I'm nowhere closer to making a decision on buying a more fuel efficient vehicle than I was when I first posed the question: is it time to buy a hybrid back in February. Because of that, I spend an awful lot of time thinking/writing about the choices available to folks shopping for a vehicle.

One of the most misunderstood topics in the car buying debate seems to be: how much more energy efficient does a new car have to be to make up for the energy of production vs a used car?

Here's the summary of what they have to say about this on AskPablo, one of the blogs presented by TriplePundit.com:

Continuing to drive an older car with poor fuel economy is less environmentally friendly than getting a new car that gets drastically better fuel economy. You can take my factors above and calculate the exact energy use for your old vehicle and a new vehicle to see the comparison. Keep in mind that these results are for the energy used, not the carbon dioxide emissions, but the two are highly correlated since most of our energy comes from fossil fuels.

If you're into the math, be sure to read the whole post. If you're more interested in the opinionated debate about new vs used, be sure to read the many comments Pablo's post has generated.

As for me the, the choice is clear. I'm going to be buying a new, more fuel efficient vehicle … sometime. What it will be remains to be seen/

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