Ford Fusion Or Toyota Prius: Environmentalist's Vacation Dilemma

Carbon guilt weighed heavily on my mind as I approached the car rental counter at the Salt Lake City Airport.

The book I was reading on the plane (Sustainable Energy, by David JC Mackay) suggested that my portion of the energy for the round-trip plane ride from Boston and back would amount to roughly 12,000 kilowatt-hours.

That is roughly equal to a full year’s electricity use for the average American home--or three years' usage in an energy-efficient home like mine.

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That's a lot of consumption for one round-trip plane ride.

The carbon footprint of the rental car I intended to pick up was another story. Renting an electric car for the road trip from Salt Lake City up to Yellowstone Park and the Tetons seemed unfeasible in an area deliberately left underdeveloped.

So I decided to make do with the most efficient gas car sold in the U.S., the 50-mpg Toyota Prius.

That was my intent, at least, until I found that the Prius is viewed as a "Premium Car" by rental companies. Thus it would cost me $500 for the week versus $200 for many more “normal” cars.

The week before getting on the airplane, I had settled on the Subaru XV Crosstrek as my compromise ride of choice.

Sure, its 29-mpg combined EPA rating wasn’t great, but the $200 rental fee helped block out my feelings of carbon guilt.

Upon my arrival at the rental counter, I stepped up ready to be handed the fob for a suitably outdoorsy Crosstrek all-wheel-drive compact hatchback.

Farce worthy of Seinfeld

But despite the signs saying that rental cars were available at the counter, the rental agent informed me that they didn’t have any cars to rent.

A Seinfeld episode flashed into my head, with Jerry saying, “See, you know how to take the reservation. You just don’t know how to hold the reservation.”

ALSO SEE: Subaru Swamped By Demand For XV Crosstrek In U.S., Hybrids In Japan (Jul 2013)

The rental agent offer me a 15-passenger van, which I rejected. Then I was offered a pickup truck. It was as if the Prince of Carbon Darkness was deliberately plotting against me.

An hour later, a Ford Fusion mid-size sedan became available.

We leaped at the chance to begin heading north toward Yellowstone, grateful at least to be burning less fuel than in the finest Ford F-150 Crew Cab full-size pickup truck.

Stepping into the Fusion, a non-hybrid model, I noted that previous renters had only managed an indicated 24 mpg. I could feel the carbon guilt washing over me again.

But I reset the mpg computer on the digital dashboard and we set off.

With the appallingly low gas mileage the car had produced, I was determined not to like the Fusion.

But it gradually won me over.

Driving impressions

The Fusion accelerated smoothly and quietly, and its steering was nimble, with great road feel.