I admit ignorance and minimal concern here…but I am curious if a car has to be hybrid to be green…
I did look at hybrids last year and I wasn’t impressed that the mileage delta was worth it. Seems to me high mileage smaller city cars–Smart, e.g.?–would go a longer way for more transportation on the same gallon of gas. So I’m not clear on how much inference for “green cars” should be taken from diminished hybrid sales alone.
It does seem that gas guzzling SUVs have taken bigger hits than any other group. Am I wrong about that?
If you consider E-85 fuel green I can tell you that Chrysler has been using since it at least since 1994. To be perfectly honest I don’t consider batteries of any kind green at all and on any hybrid they will need to be replaced. It’s only a matter of what you care to pollute. The ground or the air. Batteries require both disposal and the burning of fuel, generally fossil, to charge them, in any case.
Batteries are nasty shit and I recycle every single one I use.
I have never considered E-85 to be a viable alternative as some of it is food that human beings could be living on.
Chryslers first production hybrid will be, you guessed it, an SUV.
Well actually there wil be some sort of equilibrium. AS more hybrids hit the road the lesser the demand for gasoline thus helping keep the price down, which in turn lowers the demand for hybrids, until you reach some sort of equilibrium.
Of course the real world is not static like that, but there is of course a strong relationship between the two. Of course hybrid sales have slowed, the price of a substitute has dropped. It’s basic economic theory.
In the Obama and ‘Cracking Down on Excessive Energy Speculation’, my last post (#22) cited a 60 Minutes report on speculators and oil prices. The claim (or implication) is that speculation in the futures market played a huge role in driving up the price of oil/gas. I mention it for two reasons: (1) to the point made by Gangster Octopus, they said that while oil supply increased and demand dropped, prices still more than trebled. So, the basic economics may be overwhelmed by other factors. (2) xtisme, I’d really like your thoughts on that (in the other thread).
As to the OP, it seems a bit premature to declare a death watch. At the very least, to make any type of guess, I’d want to see current sales values for various automotive categories. As it is, ISTM that the question doesn’t even rise to the level of making an educated guess. (Of course, that’s why you posed the question in the first place, right?)
And I have to wonder, xtisme – is this the article in Time you read? If so, I’d point out that there’s not a hint of hard or comparative data there…it’s essentially just an opinion piece, rife with speculation and supposition.
Slight hijack – that rampant speculation “artificially” jacked up gasoline prices in 2008 is still being debated? I must read the other thread you mention.
The temporary lower price of gas is not a reason to return to the practices of the past. The big 3 have been accused of not planning ahead. Now do you suggest they should revert to gas guzzlers again? That would put them on the wrong side of environment and future gas shortages. If the people go want to go back to SUVs, should the big 3 provide them? Gas has had volatile prices for a long time. you would be foolish to plan the long term vehicles on low gas prices. High gas mileage and clean engines are always good selling points.
The impact of gas speculation is too clear to debate. It is obvious.
i
No you are not wrong. The relative share of passenger car sales have gone up and light truck sales gone down.
(Although December’s low gas prices did bump up their sales some)
Overall Americans are buying small cars when they buy at all. Those sales have barely dropped year on year even in December whereas large SUV sales are down 38%.
Sorry I haven’t gotten back to the thread…just got back in town and trying to help a friend with his new iPod thingy. I’ll try and address the questions to me tomorrow though.
Digital Stimulus, yes that’s one of the articles I was reading that sparked this thread. As that article was mostly speculation so was this thread…as I said, I don’t know the answers, that’s why I asked.
Well, I don’t want to hijack this thread – while there’s not a whole lot of facts in the thread I linked to, there’s a further link buried in there somewhere (mentioned by xtisme) to a GQ thread specifically concerning oil futures.
I hope I didn’t come off as petulant or snarky – I specifically put in the parenthetical about “why you posed the question” just to avoid that.
But that Time article…yuck. His fact-free analysis reeks of a political hit-job, purely argument through allusion (illusion?). I went to the 24/7 Wall St. site (the author is one of two editors), but couldn’t get a real feel for their leaning…I get the sense that they’re a teeny shop trying to gain notice, willing to say whatever will make a splash.
I mean, don’t get me wrong – right now really isn’t a great time for automakers to focus too heavily on new tech, what with gas prices taking the nosedive they have. Obviously, that will play into the decision making of anyone looking to buy a new car. But then again, when is a good time? If the automakers had put more effort in in the past, perhaps they’d have been in a much better position right now.
What I can say without any hard data cites (beyond what DSeid has provided) is that I know a few people who’d be perfectly willing to lay out more than an extra grand or two to get a green-tech car if they were looking to buy. My opinion is that we’re near or at the tipping point – assuming the cars aren’t utter crap (and the Prius demonstrates that they don’t have to be), the market share for green-tech cars is only going to go up. So I don’t think green-tech cars are dying at all; just having a difficult birth.
Bottom line is: A hybrid will not go where I need to go.
Detroit has made tremendous inventory mistakes, and designed ALL of their vehicles unnecessarily complicated electronically. We may never have the simplicity of my '62 Volkswagen, but they can get a lot closer than they are. It got great mileage.
I have a good job, and can not afford one. Period.
I think if the hybrids are made to operate without gas at all for shorter trips then more people would be willing to buy them. This would give them a hedge against unstable gas prices, allowing them to use their choice of gas or electric (or whatever else they come up with). Many people could structure their driving around a 40 mile range between recharge if need be to get through a period of high gas prices, with the option of paying for gas beyond that range.
But for hybrids that just give higher mpg but can’t run in pure plug in electric I don’t see selling well with current gas prices.
Where is it that you need to go that one of these hybrid SUVs can’t reach? Yeah the gas mileage isn’t amazing but it is better than the non-hybrid version of each vehicle. And amazingly enough the most difference isn’t made by getting people to switch from a 35mpg to a 45 mpg vehicle, but from a 15 mpg to a 25 mpg one.
Cost? Yeah that’s the main issue of the thread. There is a hybrid premium to be paid.
Still the Escape, the Mariner, and the Saturn VUE can all be had for under $30K and each get over 30 mpg.
And kanicbird, the plans to have a generation of plug-ins (PHEV) with some amount of all-electric range - with GM’s Chevy Volt (officially an “extended range electric vehicle” - EREV - rather than a PHEV) as the archetype - is the issue. If gas prices stay this low for years then the premium (a significant bit more than for regular hybrids due to much larger capacity batteries) for those cars will doom them even with moderately generous tax incentives. And a lot rides on these vehicles succeeding.
So while there is no evidence that that demand for hybrids is currently falling off, let alone dieing, the basic premise of the thread remains:
How likely is it that oil prices will stay this low for years to come? If they do rise again how fast will it happen and how high? Our op thinks that the return to high prices will be slow; I think that the return will only be slow if the world’s economies stay in the dumpster, but if there is any significant global recovery, then the return will be fairly quick.
If oil prices do remain moderately low then how likely is it that these new greener vehicles (other than cars that are high mpg only by virtue of being tiny and cheap) will fail even with significant tax incentives? And playing that out what will be the consequences if they fail?
Truth be told it is in our best interest as a country and as a world to have gas prices high again. Just not going up so quickly all at once.
No, not at all. All electric vehicles for instance are probably more ‘green’…as are fuel cell vehicles. My thought here is that they aren’t in wide spread production right now though, so probably wouldn’t be effected by the same factors that hybrids (might) be.
No, I think you are right about that. I’m not suggesting that people are going to rush out and buy SUV’s (despite gonzo’s strawman)…only that they might slow down their purchases of more expensive hybrids. Early last year (before the economy when totally tits up and when gas prices were very high) it seemed that all the major manufacturers were really pushing hybrids…and that the public was snatching them up. There were long waiting lists for the new Toyota Prius for instance (at least here). My thought is that people will buy cheaper but higher mileage conventional cars…if anything…at least in the current environment. And that this may adversely effect manufacturers willingness to continue production or further development of this.
Chief Pendent The highest gas mileage car on the road is the Prius. When I bought mine in 2006 it had the lowest cost of ownership of any new car. There is a price premium (mine was offset due to the tax credit that is much lower now). But when the Prius is much roomier and just a nicer ride than then the Mini, the Smart or the Yaris. It actually has more room than a Civic. If total price is the only factor, you may be better off with a sub micro that gets 35-40mpg, but I was not comfortable in those cars and I could afford 25k(before tax credit). And I average over 50mpg (based on fill ups, not just the display). As for the batteries, they are more likely to get recycled than the ones in your house and from everything I have read they have a life expectancy of close to 200k miles. The warranty for the battery is 100k.
I strongly disagree with this, except the ‘quickly’ part as stable oil prices are a good thing, but high energy prices are devastating to the lower classes, a highly unfair tax on people who are struggling to make it, severely limiting their ability to better themselves making them more dependent on public assistance, which is beyond the breaking point in many countries already. Also is it really a good thing to have a price for something pumped out of the ground like water is being so high.
Low gas prices encourage the purchase of vehicles that use more gas. They discourage the scrapping of the old gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient vehicle. They discourage the purchase of more fuel efficient vehicles that come at a premium such as HEVs, PHEVs, EREVs, etc.
The net result of that is more dependence on foreign oil producers, and increased greenhouse gases.
Those effects will end up causing vastly more harm to the poorest of the world than paying a bit more at the pump does.
This
I just don’t understand. Water also is a valuable resource. For areas where clean water is in short supply (much of the world including portions of the United States) its proper usage should be incentivized. The difference is that oil is less critical than water. We have extant options and alternatives to develop. We can make oil fairly irrelevant if we choose to, even if it will take a few decades to get to that point. Water, no.
I think hybrid SUVs are the best use of hybrids, actually. People have some kind of need for SUVs, clearly, and a change from 20 to 29 MPG is pretty darn dramatic. Way better than going from 30 to 34 (My Camry V6) http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/hybrid_sbs_SUVs.shtml
Agreed. I had heard some buzz about reporting things as gallons/mile as a way to drive that point home to people. But for cars designed to have an all-electric range of any significance smaller makes more sense as weight along with Cd is what drives the need for battery size which is so much of the cost.