I am
so tired of the phrase "hybrid hype".
Today, I read the article, Amid
Hybrid Hype, a Lonely Advocate of Fuel Cells,
that finally pushed me over the limit.
"It matters not that, in the automobile
industry, hybrids generally are regarded as an
interim step toward cleaner, more fuel-efficient
technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells."
"Gas-electric and diesel-electric hybrids are
of the moment. The news media love them. Toyota
Motor Corp., the biggest purveyor of hybrids, gets
lots of greener-than-thou credit for promoting them.
There's a buzz; and where there's buzz, there are
politicians; and when you mix buzz and politics
together, you get policies, which beget certain
permutations in business."
Wow, not long ago, GM's Bob Lutz also called hybrids
a poor business case, which he now admits was a
mistake. Ironically, GM has also admitted that its
fuel cell vehicles will inevitably be fuel cell
HYBRID VEHICLES.
If hybrid technology is an integral piece of fuel
cell vehicle technology how can you call hybrids an
"interim step"? If GM and Toyota, the two
biggest automobile companies, are going to develop
fuel cell hybrids, then hybrid technology cannot be
labeled "interim".
Of course, there is a buzz around hybrids. Why
shouldn't there be?
9/11, Katrina, global warming, and high gasoline
prices have made many people decide the time for
action is now and hybrids provide that action today.
It isn't just about what the Toyota
Prius hybrid or the Ford
Escape hybrid can achieve today, but what they
could achieve tomorrow.
Plug-in
hybrids can achieve 80 mpg and other experimental
hybrids, with advanced lithium-ion batteries,
have achieved more than 250 mpg. If we invest in
today's hybrid vehicles, this can be the future for
tomorrow's hybrid
vehicles.
And, speaking of hype, where are the real world fuel
cells vehicles? They aren't even a reality yet.
Today, the average fuel cell vehicle costs
$1,000,000.00 and there are still technology
barriers, not to mention fueling obstacles. Yet, GM
has lobbied the government since the Nixon
administration not to raise national fuel economy
regulations because fuel cells were just around the
corner.
Let's face it, it isn't implausible to suggest that
it might be 2 more decades before cost-effective
fuel cell vehicles are available - if ever. If
hybrids are hype, then fuel cell vehicles are pure
fantasy.
So,we should wait two decades before taking foreign
oil dependency or global warming seriously because
fuel cells will save the world in two decades?
Nothing like putting all your eggs in one basket.
Still, even if you want fuel cell vehicles to
develop as quickly as possible, short term investing
in hybrid vehicles might just be the best way to
make that happen, unless of course GM and Toyota
aren't going to be part of the fuel cell revolution.
Perhaps gasoline and diesel hybrids are a bridge to
fuel cells, but to call them an "interim
technology" simply doesn't make sense.
Inevitably, hybrid technology will also help power
fuel cell vehicles, and it might just turn out that
advancements made in gasoline and diesel hybrids
help make fuel cell hybrids a reality much sooner
than expected.
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