Hi Lars-ss:

___You have to be really careful with the facts in this discussion … As with all methods of fuel savings and lowered emissions, there are trade offs. The NOx spike from an Auto-stopped - IMA start can sometimes cause an increase in overall NOx emissions vs. just letting her run at idle depending on length of the stop and external temperature effects on the combustion process. Secondly, all Insight 5-speeds are LEV’s on high sulfur fuel and ULEV’s on low. The 04 Insight CVT’s are SULEV-II’s. The split between PZEV and ULEV based HCH’s probably favors ULEV’s across the country. With that, just about anything non-hybrid you might consider is available in a ULEV format or better as shown above.

___California’s air is becoming cleaner because of CARB’s initiatives making available hundreds of thousands to millions of cleaner ULEV or better emission rated non-hybrid cars, not twenty to thirty thousand LEV to PZEV rated hybrids. An example … My LEV rated Ranger XLT is as clean as my Insight over the same amount of miles driven if they both meet their respective EPA estimates. The Corolla (ULEV) and MDX (ULEV-II) are far cleaner if that helps explain how non-hybrids are doing more then the bulk of the cleanup because there are so many more of them and in some cases, they are as clean or cleaner (emission wise) then the Hybrid’s you and I drive on a daily basis.

___Another piece to the puzzle is a hybrid’s overall emissions from mining the ore to one hitting the road and back to its component elements after its useful life has past. Hybrid’s are behind on the emission front right off the lot because of the differing materials it takes to make one. Aluminum for one is much more energy intensive to create then steel yet hybrids have more of it then non-hybrid’s. You have to see the Toyota’s Prius II’s cradle to grave emission graphs to make some sense of it all but a Hybrid has an emission deficit to overcome before the first gallon of regular unleaded is burned in one.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net