"Bob Brown" <.> wrote

No, not really. It is difficult to determine the "break even" point on a
Prius because there is no conventionally powered version of the car. My
guess is that the break-even point on a Prius vs. a 4 cylinder Camry is
around 75,000 miles with gas at $3.00 per gallon. The 2 biggest variables
are fuel cost and driving conditions.

There are quite a few Prius with well over 100,000 miles, most notably in
Taxi service in NYC. The article I read said that there were no repairs
other than normal maintenance.

100,000 miles used to be considered the average life of a passenger vehicle,
but 200,000 is very common now.


--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)

Bob Brown <.> wrote in news:6hjt23139p2qce419hekjqo57rl031la3l (AT) bbb (DOT) org:



If it costs more, it's not "green".

Being "green" means reducing the use of ALL resources, not just the ones
you WANT to pay attention to.


--
Tegger

"Tegger" <tegger (AT) tegger (DOT) c0m> wrote

Unfortunately, I have not seen any accounting of the use of other resources
and the environmental costs of those resources that are used by hybrids.

Jeff

"Jeff" <news (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote in
news:2zHXh.10279$Fs6.2646@trnddc03:



The fact that the cars are expensive to buy (and that Toyota only breaks
even on them if they disregard development costs) tells you that hybrids
are wasteful of resources.

If a thing is relatively expensive, this can only mean one of two things:
1) profit margins are high, or
2) a tremendous amount of energy is going into the thing.


--
Tegger

"Tegger" <tegger (AT) tegger (DOT) c0m> wrote


Maybe not. There are definitely places where a hybrid makes a lot of
sense. It seems to me that any driving pattern that involves a lot of
stop and go driving is potentially a good place for a hybrid. When we
were in Victoria, BC two years ago, I was impressed that many of the
taxis were Toyota Priuses. I don't think taxi companies would buy
vehicles that were not economically attractive.

I wonder if there is an application for true diesel/electric or
gas/electric vehicle that operates more like modern locomotives. It
seems to me that once you buy into including a generator and motor set
in a car, you might as well go one step further and eliminate the
conventional drive train. You could still include batteries to provide
"surge" power for qucik acceleration.

Don't forget government policies as an influence. Do you think hybrids
would have gotten a foothold in the US if it wasn't for the early tax
rebates and CAFE rules? The Prius must have a significant positive
impact on Toyota's CAFE numbers.

And if people always bought cars for strictly sensible reasons, there
would be no Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus, Aura, Infiniti, etc....

Ed

"Tegger" <tegger (AT) tegger (DOT) c0m> wrote

3) or, A lot of labor goes into making it.

What is a tremendous amount of energy? Decreasing the energy requirements of
a vehicle from 33 mpg to 40 mpg will decrease the use of energy over 100,000
mi from 3000 gal to 2500 gal, a savings of 500 gal of fuel. 500 gal of
gasoline is a lot of energy.

Jeff

"C. E. White" <cewhite3 (AT) removemindspring (DOT) com> wrote

Yet, even without the Prius and other hybrids, Toyotas are quire fuel
efficent compared to the offerings of American car makers. I doubt the
impact made any real difference in how Toytota would have done business with
regard to regulations about CAFE if it did not have the hybrids.

Not to mentions, far fewer trucks and SUVs.

And, actually, fewer total vehicles.

Jeff

"C. E. White" <cewhite3 (AT) removemindspring (DOT) com> wrote in news:462f573f$1
@kcnews01:



Unless they were getting subsidies from the government, which is just
another form of waste. Or if there are regulations limiting the types of
cars that may be used for taxi service.

And even if hybrids did work for taxis, how many ordinary people drive
the sort of mileage covered by taxis? High mileage within a short span
of time is the only way you'll ever recover the excess cost of a hybrid.

Problem is, used cars (specifically ex-cop cars) come on the market far
too cheaply to make hybrids even remotely an option for the low-margin
taxi business.





I'm sure it does. But that's not the same thing as conserving resouces.




Of course. That's my whole point. Hybrids do not conserve resources,
they just provide a feel-good hit for those that get off on such things.


--
Tegger

"Jeff" <news (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote in news:U4JXh.4322$A72.1112@trnddc07:



#3 is the same as #2. It doesn't matter where the energy comes from (human,
machine, etc), just that it be expended.



Yes, but money is the product of energy. Paying too much money and not
being able to recover it means wasted energy.

Unless you drive like a city taxicab, it'll take 15 years to recoup the
cost of a hybrid. This is true whether you're given somebody else's money
as a subsidy, or you pay for it yourself.


--
Tegger

"Tegger" <tegger (AT) tegger (DOT) c0m> wrote

I disagree. It takes a lot of labor to write a computer program, but not all
that much energy to make it compared to the costs of the human labor.

It's actually, more closely related to resources, energy being an important
one.

Depends on the price of gas. In addition, it depends on the benefits of
decreasing green-house gases, too.

As I said, we don't know the accounting as far as the environment is
concerned, but I don't think for a second that this is the same as the money
accounting.

Jeff