Have you hugged your Hummer today?

Here´s a study (pdf) conducted by the Belgium government with a different conclusion:
http://etecmc10.vub.ac.be/etecphp/publicat...ethodologie.pdf

It's in Dutch (Flemish actually), don't have time right now to find the interesting bits to translate for you guys/girls. Will try to read it soon.

One interesting statement I saw was, yes, it costs more to build a Prius, but this more than compensated by the lower consumption (we don't do mileage, ehm, kilometrage here, but consumption: lower numbers are better).

 

Wow, they sure make it sound good. Funny though when you go to their site, they make it clear that it is a "consumer report" and not a technical one....go figure.

Also, sighting incorrect data about things like mileage...already things don't add up.

 

Here we go again... :angry: Spinella's "company" CNW Marketing is the same company that published that totally bogus study before.

I posted a link to my refutation at http://priuschat.com/index.php?s=&showtopi...ndpost&p=272611. I also attached the files they had up at the time, but it looks like they put up new stuff at http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/ (no time to go look through that yet).

They had TOTAL BS like the Prius (w/excellent reliability) lasting only 109K miles and unreliable vehicles like the Ford Expedition lasting 284K miles. They also had insane claims that it cost $2.5 MILLION to DISPOSE of a VW Phaeton and $325K to DISPOSE of a Prius which they claim cost $13K to make.

 

In a related report, Teen pregnancy: give youngsters something to to!

 

The poster cwerdna has it right. This is not even fresh nonsense, it's recycled nonsense.

There are several threads here on this topic. For example, see:

http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=2...=0&#entry289146

If you take their "energy cost per mile" number for the Civic, assume that we all drove Civics, then the total "energy cost" of US driving would consume more than three-quarters of US GDP. Clearly nonsense. The references to the source data are in my post in the above-referenced thread.

So, you can either dispute their basic facts or point out how ludicrous their "energy cost per mile" numbers are. It's still baloney no matter how you slice it.

 

Well, the other aspect to this story which in my mind is clear evidence that the author is generating a biased approach is the implication that a vehicle like the hummer uses less energy in its manufacture because it shares parts with other vehicles. I guess this means that in the calculations used to determine energy consumption in the manufacture of a Hummer, they didn't account for any parts that it had in common with other vehicles. I'm surprised that the author bothered to include "steel", cited as the major component, since this is also found in other vehicles...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mssmith95 @ Jul 19 2006, 11:50 PM) [snapback]289244[/snapback]</div>

Definition of a "consumer report"; Something written by the marketing department and checked by legal to keep their collective butts out of court.

 

Its just more right wing nonsense...

 

The report claims that the Prius has a usable life of only 100,000 miles versus a Hummer at 300,000. Who drives a Hummer to 300,000 miles? Who can afford to?

According to the study, the Hummer costs about $1.90 a mile to drive and the Prius costs over $3. This is assuming that the Hummer has three times the usable life (which is simply not realistic). Even if the batteries need to be replaced at 100,000 miles, the rest of the Prius is good for quite a bit longer. The hybrid system saves wear on the engine (especially at startup) and the brake pads last close to forever. The Prius taxi with 200,000+ miles on it immediately comes to mind, invalidating the article in my eyes. They make a lot of bad assumptions. I would be interested to know who funded the research.

 

As Penn and Teller (or I guess Penn) would say "BULLSHIT!"

Take any topic and you can always gather info in just the right way, to argue why one thing is better than another. What this study seems to indicate is that we should never look beyond gas - It's the fact that hybrids are new that this "cost" they come up with is more. It makes sense - it takes a lot more time and energy to research a brand new technology than it does to stick a regular old gas engine in there.

Couldn't we also say that this same "cost" they came up with would be far less for an old 27" color TV than a new 27" plasma HD tv? Old technology will always have a cheaper cost, especially the longer it is around for.

And this was my favorite. 300k miles on a Hummer? Yeah.. but you could proably have bought a new one with all you'd spend to keep it going for that extra $200k miles. And how do they come up with 100k miles for a Prius? I expect to keep mine for at least $150k and then expect someone else will get a lot more out of it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jul 20 2006, 10:23 AM) [snapback]289338[/snapback]</div>

So, they're doing us and the environment a favor by recycling. It also saves a lot of people the extra energy of refuting the same BS since they can just point to an existing link.

 

http://john1701a.com/prius/owners/jesse3.htm

 

Another great claim is "This means that when gas prices go up, these people don't rush out to buy more hybrids. "They buy a Chevy Aveo," says Spinella. "It delivers the same fuel economy as a Prius, but at half the price." Right...

From http://autos.msn.com/advice/CRArt.aspx?contentid=4023460, Consumer Reports got 44 mpg in the Prius and the Aveo made it in the worst fuel economy for small cars w/27 mpg w/a manual.

Car and Driver got 42 mpg w/a Prius and 24 mpg w/the Aveo per http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtests/7701...rius-page4.html and http://www.caranddriver.com/roadtests/7867...-ls-page3.htm.l

 

My response:

Dear Ms. Dalmia,

It was dismaying to see you repeat two hybrid falsehoods in your article, "Have You Hugged a Hummer Today?" I expected something more reasonable from the Reason Foundation.

The first was to quote Spinella's study as an authority. This study is fatally flawed by a single massive statistical error: The assumption that a hybrid has a life-expectancy of 100,000 miles whereas a Hummer will last for 300,000. Hybrids are not a new technology - the first Prius was introduced in Japan in fall 1997 - and it's already clear that their life expectancy is at least close to that of a traditional car, and probably the same. That single error invalidates all Spinella's conclusions. Where you or Spinella got the idea that 100,000 miles is "Toyota's own numbers" is a mystery, but it's obviously mistaken. The battery and hybrid drive alone are warranted for 150,000 miles in California, and as you know, nobody warrants something that they expect to have to replace for free.

Second, you write that Prius sales have dropped significantly. While it's true that they've dropped about 10 percent in 2006 compared to 2005, the reason isn't falling demand. There are still waiting lists for the Prius - something basically unheard of with a three-year old model. The reason for the decrease was simply that Toyota had to take production offline in preparation for the introduction of the Camry hybrid in May. Now that the Camry is in production, Prius deliveries are increasing, and sales in June '06 were higher than June '05. In fact, Toyota set a new record for total hybrid sales in May, and again in June. Total hybrid sales in the US also hit a record in May, and though they dropped slightly in June, they were still higher on a per-day average, and 20 percent higher than June 2005. ( http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/07/us_sales_of_hyb.html ) In many industries, 20 percent growth year-to-year would be regarded as quite strong. I see no obvious reason why hybrid car sales would be an exception.

In the meantime, sales of the Chevrolet Aveo - the car Spinella says is the one people actually buy when they want fuel economy - are down 19 percent year-to-year. ( http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2006/07/03/013587.html ) So he is officially 0-for-2 in your column.

Since the rest of your article is basically commentary on these two points, it comes off as rather a waste of your time. In the future, I hope you will be as skeptical of information that supports your pre-existing position as of information that calls it into question. As a journalist myself, I know this can be a challenge, but it's worth the effort - occasionally I find I even change my opinion on an issue!

As I believe you will with hybrid cars once you've done more research.

Many thanks for your attention.

Yours,

blah blah blah

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cwerdna @ Jul 20 2006, 03:29 AM) [snapback]289262[/snapback]</div>

The SUVs actually are shown to use more energy overall, but because they supposedly go >2x as far, the cost per mile is lower. If the Prius only went 135K miles on average, it would beat the SUVs at their own game using their own numbers.
That includes a Prius fuel economy of 45mpg in the beginning declining to 35 mpg by end of life. Consideration is made for factors the consumer doesn't pay for directly, like recycling (including warehouse storage time) and disposal of parts in landfills (helpfully included because the government needs to consider it when determining taxes and car incentives). But they didn't include road wear, increased property damage/fatalities in a large vehicle collision to external items, air pollution (health and environmental factors), paying for troops stationed in various locations in Middle East (outside of the Iraq war), and the very possible ramifications of stronger global warming.