Hybrid Lovers Read This and Lament

The Fuel savings from owning a Prius are soon overshadowed by the

 

Is this a Toyota group?
It looks like Ford, GM, and Chrysler in the cross-post.

The Toyota and Honda Hybrids come with recommendations for extremely low
pressure in the tires, but anyone visiting an appropriate newsgroup (not
these), knows that the pressure should be increased, for both handling and
tire life.

Other than that, this post looks like ... complete crap.

 

Clarence, Nomen Nescio, whose real name is Ken Mitchell, drops in and
out of NewsGroups and is generally little more than a nuisance. He is
what is generally referred to as "A Legend in His Own Mind". His modus
operandi is to post lengthy meandering posts, which are most often
merely newspaper clips which he has plagiarized. Simply, he's not too
bright - which is why he posts through anonymous remailers. He is to be
pitied rather than scorned. Sad really.

 

Here's an interesting article from Car & Driver on the subject:


You may want to read this.

Hybrid issues, and a rising star at Indy.
BY BROCK YATES
September 2005


I'm not exactly a betting man, but I'll give you 100 to 1 odds that if
you're reading this nonsense you are not a hybrid-car owner. That's probably
a good wager, considering that the new miracle vehicles are stuck at about a
one-half-percent market share of the roughly 17 million annual new car and
light-truck domestic sales and that you are vastly more likely to tear up
the asphalt in a gas-swilling, earth-choking, mega-speed road rocket like
the rest of us motorized Neanderthals.

Of course, if we pay attention to the Cassandra-like fulminations of the
liberal media, we might be led to believe that hybrid vehicles are our only
hope to save us all from ozone asphyxiation and indentured slavery to the
Arab oil barons. To ignore their PC incantations and to continue our binge
buying of conventional internal-combustion engines will, according to these
all-knowing scribes and electronic chatterers, doom civilization to a dark
age embroiled in a heat-soaked Sahara.

Yeah, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Yes, we understand the feds are giving a
one-time $2000 tax credit to hybrid owners, and 16 states are offering
come-on tax breaks ($1500 in Oregon, $4173 in Colorado), inspection
exemptions, and single-driver use of HOV lanes as incentives.

Moreover, the hybrids being sold by Toyota, Lexus, Honda, Ford, and, soon,
Chevrolet are all reasonably priced. Example: The hot-selling Toyota
Prius-with a three-month waiting list in most markets-can be purchased for
under $22,000 loaded (although most experts estimate that Toyota is taking a
$2000 hit on each sale). The Pious-oops-Prius costs about $5000 more to
manufacture than a conventional Corolla and retails for about three-grand
extra.

Now let's jump ugly about the whole situation and talk a little reality. The
guys at Edmunds.com, who run hard numbers about the car business as well as
anyone, estimate that a Prius owner would have to drive at least 66,500
miles annually for five straight years, or gasoline would have to soar to 10
bucks a gallon, to equal the cost of operating a cheaper, conventional
Corolla.

Then we have the battery pack, that heavy lump of nickel-metal hydride juice
boxes that presumably improve fuel efficiency (but not that much, according
to our road tests). Although the warranties are for eight years or 100,000
miles, battery replacement will cost $5300 for the Toyota and Lexus hybrids,
and the Ford Escape replacements run a whopping $7200.

Moreover, the industry types aren't talking about total battery life. Will
they actually last 100,000 miles? How will this affect resale value? Will
the systems stay at full efficiency, or will they slowly drain power as they
age or operate under heavy use? These are questions that remain to be
answered, understanding that storage batteries, be they dry cells in your
flashlight or exotic Ni-MHs, all have finite lives and store less power with
age.

And now comes word that the computer brain inside the gas-electric grids in
some Priuses is tending to go nuts. This causes instant blackout stalling at
either 35 mph or 65 mph-the latter possibly in the fast lane of an
interstate where 50-ton semis running 90 mph can crush compacts like beer
cans.

This brings up an undiscussed issue: At some point, all these hybrid
batteries will die and have to be disposed of somewhere, somehow. These are
hardly biodegradable items like spoiled vegetables. They are in fact
self-contained toxic waste dumps. How and where millions of these poisonous
boxes will be deposited in the new hybrid nirvana has yet to be considered,
much less resolved.

And speaking of the environmental component (the glamour issue centered on
the brave new world of hybrids), a number of EMT and fire crews have
announced that they will refuse to rescue victims trapped in such vehicles,
openly fearing electrocution or fatal acid burns.

As with the now-defunct electric-car miracle, where it was quickly realized
that the national power grid could not energize millions of vehicles without
massive expansion of horrors-nuclear generation-the dark side of the hybrid
miracle is now beginning to surface.


Says a dealer friend whose immense franchise network includes several brands
offering hybrids: "There is no advantage to owning a hybrid in terms of fuel
mileage when the extra cost of the vehicle is added in. Period. Do the math.
This is a feel-good purchase. Hybrids are a statement about the environment,
and they simply do not square with economic reality.

"The truth is, although the Prius is selling like mad, hybrid Honda Accords
and Civics are backed up on dealer lots. Why? Because they look like
conventional Hondas, whereas the Prius has unique styling. It has an iconic
status among the Greenies. Like it or not, that's real life."

Until hybrids become economically feasible in terms of cost, reliability,
and valid fuel savings and make real sense regarding performance and
disposability, we're going to be driving conventional
internal-combustion-powered vehicles-either gas or diesel -until rogue
asteroids clean us all out.

 

I personally do not own a prius yet but I think sometimes you have to
balance out all of the bad things about the prius with some of the good. A
few item I can think of are: no accessory drive belt to replace, no starter
or alternator to replace (starting is handled by motor/generator1 and 12v
battery charging is handled by a 100amp dc-dc converter with no moving parts
that gets its power from the traction battery), long brake pad life thanks
to the regenerative braking (some owners have reported better than 50% pad
material remaining at 100,000 miles). The way I see it the whole point of
owning the prius is not about the fuel economy, it is because they are fun
to drive and are 90% cleaner than a SULEV vehicle such as my friend's ford
windstar minivan (which has the infamous growling ford power steering pump
with less than 80,000 miles on the clock). Also the NiMh traction batteries
will not be filling up landfills they are being recycled presumably into new
traction batteries and/or being made into consumer AAA, AA, etc size cells
for your home use. Speaking of consumer rechargeables the mass-production of
the traction batteries has desirable side affects. Less than a year ago the
highest capacity AA size NiMh I could find were 2300mAh and those were from
1 brand with all of the others being lower capacity, last week I picked up
an 8 pack of 2500mAh ones and there were about 4 brands to choose from at
that capacity.

 

HEh... I've been hearing the 'news' of wonderful new automotive tech
since I was a kid and I'm now in my sixties....like the experimental
Chrysler asphalt-melter turbine car of the fifties, and the Wonderful
Wankel (Mazda Rotary for you young'uns), all the glam tech is shown to
have a "man behind the curtain" that you have to ignore to feel good.

Repeat after me!!!
There is STILL nothing more efficient as motive power than producing an
explosion inside a closed box with one movable side connected to an axle!

I have YET to see that ethanol is as economical to produce as gasoline...
though that is the hype we see in ads and hear on the floors of
legislatures! Ethanol seems to be the 21st century 'perpetual motion'
fuel, and, as such, will be proven a boondoggle and nothing more.

I am STILL waiting on the Ceramic block engine I read about in the late
seventies.

I am STARTING to hear whispers that, environmentally, the Fuel cell "aint
all that green".

I'm THINKING that NiMH batteries ARE NOT going to end up in toxic waste
dumps but the effluent of battery reprocessing plants might.

All the while the cost of Natural Gas is inflated by power plant
consumption when modern coal technology is right around the corner...
snuffed by environmental concerns over what to do with the residual
'slag' after the gases are cooked out. and of course the inevitable CO2
concerns.

The TRUE best source of cheap power of course is unthinkable, never mind
that fluidized bed/pelletized fuel reactors are both safer and relatively
environmental-friendly.
- note you can go buy a natural gas powered home generator at Home Depot
as I write this.

So we wait on the next round of 'Cold Fusion' hoaxes...WHAT TO DO WITH
ALL THAT SPENT DEUTERIUM!.

But what's amazing to me, as gas prices drop below $2 at the pump here,
is all the EFFECTS of the hysteria on fuel prices, themselves... almost
as if it were a commodity investor conspiracy.....

Hmmmmm!

Meanwhile, if people WANT to buy a Hybrid to make themselves feel good,
more power to 'em. Sure cant hurt!
- - - - - -- - - - -

 

I will rather drive my Toyota than some General Motors
or Chrysler made piece of UAW made CRAP any day
of the week bunkie.

PFHBBLLTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT !!!!!!!!!!
^ ^ ^ ^
(that's how you write the fart noise for the uneducated among us)

 

" I am STARTING to hear whispers that, environmentally, the Fuel cell "aint
all that green".

The basic breakthrough in chemistry in the area of catalysts is still way in
the future for fuel cells. Current fuel cell technology is only possible
because of government support and military purchase programs that do not
factor in cost effectiveness or long term reliability. People I work with in
this field tell me it could be another 10 years before the technology is
mature enough for it to stand on its own.

Richard.

 

The reason the Pruis is selling better than other Hybrids, like the Civic
and the Escape, is buyer don't think to compare it to Toyotas similar size
car, the Corolla. Buyers looking at the other hybrids have the opportunity
to compare it to the convention powered models. When they do it quickly
become apparent that the premium price of driving home the hybrid model
will buy nearly ALL of the fuel to power the conventional model for several
years. When one factors in the enviable cost of battery replacement, at
some point down the road, purchasing the conventional powered model over the
hybrid becomes a no brainer. I think that says a lot about Toyota buyers

mike hunt



"Backyard Mechanic" >> "The truth is, although the Prius is selling like
mad, hybrid Honda

 

Same goes for fuel ethanol.

 

That's cute and all, but not accurate. Even the earliest turbine cars'
exhaust was of comparable temperature to standard cars' exhaust as it
exited the tailpipe.

It's not.

Yeah, Ford farted around with ceramic engines and then suddenly quit
talking about them.

Well, hell's bells, then, let's all run our cars on coal!

The professionally-offended types won't have it. Nor will they have wind
power (which they give cutesy deluxe names to, such as 'bird cuisinarts').

Gee...y'think?

 

No. My officemate has an '03 Honda Civic hybrid. It started giving
problems on his way from Montreal to Toronto. The Integrated Motor Assist
system went offline, which also meant the SLI battery (Starting, Lighting,
Ignition -- the conventional 12v item under the hood) was not being
charged. When he limped into the parking lot, his SLI battery read 9.9v.

Towed to the dealer, who after three days gave the diagnostic report: The
traction battery's dead. Good thing the battery warranty is 6 years,
otherwise it'd be a C$8,000+ event. Dealer claims this is the first-ever
failure of a traction battery in a Honda hybrid of any year or model,
anywhere in the world (Sure, right...) and that a new traction battery has
to be brought in from Japan, which will take AT LEAST three weeks.

Of course, there are multiple different issues going on here. There's the
car problem itself, then there's the dealer's fairy tales. I can think of
half a dozen courier companies that'll happily get a package from Japan to
North America in a matter of a couple of days, so that shoots the "three
weeks to come from Japan" theory all to hell. And if this were indeed the
very first-ever instance of this heretofore unheard-of failure in one of
Honda's high-profile, high-PR-value enviro models, one would think the
company would be falling all over itself to make the repair as quickly as
possible to keep the customer as quiet as possible about it.

Pah. What resale value? This kind of traction battery failure does NOT
bode well for the durability of these cars. Sure, it's covered under his
battery warranty. The new replacement battery does not reset the battery
warranty clock. What about in 5 years? They are disposable cars. 10 years
*tops*. More like "end of warranty plus time to next failure".

NiMH batteries are indeed hair-raisingly toxic and expensive to
reclaim/recycle. Once no longer in the dealer chain, they will simply get
tossed -- along with the rest of the car.

DS

 

I say 100,000 miles for my Ford Escape. That may be 10 years for some
people, two or three for others.

 

The whole idea of hybrids is stupid. Just make cars smaller and leave
out all the useless crap. Detroit could easily build a 2500 pound
family car that gives 40 mpg and costs $8,000 brand new and gives
250,000 trouble-free miles on nothing but routine maintenance.

 

Is that right?!!!

Granted, the only real problem was at long stops at stop signs, signals,
etc... where DID that turbine heat go?

 

<intro to business lesson>

Then why don't they?

</intro to business lesson>

 

Yep, this is the dirty little secret of hybrids. They are going to be
worthless after they hit the end of warranty period because the cost to
replace the battery pack will exceed the value of the vehicle.

Have people learning nothing from cell phones and laptop computers where
failure to take a charge rechargeable batteries are often the death
sentence?

John

 

And just plate it brass when the occasion arises and doubles as a neat-o
coffin! Holds a family of four to save plot space too!

 

Hold on there! I just bought a replacement battery for my Dell Inspiron -
total cost $72. It was a little over two years old (a bit soon for failure
IMHO). But the cost was only about 10-15% of the laptop's resale value.
Certainly no reason to trash it.

Point being that IF the cost of a replacement battery pack for a hybrid was
10-15% of the vehicle's value at the time it was needed, the resale would
not be so adversely affected. I admit, though, that the price is unlikely to
drop to that level.

Doug

 

What the **** would you know about routain maintenance, Mr. Drive a POS
vehicle with bald tires and no dash lights?