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Redesigned, Bulkier Honda Insight to Challenge Prius
In what probably amounts to good news for consumers eyeing a hybrid for their next vehicle purchase, Honda is resurrecting the "Insight" name, this time in the form of a five-seat, Prius-like hatchback. The automaker's announcement included the tantalizing statement that the cost would be "significantly below [that of] hybrids available today," but provided no further details on pricing. Although Honda may have some trouble unseating Toyota's dominance of this particular hybrid market, hopefully the Insight's reintroduction will help to make hybrid cars even more affordable to consumers. This is also welcome news to folks like myself who, after the initial flurry of excitement when the now-retired original Insight was introduced in '99, were left scratching their heads at Honda's hybrid strategy as Toyota picked up their dropped ball and ran with it.
We need Diesel first. Then maybe double clutched diesel hybrid manuals, I don't know; using a torque converter is a horrible, horrible idea (coupling: 10% efficient. Acceleration: hahahahahahahahaha).
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The EPA changed its fuel economy standards in 2008, and perhaps other times between 1989 and then. The 2007 Prius is rated at 60 mpg city, 51 highway; the 2008, which is really the same car, is rated at 48/45. So you definitely can't compare the 1989 numbers with the 2008.
Are you adequate?
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#battery
How often do hybrid batteries need replacing? Is replacement expensive and disposal an environmental problem?
The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the carmaker.
Battery toxicity is a concern, although today's hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. 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.
There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.
http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#battery
How often do hybrid batteries need replacing? Is replacement expensive and disposal an environmental problem?
The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the carmaker.
Battery toxicity is a concern, although today's hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. 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.
There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.
The problem is that the hybrid costs $3000 more up front and money now is always worth more than money in the future, hence the reason why interest is charged and why money has a time value. so a stream of payments adding up to 3000 six (6) years from now is actually worth less than $3000 right now so you are paying $3000 more upfront for a savings of less than $3000 (i.e. a loss). In order for the investment to really "pay off" it would have to save you more money in gas than you could earn instead by investing the $3000 difference in treasury bills (4.75% yield or thereabouts) or in other words it would have to save you more than $3000 at the end of the 6 years to be worth it. If you are looking at it purely from a financial standpoint hybrids rarely make sense (for now) because there are almost always cheaper non-hybrid alternatives no matter what you are presently driving.
This October's Consumer Reports article "Which affordable hybrids save you the most money?" disagrees with you.
Conclusion: "Despite their higher price, many models pay off after only a year" and some models "can save more than $4,000 over five years."
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/news/2008/10/affordable-hybrids/overview/affordable-hybrids-ov.htm
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You also complain that hybrids have "weaker engines than the cheaper gas car," forgetting that electric motors have much better torque than gasoline engines (eg. even diesel locomotives use electric motors) so higher horsepower isn't needed.
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Finally, a reply to your battery FUD: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=954363&cid=24883785
I had mod points I was going to use for this discussion but they didn't have a 'not true' option.
DOE Reserve Estimates
The reserve numbers keep going up because they keep finding more and more of the stuff and nobody is burning it.
Natural gas is a very good option, in fact the best option for internal combustion. All combustion reactions produce CO2 and H20. Natural Gas (CH4) only releases CO2 and H20 upon combustion...no other chemicals like sulfur, mercury or other similarly nasty chemicals to have in the air. It's a big improvement over petroleum-based fuels.
The Prius features the raindrop design, which has a lower drag coefficient compared to most other consumer level cars. For example the Honda Civic has a drag coefficient of .36 while the Prius is .26. The Bugatti Veyron is .36 and a Hummer H2 is .57.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficients
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Yep! Also, I want to stress that real diesel engines are actually more efficient than gasoline engines, because the compression ratios are so much higher. So it's not really that diesels are dirtier, but rather that the US looks at different pollutants than European countries do.
The two pollutants that diesels have issues with are (1) sulfur dioxide (SO2), and (2) nitrogen oxides (NOx); both cause acid rain. The SO2 is the result of burning high-sulfur fuels, so switching to ULSD, as Andy noted, will solve this problem. NOx, however, is more problematic: These oxides are created unavoidably from the reaction of atmospheric oxygen with nitrogen in the high pressures and temperatures experienced inside diesel engines (the very same factors that make diesels more efficient).
In contrast, gasoline engines tend to produce little sulfur dioxide since they burn low-sulfur gasoline. And since the pressures and temperatures inside them are lower, there's much less NOx production. But for the same reason (lower pressures and temperatures), combustion is not as complete as in diesels, so they tend to release more unburnt hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. These cause photochemical smog, and are powerful greenhouse gasses.
Now, this is where regulatory differences come in: In European countries, NOx emission requirements are not as strict, but hydrocarbon requirements are stricter, whereas in the US it's the reverse. So it's easier for diesel engines to meet requirements in Europe, and for gasoline engines to meet requirements in the US.
One solution to the NOx problem for diesel engines is to treat exhaust with urea. European companies distribute an aqueous urea solution as "AdBlue" -- presumably to avoid the urinary connotations of the "real" chemical name -- and it is available at gas stations. This is a little problematic in that now you have two chemicals that you consume while driving (fuel and urea) instead of just one, and we don't have an AdBlue distribution network in the US, but it does work.
So, that's it for the practical side of things. But before I finish up I want to throw in one theoretical note... I kept saying that diesels are more efficient -- and they are. But the thermodynamic cycle that they use (the "Diesel cycle," obviously enough) is actually not as efficient, fundamentally, as that used by gasoline engines (the Otto Cycle), for the same compression ratios. But diesel engines use compression ratios that are so much higher that they're more efficient anyway (to achieve the same compression ratios in a spark-ignition engine would require harder-to-ignite fuels, like some sort of hypothetical really-high-octane gasoline). So in practice, diesels are the most efficient internal combustion engines.