Used Cars vs. Hybrids: What's greener?

Joey M.

For those that don't recognize the picture, you should have mentioned that it was a rendering of a proposed ATOMIC powered car. At one time, folks actually thought reactors could ./ would be scaled DOWN enough to power cars and even to put them in every home.

Car pictured is a Ford, if I remember correctly.

Somehow this discussion got way off track... the article was about Hybrid vs. non-hybrid used car (not plug-ins, not electrics). Power plant emissions are not part of it except for powering the plant that builds the vehicles, as the Prius, not the Prius PHEV is being discussed. It's simply a matter of production emissions + 50mpg over a vehicles life, vs production emissions + 30mpg over a vehicle's life.

integraguy wrote: Most cars have a 50K-60K warranty, some don't. That is no "guarantee" they will last 100k.

In the US, the entire hybrid system is warrantied a minimum of 8 years/ 100k miles.
In CA, its bumped to 10 yeas, 150k miles.
Some manufacturers (Hyundai Sonata Hybrid) offer a lifetime warranty on them.

BTW, the local landfill here will recycle any battery you use in home electronics, cars, forklifts, whatever. Most hybrid battery packs are worth money even as a dead core to re-builders that can handle the recycling process for you.

integraguy wrote: Joey M. For those that don't recognize the picture, you should have mentioned that it was a rendering of a proposed ATOMIC powered car. At one time, folks actually thought reactors could ./ would be scaled DOWN enough to power cars and even to put them in every home. Car pictured is a Ford, if I remember correctly.

Yup, it was the Ford Nucleon

SVreX wrote:

DaveEstey wrote:

SVreX wrote: That's terrible math. They only counted the gasoline burned. The 2012 Prius is a plug-in. 63% of the test drive was completed in electric mode. 48.7% of the nation's electricity in the grid is generated by COAL. In other words, 30.7% of the energy they consumed was generated by coal, not gasoline. Over 90% of the nation's electricity generated is from coal, nuclear, and natural gas. There are life cycle emissions that are generated at the electric generating plants that they are "overlooking".

The Prius Plug-in plugs in. The others do not. Also, the north east gets a lot of hydro electric power.

The link was specifically a review of a 2012 Prius Hybrid.

Correct, not a Prius Plug-in as you asserted and I quoted.

integraguy wrote: Folks want to buy a cheap hybrid so they can feel good without much pain.

^^This. Price one so impoverished-but-idealistic college neo-hippies can afford it and the car will sell like hotcakes.

The winning move for manufacturer would be to cut a deal with Tata. They could stuff a hybrid drivetrain into the Nano and sell it under a "badge engineered" nameplate. College kids will buy small/impractical stuff if it is cheap enough.

JoeyM wrote:

integraguy wrote: Folks want to buy a cheap hybrid so they can feel good without much pain.

^^This. Price one so impoverished-but-idealistic college neo-hippies can afford it and the car will sell like hotcakes. The winning move for manufacturer would be to cut a deal with Tata. They could stuff a hybrid drivetrain into the Nano and sell it under a "badge engineered" nameplate. College kids will buy small/impractical stuff if it is cheap enough.

I have never once met a college student that wants a hybrid of any kind. Most of them want a new "pony" car or pickups.

93EXCivic wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

integraguy wrote: Folks want to buy a cheap hybrid so they can feel good without much pain.

^^This. Price one so impoverished-but-idealistic college neo-hippies can afford it and the car will sell like hotcakes. The winning move for manufacturer would be to cut a deal with Tata. They could stuff a hybrid drivetrain into the Nano and sell it under a "badge engineered" nameplate. College kids will buy small/impractical stuff if it is cheap enough.

I have never once met a college student that wants a hybrid of any kind. Most of them want a new "pony" car or pickups.

Were they engineering students?

All my sister's friends (mostly psych and education majors) want a hybrid. They steadfastly refuse to believe me when I tell them diesels are probably better for what they want.

DaewooOfDeath wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

integraguy wrote: Folks want to buy a cheap hybrid so they can feel good without much pain.

^^This. Price one so impoverished-but-idealistic college neo-hippies can afford it and the car will sell like hotcakes. The winning move for manufacturer would be to cut a deal with Tata. They could stuff a hybrid drivetrain into the Nano and sell it under a "badge engineered" nameplate. College kids will buy small/impractical stuff if it is cheap enough.

I have never once met a college student that wants a hybrid of any kind. Most of them want a new "pony" car or pickups.

Were they engineering students? All my sister's friends (mostly psych and education majors) want a hybrid. They steadfastly refuse to believe me when I tell them diesels are probably better for what they want.

+1. If you think your fiends, co-workers, or co-students are a good cross section of everyone, you are very mistaken.

OTOH, I would tend to agree on the anti-diesel part. But that's also coming from a more than CO2 point of view.

DaewooOfDeath wrote:

93EXCivic wrote:

JoeyM wrote:

integraguy wrote: Folks want to buy a cheap hybrid so they can feel good without much pain.

^^This. Price one so impoverished-but-idealistic college neo-hippies can afford it and the car will sell like hotcakes. The winning move for manufacturer would be to cut a deal with Tata. They could stuff a hybrid drivetrain into the Nano and sell it under a "badge engineered" nameplate. College kids will buy small/impractical stuff if it is cheap enough.

I have never once met a college student that wants a hybrid of any kind. Most of them want a new "pony" car or pickups.

Were they engineering students? All my sister's friends (mostly psych and education majors) want a hybrid. They steadfastly refuse to believe me when I tell them diesels are probably better for what they want.

There are other people at college other then engineering students?!?!

mguar wrote: My Oldest daughter drives a 10 year old Saturn that get's 30+ MPG and in doing the research based on how she drives it made economic sense..

I drive a 98 SL2 daily. I did the math and if I drive it beyond 3 or 4 years, I would've been better off getting a 2005ish hybrid prius or civic. That's gas cost (increasing), depreciation, initial purchase, etc. The problem is I rarely keep a car for 3 or 4 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=badoMjA_rW0

First 30 or so seconds of this clip. I'm sure you've seen it.

mguar wrote:

DrBoost wrote: I'm not a hybrid proponent, or hater. But I think we all know how stron lobbyists are and that they are not concerned with truth and what's best for us all, just them. The gubment is pushing this stuff, that alone makes me give it the stink-eye. One day I'll own a hybrid, when I do it'll be a huge back-step in dollars-per-mile for me.

Government causes you to object? Oh so you hate the military? (that's part of the government) public roads? Fire departments? Police? sounds like you are in favor of anarchy

Nah, just saying I don't trust the gub'ment, or big business. Those folks have an agenda and there are dollars to be made.

mguar wrote: In reply to mguar: There are proven ways to burn coal cleanly. Basically the method involves pumping the plant emissions deep underground. That effectively traps carbon and most other pollutants underground.

'cuz that's just the ticket. Keep polluting, but put it in a place that won't effect my, just my grand kids. Let's just take our crap and dump in in Chernobyle, that place is already berkleyed up.

mguar wrote: The reason it's not commonly done is there is no incentive for a power plant to make the investment..

And there will be no incentive untill a politician stands to make 7-figures from the deal.

I don't like hybrids because so far they have been ugly soul sucking POS (maybe not the CRZ, haven't driven it).

Also there is no such thing as clean coal. But keep digging it keeps me in a job.

So, the logical response is to adopt an Amish lifestyle. Right?

The same inefficiencies in the big plants caused by reducing power at night are also caused by the wind picking up and those dumb windmills spontaneously producing more power at random times. I'm fine with folks paying for wind power, but I should get to shut off their lights when the wind stops and turn all of them on remotely when it gusts up.

That said, adding a large volume of plugged-in hybrids/electrics could help, except that if we pulled power out of them (or had a low wind night) you might wake up to a dead battery due to the morning load peak and not be able to drive to work.

As to the original direction of this thread, the comparison needs to be between a used car and a new hybrid. The fuel costs are obvious, same with their emissions, but how do you compare the impact value of a used car? Do you use what it would "cost" to recycle it? Or do you use some pro-rate of the initial construction impacts? Do you call it end of life already since it is already "post consumer?" What about repair parts?

With so many viable options, how could anyone avoid biasing the results? I think finding any real data will be impossible.

mguar wrote: You need to educate them.. Prove your hypothesis. Define what you mean by better..

Better actual mileage, lower costs.

You would have an extremely tough sell here in Minnesota.. Diesels do not perform well in sub zero temps.. Getting them started when temps are below zero is a major hassle requiring long extension cords that are easily stolen, either, anti gelling additives, and other tricks..

Diesels sell very well in places like Scandanavia, so they must have figured something out.

The few diesels that get acceptable mileage and are imported tend to have very poor reliability ratings.. Not to mention the price difference between diesel and gasoline.. while the diesel might get 10MPG better (remember most college students drive relatively short trips and almost no highway mileage) diesels higher cost per gallon and hassles starting on cold mornings will cost you the argument..

VW and Mercedes make very nice new diesels. The TDI has been a very good engine for a long time. It also gets significantly better mileage than a comparable Prius while not requiring anywhere near the cash outlay in the used car market.

I would also recommend something like a new Elantra over a hybrid. Once again, better or comparable real world economy, cheaper, simpler, easier to service, less sucky to drive.

Your definition of "real world economy" needs some perspective. Our Prius averages 48 mpg year round. During the summer, when the engine doesn't have to run to provide heat, my average is 54 mpg. With ZERO extra effort.

If I tried some basic hyper miling I can and have broken 60 mpg over the course of several hundred miles.

The VW products are priced similarly to the Prius, but pay an average of 40 cents more per gallon of diesel, that's spending moremoney, not less. Merc doesn't make anything close to the cost of a Prius and has the added cost of urea injection, again, more money.

As for cheaper, easier to service. I'm well over 90k miles with simple oil changes. You can't get easier than that. Now go compare Toyota's reliability ratings to Volkswagen's. One of these things is not like the other.

Ugh, here we go again.

Real world data: Elantra - 30.5mpg Prius - 47.6

Those #s are from 2011 model year cars, both with >600K miles reported.

That's 56% better.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius http://www.fuelly.com/car/hyundai/elantra

mguar wrote: Third your unrealistic suggestion that somehow plugging in a bunch of Hybrids would cause the power grid to fail simply does not take into consideration the flexibility of modern power grids.

I think you mis-read what I typed. I know all too well how the grid works, it's what I do for a living. I never suggested plugging in hybrids or electrics would bring down the grid. Quite the contrary.

In my balancing area, for example, we have typically 2500-3000MW of load on any given day. We can supply 1200MW or so with hydro, we have a 60MW share of one nuclear plant, and the balance is coal, diesel, gas or up to 1500MW of wind. Our typical MO is to set a base with the fossil units, adjusted every hour, then spend the whole day chasing the wind around with the hydro units. Problem is we also have to chase load around too. Imagine trying to fill a moving bucket with a firehose that has random pressure surges. This means that the fossil units change base loading entirely based on how hard the wind is blowing, and that we can't get fully loaded on hydro because we have to have enough reserve for small surges in wind.

The common assumption from a distribution standpoint is that eventually there will be household support for charging these vehicles quickly at home. Typically that assumes a beefed up supply to the house and dedicated charging for the car hooked up to the type of metering that would allow the car to charge at night and off-peak when the rates are the lowest and the grid needs the load. Most also then assume the same metering might also allow the battery packs in the cars to be used to "sell" power back to the grid when the rates are higher during the peak. The consumer gets "paid" for their power storage.

I assumed we all were up to speed on that much of the infrastructure planned to support these future plug-in hybrid and electric cars would be using. With that as a basis, I was suggesting that it will take a massive amount of that type of storage to provide any real-world dampening for the unreliable surges wind farms are already taxing the grid with.

Adding in some storage capacity would allow the load side movement to dampen out a bit, which would help. Downside is that if we actually use the stored energy in the car batteries to help, then by definition there will be times you go out to your car and the battery is depleted. If it was an electric, you would not be able to use it.

ProDarwin wrote: Somehow this discussion got way off track... the article was about Hybrid vs. non-hybrid used car (not plug-ins, not electrics).

The article linked to the detailed article of their test vehicle: the prototype of the 2012 Prius Plug-In Hybrid. I took the statistics directly from their article. It specifically cited the percentages of time it ran off the power from the grid.

oldopelguy wrote: I assumed we all were up to speed on that much of the infrastructure planned to support these future plug-in hybrid and electric cars would be using. With that as a basis, I was suggesting that it will take a massive amount of that type of storage to provide any real-world dampening for the unreliable surges wind farms are already taxing the grid with. Adding in some storage capacity would allow the load side movement to dampen out a bit, which would help. Downside is that if we actually use the stored energy in the car batteries to help, then by definition there will be times you go out to your car and the battery is depleted. If it was an electric, you would not be able to use it.

This is getting well outside my realm of expertise, but its nice to have a discussion on the subject. How massive would the storage need to be? Lets say, well in the future, that most homes have a single PHEV (lets say ~16kwhr) vehicle plugged in (I'm assuming that if nobody is home, the house isn't drawing much electricity). Is that enough to dampen the effect? Is it the storage capacity of the battery that presents the issue, or the rate at which it can be discharged when needed?

Additionally, how much of an impact does this have on you guys (power industry in general)? If there is energy savings to be had - could a rebate/discount be offered to customers that install their own approved battery-banks (which could be of many different types as weight is a non-issue) in their home? I know I recall reading about manufacturing plants that do this with capacitors on a much shorter time scale to help them maintain a power factor of 1.0 or as close as possible.

On a similar note... does anyone make a kit to turn a hybrid car into a generator? Where I live power can go out during a big storm relatively frequently. I rent, so don't feel like buying a generator - especially a $Texas 20kw genset like my neighbors all seem to have. Wouldn't a Prius or Fusion (i.e. non-series hybrid), running in the driveway be able to support a moderate energy draw from a home during "emergency" situations?

I understand 20kw is massive overkill. Lets just say that my neighbors dont live in 3500sq ft houses. Try 10,000+

Anyways, 5kw from a hybrid parked in my driveway would make me more than happy. Hell 2kw to run some light bulbs and my fridge would be sweet.

mguar wrote: While in theory powering a home with the Hybrid it's not available yet and poses some real complications if attempted.. The real issue would be what happens when the power comes back on?

This is easy. Power goes off, plug in hybrid to "backfeed", flip switch in emergency breaker panel "power co." over to "supplemental power". Your other breaker panel would still get power from the power-co and when the power comes back on, lights/whatever on that circuit would kick back in. Then you go back to your breaker panel and flip it back to hybrid/supplemental/etc.

Or just use whatever detection system a home backup genset uses.

DaveEstey wrote: Your definition of "real world economy" needs some perspective. Our Prius averages 48 mpg year round. During the summer, when the engine doesn't have to run to provide heat, my average is 54 mpg. With ZERO extra effort. If I tried some basic hyper miling I can and have broken 60 mpg over the course of several hundred miles. The VW products are priced similarly to the Prius, but pay an average of 40 cents more per gallon of diesel, that's spending moremoney, not less. Merc doesn't make anything close to the cost of a Prius and has the added cost of urea injection, again, more money. As for cheaper, easier to service. I'm well over 90k miles with simple oil changes. You can't get easier than that. Now go compare Toyota's reliability ratings to Volkswagen's. One of these things is not like the other.

Here's where I got the idea. Well, that and the Elantra owners on this board, who are reporting between 38-47 mpg.

Car Magazine, June 2010, page 136.

Toyota Prius, Our Mileage: 41.6

Directly beneath this:

BMW X1 Diesel, Our Mileage: 42.3

One is a small car designed for super low drag and a tiny frontal area. One weighs about 3,000 lbs. The other is seemingly designed to smash the air into oblivion and weighs on the far side of 4,000 lbs.

Seems to me the diesel is SIGNIFICANTLY more efficient if it can overcome all of the X1's designed in disadvantages.

Look to the surrounding pages and I come across other interesting comparisons.

Hyundai I10 Gasoline, Our Mileage: 45.7

RangeRover TDV6 Diesel, Our Mileage 24.0

Lexus RS450 Hybrid, Our Mileage 25.3

Volvo C30 1.6 Diesel, Our Mileage 64.3

Citreon C3 1.5 Gasoline, Our Mileage 34.7

Peugeot 3008 Diesel (much bigger, more powerful than a Prius), Our Mileage 40.2

Same magazine, August 2010

The Prius is down to 39.9 mpg. This puts it in the same neighborhood as a 2.2 liter diesel Mazda CX-7 AWD at 32 mpg, an Audi A5 Diesel at 36.4 mpg, and the enormous BMW 530d GT at 34.2.

It gets its but kicked by the BMW 316d at an average of 48 mpg (45 mpg after the track days, something I don't think you'd ever try in a Prius). The Peugeot 3008 is up to 40.1, the Citreon C3 Gasoline is up to 49 mpg. The previously mentioned Volvo is down to a mere 55.2.

This leads me to conclude a Prius is the rough equivalent, efficiency wise, to a gasoline subcompact or a diesel large car/small SUV. If you compare it to an economy optimized diesel (the Volvo) it is about 50% less efficient.

mguar Well Volkswagen has a very poor reliability rating by most of the consumer magazines.. Same with Mercedes.. (not to mention the extremely high cost of their service).. when you add fuel that may be anywhere from 40-50 cents per gallon more than gasoline the added fuel mileage is pretty well washed away..

In Nevada it is rare to see any Prius under 10K. It is not difficult to find a 2003 TDI Jetta under 5K. And while I concede VWs are not reliable, that's not really the engine's fault.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/jetta/2003/diesel%20l4

That said, the fact the US gets some of the worst deisels in the world, when it gets them at all, certainly seems to make it a closer contest, especially if you ignore the social costs of subsidies for hybrids.

This makes it sound like I'm completely anti-hybrid. I'm not. If they can make it cost effective, something like the Volt could be very interesting. Hybrids are also great for stuff like city busses, particularly when the busses are fueled on LPG.