In the US, actually, it is. The Honda Insight, an IMA vehicle, is the most fuel efficient car available in the US right now. It also allows the Civic to get almost exactly the same fuel economy as the Prius. Saying 'the only thing green about IMA is recovering lost energy' is kind of silly...of course it's the only thing, but it's HUGE. It takes a giant amount of kinetic energy that would be wasted in a traditional car, turns it into potential energy in the batteries and uses it to power the car back up....it's a fantastic way to decrease fuel consumption. It's an energy recycler, as all hybrids are. How do you think the Prius gets its energy for the batteries? Same thing...but carries more batteries. Though it does it very differently, and is better in stop and go traffic, overall, it gets the same fuel economy as the IMA system, so it's no better for the majority of drivers. Also, the newest IMA system can cut out all fuel consumption in low speed cruising or when going down hills at any speed. This reduces fuel consumption to zero during these stretches, and thus also has zero emissions. No matter how it does it, the IMA system significantly reduces both fuel consumption and emissions, and that's what it's supposed to do.