Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short
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Hybrid Mileage Comes Up Short
| Wed, 05-12-2004 - 5:49pm |
LOL! Last year, I had a discussion with an aquaintance about a hybrid electric car she wanted because they save money and help the environment.
I told her that they weren't at all economical yet, but if she had the money, & she thought they were better for the environment, to go for it.
Even with great gas milage, the savings doesn't make up for the additional cost of the car & the special maintenance it must have. Now the truth comes out; they don't even get great gas mileage.
http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,63413,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

>"Federal law requires that auto manufacturers use only EPA estimates when promoting their vehicles' fuel economy, according to Toyota spokeswoman Nancy Hubbell. While the company received some complaints about gas mileage, Hubbell says many Prius owners get close to their EPA-rated mileage. Toyota Prius sales increased 152 percent this April over last year, and many consumers are on a three- to six-month waiting list,"<
Tell your friend they'd better buy a Prius. ;)
I'm not a car person so I don't know which cars require these........ I heard on the radio that the batteries/electric cells need to be replaced about every 2 yrs. & they cost about 2K to replace. That seems quite an expence.
The upside is they're cleaner for the environment.
Well in the first place I would get a Prius that is built from the ground up to be a hybrid car unlike the Civic and similar cars that just have the engine tossed in.
But more importantly NO car gets even CLOSE to the EPA standard for mileage.
James
janderson_ny@yahoo.com
CL Ask A Guy
Me neither.
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Right. That's one of the things that makes them more expensive to operate than a conventional car.
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We have an incredibly knowledgable local car guy on the radio who looks into all this research, and confirms the conclusions with his own statistical analysis. This guy isn't a Republican or a conservative and has testified in Austin & Washington & cities all over the country about these issues as well as other car issues.
He was the first person in the country to look at the reseach about MTBE and raise the alarm, and he is promoting hybrids, not because of the cost savings, which are less than zero, or environmental impact, which he says is negligible, but because it will reduce our dependence on foreign oil which he sees as a critical foreign policy goal since 9-11.
Anyway, he says new cars, with all their computerized stuff & filtering, when tuned up, emit so little pollution the sensors can't pick anything up.
There are 3 situations that lead to nearly all of the emissions passenger cars put out--old cars without catalytic converters & fuel injection & other computerized equipment, new cars which haven't been tuned up regularly, and believe it or not, toll booths. In cities which have them, if they were eliminated, the number of ozone action alert days would fall into acceptable EPA guidelines. Cars put out emissions when they are idling in line because their equipment is calibrated to function properly when they are moving.
Save the environment; buy a tolltag. ;)
Renee