Re: IRS should cancel tax credits on gas guzzler "hybrids"

Many of the new generation hybrids aren't specifically designed to increase fuel economy more than a few MPG but rather to reduce emissions. Since the most emissions are generated in slow speed stop-and-go driving, the use of an electric motor for that type of movement reduces emissions on these vehicles to somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the amount a non-hybrid version of the same vehicle produces.

Cheers - Jonathan

What a ripoff to we taxpayers who pay extra taxes so tax giveaways are > given to rich people who buy expensive hybrids that actually guzzle more > gasoline than regular cars you and I are destined to purchase! Write your > Congressperson today and tell her/him just how you feel about getting the > shaft without the benefit of K-Y Jelly. If a hybrid doesn't get at least > 15% better gas economy, than it does with its battery removed, tax it > double for extra damage it does to the economy and Nation by using a lot > of > contaminating elements in it's battery pak.
Reply to
Jonathan Race
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Lemee see, there's only *one* source of energy for these vehicles. Anyone surprised at the real outcome? BTW, one doesn't run around town on electric power for long before the gasoline engine is needed to charge the batteries that are powering the electric motor. There ain't no free lunch.

Reply to
FanJet

Wrong! Many of the new generation hybrids aren't specifically designed to increase fuel economy more than a few MPG, but rather to INCREASE POWER, espically 0-60 accelleration. The fuel economy in MPG is the same, ful consumption is the same, you just get a higher rated HP.

You didn't read No-man's article, I quote:

"The Environmental Protection Agency puts the hybrid and non-hybrid Accords in the same emissions category."

Next time read what your replying to. And yes, No-Man is correct, the tax credit needs to be revoked for these "green turbocharged" vehicles.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

i just think a larger gas guzzler tax needs to be invoked for these large suv's.... .. what needs does a person living in the city have for a huge expedition when a winstar does the same thing in town. I could see if you lived in a rural area or a contractor farmer etc but the average businessman driving to work in a 30 storey building needs to pay a guzzler tax... dont ask me how to incorporate it but still it needs to be done.

Reply to
fireater

Well, if the hybrid uses regenerative braking, it's entirely possible that it will get better economy in stop and go driving.

nate

Reply to
N8N

I doubt that the reduction in emissions is any greater than the improvement in fuel economy. The logic seems to be fundamentally flawed. Burning fuel is where emissions start in the first place. If you aren't burning significantly less fuel, how are you generating significantly fewer emissions?

John

Reply to
John Horner

And, the extra weight of the battery packs, electric motor and controllers all works against improved fuel economy. One also has to wonder how much more energy is consumed in the production process for all that extra complexity and how much pollution is created in the production process.

John

Reply to
John Horner

As usual, our government is being far more complex and tricky than is neccessary or sufficient to achieve the desired goals.

If the goal is to dramatically reduce petroleum consumption, simply tax the heck out of it. This is working with cigarettes.

CAFE, hybrid tax-credits, special car-pool lane privledges and all the rest are the kinds on answers lawyers, accountants and politicians love .... but they are not the kind of answers which get the job done best.

Keep It Simple, Stupid ... raise the gasoline and diesel taxes by $.25/quarter over a three year period of time to give people time to adapt. At the end of that time you would have $3.00/gallon of additional tax revenue to spend on next generation transportation infrastructure and the users would change their behavior accordingly.

Sadly, simple, effective solutions rarely get implemented!

John

Reply to
John Horner

I have an Escape Hybrid. I agree with the state of California that it doesn't belong in the HOV lanes when higher mileage Hybrids are allowed (whether that is a good use of HOV lanes is a separate issue... I think not). I agree with Google, who will sponsor their employees' purchase of a Hybrid, but only the high mileage ones.

The Escape, at least, puts a smaller engine in the hybrid, although it is an engine that is available "naked". The Civic shrinks the engine to one that is not otherwise available.

The Accord/Highlander/RX400H, topics of the unfavorable NYT article, are a different thing altogether.

Should there be a tax credit of any sort? Why is the credit being given to any Hybrid? To subsidize development of something that Congress feels needs a subsidy. "Hybrids should be encouraged, Callahan said, because their electric components some day could be useful in an all-electric car..."

I can accept that logic, but a loophole that allows someone to take the already overpowered Accord V6 and add more power, shouldn't be closed. Someone buying an Escape hybrid should. I eliminated a 13mpg Durango when I bought my Escape, and it still tows my horse trailer.

Eventually, when hybrids become more accepted, plug-in hybrids could get us to the point that electric cars were never able to achieve, being able to replace any car, instead of a commute-only limited application. If my Escape could give a 25 mile range all-electric, it would only need gasoline on longer trips, and be all electric during the typical week, getting it's plug in recharge from my solar system at home.

Someone else suggests that all of the energy ultimately comes from gasoline in a hybrid. That's not true. Regenerative braking helps a lot.

On the other hand, on level ground, I drove about seven miles on electric, followed by a few miles where I watched my "average" plummet from 99mpg to

38mpg, as the batteries were being recharged. I calculate an average of 38mpg for 10 miles was actually 7 at 0 usage, 3 at 11mpg. Recharging the batteries was pretty costly. But I got 38mpg over the stretch, something I'd be hard pressed to do in that traffic in any other car.
Reply to
dold

The efficiency of an engine lugging away from a stop is decidely less than that same engine at cruising speed. The hybrid assist makes a substantial difference there. I think of the hybrid as the opposite of a turbocharger in that it has zero boost lag, and provides less power at higher RPM.

Comments in the California EPA test doucments indicate that the current hybrids are at the extremes of the ability of the testing to judge certain pollutants. Modifications had to be made to the test processes to avoid showing zero emissions during the city cycle.

The EPA charts show that the California Escape Hybrid is an improvement over the California four cylinder.

Standard 4cyl-4wd-auto Pollution:6, 19/22mpg, Greenhouse:4 Standard 6cyl-4wd-auto Pollution:3, 18/22mpg, Greenhouse:4 Hybrid 4cyl-4wd-auto Pollution:9.5, 33/29mpg, Greenhouse:8

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Reply to
dold

fireater wrote in part:

Gas guzzlers are sometimes the only way to do a job and sometimes are just plain wasteful. The regulatory doofuses will keep imposing credits and oddball special rules (like CAFE) until our "leaders" face the facts and phase in a large tax on oil and gasoline. Then people can just make their own decisions re cars based on their needs and costs.

-- Jim Chinnis Warrenton, Virginia, USA

Reply to
Jim Chinnis

And when companies and their owners start holding on to every penny even harder than they are now in response to health insurance premiums escalating and coverage decreasing at every contract renewal, how stagnant do you think the economy will become? And what will happen when the returns in taxes aren't there because the economy has stagnated as a direct result of the tax that was supposed to have the opposite effect?

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Bill Putney wrote in part:

Uh...the tax should be offset by a decrease in other taxes, of course. The point is to use the tax to reduce a severe dependence on a foreign resource and the related environmental damage.

-- Jim Chinnis Warrenton, Virginia, USA

Reply to
Jim Chinnis

How's that? To use regenerative braking, the car needs to be moving. Gasoline is required to get the car moving either from a gasoline charged battery or directly from the gasoline powered engine. There are considerable losses involved in converting gasoline to electricity and the reverse. If the manufacturers really are saving energy with Hybrids, they could do exactly the same thing with gasoline only powered vehicles. In fact, they should be able to do better since these vehicles wouldn't be carting extra batteries, a heavy electric motor and assorted control doodads around. I think Hybrids buyers are being had. On the other hand, they are probably funding some research that may prove useful in the future so it might not be all bad.

Reply to
FanJet

This would be true if you only drove down hill and somehow got up the hill for free. Think about it.

Not if it were specifically designed to do so as your Hybrid is.

Reply to
FanJet

It's as though adding a bunch of batteries, an electric motor/generator & all the electronics to run them results in a significant saving that wouldn't be realized if an equivalent effort were made to the gasoline engine only vehicle. Really doesn't make much sense. Basically, it takes X amount of energy to get a vehicle moving and then to keep it moving. Whether gasoline engine only or today's 'hybrid', all of that energy comes from gasoline. The only possible savings must come from an increased efficiency of the hybrid. No doubt, the same increase in efficiency could be realized, and just as easily, from a gasoline engine only powered vehicle. Not as glitzy though and, of course, no "free" federal $$ involved.

Reply to
FanJet

They get v8 power out of a V6 sized engine. Nearly 30mpg. Compared to the v8 version, it's a huge gas savings.

Reply to
Joseph Oberlander

Brakes produce heat. That's wasted energy. During normal braking, a Ford Escape Hybrid doesn't use the brakes at all for the majority of the braking. What would be wasted as heat is captured to the batteries. Cars.com: "To test this claim, I poked my finger through the spokes and touched the discs after 30 minutes of stop-and-go driving. The front ones were cold to slightly warm. The rear discs were searing hot, though, which makes sense because the rear wheels don't perform regenerative braking."

When the dam was built at Lake Shasta in the late 40's, the downhill conveyor belts used to haul excavated rock from the dam site down to the onsite concrete plant were slowed by conventional brakes which burned out frequently. These were replaced with motor generators that in turn power most of the construction project.

The school bus in Point Arena, CA, had a bank of resistors at the front of the bus, tied to generators on a PTO. Going downhill, the PTO generated heat, wasted out those resistors, and didn't use the brakes at all.

Reply to
dold

Ah - but there's a problem with that math. It's parts per million. That means it's in relation to how much fuel is being burnt, and if the one vehicle uses 2/3 the fuel, that's 2/3 the net effect over time. So ist comes in at closer to 5 and 5 if you adjust for the amount of fuel being consumed.

Reply to
Joseph Oberlander

But that's not really how it works and the point of the article.

Reply to
FanJet

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