One of the problems hybrid owners are facing is not the 'road rage' toward the slow poking, HOV lane hogging hyper-milers (see link), but from the automobile industry itself. Too many hybrid-lite vehicles are cropping up in the market and creating a false impression that because a car is a hybrid it is therefore 'green.'

I caught a segment on CNBC this morning (see link) that sort of brought this issue to light. I'm a pro-hybrid 'biodiesel' driver waiting patiently for my crack at a hybrid diesel, but I'm concerned that there is a trend toward performance oriented hybrid beasts and that manufacturers are in a rush to just slap on a battery pack and electric motor. (Okay ... so that's not exactly true ... but you get my point)

I think its great that hybrid technology is able to add boost to a monster truck or SUV in getting it some added torque while keeping the ICE a bit smaller, but just because it has "hybrid" on the sticker doesn't necessarily make it a 'green' vehicle. (a connotation by a significant number of automobile buyers) This was a concern that has popped up in a number of publications and was discussed on a CNBC interview. A closer look at 'cradle to grave' or 'dust to dust' aspect of 'some' hybrids was being argued, but many buyers are at least falling for the psychologically impression that their new hybrid is ecologically friendly. I'll not go so far as to side with the anti-hybrid guest in the interview, but he is right in that certain manufacturers are not doing the hybrid=green movement any favors.

Do hybrid advocates (like most here) believe it is important to make distinctions between vehicles and represent each manufacturer's hybrid technology and use in a responsible way?

 

A point well taken. A good example is the honda insight with lean-burn technology. It's not the "greenest" of vehicles but it sure gets good mpg's..

 

actually, it IS the greenest:

http://www.greenercars.com/12green.html

 

There are as many different ways to approach hybrid-electrics as there are hybrid electric owners . . . in the case of married ones, two or three times as many ways. Back when there was only one hybrid-electric, the answers were limited but those days are gone.

Today, the number of hybrids and hybrid owners is nearly doubling every year and if the press releases are accurate, it will continue this way in the future. We have a cornucopia of choices and that is wonderful. We can get a hybrid-electric that matches our requirements . . . this is great!

Look, if someone wants to paint hybrid-electric owners as some kind of two-dimensional charactures, FINE BY ME! It keeps gullable people from buying them and the prices 'softer' until my family cars are all hybrids. For example, I bought my used Prius for a steal because of the "Hybrid Myths" and by golly, I don't mind doing it a second time.

Does this mean other fuel efficient technologies are history? No, but they have to complete. They have to prove themselves in the market place and that doesn't mean a fancy press release or 'study' or commercial.

So going back to the original question:
The selfish answer is:
It is selfish because it seeks to mislead the questioner away from hybrids and hybrid-electrics. It seeks to re-enforce the false delimma that is the basis of the question. It seeks to keep the questioner ignorant. It is a trick answer.

Bob Wilson

 

Interesting angle Bob.

I did see that Toyota is tinkering with a new Prius Gen 3 that looks to near the 100mpg barrier while knocking a full second off there 0-60 times! It will be interesting to watch the segment leader jump ahead once again. (link)

Personally I'd prefer to see the focus on overall 'real' improvements rather than using Hybrids as a deceptive approach in selling cars. If a company is using the hybrid technology for a performance enhancement then let's be sure it is seen that way as adding a tiny battery and electric boost to an SUV isn't going to make a super efficient car out of it ... nor is it going to 'really' be cleaner in the long run. (ie. complexity, battery waste, etc) Hopefully most buyers understand what they are getting, but I'm doubting it. YMMV.

 

The 5-speed Insight emits the least CO2 of any vehicle. Unfortunately, the lean burn also allows more NO2 than the Prius and CVT Insight.

What is greenest depends on what your criteria is.

 

I beg to differ. In fact, large SUVs, for someone who has a valid reason for having one (ie a large family with several children for example that couldn't fit in a smaller car), can save more fuel waste by having a hybrid system than an already efficient passenger car like the Civic (in terms of total number of gallons). As far as battery waste, most newer rechargable batteries are almost always recycled, and I don't see how mechanical complexity is necessarily dirtier.

Also, I see nothing wrong in using hybrid sytems in performance oriented cars -- they are still saving fuel, especially when compared to accomplishing the same perofrmance gain by adding more engine displacement to a conventional vehicle.

 

As far as I understand, all hybrids are AT-PZEVs except the manual Insights and most of the first-generation Civic Hybrids. It's not about mileage; PZEV cars burn the gas in a certain way that doesn't release many pollutants, and they have various things for the gas tank to prevent fuel vapor from escaping, and they have filters to clean the pollutants that are created. None of this has anything to do with electric motors and batteries.

Remember there are a number of PZEV gasoline cars; xcel of course drives a PZEV Accord, and there's also a PZEV Fusion, Jetta, and probably many others.

If someone just wants a low-pollution vehicle, there are many choices besides just hybrids.

 

Most of the time, our bad decisions are not ignorance, but simply a lack of will. Indebtness is at record levels in part because people don't save. About 60% of Americans are overweight from lack of diet and exercise. Is education going to change that?

Many adults still act like a child growning up that wants to ignore green vegetibles for a second helping of ice cream. It's just putting one's desires over the long-term good.

Go into toy stores - how many Prius's? I got an ad from a tire company. All these places want to have pictures or toys of a Hummer - ice cream with all the toppings.

We grow up and maybe learn to rationalize our behavior a lot better than taking responsibility. I could dig and find the statistics, but I think everyone knows the average vehicle is about 1000 pounds bigger over the past 15 or so years. Vehicles like the Suburban have popped up all over the place and all of them say they need them - right. Rationalize that it's for safety (questionable), occasionally (or never) to fill it with lots of people/stuff. And BTW, if you drive a small hybrid, indiscriminately dismiss them as pinko treehuggers - right, just like Utah Sen. Robert Bennett (R). Heck, I'm a hard-charging professional, and that gives me the licences to do whatever!

I'm tiring of apologizing for hybrids and dispelling all these myths. What I'd like to see is more negative publicity against gas guzzlers that turns them from status symbols to objects of shame. Pride fuels vehicles like the Hummer. I yearn for the day it becomes unsexy and out of the toy stores/ads.

 

The H2 is exceedingly good at its purpose -- to be formidable-looking, large and heavy and conspicuous. It's a car for showing off, and it excels at that. But most people buy SUVs not really for showing off, but because they feel small = vulnerable. They equate size with durability, ruggedness, safety, etc.

By the way, it's not entirely fair to point to what toys kids play with. Kids love playing with planes and spaceships and those are or can be monstrously inefficient, but who cares? They're not worried about what the fuel consumption would be on the toys' real-world counterparts.