And it’s not even 2012 yet.

The 2012 Green Car of the Year award didn’t go to an electric or diesel vehicle (as it has the past few years) but instead was taken by none other than the Honda Civic Natural Gas. 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.” 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 selected by industry and environmental experts.

The Civic Natural Gas produces 110 horsepower from its 1.8-liter i-VTEC four-cylinder engine and has a range of about 240 miles on a full tank.

Since the official announcement that a diesel-powered Chevy Cruze was coming to the U.S. we have not heard a lot about it other than it won’t be available until 2013. Now we’re starting to hear some very exciting news from GM insiders who are saying that the Chevy Cruze diesel will get 50 MPG.

Additionally, it’s rumored that, unlike the Chevy Cruze Eco, the diesel version will have just as impressive mileage with an automatic transmission as it does with a manual transmission.

The Chevy Cruze diesel engine has been confirmed to be based on the 2.0-liter that’s used in the Holden Zruze CDX which offers 160 HP and 265 pound-feet of torque which will give it more zip than the Cruze Eco.

While there are still a ton of details we are waiting to see released on the 2012 Toyota Yaris, one thing we now know is the price. The 2012 Toyota Yaris will be on lots and ready to move by the end of this year and will have a starting price of $14,115 for the three-door version.

The new Yaris apparently seeing a complete redesign but will maintain it’s goal of being a car that’s great for its price by adding over $1,000 in new additional goodies that weren’t present in the 2011 version.

The top model will cost $17,200 and will be a five-door liftback with automatic transmission and an “enhanced tuned suspension.”

Production of the new Yaris is starting at the end of the month and complete details are expected to come soon. Check back here for more information.

The fuel efficiency stats on the 2012 Ford Edge with EcoBoost engine are in and they are pretty decent. The EPA is done running the Edge through the paces and showed that the 2.0 liter four-cylinder engine will get drivers 21 MPG and 30 MPG for city and highway respectively.

The difference between an Edge with EcoBoost and an edge without is 3 MPG on the highway.

The EcoBoost engine is nothing to sniff at either with 240hp and 275 pound-feet of torque. While the EcoBoost’s horsepower is a lot lower than its 2.5-liter V6 cousin which boasts 285hp, EcoBoost lays the smack down by beating its less gas-friendly incarnation in torque with an extra 22 pound-feet.

A couple from Melbourne, Australia, Helen and John Taylor, are getting ready to embark on an eco-cruising challenge that has plenty of people wondering how they plan to accomplish it. The hypermiling couple have set themselves a target of going 2,000 miles on a single tank of gas in a Chevy Eco Cruze.

The Eco Cruze isn’t an expensive car. It isn’t even a hybrid. It’s just a very efficient gas-powered vehicle, yet the couple thinks can do it.

Possibly even more amazing is that the couple isn’t even planning on doing this on flat track that lets them cruise unimpeded, but on a normal trip as they drive through all 48 states in the U.S. The entire trip is expected to take them over 9,600 miles and somewhere in there, they intend to do 2,000 straight on a single 12.6 gallon tank of gas. Accomplishing this feat would mean coaxing 158 MPG out of the Chevy Eco Cruze which sounds pretty unlikely.

The Taylors have a history of squeezing incredible mileage out of cars though. They currently hold 88 world records for hypermiling so they get the benefit of the doubt here. They had their gas tank sealed just outside of Burbank and currently attempting the record as of the writing of this, so good luck Taylors!

Automotive News recently deduced that a Ford Fiesta with a 1.0-liter, three-cylinder EcoBoost engine will be made available stateside in the future.

This Fiesta EcoBoost engine will be the smallest in the whole Ford lineup. While specs on the engine haven’t been released yet, Ford’s VP of global powertrain engineering stated that the little EcoBoost engine will come very close to performing just as well as Ford’s 120-HP, 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine, yet more efficient.

The Fiat and Suzuki alliance just got tighter with a recent deal that will see Fiat produce 30,000 1.6-liter diesel engines per year for Suzuki. The fuel-efficient engines will be used to power the Suzuki SX4 which was co-developed by the two companies.

Using the 1.6-liter Fiat engines will allow Suzuki to avoid the costs of building a clean production facility that meets environmental standards since the Fiat engines already pass that test. This in turn should see a lower cost on the SX4 passed on to the consumer.

Chevrolet topped the list of compact cars sold in the U.S. for the month of May, a position the company hasn’t held for five years. The Chevy Cruze boasted 22,711 sales beating out the number two contender, Ford Focus, by 408 cars.

The other relatively fuel-efficient compact cars on the list of the top five for May sales include the Hyundai Elantra (20,006), the Honda Civic (18,341), and the Toyota Carolla (16,895).

May numbers show that cars in this class accounted for just over half of all Chevy sales which is a dramatic increase over last year when they only accounted for 36% and around 25% from five years ago.

In a list that is generally topped by Japanese vehicles, do you think these numbers are reflection of an effect created by the Japanese tsunami or is it simply a matter of the American cars outperforming in the marketplace?

The good old days. When movies cost a nickel, Wii was something you shouted as you ran around outside and you had to walk to school everyday. This last part is apparently a lot more true than you might have expected

A recent National Household Travel Survey showed that over the last forty years parents have increased how often they drive there kids to school by four times. An average of 15% of American parents drive their kids to school in 1969 and that number had blossomed to 75% in 2009.

And this is despite the fact that half of all American kids live within two miles of their school.

This comes as a good reminder that the problem with unwanted vehicle emissions is as much a problem of unnecessary driving as it is with operating old-school gas-powered engines.

The next-generation Ford Explorer will add an EcoBoost turbocharged four-cylinder engine and six-speed automatic transmission as its standard powertrain. As a result, the 2011 Ford Explorer should turn in combined highway-city fuel economy above 20 MPG.

Other factors boosting the fuel economy are twin independent variable camshaft timing, electric power-assisted steering, advanced battery management, fast engine warm-up and aggressive deceleration fuel shutoff. The Ford Explorer also features Ford’s first U.S.-application of a variable-displacement air conditioning compressor that reduces parasitic engine drag. This year’s 4.0-liter V6 Explorer is EPA-rated at 14 MPG city and 20 MPG on the highway. A 30 percent improvement would mean the 2011 2.0-liter EcoBoost model should deliver about 18 MPG in the city and 26 MPG on the highway. The EPA has not yet certified official fuel economy numbers.