Hybrid 4 Runner?
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That would be the stupidest thing ever , hybrids are the biggest thing the american consumer can get sucked into.
To pay the add'l hybrid cost and maint. you would have to run that vehicle for a long , long time to break even if you were just buying regular fuel.
Just like taking out a loan on a house or vehicle , people dont care what it costs in the long run ( with interest and maint. ) just the monthly payment.( or gas in this case ).
Hybrids are a scam IMO.
To pay the add'l hybrid cost and maint. you would have to run that vehicle for a long , long time to break even if you were just buying regular fuel.
Just like taking out a loan on a house or vehicle , people dont care what it costs in the long run ( with interest and maint. ) just the monthly payment.( or gas in this case ).
Hybrids are a scam IMO.
Falls said:
I agree there is alot of hype surrounding hybrids. And I agree that the original idea of hybrids -- to actually significantly improve fuel economy -- has been lost, but frankly anything that improves mileage without sapping performance is worth spending money on IMO.
The thing that annoys me is how everyone now assumes hybrids get great gas mileage, when in reality the new batch of hybrids are really not much better in that department than their gasoline equivalents (the new Camry, for example).
True, but I like the idea. R&D takes a lot of money and time. People who bought a Sony Cassette Walkman back in the late 80's probably wouldn't have imagined that in just 15 years they'd be able to store every single song they own on a digital iPod that was 1/10 the size of their fancy Walkman. The hybrids of today are Walkmans. I want the R&D to continue so that tomorrow we have next-generation hybrids that have the performance of gasoline and big engines while getting 60+ m.p.g.
qballjr13
New member
I was reading Autoweek recently and someone had a GREAT point. Car manufacturers are introducing electric concept cars left and right. Most of the US' electricity is made from burning coal...so we all need more electricity to "charge" our cars, wouldnt that mean we need to burn more coal to make electricity? And doesnt that just cause more polution? And what happens to people in California that frequently have rolling brown or blackouts? I'll take hydrogen power ANY DAY!
dingo
New member
There are other ways to generate electricity other than coal though. I guess it's just more in abundance and readily available. The cleaner ways would be solar or water/turbine. There's always nuclear but that has its own can of worms.
I would seriously consider hybrid if the power plant can seriously match or even surpass the output of our present engines given its intent and requisites for use in an SUV. Although, that probably won't be for a while.
I wish all my vehicles can run on banana peels and empty beer cans - cold fusion flux capacitor.
I would seriously consider hybrid if the power plant can seriously match or even surpass the output of our present engines given its intent and requisites for use in an SUV. Although, that probably won't be for a while.
I wish all my vehicles can run on banana peels and empty beer cans - cold fusion flux capacitor.
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I wouldn't say they're a scam - but I would agree that given the current price of gas and the premium charged for hybrids it doesn't make much financial sense, at least for me. In my case I drive about 16,000 miles/year. If I average about 18 mpg that means I use 888.gallons of gas/year. If I drove a Hybrid Highlander, I'd average about 30mpg which means I'd use 533 gallons of gas/year, so I'd use 355 fewer gallons each year. 355 gallons x $3.00 gallon = $1,065 savings on gas each year. Thus it would take many years of gas savings to make up for the additional front end cost premium of getting a hybrid which can cost about an extra 4 thousand dollars or so. Even if gas gets to $5.00/gallon I'd still only save $1,775 on gas / year.Falls said:
So to me hybrids just aren't worth it - yet.
TheBlueWave
New member
Sac State said:
What about a diesel hybrid.
Falls, you say hybrids are a scam, and that statement has some merit, but allow me to respectfully retort.
Hybrids are expensive now but the price will come down as manufacturers learn to design and make them better and cheaper. Its clearly the most efficient way to power an auto (unless the battery needs recharging) at this time. In my line of work, I see lots of batteries and the R&D is improving them very much. IMO, the better the battery, the better the hybrid vehicle.
I believe the real scam is ethanol fuel. It takes more energy to make it than it gives back to you. Its the biggest scam in energy right now. It needs HEAVY subsidation to even exist. Its a case where the government and the political process (i.e. politicians helping themselves and their friends get rich) should make way for scientists and engineers to figure out our energy problem. E-85 gives you a 20% drop in fuel economy, maybe more in certain applications. Its gov't subsidized price hides the fact that its uneconomical and will drive the price of meat up (cornfed chickens, cows, hogs, ect). I like to eat meat, so I'll buy a hybrid, but only if the ethanol scam stops RIGHT NOW (sorry to offend corn farmers, just my $0.02).
Biodiesel, however, is much better as its just refined oil extracted from soybeans and other vegetable oils. It takes much less energy than ethanol to produce. Ethanol requires fermenting, filtration, distillation and condensation. The latter two processes require HUGE amounts of energy.
You can see how strongly opinionated I am about this issue, just the ChemE in me :awais: .
Hybrid in the distant future will be gone , and just like the Sony walkman story mentioned above thee will be a whole new consumer item .
There are ways we can make use of our own resources and supply our own fuel at a very resonable cost to consumers. Big oil does not like that idea.....it gets nixed . Just my .02
Back in the 70's gas crunch ....(yes I'm that old) their was a local man ( West Bend Wi.) who invented a item carb rebuild kit fuel saver ( not a Tornado type of thing , it actually was a reconfiguration of the carb.) It actually worked very well as I actually knew people that he re vamped the carb on. Long story short ... our wonderful Gov't leaned so heavy on him he had to stop. His pat.pend was stopped in its tracks and bought out buy a National Energy company (so to speak) to further develop..... it was scrapped with in a week of the patent being bought out.
We have the knowledge IMO to make vehicles get much better milage and having good HP with the technology we even have today. It way to controlled and we pay the price.
Right now to consumers the hot ticket is HYBRID so thats what they will push.
There are ways we can make use of our own resources and supply our own fuel at a very resonable cost to consumers. Big oil does not like that idea.....it gets nixed . Just my .02
Back in the 70's gas crunch ....(yes I'm that old) their was a local man ( West Bend Wi.) who invented a item carb rebuild kit fuel saver ( not a Tornado type of thing , it actually was a reconfiguration of the carb.) It actually worked very well as I actually knew people that he re vamped the carb on. Long story short ... our wonderful Gov't leaned so heavy on him he had to stop. His pat.pend was stopped in its tracks and bought out buy a National Energy company (so to speak) to further develop..... it was scrapped with in a week of the patent being bought out.
We have the knowledge IMO to make vehicles get much better milage and having good HP with the technology we even have today. It way to controlled and we pay the price.
Right now to consumers the hot ticket is HYBRID so thats what they will push.
JungleJim
New member
qballjr13 said:
I've researched this quite a bit since I teach a unit on energy.
Even thought there is pollution produced when we generate electricity, the coal burning power plants are more efficient at converting the coal into electricity than our vehicles are at converting gasoline into usable energy (kinetic).
I was like you before I researched this..."Why trade one source of pollution for another?" But what we need to look at is how to provide ourselves with convenient transportation with the least amount of pollution [and the most efficient energy conversion]'
Hydrogen, on the other hand, seems like a huge scam. It seems like it was concocted so that the current oil companies could switch over to supplying hydrogen. Thus they would be saved.
I think the newer hybrids with the option to "plug-in" are a great compromise and also address the issue of limited range. Gasoline engines cannot compete with the torque you get with electric motors.
Like gRunner3 was pointing out, this technology is just at the beginning stages. It will significantly improve over the years.
Jeff Kleb
New member
Falls said:
I am that old as well, my friend, and I recall those days of high inflation, high interest rates, odd-even gasoline rationing (while the tank farms were overflowing), the ill-fated GM "reverse engineered" diesel Oldsmobiles, etc., etc. But I digress.
The device to which you refer was the Pogue Carburetor. There was a write-up about it decades ago in Popular Mechanics, I believe. Many people dismissed it as fiction, although it did exist and performed well in laboratory tests. The inventor was probably made wealthy beyond his wildest dreams by signing an agreement not to produce the dang thing.
:bash:
We have the ability to make vehicles even more fuel-efficient, but the US consumers nearly always opt for more size & power than better fuel mileage. If miles per gallon were the primary criteria for vehicles, there would be more Sentras, Corollas and Escorts on the road and fewer 4Runners, Escalades, Durangos and Grand Cherokees.
As for future fuel options, I am still a guarded skeptic regarding hybrids. Would I buy one? Not likely.....since I am so "old school" that I was around before the school itself. Nevertheless, I am happy that other people buy them (see the 'Walkman' analogy in a previous thread). On a related note, so many people bought those big-screen TV sets for five grand, so that I'll be able to get a better one for under a thousand bucks in another year or two.
:beer:
Plug-in electric cars offer a choice for people in dense cities with shorter commutes and an available power source both at home and at work. Few of us "out in the 'burbs" want a car that would have the equivalent of a two-gallon fuel tank which took three hours to refill, right?
The effort required to generate the needed power brings forth greater demand and some extra pollution, although the power company can get more BTUs from the same amount of pollution than everybody's individual engines. Plus, it is easier to keep a power plant's emissions in check than to worry about cars getting older, neglected and dirtier as they rack up the miles.
Hydrogen has a lot of promise, but there still exist problems with the pressure required, storage, volatility and distribution networks. More R&D will have to be done; that's for sure.
Diesels have improved greatly in the past decade and the benefits of oil-burners have been proven through billions of actual miles driven by owners. Today's turbodiesels offer performance and economy far beyond gasoline engines sold just a few years ago, although particulate emissions remain the largest obstacle (again, technology helps significantly).
Ethanol has issues all to itself - lower BTU content, reduced miles per gallon and transport/distribution concerns (water in fuel) that gasoline avoids. Nevertheless, it could be a supplement to gasoline-powered vehicles, offers very high octane performance and is a very clean fuel from an emissions standpoint. And, of course, the "opportunity cost" involved could affect food prices - another unintended economic consequence that must be considered as part of an overall energy plan.
P.S. The "Flux Capacitor" seems like a better idea. It would be great to have a Mr. Fusion device on your car that could get you to work on banana peels and empty soda cans.
:bigok: :biggrin2:
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charlier180
New member
Jeff Kleb said:
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Hybrids etc.
I would agree that more could be done to work the current gas engine design to push better mileage (maybe even give up a little bit of horsepower) If a 80,000 lb disel truck can get around 6 to 7 mpg then you should be able to get a 3800 to 4000 lb truck get better than 21 mpg.
But instead all we see is bigger engines, larger trucks and it just keeps going. I don't understand how everyone can afford it now at around 55.00 per tank but they just keep driving and going 85 mph. No cares.
sorry if this seems like a rant.
Paul C
I would agree that more could be done to work the current gas engine design to push better mileage (maybe even give up a little bit of horsepower) If a 80,000 lb disel truck can get around 6 to 7 mpg then you should be able to get a 3800 to 4000 lb truck get better than 21 mpg.
But instead all we see is bigger engines, larger trucks and it just keeps going. I don't understand how everyone can afford it now at around 55.00 per tank but they just keep driving and going 85 mph. No cares.
sorry if this seems like a rant.
Paul C
