When Hybrids Do (And Don't) Make Sense

prostoalex writes "Recently NPR, CNN Money and Wall Street Journal Online have all dedicated some time and space to discussing hybrid vehicle pros and cons. It seems that hybrids do not make much financial sense if (a) you're buying after getting yourself into a debt with not really good interest on a car loan, (b) your battery requires replacement after being out of warranty, (c) your daily commute is not too long, so the price markup you pay for a hybrid does not translate into long-term gas savings." From the CNN article: "They may make a social statement you're interested in, but if you want to save money because of rising gas prices, you're heading down the wrong road, at least for now."

Comments

Re:Or maybe...

[dfn_deux]

I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that on a whole buying a used car which gets decent mileage is going to have a greater enviromental impact than is put forth just in energy production to manufacture a new vehicle (of any power train type) let alone the impact of getting the raw materials from which the vehicle is to be composed from. The sweet spot right now is buying a compact car built in the past 10 years which has had good regular maintainence. This will provide nearly all the creature comforts as are found in newer cars (with a few extravagant exceptions I.E. GPS, DVD, back up radar, and the like) along with the lion's share of modern emissions equipment and reasonably low fuel economy with known (basis for estimate of) future maintainence costs and reliability.

How convenient does the "right thing" have to be?

[jmason]

a Kung Fu Monkey blog entry from a month ago said this:

Kevin Drum recently quoted a study which re-iterated that there's no "real" advantage to buying a hybrid. It's only just as convenient - so if you're driving a hybrid, you're doing it for some other reason than financial incentive.

That made me think: what a perfect example of just how fucking useless as a society we've become. We can't even bring ourselves to do the right thing when it's only JUST as convenient as doing the wrong thing. And that's not even considered odd. Even sadder.

Re:If you're after better fuel efficiency

[dfn_deux]

I don't know where you are located, but here in California diesels aren't subject to any emissions or equipment testing for registration, while gasoline vehicles are subject to frequent and increasingly difficult testing standards. Also, the claim that diesel is cleaner only holds true when using more cleanly refined diesel than is currently widely available in the US and even then only holds true when speaking of CO2 or HC emissions and quickly falls flat when particulate emissions are taken into account...

Diesel efficiency

[andyross]

Buy a diesel. [...] Better efficiency

This is a very common misconception. Diesel fuel is denser than gasoline. When you correct for mileage per fuel mass or (even better) per carbon output, much of their advantage on paper fades.

Diesel engines are still slightly more efficient than typical gasoline engines, owing to the higher compression ratios used by the Diesel ignition process. The higher combustion temperatures, however, produce nitrogen oxides, which are a local pollutant. And of course a poorly tuned Diesel (or, often, just a cold one) generates a ton of particulate ("soot") emissions -- another local pollutant.

And remember that Diesels idle very inefficiently (they have bigger and heavier pistons, and a finicky ignition mechanism that can't be run as lean as gasoline), whereas a hybird will shut down the engine and idle with no emissions whatsoever (well, minus battery drain due to the air conditioner, etc...).

The best general advice that I've read is that a Diesel makes the best environmental choice for a long-haul vehicle that rarely idles, or for rural areas with little sensitivity to local pollution. They make rather poorer choices in the urban commute environment.

Disclaimer: I love my Prius, and it just smells better than the Diesels cars I've known.