GreenerCars.com puts out an annual list of the Year’s Top-Rated Models in Each Vehicle Class by looking at the environmental impact of the cars.

I thought I’d take a look at these ratings to see how both hybrid and non-hybrid cars compared to see whether my theory above was correct.

As an example, I looked at the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. According to the new regulation, this car meets the HOV requirements. So, if you look it up on the site (it is a Mid-Size SUV), you can see that it gets 32 mpg in the city, 27 mpg on the highway, and has a “Green Score” of 39.

If you then look at the Subcompact Cars, you will see that every single subcompact car has a better “Green Score”, regardless of whether it is a hybrid or not.

So, it seems a little bit silly that a car like the Toyota Yaris, which gets better scores across the board than the Highlander, wouldn’t quality for the HOV lane access, when the Highlander would.

It really seems like the right thing is to establish some metric (like this Green Score) and say, “If you pass this level, you qualify. If you don’t, you don’t.”