Hybrid cars should be banned

[tongue_of_colicab]

Today I read the sad, sad news that one of the few true car builders left in the world is also ''crumbling'' under the hybride hype. Yes, Ferrari will be working on a hybride engine (on a more positive note they also announced that all their cars will be fitted with ceramic brakes by default). No details on when and what they will do though. Hopefully the whole hype dies before they have to release it.

I really dont get the point of these hybrid cars. People always go ah a prius, drive one of those if you want to save the planet. But they dont save the planet. Did you know its actually 20% more polluting to build a prius compared to a normal car? not the mention the build quility is very low so it will fall apart in 5 years time and you'll have to buy another one while you got those extremely enviromental friendly batteries rotting on the scrapheap. And its just a plain ugly car, I'd rather wear underwear over my head than own such a car.

Or that american pickup that got elected als enviromental car of they year or something like that, has some tiny electromotor that is never going to be used anyway and suddenly its all ''green''?

All electric cars should be banned, they just arnt green at all. They are polluting to make, their batteries pollute and the electricitie has to come from some not green coal/gas/nuclear powerplant.

If you really care so much about the enviroment kill all cows. All the farts of 1 cow in 1 day pollute more than your SUV does in 1 year.

Instead of wasting so much time, money and effort on something that isnt going to help anything at all anyway cant they spend time on something that actually does help the enviroment? For example diesel engines (you already got some diesel cars that have better milage than a prius), or finding a way to make hydrogen without so much pollution. Anything but electricitie.

 

[digitalwanderer]

If you really care so much about the enviroment kill all cows. All the farts of 1 cow in 1 day pollute more than your SUV does in 1 year.

Anyone else feel like calling shenanigans on this particular statistic? :|

 

[AlphaWolf]

Anyone else feel like calling shenanigans on this particular statistic? :|

50% of all statistics are made up on the spot. It's fairly safe to assume that all of the statistics provided by tongue_of_colicab fall into this category.

 

[Bludd]

No way a cow will fart so much methane as to contribute to the greenhouse effect more than a car running for a year.

 

[Arwin]

You could start by actually learning about hybrid cars.

 

[Ty]

Hmm, shouldn't the topic be, Cows should be banned? I mean, if you're going to take a swipe at them...

 

[nintenho]

hybrids get their power from braking...and the average one gets like twice the mileage of a normal car so it's a good car for consumers.

 

[Albuquerque]

I'd also like to see some factual backing for this nifty little anecdote:

not the mention the build quility is very low so it will fall apart in 5 years time and you'll have to buy another one while you got those extremely enviromental friendly batteries rotting on the scrapheap.

While I don't own one, nor plan to, I'm pretty confident in saying that a Prius isn't going to simply rot apart in five years. There's one or two in the parking lot where I work, and at least one of them is the "first generation" model. Paint is in perfect shape, isn't leaning to any particular side, panels still line up correctly, lamp assemblies aren't foggy, has all four hubcaps with all of their original paint and gloss coat, hell I bet it's still on the tires it came with.

There was also a bunch of hoopla about the batteries needing to be replaced in (x) amount of years, but there's more than a few Priuses (Pri-ii? ) running around well past all those supposed dates and miles -- more than enough to debunk the majority of the hooplah.

I'm well aware that the batteries aren't the most environmentally friendly thing, and that eventually they WILL need to be replaced. But I'm not convinced it's in a preset amount of days, weeks, months, years, or miles. And batteries can be recycled, just like cars...

 

[Squeak]

Even if you use electricity straight from the plug, it's still more environmentally friendly than burning fuel in a piston engine.
1. Powerplants are far more efficient than your cars engine 2. If you use the night current you'll get the power cheaper and you'll put all those generators just standing there, churning away the wee hours to some use.

A small on board powerplant with a turbine engine powering it, that would be a nice alternative until fuel cells becomes a commodity. It would make better use of the fuel even if it was only feed normal gasoline.
With a small buffer battery it could also have fast very startup and a way to store break energy.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

50% of all statistics are made up on the spot. It's fairly safe to assume that all of the statistics provided by tongue_of_colicab fall into this category.

I shit you not, its true.

http://forum.politics.be/showthread.php?t=92356 (in dutch, but with online translation it should be clear enough to understand)

Small translation: According to british scientists a new diet should lower the amount of methane a cow produces.

Ever cow produces 100 to 200 liters of methane a day, which is about the same as a big landrover driving 50 kilometers every day.

So one cow pollutes as much as a landrover, so it pollutes more than a average car. It is a day though, not a year, I was wrong on that.

You could start by actually learning about hybrid cars.

You own a prius, like you know anything

Hmm, shouldn't the topic be, Cows should be banned? I mean, if you're going to take a swipe at them...

Cant do, we Dutch loooove our cows in the country side.

hybrids get their power from braking...and the average one gets like twice the mileage of a normal car so it's a good car for consumers.

Not really, there are dieselcars that are more economical. Unless you spend most of your time in a traffic jam ofcourse.

While I don't own one, nor plan to, I'm pretty confident in saying that a Prius isn't going to simply rot apart in five years.

You've seen one, it doesnt exactly look quality build. Put it next to a Benz or a BMW and you'll know which one will still be running in 20 years.

I'm well aware that the batteries aren't the most environmentally friendly thing, and that eventually they WILL need to be replaced. But I'm not convinced it's in a preset amount of days, weeks, months, years, or miles. And batteries can be recycled, just like cars...

Batteries contain alot of very non friendly materials, I dont know how much of it can be recycled but even if a small amount cant be it will polute alot more than a average car because most stuff can be recycled these days (exept the interior I believe).

But all jokes aside, on the serious side of things, wouldnt it be alot better to invest in technologie that will actually be usefull in the long run? because I dont think electricitie and hybrid cars will be (VW boss even said every car builder will go bankrupt if they have to build alot of hybrid cars). Not only does it still (indirectly) pollute quite a bit, it also doesnt work for everything (ships, planes etc). It somewhat works for cars but even for cars its not the best. Lots of heavy (= more energy needed) batteries, that have lots of toxic materials and alot lower range.

Some time ago on NG there was a show about being able to get clean fuel out of recycled bits of car interior and tires, it even worked in normal engines with a few minor changes. Something like this seems alot more viable to me because they are reusing materials that normally cant be reused because if you burn them you get lots of toxic stuff and they recycled them in a other way and get the fuel out of it much like it happens in nature but alot faster. Or hydrogen ofcourse, but that might be some time before we can produce that in masses without investing more energy than we'll get out of it. I much rather see money go into those kind of technologies because they are not as half assed as electric cars.

 

[pocketmoon66]

Electric motors on each wheel would be awesome - the torque produced would be huge!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1pM1j2d1RMU

 

[AlphaWolf]

I shit you not, its true.

http://forum.politics.be/showthread.php?t=92356 (in dutch, but with online translation it should be clear enough to understand)

Small translation: According to british scientists a new diet should lower the amount of methane a cow produces.

Ever cow produces 100 to 200 liters of methane a day, which is about the same as a big landrover driving 50 kilometers every day.

So one cow pollutes as much as a landrover, so it pollutes more than a average car. It is a day though, not a year, I was wrong on that.

I question your source without ever going there. A political forum is a source for unbiased information? Find me a diesel car that seats 5 and gets better city mileage than a Prius. I don't think the Prius is the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, but suggesting they are crap cars is just pure bullshit.

 

[hoho]

Is it just me or tongue_of_colicab hasn't heard about carbon cycle?

 

[Scott_Arm]

My only problem with Hybrids:

People drive Hybrid SUVs and trucks, thinking they're good for the environment. They're not good, they're just less bad. People shouldn't be driving trucks or SUVs they don't need, period. A lot of times, it seems like they're making hybrid cars that are still bad on gas. They're just getting more hp, for the same gas mileage.

The idea behind the technology makes a lot of sense to me, but I've always wondered about the batteries being recycled. As long as the batteries can be recycled efficiently, there's no reason not to switch over to hybrid electric as a standard. In the future, a hybrid of hydrogen and electric would be the perfect way to go, if they can make hydrogen fuel efficiently.

 

[Arwin]

Find me a diesel car that seats 5 and gets better city mileage than a Prius. I don't think the Prius is the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, but suggesting they are crap cars is just pure bullshit.

He's not all wrong. Diesel cars have great potential and some of them really are very economical. Imagine what a combination of diesel and hybrid technology could do. I'm sure we'll see soon enough.

I think in general that Hybrid technology is something for the future as well as now. It's not a definite solution, but it's great transition technology: you can combine it with almost any other technology (fuel cell, nytrogen, solar, etc.) in the future.

As for build quality, the Prius is still a Toyota and you can tell. A good hint is that it keeps value even better than a VW Golf (Rabbit).

So far, I couldn't be more happy than I am right now with the Prius. And I have to say, after actually driving one, there are only three issues people have with the Prius:

- some (a fair number I'll admit) don't like the way it looks (though the white one looks sweet, imho, I like it anyway )
- if you have a big family and need to carry around a lot of stuff, the trunk's too small. (It's fine for smaller families or if you only have to carry 3 people and a lot of luggage, or 4 people and little luggage.)
- you can't use it to pull anything (that's because it's electric engine would get too hot I think)

Other than that, everyone is genuinely impressed with how spacious and comfortable it is to sit in, how pleasant the dashboard (not too many buttons, many replaced by a large touch-screen), how quiet, how comfortable to drive (automatic), and how responsive (still very powerful car with 115bhp)

 

[PARANOiA]

I question your source without ever going there. A political forum is a source for unbiased information? Find me a diesel car that seats 5 and gets better city mileage than a Prius. I don't think the Prius is the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, but suggesting they are crap cars is just pure bullshit.

I believe my diesel Fiat Punto gets better city mileage than a Prius, and it seats 5... though it would look like a bit of a clown car as everyone pops out

http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/

 

[Albuquerque]

You've seen one, it doesnt exactly look quality build. Put it next to a Benz or a BMW and you'll know which one will still be running in 20 years.

I've seen three in the parking lot (counted at lunch ) and they all look quite fine to me. Even peered in the window of the oldest one, and it's still nice inside too. I find the build quality to be more than sufficient, even when compared to the build quality of the Beemers and Mercedes in our lot too. And while BMW's and Mercedes have far more expensive materials (fancy leather, fancy wood, machined aluminum this-n-that), that doesn't automatically mean it's BUILD better.

I can make a car with a titanium frame, polished aluminum panels, pure silver accents, the finest dark imported wood, the best imported leathers, and the highest quality paints. But since I'm a computer dork and have zero concept of what it means to build a car, my car (if it EVER runs) probably won't last for very long on the road.

Where in the hell am I going with that? Cost of materials does not directly correlate with build quality. Build quality is a function of engineering, design, construction, process and implementation. Materials factor in, certainly, but materials are but part of the equation.

As a car manufacturer and in terms of overall build quality, Toyota is one of the highest ranked manufacturers in the business. Depending on your metric criteria and locale, they are THE HIGHEST ranked manufacturer in more than a few areas.

 

[StefanS]

I question your source without ever going there. A political forum is a source for unbiased information? Find me a diesel car that seats 5 and gets better city mileage than a Prius. I don't think the Prius is the greatest thing since sliced bread or anything, but suggesting they are crap cars is just pure bullshit.

The almost 10 year-old VW Lupo 3L (stands for 3 litres / 100 km) will get better mileage, even in the city. Then again it's a lot smaller than the Prius.

 

[Albuquerque]

The almost 10 year-old VW Lupo 3L (stands for 3 litres / 100 km) will get better mileage, even in the city. Then again it's a lot smaller than the Prius.

I had a 1994 (13 years old) Geo Metro 3-cyl 1L 2Dr coupe that did 45+ in the city and nearly 60 on the freeway the entire time I owned it, even with the A/C turned on. You could get the same car in a 5-door "wagon" which wasn't much different in size than the Prius. And it ran on 87-octane gasoline, which at least for us Yanks, is far cheaper than diesel fuel.

Having been in TWO car wrecks (one in my '94 Geo and one more in another Geo exactly like mine) I'd say that I'd much rather have the Prius for the better safety features

 

[Dresden]

Anyone feel like clarifying an urban legend I heard a while ago regarding people being slapped with a "hazardous wastes cleanup" fine due to battery spillage amidst accidents from the first generation hybrids? It sounds like utter malarkey, but then again I know more about quantum physics then I do hybrid cars.

but I've always wondered about the batteries being recycled.

After pondering my aforementioned inquiry, I researched the batteries of hybrids. Apparently Toyota offers a 200 dollar finders fee for hybrid batteries to encourage recycling:

"Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled. "