[sustran] Hybrid cars- article from IHT

[Carlos F. Pardo SUTP]

A nice, centered article about the reality of hybrid cars and their "fuel
efficiency"

 

Source:  <http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/16/opinion/edkitman.php>
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/16/opinion/edkitman.php

 


Life in the green lane 


 
<http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=Jamie%20Lincoln%20Kitman&sort=s
wishrank> Jamie Lincoln Kitman The New York Times

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2006

 

If you've gone to any auto show in the last year or so, you'll know that
hybrid cars are the hippest automotive fashion statement to come along in
years. They've become synonymous with the worthy goal of reducing gasoline
consumption and dependence on foreign oil and all that this means for a
better environment and more stable geopolitics. 

 

And yet like fat-free desserts, which sound healthy but can still make you
fat, the hybrid car can make people feel as if they're doing something good,
even when they're doing nothing special at all. As consumers and governments
at every level climb onto the hybrid bandwagon, there is the very real
danger of elevating the technology at the expense of the intended outcome -
saving gas. 

 

Few things these days say "environmentally aware consumer" so loudly as the
fuel-sipping Toyota Prius. With its two power sources - one a gasoline-
powered internal combustion engine, the other a battery-driven electric
motor - the best-selling Prius (and other hybrids sold by Honda and Ford and
due soon from several other car makers) can go further on a gallon and emit
fewer pollutants in around-town use than most conventional automobiles
because under certain circumstances they run on battery power and consume
less fuel. 

 

But just because a car has so-called hybrid technology doesn't mean it's
doing more to help the environment or to reduce the country's dependence on
imported oil any more than a non-hybrid car. There are good hybrids and bad
ones. Fuel-efficient conventional cars are often better than hybrid
sport-utility vehicles - just look at how many miles per gallon the vehicle
gets. 

 

Being a professional car-tester, which is to say a person who gets asked for
unpaid car-buying advice practically every day, I know these distinctions
have already been lost on many car buyers. And I fear they're well on their
way to being lost on our governments, too. 

 

Lately, people have been calling me and telling me they're thinking about
buying the Lexus 400H, a new hybrid SUV. When I tell them that they'd get
better mileage in some conventional SUVs, and even better mileage with a
passenger car, they protest, "But it's a hybrid!" I remind them that the 21
miles per gallon I saw while driving the Lexus 400H is not particularly
brilliant, efficiency-wise - hybrid or not. Because the Lexus is a
relatively heavy car and because its electric motor is deployed to provide
speed more than efficiency, it will never be a mileage champ. 

 

The car that started the hybrid craze, the Toyota Prius, is lauded for
squeezing 40 or more miles out of a gallon of gas, and it really can. But
only when it's being driven around town. On a cross- country excursion in a
Prius, the staff of Automobile Magazine discovered mileage plummeted on the
Interstate. In fact, the car's computer, which controls the engine and the
motor, allowing them to run together or separately, was programmed to direct
the Prius to spend most of its highway time running on gasoline because at
higher speeds the batteries quickly get exhausted. 

 

Indeed, the gasoline engine worked so hard that we calculated we might have
used less fuel on our journey if we had been driving Toyota's conventionally
powered, similarly sized Corolla - which costs thousands less. 

 

For years, most of the world's big car makers have shied away from building
hybrids because while they are technologically intriguing, they are also an
inelegant engineering solution - the use of two energy sources assures extra
weight, extra complexity and extra expense (as much as $6,000 more per car.)
The hybrid car's electric battery packs rob space from passengers and cargo
and although they can be recycled, not every owner can be counted on to do
the right thing at the end of their vehicle's service life. And an
unrecycled hybrid battery pack, which weighs more than 100 pounds, poses a
major environmental hazard. 

 

So the ideal hybrid car is one that is used in town and carefully disposed
of at the end of its days. Hybrid taxis and buses make enormous sense. But
the market knows no such distinctions. People think they want hybrids and
they'll buy them, even if a conventional car would make more sense. The
danger is that the automakers will co- opt the hybrids' green mantle and,
with the help of a government looking to bail out its troubled friends in
Detroit, misguidedly encourage the sale of hybrids without reference to
their actual effect on oil consumption. 

 

Pro-hybrid laws and incentives sound nice, but they might just end up
subsidizing companies that have failed to develop truly fuel-efficient
vehicles at the expense of those that have had the foresight to design their
cars right in the first place. And they may actually punish citizens who
save fuel the old- fashioned way - by using less of it, with smaller,
lighter and more efficient cars. All the while, they'll make a mockery of a
potentially useful technology. 

 

(Jamie Lincoln Kitman is the New York bureau chief for Automobile Magazine
and a columnist for Top Gear, a British magazine.)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20060417/2d1c93ff/attachment.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 73 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/public/sustran-discuss/attachments/20060417/2d1c93ff/attachment.gif