Hybrid/electric vs gas discussion

My "new" Elantra still averages 40 mpg, is a stick, has done 40K without a hitch and doesn't have to haul huge batteries so it only weighs 2660lbs.

Cost brand new was $16.5K.

I drive a LOT, 41.5K in 6 months, how could a hybrid have been a better choice for my use?

Volt is useless with its low electric range, Prius is substantially more expensive.

I also carry large people without issue, including 6'5" 350lbers and can fit wheelchairs (folding) into truck with my personal crap.

Not finding any reason to regret my choice, at all.

As a bonus my car didn't get any money from the government to develop at a cost to the taxpayer.

As a side note, I would bet Obama hates Hyundai at this time.

We almost always tend to evaluate financial decisions from only one side of the equation. Democrats like to look at the revenue side, Republicans looks at the expense side.

When it comes to Hybrids, we only look at the expense side. We look at the initial purchase price, the operational cost, the repair cost, the long term replacement cost, the environmental impact cost.

There is also an income side to them.

Like it or not, my customers don't give a darn if I an happy driving an '87 Cutlass or '84 CRX. They think I am a nut job, and hesitate to do business with me.

When I started using a Mac, people noticed. A LOT of people noticed.

Though I do not like it, the word "Hybrid" translates to an enormous number of consumers as "responsible", "modern", "cool", "environmentally conscious", and "quality". Companies that utilize large numbers of hybrids and posture themselves as environmentally responsible are perceived as good companies that evoke a sense of quality.

The GRM crowd is a ridiculously small percentage of the population. If I want the vehicle I drive to impress my customers, I can choose between the 70% of the population who will be impressed with me driving a Prius, or the 0.02% who will like my 1987 VW Veggie burner.

There are times when this will impact people's buying decisions, and equate to a revenue producing side of the decision.

It is very possible that my next vehicle will be a fairly large, luxurious hybrid, even if I think they are stupid.

Maybe I'm a Luddite, but I do not EVER want automated cars. What if the automation grid goes down? Now you are surrounded by people who could just never be bothered with learning to drive trying to get somewhere and most likely just freaking out instead. Also, people are so freakin' lazy already it's not funny, why add one more layer of laziness?

Hybrids are a stopgap on the way to better things. They are also, like SVreX pointed out, the latest marketing tool. The last big thing was the safety freakout, once the mfgs got done stuffing airbags in every available orifice to create the illusion of safety and couldn't go any further they had to come out with something new to impress the sheeple with. Voila, hybrids.

mguar wrote: I crunched the numbers and as they exist now a Ford Focus sport and Ford Focus hybrid cost within $65 of each other (the Hybrid is cheaper)

Where is the Focus Hybrid? I see no hybrid Focus, only an electric, and it's WAY more than a gas Focus - like more than twice as much.

I see a Fusion Hybrid and that's $8500 more than a gas Fusion.

All this hybrid hate is funny. Sometimes we have to take the GRM blinders off and recognize that a 91 Crx may get good mileage but is a death trap compared to a new car. In fact most older cars are.

We have a Prius and it has been great. Base model. $24k in 2007 and now has 95k faultless miles of averaging 48 mpg year round (less in winter more in summer). So far we've seen zero degradation of performance and the price difference between the Prius and a matrix (compare interior volume) has been more than made up for.

It's comfortable. Reliable. Spacious and I know my lady will get wherever she needs to go in safety. If you want to stick loved ones in a 1984 Civic feel free. I don't.

I see both sides, I just don't like that advertising has snowed people into believing that hybrids are the saviors of the universe. They may put out fewer smog emissions, but they sure put out more smug emissions.

Automation may make being on the road safer but it doesn't make drivers safer. I think we're going about it the wrong way. Instead of making cars that automatically brake and park for us, why not make it more restrictive to get a driver's license? Before we randomly make drivers more passive, how about we teach idiots not to cruise in the left lane, or how to safely negotiate on-ramps without causing 5-car pile-ups?

We're giving anyone with a pulse a driver's license. How about teaching people to drive and actually testing their abilities before giving them the license?

And what about in 5 years when the front bumper radar sensor goes bad? That person who has learned to drive for five years with less regard for the car in front of them may now kill someone if caught off guard.

I don't have a "hatred" of anything. What pi$$es me off is the fact that advertising and the fooling of the general public is skewing the economy toward big-dollar cars with all these options that we "need" to be safe. I don't have kids, but if I did they would learn to drive in a 4-speed manual AMC hornet with manual drum brakes and non-power steering. That way when I actually put them on a road in a modestly priced safe vehicle that DOES have all those options, they actually know how to drive. My kids would have to prove to me that they could drive before I let them on the road instead of buying them a car that drives for them.

mguar wrote: Based on your thinking all Americans must be lazy stooges of marketing. They clearly showed that buying those Honda's Toyota's and BMW's instead of the Pinto, Vega, and Gremlin's. As for your insistence they learn how to drive a Car made by a company that marketing couldn't save? Well that should stand on it's own face..

So you're saying that marketing is what makes a car great? Wrong. Its what makes a car sell. Two entirely different things.

As flawed as the American public is we are massively ahead skill wise over the Billions of Chinese and Indian drivers who's goal less than a decade ago was to be able to buy a Bicycle.

Couldn't disagree more. Those people are given crap roads and cars equipped with none of those fancy options. They have learned to drive by adapting to the paradigms surrounding them. Is it a safe system? Hell no... but at least we didn't give them a license just for having a pulse and then adapt the car market and highway system to accommodate the worst drivers.

Before you denigrate all American drivers, Look to the AJ Foyts and Dan Gurney's we've produced.. For every stupid, lousy, example of a driver there are more on the racetrack every weekend pushing whatever they have to their limit..

Wait a minute... just because we HAVE a large racing market and we've funneled down the finest drivers doesn't mean those drivers don't exist in other countries. Its funny you mention AJ Foyt considering that some of the finest F1 drivers ever came from Germany and Italy... two vastly different countries when it comes to driving styles.

Yes there are fools in every endeavor. I certainly qualify as an incompetent fool when it comes to computers.. However I've been brilliant in building and driving race cars. That fool stopping at the end of the freeway on ramp may be brilliant in making a pie or sewing a patch on a drivers suit.. Let's try to be a little less critical and perhaps a bit kinder. People already have enough grief..

I suck at making pies... which means I don't make pies when company comes over for dinner. Just because someone makes a brilliant Crepe Suzette doesn't mean I give them a license and some car keys.

I will gladly celebrate the finest culinary creations, but if the chef can't pay attention to traffic and brake using his own brain, he shouldn't be driving on the roads that I pay to build. Period.

I'm not being critical of how others make a pie... for berkeley sake, dude. You are saying that if people have merit in making a rhubarb pie they should get a license??? Seriously???

My mother makes some of the finest pies on the planet. Do I think she should be driving a car? Hmmm, lemme think.... well, she does make a fine pie....

mguar wrote: Automation scares you? What if the stop lights stop working? Maybe we should go back to having a policeman on every corner to direct traffic? Or perhaps we'll muddle through until they are fixed? Automation is already here.. If you don't believe it don't ever get on an airplane. Don't drive down a street and have the stop lights change based on traffic patterns..

That kind of automation is a bit different. They aren't moving. If some dingdong is in an automated device that moves and the automation quits, we now have a big problem. That's also why airplanes have pilots: if the autopilot quits the good ol' backup meat intelligence can take over.

mguar wrote: Since we don't have someone come out at twilight to turn on street lights you can assume that's automated as well!

And there's always those two or three that are stuttering or don't turn on at all.

mguar wrote: I'll tell you what.. Go hook up your race car trailer by yourself. Next try it with a truck with a back up camera.. OK so you might not back over your kids bicycle or pet(s) backing up the driveway without a back up camera but with one you will feel a whole lot more secure..

The difference: since I know how to do it without the automation, if 'the grid' goes down I'll be the one eyed man in the land of the blind.

mguar wrote: Once you've driven in heavy traffic and parked at a crowded mall Tell me you don't want those automated blind spot systems.

I have a three phase blind spot system. Phase 1: convex spot mirrors. Phase 2: looking to the side/back to confirm what I think the mirrors told me. Phase 3 (low speed only): Turning my big ugly head as far as I can both ways to really confirm what I see.

mguar wrote: As for those GPS systems.. I like them.. I can just tell the system where I want to go and poof there's the direction on the screen. no stopping into a gas station to ask someone who doesn't know and wants to sell you a $5.00 map that won't tell you.

I have a very nice Garmin GPS. It's a very handy tool. It also has some weird habits: more than once I have glanced at it only to see that it is not showing the road I am on. It simply shows a little car suspended in white space. The green bar across the top does give the names of the roads coming up but the quick visual reference is gone. Then there's the days I fire up and start off, after about three minutes the GPS will beep and say 'cannot locate satellites'. I fully realize this has to do with the time of day and the position of the satellites with regard to my vehicle, but I am prepared with my handy dandy trustworthy $5.00 backup map. That means I may have to actually excercise my brain rather than have some electronic doodad do all my thinking for me, but on the flip side it keeps the old gray jelly exercised.

mguar wrote: As for your insistence that every American is a lazy stodge of marketing, It simply didn't work that way when Detroit was trying to sell Pinto's a Vega's back in the 1970's and 80's and Americans were flocking to Honda's, Toyota's and BMW's. Or selling the Edsel or any of million's of failed marketing attempts. You may not like all the choices the free market makes but it makes them.

Did you ever watch 'Malcolm in the Middle'? I LOVED that show, try to catch reruns whenever possible. In one episode, the dad asks the mom 'Do you want it right or do you want it fast?'. She ponders this for a second and says, 'I'm an American, I want it fast'. There's too much of the 'Burger King' mentality already; go to the first window holler 'FIX MY CAR!' (or house, or life or whatever) then go to the second window 30 seconds later, get your car (or house, or life or whatever) repair thrown at you in a bag. True craftsmanship that lasts takes time and effort. Most people have been raised without that patience gene. They don't want to be bothered with having to actually think about anything other than playing 'Angry Birds'. So marketing has grown to embrace that, in the process destroying any concept of craftsmanship. Yeah, I see a problem there.

mguar wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: My "new" Elantra still averages 40 mpg, is a stick, has done 40K without a hitch and doesn't have to haul huge batteries so it only weighs 2660lbs. Cost brand new was $16.5K. I drive a LOT, 41.5K in 6 months, how could a hybrid have been a better choice for my use? Volt is useless with its low electric range, Prius is substantially more expensive. I also carry large people without issue, including 6'5" 350lbers and can fit wheelchairs (folding) into truck with my personal crap. Not finding any reason to regret my choice, at all. As a bonus my car didn't get any money from the government to develop at a cost to the taxpayer. As a side note, I would bet Obama hates Hyundai at this time.

Huge Batteries? well the one in a Ford Fusion weigh 135 pounds.. (yep that's the hybrid batteries) the one in Fords SUV are much heavier though, they weigh 200 pounds.. As to saving fuel.. Yes there are exceptions.. However most Americans drive an average of 15,000 miles per year.. 80/20 rule.. 80% urban/20% rural. Under those conditions a Hybrid can save $20,000 in Gas over the 1st decade.. {Figure another $5000 a decade for every dollar over $4.00 a gallon gas is).. Well actually more since with regenerative braking the brakes last more than 2X as long.. oil changes are done less frequently, and there are several other potential savings as well. You can be the exception.. that's fine. It's a free society.. However next time your inching along in a traffic jam tell me you wouldn't like to be not using any gas to do so..

The Fusion gets an EPA 41 mpg on the highway, my Elantra gets 40mpg average, real world, every tank. That includes any inching along in traffic BTW. The Fusion cost is about $4000 more than my Elantra.

My oil changes are at 7500 miles, about every 6 weeks.

I live in a rural area and rarely see heavy traffic, maybe two or three times a year despite three or four trips a week into Columbus, Toledo, Dayton or even Cleveland.

Can the Fusion fit a wheelchair in the trunk? This is a genuine question.

My statement did not mention other drivers, I asked how a hybrid could be better for my situation.

In spite of his current post count of 164, it appears likely that Mr. mguar will be blasting into the top ten posters within a week or two.

He certainly is an interesting guy and I for one am glad he is along for the ride, I love his Jag expertise.

He still has a ways to go to catch up to Quasi Mofo and yours truly. (sound of gauntlet hitting the dirt) He knows his Jag stuff and if he keeps going, I'll wind up with an XJS under the knife yet.

No complaints here either. Just noticing.

I wonder if anyone knows how much the battery in a Focus Hybrid and a SUV hybrid weighs...

65 MPG Ford Fiesta

For those that think Hybrid is the answer to the fuel economy question.

On a un-antagonistic note, what a can of worms I have opened here.

I have been known to stir the pot, so I'll take the blame

At this point with the high end battery technology being squashed by patents purchased by the oil companies, in the end battery technology is the source of pollution for electrified vehicles. Since that is the crutch on most hybrids truly becoming efficient (environmentally as well as economically) there in lies the problem.

That is why, IMHO, hybrids right now are waste, I believe that electrical storage techniques need to be updated.

Big oil? Try and stop them. And try and stop Pablo's people from using drug money to buy arms from Li's countrymen who in turn sells them to Ura's people so that they can ethnically clense the rest of this nauseatingly diverse grab bag of genetic party favors you call a family. So now you all understand, yes? You all hate each other!

Just drove a little over 475 miles at an average speed of 60 mph, 60 % interstate. 38+ mpg. 2011 Fiesta. Cold weather seemed to have some affect. got better in the summer.

I have noticed the same issues in my X3. I get 28 on the highway in the summer (70 mph cruise) and 25 now.

Better gas in summer.

So it isn't just me, I saw a slight dip also

I hear they change the gas a little in winter. I'm not sure how though. Maybe more ethanol?

It has something to do with volatility.The fuel must contain a large enough proportion of highly voliatile components for a good cold start. There is a thing called vapor pressure. 0.7 in the summer and 0.9 in th winter. More ethanol would make it harder to start. Alchohol does not like the cold.

DILYSI Dave wrote: I wonder if anyone knows how much the battery in a Focus Hybrid and a SUV hybrid weighs...

Wow, I must have missed that part, maybe 5-6 times. What was it, 1500 pounds?

Luke wrote: Does anybody have a good source for total typical Hybrid-vehicle production cost, (in terms of emissions)?

Couple interesting, if somewhat unrelated, factoids:

The majority of pollution created by a car is from is manufacture, not its use.

The ship that brings a car over from Japan will produce more pollution than the car will over its projected life.

That ship also burns only about 20 gallons of fuel per car. This isn't to say that the ship pollutes horribly, this is just a measure of how clean cars really are.

Some OEMs do their emissions certification/testing with manufactured air. Big tanks of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon to simulate air. The current test standards are so low that it's the only way to be accurate.