The batteries in the Prius are not lead-acid, as another poster pointed out. They're NiMH. In addition to that, they are warranted for 8yrs/100k miles, and expected to last the lifetime of the car without replacement, so it's unlikely that there will be much more than one battery pack per car lifetime on an average basis.
Toyota recycles them completely, chemicals, metals, case, wiring, etc... and pays a $200 bounty to encourage people to do so. Their recycling program has been in place since the Rav4 EV, so it's a fairly mature process by now.
I thought that it was widely acknowledged that the games you mention have greatly pushed the art of videogames, although there is some contention over whether Halo 2 really does anything new besides bringing the internet-multiplayer FPS to consoles. Nobody would argue that Bungie's history doesn't include some innovative story-driven FPSes, though. GTA ushered in the open-ended environment, and WoW made some strides in making the grindy MMO world more user-friendly.
If you've missed the praise for GTA's contributions, you've been reading a different universe of game reviews than I have. I think you're seeing an insult where there isn't one.
I suppose they're "environmentalists," but they're also idiots. The Altamont pass windmills are 30 years old, small, short, and fast-spinning. Newer turbines keep the blade tips so high that the lowest point is over 100m off the ground (above the flight paths of birds), and spin *much* more slowly. Even Altamont's small windmills are being replaced with much larger, modern windmills.
Altamont pass has its issues with bird kills, but it's not an issue with new windfarms.
An environmentalist who opposes all windfarms on the failings of a single one, despite repeated demonstrations that the issue is now resolved is an idiot. I've never seen a better second use for middle-of-nowhere midwestern cornfields.
I've got well over 30 installed, replacing everything except a set of dimmable G30s in the bathroom. (Anybody have a source?) I've only had three burnouts. Two turned out to be a reverse-wired socket-- the incandescents don't give a crap about polarity, but apparently, some CFLs do-- I had two die in the same socket within just a few days. The other lasted a couple of years (around 3), but finally gave up. It was mounted base-up. Most of the bulbs in the basement have been with me since college, around 1997. All the rest just keep on kickin'.
You have to find CFLs made for dimmers. I had ceiling lights in one of my previous apartments that had 4 or 5 recessed cans in the ceiling that took R40 bulbs and was connected to a dimmer. A google search turned up exact replacements, and this was back in 2000. The *only* niche-bulb I can't find is a G30 dimmable (globe bulb, like in bathroom light bars). I've found plenty of G30 CFLs, and plenty of dimmable ones, but none that are both.
Here's a quick link to a few-- these aren't the same ones I used, which came from some manufacturer I'd never heard of, but nonetheless, they're out there if you look for them.
LEDs get pretty hot. I built an LED headlamp for mountain biking at night with a 3W Luxeon Star LED, and it gets hot enough to need a heatsink backing to keep from frying itself. And that's only a 3W bulb. The heat is concentrated in a smaller area, and I'm sure there's less of it than with incandescents, but it's still fairly warm. It would be quite hot at a bulb-equivalent wattage, I imagine.
It's a face? I never looked at it that close, because my parents told me it would hurt my eyes. Next time I'm outside, I'll make sure to stare directly at it until I can make out the face!
If you were referring to your situation exclusively, you should have avoided making this statement:
"I suppose you ride your bicycle to work and never drive by car or take the bus? If you do, you have done worse for the nature in a couple of miles than a computer does in its lifetime."
Which is all I was making a counterargument against. You quite clearly did *not* mean just yourself, as you called out the original poster for "doing worse for the nature" by driving a few miles than a computer does in its entire lifetime. I pointed out that was false.
*YOUR* computer may be fine and dandy on hydroelectric power, but that's not what you said. It may have been your intention to state it differently, but I cannot read your mind over the internet yet.
The numbers are still valid. Your computer still uses as much power as a car driven short distances every few days. Sure, the power you're using is cleanly generated, but if you weren't using it, it would be available on the grid for someone else to use, offsetting dirty generation somewhere else.
1. Your computer's waste heat is only useful when you're heating your house. It has the opposite effect when you're running the AC. Where you live will greatly affect how this balances out.
2. A gallon of gasoline contains about 33 kWh of energy. If I drive my car a couple of miles (we'll say 5, to be generous) I use 1/7 of a gallon of gasoline. 33/7 is about 4.7kWh. If your computer uses a continuous 10 watts while it is on, you use.24kWh a day. Your magical 10w computer is worse than driving my car five miles in just 4.7/.24 = 19.6 days.
You'll also note that this calculation is *extremely* weighted against the car-- the car's energy usage is calculated including conversion loss, while the PC is measured at the outlet ignoring generation and transmission losses, I've rounded a "few" miles up to 5 miles, and I've assumed your computer only uses 10 watts. If I use a more reasonable 150w average for your PC, you would save the equivalent of five miles of driving every 1.3 days your computer was off.
I'm a tree-hugging, bike-commuting, CFL lights and efficient appliances enviro-nut-- but you sir, aren't helping matters with hyperbole and exaggeration. Be honest, and let the real numbers speak for themselves. Telling people "they've done worse for nature" because they turn their computer off is silly AND false. You can't expect everyone to do everything right-- but every choice somebody makes that saves power is a step in the right direction. Turning off their computer is a good step, even if they don't bike to work.
Holy crap, this needs to be published in bold letters somewhere.
This is one of my biggest internet-peeves! It's like comments I saw on yesterday's Wired article that the Altamont Pass windmills kill birds and that some conservationists now oppose the windfarm.
A widely-repeated comment on the article could be paraphrased as "Wow, you just can't please environmentalists. First they want wind power, and now they want no wind power." Never mind that the word "environmentalists" encompasses so many people, from tree-camping hippy nutbags to pro-nuclear folks, that you can't successfully aggregate their opinions like that.
Just because the prevailing posts on slashdot seem to be advocating contradictory philosophies doesn't mean the individuals themselves are contradictory. It just means that the folks who are angry enough to post on various issues aren't necessary the same that are worked up enough to post on others.
As it is, I support GPS tracking for all golf balls, so I can figure out which one of my neighbors is hitting the damn things into my backyard.
Agreed, it's not like the average bridge, because of exactly what you said. Our industry is still too new and changing too fast to be treated like bridge design. The folks at NASA, though, do software work like bridge designers-- and the result is what I mentioned above. The timetables are long, and the certified hardware is waaaay behind the latest and greatest that comes along in our fast-moving industry.
To stretch your already dangerously high-tension analogy a bit further, I wouldn't put my signature on a design like you suggest unless the skyscrapers were rigorously built and tested, and originally designed to support the weight and strain of a bridge. I wouldn't put those pilings down until I knew the load capacity of those barges, and exactly where they were going to be, and when, and how much they moved due to current, etc... Additional bridges and buildings couldn't be added above the rated support levels of the bridge I constructed, without redesign and reinforcement by myself or another engineer first. And finally, nobody could swap anything out that wasn't in the initial spec, unless another engineer did the evaluation and design to approve it-- at which point it's his ass and not mine.
Like I said, this would be decidedly unpalatable to management. The kind of rigor that would be needed simply costs too much and takes too long in an industry where we re-do everything every six months. When CPU development slows down and stabilizes, OSes will slow down and stabilize, and software design will sort itself out into a more traditional engineering discipline.
As it is, we do things other disciplines can't because of the speed of construction and lack of "physical restraints." It's as if we wanted to bridge the english channel, and our options were something like:
1. Fill entire channel with bricks, and then pave over the rough top with a road. 2. Move all the water. 3. Scoot England down a bit.
I digress. My initial point was only that should we implement such a thing, the liability might actually be *good* for individual developers and overall product quality. I'm not saying it's likely to happen.
I would agree that this could possibly be good for developers. I've done things quick-and-dirty, against my better judgement, and with flaws that I personally would have preferred to remove many a time because management wants it done fast and just barely meeting the contract specs, and bugs can always be fixed "in the support phase."
That said, programmers would start having to behave like Engineers, and I'm not sure they're all ready for it. It would be a rocky transition for the industry. I don't think management will be happy to hear the sort of estimates that come from engineers whose personal reputation is on the line in a design-- before I'd sign off on anything personally, I'd be damn sure it was right and that there was a rigorous test plan to make sure the implementation worked as planned when we were done. Costs for software will go up dramatically, but so will quality. Still, I suspect it will be a tough sell to management, who will fight any sort of liability legislation tooth-and-nail.
We need cablecard support for HTPCs. That's the stumbling block. I can do better than an SD tivo with an HTPC, but until I can get HD recording from something besides OTA broadcasts, I'll just keep the tivo.
I do have an HTPC, but it mostly gets used for gaming, since there's little OTA HD programming I'm interested in and the tivo does a decent job with everything else.
I don't get it. I really don't. I see this sort of opinion all over the place, and it makes no sense to me. Your cellphone has all sorts of neat features designed to do exactly what you want:
1. An off switch 2. Caller ID, and the resultant ability to screen calls 3. The ability to make the ringer silent 4. Intrinsic ignorability, owing to the lack of any sort of mechanism to actually compel you by force to answer it
Why do people feel like they'd have to get rid of technology to be "free"? Use it on your own terms. Keep it off unless you need a tow truck. Only answer it when you want to talk to a person. Why do communications tools make people feel like slaves to the tools? It's not like the device is going to reach out and smack you around if you wait 24 hours to return a call while you do whatever you need or want to do. Or is the problem your JOB? If you can't be "really alone" now, you must have some sort of job requirement that requires you to answer immediately. And if you lose the phone, that requirement isn't going to change-- you're just gonna have to hang out by a landline your boss knows you can be reached at.
Agreed, and I hadn't thought much about using the thing as a DVD player. I'd be surprised if there isn't a way to go pure-digital on that, though-- straight from the DVD's bitstream to the TV via a digital input. I'm not sure how a digital source can deliver "poor blacks" to your set, unless it was defective.
It would still be much easier to just use a standalone DVD player. For me, it was solely about being able to record HDTV shows, with bigscreen PC gaming thrown in as a secondary benefit.
I assume you were looking at a review of analog capture for standard-definition television, which in a lot of cases is not so hot in the PC world. Digital capture, however, is better. If you use an HDTV capture card and a DVI or HDMI output to your set, the video will be as perfect as the transmission, and on par with anything else you can buy. Onboard sound is fine, as long as it has a digital out. (You may have to scrounge for a soundstorm mobo, though)
This is the one area where HTPCs had an edge-- I had a PVR capable of recording HDTV for about $450 in parts (old PC + capture card) quite a while back. When it was built, there were no available HD PVRs, and when the HD Tivo eventually arrived, it was $1000.
That price advantage is definitely gone, though. Most cablecos now offer a HD PVR for a small monthly rental fee.
You're right. The Prius, for example, runs on the more efficient Atkinson cycle you describe. But diesels are pretty stinking efficient to start with (partly because diesel is more energy-dense than gasoline), even more so than the Atkinson cycle engines. The VW Lupo manages 78mpg (it aleady does the engine shutoff like a hybrid). Toss in a hybrid system regenerative braking and low-speed driving, and you'd have a hell of an efficient car with a LOT of sweet, sweet low-end torque.
The japanese don't *buy* diesels much, but I believe the japanese manufacturers sell them in europe. According to this random google result, toyota puts diesel engines in "just" 36% of its cars. (I'm not sure if that means "available in 36% of models" or "sold in 36% of cars assembled" or what)
A diesel Prius with a roof rack would be pretty close to what I'm after. How 'bout it, Toyota?
You're right, depending on the layout. Honda and Toyota's hybrids both use what they're calling a CVT transmission, though. Toyota's planetary gear system is probably more along the lines of what you're thinking, whereas honda uses something along the lines of a glorified snowmobile transmission. I have a Civic HX CVT, and I've gotten used to it-- all I care about for my next car is that it's automatic, and that there's either no fuel economy penalty or even an advantage over a manual. Call me a pansy for not wanting a manual, but I like the idea of a transmission that can choose the ideal gear ratio for me.
My perfect car would be a diesel hybrid, hatchback or small WRX-ish wagon, CVT automatic, and at least ULEV emissions, with a built-in roof rack system designed as aerodynamically as possible (retracting into the roof would be extra-nice). AWD would be nice, but I'm only interested if we can manage it without a fuel economy penalty, say, by using an electric motor in the rear of the car to drive the rear wheels that could be left off when unneeeded.
A small 60mpg diesel coupled with a hybrid system would get us better mileage than that-- 80mpg? 90? The VW Lupo diesel manages ~80mpg, and its only novelty is that it turns the engine off at stops like a hybrid.
Extras: a humongous plug so I can use the hybrid system as a backup generator for my house in power failures-- the hybrid Silverado does this. An interior like the Honda Element that I can just hose out. I'm gonna get it muddy after mountain biking.
I'll pay the diesel premium and the hybrid premium and the AWD premium quite happily. But you have to get the whole thing right-- otherwise, I'm keeping my trusty civic HX.
I drive a Civic HX CVT, which is very efficient as it is-- but after peeking at the Prius, I don't think they're a fair comparison. The Prius was much larger, and the interior was better (though not by much) than what's in my Civic. I just have the standard cloth seats, though-- for all I know there are Civics with leather interiors, and that's what you're comparing to.
Plus, the Prius you were shopping had a GPS nav system and a very unnecessary stereo system. Drop that options package, and you're down three or four grand, if I remember right.
Starting next year, Uncle Sam will give you $3000 to buy a Prius, too. If you look at the $20K base model Prius, which is similar feature-wise to my civic (although larger), it's only $1500 more than my civic was in 2001 after the new tax credit. ($20K - $3K vs. $15.5K) By your math, which is admittedly generous, you'll make up the difference with gas in a year and a half. Call it three years to be more realistic, and you'd have a larger, roomier car at the same price if you keep it just three years.
Of course, I'll stick with the 38mpg civic-- the Prius would have to be staggeringly efficient to be a cost-effective replacement for a paid-for car. I'm driving this thing until I can't, and averaging 38mpg in a ULEV vehicle isn't too shabby, even compared to the current fuel-economy leaders.
I think you missed his point. Did your trip take 30 hours? That's a LOT of damn idling, and I would be surprised (and impressed, and on the way to the Benz dealer) if they idle as well as a car that is literally off while idling.
Yes, you wouldn't want to eat the battery from your hybrid. Nor would you want to eat the lead-acid one in your current car, let alone any of the other oh-so-healthy things found in a car.
But the batteries in the Prius are fully recycled, down to the case and wires, and Toyota will pay you $200 when you do so. Not to mention they're warranted for 8yrs/100k miles, and designed to last as long as the car itself. As of an article I read last summer, Toyota has not replaced a single Prius battery in the four years it had been on the market. So not only are they fully recycled, it shouldn't have to be done until the car is junked, well past 200k miles according to Toyota.
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The batteries in the Prius are not lead-acid, as another poster pointed out. They're NiMH. In addition to that, they are warranted for 8yrs/100k miles, and expected to last the lifetime of the car without replacement, so it's unlikely that there will be much more than one battery pack per car lifetime on an average basis.
Toyota recycles them completely, chemicals, metals, case, wiring, etc... and pays a $200 bounty to encourage people to do so. Their recycling program has been in place since the Rav4 EV, so it's a fairly mature process by now.
I thought that it was widely acknowledged that the games you mention have greatly pushed the art of videogames, although there is some contention over whether Halo 2 really does anything new besides bringing the internet-multiplayer FPS to consoles. Nobody would argue that Bungie's history doesn't include some innovative story-driven FPSes, though. GTA ushered in the open-ended environment, and WoW made some strides in making the grindy MMO world more user-friendly.
If you've missed the praise for GTA's contributions, you've been reading a different universe of game reviews than I have. I think you're seeing an insult where there isn't one.
I suppose they're "environmentalists," but they're also idiots. The Altamont pass windmills are 30 years old, small, short, and fast-spinning. Newer turbines keep the blade tips so high that the lowest point is over 100m off the ground (above the flight paths of birds), and spin *much* more slowly. Even Altamont's small windmills are being replaced with much larger, modern windmills.
Altamont pass has its issues with bird kills, but it's not an issue with new windfarms.
An environmentalist who opposes all windfarms on the failings of a single one, despite repeated demonstrations that the issue is now resolved is an idiot. I've never seen a better second use for middle-of-nowhere midwestern cornfields.
I've got well over 30 installed, replacing everything except a set of dimmable G30s in the bathroom. (Anybody have a source?) I've only had three burnouts. Two turned out to be a reverse-wired socket-- the incandescents don't give a crap about polarity, but apparently, some CFLs do-- I had two die in the same socket within just a few days. The other lasted a couple of years (around 3), but finally gave up. It was mounted base-up. Most of the bulbs in the basement have been with me since college, around 1997. All the rest just keep on kickin'.
You have to find CFLs made for dimmers. I had ceiling lights in one of my previous apartments that had 4 or 5 recessed cans in the ceiling that took R40 bulbs and was connected to a dimmer. A google search turned up exact replacements, and this was back in 2000. The *only* niche-bulb I can't find is a G30 dimmable (globe bulb, like in bathroom light bars). I've found plenty of G30 CFLs, and plenty of dimmable ones, but none that are both.
Here's a quick link to a few-- these aren't the same ones I used, which came from some manufacturer I'd never heard of, but nonetheless, they're out there if you look for them.
LEDs get pretty hot. I built an LED headlamp for mountain biking at night with a 3W Luxeon Star LED, and it gets hot enough to need a heatsink backing to keep from frying itself. And that's only a 3W bulb. The heat is concentrated in a smaller area, and I'm sure there's less of it than with incandescents, but it's still fairly warm. It would be quite hot at a bulb-equivalent wattage, I imagine.
It's a face? I never looked at it that close, because my parents told me it would hurt my eyes. Next time I'm outside, I'll make sure to stare directly at it until I can make out the face!
If you were referring to your situation exclusively, you should have avoided making this statement:
"I suppose you ride your bicycle to work and never drive by car or take the bus? If you do, you have done worse for the nature in a couple of miles than a computer does in its lifetime."
Which is all I was making a counterargument against. You quite clearly did *not* mean just yourself, as you called out the original poster for "doing worse for the nature" by driving a few miles than a computer does in its entire lifetime. I pointed out that was false.
*YOUR* computer may be fine and dandy on hydroelectric power, but that's not what you said. It may have been your intention to state it differently, but I cannot read your mind over the internet yet.
The numbers are still valid. Your computer still uses as much power as a car driven short distances every few days. Sure, the power you're using is cleanly generated, but if you weren't using it, it would be available on the grid for someone else to use, offsetting dirty generation somewhere else.
There are a couple of things wrong here:
.24kWh a day. Your magical 10w computer is worse than driving my car five miles in just 4.7/.24 = 19.6 days.
1. Your computer's waste heat is only useful when you're heating your house. It has the opposite effect when you're running the AC. Where you live will greatly affect how this balances out.
2. A gallon of gasoline contains about 33 kWh of energy. If I drive my car a couple of miles (we'll say 5, to be generous) I use 1/7 of a gallon of gasoline. 33/7 is about 4.7kWh. If your computer uses a continuous 10 watts while it is on, you use
You'll also note that this calculation is *extremely* weighted against the car-- the car's energy usage is calculated including conversion loss, while the PC is measured at the outlet ignoring generation and transmission losses, I've rounded a "few" miles up to 5 miles, and I've assumed your computer only uses 10 watts. If I use a more reasonable 150w average for your PC, you would save the equivalent of five miles of driving every 1.3 days your computer was off.
I'm a tree-hugging, bike-commuting, CFL lights and efficient appliances enviro-nut-- but you sir, aren't helping matters with hyperbole and exaggeration. Be honest, and let the real numbers speak for themselves. Telling people "they've done worse for nature" because they turn their computer off is silly AND false. You can't expect everyone to do everything right-- but every choice somebody makes that saves power is a step in the right direction. Turning off their computer is a good step, even if they don't bike to work.
Holy crap, this needs to be published in bold letters somewhere.
This is one of my biggest internet-peeves! It's like comments I saw on yesterday's Wired article that the Altamont Pass windmills kill birds and that some conservationists now oppose the windfarm.
A widely-repeated comment on the article could be paraphrased as "Wow, you just can't please environmentalists. First they want wind power, and now they want no wind power." Never mind that the word "environmentalists" encompasses so many people, from tree-camping hippy nutbags to pro-nuclear folks, that you can't successfully aggregate their opinions like that.
Just because the prevailing posts on slashdot seem to be advocating contradictory philosophies doesn't mean the individuals themselves are contradictory. It just means that the folks who are angry enough to post on various issues aren't necessary the same that are worked up enough to post on others.
As it is, I support GPS tracking for all golf balls, so I can figure out which one of my neighbors is hitting the damn things into my backyard.
Agreed, it's not like the average bridge, because of exactly what you said. Our industry is still too new and changing too fast to be treated like bridge design. The folks at NASA, though, do software work like bridge designers-- and the result is what I mentioned above. The timetables are long, and the certified hardware is waaaay behind the latest and greatest that comes along in our fast-moving industry.
To stretch your already dangerously high-tension analogy a bit further, I wouldn't put my signature on a design like you suggest unless the skyscrapers were rigorously built and tested, and originally designed to support the weight and strain of a bridge. I wouldn't put those pilings down until I knew the load capacity of those barges, and exactly where they were going to be, and when, and how much they moved due to current, etc... Additional bridges and buildings couldn't be added above the rated support levels of the bridge I constructed, without redesign and reinforcement by myself or another engineer first. And finally, nobody could swap anything out that wasn't in the initial spec, unless another engineer did the evaluation and design to approve it-- at which point it's his ass and not mine.
Like I said, this would be decidedly unpalatable to management. The kind of rigor that would be needed simply costs too much and takes too long in an industry where we re-do everything every six months. When CPU development slows down and stabilizes, OSes will slow down and stabilize, and software design will sort itself out into a more traditional engineering discipline.
As it is, we do things other disciplines can't because of the speed of construction and lack of "physical restraints." It's as if we wanted to bridge the english channel, and our options were something like:
1. Fill entire channel with bricks, and then pave over the rough top with a road.
2. Move all the water.
3. Scoot England down a bit.
I digress. My initial point was only that should we implement such a thing, the liability might actually be *good* for individual developers and overall product quality. I'm not saying it's likely to happen.
I would agree that this could possibly be good for developers. I've done things quick-and-dirty, against my better judgement, and with flaws that I personally would have preferred to remove many a time because management wants it done fast and just barely meeting the contract specs, and bugs can always be fixed "in the support phase."
That said, programmers would start having to behave like Engineers, and I'm not sure they're all ready for it. It would be a rocky transition for the industry. I don't think management will be happy to hear the sort of estimates that come from engineers whose personal reputation is on the line in a design-- before I'd sign off on anything personally, I'd be damn sure it was right and that there was a rigorous test plan to make sure the implementation worked as planned when we were done. Costs for software will go up dramatically, but so will quality. Still, I suspect it will be a tough sell to management, who will fight any sort of liability legislation tooth-and-nail.
We need cablecard support for HTPCs. That's the stumbling block. I can do better than an SD tivo with an HTPC, but until I can get HD recording from something besides OTA broadcasts, I'll just keep the tivo.
I do have an HTPC, but it mostly gets used for gaming, since there's little OTA HD programming I'm interested in and the tivo does a decent job with everything else.
I don't get it. I really don't. I see this sort of opinion all over the place, and it makes no sense to me. Your cellphone has all sorts of neat features designed to do exactly what you want:
1. An off switch
2. Caller ID, and the resultant ability to screen calls
3. The ability to make the ringer silent
4. Intrinsic ignorability, owing to the lack of any sort of mechanism to actually compel you by force to answer it
Why do people feel like they'd have to get rid of technology to be "free"? Use it on your own terms. Keep it off unless you need a tow truck. Only answer it when you want to talk to a person. Why do communications tools make people feel like slaves to the tools? It's not like the device is going to reach out and smack you around if you wait 24 hours to return a call while you do whatever you need or want to do. Or is the problem your JOB? If you can't be "really alone" now, you must have some sort of job requirement that requires you to answer immediately. And if you lose the phone, that requirement isn't going to change-- you're just gonna have to hang out by a landline your boss knows you can be reached at.
Agreed, and I hadn't thought much about using the thing as a DVD player. I'd be surprised if there isn't a way to go pure-digital on that, though-- straight from the DVD's bitstream to the TV via a digital input. I'm not sure how a digital source can deliver "poor blacks" to your set, unless it was defective.
It would still be much easier to just use a standalone DVD player. For me, it was solely about being able to record HDTV shows, with bigscreen PC gaming thrown in as a secondary benefit.
I assume you were looking at a review of analog capture for standard-definition television, which in a lot of cases is not so hot in the PC world. Digital capture, however, is better. If you use an HDTV capture card and a DVI or HDMI output to your set, the video will be as perfect as the transmission, and on par with anything else you can buy. Onboard sound is fine, as long as it has a digital out. (You may have to scrounge for a soundstorm mobo, though)
This is the one area where HTPCs had an edge-- I had a PVR capable of recording HDTV for about $450 in parts (old PC + capture card) quite a while back. When it was built, there were no available HD PVRs, and when the HD Tivo eventually arrived, it was $1000.
That price advantage is definitely gone, though. Most cablecos now offer a HD PVR for a small monthly rental fee.
"For example, you should not eat ... video cassettes."
Well, crap. Now how the hell am I going to keep everybody from finding out about my VHS copy of Footloose?
Yes. You'll qualify for carpool lane usage under the "you're as fat as two people" amendment.
You're right. The Prius, for example, runs on the more efficient Atkinson cycle you describe. But diesels are pretty stinking efficient to start with (partly because diesel is more energy-dense than gasoline), even more so than the Atkinson cycle engines. The VW Lupo manages 78mpg (it aleady does the engine shutoff like a hybrid). Toss in a hybrid system regenerative braking and low-speed driving, and you'd have a hell of an efficient car with a LOT of sweet, sweet low-end torque.
The japanese don't *buy* diesels much, but I believe the japanese manufacturers sell them in europe. According to this random google result, toyota puts diesel engines in "just" 36% of its cars. (I'm not sure if that means "available in 36% of models" or "sold in 36% of cars assembled" or what)
A diesel Prius with a roof rack would be pretty close to what I'm after. How 'bout it, Toyota?
You're right, depending on the layout. Honda and Toyota's hybrids both use what they're calling a CVT transmission, though. Toyota's planetary gear system is probably more along the lines of what you're thinking, whereas honda uses something along the lines of a glorified snowmobile transmission. I have a Civic HX CVT, and I've gotten used to it-- all I care about for my next car is that it's automatic, and that there's either no fuel economy penalty or even an advantage over a manual. Call me a pansy for not wanting a manual, but I like the idea of a transmission that can choose the ideal gear ratio for me.
My perfect car would be a diesel hybrid, hatchback or small WRX-ish wagon, CVT automatic, and at least ULEV emissions, with a built-in roof rack system designed as aerodynamically as possible (retracting into the roof would be extra-nice). AWD would be nice, but I'm only interested if we can manage it without a fuel economy penalty, say, by using an electric motor in the rear of the car to drive the rear wheels that could be left off when unneeeded.
A small 60mpg diesel coupled with a hybrid system would get us better mileage than that-- 80mpg? 90? The VW Lupo diesel manages ~80mpg, and its only novelty is that it turns the engine off at stops like a hybrid.
Extras: a humongous plug so I can use the hybrid system as a backup generator for my house in power failures-- the hybrid Silverado does this. An interior like the Honda Element that I can just hose out. I'm gonna get it muddy after mountain biking.
I'll pay the diesel premium and the hybrid premium and the AWD premium quite happily. But you have to get the whole thing right-- otherwise, I'm keeping my trusty civic HX.
I drive a Civic HX CVT, which is very efficient as it is-- but after peeking at the Prius, I don't think they're a fair comparison. The Prius was much larger, and the interior was better (though not by much) than what's in my Civic. I just have the standard cloth seats, though-- for all I know there are Civics with leather interiors, and that's what you're comparing to.
Plus, the Prius you were shopping had a GPS nav system and a very unnecessary stereo system. Drop that options package, and you're down three or four grand, if I remember right.
Starting next year, Uncle Sam will give you $3000 to buy a Prius, too. If you look at the $20K base model Prius, which is similar feature-wise to my civic (although larger), it's only $1500 more than my civic was in 2001 after the new tax credit. ($20K - $3K vs. $15.5K) By your math, which is admittedly generous, you'll make up the difference with gas in a year and a half. Call it three years to be more realistic, and you'd have a larger, roomier car at the same price if you keep it just three years.
Of course, I'll stick with the 38mpg civic-- the Prius would have to be staggeringly efficient to be a cost-effective replacement for a paid-for car. I'm driving this thing until I can't, and averaging 38mpg in a ULEV vehicle isn't too shabby, even compared to the current fuel-economy leaders.
I think you missed his point. Did your trip take 30 hours? That's a LOT of damn idling, and I would be surprised (and impressed, and on the way to the Benz dealer) if they idle as well as a car that is literally off while idling.
Yes, you wouldn't want to eat the battery from your hybrid. Nor would you want to eat the lead-acid one in your current car, let alone any of the other oh-so-healthy things found in a car.
But the batteries in the Prius are fully recycled, down to the case and wires, and Toyota will pay you $200 when you do so. Not to mention they're warranted for 8yrs/100k miles, and designed to last as long as the car itself. As of an article I read last summer, Toyota has not replaced a single Prius battery in the four years it had been on the market. So not only are they fully recycled, it shouldn't have to be done until the car is junked, well past 200k miles according to Toyota.