If you thought hybrid, wacky cars were a thing of the future, then think again. Green cars are here to stay, and it seems that green is the in colour.

Green is to be seen

Following the success of environmentally friendly products, the Green Insurance Company (GIC) has recently celebrated writing its 25,000th policy since it was founded 19 months ago.

The eco-friendly car insurance intermediary said it reached its milestone ahead of schedule following a “very successful year’s trading.”

GIC promises to offset 100% carbon emission produced by customer’s cars. Over 100,000 trees have been planted by the firm across Scotland and the North of England to enable it to meet this promise.

Andrew McMillan, managing director, said: “Customers have told us they like our environmental ethics. Our expansion will continue this year as we launch more exciting products, further develop our popular website and invest in our people.”

Full of air

When it comes to hybrid cars, it appears the greener, the better. A car that runs on air is currently being developed by engineers at a top British university. This product could be a major break though in the battle to create cheaper and greener driving.

The group have found a way to adapt a normal petrol combustion engine to run on compressed air – generated within the vehicle – to give an extra boost to power the car and reduce the cost of running it.

The end product is a new ‘low-cost air hybrid’ engine which dramatically cuts emissions of carbon dioxide and cuts fuel guzzling by around 30%.

Existing ‘green’ hybrid cars – such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight use a petrol engine and braking energy generate on-board electricity to give supplementary power to the vehicle.

A spokeswoman for the Brunel team said: “The new air hybrid engine will be considerably cheaper to run and deliver significantly less carbon emissions.”

Professor Hua Zhao, director for advanced power train and fuels research at Brunel University’s School of Engineering and Design said: “Significantly reducing the cost of driving through reducing fuel consumption and lowering carbon emissions for commercial vehicles is an ongoing battle [...] we have achieved a major breakthrough.”

Price of green car insurance

There are several car insurance providers that have launched specific car insurance policies targeting the ‘green market’, meaning motorists who want an insurance product can have cover that is environmentally friendly too.

Many insurers now offer ‘carbon offsetting’ programmes, which means that a portion of the price of the insurance will go on carbon offsetting products. In other cases, some green car insurance firms will offset 100% of a driver’s vehicle emission.

Although, overall hybrid cars cost the same on insurance as normal cars, some insurers have started to offer reduced premiums to drivers of environmentally friendly cars. The general consensus is that green drivers are more responsible and therefore present less risk to the insurer.

The general school of thought though is that policies for green cars are more expensive. Consequently, there is strong argument for consumers to shop around for the best deal.