In my opinion, hybrid cars really aren’t that great. Don’t get me wrong, I like “being green” as much as the next person. However, hybrids don’t perform as well as other technologies in real world tests, they will be costly to maintain and they are complicated. I think it is a patch. Why don’t car companies in the US sell us ultra efficient diesels and work on a way to mass produce the hydrogen fuel cell so that it is cost effective? Like this car?
Me too. It’s the new Ford Fiesta. It gets 65 miles to the gallon…and it’s a diesel. Too bad it won’t be sold in America, because America thinks diesel fuel is dirtier than gasoline, so there is no market for it here. Ford bets they would loose money by bringing it to America. In actuality, diesel is easier to refine and therefore has the potential to be cheaper than gas…on an existing distribution network of gas stations. Audi, a sports car company, has been making 45+ mpg diesels for the past 7 years like the one see here. So, while Europe is set to get the above in November of this year, we are set to get this:
The Chevy Volt….in 2010! An electric car that gets 40 miles on a single charge. If you run out of juice, it’s okay, it will have a gas engine. They will try to keep it under 40k, so you can afford it. I could probably buy 2 Fiesta’s with that (although, I’d much rather have the previously mentioned Audi). Heck, a lot of people in metro areas like Atlanta travel 40 miles one way to work. Seriously, what good is this?
Sure, the Toyota Pirus and other hybrids are good cars to own new, but what about when it hits 100k miles? You have 2 separate auto systems to maintain. The cost of ownership over the lifespan of the car may turn out to be more than say a regular car that gets 35 miles to the gallon. Plus, hybrids don’t get the rated gas mileage in a lot of real world situations. I think the hydrogen fuel cell is the best solution and I don’t see why more companies aren’t allocating more R and D dollars to developing it faster. Honda and Toyota are. They both have got concepts out, like below:
They supposedly accelerate and drive like a normal car, emit only water vapor and hydrogen would be cheaper to produce. Plus, any country could produce it, not just certain foreign governments, some of which are hostile towards our own. But, then again oil companies are probably the ones holding America back because they are making too much money in oil. It’s not to their economic advantage to put hydrogen stations in. Until it is, they aren’t going to do anything about it on their own. The government would have to be forced to offer gas companies incentives to add hydrogen to their current stations to help build the infrastructure to support fuel cell cars.In the mean time give us the most efficient gasoline and diesel powered cars available to cut gas consumption and slow the emission of carbon.
Does this make anyone else upset? Enough of me on the soapbox, lets hear from you.
Filed under: environmental, in general, rants
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
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[...] that hybrids Posted on May 25, 2009 by Brian Harrison I posted a couple of months back about hybrid cars being a patch and that ultra efficient diesels were, I thought, a much better [...]
we should all be driving diesels! the fuel is easier to make they have a much longer life span. and you dont need to buy fuel i get paid to convert some old french fry grease into fuel for my dodge ram mega cab and now i burn cleaner than a toyota prius i have more cargo space and i have more cab room and i get a constant 23mpg and if worse come to worse i can just fill up with regular diesel which is cheaper than gas here in California right now
definitely. diesels are a much better option, especially when you can run it off of fry grease or another alternative fuel like you do.