Frankfurt: what does green really mean? - Green cars

There are many ways that cars can be made greener without recourse to radical technology - but while the gains can be significant, some of the 'initiatives' in Frankfurt smacked of manufacturers hopping on the environmental bandwagon.

Only four of the 43 manufacturers we visited didn't make any mention of greener performance on their stands - Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Hummer.

Even then, the Italian icons are making long-term noises about investigating weight savings and aerodynamic improvements to lower emissions (while improving performance at the same time, of course).

Some carbon dioxide savings are reasonably easy to make. By removing heavy accessories such as air conditioning, sculpting some moderately smoother aerodynamics and bolting on some low-resistance tyres, manufacturers can create a semi-credible eco car.

So how do you sort the wheat from the chaff, picking out the genuinely impressive green strides from the half-hearted attempts from manufacturers to show they care?

Well, the positive signs are that there is growing competition among the brands to compete on green credentials.

VW has Bluemotion, Ford is fighting back with Econetic, while Citroen and Fiat have launched ambitious concepts such as the Cactus and Panda Aria respectively.