Hybrids are a fabulous product, but the nation's "conservatives" have willfully delayed and squandered far too much precious time for "voluntary" market-based programs to work any longer. Their absurd corruption and insane ideology has put us in an enormous hole.
As a result of their criminal inaction, market based solutions may likely take too long. Solving the problem will now perhaps require a WWII-style transformation of our auto industry in order to rapidly convert our disastrous, foolish, gas-guzzling SUV-heavy fleet to mandatory hybrids.
With the amount of time utterly wasted by Bushco, we'll only get one chance to do it right.
Objective, independent scientists and engineers will have to make the calculations and report to Congress as to how much CO2 reduction will be required and what kinds and quantities of fuel saving technologies will be necessary. Their recommendations will have to be made mandatory.
The oil and automotive industries cannot be involved in determining what needs to be done---they have greatly exacerbated the problem, willfully manipulated the ignorant and utterly failed the nation.
Posted by euzoius at January 8, 2007 01:27 PMWhat about the battery disposal at the end of the batterys life? How does that enviornmental hazard compare to the emissions hazard? Wondering if anyone knows
Posted by s at January 8, 2007 01:30 PMThe reason companies are building hybrids, is that consumers are demanding them. The Prius had over a 6 month wait in early 2006. Now there is more supply and choices coming on to the market.
And that's how the free markets work.
Posted by muckdog at January 8, 2007 01:34 PMI didn't read the article, but there is a commom methodological problem that studies like this often have when calculating TCO.
The problem is: what value do you choose for the initial purchase price of the car? The worst possible value they can choose is MSRP, because the actual price paid by consumers varies greatly from around MSRP (for a car with very high demand/supply ratio, such as the Toyota Prius) to 20% or more below MSRP, such as with typical American sedans.
If one does not take the actual purchase price into account then the study can distort the TCO in favor of the cars with higher actual/MSRP prices. Consumer Reports has made this error for years when they calculate retention values of cars.
There is a second potential problem with the study, and that depends on how they weight the cars they compared. For this to be fair, you'd compare the Prius with a similar Corolla, a Honda hybrid with a similar non-hybrid Honda, a Ford with a similar Ford, etc. BUT, if they take all compact hybrids as a group and compare them with all compact non-hybrids as a group, then their compact hybrid group will have a better TCO simply because the compact hybrid group is more heavily weighted with Toyotas and Hondas, which have a better TCO than the "average" car.
I wish I could say that Intellichoice is above such mistakes, but alas they, like JD Powers, have products to sell and their primary buyers are the car manufacturers. So, they have been guilty more than once of skewing results to fit a desired outcome.
Posted by Cost Benefit at January 8, 2007 01:50 PMAs a Prius owner, I agree that the emmissions and mileage are very nice. Though, despite what the EPA rates it, the actual mileage in city driving is 45.x, rather than the 63 mpg on the sticker.
That said, it still runs on petroleum. That's where a national program could be effective. Euzoius is certainly correct that we can't let the Cheney & Ford boys anywhere near the decision making.
Ethanol and better, biobutanol absolutely NOT extracted from Archer Daniels Midland corn! are fuels that can run today's engines, until fuel cell technology becomes affordable.
Every atom of carbon released from biofuels has already been extracted from the atmosphere and will be again by the next plant to be used. The madness of using carbon that has been sequestered by ancient plants and algae, over a span of hundreds of millions of years and then just spewing it brainlessly into the atmosphere has got to stop ASAP!
I'm all for government support for a biofuels program. It would also generate lots of construction and manufacturing jobs. And let's double the CAFE standards double quick, too! Efficiency gives us the greatest carbon reducing bang for the buck. Switching to alternative fuels is the next best way to go. Let's do them both and use tax incentives for renewables, taken directly from the petro industry to save our planet, if we still can.
And, oh yeah! Elect President Al Gore!
Posted by DeminNewJ at January 8, 2007 01:50 PM
The reason companies are building hybrids, is that consumers are demanding them.
Consumers demand what advertising sells to them. Toyota has been hitting home runs in selling the Prius. They knew exactly who their target market was and how to convince the target market to help sell the product. See here. And here's a fascinating article (PDF) dealing with demand being grown by marketing, and contrasting Honda and Toyota's hybrin product marketing strategies. Lastly, gas prices have serendipitously spiked at the same time and driven demand even higher as people look at their gas bills.
If your insight on free markets was any deeper, Tom Friedman, you'd be a cheap frozen pizza.
Posted by idiosynchronic at January 8, 2007 02:11 PMEthanol and better, biobutanol ... are fuels that can run today's engines, until fuel cell technology becomes affordable.
But how much fossil fuel energy is expended to create those fuels? Fossil fuels are necessary to plant (en masse), maintain, harvest, and process the raw bio materials that are used in these fuels.
I've seen figures that it costs more energy to create a unit of bio fuel than the unit of bio fuel provides. If true (and this does make sense), then the bio fuels are, in effect, a battery. They provide fuel for your car, but more energy was expended creating that fuel than you will use.
This means that until solar-powered planters, harvesters, and processors are built the bio fuels aren't helping relieve the fossil fuel crisis.
Posted by Cost Benefit at January 8, 2007 02:19 PMAnd that's how the free markets work.
Muck still operates under the illusion that we have something resembling a free market economy.
Take and your willful ignorance and over simplified arguments and.... aww ferget about it. Its entertaining at least.
Posted by Simp at January 8, 2007 02:30 PMrather than the 63 mpg on the sticker
Keep in mind that sticker ratings are done under strict conditions to optimize mileage.
Also remember that a VW with a diesel engine (bug, Golf, Jetta) get about 45mpg pretty consistently and can run on pure Biodiesel with absolutely no modifications.
But how much fossil fuel energy is expended to create those fuels?
Ethanol is a poor return. Biodiesel is actually about 3:1. Though Biodiesel created from large scale sea algae production will have a much better "energy density" (I really hate that phrase).
Two of the bigger issues to resolve in BioD production, IMO, is the ethanol/methanol required for production and that the production process is pretty water intensive.
However this link shows an incredibly promising proof of concept for biodiesel production
Posted by Simp at January 8, 2007 02:53 PMThe nanotech biodiesel converter does look good Simp. That's an example of the potential advances possible with just a little government help.
As to the use of petroleum in producing ethanol/biobutanol, it truly depends on whether you want to repeat past mistakes or try something new. It's true that tractors and trucks, CURRENTLY, use diesel to till fields and transport product. Currently, with modern, blindly massive industrial scale agriculture, most fertilizer is created from natural gas.
Instead of using food crops, like sugar and corn to produce fuel, celulosic fermentation of crop WASTE, switchgrass, garbage, etc. can be very effieiently used to produce fuel. It takes development of new bacteria strains to become very efficient.
If resources within 50 miles of a production plant are utilized, alternative fuels are used in farm equipment, and fertilizer is made from biological byproducts of the fermentation rather than petoleum products, the fossil enery used to produce the fuel is dramatically reduced.
Stop thinking like a big box,corporate, ADM farmer and think in terms of systems and the process can work much more efficiently. It's an astonishing lack of imagination that traps us in our wasteful, fossil fuel dependent ways. New technologies and old techniques can yield great returns on our investment.
Posted by DeminNewJ at January 8, 2007 03:26 PMSimp and DeminNewJ:
I suspect we're in violent agreement on the ideal policy here. Yes, we need to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels. Yes, the technologies and methodologies you cite have the *potential* to create those big reductions. But, in order for them to become large-scale realities, large up-front investments and (perhaps) government incentives will be needed to make these realities.
Nothing wrong with that of course. The Federal government has been creating infrastructure to stimulate the economy since its founding -- that was one of the main purposes of replacing the Articles of Confederation. From the trans-continental railroad to the TVA to the interstates to the internet -- major projects required Federal government stimulation.
My only quibble is that we should not represent these new technologies as a done deal -- as though they are proven today. In part this is because doing so undermines our credibility. And in part because if we tell ourselves these technologies are sure things we'll start to believe that -- and we'll make bad decisions as a result.
I still remember all the discussions of the inevitability of Nuclear Fusion in the late 1970s. I don't think any one of us back then would have imagined that by 2007 Fusion would be as far from reality as it was in 1978 -- but it turned out this new technology was a lot harder than most people imagined.
Posted by Cost Benefit at January 8, 2007 03:45 PMBut, in order for them to become large-scale realities, large up-front investments and (perhaps) government incentives will be needed to make these realities.
Shifting $5B from obvious wasted petroleum subsidies (to look and drill for more) would be an easy start.
My only quibble is that we should not represent these new technologies as a done deal -- as though they are proven today.
The only "unproven" is was to use new technologies to improve "energy density" and more effeciently produce fuel.
I switched to 100% biodiesel almost 4 years ago and 30k miles later and am doing perfectly well. Transport and distribution infrastructure already exists. The technology to remove NOx from emissions is there (couldn't be used before due to sulfur content of diesel... which BioD has none). Close to a closed carbon loop.
I'm not suggesting everyone go to b100. I'm not suggesting it is the end-all solution, but it can be a big part of it. If you required all diesel sold in the U.S. to be B20, no one would know the difference (price, distribution, mileage, modifications).
Implementation of larger use of Biodiesel only requires more production and more plants are coming online almost daily. It is possible to reduce diesel fuel consumption by 10 to 20% almost overnight (figuratively speaking). The only thing lacking is knowledge and political will. Hardly any Federal investment is needed (though it would certainly accelerate things greately) and the private sector will make out quite nicely.
I got tired of waiting. I fixed my own petroleum consumption with hardly a blink. That's one of the things that I love about it. Biodiesel empowers the individual if they care enough.
Posted by Simp at January 8, 2007 04:07 PMCost Benefit, you are correct. It takes a whole lot of coal to produce ethanol! The folks don't realize that for every gallon of ethanol they burn, they're pouring lots of CO2 in the atmosphere because of the amount of burning coal it took to generate the ethanol.
The ideal scenario would be to double the number of nuclear power plants in the US, and then use natural gas to fuel cars (instead of heating homes). That would dramatically reduce the amount of CO2 emissions caused by us notorious Americans. In addition, we would no longer need to import fossil fuels from foreign countries.
Of course, Chronicidiot and Simpleton don't understand that the reason other companies are producing hybrids now is because Toyota was successful with the Prius. "Gee, consumers sure seem to be lining up around the block for that hybrid Prius. Maybe we ought to make some hybrids."
That's how the free market works, dolts.
Posted by muckdog at January 8, 2007 08:29 PMMuck,
You really do make me laugh. Thanks for missing the point I was making about in your first post and you did a really nice reinforcement of it in your second post.
No amount of discussion is going to reveal to you how screwed up your supposed "free markets" are in this world. You are being gamed...and they laugh at you as you lap it up.
BTW Simp is a derivative of my initials and is short, in a self-depricating way for "Simpleton" So your attempted shot across the personal bow fell woefully short. I'm sure you can do mo betta.
muck: Regarding your ideal scenario there are a number of problems. The primary one is that both natural gas and uranium are natural resources, hence finite. Under your scenario the rate of usage of both would increase dramatically, making both relatively short-term solutions. Normally short-term solutions aren't bad, but in this case the cost of shifting the US economy to that energy model would be huge -- both replacing the existing natural gas infrastructure with electrical and replacing the existing auto infrastructure with natural gas. If the US is to invest in such a major shift, it should be to a model that will last longer than a couple generations.
Regarding your argument on free markets, there is some truth in what you say but also quite a bit of overstatement. You are right in that there is a big market for ecologically-friendly cars if the cost is just a bit over what people would pay for a similar regular car. This has been true for decades. This is similar to the way there is a market for cage free eggs in the supermarket, often at a 40% premium. Most people buy the regular eggs, but enough buy cage free that supermarkets carry that line -- plus it helps their image a bit.
But, recognizing a demand is only the first step to providing a product. The Prius would have sold well in the 1980s and would have been a rock star in the 1970s. The problem was that the technology wasn't there.
Automakers invested in money-losing electrical car programs in the 1990s in part as PR efforts to deflect criticism of their building less fuel efficient cars and in part as research to see if a useful electric car could be built. The fact that a Clinton administration law from the early 1990s gave them a few billion dollars for electric car research was a huge incentive. The GM EV1 had the most potential of the electrics, but it cost $150k per car and sold only to a tiny ecologically-conscious market in warm weather states (electric cars don't have a hot engine to use to heat them in the winter) at a loss of over $120k per car.
So, following failures with electric, fusion cell, and alcohol-driven cars, the hybrid was introduced more for PR value than as a money maker. The Hybrid was now technologically and economically feasible because of the failed experiments with selling electric cars, which provided most of the new technology needed.
Honda's Hybrid didn't sell too well, being only a light weight 2 seater. On the other end of the spectrum, Ford's hybrid Escape was as functional as their regular Escape, but it didn't do sell so well because it cost more but yielded very minimal improvements in gas mileage. It wasn't until Toyota provided the Prius -- a usable 4 door, 4 seater with significant ecological improvement (although not as much as most of the Prius' owners imagine) that a hybrid became a hit.
So, in sum, you are right that market forces influence the creation of the Prius and its competitors. But you are wrong in thinking that the hybrids are an automatic market response to a customer demand. If it weren't for extensive government-funded research they would not have been feasible at this time.
Posted by Cost Benefit at January 9, 2007 08:54 AMThere are problems with nuclear but running out of fuel is not one of them. An example is the fast breeder reactor. We have to go to wind and solar and fuel cell vehicles but nuclear will probably be part of the mix.
Posted by JohnT at January 9, 2007 10:07 AMJohnT: Don't fall for the hype. I know breeder reactors are advertised as "producing more fuel than they consume". I remember reading about them in SciAm in 1978.
However, there is no escape from entropy. The energy has to come from somewhere. Yes, they do use plutonium as input and their output includes elements that can be processed and used again in other reactors. BUT -- the process is not infinite. You still have to start at the beginning with uranium and there is only so much energy you can extract out of each unit of uranium until the remaining element no longer has any energy value.
But I agree with your main point -- nuclear should be part of the solution. My comment about nuclear was in response to muckdog, who suggested using nuclear to replace the current use of natural gas in the U.S. The biggest problem with his proposal would be converting the current natural gas infrastructure to electric.
Posted by Cost Benefit at January 9, 2007 10:16 AMThe reason companies are building hybrids, is that consumers are demanding them.
That's why I was able to get my hands on the high-demand, really scarce GM EV-1 so's I could use it for my daily commute, years ago when I found out about them and wanted to buy one.
Oh, wait - GM destroyed them all, despite consumers begging to buy them. And refused to sell them (you could lease them, but you couldn't buy them). Sounds like the free market - in a pig's eye.
As for biodiesel - it would be really nice if the corporations were to make a biodiesel/electric hybrid for public consumption, like many of us have begged them to do for, oh, forever. The technooogy's there - almost all of today's trains use diesel/electric engines). Right now the only alternative is to make one yourself (and don't even think about trying to compete with the established automakers, and introducing it to the public yourself, if you make a good one) and get an experimental vehicle designation so's you can run it on the street.
But even biodiesel has some petroleum content (according to all the formulas I have seen). And there's all that oil you need to lubricate the engine to boot. So it's a good solution, but not a perfect one. Even the EV's have issues with battery disposal, and some minor petroleum usage.
Posted by (: Tom :) at January 10, 2007 12:05 PMIf one does not take the actual purchase price into account then the study can distort the TCO in favor of the cars with higher actual/MSRP prices. Consumer Reports has made this error for years when they calculate retention values of cars.
There is a second potential problem with the study, and that depends on how they weight the cars they compared. For this to be fair, you'd compare the Prius with a similar Corolla, a Honda hybrid with a similar non-hybrid Honda, a Ford with a similar Ford, etc. BUT, if they take all compact hybrids as a group and compare them with all compact non-hybrids as a group, then their compact hybrid group will have a better TCO simply because the compact hybrid group is more heavily weighted with Toyotas and Hondas, which have a better TCO than the "average" car.
Posted by Money at January 15, 2007 10:11 PMhi,
The LA Times reports that a new study on hybrid cars find that they have higher total cost of ownership value than other comparable cars in the same class.
"Across the board, we found that all 22 hybrid vehicles have a better total cost of ownership over five years or 70,000 miles than the vehicles they directly compete against,"
Prius owners get the best value as the new study shows they can save more than $13K over other comparable non-hybrid cars over a 5 year period. The study used a gasoline price of $2.26 over the five years.
Another interesting point in this piece was that even cars and trucks known as mild hybrids are a better buy in their class. What is a mild hybrid?
A mild hybrid is one that doesn't have an electric drive system to augment the internal combustion engine. Instead, it uses its electric power to enable the conventional engine to shut down when the vehicle normally would be idling.
Not only does this improve their gas mileage, it also reduces their emission output which certainly helps get their ratings up. I'm glad to see that hybrid technology is being picked up by more car manufacturers as this is a major part of reducing our dependence on oil.
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pujaverma
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Toyota Camry--Toyota Camry