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Thursday, July
14, 2005
Hybrid
hater contradictions
Last month I
made a post titled, Edmunds.com's
Senseless Hybrid Vehicle Cost Study, that questioned
the data behind the Edmunds study. Ultimately, like the
EPA, Edmunds uses data which doesn't correspond to the
real world driving conditions of a huge percentage of
Americans. In particular, assuming that all Americans
drive 75% of the time at the speed limit on the highway,
while driving just 25% of the time in city driving.
Anybody that commutes in Los Angeles, San Francisco - most
of California - or New York, Houston, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and many, many other urban
areas knows how ridiculous is that assumption. Congestion
has become an American epidemic that most transportation
scholars say - via real world data - is rapidly becoming
much worse, even in far-out suburban and rural areas.
In these areas, hybrid
cars, such as the Toyota
Prius hybrid, can achieve unbelievable mileage - for
those that care - almost entirely free from pollution. If
every driver in America achieved Prius efficiency, the air
would be drastically cleaner and foreign oil dependency
would end.
Yet, American automakers continue to make their bread and
butter off more expensive SUVs and trucks than the Prius.
Still, Edmunds complains about the 'cost' of hybrid cars.
The costs? Doctors in Los Angeles insist that air
pollution is killing people every day, as well as causing
huge amounts of asthma and other respiratory problems. Yet
pollution doesn't exist to these rocket scientists - paid
by the polluter's advertisements.
Moreover, how many terrorist acts will it take for America
to accept the cause and effects of foreign oil dependency?
That doesn't cost?
Of course, every American isn't going to drive a vehicle
the size of a Prius, and that is the beauty of hybrids.
Hybrid technology is still just emerging, and the
possibility of a SUV that achieves the same fuel
efficiency and pollution reductions as the Prius is almost
here.
Is the Ford
Escape hybrid, Toyota
Highlander hybrid, or the Lexus
RX400h hybrid there yet? No, but just one significant
battery development could make it happen.
Ultimately, the most pathetic of the contradictions is
that we shouldn't waste our time with hybrid costs to
focus on fuel cells. Well, in terms of costs, the Prius
costs about $20,000, a fuel cell vehicle costs about
$1,000,000. That's some interesting math.
In time, these hydrogen highway advocates claim costs will
come down, but - somehow - hybrid costs will never come
down - even though much of Toyota's fuel cell technology
is built on a hybrid powertrain?
Ohhhh, GM is going to do it differently. GM tells America
they are so excited about their fuel cell technology that
they are going to give Americans their Employee Discount
on the Hummer and the Yukon in the interim. Give me a
break.
Fuel cell vehicles will happen, but they could still be
decades away. Hybrid vehicles can make fuel cell vehicles
happen much quicker. In fact, most fuel cell vehicles
might be hybrid vehicles.
The hybrid haters simply make no sense. Do nothing. Build
bigger SUVs, oil is cheap they tell us. Someday cheap
technology...when has technology ever started out cheap?
Even calculators used to be grossly expensive, let alone
cell phones and computers.
Technology is made cheap by investment, and hybrid
vehicles are the best investment Americans can make in the
automotive sector. The conflicted interest of most hybrid
critics is simply pathetic. (here)
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