According to the research conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Research, the fuel consumption rate for large deluxe passenger cars (over 3,000 cc emission amount) was twice as much as the small passenger cars (with less than 1,000cc of emission amount). Also, for some large import cars (with more than 5,000cc of emission amount), the fuel consumption rate amounted to more than 4 times as much compared to the small passenger cars.

Supposing an average car travels about 42.2 km per day, the annual fuel expenses for small passenger cars amount to 1.326 million won, whereas large passenger cars amount to about 2.412~2.902 million won. The carbon dioxide emission amount is 2.6 tons/year for small cars and 4.5~5.7 tons/year for large deluxe cars.

The findings of the research show that if people continue to use large deluxe passenger cars instead of the small ones, an extra spending of more than 1 million won/year is expected. It will also aggravate the global warming process by increasing the level of carbon dioxide emissions. Also, an increase of gasoline fuel prices will significantly increase the gap in the fuel consumption amount among the different sizes of passenger cars.

*The above research was conducted by the Motor Vehicle Emission Research Laboratory at the National Institute of Environmental Research for the years 2001 to 2002. The research was based on 1,655 gasoline-powered passenger cars, in CVS-75 mode. About 39.8%, or 659 vehicles consisted of large passenger cars with over 3,000cc of emission amount. Most of them were import deluxe cars.