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

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.

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

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.

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

nate

Ease up a little.

I DID read the article. I noted that the EPA discussed Accords when they equated the hybrid vs non-hybrid. The article, unless my copy didn't all come through, was otherwise written in generalities (as usual).

Now there may be some good points to removing credits for those vehicles which do not improve mpg and/or reduced emissions. But, no company is apt to throw millions in R&D to achieve such ends if there is no return on investment, or at least some break on taxes, etc. You have to start somewhere if you want to improve things. So maybe a pro-rated schedule might be a better concept. As for gas guzzler taxes.... we've been down that road before. And, according to the latest releases, the new wave of SUVs from the US AND from overseas is going to smaller vehicles. The makers have seen the light... and the dollar signs... They know that fewer people are going to buy those hulks with the rising fuel costs.

With the rising cost of fuels, my concern is for the "little guy", and the social system... The person who can't afford a new car to meet the EPA standards or the NTSA standards, or any other standards. Yet, they have to travel further to their jobs because they can't afford to live closer to the jobs. Couple that with the added fuel costs which will drive up prices of the foods we eat, clothes we wear, and everything else. Now the lower income people can't afford to do even more. So the option becomes, strike for higher wages, which just gets passed back to the consumer, or do without, which widens the gap between the haves and the have not's ever faster. Out of that comes things like class warfare, breakdown of society, etc.

There are those "experts" who believe that the earth can support all the humans and more to come. I think it goes with the saying that "two can live as cheaply as one... for half as long". Want to fix things? Skip the tax credits and the guzzler taxes. Get rid of half the people on the planet. It can be done. Either quickly by war and disease (hopefully avoidable), or at a slower rate by doing something about the birthrate. Less people... less oil used. Less people, less resources used. Less people, less forests cut down. Less people less pollution... A better environment for all the rest.

Spike

1965 Ford Mustang fastback 2+2 A Code 289 C4 Trac-Lok Vintage Burgundy w/Black Standard Interior; Vintage 40 16" rims w/BF Goodrich Comp T/A gForce Radial 225/50ZR16 KDWS skins; surround sound audio-video.

"When the time comes to lay down my life for my country, I do not cower from this responsibility. I welcome it." -JFK Inaugural Address

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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')

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

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.

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.

We do this all the time with other things, to get the public to start using new technologies.

Let me guess - the last refirgerator or water heater you bought you decided to NOT get the rebate from the energy company?

Lol.

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.

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