Slashdot Mirror

1) CNG is much safer than hydrogen -- lower pressures, much greater ignition energy req, much narrower fuel-air burn ratios, no DTD transition in unconfined spaces, no metal fatigue, no seeping through almost anything, etc.

2) CNG vehicles *are* a lot less save than gasoline vehicles. Even with how limited use it's gotten so far, there are tons of reports of huge CNG-vehicle accidents (mainly on CNG busses). Here's what happens when a CNG car burns versus a gasoline car. Several cars were burned by arson here. Tell me if you can spot which one was CNG. ;)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=23 has some hints. They also have specific articles for some cars like the Prius. See http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1224.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html is an article about a hypermiler (Wayne Gerdes) who achieves 59 mpg in his non-hybrid 05 Honda Accord.

Gerdes was part of a team of who set a record (which has been since beaten) of ~110 mpg in a Prius over 1397 miles on a single tank.

There are some other tips at http://www.hypermiling.com/.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=23 has some hints. They also have specific articles for some cars like the Prius. See http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1224.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/king_of_the_hypermilers.html is an article about a hypermiler (Wayne Gerdes) who achieves 59 mpg in his non-hybrid 05 Honda Accord.

Gerdes was part of a team of who set a record (which has been since beaten) of ~110 mpg in a Prius over 1397 miles on a single tank.

There are some other tips at http://www.hypermiling.com/.

Check out http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/ for lots of tips on how to squeeze the most out of a gallon of gas, no matter what you drive...

You did; I'll only respond to this one ;)

I'm not only talking about construction energy for the battery. There's the entire processing cycle for the nickel, which puts a hybrid at a profound disadvantage compared to a diesel from day one.

No, it does not. Just stop and think about this for a second. A new hybrid battery costs about $3k these days. Just assuming that everything else was *free*, and that the *only* cost in making it was was dirt-cheap electricity (i.e., maximizing the amount of energy possibly spent manufacturing it), and that there was *no* profit margin, *no* shipping costs, *no* labor, etc. That'd be about 30,000kWh, or 108 GJ, or about 800 gallons of diesel, or about the energy you can turn to torque from 200 gallons of diesel after losses, which, assuming 38mpg and the average 12,000 miles a year, works out to just over 1 1/2 years of fuel. This is assuming that the *only* costs are electricity, the cheapest form of bulk energy, and ignores that the nickel gets *recovered* by recycling. I mean, the concept doesn't even withstand the laugh test.

I'm also not assuming what you call "reasonable" battery life. I doubt they last more than five years without significant loss of capacity.

Then you doubt reality. NiMH RAV4EVs have been on the road since the late 90s, and they're still working great. Hybrids stress their packs a lot more than EVs (more charge/discharge cycles at a higher rate), and the packs for most hybrids have an 8 or so year warranty. In testing, the automotive variants of li-ions are even more durable than NiMHs. There's this widespread myth that you seem to have fallen for that somehow batteries must inherently die in short order. This is simply false; it's all dependant on the stability of the battery chemistry. Jay Leno owns an early 1900s Baker Electric that still runs on its original nickel-iron batteries.

I'm getting 50-60mpg depending on conditions.

Yeay, a data-free unsupported anecdote!

A) Fuel type is irrelevant for engines that only accept one type of fuel. mpg = miles / gallons. It's how far you can go per gallon of fuel.

If you're an idiot. Who only cares about the *number* of gallons that they burn? Most people care about how much oil they're consuming (15% more in a gallon of diesel), how much CO2 they're emitting (15% more per gallon of diesel burned), how much they're paying (diesel is more expensive per gallon), and so on. Heck, by your argument, we should all buy cars that run on a beryllium slurry, if all you care about is how many miles you go per gallon burned.

B) I also have a lower emissions class than a hybrid.

And you'll be more specific when...?

C) All the mpg figures are in imperial gallons. I'm European, you insensitive clod. km/l would be easier to compare.

Then comparing your numbers to US figures is, as you know, pure BS, as 1 imperial gallon is 1.2 US gallons.

You need to deal with the fact that the revised EPA drivecycle is a tougher drivecycle than the European (NEDC) drivecycle. Our standardized testing actually involves things like air conditioning, aggressive acceleration, higher speeds, etc. Yours does not. Deal with the fact that whatever your subjective experience, your rated vehicle numbers are laxer than our rated vehicle numbers. Whenever a European car makes it to the US, its mileage figures decrease. Example:

-----
2009 Ford Fiesta ECOnetic -- Estimated at 54 + mpgUS combined on the 08 EPA test cycles.

Cologne - Ford of Europe?s new Fiesta ECOnetic leads the Fiesta models at this year?s Paris Auto Show.

Looking closer, I saw that it was a hybrid. I wonder if they still make those? If not, they'd better get them back in production.

Toyota makes the HiHy (Highlander Hybrid) SUV, which can get ~30MPG or more. The Lexus model, from what I understand, gets slightly less. Ford's Escape Hybrid is supposed to get ~35MPG, but is also a smaller/lighter vehicle which explains part of the MPG difference. Saturn's VUE is out there, and there are others from other makers. There's even one retro-fit kit for tractor trailers, IIRC. Compared to a non-hybrid SUV of similar body weights, that's a significant increase over the ~21MPG advertised.

But buying a hybrid is half the battle. The other is getting people to change their driving habits (as pointed out elsewhere in these comments) to maximize MPG potential. If you buy the hybrid and don't make adjustments, you won't see the benefits that hybrid systems provide. This is where the basics of hypermiling comes in, even if you don't take it to the extreme.

One person made the observation that if all cars came with an instant-feedback MPG system (such as the ScanguageII, or displays seen in many newer cars and hybrids) that shows exactly how your MPG drops or rises with your driving style... people would be more aware of how much gas they were wasting and would change their driving habits on their own without having to purchase a new gas-savings vehicle.

*all MPG numbers quoted here are estimates. In this case, YMMV is more than an applicable footnote

All good suggestions. I sum it up with "learn to drive like an old man".

All these, and more, are listed on various hybrid-related websites such as Clean MPG. Or Google "hypermiling". Sure, some of those folks are freaks about the details, but even doing the basic stuff that anyone can handle can increase your MPG by 10%.

Beating the EPA - The Why's and how to Hypermile