The EPA estimates the Toyota Prius gets 50 miles per gallon. But, judging from other cars that are made in both hybrid and regular versions, much of that high efficiency is not due to the hybrid engine. The Toyota Camry hybrid, for example, gets 39 mph on the highway, while the non-hybrid version gets 35 mph–not a big difference. In town, due to regenerative braking, the hybrid performs much better: 43 vs. 25.
Despite the minimal advantages of hybrids, particularly on the highway, many people want to give hybrids all sorts of legal preferences, such as free use of HOT lanes even if the hybrid has only one occupant.
Now a new report written by former Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta argues that government energy policy should be “technology neutral.” As New York Times writer Jim Motavalli points out, it is anything but neutral today, favoring electrics, plug-in hybrids, and hybrids over hydrogen, pure gasoline or pure Diesel vehicles.
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Mineta argues that gasoline and Diesel vehicles can get significantly better mileage without the new infrastructure required by pure electric vehicles. Diesels can probably do better than gasoline-powered vehicles, but Americans have a long-standing prejudice against them. The Antiplanner has always suspected this prejudice was based on the smelly pollution generated by such vehicles, but it may also be due to the noise and extra time required to start the vehicle when the engine is cold. Modern technology has solved at least two if not all three of those problems.
Mineta’s report, as it happens, was published by the U.S. Coalition for Advanced Diesel Cars. The coalition wants a level playing field, preferably by ending subsidies and other preferences to all types of power. This sounds good to the Antiplanner. Government is notoriously bad at picking winners.
Government loves picking winners and losers all the time. 50 billion dollars for ethanol fuel derived from corn. The governments utterly failed synthfuel program in the 70’s that cost over 19 billion dollars (60+ billion in todays money). A few years ago Congress chose to give to give millions more dollars to black farmers who claim they were discriminated against by the US Agriculture Department, many of which it turned out didn’t farm at all. The governments EnergyStar program, which not too long ago was investigated by the GAO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87GWZnFazc
The federal government fired only about one-half of one percent of its entire workforce last year. In the private sector, the percentage of workers who get fired for “poor performance” is 5 times higher because they have a financial incentive to weed out the inferior for the sake of their own business survival. When air controllers fell asleep at the job the FAA said it will place an additional air traffic controller on the midnight shift; some make more than 100,000 dollars per year. Now that some have demonstrated their propensity to sleep on the job, the Transportation Department will reward them by paying for more controllers. In the private sector incompetence leads to firing, in government incompetence leads to more government.
I wrote about this before. HOV lanes get premium use use by people with vehicles that the state deems Clean Air certified regardless of passenger volume. How is that fair. An SUV with 5 passengers in it is more energy efficient than a hybrid with just one.
The hybrids using HOV lanes makes an interesting demonstration of how much people will pay for use of the HOV lanes. I know people who were willing to pay $5k-$10k more for a hybrid because they could use the HOV lanes while driving alone.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Despite the minimal advantages of hybrids, particularly on the highway, many people want to give hybrids all sorts of legal preferences, such as free use of HOT lanes even if the hybrid has only one occupant.
HOT or HOV lanes? I wonder if the operators of HOT lanes would want to give away capacity to vehicles with certain types of engines?
Mineta argues that gasoline and Diesel vehicles can get significantly better mileage without the new infrastructure required by pure electric vehicles.
My main ride has been a Diesel-powered pickup truck for over 10 years. It’s much more fuel-efficient than similar models with gasoline engines (in part because Diesel fuel has more energy content than gasoline).
Diesels can probably do better than gasoline-powered vehicles, but Americans have a long-standing prejudice against them.
Blame General Motors for that!
While GM built some reliable and powerful Diesel engines for the commercial vehicle market (including the “screaming” two-stroke Diesels) while it owned Detroit Diesel, GM also (foolishly) dabbled in Diesel engines for its full-sized automobiles in the early 1980’s – as this entry on Wikipedia discusses, these motors produced by GM in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s were “notoriously unreliable.”
See also this Autoweek article from 2005: Ghosts of Diesels Past: Failed cars from 20 years ago still haunt GM, U.S. market
The Antiplanner has always suspected this prejudice was based on the smelly pollution generated by such vehicles, but it may also be due to the noise and extra time required to start the vehicle when the engine is cold. Modern technology has solved at least two if not all three of those problems.
My Diesel always starts when it gets cold (as cold as 0° F (-18° C)). It can take a few minutes when it’s very cold and I have not plugged the engine block warmer in, but it always starts up. When the engine is cold, the truck does emit smoky and smelly exhaust, but that goes away once it has warmed-up.
My mechanically-inclined friend tells me that european diesel cars, which provide significantly better fuel efficiency and performance, and I believe he said are environmentally safe, require diesel fuel that contains more sulfur than is currently allowed in the U.S. As a result, european diesel technology can’t be used here.
thislandismyland wrote:
My mechanically-inclined friend tells me that european diesel cars, which provide significantly better fuel efficiency and performance, and I believe he said are environmentally safe, require diesel fuel that contains more sulfur than is currently allowed in the U.S. As a result, european diesel technology can’t be used here.
The issue is (or was) indeed sulfur content in Diesel fuel.
But as of 2007, U.S., Canada and most of the EU nations have the same standards for Diesel fuel. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel (ULSD) has less than about 15 parts per million (PPM) sulfur and is the only Diesel sold for highway use in these nations (different rules apply for off-highway and marine uses).
This is an example (in my opinion) of improving the environment through government regulation that works, even though ULSD costs more at the pump than older types of Diesel fuel with higher sulfur content.
I do find the hybrid issue somewhat baffling. I drive a 30mpg standard gasoline Scion xB, it’s hard for me to rationalize the cost differences.
That said I think the government attempting to subsidize a move to an all electric infrastructure makes sense. The flaw with gasoline and diesel(or hybrid) engines is that they require a very specific power source. All electric vehicles could be powered by wind or coal based power. There’s a lot of strategic value in that choice. Hybrids not so much.
tthomas48 wrote:
I do find the hybrid issue somewhat baffling. I drive a 30mpg standard gasoline Scion xB, it’s hard for me to rationalize the cost differences.
And how much does it cost to replace the batteries in a hybrid vehicle? I am afraid to ask!
That said I think the government attempting to subsidize a move to an all electric infrastructure makes sense.
Not sure we will be all-electric anytime soon.
The flaw with gasoline and diesel(or hybrid) engines is that they require a very specific power source. All electric vehicles could be powered by wind or coal based power. There’s a lot of strategic value in that choice. Hybrids not so much.
I agree with you that having diverse fuel sources is a good thing, and electricity is a way to get them to a common “medium” for getting that power to a vehicle.
And you left out what might be the most-important source of electric power generation – nuclear energy.
Returning to your point about fuel diversity, Diesel engines do not have to run on a product refined from petroleum. They will run on fry oil from a fast food place, peanut or other vegetable oils, or a mix of petroleum and vegetable oil, sometimes called BioDiesel.
Many urban transit buses (with “Diesel” engines) are powered by compressed natural gas (CNG).
Chevrolet has the new Cruze ECO. It gets 42 mpg highway. Rumors that a diesel option for 2013 may get the vehicle up towards 50 mpg with no hybrid transmission. GM has announced it will start building the company’s first diesel-powered passenger car in more than 15 years at the Lordstown plant in Ohio competing with really the only other diesel sedan on the market in the U.S. the Jetta TDI. Diesels are well received by VW owners and account for 20 percent of sales. The only other option is the possible diesel Ford Focus or Fiesta in that size range.
HOV lanes are highly sought after in California. According to Chevrolet, the 2012 Volt qualifies for HOV lane access because its engineers modified the Volt’s catalytic converters to make them more efficient at scrubbing the exhaust. More specifically, Chevy engineers added a secondary air-injection pump “that streams ambient air into the exhaust stream to increase its ability to remove pollutants. So already the state and federal government has quickly slapped the Clean Air stickers for these vehicles giving preferential treatment to expensive cars for single passengers to use HOV lanes. 2012 Volts are now eligible for $1500 state rebate, in addition to the $7500 federal tax credit. That brings the entry price for Volt ownership in California down to just $30,995 even though under the free market this vehicle would cost over 41,000. Nothing like seeing a broke state in an economic crisis with double digit real unemployment giving away taxpayer money to help subsidize 40 grand a piece of new car purchases for those who can afford it.
Where was this limited-government Mineta guy when someone by the same name was in office?
“The coalition wants a level playing field, preferably by ending subsidies and other preferences to all types of power. This sounds good to the Antiplanner. Government is notoriously bad at picking winners.”
Well the U.S. government certainly “picked” gas-powered automobiles to begin with. If we can build the national infrastructure for that system to work then I don’t see why we couldn’t update the same infrastructure for electric vehicles as well.
I think LazyReader brings up an important point though. I saw that new legislation is being drafted to raise auto fuel efficiency to 54.5 mpg by 2025. Right now we are set to hit 35.4 mpg by 2016. Apparently the car companies are game as of now:
“Thirteen major automakers, including General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, Fiat SpA affiliate Chrysler Group LLC, Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co Ltd, have signed on to the fuel deal.”
The problem is though, that the two pronged goals of the administration and car companies are at risk of competing with each other. Another article I saw pointed out the same thing that LazyReader did: that most people go to the GM lot and look at the Volt to say “oooh…ahhhh” and then go buy a Cruze. Right now the Cruze is outselling the Volt 200 to 1 (in no small part because you can buy two Cruzes for the price of a Volt).
“At the same time, the number of gas-powered models in U.S. dealer showrooms boasting 40 miles per gallon or better in highway driving has tripled in the last five years.”
The more efficient we make our gasoline powered fleet, the less inclined people will likely be to migrate to EVs unless they are making equivalent advances from current baselines, including driving range. It seems like the government is trying to breed two winners, but in the end one may cause the other to wink back out of existence.
“Well the U.S. government certainly “picked†gas-powered automobiles to begin with. ” -T. Caine
What policies and laws did it enact that caused people to use gas powered cars over electric cars?
I always love these threads, just reading them and being amused by the assumption that crude oil is always going to be there in vast quantities to turn into transportation fuel distillates.
World crude oil production has been flat for 7 years now in the face of prices that have tripled and with no fuel embargoes or major supply disruptions. As all of you fret about efficiency and getting around with ever higher oil prices and scarcer supplies for America, I just keep on happily using my hydroelectric powered trains to get to work. Its so wonderful tojust betotally detatched from the problem.
What an utterly stupid reply. You think you’ll be riding your smug ass in a train when oil runs out? Think again, buddy.
Andrew, you’re cutting down on your oil use, not cutting out.
Why cut down or out at all. The consumption of oil may not have declined. Many said we’d peak by the 1970’s that didn’t happen. Many said we’d peak by the 1980’s that didn’t happen either. Than they said we’d peak by 2000, that didn’t happen. Are we running out of oil or are we running out of cheap oil ? Alberta Tar Sands in Canada alone can fuel the the whole world for hundred years there is certainly a lot of undiscovered oil and gas beneath the surface. Of course this phobia is been around for over 100 years. It wasn’t popularized until science fiction made peak resources or human extinction ingrained into our environmental philosophy by the 70’s with films like Soylent Green and Silent Running. When oil prices begin to increase due to cost increases in extraction, alternatives will become more competitive, which will become increasingly cost-effective. I doubt we will see the end of our hydrocarbon lifestyles nor will we in the foreseeable future. Carbon based compounds are infinitely recycled in nature and industrial techniques will allow us to do the same.
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002574.html
It’s not the end of oil, oil is just going to get more expensive to recover.
There’s also burning it vs making stuff with it.
Many said we’d peak by the 1970?s that didn’t happen. Many said we’d peak by the 1980?s that didn’t happen either. Than they said we’d peak by 2000, that didn’t happen.
Facile arguments notwithstanding, polluter pays regulation will soon happen in this country (if Australia can do it, we’re not far behind, even in our dysfunctional political economy), which will mean true cost of energy will be closer to reality. That will cut dirty tar sands’ use. Then we must decide which sector gets oil – transport, food, materials/chemicals. Pretty easy to think about.
DS
Keep dreaming, plannertard. It’s absolutely amazing how self-hating morons like Danny Boi here secretly wish for oil prices to go through the roof because this will somehow “stick it” to the rest of us.
There is a need for much higher gas taxes, though metrosucks you would rather have gas subsidized by the blood of American soldiers.
You’re stupid, but let me try to explain it to you:
1. American soldiers aren’t in the Middle East for oil. They are there for empire. Arab countries need to sell oil, and the US and other countries need to buy it.
2. Liberals love to pretend that cars must use oil, but mass transit, somehow, does not run on oil.
3. No one is going to go for higher gas taxes as long as leeches like you simply want to use the extra money for fancy rail plans that will not accomplish anything.
4. You are a moron.
I’m for higher gas taxes to pay off debt. I’m also well aware that liberals like you metrosucks, don’t want to pay off debt.
Why should drivers pay off the debt? Let’s put a $50 surcharge on every transit ticket and pay off the debt that way.
And no, I’m not a liberal, but the best way to get rid of the debt is to repudiate it.
I’m not against fares going up, though motorists need to pay more too and you are very liberal!