Five Volvo Models Nominated For World Green Car Of The Year

Swedish tax-payers needn't worry that recent loans to Volvo is money well spent. Volvo has the highest number of models nominated for the 2009 World Green Car of the Year awards. Five highly efficient DRIVe diesel and E85 Flexifuel Volvo models are featured in the 22-car field.

The Volvo C30 1.6D DRIVe, Volvo S40 1.6D DRIVe, Volvo V50 1.6D DRIVe, Volvo V70 2.5 FT Flexifuel and Volvo S80 2.5 FT Flexifuel – have all been nominated for World Green Car of the Year 2009.

While the fuel has not been widely adopted in Australia, Volvo has one of the most extensive E85 model programs in Europe incorporating the Volvo C30, S40, V50, V70 and S80.

A four-cylinder 1.8-litre engine, producing 92kWs and 165Nms of torque, is available in the C30, S40 and V50. A recently introduced five-cylinder 2.5-litre turbocharged Flexifuel engine, producing 147kWs and 300Nms, is available in the V70 and S80.

The DRIVe cars from Volvo are highly economical diesel variants of the C30, S40 and V50 models with fuel consumption of just 4.4 l/100 km (C30) and 4.5 l/100 km (S40 and V50). The CO2 figures are equally impressive, 115 and 118 g/kms respectively means the C30 and V50 have best-in-class CO2 emissions in their segments.

The remaining contenders are your usual suspects with Fiat and Mini each having two candidates while the Audi Q7 3.0 TDI, BMW 335d BluePerformance and Mercedes-Benz ML/R/GL 320 BlueTEC are also on the list of candidates.

Five finalists will be announced in February next year, with the final three announced in March. The winner will be presented on April 9 at the New York International Auto Show.

Both DRIVe and Flexifuel models are currently under evaluation for the Australian market.