Dark Side of the Hybrids

Base EX-V6 Accord $33,600 CDN Base Hybrid Accord $36,900 CDN Source

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What prices are *you* referring too, "Jason"?

Reply to
Steve Bigelow
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Steve, The above two prices that you mentioned. If the Hybrid Accord and EX-V6 Accord were both priced at $33,600--Honda would sell lots more of them. I rarely ever see any Hybrid Accords on any of the parking lots of the local grocery stores and Walmart stores. I see lots of the V6 (non Hybrid) in those same parking lots. I realize that this won't happen in the next 5 years since it costs Honda much more to make a Hybrid Accord than a regular Accord. Jason

Reply to
Jason

Honda has taken a strange road with the Accord Hybrid and the Acura MDX hybrid. Rather than using the technology to make a high fuel economy vehicle they are using it to make a higher performance, expensive vehicle.

Mostly they are selling these vehicles to the feel-good, feel-proud buyer. A good manual transmission diesel-powered drivetrain would be a much more efficient use of resources both at the manufacturing stage and in use.

John

Reply to
John Horner

As I was pricing a EX-V6 and a hybrid in the San Francisco area in Jan/Feb 2005 I found I could get the EX-V6 Navi (with leather) for $26K but the hybrid was about $32K. As I calculated it: for the price difference and MPG difference one would need to drive the car for 500K miles to break even.

I would love to have a hybrid but that $6K put the hybrid out of the competition.

Reply to
Brian Stell

The only problem I have with hybrids is that people dump their "old" cars to purchase an environmentally friendlier vehicle....

It is my understanding that the processes involved in manufacturing a new car cause more polution than driving the same car will produce over its entire lifetime.

So the greenest car is a used one...no matter the gas mileage.

Reply to
thedonga

there's a substantial element of truth to that, and you're thinking big picture which is good, but for smaller utilitarian cars at least, there is an overall benefit for the newer more efficient vehicles. whether that continues to be the case is another matter now that we have relatively clean burning fuel injected cars, but compared to carburetion, the overall benefit of modern cars is worth the manufacturing effort.

Reply to
jim beam

Hello, I agree with you related to your last point. I am now 54 years old and remember all of the problems I had with cars made in the 1960's, 70's and early 80's. The carburetor and electrical system was the main source of those problems. I have never had any problems with the EFI system or electrical system in both of Honda Accords that I have owned. Jason

Reply to
Jason

Problem is, you can't get a decent, efficient, and above all else MODERN diesel engine in the Us - i believe its because the fuel that is sold here, doesn't work well with the new engine designs that have come up in the last 20-odd years, and the new fuels don't work well with the engines that have been sold in the US in those intervening 20 years.

Reply to
flobert

"flobert" wrote in message > However, you seem to ahve confised what i was saying. I wasn't saying

Hybrid drivers aren't that easy to categorize, either. Drive what you want - when we were looking at replacing the Nissan that kept me busy in the garage, we had two options (I'm the car authority in the family!) We could employ my favored and time proven tactic of buying a reliable model of car with at least 80K miles on it or we could buy a new hybrid. I saw no reason at all to buy a 21st century car with a 20th century power train, and I had looked forward to mass-market hybrids since I was introduced to the concept of hybrids some decades ago. The Civic Hybrid was hardly an improvement over the conventional Civic and was not in stock, but the Prius was just the ticket. Toyota had lept most of the barriers to electrifying the accessories (power steering and brakes were electric even then, and the A/C is electric in the current model.) The 8 year / 100K mile warranty on the hybrid system, combined with a *lot* of research, pretty much had me sold. I wasn't prepared for the driving experience, though. The 2002 model is a great chassis for city dwellers, with remarkable manueverability. The off-the-line acceleration is impressive, even here at 7000 ft where our turbo Volvo makes me wish we could do the Fred Flintstone thing until the turbo finally gets its mojo working. The power train is easily the smoothest available anywhere - since there is no transmission there are no shifts at all. We are approaching 50K miles and have done nothing but routine maintenance, replace the tires and replace a windshield that fell victim to the Arizona road rocks. We have taken several long trips in it and after three years we still love it.

I do know what you mean about the political bent of many Prius owners, though. As a Reaganite I do not see eye-to-eye with many of the other owners, whom Click and Clack characterized as "granola eating" and "tree hugging." Oddly, I've learned I am one of four former or current Lotus owners active in the Yahoo Prius group - and none of us hug trees. I miss my Europa, but the Prius is almost as much fun to drive in its own way... and

*way* more reliable!

Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee

Sadly, you are right. The success of the Prius has been driven mainly by fuel economy, but the luster of hybrids has led a lot of manufacturers to jump on the bandwagon and call some pretty embarrassing things "hybrids." GM is easily the worst, trying to pass off idle-stop technology as hybridization. Proposed and existing legislation favoring (but not usually defining) hybrids makes the problem worse.

Until controller and battery technology can bring us practical serial hybrids (essentially electric cars with on-board chargers) we will have to wade through the fluff.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee

VW is the only one selling good moderate priced diesel powered cars in the US right now.

This is mostly a problem of politics and not of engineering or economics.

John

Reply to
John Horner

OMG - I wasn't familiar with the Lupo, so I did a little research. See

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the USA Today report on an early test version. The truth is ugly indeed! Non-existent acceleration, maddening transmission behavior, rock-bottom comfort, and so much more. Talk about doing tricks to get fuel economy - this benighted little gremlin tries them all. No A/C of course, no P/S available, and a $3000 premium for the privilege of being abused by your car. This is the basis of the TD version the economy claims stem from.
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is more kind to the production "E" version of the car, but notes much lower economy - 54 mpg on the highway and 30(!) mpg in town. Our Prius gets real-world upper 40s in town, even with hills and stop and go traffic and frequent waits for trains. Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee

this wiould be the 'lupo 3l' - and the link i gave a few days ago in the thread about the canadian test, right? Few things to remember. No PS - normal, its so small you don't need it. Don't need it in my 88 civic either. AC is not standard in european cars, its a hgih-equipment spec standard, or otherwise option. Most of europe you don't need it. the engine stop+start is something common to a fair few of the 'high effiiciency cars' The Rock bottom comfort - well thats an american reviewing a european only claim. Used to luxury boats, that get terribale millage, and well hes not in one, plus it was a pre-producton model. By contrst, the BBC's top reviewer (and one of the most influential reviewers in europe) tested the F150 recently. Thats the best selling vehicle in the US, and he tested a production model (the lightning in fact) and he said pretty much the same thing about the comforts, and the production quality. He liked the engine, but then, since he was about to take delivery of the new FordGT (which has the same engine0 i'm not surprised there. In short, i feel the usatoday reviewer was predjudiced by his american car standards, same as europeans are predjudiced against american vehicles (such as their amazement when they drove the caddie CTS, branding it 'the first american car to be able to handle a corner', so which I say "its about time"

Its a petrol engine, what doyou expect. the 1.7tdi is more efficient. though, 'return a combined fuel consumption figure of over 64mpg, although acceleration is rather limp" which is

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the combined lupo test.

Reply to
flobert

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