They Can Be Taught!

I've been reading up on some of the numbers emerging from the American "Cash For Clunkers" program and I have to admit I find much of it encouraging. It's great to see that many are taking advantage of the governments money to make responsible choices.

The program, for those outside the United States, encourages people to trade in their older, less fuel efficient vehicles for newer, cleaner ones by offering a pretty generous incentive... up to $4500 (US). To get your full share of the $4500 from the government the new vehicle purchased to replace the old one has to get at least 10 mpg fuel efficiency. A lesser improvement will get less incentive cash.

This article on CNN.com is particularly interesting. While over 80 percent of vehicles traded-in were light trucks (SUVs, pickups and vans), 59 percent of the new vehicles purchased were passenger cars, thus proving something I've said for ages.... many people who drive SUVs don't actually need them. They're poseurs.

Also, of the top 5 cars purchased, only one hybrid (the Prius) is among the top 5, and it's outside the top three. People making responsible choices are still buying gasoline powered cars.

In any case, thus far the Cash For Clunkers program has seen an increase of over 35% in fuel economy when the new cars are compared to the older cars traded in. No matter how you look at it, that's a good thing!

Edmunds: Prius Will Take 26.2 Years of Driving to Recover Cost Premium

Autoblog.com just published an article so good I would almost think they had my little blog in mind when they penned it.

It turns out that what I've been saying all along is true: Diesels pay off quicker than hybrids!

The article mentions the fact that with gasoline and diesel prices being about the same in the US, the hybrids are feeling the hurt. Since around here I've noticed that diesel is $0.10-0.11/L (US$0.30-0.35/Gal) cheaper than gas, the disparity would be even greater, favoring the diesel even more.

And remember kids... don't buy a hybrid to save money!

According to this article at autoblog.com, hybrids not only cost more to buy, but they also cost more to fix. And that's just general repairs, with no mention made of battery pack costs.

On the bright side, if your Prius does break down and you can't afford to fix it because the monthly payments on it's over-inflated sticker price are draining your bank account, you could always just leave it parked in your driveway and use it to power your fridge, stove, or other appliances.

LAME!

(Warning: I'm about to throw all professionalism out the window!)

If it wasn't bad enough that lame duck Prius drivers cause traffic congestion because of their maddeningly slow driving habits, they're now getting to park right near the doors along-side the legitimately handicapped people.

According to this article at usatoday.com hybrid drivers in some places are getting "parking perks".

LAME!

And hypocritical too!

Why should a hybrid driver arbitrarily get advantageous parking when there are plenty of conventional vehicles that get as good, or better, fuel mileage? Without even trying I can name a couple of hybrids that get worse mileage than my gasoline powered sedan which isn't even a particularly economical model. I could name a dozen or more cars that can easily better that majority of hybrids on our roads.

Like I said... hypocritical. It's another pathetic case of hybrid propaganda, greenwashing, and BS environmental image favoritism.

Friday Update

I haven't had a whole lot of time lately to update this blog with articles as much as I'd like to... but there are a few in the past few days that I'd like to touch on briefly.

First, I really want to redo my "How Much Does That Hybrid Really Cost" article that I wrote up a few months ago. With the current fuel prices being so low, that article would take on a whole new dimension. The amortization period for a brand new hybrid now must be astronomically high! The huge premium that hybrid buyers were suckered into paying earlier this year when their popularity skyrocketed must be a very painful pill to swallow right now.

Secondly, the 2 most economical hybrids that were sold in the USA are now not elligible for the hybrid tax credit. Yes, the Toyota Prius (which was bumped last year) and Honda Civic Hybrid (which will be axed from the list at the end of 2008) have sold enough cars to be considered mainstream enough to not need any tax credit incentives to sell. What about the cars that are left? Of the 16 still elligible for the credit, only ONE gets better than 33 miles per gallon.

That's laughable!

In fact, 13 of the 16 vehicles left on the list are large, low-mileage SUVs! It's a joke... a totally, hypocritical joke! Half those huge hybrids won't even be around showrooms in a year or two because they aren't selling, even as "fuel efficient" hybrids.

Lastly, some good news!

While GM and Chrysler are busy scrambling to sell their models that nobody wants, Ford is busy looking ahead instead of behind and are continuing to develop their small cars for North America! For anyone that keeps an eye on what they produce at Ford in Europe, this is exciting news! Personally I can't want to see some ST and RS models of the new Focus, Fiesta, and possible even Ka come to showrooms here.

Memory Retention of a Goldfish

Courtesy salon.com

Rallye R.E.A.L.

What: Rallye Énergie Alternative des Laurentides 2008 (or in English: Alternative Energy Rally of the Laurentians 2008) (A "regularity rally" run over open roads with scoring being based on precision of timing and speed, not outright, full-throttle craziness!)

Website: http://www.rallyereal.com/

When: October 2nd, 3rd, & 4th, 2008

Where: Alma, Quebec City, & St-Jerome - Quebec, Canada

Climate change has became a subject of concern whose stake is on the scale of planet. One cannot ignore it, which is why the promotion of alternative means of transport are from now on of crucial importance. The consequences of the massive use of the car in our cities is well known: air pollution, sound pollution, congestion of the downtown areas, accidents, deterioration of the quality of life of the citizens, to name only a few.

Rallye Énergie Alternative des Laurentides 2008 represents the ideal occasion to see various vehicles driven by alternative energies in action at the time of this exclusive rally open to the general public and to help promote other types of energies that that of gasoline.

The rally comprises two stages, over a 2 day period and adding up more than 800 km. The pilots and copilots will have to navigate, and drive their car conscientiously under optimal conditions to obtain minimal fuel consumption while traveling the splendid panoramic route, and to respect the speeds imposed during each test of regularity.

(Translation courtesy of WorldLingo.com & yours truly)

Unfortunately, the 2007 edition was almost exclusively a hybrid affair. There were 2 electric vehicles... one production based, and one home-brew Chevy Cavalier. The rest of the field was made up of Priuses, hybrid Civics & Insights, and 2 hybrid SUVs... a Highlander and an Escape. (Interesting side note: my strictly gas powered, 175 horsepower, sedan can get better highway mileage then either of the EPA ratings for the hybrid SUVs entered.)

This year the event is open to hybrids (yawn - what else?), electrics (Tesla, anyone? Yes please!) as well as vehicles powered by alternative fuels, including biodiesel, natural gas, LPG, etc.

I'm curious how many smarts might be entered this year. The cdi smart can be run on biodiesel, and it puts out a mere 88 g of CO2/km, which is well under the event's regulated limit for biodiesel vehicles of 100 g of CO2/km. And while they don't have a class for gasoline powered high-efficiency vehicles, the regulations state that any car using more than 30% fossil fuels will be limited to 120 g of CO2/km. The petrol powered smart falls under that limit as well.

Sadly I don't own a smart of either type, I can't even come close to affording a Tesla... and since I'll never be caught dead driving a hybrid, I can't enter this event. However if you own a smart cdi and would be willing to hand over the keys and spend the 2 days as a copilot I'd be more than happy to team up. (I'm not holding my breath...)

I'll try to make it into St-Jerome in a few weeks to catch the end of the event and see if anything besides the jellybean snob-mobiles showed up!

Anti-Greens Torching Priuses

While I'll certainly never mourn the fact that there's one less "overly smug, self-righteous greenie" driven Prius on the road, torching someone's car is just WRONG!

Mind you, I never shed a tear for the excessively wasteful SUVs that got torched or vandalized a few years back either. I guess the drivers of those gas guzzlers just got tired of ugly little Priuses (aka: poster vehicle for the "I'm a better human than YOU" crowd!) buzzing around town congesting traffic with their utter lack of acceleration and low-speed "oooh noes, I don't want to drive fast because it makes the gas engine work" shenanigans!

Full article HERE, courtesy autoblog.com

People Are Joiners, Not Thinkers

Why do people make environmental choices?

Because it's the smart thing to do, or simply because it's the cool thing to do?

Thirty six percent of Prius owners bought that particular car because of it's fuel saving ability. For them, it was a smart thing to do.

However, 57 percent of Prius owners bought that particular because "because it makes a statement". In other words... it was the cool thing to do. All the other environmentalists are doing it, so why shouldn't I?

Good question.



Instead of thinking, and making responsible choices, the sheep mentality of far too many people today just leads them to make whatever decision everyone else is making. Any idea pushed in their face must obviously be a good one, so they go ahead and jump right in too.

MPG Test: BMW M3 vs. Toyota Prius

I was going to call this post "Friday Eye Candy" but unfortunately there's a Prius in the video as well.

In any case... take one beautiful sport sedan, the 'bahn storming BMW M3 with it's 4.0L V8 pumping out 414 glorious horsepower and then pit it against every fuel misers darling, the supposedly economical Toyota Prius in a no-holds-barred Miles Per Gallon shootout!

The results:


Ignore the part in the intro where Clarkson mentions that the construction of the Prius is more enviromentally damaging than that of a Land Rover. While there is a certain amount of truth in what he says, it's not quite that simple. (If you want to know the whole story, you can read all about it HERE at thecarconnection.com.)

I'm sure that the Prius drivers of the UK were already several sentences into their hate-mail before the credits rolled, but the fact remains, as he said at the end, that how you drive can be more important than what you drive.

Edmunds.com: Hybrids Aren't the Best Value Over Time

Edmunds.com published THIS article earlier this week, thus confirming what I've been telling people for quite some time... much longer than I've been writing this blog.

Hybrids are over-priced underachievers. There's no two ways about it. They cost far too much and deliver far too little. Or, if we're talking L/100km, then not little enough!

At the current average price across the US, the best value hybrid (Honda Civic) doesn't even make the top 10 is "lowest cost to own". While it's true that hybrids become a better economical choice as gas prices rise, even at a price of $6/gallon the Civic hybrid still doesn't make the top 5. Everybody's darling, the Prius doesn't even make the top 30 at current prices, and only ranks 18th if gas were to cost $6/gallon.

I'm very surprised that all this hasn't been brought up sooner.

Car Buyers More Interested in Gadgets Than Fuel Efficiency

According to the results of a J.D. Power & Associates study released yesterday, hybrid technology vehicles rank pretty high among consumers interest. In fact, 72% of people asked said they were "definitely/probably" interested in hybrid technology. However, once they were told that this technology would add about $5000 to the price of their vehicle, the number if still interested buyers dropped to 58%.

What ranked higher than the fuel efficiency of a hybrid though? Blind-spot detection technology at 76%, and back-up assist at 74%.

Oh great, that's just what the world needs... technology to help incompetent drivers pay even less attention to what they're doing behind the wheel.

Here's what I think of that:


Unless they're installing KITT in my dash, I don't not want my car thinking for me.

But I digress.

I have to wonder where they got the $5000 "average" from though. When I first read the report it seemed awfully cheap compared to the hybrid premiums I've seen, but I figured those were the price differences in American dollars for the American sold cars. So, I did a quick check across a few of the cheaper hybrids in Canadian dollars and came up with the following:

-Honda Civic Sedan:
Conventional: $19,490.00 (w/AC+automatic)
Hybrid: $26,350.00
Difference: $6860.00

-Toyota Camry:
Conventional: $23,400.00 (w/AC+automatic)
Hybrid: $30,660.00
Difference: $7260.00

-Toyota Prius vs Toyota Corolla: (since the Prius doesn't have a conventionally propelled equivalent I'm comparing it against the Corolla, which is Toyota's closest offering)
Corolla LE: $19,900.00 (w/AC+automatic)
Prius: $29,500.00
Difference: $9600.00

Toyota Highlander:
Conventional: $36,900.00
Hybrid: $41,075.00
Difference: $4175.00

Chevrolet Malibu:
Conventional: $22,995.00
Hybrid: $26,995.00
Difference: $4000.00

Chevrolet Tahoe LT:
Conventional: $47,155.00
Hybrid: $66,125.00
Difference: $18,970.00

That's an average premium of nearly $8500.00. While the MSRP for cars in Canada is always higher than in the US, their estimated $5000.00 for the added cost of a hybrid still seems a little low.

One interesting detail I noted while compiling those numbers was that while a Civic Hybrid costs nearly $7000 more than a similarly equipped conventional Civic, the fuel savings are in the range of 30%. If a Civic owner drives 25000 kms per year (~15000 miles) that's nearly $1000 in savings each year at current fuel prices. The Chevy Malibu, on the other hand, only costs $4000 more for the hybrid, but the fuel efficiency is less than 8% better. That's only about $250 per year saved. Honda's hybrid premium pays for itself in 7 years, while Chevrolet's takes about 16 years. (I really hope those buyers are choosing a hybrid to "make a statement", and not to save money...)

Sadly, of all the different features and options mentioned in the survey, clean diesel ranked last. Why? I'm not sure. I mean, who wouldn't want 50+mpg from a conventional (read: simple & uncomplicated) drivetrain?

As Mike Marshall, J.D. Power & Associates director of automotive emerging technologies, said:

One explanation for this may derive from a lack of education with the technology. Many consumers cannot differentiate between clean diesel and traditional diesel fuel—which in the past had a negative connotation with unpleasant vehicle emissions. As consumers become more educated in the benefits of clean diesel through increased product offers launching later this year, interest in the technology may increase.

I suppose the European companies that are starting to make this technology available in North America have along road of re-education ahead of them. The masses are still stuck on the old stereotype of diesels being noisy, smelly, and generally a nuisance. It's a stigma that may take a while to be rid of.

You can read the full report HERE.

Hey Prius drivers.... feel good about THIS!

Like Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Joel, Bill Maher, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Alba and many others, pretty much every hybrid driver I've met... Prius drivers (like those listed here) in particular, are all proud to drive one because they are concerned and have made a commitment to help protect our environment.

New York Times correspondent Micheline Maynard wrote: “The Prius has become, in a sense, the four-wheel equivalent of those popular rubber issue bracelets in yellow and other colors—it shows the world that its owner cares.” (New York Times, July 4, 2007).

Yes... Prius drivers "care".

But what exactly do they care about?

Fuel economy, of course! In fact, a whole 36 percent of Prius owners stated "higher fuel economy" as their main reason for driving one.

Wow... 36%!

That begs the question: why does everyone else drive one?

Well, 57% said they purchased a Prius because it “makes a statement about me”.

(Incidentally, this got me to wondering... why did the other 7% buy one? Certainly not for it's great looks or superior performance.)

I'd venture a guess and say that the people listed above weren't thinking about saving a few $ at the pump when they bought their Prius' since their weekly income is likely more than I make in a whole year. So I'll go out on a limb and put them into the "57%" category.

So what exactly is the "statement" that the Prius makes about it's owner?

That he or she is environmentally concerned and is taking steps to show he or she has made a commitment to protect and conserve our natural resources.

Of course. That makes perfect sense.

Or maybe the statement that 57% of Prius owners want their car making for them is "all the cool people have one, so I want one too!" (That herd of sheep mentality worked pretty good in high-school... and it seems to work among adults as well.)

Or maybe, the real statement the Prius is making for it's owner is "I support Toyota's labor practices and the conditions under which the Prius and other Toyota vehicles are made in Japan".

What labor practices and working conditions? The ones that almost everyone, celebrities included, know virtually nothing about.

These ones:

Low wage temps: a full one-third, or 10,000 Toyota assembly line workers, are low wage temp and subcontract workers who earn less than 60 percent of what full time workers do. Temps have few rights and are hired under contracts as short as four months.

Overworked to death: Mr Kenichi Uchino died of overwork at Toyota’s Prius plant when he was just 30. He was routinely working 14-hour shifts and putting in anywhere from 107 to 155 hours of overtime a month—at least 61 ½ hours of which were unpaid. Toyota said the hours were “voluntary” and therefore not paid. Mr. Uchino left behind his young wife, a one-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. The Japanese people even have a word for being overworked to death: “karoshi.” An estimated 200 to 300 workers a year suffer serious illness, depression and death due to overwork.

Sweatshops and human trafficking: Toyota’s parts supply chain is riddled with sweatshop abuse, including the human trafficking of tens of thousands of foreign guest workers—mostly from China and Vietnam—to Japan, where they are stripped of their passports and forced to work grueling hours seven days a week, often earning less than half the legal minimum wage. Sixteen-hour shifts, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight are common.

Linked to Burmese Dictators: Toyota—through the Toyota Tsusho Corporation which is part of the Toyota Group—is involved in several joint business ventures with the ruthless military dictators of Burma, which put revenues into the pockets of the dictators who use it to repress Burma’s 50 million people.

Toyota criticized by the ILO: The UN/International Labor Organization points to Toyota’s suppression of freedom of association at its plant in the Philippines as “an illustration of how a multinational company, apparently with little regard for corporate responsibility, has done everything in its power to prevent recognition and certification of the Toyota Motor Company Workers Association.” (ILO Working Group, December 2003.)

You can read all the details on the National Labor Committee website HERE.

Misinforming the masses!

Misinformation, and hypocrisy... all from the world's favorite hybrid!

Jeroen Verhoeven, a car efficiency campaigner for "Friends of the Earth Europe" has coined a new phrase: "greenwash" advertising.

It all started when Toyota ran an ad in a Belgian magazine for the Prius in which they included the phrase "zero emissions low". There were two small problems with that ad. First, the ad in question did not include any CO2 emission or fuel consumption data, as is required under Belgian law. Second, Toyota's claim is an outright lie!

While there's no denying the fact that the Prius is economical, there's absolutely no way justify saying it has "zero emissions" since it runs on gas. It's got a tailpipe, after all... so obviously something is emitted. So why is Toyota lying like that?

In Jeroen Verhoeven's own words:

"Car manufacturers are using 'greenwash' advertising to confuse consumers whilst at the same time blocking EU proposals for a target of 120g CO2/km by 2012. If Toyota is serious about reaching 'zero emissions' anytime soon then why are they blocking a 2012 target?"

You can read the whole article HERE.

How Many Miles (or Kilometeres) Until That Hybrid Starts Paying Off?

As a follow up to the comparison article I wrote about the Toyota Camry last month, I present someone else's viewpoint. AutoblogGreen.com did some similar math with 15 different pairs of vehicles, ranging from the ultra-economic Prius, to the barely-worth-the-effort GMC Yukon.

Is going green worth your money? At best you'd have to drive 97,000 highway miles (over 156,000 kms) before your Civic Hybrid starts saving you some coin. Even driving in the city, where a hybrid supposedly shines, you'd have to drive that Civic over 86,000 miles (138,000 kms) before the hybrid premium was paid off.

What about the Camry? Three hundred thousand highway miles! That's nearly half a million kilometers... City driving is much better in this case at least. You'd only need to cover 70,000 miles (112,000 kms) to break even.

GM products like the Tahoe/Yukon hybrids are an utter joke in this test. You'd need to cover 180,000 miles (290,000 kms) in the city to pay off the extra cost of "going green". The funniest part of that joke is that GM is actually supremely proud of these hybrids and plans to start marketing them hardcore.

Read the rest of the article here.

Will a shiny new hybrid really save you money?

Some people (like myself) actually enjoy our cars. We like to drive! We like to feel the car. I'm not talking about a sports-car here. I'm a "car-guy" and a motorsports enthusiast, but I don't make nearly enough money to own anything remotely close to a "sports car". I drive a compact, 4 cylinder sedan.

My daily commute, what I consider "obligatory" and unavoidable driving, makes up nearly 75% of my annual mileage, and I have no desire to turn it into the Indy 500. I usually stick to the right lane and roll with the traffic. However, an occasional fun drive through the country on winding roads is something I don't want to give up completely. Sometimes you just want to go, and driving the sloth-like Prius with it's shopping cart handling will never be an option for those of us that actually take pleasure in a drive.

Also, not everyone wants to drive a car that looks as weird as a Prius. In fact, most people I've asked think the Prius looks dull, uninspiring, or downright hideous. So let's put that ugly little anomaly aside for a moment and compare apples to apples.

As Toyota has the longest history with hybrids and they have undoubtedly advanced the technology more than any other manufacturer, we'll stick with their offerings for now.

The Toyota Camry.

It's a nice, family sedan with superb finish quality, comfort, & longevity... overall just a really great car. I don't personally like them at all, but there's no way I can deny that the Camry is a solid vehicle.

And for the sake of this post, it comes in 3 different flavors... 4 cylinders, a hybrid, and a V6 that I've added in just for reference.

Since the whole point of this post is to calculate the cost saving measures of hybrids, I'm going to compare the base model of each engine configuration. While the options aren't exactly equal across all three versions, the basics are similar... automatic transmission, A/C, etc. All fuel cost calculations are done based on an annual mileage of 20,000km (12,400 miles) with a 55/45 mix of city & highway drivings, all added up with today's Regular Unleaded 87 Octane fuel price of $1.45/L (approx. US$5.53/gal.).

-Toyota Camry LE (2.4L - 158 hp - 3307 lb curb weight)

• $27942 (Vehicle cost including all applicable taxes, freight, prep., etc.)
• 9.4L/100km (combined EPA estimate)
• $2726 (annual fuel cost)
• $227.17 (monthly fuel cost)
• $538.90 (monthly vehicle payment, calculated at toyota.ca)
• $766.07 (total monthly cost to own and operate the 4 cylinder Camry)

-Toyota Camry Hybrid (2.4L - 187 hp - 3638 lb curb weight)

• $36136 (Vehicle cost including all applicable taxes, freight, prep., etc.)
• 6.9L/100km (combined EPA estimate)
• $2001 (annual fuel cost)
• $166.75 (monthly fuel cost)
• $696.95 (monthly vehicle payment, calculated at toyota.ca)
• $863.70 (total monthly cost to own and operate the hybrid Camry)

-Toyota Camry LE V6 (3.5L - 268 hp - 3461 lb curb weight)

• $33,399 (Vehicle cost including all applicable taxes, freight, prep., etc.)
• 10.7L/100km (combined EPA estimate)
• $3103 (annual fuel cost)
• $258.58 (monthly fuel cost)
• $644.16 (monthly vehicle payment, calculated at toyota.ca)
• $902.74 (total monthly cost to own and operate the hybrid Camry)

So, buying that shiny new Camry hybrid to cut down on your monthly fuel expenses will save you a grand total of... oh, wait... sorry, my bad... it'll cost you $97.63 more each month. That's $1171.56 per year, which adds up to $5857.80 extra over the 5 years that you're paying for that shiny new hybrid. So, after those 5 years are up, and your shiny new hybrid isn't really all that shiny or new anymore, you can finally start saving money... about $60.42 per month. At that rate, it'll take almost 97 months (just over 8 years) to pay back the $5857.80 that you've already paid out.

Congratulations! After 13 years, you've broken even.

But hey, at least you're saving the environment.

Is 45mpg really as good as it sounds?

If all you've ever known is 20 (or less) MPG, then maybe...

But these guys aren't impressed.