Hybrid people: Ever see this?

Empath

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You need to correct your link. You're sending everyone to a forum login page.
 

idleprocess

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The second link goes to the reports themselves.

The question that this report attempts to answer is something I've wondered about for a long time - just what's involved in making cars?

The summary document looks to be exhuastive in its analysis of cycle life energy costs, although I don't have the time to look it over. I do find it interesting that they're giving the hybrid vehicles unusually low rated lifespans relative to even the regular version of said vehicle or close analogues. I also suspect that they're looking at the current specific process of building individual cars/components a bit too closely instead of simply analyzing typical processes and coming up with some average.

It would be interesting to know who this company's typical clients are, just for grins.

I lack the time to read the report cover to cover and analyze its methodology, but its initial conclusions are somewhat surprising. Be interesting to see if they keep their numbers up to date and if the hybrid metric improves as manufacturers improve the "recipe."
 

gadget_lover

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It appears to be a very scientific study by very serious.... MARKETERS????? Well, they appear to be fairly amateurish marketing people, judging by the screwy web site. They show off their project speed boat, fer crying out loud.

My guess is that the "study" was commissioned by a used car salesman as a way of bashing hybrids that he does not sell.

Just a guess,

Daniel
 

icecube

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Here's the message text:

Saw this over at BF.C thought i would share it with you guys

Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius's EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn't be writing this article. It gets much worse.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the 'dead zone' around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius' battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist's nightmare.

"The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside," said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn't end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce 'nickel foam.' From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven't even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius's arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called "Dust to Dust," the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.
 

gadget_lover

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Thanks for the laugh.

I won't bother point out all the inaccuracies and fallacies in this "report". There are too many and the whole thing has already been debunked as noted in post #5. It is a very good example of how you can make things up, phrase them intelligently, and be taken seriously.

Daniel
 

pedalinbob

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From Idleprocess' search:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/20/opinion/main1224807.shtml

"Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005. "


Ouch.
Just give me a good electric.
 

2xTrinity

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pedalinbob said:
From Idleprocess' search:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/20/opinion/main1224807.shtml

"Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005. "


Ouch.
Just give me a good electric.
One thing that those reports neglect to say though is that every other vehicle they test that way (jackrabbit starting, start and go traffic etc) will report far, far under EPA ratings as well -- EPA ratings are outright unrealistic. Also, I don't think any of those magazine article tests are very well controlled either -- they usually just drive around a car for X miles but don't take into account traffic, or weather conditions that can make a huge difference.

Also, the way that we report mileage in miles per gallon is very deceptive -- reporting in gallons per X miles would be more intutive, I will explain why:

I've known of poeple who are fine with achieving 13 MPG in a car labelled as 17MPG. That's 25% below EPA. Many of the same people might be shocked that a 60mpg rated car only gets 45mpg in real life -- also 25% below EPA, but the change looks a lot more severe. If you actually look at the fuel cost though, the difference between 45 and 60 is much less than the difference between 13 and 17mpg. In the case of the Hybrid, that's 5.6 gallons more than expected over 1000 miles. In the case of the SUV, it's an additional 18.1 gallons.

It is true though that the nature of how hybrids work will make them more sensitive to how they're being driven than regular cars. For exmaple in a regular car, slamming on the brakes or braking gradually makes no difference in terms of fuel consumption. In the case of the hybrid though, gradual braking causes a bigger fraction of the energy to be recaptured in the batteries than panic braking (most is lost to the brake pads). Also, probably the main reason that the hybrid cars are more efficient is that their engines are downsized, with the electric supplementing the acceleration when it is needed. Driving it hard continuously though (like a race car), once the battery is depleted, will cause it to deliver closer to what you'd get in a regular car than a more conservative driving style (a bigger savings relative to a normal car).

I do agree though that either an electric, or a series hybrid (that is, basically an electric car with a generator to recharge itself for long range) would be better -- for one, larger batteries and a more powerful motor means more efficient regenerative braking even for heavy deceleration. Also, with electric, efficiency is pretty much the same at all sorts of loads, so that would fare a lot better under aggressive driving than present parallel hybrids.
 
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gadget_lover

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It's funny that people worry about the EPA MPG drop for hybrids, but don't worry about the drop for other cars.

Unlike 2xTrinity, I don't find that the Prius mileage is as sensitive to driving styles as my conventional cars. My truck, if driven hard, drops from 12 MPG to 7 MPG. If it's stop and go or (even worse, gridlock) the mileage drops even lower. I once was stuck in gridlock in my F150 pickup and used 1/8 tank of gas (almost 2 gallons) to travel lees than a mile.

In contrast, the best to worst difference on my Prius is on the order of 15%. A short spell of stop and go has no impact on the mileage. Gridlock? That same 1 mile gridlock that sucked gas in my pickup used virtually nothing in my Prius.

Electric would be nice, but the better hybrids are a nice stop-gap.

Daniel
 
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