. Scoring ranges from 0 (worst) to 10 (best). This score does not include emissions of greenhouse gases (see the Climate Change rating)."

"The Air Pollution Score is based on the level of pollution that produces smog and causes health problems. The score allows you to compare the expected pollution levels of different vehicles. The scoring is from 0 to 10, where 10 is cleanest.

The levels of pollution for each vehicle are determined by the official EPA or California exhaust emission standards for the major pollutants in vehicle exhaust. These include nitrogen oxides (NOx) and non-methane organic gases (NMOG), which combine in the presence of sunlight to create smog. They also include the health-affecting pollutants particulate matter (PM), a lung irritant, and carbon monoxide (CO), a poisonous gas.

The Air Pollution Score has been updated to reflect the new, tighter emission standards and the cleaner cars and trucks that are now being sold as a result of those standards. The table below shows how the original and updated scores compare. For more details on the Air Pollution scores, please see table of emissions standards and the expected amounts of air pollution."

http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/about.htm

* do I now have the right to gloat that my car is more environmentally responsible than my friend's Odyssey? Greenhouse gas emissions and gas consumption are pretty similar.

Here is some good information relevant to this subject.

http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/...XwEc78F;_ylv=3

If I remember correctly, the RX8's green rating is 61, and a Prius is in the mid 80's. Not bad. I've been trying to figure out why the Evo's green score is in the 30's.

Maybe it has to do with the components/amount of pollutants emitted. The RX-8 may be low in this regard even if it gets subpar mileage.

Wow; that is a surprisingly good score; that should shut up the hippies at work!

Mazda did a really fine job, Rotary has been known for its *anti-environment* for decades, but our car meets LEV-II standard.

It could be due to the catalyst location and design. Modern 3-way catalysts manage to knock out upwards of 98% of the pollutants in the exhaust stream when warm, but aren't nearly so effective when cold. A huge percentage of a vehicles total emissions occur during the first 30-60 seconds after startup, before the catalyst is warmed up. I've heard from various sources that it's somewhere between 65% and 85% of its total. If the RX8's catalyst warms up more quickly than the older Honda's catalysts do. for whatever reason, then the '8 could be a "cleaner" car overall despite its dirtier engine. I could be completely wrong, though :p:

No matter what the cause, this shows that Mazda really did spend a lot of time and effort getting the Renesis right, and that their hard work paid off in ways that a lot of people might overlook.

I can imagine that score would change a little with a race pipe installed.

:(

good job

They just forgot to bump the HP and increase the mileage, one or the other or both.

MSP design is way better than REW. Older 13B is shit when N/A

mileage wise ~ MSP is still better.

Getting all three at the same time is the problem with this engine, unfortunately. If the Renesis really did have the 247hp (translating to ~190-200 rwhp) Mazda originally said it did, people wouldn't be complaining about the power half as much, since the car would be clearly quicker than RSX-S's, Civic Si's, and other cars of that sort. It's too bad they couldn't quite get that down, but the next generation rotary will likely improve on both of these areas. Too bad it's still 3 years away...

We'll see if there is a replacement at all.

I agree--if the car actually had the power that they had originally stated and it contributed to better results it wouldn't be so bad.