Although most of Nomen's post is a pile of crap, Hybrid cars make very little difference in the rate of consumption of fossil fuels. For highway use, their gas mileage compared to standard economy cars is almost the same. Take for example the much-vaunted Toyota Prius, compared to the Toyota Echo:
Echo: 41MPG with a 1500cc 100Hp engine, Prius: 51Mpg with a 76Hp 1500 cc engine.
It's pretty obvious that the primary reason the Prius gets better gas mileage is that the engine has LESS HORSEPOWER. So it burns less fuel. If you knocked 25 HP off the Echo engine it would probably get the same mileage rating. And that's not even assuming the Echo weight was lightened up to that of the Prius's.
If you were to buy an Echo and drive it highway, like an old grandma, gentle accelleration and not put your foot in it, the mileage of the Echo would probably be the same as the Prius. And do you know why? It's because most of the gas savings of a hybrid are due to the energy of braking being put back into the batteries, then used later.
And let's look at the math, shall we?
The Echo lists at $10K, the Prius lists at $20K. Assume the longevity of the cars are the same - 150,000 miles. Assume gasoline is $2.00 a gallon. That gives fuel costs for the Echo at 4.8 cents a mile highway miles, for the Prius it's 3.9 cents a mile highway miles.
Thus, for an Echo to reach it's service life on highway miles will cost you $7,200 in fuel. For a Prius to reach it's service life will cost you $5,850 in fuel costs. That's a difference of $1,350
So, in summary, assuming repair costs are equivalent and both cars are used for highway commuting, your going to spend $10,000 extra for the Prius in order to save $1300 in fuel costs, over the lifespan of the car.
Pretty stupid.
It's clear that hybrid technology is really a waste of money for small economy cars. Where it makes the most sense is if your going to be using massive, heavy, SUV's and such for city driving, because in that situation, due to the weight, the amount of energy lost to braking is enormous compared to a lightweight economy car. But I challenge anyone to do the math - the savings aren't what you think they are going to be.
There is also the question of the fossil fuel used in the manufacture of the vehicle, and of the parts used by the vehicle during it's service life. Remember, all batteries self-discharge over time, and as a result, they gradually degrade. Battery pack replacements for the Prius, far from the manufacturers optimistic assumptions, are going to be time-based. It is unlikely that the number of charge/discharge cycles are going to have anything to do with it. The Prius uses battery packs that store a huge amount and the amount of energy scavenged from braking and fed out again is only a small percentage of the capacity of the battery, as a result the battery hardly notices it. A typical NiMH battery is rated for at least
1000 charge-dischage cycles, but that rating assumes a complete discharge and a recharge from ground zero. In a hybrid car that is used 4-6 days a week, the battery pack isn't ever going to go below 80% capacity, it's not going to approach the rated number of charge/discharge cycles in 200,000 miles. Instead, what your going to see is that every year the battery will get weaker and weaker, and the car's computer will compensate for this so the upshot is that the only thing you will notice is that your gas mileage gets lower and lower. By the time you realize the battery is shot, it's going to be past the 7 year mark on the warranty and your going to be paying for a new battery pack. If you are driving that 150,000 miles in 7 years time, then great - your going to have the car beat to shit by the time the battery pack is shot. But if your like everyone else and you do your 150-200 miles over a decade or longer, then your going to have to assume that your going to have to do at least 1 battery pack replacement during that time. And I have to ask, how much fossil fuel is going to be consumed making a new battery pack and recycling the old one?If you really want to break the fossil fuel dependency for vehicle fuel, the only way to do it is to switch to a renewable fuel source. Alcohol isn't it. If every car in the United States ran on pure alcolhol, our entire food crop would be going into making alcohol and we would starve. And the food crop that makes it depends on fertillizer - which is produced from ammonia which comes from - you guessed it - fossil fuels (natural gas and air) - and from mining. So once again, you are dependent on non-renewable resources.
hydrogen also isn't it either. Hydrogen comes from the decomposition of water and that is done either by fossil fuels, or by electricity - which has to come from somewhere. To manufacture enough hydrogen to support motor vehicles in this country we would have to burn an enormous amount fossil fuel, we couldn't get it from solar cells.
Consider that every time you manufacture a fuel from the burning of another fuel, you have a huge efficiency loss.
The only real solution to breaking the dependency on fossil fuels is the electric car. Electrics make the most sense as we already have a power distribution network that at night is running at a very low capacity. Vehicles can easily be charged at night and used during the day, the power grid can easily support it. Of course, you still have the question of where does the extra electricity come from - but nuclear energy is the obvious choice here, that is why France has a big breeder reactor program. It is probably likely that we will develop a usable fusion reactor in the next 100 years. Even wind power if we put enough wind farms in, could probably generate enough electricity for motor vehicle travel in the world. There has also been some ideas for generating power from the temperature difference in the water in the ocean, the higher layers of water are warmer and the lower layers are cooler, and it is possible to build a generator that makes use of this.
And additionally, all of this is completely ignoring the issue of what about air travel? The problem here is that only a liquid fuel like jet fuel has the amount of power in the lightweight mass that makes air travel a commercial possibility. That is why nobody has built an electric plane. We are going to see fossil fuels become far more valuable as aviation fuels than as land vehicle fuels, long before we actually run out of oil.
Ted