That website is so full of right-wing propaganda that I woudl not trust anything they had to say about alternative energy

 

lol...... no comment

 

seriously... theyre claim that a prius is designed to last 100,000 miles is such a load of sh**.

if that were true, i highly doubt id see at least 1 on every block. who the hell would allow themselves to buy a car that lasts 100,000 miles? that article is crap!

 

The only reason you see one on every block is because people get them for that carpool lane pass. I think it's funny when I see a driveway that has a BMW 7 series, a Land Rover, and finally a Prius. They obviously don't care about the environment because they drive these gas guzzling luxury cars and live in 8000 sqft houses that required an entire rain forest to cut down for the wood, so You KNOW those people bought that car for the carpool pass. When the carpool pass expires in 2008, you think they'll hold onto that Prius? I doubt it! I will bet come 2008 we'll see loads of used Prius's hit the market big time here in the bay area.

On top of that, the highway mileage for a Prius isn't so great, maybe a little better than your average civic. So why are they granted carpool access for the highway? I think it's a bunch of BS, in fact I think carpool lanes are BS. It doesn't make sense to me to shut down a lane of traffic when your traffic load increase by 200-300%! The idling cars are pumping far more pollution into the air than the reduction in cars on the road from the carpoolers.

Sorry for the rant, this is the stuff that goes on in my head everyday as I sit in traffic and watch a smug Prius driver cruise by me in the carpool lane.

 

I love how they think putting 98% of the cars in 75% of the lane will help traffic

 

yeah, i dislike carpool lanes as well.

 

I'm here sittin' at work.. My STi's in the parking lot but I wish it were my Prius, I lost the car lottery this morning since going to SF and crossing the bay bridge takes precedence over my commute from Pleasanton->mtn view.

I avg. 52mpg & thats nice but as many people said the carpool lane is the real benefit. There is legislation sitting on Arnolds desk to issue 10,000 more permits and extend the carpool lane pass until 2011... ftw.

Ugh. I dont look forward to the traffic on 237 when I leave around 5-6.

 

Exactly. I personally have met a few people who buy hyrids solely for the capool pass. And I've noticed that more and more hybrid drivers drive FAST. They are regularly flooring it to get the acceleration they want; READ: not being eco friendly with gas usage. I'm regularly surprised that if I want to keep up (in my WRX) I actually have make sure I'm using the turbo. This is a big contrast to the Prius early adopters who were obsessed with gettiing high MPG and driving like brainless grannies (even though they increased traffic and thus overall pollution).

That being said, I'm really glad that the morons who think hybrids are so eco friendly (and the opportunistic HOV pass vultures) created an environment that allowed the car manufacturers to explore this technology. Who know what actual GOOD things it may eventually lead too. (IE, what if a sudden breakthrough in battery technology means hybrid tranny swaps to all vehicles?)

One more thing though...I don't think anyone has done the "dust to dust" study on all the batteries in hybrids. Lots of NiCd waste is not good. And with a rated life of just 100k, we're gonna have waste problems pretty soon just from the hybrids.

Actually, I myself considered becoming one of these pedal romping HOV pass vultures just for the commute time savings.

 

Prius, Insight, etc. use NiMH batteries, not NiCD. The batteries are not rated for 100k... they are warrantied to 100k (by toyota at least). Just like your WRX engine is warrantied for 60k miles but you would expect it to last quite a bit longer, right?

Also, nothing wrong with driving slow as long as you're in the right lane. I used to maximize mpg for fun (55+, coupe 57 mpg tanks) and take advantage of the carpool lane but whenever there was someone behind me i'd let them by.

As tech gets more popular it will become more efficient (and cleaner). IIRC, there was a 1st gen prius with 300k miles on it that was a taxicab in canada... the owner was given a new gen2 prius by toyota in exchange for his 1st prius for testing purposes.

 

It should be clear from my post that I'm not hating on hybrids, I'm hating on some of the dumb things associated with them. Everything has stuff to hate on. Like I said, I was considering being an owner. But the subject at hand IS "hybrids".

My bad on the battery type, but NiMH are effectively just as bad environmentally as NiCD. Mr 300k taxi is clearly one of those exception cases, especially if Toyota wanted it. It's simply too early to tell the longevity in general for these cars. But I'm willing to bet that any limitly understood technology has some kind of negative environmental impact not currently being anticipated.

Of course there's nothing wrong with driving slow (but keeping up with traffic) so long as you stay to the right as appropriate. But sorry, the annoying people I'm talking about are doing things like:
- accelerating so slowly from the stop light that it turns yellow before they get through the intersection (killing everyone behind them)
- refusing to modify speed to accomodate people merging onto the freeway
- driving too slow too far left
- simply not keeping up with minimum "flow of traffic" (which would still be legal speed) and creating "blocked flow" problems.
- taking LONG distances to change lanes, thus clogging TWO lanes at once
- long slow right turns which clog the right lane

That's what I'm talking about. And yes, people who do the same thing with NON hybrid vehicles are just as annoying.

 

who the hell is Art Spinelli and why should his "research" be taken into consideration. That blurb is the ONLY text in the world that says end of end energy use of a hummer is greater than that of a prius.

TOTAL right wing FUD

that said...all hybrids SUCK until they implement plug-in options.

 

How would the plug in option help any? If the electricity coming from that plug isn't green (generated from solar, wind, etc.) then it could possibly be worse for the environment. It's more efficient to burn the gas directly in the car itself than to burn it in a remote power station and transfer the power over lines to the car.

 

Well, for one, up to 10% of the electricity comes from solar and wind resources. Hydroelectricity accounts for a large percentage of our energy. And unlike the eastern states, very few of our dino-powered plants use coal.

Numero dos: You have reversed...power plants are VASTLY more efficient than our internal combustion engine. The majority of the gas engines out there, i.e., the Otto cycle engine, has efficiency in the 25% range (everything idealized...reality is closer to 20%). Heat loss is staggering with the automotive engine. So that's why plug-ins are better out here in California. Power plants, in general, run between 35%-40% efficiency with maximums of 55% commonly achieved at the most well run power plants. 10% is ginormous in when talking about power generation efficiency.

Lastly, I'm getting solar power installed for my house soon because of legislation recently passed that allows for additional rebates along with higher resale rates to PGE (for when the meter goes backwards). Hopefully this legislation will spur others to do the same.

Links:

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_...on_Engine.html

http://www.aie.org.au/melb/material/...ce/pwr-eff.htm