Green means go, but not too fast
EcoRun effects change in driving habits, which is probably a good thing
FREDERICTON, N.B.— The seventhannual AJAC EcoRun, whose objective is — as its website says —“to test for fuel efficiency and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions,” was recently held in New Brunswick.
It was also an exercise in human behaviour modification. Allow me to explain. Automotive journalists, by their very nature, love cars. And SUVs. And light trucks. And minivans (if they’re honest). They love nothing more than climbing aboard any one of those vehicles and mashing the accelerator.
Yup. Automotive journalists get off on driving quickly.
Except when they are taking part in the EcoRun and then they are all trying to win the coveted green jersey, emblematic of responsible behaviour when behind the wheel. It is then that they slow right down and actually drive below the speed limit, which is a sure-fire way to either save fuel or increase mileage of electric vehicles or hybrids.
I’m serious about this. They become people they aren’t. Most of them, anyway.
Me? I don’t change at all. I always drive slightly above the speed limit and, on occasion, way over. Which means during the two-day annual EcoRun, I get to drive right past most of these suddenly goody twoshoes at one time or another.
Automotive journalists are also terribly competitive people. They don’t admit it but they all want to write a better review than the next guy, so that the auto companies will send them off on the choice assignments.
Except there is really nothing to win in the EcoRun except the green jersey for responsible behaviour and so, naturally, everybody wants to win it. Almost everybody, that is. I don’t, be- cause then I would have to admit to being the same as everybody else and, for me, that would be a fate worse than driving slowly.
Twenty vehicles were entered in this year’s EcoRun and 20 automotive journalists signed on to drive them around the province over two days. We left Moncton city hall a week ago Thursday morning at about 9 a.m. — Mayor Dawn Arnold waved the green flag, with assistance from provincial finance minister Cathy Rogers — and drove off to Knocks Café in Sussex.
From there, we went to the Snider Mountain Ranch (where some of the journalists traded horsepower for horses and went riding) and then on to lunch at Isaac’s Way in Fredericton.
Following a sumptuous repast, the 20 cars and their drivers drove to Saint John for the night.
Friday morning, we all headed out along the Bay of Fundy to New River Beach for coffee and tarts at the BayBreeze Restau- rant and then it was on to absolutely enchantingly beautiful St. Andrews-by-the-Sea for lunch at the Gables Restaurant, where the homemade coconut cream pie was delish.
Following a futile cruise to watch whales, we all drove back to Fredericton.
I tell you all this in case you are thinking about taking a summer road trip but are still unsure about where to go. New Brunswick is a beautiful place and I highly recommend it. And it’s just a stone’s throw from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island if you want to go a little farther east.
More than a dozen automobile manufacturers provided the vehicles — gasoline, hydrogen fuel cell, pure electrics, plug-in and conventional hybrids — and, in some cases, product support personnel who were ready to answer any and all of our questions.
At the end of the day, all but two of the vehicles driven by AJAC members recorded better numbers during the EcoRun than were expected by Natural Resources Canada, which tracks this sort of thing.
The two exceptions were the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, which averaged 6.4 L/100 km (NRC expected only 5.5) and the Toyota Prius Prime (2.9 vs. NRC’s 2.78).
The biggest gap was recorded by the Mazda6. NRC says 8.0 L/100 km but the EcoRun number crunchers arrived at 5.3.
There were driver changes at each of the stops, which was not a lot of time to reach a conclusion about how good or not-so-good each vehicle was.
I was fortunate to drive six cars that I really wanted to test — the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, the Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, the Mazda CX-3, the Honda Clarity fuel cell and the Toyota Camry hybrid.
The Outlander is a gem. No negatives anywhere. The Mercedes is — well — a Mercedes (I drove much of the way across Canada last year in eight of the marque’s cabriolets and I’ve been in love with the brand ever since, even going so far as to recommend to my friends that they check them out). The Mazda and the Toyota turned out to be solid entries.
But I want to make special mention of two.
Although the world is going nuts for electric cars, I am curious about automobiles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Honda had to bring the Clarity up from California because they didn’t have one handy and, at the moment, the only hydrogen filling station in the country is in British Columbia.
I like the fact that if I lived in California or B.C., I could pull into a hydrogen station and “gas” up in five minutes, pretty much like I do now with my daily driver, a gasoline-burning Ford F-150 pickup.
Finally, I must register my disappointment with the Pacifica Hybrid. I had high hopes for this vehicle when it first came out because, a) I like minivans (yes, I admit it) and, b) Chrysler needed a winner. And the Pacifica has won a bunch of awards, so I could be swimming against the tide here.
But I found the vehicle heavy. It felt sluggish. Two weeks ago, I was in Portugal and I drove around in the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace, which is a heavy vehicle, but it felt light and nimble by comparison.
And I found the maddeningly wide gap between the dash and the centre console at the front of the Pacifica to be disconcerting. I usually drive with both hands on the steering wheel but if I’m heading for Kingston, Ont., to visit my grandchildren, there are long stretches of the 401on which I will take my right hand off the wheel and steer just with my left.
In my truck and all the other cars I’ve driven lately, there is a console connected to the dash, or a console gearshift, where I can rest my right hand. There is nothing in the Pacifica but dead space and I didn’t like that one bit.
And I’m not so sure I could get used to it, either.