Which has a worse environmental impact, buying a new hybrid or buying a used gas car?

Question

Which has a worse environmental impact, buying a new hybrid or buying a used gas car?

Answer 1

The gas car has more of a negative impact, but hybrids arent the best either.  Every Hybrid i have heard about has a gas engine, to help run the electric engine.  but what happenes if the electric engine fails or runs out of energy, the gas engine kicks in, and it'll be just like a regual car.  If i were you... i would research some of the PHEV cars, (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) They are suppose to be run off an Li-Ion battery ( which is usually found in laptops, cell phones, etc.) Theyrun like a hybrid but are charged at night, and do not require spending gas.  The Charge usually lasts all day, at i think about 100 miles per charge.  They are also trying to figure out how to put hydrogen engines in this car as well.

P.S. sry about all this, i didn't mean to tell u all this if you never planned to buy one, and only wanted to know the answer.

Answer 2

This is a tricky question, but the lower environmental impact goes with buying a new hybrid.

This is because 80-90% of a car's lifetime energy use comes from its operation, whereas only 5-10% comes from its production.  See page 4 here:

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_...

So most of the environmental impact is going to come from the car's efficiency while driving, not from building the car.  Thus the more efficient car you drive, the smaller the impact.

You could argue that someone will drive the used car that you didn't buy, so now you've got both the used car and the hybrid on the road, which means it's a larger impact.  However, there's a finite number of cars and drivers on the road.  The higher percentage of those cars are hybrids, the lower the total environmental impact.

Basically if you buy the hybrid someone will probably buy the used car, but somewhere in the grand scheme of things, a used car will get sent to the junkyard because of that finite number of drivers and cars on the road.  Therefore, the lower environmental impact goes with buying the hybrid.

Answer 3

Depends on the gas car.  In the 1990s they were making super efficient cars which got nearly the fuel economy of the best hybrids.  (if you got a stickshift and laid off the A/C anyway.)   Honda Civic CRX HF... Ford Aspire... Geo Metro... check those out.

My guess is they stopped making those cars because it was no longer necessary to under the CAFE laws.  There's nothing like them today.

Answer 4

Gas car, because that kind of car burns gasoline into gas, and gas is very unhealthy for the enviroment.

Answer 5

Buying a used gas car for sure. The car being older may not be the most fuel efficient and no car can compare to the milage of a hybrid anyway.

Answer 6

Short term it would be the Hybrid because of all the energy and pollution produced making it. I would hope that long term the hybrid would be better, but it would have to be analyzed and quantified to be certain.

Good question. Interesting.

Answer 7

I guess it all depends on which one gets better gas mileage.  The less gas you use, the better.

Answer 8

Well in the long run a used gas car might have the worst environmental impact. Although you are recycling the car because it is older it may cause you more problems that result in more emissions, and a hybrid car if properly taken car of could last you a longer time and have much less emissions. Go with the hybrid.