What is the longterm eco effect of all these new hybrid cars? Is it worth the switch?

Question

As far as the batteries go?

Answer 1

These work well enough for what they were designed but are not a magic bullet...especially for the owner.

-They cost 30% more (you get a tax break to make up part of it)

-the owner has maintenance of both a gas engine as well as electric drive train.

-maintenence on the electric portion of the vehicle is all minor with one big exception... replacing the 300lb battery pack. it does NOT last the life of the car, maybe 3yrs if you don't drive much. and they are recyclable, but very expensive to replace. estimated replacement cost is approx $50/month, paid in one lump sum (~ $3,000) of course!

-regen braking is the largest energy gain in system. not used on the freeway.

-PZEV (partially zero emmission vehicle) is another good feature where engine shuts itself off and restarts itself from stopping while driving (redlights, stopsigns, etc). but should be available on all cars.

-average gain over comparable performance is only about 20-28% (same weight car, same driving habits, same engine performance)

-the hybrids lose efficiency to standard gas driven cars when on the freeway. a small gas only car is better on the freeway than a hybrid. hybrids are better in the city (stop&go driving).

-the third main way that hybrids save energy is on acceleration, where the gas and electric are both working to gain speed. the electric is stored in the battery over time and used on demand.

so the answer depends on how and where you drive, and if you are willing to pay the extra maintenance! IMHO...none of the mainstream automakers have gotten it right..including the one i work for!

-journeyman

Answer 2

There are still an extremely small number of hybrid cars on the road, so the number has not gotten high enough to make a any important impact yet. You are confusing the amount of publicity with the number of cars. A very small number of cars is getting an absolutely stupendous amount of publicity.  Battery production, recycling and disposal does cause hazardous waste to be produced, but a hybrid doesn't have so many batteries. Not like an all electric car would have. And I suppose that well run production, recycling and disposal processes can be clean.

Answer 3

All hybrids achieve are greater complexity, more expensive repairs for the consumer.

The only real alternative is battery powered automobiles.  Hybrids get about as good fuel mileage as diesels, sometimes worse.  Once the government revised its City/Highway mileage calculation methods, the insanely high hybrid range numbers went down considerably.

Hybrids are a stopgap, thats it.

Answer 4

I think it is worth the switch because the batteries should last pretty long and its easy to recycle batteries. Even though the batteries cost a lot to replace, you wont have to replace it often.

Answer 5

YES its absolutely worth it. Those batteries can last the life of your car and can be recycled.

They're going to have plug in electric hybrids again soon. That will be neat and should save TONS O GAS, aside from the effect on the environment the political advantage of saving on gas is huge.

Bring our boys home!

Im trying to win CFL Bulbs on yahoo, they are expensive so im hoping for some free ones.

Answer 6

Yes, because you are helping create demand for the product, which will advance the technology.  I agree with the previous answer and also forsee, with an increased demand hybrids will soon move away from batteries and towards ultra capacitors which don't have a 5-7 year lifespan.  For our purposes we can say they last forever.

Answer 7

the eco-effect of the batteries is minimal.

the Prius uses NiCads which are 100% recyclable.

Open cast nickle mining is destructive, but there is probably more nickle in your stainless steel cuttlery than a Prius battery.

modern nano LIon batteries as used in the Phoenix SUT http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/ should last 20 years. and can be recharged in 10 minutes.

so we don't actually need the complicated polluting infernal combustion part of a hybrid at all.

Hybrids are just a stage to get people to experience the smooth quiet relaxed driving of an electric vehicle,  while not upsetting the vested motoring/fossil fuel bodies.