Posted on 01/20/2006 10:58:08 AM PST by RWR8189
Detroit
WHEN TREASURY SECRETARY John Snow announced guidelines for a new tax cut for the rich here last week, liberals did not denounce him. That's because the proposed tax breaks were for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, the favorite ride of environmentalists this side of bicycles. But the dirty secret about hybrids is that, even as the government continues to fuel their growth with tax subsidies, they don't deliver the gas savings they promise.
Most cars and trucks don't achieve the gas mileage they advertise, according to Consumer Reports. But hybrids do a far worse job than conventional vehicles in meeting their Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings, especially in city driving.
Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005.
For example, a 2004 Toyota Prius got 35 miles per gallon in city driving, off 42 percent from its EPA rating of 60 mpg. The 2003 Honda Civic averaged 26 mpg, off 46 percent from its advertised 48 mpg. And the Ford Escape small sport utility vehicle managed 22 mpg, falling 33 percent short of its 33 mpg rating.
"City traffic is supposed to be the hybrids' strong suit, but their shortfall amounted to a 40 percent deficit on average," Consumer Reports said.
The hybrid failed another real world test in 2004 when a USA Today reporter compared a Toyota Prius hybrid with a Volkswagen Jetta diesel, driving both between his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the Washington, D.C. area. Both should have made the 500-mile trip on one tank of gas.
"Jetta lived up to its one-tank billing," reporter David Kiley wrote. "Prius did not."
Kiley had to stop to refill the Prius, which ended up averaging 38 miles per gallon, compared with 44 miles per gallon for the Jetta (which met its fuel economy rating). And this occurred during spring weather without the extra drain on a hybrid battery caused by winter weather--which would have favored the diesel Jetta even more.
Customers complain about the failure to meet fuel savings expectations. There are web sites such as hybridbuzz.com and chat rooms of hybrid fanatics who bemoan their lackluster fuel economy. About 58 percent of hybrid drivers say they aren't happy with their fuel economy (compared with 27 percent of conventional vehicle drivers), according to CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Oregon.
It's gotten to the point where Ford is giving hybrid owners special lessons on how to improve fuel economy, according to USA Today. They teach drivers how to brake sooner, which helps recharge the battery. But they also drill owners with the same tips that help conventional vehicle owners improve gas mileage: Accelerate slowly. Inflate your tires. Plan your errands better. And this eye-opener: Don't set the air conditioner on maximum. "That prevents the electric motor from engaging," USA Today says.
HYBRIDS ARE ALSO failing to pay for themselves in gas savings. A study by the car-buying website Edmunds.com calculates gasoline would have to cost $5.60 a gallon over five years for a Ford Escape hybrid to break even with the costs of driving a non-hybrid vehicle. The break-even number was $9.60 a gallon for a Honda Civic hybrid.
Hybrid automakers and their supporters have their defenses. They quibble with how some studies are done. They point out that even with their fuel economy shortcomings, hybrids achieve the best gas mileage in three of five vehicle categories rated by Consumer Reports. Hybrids are still far lower-polluting than diesels. Their sales are growing fast, even though they make up a small 1 percent of America's annual sales of 17 million vehicles.
Then there's the ultimate defense: They are just like conventional cars because drivers buy them for many reasons other than fuel savings and cost. There's the "prestige of owning such a vehicle," says Dave Hermance, an executive engineer for environmental engineering at Toyota, the leading seller of hybrids. After all, many vehicle purchases are emotional decisions, he says.
SO, HYBRIDS have become the environmental equivalent of driving an Escalade or Mustang. Who cares if they deliver on their promises as long as they make a social statement?
Taxpayers should. The federal government subsidizes hybrid fashion statements with tax breaks that benefit the rich. The average household income of a Civic hybrid owner ranges between $65,000 to $85,000 a year; it's more than $100,000 for the owner of an Accord. The median income of a Toyota Prius owner is $92,000; for a Highlander SUV owner $121,000; and for a luxury Lexus SUV owner it's over $200,000.
This year the government will offer tax credits for hybrid purchases ranging up to $3,400, with owners getting a dollar-for-dollar benefit on their tax forms. This beats last year's $2,000 tax deduction, which amounted up to a $700 benefit, depending on the driver's tax bracket.
JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, liberals criticized the Bush administration for allowing professionals to get tax breaks on large SUVs if they were purchased for business purposes. But evidently it's okay to subsidize under-performing hybrids.
Perhaps with more technological advances, hybrids will some day deliver on their fuel economy promise and truly be worth the extra cost. But the tax credits have become just one more welfare program for the wealthy. Let the fast-growing hybrids show that they can pay for themselves.
After all, when Snoop Dogg makes a fashion statement by buying a Chrysler 300 C with a Hemi engine, taxpayers aren't footing part of the bill.
Richard Burr is associate editor of the Detroit News editorial page.
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My mother bought the Honda. That car has some impressive pick-up.
Jetta TDI wagon... You get your box for stuff, great fuel mileage, and, just in case some punk in a riced-up civic shows up, it's got enough guts to leave the civic in a cloud of dust, er, diesel fumes....
And, it looks better than a Scion ;-)
The factory stereo in mine sounds even better since I hooked up a MP3 player DIRECTLY into the back of the CD head unit with an adapter from Crutchfield. Can definitely tell a difference in clarity and stereo imaging vs. playing CDs.
Quiet diesels suck.
Agreed. It's what annoys me about my truck's exhaust is that it is much too quiet for 300hp.
The technology to convert coal to diesel has existed since WWII. It's called coal gasification.
Nazi Germany ran their war machine on that diesel. And South Africa used to do the same.
And since America has some of the world's largest supplies of coal, what do we do?
Ignore it and buy $68 a barrel oil (which is a good deal higher than the break even profitability point for coal gasification).
Get a diesel VW Golf.
It's a hatch like the Scion xB, but with a lot more style, safety features, and interior fit and finish.
Plus a really, really, really great MPG... which you'll actually get in real world driving.
My '86 Honda Civic hatchback is running strong and well...I get 34 mpg and it was built in Ohio.
And it's been paid for since '91.
I would NEVER buy a supposedly-American piece-of-you-know-what!
No, No, No. The diesel VW Golf!
The Jetta wagon is just a Golf wanna-be.
:-)
No, Cicero...a FEDERAL tax is NOT the answer...
As to raising the price of gas...Iran will take care of that for us....
My concern would be: what happens when the batteries wear out? Guess one should trade it in after a couple of years.
We just need a few more nuke plants; problem solved.
mark
We're still riding the wave from WWII when huge investments in technology were made. New alloys, jet aircraft, rockets, atomic power, computers, so many things were invented for WWII. It's a shame it takes a war, the threat of our nation being destroyed, before we'll cut socialism and make huge leaps into the future. We're past due for a new wave.
Using biotechnology it may be possible to create a self-replicating organism that eats coal still in the ground and produces a hydrocarbon liquid or gas. There already is a microorganism that eats oil slicks. We have our starting point. A good thing about this approach is we have several hundred years worth of coal in North America. But it will probably require a war with China to spur us on. In 50 years the Arabs will be buying their oil from us.
Not a Golf wanna-be, it's the Golf stretched version! (In the original post, he mentioned being married and needing the room, so the 'stretched' version seemed more appropriate...) In the meantime, I still can't buy a new one in the Empire of New York... So the miles continue to add up on my '97....
Yeah...if you don't have a freakin' Excursion in front of you!!!
I don't question the right of an American to own one of those behemoths...I just champion my right to think they're jerks.
The reason they are now quiet is becuase they went to overhead cams.
The older V8 diesels in the GM and Fords rattled the same. The problem with V8s is that if you let them idle for a extended period they tend to mess with the intake manifold because they tend to cool and things like that. Then the torque on a V8 isnt good. I mean they get torque, but it takes two extra cylinders to get it.
I'll take an inline over a V8 any day...gas or diesel.
How much does it cost to replace the batteries? What price would you pay for a used hybrid knowing that you soon had to replace its batteries?
Hybrids were designed to be eco friendly, not fuel efficient.
When these things were on the Drawing board AllieGore was vp and the price of oil was under 25 bucks.
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