2012 Green Car of the Year is the Honda Civic Natural Gas

12 years, 11 months ago - 18 November 2011, Autoblog
2012 Green Car of the Year is the Honda Civic Natural Gas
The 2012 Green Car of the Year award was snagged from the electric and diesel jaws of its competitors by the Honda Civic Natural Gas.

In a year full of standard gasoline powertrain alternatives, the Civic beat out the Ford Focus Electric, Mitsubishi i, Toyota Prius V and the Volkswagen Passat TDI.

Green Car Journal hands out the award and its rules state that the GCOTY needs to have a "quantifiable environmental achievement," market significance and "newness." Any car that has these clearly defined features and is available for sale by January 1, 2012 can be a nominee, and the list of finalists is whittled down by GCJ editors and selected industry and environmental experts.

Over the last four years, the GCOTY was won by a hybrid (the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid in 2008), diesels (the Volkswagen Jetta TDI in 2009 and the Audi A3 TDI in 2010) and a plug-in hybrid (the Chevrolet Volt in 2011). In our informal poll we put up when the five finalists were announced a month ago, the Focus Electric dominated the field.