Clean cars gain in popularity

Market forces appear to be driving the development of cleaner-burning fuels in the automobile industry, according to a report released yesterday:

Vehicle manufacturers are offering more types of fuel-efficient vehicles including for the first time an SUV, giving Southern California drivers new purchasing power over smog and high gasoline prices.

So says the author of the 2005 Green Book Online, a ranking released today of new vehicles by how friendly they are to the environment and, conversely, the worst gas-guzzlers.

For the first-time, a sport-utility vehicle -- the Ford Escape Hybrid -- made the Green Book's list of the dozen "greenest" vehicles of the year, said the book's author, James Kliesch, a research associate for the Washington D.C.-based non-profit American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

"On the whole, today's vehicles are much cleaner than they were five or six years ago," Kliesch said.