Hybrid cars on the decline
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
Diesel engines are right up there with hybrids in the fuel efficiency game. Take for instance to VW Polo BlueMotion which is rated 70mpg+ Highway. The Passat BlueMotion is worse but still an impressive 57mpg+ Highway.
Also consider that some biodiesel fuels are near 100% carbon neutral (such as hemp-based biodiesels), in that they sequester as much carbon dioxide from the air as they will eventually burn into once combusted.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090419130916AA...
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071028204335AA...
The internet is great and all, but it breeds altogether too many fake wikipedia SMEs :)
And just narrowing it to that comparison is going to turn off a lot of people.
I have a feeling that once the technology has been around for awhile it will get cleaner, but who knows...
I would love to know more if anyone else has done more research.
I was recently in Ireland and diesel was .10c cheaper a liter.
A car is an investment. A lousy one, but you still can't think of it only based total price vs features. You have to consider depreciation and operating costs more than upfront price.
After hunting around for less than the price as a Prius (used or new) I got a barely used 6 speed manual G35 with all of the bells and whistles (15K miles, very clean engine, good find). The fact that it only gets ~22MPG in the peek of expensive gas might have been part of the reason I got it for so cheap. There is no debate that a G35 beats the pants of of a Civic or Corolla any day. Doing the math of $500 savings in gas a year I still have a few more years before it would have been cheaper to buy a Prius based upon the price difference.
I have had no garage work on my G35 other than the standard oil change etc. To make things simple I will assume that the Prius would have been just as good. (How often do you have to change the battery?)
I just looked up on kbb A brand new 2008 Prius would only be worth ~$400 more than my used G35 if I sold it today. So the math no matter how I look at it worked out for me and I got a nicer car to drive the past few years.
But the real lesson I have seen over and over which is that any time someone runs the math they have different variables. If I were to buy a car today the used Prius's have actually dropped in price so that estimate is completely different that a few years ago, gas is now cheaper, I probably couldn't find that G35 again, and now there are other hybrids to compare against.
Plus those regular cars do a lot better on gas nowadays than they ever have.
Put another way, I only plan to keep the car to around 100,000 miles. If the hybrid cost more than $1717 above the standard, I'm losing out.
Put me in the hybrids are hype column.
In some ways, hybrids are large-scale social/economic insurance. If gas prices really spike, consumers will have a (relatively) rapid substitution for conventional cars.
Plus, a lot of people claim to care about the environment. At least cars offer a modestly tangible way normal people in normal circumstances can show whether they actually do enough to spend modestly more to do some minor good for said environment.
Plus (part two) a lot of jingoistic America-first types can decide whether they really want to help stick it to those people who jingoistic types don't like but who are selling lots of oil or whether those jingoistic types are all hat and no cattle. I find the number of people who favor or favored U.S. intervention in Iraq but who drive pickup trucks to be somewhat puzzling.
When we needed a second car last year, I went for a VW Jetta TDI, and it has been a very good decision. The car averages 34 MPG with my mixed highway and arterial road commute.
But, let's say in 2008 you thought that hybrids were all hype and bought a Corolla instead. According to KBB, you paid $16000 for your Corolla and I paid $23000 for my Prius. My Prius is now worth $15000, so I lost $8000 to depreciation. But your Corolla is now worth $9500, so you lost $6500. The difference in the depreciation numbers is about the same ratio as the difference in initial price, so the argument isn't really against hybrids, per say, but that when you pay more for a car, you lose more in depreciation.
Of course, in 3+ years I've probably saved a couple grand in gas, which pushes my operating costs _below_ yours, even though you bought a very cheap, economical car and didn't buy into all the hybrid hype.
And as to battery pack replacement... well, who knows. But there are plenty of original Priuses on the road right now on the original packs; which makes them over 10 years old. It's just a maintenance cost. When a car is 10 years old, you pay a lot for maintenance. Replacing a timing belt is not cheap either!
Every statistic I've seen is concocted (including the chevy volt's "infinite" mpg claims way back when).
More recently, the new Mini's have started appearing, possibly as another small car that avoids undesired "signaling". They are not that cheap, and they are "fun"; small is ok, if it's "fun".
Some years back, the BMW 3 series straddled this signaling line, to some extent. It was a small, less expensive Beamer (not quite there, yet?), but it was a Beamer and also made a certain sense for the sole commuter.
Where are the affordable, small, city-oriented all electric commuting cars that would actually make a difference?
Two things: Batteries, and regulations. Battery technology remains obstinate, and regulations put a lower bound on how light you can make the car before it starts failing a variety of tests in exciting ways, especially collision tests.
I've seen a "car" that gets 100mpg, even at reasonable speeds (~55 mph), on straight-up gasoline. But you would not want to ride that thing into a wall at 55 mph. There was wood where you'd expect metal, for instance...