2012 Best Green Large Vehicles

Need to haul a lot of people or stuff, preferably without burning a ton of fuel? Here are the best green large vehicles to consider. 

GUIDE TO GREEN CARS, Summer 2012

Compiled by Megan Phelps, Emily Glover and Hannah Kincaid 

Many of us get a lot of work done with our vehicles, whether it’s hauling wood chips and compost to our gardens or transporting a carload of kids to and from events. It’s amazing how much you can do with a small sedan or hatchback, and many of those cars get great gas mileage. But sometimes a smaller vehicle just isn’t going to cut it.

If you need a big, workhorse vehicle for your daily routine, you might despair of getting decent fuel economy. But wait! No matter what type of vehicle you’re looking at, there’s significant variation among models in terms of their miles per gallon — and even small differences in mpg can add up to big savings over the course of a year, especially in large vehicles (read “Small Differences Can Equal Serious MPG Savings” in Buying a Green Car).

The 2012 Best Green Large Vehicles chart further in this article shows the 2012 vehicles that weren’t fuel efficient enough to make it into our profiles section but that get great mpg compared with other similar vehicles. For more about what the chart’s metrics mean, read “What the Numbers Mean” in The Ultimate Green Car Buyer’s Guide.