Letters to the Editor
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You forgot one
Why leave out the Toyota Yaris? Lightest, smallest, and 40 mpg easy. Low price, ecoAuto rebate from Canadian Fed., holds a lot of stuff in the hatchback, and fun to drive.
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ondelette from Typesbad
Let me clarify that I'm not saying that the Prius gets necessarily gets poor mileage on a long highway drive, merely that the hybrid aspect of the vehicle really does not come into play on such an excursion. The mileage you get is mostly due to the fact that the 76 hp 1.5 liter engine of the Prius is pretty small for that size vehicle, and their are non=hybrid factors from its body shape to its low resistance (but not particularly sticky) tires. With a 47 mpg highway figure, credit must also be directed to you for a frugal driving style. After all, even the EPA figures just have it at 46.
But I reiterate that the battery, motors, and all the other Hybrid mechanicals don't have anything to do on such a drive and that if they were actually removed from you car, the highway figure would actually be higher.
But that would be at the expense of your city efficiency, which you also obviously do so understand that I am not pooh-poohing the whole concept of hybrids, I just want to point out where they are best suited.
As for my "vaporware" diesel vehicles. They are nothing of the sort. Over 50% of Europe passenger cars run on just such engines. Basically, if you want to sell a car in Europe, it better come with at least one available diesel engine. Thus, almost all manufacturers have passenger car diesel engines in teir portfolio already, so this is not theoretical fuel cell territory I'm talking about. So where are they? Manufacturers haven't marketed them over hear yet for the following reasons:
1. High sulfer content in the diesel fuel. Europe has long more stringent sulfer content regulations. Extensive oil-buck lobbying has prevented such standards over here until very recently.
2. Particulate matter emissions standards in California and the five other states that follow California's standards. This is just now being overcome with technology. Honda, VW and M-B all have plans to introduce their clean diesels within the next two years. The other manufacturers will be watching their success in this area very closely.
3. Consumer perception. Diesels conjur up big rigs and seem to reek of old technology. They've also been noisy and smelly, another aspect that recent technology has just recently addressed. Again, if Honda and the like can turn around such peceptions, other manufacturers will closely follow.
Again, these are real existing engines, so I can cite real examples.
The 2.2 liter diesel that Honda plans on bringing over here is rated at 53.6 mpg in their Accord (that would be our Acura TSX) That figure may drop a little over here since their testing cycle generates higher figures for comparable vehicles, but the point is the engine exists. This is not some pipe dream.
A car more comparable to the Prius in Europe, the Peugeot 207 hatchback. Its diesel gives combined figure of 60.1 on the European test regimen.
So am I saying Diesel = Good, Hybrids = Bad? Not at all. They each have their strengths, depending on how you drive. Even a diesel-hybrid is a possibility. Audi is working on it. At the moment it would be a very expensive proposition, but that may change.
I'm glad you are having such a good experience with your Prius. Just try not to be so defensive about it.
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today's WSJ
Apologies if this has already been pointed out. Check out page R5 of today's print version of the Wall Street Journal. It reproduces the stats from edmunds.com car site showing how many years it takes to recoup the extra cost of a hybrid. It uses a gas price of 2.79 a gallon, but even doubling that, you can see how futile it is to justify most of them on an economic basis, now that none of the Toyotas qualify for the tax credit anymore (and Honda's are due to expire soon, too, according to the article).
With the 2.79 a gallon gas price, it takes almost 18 years to break even buying a Prius instead of a Corolla, assuming 15K miles driven yearly.
The Saturn VUE hybrid fares better but it only gets 4 mpg better than the gas version, which hardly seems worth it.
As for the poster who complained that anyone getting poor mileage in a Prius needs to learn to drive it more gently, well, duh. Our country could save millions of gallons of gas just from people slowing down on the freeways and not accelerating so hard. Remember 55 mph speed limits? They were instituted for a reason - to save gas. When gas hit nearly $4 a gallon where I live, I started driving 60-65 on the right-hand lane of the freeway and got about 20% better mileage than when I zipped along at 75-80 with the flow of traffic. So ANY car can increase its fuel efficiency that way - and since there are so many more gasoline-powered cars on the roads, it would make a much bigger difference in our oil dependency than having a few percent of our cars be hybrids.
The article almost mentions that diesels are a much more efficient solution to the problem and that 50% of European cars are diesels (think Mercedes, VW) compared to 1% here.
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The point about electric
About those electric cars --
First, the article talks about electric cars having been "relegated to the back burner". It doesn't quite seem like that to me, they're just sidling up by way of the hybrid. To take two examples I happen to be aware of, both GM and Audi have been showing prototypes of plug-in hybrids. GM is claiming theirs (the Volt) will be available in 2010. Audi's A1, supposedly in 2009. Both cars are claimed to go in the neighborhood of 40-60 miles on a charge, before the gas motor needs to kick in. For my own driving patterns, most weeks I'd never burn a drop of gas in a car like that. Granted, these cars aren't 100% electric, but if they deliver on the promises then I'd say it's the old 80/20 rule at work -- 80% of the benefit, 20% of the effort.
Second, many letter writers have sounded off on how electric isn't a panacea, because some kind of fuel still has to be consumed to generate the electricity you use to charge your car. True as far as it goes. But looking at one supposedly apples-to-apples comparison, in this case on the web site of Tesla Motors, the makers of the all-electric Tesla Roadster, they claim "well-to-wheel energy efficiency" for the Tesla more than double that of a Prius. They also claim the Tesla accounts for about one third of the carbon dioxide a Prius does. So yeah, you do have to burn fuel in a power plant, and you do have transmission losses -- but apparently the efficiency of the power plant at turning fuel into electricity is WAY better than that of a car engine. Which really isn't that surprising.
If some of the plug-in hybrids actually ship, I'm very much inclined to have one be my next car. Until then, my old car runs fine and I'm staying on the sidelines.
I, for one, welcome our new rechargeable overlords.