Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Anyone catch Boston Legal last night?
Crane Poole and Schmidt were sued for not being "Green".
Shirley made some interesting points some of which pertained to Hybrids not being as "Green" as they appear.
Like:
Energy required, transportation, and polution produced to mine and process the Nickel in the batteries. The fact that Hybrids get better mileage means people drive more and actually use more gasoline than non-hybrids. More polution generated to produce a hybrid than a Hummer.
Not sure if GM is a sponsor of the show but it did make for an interesting listen.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

GM is very aggressive in product placements, e.g., the Transformers movie. Ford and VW are as well. In fact, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between the movie and the car commercial. This summer, ads for Bourne and the VW Toureg were shamelessly blended into one.

So, I wouldn't put it past GM but it could just be a rogue writer.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

i don't have a direct link, but the BS about the hummer has been discussed and proven to be incorrect many times on this site and others.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Maybe the writers of the show will do some research about hybrids. They have all the time in the world now that they're on strike.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

I really don't see where the claim "getting better gas mileage means you'll drive more and waste more gas" comes from. That sounds totally bogus to me. I drive exactly as much as I need to, no matter what I'm driving. The TCH just makes it much more enjoyable and fuel-economical.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

I don't have any scientific evidence to back this one up, but if someone has a Chevy Suburban and gas prices are spiking, they would be less likely to go for a short drive to attend to a non urgent item, than they would if they had a hybrid and prices were falling.
You may not, and I accept that you don't do any more driving than you have to, but the perceived cost of driving has a large effect on a lot of drivers.
It has to, it's an economic decision.
People may not consciously sit there and calculate the cost of driving (although some at this forum might), but it does have an effect...IMHO

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Yet a hybrid driver probably has the opposite mentality.

They might try to combine trips and cut out unnecessary driving regardless of gas prices.

I'm not driving any more or any differently than before I got a hybrid. I was always trying to conserve energy.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Sure people may not worry so much about driving _less_ if they're not in a gas-guzzling vehicle that's costing hundreds of dollars per month in fuel costs, but I don't see them driving _more_, which was the original statement. But the purpose of getting a hybrid isn't to reduce the amount you drive, it's to be able to do the driving you already do without wasting tons of fuel and money in the process.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Sounds like a task for the Mythbusters.

In the mean time this can shed some light on the issue.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integr...r_vs_prius.pdf

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Great reference! It's a shame that the media won't pay as much attention to this as they did to the Dust-to-Dust report. Not surprising, but a shame nonetheless.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

I love the original CNW report. Best comedy written in years!

......cause most 1972 GM products are still on the road right! (...and that's the average!)

Later!

Dang

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

One example of hybrids leading to more driving is in cities that allow single occupancy hybrids to use the HOV lanes. People who used to carpool bought hybrids, took the tax deductions, and started driving to work by themselves. Not only are they driving more, but the cumulitive affect of having more cars on the road increased traffic, increasing fuel consumption and carbon output.

I don't think the point of the show was that hybrids are evil. The point was that even the holier than thow people that loathe SUVs and Christmas lights sometimes hurt the environment more than necessary whether it be intentional or inadvertant. They think that they can do other damaging things because they drive hybrids, they are taken for a ride by corporations using the term "green" when they really aren't, or they are just guilty of being human and wanting to make life easier or healthier.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

The attached .pdf seems to say driving a hybrid alone is better than carpooling 5 people in a gas-only. hmmmm...
It IS about the pollution then. :)

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

It's all nonsense and anyone can get statistics to justify any position they want.
The other side of that argument is that if five people were all in one car, there would be four less cars on the road. If everyone car pooled (even in inefficient cars) there would be a lot less traffic and the cars would operate at highway speeds, presumably, more efficiently, and would spend less time on the road idling (less polution).
I say, enjoy your car, don't worry what someone may think about your choice...the choice you made is right for you.
The only one not polluting is the guy walking or riding a bike to work.
The rest of us are polluters, it's only a matter of degree.
Life's short...enjoy your car.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

finman - I was surprised that there was that much of a difference. Though, it seems to ignore the fact that adding to the congestion by having more cars on the road increases the output by every vehicle. If a person who carpools really wants to make a difference, they would keep carpooling after they bought their hybrid. I work in DC and I don't know a single person that owns a hybrid that carpools.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Interesting statistics... But I understand where trzlucky and haroldo are coming from as well. More cars, more congestion, more aggravation, longer commute time, less efficiency, etc...

Also, most people with hybrids seem to want to maintain a speed as close to the speed limit as possible, meanwhile people in regular cars seem to speed like mad (HOV lane or no). It's no wonder they are angry about hybrids getting in the way of their 90 mph commute in a lane they only get to ride in because they pick up people from work that they probably hate anyway.:confused:

Also, when I had my gas guzzling Envoy I would carpool with anyone and everyone, but now that I have a hybrid I've carpooled maybe twice? When I go to work, there's hardly anyone on the road anyway, so I can just go.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

But I still don't understand the connection between the Hybrid and carpooling. In which way owning hybrid car stops you from using carpooling? except for your own conclusion " now that I spend less on gas I don't care no more"? I thought carpooling was mostly to lessen traffic jams? As far as driving fast, again I don't see the connection : I own hybrid and it's the minivans and SUV's driven by soccer moms that stand in my way of driving fast on half empty highways, the car itself is pretty capable of doing 90 MPH and more. I always got the impression that Volvo drivers are buying their cars for presumed safety reasons and would be driving slow and very careful most of the time as well.
But going back to original topic of Boston Legal show and their anti hybrid propaganda, outside of not having their facts together, they're about 15 years behind, since right now as far as I know just about any car manufacturer announced working on hybrid/electric models from GM to Mercedes and even Congress increased CAFE standards which would require some drastic changes in the way the cars are build. At the end it's not about Hybrids, but about more fuel efficient, less polluting cars with Hybrids being the best solution at the moment. Give me non polluting, water powered car at reasonable price and I'll switch tomorrow , vowing to never drive hybrid car again , but at the moment, between diesel, gas and hybrid we don't have many choices, do we? Being a writer for TV show doesn't make anybody smarter or more educated , just somebody with better writing skills, so their opinions count as much as anybody else who wasted time in science classes :)

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Have to say this used to be my assumption too, but frankly (and no offense to any out there but) my experience has been that people in Volvos can be some of the worst, stupidest, most irresponsible drivers out there. I haven't figured out if they're buying a safe car because they're horrible drivers, figure they can drive as badly as they want because their car is "safe", or they just don't get it. *shrug*

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

In my neck of the woods the majority of Volvo drivers appear to be Asian. Maybe that's the reason.

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

When I taught my daughters to drive, I asked them a trick question.
I asked them to point out the safe drivers, pointing to various cars, new and old.
They answered correctly, there are no safe drivers. I taught them to drive defensively and expect the worst when on the road.
The soccer mom in the SUV with a MADD bumber sticker and the kids buckled into their car seats seems like a safe driver, but she yaks on the phone.

Volvo, Toyota, Yugo...it doesn't matter...the roads are loaded with accidents waiting to happen.
It's your job to avoid them

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Something between 60% and 99% of all statistics are just made up out of thin air. More than 80% of the "research" articles that report the statistic on "just made up" statistics, claim the fraction that is "just made up" is somewhere between 80% and 95%. However, there is still much research to be done in this area, because the various researchers do not agree. ;)

Statistics is an important branch of mathematics. People who use statistics correctly are called "mathematicians", or sometimes "statisticians". People who use statistics, but who are not mathematicians, are usually called "salesmen".:angel:

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

Hey, I resemble that last remark!
There is no correct usage of statistics, since anyone can prove anything they want. Want to prove global warming? Just find a petrified tree stump from 3000 years ago...voila! You just proved it!
A statistician is someone who stands with their feet in a bucket of ice and their head in the oven and says "on average, I feel okay!"
Beware of the most insidious..."junk science", especially when in the hands of politicians seeking social (or environmental) change, or worse...lawyers (seeking a class action settlement).

Yogi once said "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical"

Re: Anyone catch "Boston Legal" 12/18?
 

I have nothing against Boston Legal and I'm sure it was great show, even if I never watch it, but that total nonsense report quoted in the show about Hummer having less environmental impact than Prius is a science fiction, actually I'm sorry it's not science fiction, it's a fantasy written by advertising company on the order of GM, to look like scientific paper and it was bad choice on the part of the authors to bring it into the show, IMO, since there are valid arguments against hybrids etc. but not that particular junk.
Now, c'mon Haroldo, statistics, like everything else, could be missused, just like the dynamite :) (could use it for building roads, or destroying cities), but if done properly, scientific way, statistics is a solid science. The problem with the climate in particular is two fold: it's a very complex interdependent system that we not fully understand. Also we have only one sample data (Earth itself)collected over very short time. But there are few facts that can't be disputed, like for example we are close to double the CO2 in the atmosphere in the past 100 years, mostly because of fossil fuels. We are also releasing other polutions like methane, which can't be good in the long run. My problem is, we really won't know for sure what the effects will be, until after the fact, when it could be too late to fix it. Of course, whatever doomsdayers say will most likely not happen, but at the same saying that oil will last forever and no matter how much we will burn, we'll find new fields, or that all that released polution will not affect us is as unrealistic. And yes, all that warming trend over past 10 to 15 years was all reversed in one year, by smaller solar output, se we are dealing with forces much larger than even our ignorence.