US Consumer Reports didn't get good city milage for hybrids. Highway driving was okay. I put the data in spreadsheet files on my website at
What bothers me is the City of Ottawa wants to spend millions of our taxes on hyrid city buses.
OT: Speaking of OC Transpo (Ottawa), now, this was a coupla years ago but probably still applies ... was waiting for a bus. An OC Transpo guy pulls up driving a 3500 truck, breathing hard gets his 250 lb body outta the truck, unloads a 4.5 hp gas powered "vacuum cleaner", pushes that around the bus stop (the intake is about 5" off the ground so the frikkin thing doesn't even pick up the butts that are on the ground), loads it and himself back into the truck, and heads out I guess to the next bus stop. Unbelievable ... and you know ... there are a lotta people who would be happy doing that job with push brooms fer gods sake.
Don Stauffer wrote in news:Uf7zf.6$ snipped-for-privacy@news.uswest.net:
Environmentalists are now against windpower;it kills birds.
This was made abundantly clear when the original manuscript for "Of Pandas and People", a mainstay in the ID nutverse, was introduced into evidence in the Dover trial. The original manuscript had "Creationism" everywhere that the final release had "Intelligent Design", so basically the authors did a global find and replace before publishing. The two are interchangeable.
This battle is the same one that raged in Galileo's day, the battle between the Church and science. It took the Catholic church over three hundred years to formally recognize that the Earth isn't the center of the universe and to apologize for what they did to Galileo.
So, what did this have to do with hybrid cars, anyway? LOL!
JazzMan
If hybrids are so great, then why aren't they used in Japan or European countries where gas is more expensive? Answer: poor return on investment.
So... Calculate the increased cost of buying a hybrid and compare it with the gas savings and see how long it takes to break even.
Compare that with the cost savings you'd get by simply buying a good mileage internal combustion engine car.
Then decide for yourself.
I get a kick outta the SUV hybrids. Add a bunch of girth and then try to compensate by putting a hybrid engine in it. Sort of like buying a Hybrid Humvee.
b.
Actually, hybrids are used in Japan and Europe.
It is true that they cost more than a comparable non-hybrid vehicle.
I don't think this is necessarily true.
I do not think that the Corolla's fuel ecoconmy is as good as the Prius, although the Civic and Echo are in the same ballpark.
At today's gas prices in the U.S., I believe that break-even is somewhere around 7 to 10 years.
I do not believe that many people are purchasing hybrids to save money. More likely, they want the gee-wiz factor.
The term is "early adopters". I bought my first DVD player in 1997 before they really took off. Cost me $1099, although it was for the Pioneer combinational LaserDisc/DVD player. I bought another one later that Fall (from Sony) for $600. These days a machine for under $100 will perform at least as well and have more capabilities that were added as the technology progressed.
I used to work in downtown Berkeley, California. I would park at a city owned garage which was used for part of the city's motor pool. City Hall and many city offices were within a block. I think the city's policy used to be to buy American makes. There were a lot of white Ford Tempos, Chevy Cavaliers, and Dodge Ram pickups. Recently though, they've had several Honda Civic Hybrids.
I enjoyed being an early adopter of automotive tgechnology a lot more when it was part of the job and didn 't cost me anything. I am a little less enthusiastic now that I have to pay for cars :-(
I lived in the Bay area from '78 to '83 and noticed that there were a lot more imports on the road in CA than in the Midwest. I suppose that the trend towards imports may even be stronger than it was back then.
The city population as a whole leans towards import makes, like Honda, Toyota, Volvo, and BMW. The city itself has varying incomes, and the tendency is towards American makes in some of the lower income parts of town.
There's only a single new car dealer in Berkeley that still sells an American make (a VW/Cadillac dealer). There used to be dealers for Olds, Buick, and Chevy until business started waning in the 90's. Reggie Jackson Chevrolet was the last to close. It's now a bookstore.
Is Tim Soluthwick's Toyota of Berkeley still there?
You should at least do a modicum of research before making broad sweeping statements like this. Just Toyota has sold nearly have a million hybrids since 1997, that's more than eight years, and projects selling almost half a million more hybrids this year alone. Most of that first half million cars was sold in Japan, BTW.
A giant space vagina? LOL!
JazzMan
One reason is that performance is not such a big issue, and typical cars there have smaller engines, and already get better milage than typical cars sold in US. Hybrids are way to keep performance AND high milage. yeah, you pay a premium for a car with good milage and performance compared to just small engined car, but US buyers are willing and able to pay such a premium.
JazzMan wrote: : snipped-for-privacy@psyber.com wrote: :> :> If hybrids are so great, then why aren't they used in Japan or European :> countries where gas is more expensive? Answer: poor return on investment.
: You should at least do a modicum of research before making : broad sweeping statements like this. Just Toyota has sold : nearly have a million hybrids since 1997, that's more than : eight years, and projects selling almost half a million more : hybrids this year alone. Most of that first half million : cars was sold in Japan, BTW.
:
How about:
What's even more amazing is that they don't sell very well anywhere in the world. Sales of the Prius in Japan have dropped every year since 1998, the first full year they were available. They're off 30% in three years, and will be down this year, too.
The same goes for the Honda Insight. It doesn't sell very well, either. Sales in Japan are down nearly 90% this year. Of course, one reason is that Honda has diverted sales of those cars to the United States. But it did so because it wasn't selling many in Japan. Last year only 1,400 Insights were sold there.
What's going on here? Why can't you sell the most fuel efficient cars in a country where gasoline costs $5 a gallon? The answer is easy: These cars are not cost-effective.
They're even less cost effective in the United States, where the price of gasoline is much lower. That's why Honda will struggle to sell 5,000 Insights in the American market this year, and why Toyota will only sell about 14,000 Priuses. Toyota says demand is higher than expected, but that's still not too many.
The numbers tell the story. Let's compare the hybrid-electric Toyota Prius against the gasoline-powered Toyota Echo, because they're virtually the same car. The Echo, with destination charge and popular options, costs about $12,700. The Prius costs $20,450, a difference of $7,750, which is a lot. The Echo, with an automatic transmission, gets a combined 34 mpg (6.9L/100 km). That will cost most drivers about $730 in annual fuel costs, based on $1.70 a gallon. The Prius gets a combined 48 mpg, which translates into an annual fuel cost of $530, which represents a $200 a year savings. But remember the Prius costs $7,750 more than the Echo, so it would take you 38 years to make up the price difference in fuel economy savings.
Even at $5 a gallon it would take 12 years to make up the price difference, so it's no surprise that Japanese consumers have largely ignored these cars.
(the article continues)
The numbers in your article are contradicted by the numbers in the bloomberg.com article, and I trust their numbers more than I do yours. Toyota forecasts telling 400,000+ hybrids this year, a far cry from the numbers in your article indicating only a few thousand.
JazzMan
Maybe I'm a cynic, but IMO the current government is pushing hybrids, hydrogen, ethanol, etc. to distract the public and shut down discussion of measures which might actually reduce fuel consumption. The subsidy for hybrids is a tiny fraction of the subsidy for real estate agents to buy Hummers. Throwing a little money at fuel cell research is much cheaper and much more over-the-horizon than improving mass transit. Any measures which might decrease fuel consumption by monster SUVs are strictly off the table.
Message from Gordon McGrew written on 2/4/2006 11:57 AM:
Doesn't GM have a hybrid Silverado truck now? And doesn't both Ford and Toyota have hybrid versions of some of their SUV's. I would think that would make them more fuel efficient (if one can afford to buy them!)
Go to the Chevy web site and see how much information you can find on this "hybrid." Then see how much information is available on the "THUNDERING 345-HP VORTEC MAX 6000 V8"
The Ford and Toyota might theoretically save some fuel if they replace a vehicle of equivalent size, but I don't wee many out there compared to the number of Avalanches and Tahoes driving around. In any event, my criticism isn't of hybrids, it's of the government policies that throw a few crumbs at a huge problem while refusing to take the most simple steps toward reforming defective regulations. For example, what is the EPA fuel economy of a Hummer H2? Give up? It's a trick question. It doesn't have one because it is not a light truck. It doesn't count against the GM CAFE.
If the government got back into this they would just mess it up worse than it already is at best and create even worse "unintended consequences". CAFE is a big contributor to what pushed people to buy these monstrosities. And all because a family sedan or wagon that could tow 5000 pounds and haul 7 people around couldn't be built any longer and still meet CAFE. The American family still had the requirement for vehicles with those capabilities. Enter the scene first was the minivan (as a people mover, not so much a tow vehicle), followed by the SUV that covers both requirements
Before you say anything, I drive a mid-sized sedan and never owned an SUV. But when the kids were still around, we simply didn't all fit in a "sedan" and needed at least a minivan. So that is what we had.
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