electric vehicles

Buying a Prius has benefits, but don’t forget the costs.

A reader of the Cascadia Scorecard Weblog had this question: What do we think about this piece of advice from the May-June Sierra Club magazine's "Hey Mr. Green" column?

Hey Mr. Green,

What's best for the environment, continuing to drive my perfectly fine 1990 Honda Accord, or trading it in for a new gas-sipping Prius? -- Heath in Los Angeles

Well, Mr. Green hates to say this because you might be bonded to your trusty old Accord, but she burns twice the petrol and wheezes out twice the global-warming gas of a Prius or similar hybrid model. Being a conscientious environmentalist, though, you're also worried about the energy and pollution involved in building a new car -- the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gas. But by the time the Prius hits 50,000 miles, its energy savings will have made up for its own construction. So unless you drive very little, a new hybrid is the way to go.

That's not necessarily the advice I'd give.

Mike Millikin, publisher of green-car blog, answers questions

Mike Millikin. What work do you do? I am the publisher/writer of Green Car Congress, a site covering technologies, issues, and policies for sustainable mobility. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? My mission is to build a company that offers a portfolio of media products providing detailed […]

Hybrids tested and reviewed — Wired style

Thinking about buying a hybrid car?

Paul A. Eisenstein, founder of TheCarConnection.com, write's up the results of Wired's road tests of the following vehicles:

Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid
Ford Escape Hybrid
Honda Accord Hybrid
Honda Civic Hybrid
Honda Insight
Lexus Rx 400h
Toyota Prius
Toyota Highlander Hybrid

They drove them down city streets, up freeway on-ramps, and along the tight twists of a mountain road. They judged the cars on acceleration, maneuverability, comfort, features, esthetics and fuel efficiency.

Diesel or hybrid? How about both?

Wired News has reported that General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, and Ford are working on diesel-hybrid prototypes.

According to Charlie Freese, executive engineering director at GM Powertrain:

... many factors that make diesel engines more efficient include operating unthrottled and more efficient oxidizing of fuel. Diesel engines also have a higher compression ratio, and the heavier diesel fuel has a higher energy density ... diesel and hybrid technologies have synergies because hybrid systems reduce fuel consumption by relying on the electric motor while idling and during acceleration of stop-and-go traffic. Diesel engines are optimized for hauling heavy loads and for steady-speed highway driving.

Now, longtime Grist readers will know that Umbra has had some harsh words when it comes to diesel (but not biodiesel and SVO though). While responding to a reader asking if a higher gas mileage diesel car is better than a less-particulate-emitting gasoline engine, she offered the following analogy:

Let's recall some stale high school stereotypes: the cruel football player and the catty cheerleader. Diesel oil is the football player -- big, strong, lunk-headed, unwashed, and mean. Gasoline is the cheerleader: slimmer, well-groomed, and socially manipulative. They're both toxic to the school atmosphere, but people are more inclined to avoid the bully, because he is more immediately physically hazardous.

Umbra sums up her article by saying, "... all diesel cars are considered 'inferior' in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's Green Book." But what would Umbra think of a diesel hybrid engine? Here's what Dan Benjamin, an analyst at ABI Research, had to say:

"Can hybrid engines help (reduce) diesel emissions? Absolutely," Benjamin said. Although diesel vehicle manufacturers will likely add filters or catalytic converters to reduce emissions, "hybrid systems can cut emissions by eliminating situations where NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions are at their very worst," according to Benjamin. Meeting California's tougher emissions requirements, which have been adopted by four other states, presents more of a challenge, Benjamin said.

So maybe those nasties Umbra is worried about won't be as much as a concern. What say you?

Umbra on hybrids vs. veggie-oil cars

Dear Umbra, I currently drive a 2002 Toyota Prius that gets about 40 to 42 miles per gallon on the highway, which is where most of my driving takes place. However, I’ve recently become enamored with biodiesel vehicles, and specifically with straight vegetable oil (SVO) vehicles. I’m interested in investing in an SVO system fueled […]

Be Cool — eventually

I saw Be Cool last night. It's the sequel to Get Shorty, and as you would expect, it's not nearly as good. But there are enough spirited, funny moments -- mainly involving bit characters played by The Rock and Andre 3000 -- to make it worth the price of admission. Barely.

One of the running jokes in Get Shorty was that Chili Palmer (apparently the only character John Travolta plays well) got stuck with a minivan. After he becomes a successful movie producer, and thus an arbiter of cool, everyone in Hollywood starts driving minivans.

The jokes is basically repeated in Be Cool, except this time he gets stuck with a Honda Insight (guess Honda outbid Toyota for product placement).

It's obvious why the minivan is funny -- it's associated with soccer moms and suburban squares. But it's worth pondering why the hybrid is funny.

Fareed on hybrids

I'm a huge fan of Fareed Zakaria, who's both one of the most insightful political commentators around and one of the best repeat guests on the Daily Show. I don't find his column on hybrid cars to be his best work, but it does fall within this blog's purview, so I'm gonna link it anyway. Basically, Zakaria says that we could, with concerted effort, exceed Kyoto CO2 emissions targets and break our dependence on foreign oil purely through hybrids (not today's hybrids, of course, but future plug-in hybrids that also accept biofuels). Pretty bold, and also, I suspect, a little overly optimistic. Nonetheless, this passage is worth quoting at length:

If things are already moving, why does the government need to do anything? Because this is not a pure free market. Large companies -- in the oil and automotive industry -- have vested interests in not changing much. There are transition costs -- gas stations will need to be fitted to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which have lobbies in Washington.

Besides, the idea that the government should have nothing to do with this problem is bizarre. It was military funding and spending that produced much of the technology that makes hybrids possible. (The military is actually leading the hybrid trend. All new naval surface ships are now electric-powered, as are big diesel locomotives and mining trucks.) And the West's reliance on foreign oil is not cost-free. [Energy security advocate Gal] Luft estimates that a government plan that could accelerate the move to a hybrid transport system would cost $12 billion dollars. That is what we spend in Iraq in about three months.

Umbra on renting hybrids and sharing cars

Dear Umbra, Do you know of any car-rental companies that offer hybrids? I have heard of a bunch in environmentally friendly California, but my quick search in the Boston area has turned up nil. With high gas prices, I think I’m brewing up a new campaign! JeanDorchester, Mass. Dearest Jean, An environmentally focused rental group, […]

New Ford hybrid SUV

Ford recently announced their second hybrid SUV, the Mariner. What I'm saying is, when's the hybrid minivan coming? There's got to be a huge market, no? Take me, for instance. As the patriarch of a growing clan of resource-sucking, overpopulation-contributing children, a minivan looms large in my future. I'd love to be able to show-off my eco-credentials while porting around my clan and their inevitable sports gear, musical instruments, academic awards, etc.

My god, I think I lost half my remaining manhood just by writing that sentence.

Anyway, if you're curious about the Mariner, the place to find more, as with all matters green and automotive, is Green Car Congress.

Update [2005-2-9 12:27:47 by Dave Roberts]: Ah, have y'all heard of this site "google"? It's quite nifty. Anyway, turns out there's already a hybrid minivan on the Japanese market (shocking, I know), and according to HybridCars.com, a hybrid Toyota Sienna may be headed for the U.S. market as early as 2007. Good to know Japanese automakers continue to kick our asses in this department.