Prius More Environmentally Damaging Than Hummer?

[scorpa]

Found this link that states the Toyota Prius Hybrid is actually more damaging to the environment than the hummer. I found it interesting, but I do not know how credible it is.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edit...asp?NewsID=188

 

[mattmns]

I think I read this on slashdot a while back, and I recall there being something about the way they chose data for the Hummer was way off and that screwed up the results.

 

[gravenewworld]

I've read that article before. That news paper is a joke. It is the same paper that published an article entitled "Rape only hurts if you fight it". I believe the reason the paper claims that the prius is horrible for the environment is because of the nickel that is used in the engine and that the factory where the nickel comes from has destroyed the ecosystem around it. While the fact that the nickel factory may have destroyed the ecosystem around it might be true, Toyota isn't the sole customer of the factory where the nickel is produced. Nickel is an important component for alloys and stuff like stainless steel so Toyota isn't the only place buying nickel from the factory.

I also remember the article claiming that the prius will get lower gas mileage because of the new EPA rating system. That is also true, but the article then compares its mileage to the Chevy Aveo and claims that they now get almost the same mileage. HELLO! The new rating system is now across the entire board, the AVEO won't get close to 45 mpg with the new system, so the Prius will still get more mileage than almost every car out there.

The article was poorly written and has no source citations for its claims. Toyota should sue the crap out of that news paper for libel.

 

[Gokul43201]

Corrected link to article in OP: http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

Link to report cited in article: http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

 

[JasonRox]

No, but the article has a good point. So many people think they're energy efficient without even thinking about where the stuff actually comes from.

Ever thought about how much energy goes into making one bottle of water? No one ever thinks of the bottle of water as energy.

 

[scorpa]

I think it is fairly safe to say that yes a Prius is more energy efficient than the Hummer, that much is common sense however it does take more energy to produce that Prius. Either way I don't think the point is to go out and buy a hummer, at the end of the article it does say that perhaps in the long run it is a better idea to just get the smaller economical car like an Aveo (god those things are ugly) and forget the hybrid (which seem to be equally ugly).

I'm not sure where they are getting the stats saying that the prius will only last 100 000 miles, doesn't the battery have a 6 year warranty or something? I would think that would indicate that Toyota is expecting the car to last longer than 100 000. Either way it would be interesting to know how they actually did do this test because it would be fairly easy for them to skew results if they don't publicize the details of the test...which I would imagine is exactly what happened.

Personally I just wish all the so called economical cars weren't so darn ugly maybe if they looked half decent people would buy them. I know if I am spending the money of a new car it had better end up getting me something I actually like rather than some car with no space that is shaped like a bubble.

 

[Gokul43201]

Do not read that article - the writer has lied about some of the data. If you are interested in the info here, you'd be better off if you read the original CNW report itself.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

According to the report, however, the lifetime of the Hummer (the H3, which the article is talking about) is 207,000 miles.*

* See p. 24 here: http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/DUST%20PDF%20VERSION.pdf

 

[scorpa]

Thanks for the link Gokul, I'm reading through it right now.

 

[Chi Meson]

I had to try to explain to a student of mine why it was absurd for me to consider junking my 1993 Volvo and buying a hybid. My commute is a 10 minute, 5 mile drive--four days a week (I run once a week). Despite the fact that I can't afford one, this student couldn't get past the simplistic "but it's more efficient"!

I still think:

NUTHIN DUMMER
than a
HUMMER​

 

[scorpa]

I had to try to explain to a student of mine why it was absurd for me to consider junking my 1993 Volvo and buying a hybid. My commute is a 10 minute, 5 mile drive--four days a week (I run once a week). Despite the fact that I can't afford one, this student couldn't get past the simplistic "but it's more efficient"!

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. I drive a Jeep and yes it isn't the best on gas, and if I was driving any large distances I would probably sell it in favor of a small car. But as it is I rarely drive, I walk or bike whenever I can which in the city I usually am able to do. It just isn't worth spending a ton more money for some hybrid car (that i can't afford anyway) when I hardly drive in the first place.

I still think:

NUTHIN DUMMER
than a
HUMMER​

True, even if you take away the fact that they are gas guzzling pigs that are a bear to drive around town and will quickly put you in the poor house there is the fact that they are just poorly made vehicles in general. I worked at a Dodge dealership over the summer and they were always getting in H2s and H3s and I spent a lot of time driving them to different lots around the city. They are not good quality vehicles, I could pick out problems with every one. Of course I am only talking about the ones they make to sell to average Joe I would hope the military versions are a bit more robust

 

[ShawnD]

Personally I just wish all the so called economical cars weren't so darn ugly maybe if they looked half decent people would buy them.

Ha I agree completely. At least Honda and Toyota (and I think Ford) are making an effort by making their normal cars into hybrids. The Honda Civic Hybrid looks just like a normal Civic except for the antenna, a hybrid Toyota Camry looks like a normal Camry, and I think Ford has some kind of hybrid SUV that looks like a normal SUV.

If I didn't know better, I would think companies try to make their efficient cars as ugly as possible. Smart Fortwo? Toyota Echo? My god! If they made an economy car look like a BMW, it would probably sell very well even if it performed like a dog.

I can understand where Chi is coming from with his beater car. I had a 92 Ford Tempo that got about 10km/L (like mpg, but metric), and last year I purchased a Honda Civic that gets about 13km/L (these are city numbers). At the time of purchase, my projected yearly gasoline cost was about $3000 for the Ford (driving something like 150km per day and then some). $3000 * 10 / 13 = ~$2300. That means I the new car saves $700 per year on gas.. and at a cost of $24,000 to drive it off the lot it would take 35 years to break even, if the reason for buying the car was gas alone. Obviously that's not why I bought a new car, but some people can honestly justify buying a hybrid just to save on gas. If I got the hybrid civic, it would cost something like $4,000 more and it would probably still take 35 years to get a return on my gasoline investment.

Edit: to clarify, yes I will buy a hybrid in the future. Historically car companies have used efficiency as a way of increasing horsepower (cars of today are way faster than the cars of 20 years ago), so this hybrid trend will probably lead to some pretty impressive high performance vehicles.

 

[scorpa]

Ha I agree completely. At least Honda and Toyota (and I think Ford) are making an effort by making their normal cars into hybrids. The Honda Civic Hybrid looks just like a normal Civic except for the antenna, a hybrid Toyota Camry looks like a normal Camry, and I think Ford has some kind of hybrid SUV that looks like a normal SUV.

If I didn't know better, I would think companies try to make their efficient cars as ugly as possible. Smart Fortwo? Toyota Echo? My god! If they made an economy car look like a BMW, it would probably sell very well even if it performed like a dog.

Yeah Ford has brought out the Escape as a Hybrid, it is comparable to a Jeep Liberty in size. I wasn't a huge fan of the previous style escape but I am quite the fan of the body style they have brought out for '08.

I think once hybrid manufacturers come to the realization that consumers will not shell out insane amounts of money for a vehicle that looks like it got whacked with the ugly stick and start making good looking cars they will find their sales go way up. Good looks, functionality, and economy...doesn't take a genius to figure out that would probably be a winning combination. I just hate the bubbles they are passing off as cars...and as if its not bad enough that they look like bubbles they also look like cheap plastic bubbles.

 

[Manchot]

If I remember correctly, they assume that a Prius has a lifetime of 100,000 miles, while the Hummer has one of 300,000 miles. Given that very few Priuses have even died (the oldest ones are averaging 150,000 miles), and Toyota makes no such claim that their expected lifetime is 100,000 miles, lord only knows where the figure came from. I bet that if we look really deep, we'll find that the study is funded by GM.

Scorpa, I do agree that the current crop of hybrids looks pretty bad. Also, IMO, they don't drive that well, either. My father owns a Prius, and whenever I drive it, I feel like I'm driving a boat. It handles just fine, but it's too big. I want a hybrid like my 2002 Ford ZX2 (Escort): small, peppy, and easy to maneuver.

 

[ShawnD]

My father owns a Prius, and whenever I drive it, I feel like I'm driving a boat. It handles just fine, but it's too big. I want a hybrid like my 2002 Ford ZX2 (Escort): small, peppy, and easy to maneuver.

Hybrids small cars probably won't catch on simply because the cost of the hybrid system is very expensive, while the price difference between a small car and a big car is not so expensive. That probably made no sense so let me give an example, 3 cars with 3 numbers tied to them, not including taxes or delivery:
http://honda.ca/HondaCA2006/BuildYourHonda/Step1?L=E&ModelName=CivicSedan&yr=2007 (my car, the somewhat luxurious model) - $20,630
http://honda.ca/HondaCA2006/BuildYourHonda/Step1?L=E&ModelName=CivicHybrid&yr=2007 - $26,250
http://honda.ca/HondaCA2006/BuildYourHonda/Step1?L=E&ModelName=AccordSedan&yr=2007 (like a Civic LX, but bigger) - $26,500

Look at those numbers as if you were somebody with money. A hippy would say the hybrid civic is a good idea, but hippies don't have money. Your typical angry dad or soccer mom would take the mid-size Accord over the small-ass Civic any day of the week.

It should also be noted that the hybrid model is usually the top of the line model for a given car. This is true for the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, and Toyota Highlander. There's really no such thing as a cheap hybrid at this point, but who knows what the future will bring.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The "Dust to Dust" approach taken here is critical to the process of making good environmental decisions, so I applaud the effort, but many of those lifetime values look suspicious to impossible to me. My first thought is that someone is doing a lot of fudging.

Anyway, they missed the best option of all: Biodiesel powered autos

The axis of diesel
Mercedes, GM, even Honda, is betting on a new breed of green diesels. The goal? To leave hybrids in the dust.

(Fortune Magazine) -- As night fell over the 24 Hours of LeMans this summer, spectators at France's prestigious endurance race detected a pattern. While competitors entered the pits to refuel, a sleek pair of Audi R10s kept stealing laps around the 13.7-kilometer track. Already the fastest cars on the course, and eerily quiet thanks to a unique emissions filter, the Audis were also proving the most fuel-efficient. When the checkered flag flew, the Audi had made history as the first diesel car to win a major international race.

Diesel isn't just changing LeMans. Thanks to technological breakthroughs, at least six automakers - starting with Mercedes on Oct. 16, Jeep in early 2007, and eventually even hybrid pioneer Honda - will be launching a fleet of New Age diesels. They promise to boost fuel economy by 25% to 40%, with huge torque and turbochargers to deliver the power American drivers crave. [continued]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/16/8390259/index.htm

Based on the same concept of dust to dust, it is also argued that the combustion of hydrogen in standard IC engines may make more sense than hydrogen fuel cell electric.

Here, I was wondering about dust to dust and other practical concerns wrt compact flourescent lights.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=161878

There has even been conjecture that nuclear power has DtoD issues.

I don't know if this is addressed in the report, but another DtoD consideration is the energy costs and available options wrt recycling of the materials used to build the vehicle. I know that at least some work has been done [perhaps only as concept cars] to make autos easily recyclable.

 

[ShawnD]

We can probably just rule hydrogen out of the equation. It will absolutely never happen because there's this thing called the Joule-Thompson Effect where leaking hydrogen actually gets hotter while most gases would get colder. That means a defective hydrogen tank doesn't just blow out compressed air, it blows out then explodes like a bomb, even if there was no ignition source.
If something like ephedrine can be banned because a few people had heart attacks, think of how quickly hydrogen would be banned when a few families explode for no apparent reason.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I have a lease that ends in August and I've been thinking of getting the Civic Hybrid. I agree on the opinion that hybrids are mostly ugly, I'd get the Prius if it didn't look so aweful. The new Altima Hybrid looks pretty great though, but it's around 30k.

 

[ShawnD]

I have a lease that ends in August and I've been thinking of getting the Civic Hybrid. I agree on the opinion that hybrids are mostly ugly, I'd get the Prius if it didn't look so aweful. The new Altima Hybrid looks pretty great though, but it's around 30k.

Why did you lease a vehicle in the first place?

Anyway, pick utility before picking efficiency. For example, owning a van is expensive for everyday driving, but in the end you can still haul around 6 people and a ton of cargo. If you get a Smart Fortwo instead of a van, you have the benefit of efficiency but you can't haul more than 2 people, you can't haul cargo, and you probably can't even take home a TV you just purchased. There's nothing wrong with having only 1 vehicle, but it wouldn't make sense to have only one vehicle and have it essentially useless for anything other than going point A to B.

Pick something like a Toyota Camry or Nissan Altima. If you can afford the hybrid model, great. If you can't, just get the non-hyrid model. You'll be kicking yourself in a year when you find out you can't go skiing because your skies doesn't fit in the trunk of your tiny Civic. Either that or you can't bring home a TV, or anything else of that nature.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We can probably just rule hydrogen out of the equation. It will absolutely never happen because there's this thing called the Joule-Thompson Effect where leaking hydrogen actually gets hotter while most gases would get colder. That means a defective hydrogen tank doesn't just blow out compressed air, it blows out then explodes like a bomb, even if there was no ignition source.
If something like ephedrine can be banned because a few people had heart attacks, think of how quickly hydrogen would be banned when a few families explode for no apparent reason.

Do you have any reason to believe that this has been an issue. Testing indicates that hydrogen is safer to store than gasoline. Also, how does it explode without any oxygen?

There has been progress in alternative storage such as by using material made of carbon nanotubes.

 

[ShawnD]

Do you have any reason to believe that this has been an issue. Testing indicates that hydrogen is safer to store than gasoline. Also, how does it explode without any oxygen?

Just follow my train of thought here and see if you can point out a flaw. For my idea to be correct, all of these assumptions must be correct:

1). People are impatient and they want their cars fueled quickly.
2). If you want this car filled in a reasonable amount of time, it will need a very high flow of hydrogen coming into it.
3). According to Wikipedia (under Storage), liquid hydrogen has an energy density/L roughly 1/4 that of gasoline, which means my Civic would need a 200L tank of liquid hydrogen to go as far as it does using gasoline. Anything less than that, and nobody will buy it. Would you buy a car that only goes 100km before each fill? I sure as hell wouldn't.
4). This leaves us needing to fill 200L of liquid hydrogen into a tank in under 5 minutes; remember that people are impatient so the time must be similar to that of filling a gas tank (5 minutes maximum if you pay at the pump).
5). If the tank filling valve on the system fails, that means a minimum of 40L/minute of hydrogen is shooting into the air (200/5 = 40)
6). Gases stored as liquids tend to make ice form around points where gas leaves the system, or hot points in this case (because hydrogen is weird), and these points are more prone to breaking.
7). Hydrogen heats up when it decompresses
8). Hydrogen has a flash point of -250C and an autoignition point of 560C
9). Hydrogen is flammable from 4-75% in atmospheric air.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, I have never heard of this being an issue, and hydrogen is being used today.
http://www.fuelcells.org/info/charts/h2fuelingstations.pdf

Also, hydrogen is in common use in Iceland which is formally converting to a hydrogen economy right now.

Iceland traditionally conjures
up images of dramatic natural landscapes, plentiful
catches of fish, ESPN’s “World’s Strongest Man”
competition and eccentric pop artist Björk. But now,
Iceland is positioning itself as something quite different:
a pioneer at the cutting edge of energy technology,
on the verge of breaking free of its dependence on
imported fossil fuels. This is no ecological fantasy. In
fact, Iceland is in the early stages of a decades-long
experiment in which the whole country will, in effect,
serve as a laboratory. If the experiment is successful,
Iceland will become the world’s first hydrogen economy
by the year 2050.[ continued]

http://www.afsa.org/fsj/dec03/sigfusson.pdf

And they have a commercial retail H2 fueling station operating.

Hydro opens worlds first hydrogen station on Iceland

(April 24, 2003) Islands minister of industry and commerce today opened the worlds first hydrogen refuelling station for cars and buses. The station, constructed using Norsk Hydros hydrogen technology, has been built at an existing commercial fuel retail site in Reykjavik.[continued]

http://www.hydro.com/en/press_room/news/archive/2003_04/hydrogen_island_en.html

So while you may have valid points, AFAIK this is not considered to be a serious issue.

Note [just for the record]: The energy per unit mass of hydrogen is about three times that of gasoline.

 

[ShawnD]

I guess it's good that there isn't a problem

 

[ZapperZ]

Don't mean to revive a dead thread, but there's a rather comprehensive review of this controversy in Slate.com today.

http://www.slate.com/id/2186786/

I noticed this because it cited a couple of Argonne's research work on this.

Zz.

 

[Chi Meson]

Thanks for that! I've needed some of those numbers for my rants in class.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There is a valid point to be made here: The dust to dust energy requirement for all energy-saving alternatives has to be considered.

This is one reason why I see the transition to biodiesel from algae as the best of the options to replace oil - the dust to dust energy requirement for diesel engines is far less than that of competing high-tech solutions.

 

[binzing]

Our Hybrid Civic is sweet.

 

[Noone]

The prius would only be more damaging to the environment if the componets that make the prius were made from energy sources that created more environmental hazards than componets and production of the hummer and the % of Co2 the hummer makes from the usage and amount of people that use it within a given time table. mainly the parts are made in other over sea's, were there plants are not bound by the standerd regulations of are plant's... Its a matter of which one make's more environmental damage before some one drive's it. and that depends on were the parts are made how there shipped.

1.the energy used to make the part's
2.The energy used to ship the part's from point of creation to point of manufaction
3.The energy used to harest the item's that make the part's, and the energy to ship those items to the place were there made into part's
4.the amount of emisions that are created from the worker's traveling to the location For step's 1,2,and 3
5.the amount of CO2 or hazardous compounds that the finished car could make in one year

Carbon cred's they use, even tho that's a bunch of BS

 

[russ_watters]

Also a thread on this here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=178578&highlight=prius+dust

 

[Noone]

Intesting thread Russ_watters -.-. they must have had to done a lot of analization of all the step's taken to get a finished product, and the amount of energy each step take's.
a lot of work it would be for no one getting cred for it

 

[OrbitalPower]

Our Hybrid Civic is sweet.

Is yours stick shift? I want to get a civic hybrid with a manual transmission:

http://www.siliconeer.com/past_issues/2005/Sept2005-files/sep05_honda-civic-hybrid-3.jpg

http://automobiles.honda.com/images/2005/civic-hybrid/certified-used/overview-panorama.jpg

I think they stopped making them in 2005 though, so I'd have to buy an old one.