This: [Link: theguardian.com]. Mentioning that

I'm no expert, but for years this has seemed to be an obvious thing that nobody talks about.

One of the first reports I heard about hybrid cars had the reporter gushing about the huge economy of the vehicles. The example was some guy who plugged in his hybrid car at the end of the day, thus extending his gas mileage to almost a hundred miles per gallon. What a knuckle-headed assertion!

Of course that's a ridiculous idea, since using electrical power is just an additional way to power the car and it doesn't change how much distance the gas part of the equation provides. But until now I haven't seen a simple explanation, for the people as it were, noting such things as the fact that charging at a Whole Foods might just be using coal-fired power to pimp out your ride.

It's especially misleading not to realize that clean air in Los Angeles that results from using Four Corners electricity... is not clean air. It's just Los Angeles having found a technical way to make its smog appear somewhere else.

Sure as of now, the electric cars are just as bad as gas cars. However thinking in the long term, electric cars are going to be better.

You can't recycle the spent fuel in a gas or Diesel car. But in an electric car, you absolutely can recycle the batteries. At this point it's not that great as the technology is new.

Besides, some of those electric car users have PV panels on the roof. Some of them are directly charging a bank of batteries to charge their car. So the power company never sees the use of it... I know this one company in CA that has this set up and they never pulled a permit because it didn't tie into the electrical grid.

KOT

One of my favorite Top Gear episodes is the one where they track a Prius to establish it'a performance. It gets an abysmal 14 MPG and a terrible track time. They then match its pace with an M3. The M3 gets 16 MPG. Hybrids are dumb.

+1 and whats funnier is the people that drive priussess drive them like they stole them. Makes no Sense.

It doesnt take a rocket science to figure out that hybrids and electric vehicles are worse for the environment then the highly sophisticated emissions systems that are on the cars.

This being said, PA is offering an absolutely unbelievable offer for purchasing a fully electric vehicle for business. on top of the electric company offering to upgrade my panel to 200amps for free and install a charging station That I would own (basically reimburse me up to 2500 bucks for one that I would purchase) This makes this very very attractive. Coupled with my BMW loyalty, good negotiations ive gotten a quote for a I3 10k lease out the door for 131 bucks a month with zero down. with everything I get tax credit wise they are paying me basically to have the silly thing! It will make an awesome sales and service vehicle/city vehicle for the business if i choose todo it.

Im nulling it over as our future president will for sure cancel these ridiculous tax credits that are further deepening our debt. In case anyone is wondering the reason why you can get an electric vehicle for next to nothing is due to the car manufacturers having to sell them to offset their CAFE ratings to lessen the blow of the "fine" they receive for not meeting them. Ever wonder why a diesel costs 5000-7500 more then the gasoline equivalent? that is thanks to the extraordinarily sophisticated exhaust system that is required on all diesels. It is pretty cool though that all that comes out is essentially water vapor....still its just crazy!

"As LONG as it sounds good it must be good" I wish I could sell a bridge to the EPA.

Many people have been talking about it. I read an article like this 5 or 6 years ago where the Hummer H2 was ranked "better for the environment" over the Prius. Obviously anyone who believes that nonsense needs medication, therapy or brain surgery.


I don't watch Top Gear and i don't know what "track time" is but i do know this. I drove a Prius around Arizona for 2 months. I never got less than 40mpg. Show me an M3 that can do that in the real world. It's not going to happen.


Hybrids are/were the stepping stone between gas guzzlers and electric cars. Hybrids are old technology at this point. You do realize that we are about to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the first commercially available hybrid cars right?

Electric cars are the new technology. The fact that they need to charge up via the electric grid is not the problem. The problem is that some of that grid is powered by caveman technology like coal...because cavemen and the politicians they own, don't want to let go of their last century industry. Carter put solar panels on the white house and then a caveman ripped them off. Had we poured money into solar technology instead of the middle east for oil we wouldn't need gas or coal and we wouldn't know what 9/11 was.

Its time to once and for all quit funding terrorism with our oil dependency. Its time to quit digging for things to burn like cavemen. Free clean energy shines all across the country every day and its up to us to stop being cavemen and start acting like modern people living in a civilized nation.

Like the rocket scientist that posted before you? Anyone that believes electric vehicles are worse for the environment, long term, than gasoline is too stupid for words.

I found the article...Its from 2007. Koch Brother funded "think" tank.

[Link: ncpa.org]

You are just a special kind of special today. While you are "nulling" it over, please solve cancer and world hunger with your vast wisdom

Enlighten me with your vast wisdom of this topic?

Its known fact over and over that the way these cars are not only produced, "fueled" and scrapped are worse for the environment then their gasoline cousins. since nuclear power is nixed the only way to fuel them is by using old technology like coal, gas, etc etc etc to fuel them. ever wonder how the solar panels are made? they are HORRIBLE for the environment, then to dispose of them when they are past their lifetime? Awful. Ever wonder what happens to the batteries in these that are no longer useful? ill let you look it up to see.

The government uses and places these types of legislation and credits for cars to look at the initial immediate impact because our politicians don't care nor do they want to look at how the sausage is made. As long as it tickles the social justice epa snow flakes then its all good.

I am NOT saying our cars are not better then cars of the 50's because they are not. you have to be an idiot to NOT agree that the cars we drive today are better for the environment then the cars of yesteryear. But to stick your head in the sand and to say that hybrids and electric vehicles are currently better then their gasoline cousins without looking at the manufacturing and the disposal of them is absolutely mindbogglingly retarded.

We will get there and there is no question electric cars will be part of the future. But we need to look at how we will "fuel" them and dispose of them that will not harm our environment. Until then anyone driving one of these without looking at how this effects the environment has no business thinking they are saving the polar bears or the "global warming" debate.

40MPG in a prius is possible, if you drive it how they are supposed to be driven. Every single prius driver though spews they smugness out their tailpipe as they blow by going 90mph getting 12MPG....Idiotic. If they weren't to busy smelling their own farts or "wanting/thinking" they are saving the environment with their prius then they could see that they are no better then the truck next to them

Brendon, thanks to Volkswagen, it's been discovered that Diesel engines are not near as clean as we previously thought. They now know that diesel exhaust releases different gases than gasoline exhaust, and it's far worse. Several cities around the world are taking steps to ban diesel vehicles.

Hence dieselgate because those chemicals were known and why these huge complex exhaust systems exist. When the system is designed right and not cheating they are cleaner then gas. The DEF (urea basically ammonia) mixes with these systems to make water vapor. Very cool!

Of course there is controversies on how the urea is made if it's clean

Who gives a shit?


Wife is driving a Ford Fusion hybrid, and loves it. Many times better fuel mileage (40+ average).





My lawnmower uses more gas than her car....

A friend of mine in high school had a ford festiva that got 30mpg. That was almost 25 years ago and it didn't have a plug.

Not here- they drive those stupid POS like it's a damn golf cart. ALWAYS in the way and slowing 1/4 mile from the stop light. Before it turns red.

Yes, so which is it? Prius driving like speed racers or Prius driving like grandmas? I've heard both complaints. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Hybrids: If you extract the large batteries, salvaging those cars is no different than any other car. From what I've read, the batteries get recycled, so how is this different than any other vehicle?

Same can be said about total electric cars. Extract the batteries and the salvage after lifespan is not that different an standard auto.

However, one fact that is overlooked: Batteries, while getting better, don't typically last the life of the car. So total fuel savings are offset by the cost of new batteries before the car is finally scrapped. That IS a point against hybrids and electric cars. But that wasn't the point of any detractors here.

Stick with the facts and not a bunch of anti alternative fuels rhetoric.