With the introduction of the Yamaha Gen-Ryu hybrid concept motorcycle, we keep our eyes on the topic of hybrids and yesterday a few articles appeared pointing to a website that underscores the willful misdirection used by some hybrid activists. (That wasn’t the intention of these other articles but it is clear when you follow the links)
A Wired news article points to the Union of Concerned Scientists (a hearty Thank You to Wired for actually calling them an environmental activist group!) where some hybrids are criticized for not being hybrid enough. The group uses a range of factors to classify hybrids as “mild” or “full” or various other names. But right on the page where this classification chart is located they begin by criticizing GM for building a hybrid pickup that only adds an extra 1 or 2 mpg and accuses the truck of “poisoning the hybrid truck market, convincing consumers that all they can expect is a 1 to 2 mpg increase for their large investment.” Hmm … the language is obviously very scientific and detached, it also looks like the Union of Concerned Scientists can’t do basic math!
As I pointed out here before:
Suppose you buy a little hybrid version of a car that gets 40mpg compared to 30mpg in a non hybrid version, 10 more mpg, saving lots of gas right? Suppose you have a truck that gets 10mpg and a hybrid version gets only 12mpg. Still terrible right? Do a little math. For any given number of miles driven, the truck saves far more gas than the little car. If you’re a fellow that needs a truck for your business you can’t just stop driving so you get a hybrid truck. If you drive 15,000 miles per year, the old truck used 1500 gallons while the hybrid used 1250 gallons, a saving of 250 gallons. The little hybrid car in 15,000 miles uses 375 versus 500 gallons, a saving of only 125 gallons.
In this example, the truck saves twice as much gas as the car! The savings advantage for the truck increase as miles driven go up. But this isn’t good enough for the the hybrid advocates. They not only want you to drive a hybrid, they want you to drive the right kind of hybrid, … their kind of hybrid and if you’re driving a truck you are helping to “poison the market.” Looks like they’re actually anti truck, too. This type of analysis would heap scorn on a hybrid bus or semi truck that goes from maybe 5 mpg to 6 because it isn’t getting huge mileage even though it saves enormous amounts of fuel.
If you want to save gasoline, the truck does an excellent job. On the other hand, if you’re an environmentalist with an activist agenda trying to eliminate large vehicles (after all if you don’t need one, no one else does either) you focus on pure mileage numbers for a specific vehicle, ignoring any possible need for vehicles other than those you have approved. Above all, assume few people will do this simple comparison and never mention it, otherwise someone might think you’re being a bit selective in your hybrid analysis. But then again, maybe these “scientists” skipped math class, maybe they’re the “Union of Concerned Social Scientists.”
todd says
You’re preaching to the choir. I hope you wrote Wired to tell them how misleading the article was. Regardless of the amount of fuel saved Hybrids will never truly catch on until the savings can justify the added initial cost and the couple thousand dollars they want for replacement battery packs. I don’t see why a car company has to charge $5000 more just to give the car a larger starter motor…
-todd
coho says
I find both sides of this argument to be deeply flawed.
sfan says
OK, you are right too. However you seem to be avoiding a relevant point.
Yes, if a truck is _needed_ for the transportation task, a nominal improvement in a low mileage truck will save more actual gas, simply because the non-hybrid version consumes a lot of fuel.
However, if a truck is _not_ needed for the task, it burns way more fuel (hybrid or not) than other reasonable alternatives. How many pickups and SUVs spend the vast majority of their miles carrying anything more than a honda civic/cycle could otherwise carry? Most, IMO.
– If you believe CO2 from petroleum contributes to greenhouse gases (GHG);
– And if you believe GHG contributes to global warming;
– And if you believe global warming is a bad thing;
– Then any _wasteful_ use of petroleum-based fuel is also a bad thing.
At a simplistic level it is like littering. Every US gallon of gas adds 20lbs of CO2 into the environment. The problem is that unlike roadside litter, no one can clean it up; it is widely/credibly agreed to be changing the environment; and many credibly believe the change will have a big social/economic/political impacts during our lifetime.
kneeslider says
sfan, I didn’t avoid anything, read my quote above from my earlier post, “If you’re a fellow that needs a truck for your business you can’t just stop driving so you get a hybrid truck.” I think that’s pretty clear.
A car burns less than a truck, sure, a motorcycle burns less than a car, a bicycle burns none at all, … so what? Maybe we should all walk and use pack mules.
The advocates seem to miss the large number of trucks used in this country and everywhere else for work. As soon as you can figure out how to load up a Prius with an air compressor, toolboxes, tools and tow a trailer to a muddy construction site, maybe some guys will consider one. But if that work needs to be done and a Prius doesn’t do it, GM has a way for that guy to save some gas, a LOT of gas, and hybrid advocates saying the truck “poisons the market” are so fixated on the soccer mom down the street in her Escalade that they overlook what’s happening outside their own neighborhood.
Just because the truck isn’t the best choice for everyone doesn’t mean it isn’t an excellent choice for some and the “nominal improvement” you refer to saves a lot of gas.
keith says
Kneeslider, thank your for pointing out that the 1-2mpg difference is significant on lower mpg vehicles. I drive a vw TDI that gets around 50mpg and I have scoffed at the midsize hybrid SUV’s that go from mid 20’s to low 30’s when you get it with hybrid. I forgot to calculate the % improvement, and fell in the trap of looking at top milage!
on the note of milage, it has concerned me that when my wife and I both ride bikes we are actually getting less mpg’s than if we drove the car. her bike is 60mpg, mine is 40. so when we drive, we are getting a combined 24mpg compared to the 50mpg if we just took the TDI. the bikes combined are ~1.8L (650CC and 1.2L bmws) and the car is 1.9L so it bothers me.
coho says
It’s not the trucks doing truck work, it’s the other 85% of the trucks that are being used as commuter vehicles. A 150lb man I know drives his Yukon Denali wherever he goes, saying “Sure it gets sh*tty mileage, but I don’t care, I can afford it.”
That’s the problem.
JoeKing says
Not being an “Environmentalist” I don’t understand how 7lbs of liquid(gasoline) , can be burned & miraculously turn into “20 lbs of CO2.” What was that “myth”…. something about matter not being created or distroyed?
Sounds like putting 10 lbs. of s… in a 5 lb. bag.
sfan says
JoeKing: How does 1 gallon of gas (6.3 pounds) produce 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2)? Good question. Being neither a chemist nor a full blooded environmentalist, I was surprised too when I learned this last year.
Here is the answer to your exact question, complements of US DOE & EPA:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml
“It seems impossible that a gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6.3 pounds, could produce 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. However, most of the weight of the CO2 doesn’t come from the gasoline itself, but the oxygen in the air.
“When gasoline burns, the carbon and hydrogen separate. The hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water (H2O), and carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2).
“CO2 molecule with one carbon atom (atomic weight 12) and two oxygen atoms (atomic weight of 16 each)A carbon atom has a weight of 12, and each oxygen atom has a weight of 16, giving each single molecule of CO2 an atomic weight of 44 (12 from carbon and 32 from oxygen).
“Therefore, to calculate the amount of CO2 produced from a gallon of gasoline, the weight of the carbon in the gasoline is multiplied by 44/12 or 3.7.
“Since gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight, the carbon in a gallon of gasoline weighs 5.5 pounds (6.3 lbs. x .87).
“We can then multiply the weight of the carbon (5.5 pounds) by 3.7, which equals 20 pounds of CO2!
david says
While it’s very interesting that burning gasoline contributes CO2 to the atmosphere, it’s also very interesting that water vapor is four times as effective a Greenhouse Gas as CO2. This means that the water vapor contributes more to the Global Warming than the CO2 does.
The VERY interesting part to this is that the “savior” technology, hydrogen burning engines or hydrogen fuel cells will be just as bad for the environment. Doesn’t that make you wonder? By the way, how much CO2 do you contribute to the atmosphere by breathing every day?
JoeKing says
While Sfan’s reference seems specious, I’m not qualified to dispute it. However, a quick search on Wikipedia yields some interesting numbers. The volume of the earth’s atmosphere is 5 X10 to the 18th kgs. & the percentage of CO2 is only .053%.
Doing some #s crunching..if you use mankind’s 70m barrels/day usage of oil..yields (usings the 1 gal=20lbs.) a net contribution of 1 billionth…I’m not worried