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Camry Hybrid Isn't Worth It
PanAsianBiz ^ | June 6, 2006 | Dr. Bill Belew

Posted on 06/06/2006 6:16:07 PM PDT by G. Stolyarov II

A Camry hybrid costs about $5,000 more than it's nonhybrid brother, or is it sister?

If a driver goes 15,000 miles a year with an efficiency of 39mpg s/he will save about $500/yr. Easy math. It will take 10 years to get your money back.

The good news is a Toyota will last 10 years and 150,000 miles. The bad news is Americans won't drive the same car for that long. But then neither will anybody else in any other country. The Japanese will change cars every 3-5 years.

This is one of the reasons why the hybrid market only makes up 1.2% of US vehicle sales.

So, does that mean hybrids aren't worth it?

Hardly...what it means is if more people bought them the price would go down.

It also means that money is spent in making cars rather than consuming gasoline... and there is a different kind of savings there.

The question - are there trade-offs worth it?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; Japan
KEYWORDS: camry; consumerculture; consumers; energy; gasoline; hybrid; hybridcars; oil; opportunitycosts; plannedobsolescence; savings; toyota; tradeoffs; transportation
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To: TWohlford

Ah, but you see some manufacturers have the vision and others do not.

Honda didn't manufacture the Insight for 7-years or so because it sold well, it manufactured it for the right to claim the gas mileage crown year after year. Great business and free advertising.

Can you imagine what VW would do if they had the gas mileage crown of 80mpg? They'd think it was a fluke and start downplaying it.


101 posted on 06/06/2006 8:26:32 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (My head hurts.)
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To: G. Stolyarov II
The good news is a Toyota will last 10 years and 150,000 miles. The bad news is Americans won't drive the same car for that long.

This one will. And the reason I can do it is that it's a Camry.

102 posted on 06/06/2006 8:26:54 PM PDT by BlazingArizona
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To: G. Stolyarov II
Heck! And I thought this was gong to be a good automotive discussion but it's just a bunch of old women comparing sewing machines. When they build a full-sized hybrid that can pull 10,000 lbs. of loaded trailer down the freeway, I'll buy one. And that 10,000 lbs. cannot be the battery either. In short, I'm one who believes you can often spend money to make money but very rarely can you spend money to save money.

Muleteam1

103 posted on 06/06/2006 8:28:03 PM PDT by Muleteam1
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To: Seruzawa

The future might be in a diesel-electric hybrid ... diesel motor turns at a fixed rpm to recharge the batteries ... the potential for 100 mpg is NOT outside the realm of possibility.


104 posted on 06/06/2006 8:29:52 PM PDT by sono ("Why can't we deport them? Mexico did." J Leno)
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To: Muleteam1

You drive your vehicle that can tow 10k pounds to Walmart and back?

Surely you can afford a couple grand for a used Jeep and take the wear and tear off of your work vehicle.


105 posted on 06/06/2006 8:30:52 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici (My head hurts.)
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To: sono

"The future might be in a diesel-electric hybrid ... diesel motor turns at a fixed rpm to recharge the batteries ... the potential for 100 mpg is NOT outside the realm of possibility."

There is a reason why every locomotive has that combo. Then again, the locomotives NEED the weight of the batteries.


106 posted on 06/06/2006 8:35:07 PM PDT by TWohlford
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To: G. Stolyarov II


Anyone here on a fire dept? What are the safety implications of a hybrid vehicle that's been mangled in a bad wreck? Fire? Electrical shock? Acid all over the place?

Just wondering.


107 posted on 06/06/2006 8:36:47 PM PDT by TWohlford
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To: MaDuce
>>I can see it now ... teams of little electric cars trying to pull a Cat excavator or D8 dozer down the highway ... or better yet teams of little electric backhoes trying to do what one old fashion diesel backhoe use to do.<<

Hey, it's the new generation of blue collar Americans. One to operate the backhoe, four to stand in the shade of the 15,000 pound battery that was brought to the work site by a diesel Cat. :)

108 posted on 06/06/2006 8:38:59 PM PDT by Muleteam1
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To: Seruzawa; G. Stolyarov II

<< Better yet. My friends VW Golf TDI diesel regularly gets 50mpg at highway speeds.... 75 mph in Utah. No hybrid can do that.

The future is turbo diesels... not hybrids. >>

The future is more than twenty years ago when I bought my first of the many European turbo diesels I have owned.

A Merc turbo diesel from back then, even, would get almost 40 MPG while cruising all day at 25% over even the Montana speed limit [Then as fast as you were willing to go knowing that if you were caught you'd be fined $5.00, literally on the spot, for possibly pissing off the Jimmah Cartah liberals by "using too much gas"] as would my wife's early 80s Peugeot turbo diesel.

Modern European turbo diesels get more than 60 MPG as a matter of course.


109 posted on 06/06/2006 8:45:40 PM PDT by Brian Allen (All that is required to ensure the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke)
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To: SamAdams76

Check this out,

http://www.airscooter.com/


110 posted on 06/06/2006 8:46:02 PM PDT by Walkingfeather (u)
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To: TWohlford

The problem is that California's new stricter air standards have effectively legislated diesel automobiles out of the California market. Several eastern states have matched those stricter standards. Auto makers have to effectively engineer diesel cars for a fraction of the market. That's why Chrysler is discontinuing their diesel SUV.


111 posted on 06/06/2006 8:46:31 PM PDT by gogeo (The /sarc tag is a form of training wheels for those unable to discern intellectual subtlety.)
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To: Doohickey
'64 GTOs came with a 389, not a 396.

Which is why he called it a hybrid...

112 posted on 06/06/2006 8:51:40 PM PDT by gogeo (The /sarc tag is a form of training wheels for those unable to discern intellectual subtlety.)
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To: gogeo
Plan on sticker shock for 2007. To meet the EPA guidelines on diesel it will cost additional 6K to the sales price.
113 posted on 06/06/2006 8:51:41 PM PDT by Orange1998
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To: G. Stolyarov II
And now another installment of... Mankind's Greatest Inventions!

10,000 years B.C. -- Man invents the first hybrid car...

114 posted on 06/06/2006 8:54:04 PM PDT by mysto ("I am ZOT proof" --- famous last words of a troll.)
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To: VeniVidiVici
I'm retired so I don't need a vehicle just to carry me back and forth from work. However, I do often haul small farm tractors and equipment across Texas and New Mexico. In fact, I'm going to get one this next week near Waco. It costs me about $90 for a tank of gasoline and it will take about three or four tanks to make the trip. It hurts to give a store clerk a hundred dollar bill to fill up each time but I take solice in knowing I am not sending six times that amount to a finance company every month.

Muleteam1

115 posted on 06/06/2006 9:04:51 PM PDT by Muleteam1
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To: Orange1998

I believe even the cleaner diesel fuel will not be quite as clean as the European spec. If they were the same we could get some of those sweet diesels they make in Europe. The ones we get are still low tech, bastardized versions of the Euro models.


116 posted on 06/06/2006 9:04:58 PM PDT by gogeo (The /sarc tag is a form of training wheels for those unable to discern intellectual subtlety.)
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To: VeniVidiVici
And yes, thanks for the prayers for my mom who is still very ill. My trip across Texas is primarily to see her. She still remains very sick but is back at the nursing home.

Muleteam1

117 posted on 06/06/2006 9:15:25 PM PDT by Muleteam1
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To: CharlesWayneCT

2006 Prius. 1021 miles on the odometer since we bought it new. Traveled to PA. Started with a full tank, filled up after driving 136 miles, using cruise control where feasible and with the air on. Took 2.2 gallons. More interior space than my '99 Camry. Wife tells me to slow down when I start cruising at 80. I see drivers of SUV's and similar trucks/cars trying to keep their speed down and even to squeeze a few miles more out of tankful so they can postpone the $50 to $60 fill up a few days longer and I laugh.


118 posted on 06/06/2006 9:17:42 PM PDT by Postman
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To: G. Stolyarov II
I have never understood the logic of hybrids. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that a battery powered car which gets it's electricity from an onboard gas engine driving a generator would be any more fuel efficient than a conventional gas engine driven car. If you charged the batteries from your home 120 AC outlet you might get some small savings if your power company has a reasonable rate. But if you charge it from a gasoline engine you are actually using energy from gasoline to power your car, only you're losing some of the energy from that gas in friction and a degree of mechanical inefficiency by transferring the energy produced by the gas engine through a generator to the storage batteries to the electric motor.

I know the theory is that the batteries get some recharging from the electric motor acting as a generator when the car decelerates by braking or when coasting downhill, but it doesn't seem to me that the relatively small amount of time that process is taking place compared to the much longer time that the storage batteries would be discharging energy instead of receiving it would make the savings from the recovered energy almost inconsequential.

As you can see, I am no mechanical or electrical engineer, but I think I do have a basic understanding of the principles of conservation of energy. It takes a certain amount of energy to overcome the combined resistance to movement of the tires, wind drag, and weight of the car whether that energy comes directly to the wheels from a gasoline engine or from a battery pack which stores and discharges energy to the wheels, energy it receives from the gas engine by the charging process. Where is the energy saving other than the relatively minuscule amount that is recovered through braking. Am I missing something?

119 posted on 06/06/2006 9:25:32 PM PDT by epow (No tagline tonight, the tagline store closed before I could get there.)
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To: Postman

Sorry....I don't really laugh....I smile with deepest sympathy.


120 posted on 06/06/2006 9:28:58 PM PDT by Postman
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