Am I nut's? Well maybe a little but I hope after reading this you might understand why. A lot of people I know ask me why I dislike the Prius so much. The Toyota Prius which has become the flagship car for our entire generation, 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 evnvironmental pollution in the world, it takes more total energy to produce each Prius than to produce than a Ford Expedition. Before I delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, I must must add that one of the things that get overlooked in the war on CO2 is the fact that emissions are far more important than whether your car is hybrid or not. Now you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, I 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 Ford Focus, 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 an Expedition 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 Expedition - 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 Expedition, 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 that an Expedition 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. There are also several cars from both Ford and GM available now with comparable fuel economy. I like the idea that some people have that fuel efficiency is important, to keep us from buying more oil from country's THAT HATE US! Dont get me wrong I like Hybrids beacuse they are more fuel efficent. However if you buy one to be enviromently responsibe you are causing more problems then you solve. But for now I believe that these are the best solutions, untill further research is done on the alternative fuels front. Drilling off our coast seems like the best solution, until we can come up with a Hydrogen car that works (GM and Ford already have them) and the government gets a hydrogen network in this country, that is the best solution.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Death To Hybrid's "UPDATE"
Am I nut's? Well maybe a little but I hope after reading this you might understand why. A lot of people I know ask me why I dislike the Prius so much. The Toyota Prius which has become the flagship car for our entire generation, 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 evnvironmental pollution in the world, it takes more total energy to produce each Prius than to produce than a Ford Expedition. Before I delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, I must must add that one of the things that get overlooked in the war on CO2 is the fact that emissions are far more important than whether your car is hybrid or not. Now you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, I 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 Ford Focus, 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 an Expedition 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 Expedition - 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 Expedition, 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 that an Expedition 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. There are also several cars from both Ford and GM available now with comparable fuel economy. I like the idea that some people have that fuel efficiency is important, to keep us from buying more oil from country's THAT HATE US! Dont get me wrong I like Hybrids beacuse they are more fuel efficent. However if you buy one to be enviromently responsibe you are causing more problems then you solve. But for now I believe that these are the best solutions, untill further research is done on the alternative fuels front. Drilling off our coast seems like the best solution, until we can come up with a Hydrogen car that works (GM and Ford already have them) and the government gets a hydrogen network in this country, that is the best solution.
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