Slashdot Mirror
Cheap Gas Fuels Switch From Electric Cars To SUVs
schwit1 points out news that's sure to clash with Earth Day narratives: drivers who bought hybrid and electric cars are switching back to SUVs at a higher rate than ever. Quoting:
According to Edmunds.com, about 22 percent of people who have traded in their hybrids and EVs in 2015 bought a new SUV. The number represents a sharp increase from 18.8 percent last year, and it is nearly double the rate of 11.9 percent just three years ago. Overall, only 45 percent of this year's hybrid and EV trade-ins have gone toward the purchase of another alternative fuel vehicle, down from just over 60 percent in 2012. Never before have loyalty rates for alt-fuel vehicles fallen below 50 percent. ... Edmunds calculates that at the peak average national gas price of $4.67/gallon in October 2012, it would take five years to break even on the $3,770 price difference between a Toyota Camry LE Hybrid ($28,230) and a Toyota Camry LE ($24,460). At today's national average gas price of $2.27/gallon, it would take twice as much time (10.5 years) to close the same gap.
Tax gas and spend the proceeds on "green" R&D.
Table-ized A.I.
We've read this a 1000 times. Stupid people think prices will be low forever. A year later said people cry they are paying $250 a week for gas. Can't fix stupid.
For most people, especially ones with NEW cars, the cost of fuel is such a small portion of TCO that gas mileage is almost inconsequential within reason. People get psychotic when gas swings one way or another because people are idiots, who cannot ignore the 20-80 dollars they spent today in favor of focusing on the 500 dollars they pay every month.
I didn't see them breaking it down by make/model...
An owner of a Lexus hybrid-SUV trading it in on a non-hybrid SUV is one thing.
But I very much doubt that there's a line of Leaf or Tesla owners trading their EVs for SUVs.
TFA is beyond dumb. It's not people switching back, it's people buying a second car for their household. Many people have one EV and one ICE car.
EV sales are rising fast. Few people switch back after getting one and realizing how great they are, mostly because they did their homework and made sure it suited them before spending tens of thousands of dollars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
My Camry Hybrid is quieter, smoother, and has over 30 extra HP compared to the 4 cyl Camry. You don't ONLY get improved mileage from most hybrids. They should be comparing the cost of the hybrid vs. the V6 model when calculating years to make up cost (not a perfect comparison, but much closer). They are just skewing statistics...
TFA is beyond dumb. It's not people switching back, it's people buying a second car for their household. Many people have one EV and one ICE car.
This.
Also, I have yet to see an EV or Hybrid which is suitable for a soccer mom.
People should also realize that the yellow carpool stickers are no longer available for hybrids... to get the new white stickers, you have to be either a plug-in, hydrogen, or LNG fueled.
Not quite as great, but there are beginning to be options for not crap, and not insanely priced electric cars. The VW eGolf and the Ford Focus both spring to mind - they both look just like normal every day cars, and are built to fairly reasonable quality standards.
car is being repaired. Ridiculous! 20 MPG and every time I step on the brakes or the gas it rocks back and forth like a rocking chair. It seats about as many people as a sedan and can carry only slightly more junk than a sedan. Why do people want to drive these things? They aren't attractive, they don't stop/go fast, they can't carry much stuff. I don't get it.
I don't understand why so many people want to drive pickups either. In a pickup you can only haul stuff you care about in decent weather. I get it if you're a farmer or ranch hand and need to haul messy stuff year round, but why would anyone else want to drive a truck? And why is it that the bigger the pickup, the greater the odds that they will back into parking spaces?
Love,
The Oil Industry
P.S. We secretly own Whole Foods. You dumb fucks have been giving your money to us all along.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
I'd guess at least part of the switch is from couples having families. If you're a single (or married) 20-something with a hot job making good bank, that fancy electric car is a huge status symbol. But five years later with a kid or two, and the thing is simply impractical.
Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) the purchase of an electric car is never about savings over gas prices. Even here, where gas costs ~$1.25 CAD per liter and hydroelectric residential power costs $0.0797 CAD per kWh for first 1,350 kWh ($0.1195 CAD per kWh over the 1,350), with a car like the Nissan Leaf you'll never save enough over the life of the car in fuel costs to offset the higher price for the car.
For the people I know with Leafs and Volts it's about doing their bit to reduce pollution and CO2 output, not saving money.
I recently had some extensive work done on my non-hybrid car, thankfully all under warranty. My car is vanilla gasoline engine with a manual gearbox. I was given exact same model car as a loaner but with a hybrid drive and CTV.
Well, the hybrid had stop-and-go feature, had regenerative bakes and and new engine grill shutters for supposedly better highway mileage. Over a week of communing, it saved me about 5$ in gas. Underwhelming to say the least, especially when hybrid is at $5000 premium over my model. While I enjoyed eery quietness in electric-only mode, it hardly ever stayed there, and overall fuel savings are just not there. This could be because hybrid system was "strapped" into regular car, and unlike say Prius, that was designed around being hybrid.
I am not averse to electric or hybrid power trains, but I think present EV/hybrid offerings in sub-$100K category are underwhelming. When it is time to replace my car, based on loaner experiences, I would not be considering hybrid version.
Let me know when Toyota starts shipping hybrid vehicles with batteries that actually retain their ability to recharge to a usable capacity for 10+ years.
They've been shipping those batteries... since 2001. See this 10 year checkup from Consumer Reports:
http://www.consumerreports.org...
Moreover, Toyota made it so that you can replace individual battery cells, instead of only being able to replace everything at once. My GF's Prius needed a few cells replaced, and the price was quite reasonable. ($250? I forget the exact number.)
I theorize that short-sided thinking has a lot to do with this. Majority of people don't seem to be great at abstract thinking to grasp long-term large-scale problems like fossil fuel resources or global climate changes. Any ideas on how to get more people to understand the importance of the larger picture outcomes of our choices?
You talk better than you fool!
SUVs aren't necessarily the huge behemoths they once were. The current big fad in SUV's is small crossovers. For example, the top-selling car in the US is the Honda CRV, an "SUV" that's something like a hatchback Civic with raised suspension. It gets 29mpg, which isn't too bad at all. There's a large number of these SUVs that get mileage in the upper 20s/gallon.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I don't care how cheep gas gets, Plenty of EV charging stations are 100% free. Last I checked, no one in my area was giving away free gas?
Further, people are obviously uninformed or misled on how EV's are, in the most important ways, superior automobiles for the daily use:
1) ZERO MAINTENANCE (except for breaks & tires, wipers/fluid)
2) Vastly fewer points of failure - NO: fuel pumps, alternators, starters, automatic transmission(unless you count a 1 speed transmission), main seals, mufflers, fuel injectors, heater cores, etc., etc...
3) Electricity is far cheaper than any gas any where every day.
4) Used EV's are SUPER CHEAP right now - http://goo.gl/ZAJV81
5) EV's are super quiet, peaceful, meditative.
1) Combine two things that are sort of similar but not really - e.g. EVs and hybrids or tablets and e-ink e-readers
2) Make a statistical claim about the combined group - 'People are leaving EVs and hybrids", "Tablets and E-readers bad for sleep/eyes"
3) Forget to mention one of the two in the headline - 'People dump EVs', 'E-readers bad for sleep/eyes"
By combining the two, this report doesn't really tell us anything useful. I'd love to know the different rates of people abandoning EV or hybrids, as I think they are two very different propositions.
Hybrids, at the end of the day, are simply a different way of building efficient petrol/diesel powered cars. From what I've heard that efficiency has been a lot less in real life, with milage claims for things like the Prius not really living up to the hype. With ever more efficient petrol engines on the market, and gas prices so low, the efficiency improvements have to be pretty significant to make a big difference and to offset the higher cost of buying many hybrids.
EVs on the other hand are a totally different beast, and the reasons people might give up on them are different. Are people buying EVs and then finding range is more of a problem than they thought? Did they have problems finding charing points? Was overnight, at-home charging not good enough for them? Etc, etc.
In addition, this report talks about the number of people who are trading in their EVs/Hybrids for something else. But that doesn't really tell us anything about how much people like EVs and Hybrids as it only includes people who are switching. It doesn't provide any analysis of how many people are keeping their EVs for longer.
What's most annoying is that there are genuinely interesting questions to be asking about the EV and hybrid market, but this data isn't really answering any of them well.
Paul Leader
Until we can get cleaner electricity generation, exchanging a gasoline burning car for one powered by coal/natural gas fueled power plants doesn't really solve the problem. In fact, it may make the problem worse, at least in the short term given the fuel they burn.
That being said, we do need to have better alternatives to gasoline in our cars. And Tesla is a part of moving the technology forward. This is a very good thing. But it's only one small part of the solution.
I will not buy a new car unless it's fully electric. I made that vow when I was first able to drive, and have bought used ever since. My car has only twice been made in the same decade I live in, and I'm fifty years old. I've been able to afford a new car for some time, but not a new electric one... yet.
I mean, you'd have to be rich if you went out and bought a new car every time the gas prices changed. Who in their right mind looks to buy a new car just cause gas is a couple bucks cheaper? Is this really a thing?
I am moving out of the country and I was trying to sell my smart ForTwo. Then I realized there was no market for a gas efficient commuter car.
CarMax offered me a whopping $3700 under Edmonds trade in price and $6200 under dealer retail price. Obviously CarMax thought this car would be hard to sell.
I drive 40 miles each way on my commute. Up until September of last year I was driving a paid off 2006 Tundra, averaged probably 17mpg. While gas was high I was spending $75-100 a week. In September I traded it in and got a new Focus which averages around 33mpg. It now costs me about $20 to fill up, and I use roughly $25 worth of gas a week. I went from spending $100 a week to $100 a month on gas, and the savings more than cover the monthly payment ($125 a month for 36 months). Why spend significantly more for a hybrid/electric when this saves me plenty of money already? Especially considering the range issues of many hybrids (since a full tank gets me roughly 320 miles at $20 a tank).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I don't think Climate Change is anything to drastically curve our behavior over. However there is a saying "Waist not, want not." It means you should try and get the most with the resources you have. I can see some reasons to go back to a gas car from full electric. I can not see why you want to buy a vehicle that waists it. That isn't getting the most from your own resources. I wonder what was so wrong with the hybrids.
Lets almost double that gas price and assume that for some crazy reason US production drops drastically ignoring that as oil price rises incentives for drilling and exploration increase as well. Even then is it really worth it if you don't care about "green" creds? You end up with a more complex vehicle which I assume increases the cost of maintenance especially if you're looking at keeping it a minimum of 5+ years to recoup your cost with gas savings.. It just doesn't seem to make sense.
Bullshit. There's still a motor in there, you know. Anything that has moving parts is going to need maintenance sooner or later. Sure, EV's need less of it, and that's great, but there can never be any such thing as a car that can be called 'zero maintenance' with a straight face.
And electric charge points being free-as-in-beer is only true in the same sense that parking at the mall is free. You don't pay for it directly, but you DO pay for it because the cost of it is folded into whatever else you're buying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We are a foolish nation of consumers who can't seem to think past tomorrow. I can't wait for the economic collapse that follows.
People are going to lock themselves into large vehicles again, and when the prices adjust accordingly, they won't be able to pay their bills and we will see 2008/2009 all over again on a smaller scale. Please oh please, let people not be shocked by this. I know I won't be.
Place something witty here
is that Americans will always drive big cars and trucks. We like big roads and wide open spaces. We like the space and utility that a truck offers. We like the feeling of security that driving a big hulking SUV offers.
Hybrids and electrics are a nice idea but for many people they are wholly impractical. Too small, too expensive compared to a gas powered equivalent, limited hauling capability. The high mileage ratings are for city driving. Once you get out on the freeway the advantage is lessened. For a lot of Americans, their daily commute is on the freeway.
Frankly, if I was looking for a vehicle that got great gas mileage I would buy a diesel. Better highway mileage, less complex than an hybrid, proven long term reliability.
That translates out to:
"Given the option, people will buy the vehicle they actually want, rather than settling for for electric/alt-fuel vehicles."
I'm driving a Chevy Traverse SUV as a rental while my car is in the shop, and the handling is crap, it's a pain to move and park and I can't wait to get rid of it and get my car back!
It's mind blowing that these lumbering beasts are so popular. Give me a nimble sporty car any day!
Speak for yourself. Eighty percent of my region's power is generated by carbon free sources - mostly hydro, with a bit of wind and nuclear. The rest of you either need to get more solar where it's sunny and bright most of the year, or for those with a less than ideal climate, kick the hippies in the nuts and start building some nuclear plants. Nuclear waste is a problem, but a manageable one... the lesser of two evils, so to speak.
Of course, you're correct in that if your electricity still comes from coal, you might as well stick with an efficient gas-powered car for now.
My next car is almost certainly going to be electric, although I'm not going to trade in my completely-paid-for gas powered car until it actually needs replacing.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
There's another reason. There are a lot more hybrid, diesel, and efficient trucks and SUVs becoming available. Most Americans' sense of the fuel efficiency of vehicles is distorted because it's measured in MPG. MPG is actually the inverse of fuel economy. Consequently the amount of fuel saved by vehicles like the Prius is exaggerated.
Here are the EPA figures for a 2004 3L 4WD Toyota Highlander, a 2015 3L 4WD Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and a 2015 Prius. Say you'd previously owned the 2004 Highlander and were looking to replace it. If you looked only at MPG, you'd think the Prius saves you a lot more gas than the Highlander Hybrid. The Prius gets 31 more MPG while the Highlander Hybrid only gets 9 more MPG.
But MPG is the inverse of fuel economy. Scroll down to "Annual Fuel Cost". The 2004 Highlander is estimated to cost $1900/yr in fuel. The Highlander Hybrid $1300/yr. The Prius $700/yr. In other words, switching to the Highlander Hybrid saves you $600/yr. Switching to the Prius saves you $1200/yr. The Highlander Hybrid gives you 50% the fuel savings of a Prius despite "only" getting a 9 MPG improvement vs 31 MPG improvement. How can this be? Because MPG is the inverse of fuel economy. Every time you double MPG, you save half the fuel you did in the previous doubling.
A lot of people laughed when hybrid trucks and SUVs first came out. If you want to save gas with a hybrid, why are you buying a big truck instead of an econobox like the Prius? But they were being deceived by MPG being the inverse of fuel consumption. If we as a country want to reduce fuel consumption, it's actually the low MPG vehicles like trucks and SUVs whose fuel economy you want to improve first by hybrid-izing them. They're the ones burning a disproportionately large amount of fuel, so improving their mileage first will save more fuel. Economy cars already burn so little fuel that making them a hybrid gets you little improvement. e.g. Dropping a hybrid in a 35 MPG economy car to get 50 MPG only saves you $350/yr by EPA estimates. While dropping the hybrid in a 19 MPG SUV to get 28 MPG saves you $600/yr. In other words, each SUV-buyer you can convince to buy a hybrid SUV instead saves nearly twice as much fuel as each environmentalist you convince to switch from their already-efficient car to a Prius.
If we really want to save gas, we should be concentrating on ways to improve the mileage of pickup trucks, SUVs, minivans, and tractor trailers (actually most of their cargo should be shifted to trains, but that's another argument). The rest of the world uses liters/100 km to avoid this misconception about fuel economy.
Tax gas and spend the proceeds on "green" R&D.
Seems pretty rational to me. You could even just spend the proceeds on our deficit or even just lower taxes because of the revenue.
The government doesn't even need to subsidize R&D spending if gasoline taxes made the price of gas reflect its true cost to society. $8/gallon gas would make our cars more efficient real quick. Obviously we wouldn't want to go to that level overnight because of its impact on the shipping industry, but over a decade or so our economy could shift to use more locally raised food, no more 2 day shipping of a toothbrush on Amazon Prime, etc.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Once the Saudis have put U.S. oil production out of business, expect $10/gal gas in a big hurry.
Which is why I STRONGLY recommend CNG powered cars... If not 100% CNG, at least bi-fueled cars.
Personally, I drive by two CNG stations every day I go to work. It's the fuel of the future!
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So if electricity is so cheap, why doesn't my electric company give it away for free?
Wait until full electric cars gain a great percentage of cars out on the road and start putting a real load on the system and on the meter of the business housing them. We'll see if they remain free.
And if they do then I *will* question why I am paying an electric bill at home.
My point was really that electric cars are only one part of the solution. If you don't look at the whole system, you may be just exchanging one kind of pollution for another. If you can get clean energy to power your electric car, then you're doing it right. But if you're exchanging gasoline for coal to power your car, you're not helping as much as you think you are.
It's like all of those people claiming ethanol is such a great fuel because it's clean burning and renewable. What they don't understand is that many of the new ethanol plants in the heartland burn tons of coal to produce that ethanol. So the ethanol they produce isn't what I would call as much of a "net positive" as other alternatives.
I don't care how cheep gas gets, Plenty of EV charging stations are 100% free. Last I checked, no one in my area was giving away free gas?
Not around here there isn't.. Even Costco took out their chargers because nobody used them.
The main problem with EV's is range and recharge time. In some areas this is less of an issue, but here in Texas, having 300 miles of range (without running the AC) is going to be a problem for most people. In NYC that might not be a problem because where you want to go is likely a whole lot closer.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
My immediate thought is that perhaps the 1st gen users are just cycling to their next car? Why do we assume that people will always buy the exact same type of car again? THat actually seems unreasonable to me... Hybrids and EVs tend to be smaller vehicles, and there is some natural tendency to get something "different" when you get a new car. How many people who last owned a compact car bought the same class of vehicle again? How many went on to buy SUVs/trucks? That is important info if we want to make a proper comparison.
Anecdotal example: I drive a pickup truck, and I have owned it for 11 years. It is on its way out soon, and I can't wait to get a small car as I am tired of having something that costs so much to fill up, has bad traction on snow/ice, and is hard to navigate in tight parking lots. But then maybe after xx years in a compact, I'll buy another truck...
If you're going to go buy an SUV based on the fact the gas prices have been lower for a couple weeks, you're an idiot and should be barred from using money.
First, we don't know WHY people are switching back, there are other possible reasons. The theory is that with lower gasoline prices, there is less of an incentive to go with an EV, and likely that's true to some extent, but I'd bet that there are other reasons for the move too. EV's are incredibly inconvenient for most of us compared to a traditionally fueled car. They have limited range and long refueling times. Where they are great for daily commutes (Drive 50 miles to work then home and plug it in overnight), they are horrible to road trip in (Drive 200 miles, wait 4 hours [if you can find a rapid charger], repeat until you get someplace).
I'm guessing the bloom is off the EV rose and people are done trying to spend more money to assuage their guilt about harming the earth.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Bullshit, Bullshit. Maintenance is, in the parlance of automobiles, is anticipated service not in response to a component failure, but "the act of inspecting or testing the condition of car subsystems (e.g., engine) and servicing or replacing parts and fluids" ... "parts are replaced to avoid major damage or for safety reasons, e.g. timing belt replacement". Why don't you walk into a dealership and ask about the maintenance schedule for a Nissan Leaf; (Spoiler alert) It's laughably short, and almost entirely Inspection. however, they did mention the optional replacement of an in-cabin air filter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
All of the 440 Volt (CHAdeMO) charging stations I visit in Kansas City, are 100% free, and I typically DO NOT shop at those location while charging (mostly because it only takes 15 minutes).
http://goo.gl/KBDn2Y
Nuclear waste is a problem, but a manageable one...
Could always fling the stuff out into the depths of space. What's the worst that could happen? Progressive Alien Space Hippies come down to Earth and start embargoing/picketing us with "Save Our Void" signs?
Just in case you hadn't heard about this, there is an alternative to purchasing Automobiles called Leasing? The relatively low price point is from the automaker already recouping its money from the lease, and the low demand in the market. But go ahead, don't buy the cheapest car you could possibly own, everyone else is much better off profiting from your poor choices! :D
What's wrong with 15 minutes recharge time? Common, admit it pal, you are straw-manning charge station over there at Costco. A good 440 Volt charging station makes anyone with an EV, in Texas-speak, happier than a two with dog with two peckers. I'll bet you've never used an EV, and the concept concept of driving an EV just don't get your cows a runn'in, unless you can go Muddin' in one! 'Merica!
oh, then you could just be smarter than everyone, buy an electric generator, and charge with that ;)
Free charge points all over the place here in KC, and these are just the Rapid Chargers. http://goo.gl/KBDn2Y
It's apparently not completely clear, but despite my initial sentence, I'm agreeing with you for the most part - hence, the arguments to increase output from carbon-free sources. I was just trying to make the point that you have to look at whether electricity makes sense as a gas alternative on a region-by-region basis. I think most people are aware that no single solution, including electric cars, is going to solve our problems.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
What are you talking about, I see 30 rapid chargers in the Chicago area!?
http://goo.gl/qsVqug
I know very few people who are buying an extra vehicle for the first time, but I know multiple families that have kept a second car for years. The second car gets traded in and replaced just like the primary vehicle.
Not true. OPEC is hurting. In fact most of the nations in OPEC are having trouble making ends meat. OPEC is hoping demand will go back up so that the price will rise. OPEC has some tough decisions to make. If they cut production prices should go back up. However the countries hurting now need to sell their oil to make ends meat and do not want to cut production. This is more to financial problems over seas then it has to do with the US. They are hoping demand will rise so they can sell more at a higher price.
Three problems: carbon, cost, and safety.
Launching tons of nuclear waste would consume many, many times the number of tons of rocket fuel - not exactly the most carbon-friendly approach.
Moreover, while it's hugely expensive to send payloads into low earth orbit (thousands of dollars a pound), it's even more ridiculously expensive to push a payload completely out of earth orbit. Incidentally, if you're going to push it into space, you might as well just throw it into the sun.
There's also the teensy problem that rockets still accidentally explode on occasion. Who wants to be showered with 50 tons of highly radioactive material after a rocket malfunctions?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
1) "Because no one wants them"
:)"
Want is completely subjective. People frequently do not know what they want. Your argument is essentially that people are stupid... ?
2) "I don't want some idiot behind the wheel falling asleep or into a trance"
I think people falling asleep behind the wheel is more about highway hypnosis/poor sleep/alcoholism, than the lack of sound. Also, how is the lack of sound supposed to induce a trance?
3) "you can use them as a coffin when they get into an accident with a real car
Sure, they make great coffins, if you're stupid enough to believe that most, or even all EV's are anything like a Smart car.
Your arguments are worthless, and you should be moderated down.
Again, Major repairs, ARE NOT maintenance!
I was agreeing with you.
I guess we'll just have to agree to agree then. Agreed?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Many of the hybrids were purchased using credits from the Federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Now it's time to trade those vehicles in and look at the true cost of ownership of the next vehicle.
Awwww... don't like what I have to say so you whine like a bitch and say I should be moderated down?
Let's see Point #1 If the vehicles were in demand (I.E. if people wanted them) the price would be higher. THat's basic economics, sorry you are too stupid to understand that.
Point #2 You are the fool that bleated "EV's are super quiet, peaceful, meditative."
Meditation is generally a trance-like state, like sleep.
Point #3, you have no intellignece, so no one would expect you to have a sense of humor either...
washing my hands of your worthless stain on the internet
If sales of EV's etc are going down, perhaps the SMART people can pick them up at a lower price-point...
Please tell me there's at least someone on this site that didn't take me overly serious? I know there's a lot of people here that have trouble with humor..but, I thought I was being rather blatant myself.
Yes, but we have to agree the way I want to agree! ;)
The actual article is titled "Hybrid and Electric Vehicles Struggle to Maintain Owner Loyalty". Shame on Slashdot for not getting even the title correct, since it has little bearing on electric vehicles.
The example in the article claims a 10-year payback at current fuel prices for a Toyota Camry hybrid. It doesn't say how many miles/year that is based on but I've tried to recreate the calculation, and I think it must have been 13,000 miles/year driving, which is far fewer than some people drive. And this is based on 41 MPG combined for the hybrid model compared to 28 MPG for the standard Camry, a difference of just 13. (This gap widens to 18 if you do mostly city driving.)
And worse, no comparable example is quoted for electric vehicles, which can have an effective MPG in triple digits. Given that some EV's are not much more than similar hybrids in cost these days, EV's offer a far better value proposition. Pure hybrids aren't that attractive for either environmental or cost reasons, given that the mileage improvements are modest over their standard counterparts. I wouldn't be surprised if some hybrid owners were trading in for SUV's, but I'd also expect to see hybrid owners trading for pure EV's. Hybrids without charging ability or significant battery storage are going to get squeezed out of the market.
(Disclaimer: I drive a Chevy Volt, and I love my car.)
F yeah!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
So... when you have to relocate, how does it feel to have to ship your car across the country instead of driving it there?
Wouldn't dropping it on the far side of the moon work better? Eventually, we may find a good use for that stuff. (What could possibly go wrong?)
If the vehicles were in demand (I.E. if people wanted them) the price would be higher. THat's basic economics, sorry you are too stupid to understand that.
Only once you reach a certain point in production numbers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Some people seem confused and think people are switching because of gas costs.
But that's not t at all. The reason people are switching back is because most hybrid cars are absolute wimps in acceleration - which is madness if you consider they COULD be very powerful. But to conserve the (already very low) battery life, they have fairly poor acceleration. People get tired of that after a few years, and want a car with more energy.
It could very well also be the space too, as most hybrids I found had very poor interior space. There's a lot taken up by the battery and also the need for super-aerodynmic shapes that limits interior space.
An SUV fixes both problems...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You are comparing a Leaf to a Camry?
That is a dishonest comparison, those are not the same class vehicles.
Nah, I didn't take you all that seriously ("Space Hippies" was a giveaway), but I thought I'd answer pragmatically, because I've seen people talk about it fairly often. So, yeah, sorry for sounding so humor-impaired. It annoys me when people don't get my jokes too.
As an apology, here's an interesting nuclear waste disposal plan. Here's a hint: Nuclear Lawn Darts.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Increase gas/diesel tax by .25 / year for the next 4 years and apply that to our roads and infrastructure.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And CV joints, batteries, electrical systems, power steering, ABS, Traction control and all the other systems a traditional car has.
All an EV does is replace the engine and gearbox which in time will have their own issues, entropy will have it's way with it just like everything else.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Electric cars have limited range and some have problems in cold weather.
I can easily see a lot of folks having tried it and then...ah well, it was a noble experiment.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
here in Texas, having 300 miles of range (without running the AC) is going to be a problem for most people
They often drive for 4+ hours per day? That's gotta suck.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
So... when you have to relocate, how does it feel to have to ship your car across the country instead of driving it there?
It's not so bad. I paid $75 to rent a car carrier to tow behind the moving truck. Frankly, I'd have had to do the same if my car could drive that far, because we had three vehicles to move (including the moving truck) and only two drivers.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Tax the gas at a level that will pay for 100% of the cost of maintaining the roads, instead of the current level of 50% here in the states.
People buying more gas guzzlers says gas guzzler selling platform ..
Texas is a big place. If you want to go practically anywhere out of your town and back again in the same day, it will take you a lot longer than four hours.
Where I live, it takes me an hour and change just to drive to some decent shopping, let alone to drive around and get some stuff done.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Increased natgas production is tied to fracking at this time, and it's not an inexhaustible resource either even if that weren't horrible.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Texas is a big place. If you want to go practically anywhere out of your town and back again in the same day, it will take you a lot longer than four hours.
Sure. The same is true in many places in the western US, and some much more so than Texas. But if that's your normal driving routine, that sucks, and not being able to use an EV is the least of your problems. Unless you're a professional driver, that is. In that case spending all day driving isn't a waste of time, it's a living.
For the vast majority of people in the US who own two or more vehicles, choosing an EV for one of them works very well. Whether or not it's more economical depends on many factors. I'll tell you, though, once you get used to the way an EV drives, it's hard to go back. When I bought mine, it made perfect sense financially. I moved and things changed so that it may no longer be such a great deal... but I really don't like it when I have to drive the ICEV.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Its a shame people only think of the cost of gas when considering an EV.
Maintenance costs on EVs are dramatically lower than gas vehicles. No fluids, tune-ups and brakes last dramatically longer. For about 3% of the cost of the car, Tesla extend the warranty to 8 years - and that includes everything but tires. Factor in your time dealing with maintenance as well - that's a big cost if your time is valuable to you.
EVs are very convenient. Its takes 30 seconds to plug it in a few times a week when you park in your garage and you never have to visit a gas station again.
Gasoline is bad news in every way. Flammable, carcinogenic, poisonous and a train wreck for the environment is its production and use.
Greed is the root of all evil.
My Mariner hybrid SUV gets between 32mpg and 27mpg depending on weather and driving habits - and its more than five years old.
If you need a gas car for long trips and an SUV to haul some stuff around with the seats down, smaller SUV hybrids can be a good compromise.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Tax gas and spend the proceeds on whatever the hell you like.
or
Tax gas and spend the proceeds on "green" R&D. Wait a while. Pass a bill to spend it however you please. Preferably by shuffling money to corporations, who will in turn shuffle money to you via contributions to help you get re-elected again.
This is primarily the problem I have with this sort of tax to fund ideas. Look at history, it's not good. Pensions/Welfare/Infrastructure/etc...
I like the idea of a gas tax to fund say road infrastructure, but it is too easily appropriated for other things. Hell, if all you do is tax gas for example and then subsidize oil companies, all you are doing is making oil more profitable.
FYI: Personal Attacks = Instant lose. +Logical Fallacy... Icing on the cake! Delicious! =D
Whatever captain failure
I never said NG was endless, only that it's price will be very stable for the foreseeable future (likely though the end of my kid's natural lives). That's a LONG time, longer than the usable life of most cars. So buying a CNG powered car is not that risky.
BTW... Fracking is actually a GOOD thing overall... We've been doing it for decades in various areas without much of an issue. It increases production with very low cost and low risk.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No problem, Major Butt-hurt!
Also, how am I captain failure? If anything, I'm Captain Success (Having the original post of 5/Informative while your first reply got -1/Flamebait... Just saying...
Err. No.
Fracked gas wells have a very rapid decline rate. You have to constantly drill new wells just to keep up, and those get increasingly marginal.
Current gas prices are too low to pay for the extraction - which is why the push for LNG export, because the world prices are currently high enough. It's not about there being a large supply.
I'd give it five years, maybe ten.
So maybe the life of a new car. Almost certainly not your lifespan, let alone your kids.
Since I work from Home I have a pickup. I bought an old 99 Dodge RAM 1500 Lariat Pickup 2x4 for 900 dollars. It has the 318 engine and I can drive around 5 or so people in it. Since I don't have to drive back and forth to work. Also most the time I ride one of my motorcycles when the weather is nice. A pickup is more practical and it seems the US automakers are getting out of the small pickup truck market. My pickup I use to pull a landscape trailer and I go out and cut down and collect wood because I burn wood to stay warm since oil is very expensive. I wouldn't have an SUV total waste of money.
Paul E. Bahre
Industry watchers say AT LEAST 10 years of stable prices and likely more for the very reasons you point out, the price is too cheap to warrant drilling new wells because the return would be marginal. Yet we have proven reserves that should last many decades, most of which remains undeveloped for the reason you state. However, as the prices slowly rise, I expect that drilling these marginal areas would slowly become profitable and thus they would be developed and sustain supply with slow and steady price increases. We won't see the end of this in my kids lives given current usage and known reserves.
Oil, however, has a boom and bust cycle due to geopolitical happenings and is thus much less stable. US natural gas should not suffer from that kind of thing so don't apply that kind of thinking to domestic gas supplies. It's a different political landscape.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"proven reserves", especially for fracking, are often not what they seem (and not what most people would consider "proven" to mean). The 96% drop in the recoverable rate for the Monterey shale is a prime example.
The industry has a large incentive to inflate the numbers. So far I've not seen any independent calculations that contradict the rapid-decline rate.
I guess we'll find out what reality says over the next few years.
Easy to do when you use sockpuppet accounts like failures like you always do
Gee. When the price of something changed, people changed how much of it they bought. They bought less of it when it was more expensive.
I wonder if any Californians have heard of this sort of thing?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Fracking is actually a GOOD thing overall...
Who told you that?
We've been doing it for decades in various areas without much of an issue
False.
It increases production with very low cost and low risk.
To the corporation. for the rest of us, it equals increased seismicity and water contamination. As well, the "fracking fluids" are just refinery wastes. they have no business injecting that into the ground anywhere.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The facts about Fracking... It's not any more dangerous than the drilling, really. It's drilling that's the biggest problem, yet we consider that safe enough to do. Why all the hubbub over Fracking?
What most people don't understand is that the drilling fluid is really the environmental concern, not the fracking fluids. Drilling mud carries a lot of junk around and cycles down the hole and back up bringing stuff with it. And there is a LOT Of drilling fluid in an 8" pipe that's 8 thousand feet long. Drilling fluid is designed to float the cuttings from the drill head to the surface, so it's both dense and designed to flow easily.
Fracking fluid goes down the well, and most of it doesn't ever come back. It is viscous, and contains fine grit, usually sand. If you took out the alcohol and mixed in sand from hand sanitizer and made it a little thinner, you'd have something pretty close. Fracking fluid is no more dangerous than jello and where I'd not eat the stuff, most of it won't harm you if you did.
And... I'd like to point out that there is ZERO documented proof that fracking is in anyway dangerous, despite what you might be told or find on the internet. And don't start into the "it causes earthquakes" bit. It's the deep injection of waste drilling fluid in old and abandoned wells that seems to be the issue, well that and simply fossil fuel production which has caused small earthquakes for the last hundred years.... But don't let the facts stop your unfair treatment of Fracking..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101