It doesn’t actually take long to green your ride. Cars can be complicated but keeping them green… not so much. This month take a few minutes and make sure you’re driving in an eco-friendly manner.

5 minutes – call a friend: Take a few minutes and call a co-worker or stop for a chat at the water cooler and set up a ride-share. Carpooling is an excellent way to lower your footprint. NRDC notes that EVEN if you live just ten miles away from work you can save 236 gallons of gas annually by carpooling. That’s a lot of gas and …read more

We’ve looked at green driving tips before here at Blisstree Green but while I consider myself pretty eco-savvy, I’m not the most car-savvy person on the block. I can put gas in, tell you the basics for green driving, and let you in on the best way to wash your car without water, but I’d usually rather deal in eco-friendly lip gloss or sustainable houses. Green cars are more mysterious to me. Luckily they’re not so mysterious to everyone, least of all Ford, who recently introduced the eco-friendly 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid – an extra fuel efficient mid sized sedan …read more

Today President Obama announced his long awaited new plan for a better national fuel efficiency and auto emissions standards program. The program is set to launch on vehicles in model year 2012. Currently, 2009 the average fuel efficiency standard for cars and light trucks is 25 mpg. The new plan is to raise, “The fuel economy standards to an industry average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.” Obama notes that this will save “1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years.” Of course the planet perk is that less fuel …read more

While it might be nice if everyone went out and bought a hybrid, that’s not very realistic. What’s more realistic is realizing that hybrids be damned, you can green up your drive at least somewhat.

WHEN BUYING A CAR:

Buy the most fuel efficient car you can afford in the class and size you want. Overall though, going for a smaller car will usually score you some easy green auto points.
Choose extras that add to your car’s eco-worthiness. Items like radial tires and fuel injection can help. One biggie extra is buying as new as you can afford. Most newer cars do …read more

There are all sorts of ways to conserve gas but one of the best is also one of the safest – SLOW DOWN. Driving too slow is annoying yeah, but I’m guessing that speedy drivers are more of an issue.

According to a CNN piece from last year, “Every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like the price of gasoline going up about 54 cents a gallon.”
How slow should you drive?: The problem is that when you drive above 60 mph your mileage decreases. Since the speed limit is higher than this in many areas your goal should …read more