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?
From 0.0 % to 1.2 percent in about 3 years? Sounds to me like everyone will have one in 15 years or so.
Dealerships have to have special facilities to service them AND they have to ground them before servicing. You can just guess what happens to a person who touches a piece of ungrounded metal on a hybrid after an accident.
Dealerships have to have special facilities to service them AND they have to ground them before servicing. You can just guess what happens to a person who touches a piece of ungrounded metal on a hybrid after an accident.
Yep. Why, I have an interview tomorrow morning over at Spacely Space Sprockets.
Our hybrid does great on the highway and in reverse. I don't know what you are talking about.
Sorry, but the Pontiac V8s were all big block.
Mark
Samuel Morey was God?
We haven't had to service our Prius and we've had it a long time. My husband has only changed the oil once or twice. You don't need to change the oil every 3 months.
The only thing has been replacing the tires.
Our last Dodge Grand Caravan was a piece of junk! After 7 years, the transmission went out on it. At that point, the driver's side window wouldn't role down, the cassette tape player and several speakers were broken, and lots of other little things were broken. We had other problems with the car previously, so we got rid of it.
Before that I had an Oldsmobile Cutlass, and it was even worse than the Dodge. It's transmission went out at 54,000 miles, and it always had things wrong with it.
The Prius is in the running with our Mazda RX-7 and the Toyota Celica. Both of those were great cars. However, I think the Prius has had less work than the Celica. The only reason why we got rid of the Mazda and the Celica was because they were 2 small for a family. We have to buy cars that fit 5 people.
So? If someone pointed out to you that there is already microbes living in your water, would you pour more in because "there are already some there"?
I see no reason to deliberately pollute MORE than we have to -- it's not like people have proven that pollution is good for us.
Boy Scouts taught me to leave the area cleaner than I found it. If I wish to personally try to minimize my ecological footprint, why should anybody have a problem with that? I'm not making you do anything, other than listen to my reasoning.
Yep, that's a nice-looking car. Very reminiscent of the '69 model. Have you seen the sketches of the Pontiac variant? It has a retro-early/mid '70s Firebird look to the grill and headlight area. Very handsome car.
FoMoCo also appears to be considering a new Cougar that is based on the new Mustang. Hot Rod magazine listed it among the "concept cars that Detroit MUST build".
I know there wasn't, I was just thinking that perhaps the hybrid part was that it was a different engine. He did not say the car was all original, but called it a hybrid and did spec an engine. That was one way I could think to do it.
I think you can reach a 396 somehow with a smallblock. Weren't some of the 409s generated from SB?
"Yep, that's a nice-looking car. Very reminiscent of the '69 model. Have you seen the sketches of the Pontiac variant? It has a retro-early/mid '70s Firebird look to the grill and headlight area. Very handsome car.
FoMoCo also appears to be considering a new Cougar that is based on the new Mustang. Hot Rod magazine listed it among the "concept cars that Detroit MUST build"."
I have read that there will be no new Firebird; which is a bummer since I have owned three of them. A new Cougar would be a good choice to fit between the Mustang GT and the Shelby GT500 if Ford decides not to build a new Boss Mustang.
Our '91 Caravan was one of the best cars we've owned :-) Nine years and 140,000 miles, only thing it ever needed was a timing belt at 135k.
My wife loves her Accord Hybrid. She doesn't give a rat's behind about any of these arguments. All she knows is that she has 255hp and gets 32mpg mixed.
I'll be able to trade it in only from her cold dead hands ;)
When will I ever learn not to say "you can't ..." about anything technical.
I knew about producer gas too -- I used to think it would be cool to have a setup that used firewood for the fuel stock (I saw pictures and diagrams somewhere). Coal or firewood could also be used for steam power or sterling engines. A modern Stanley Steamer would be fun to drive -- although it would also probably be expensive, inefficient, and a lot of bother.
What I meant, of course, is that it's much more practical to convert the chemical energy in coal into electrical energy -- then back to a different type of chemical energy in a battery, or fuel cell. Goal gasification also shows promise -- it's big advantage being that existing distribution infrastructure, and ICE technologies could still be used. The winning technology will be determined by a combination of relative efficiencies, total system costs, and market acceptance.
Interestingly, the house we're in ( built 1887 ) was originally plumbed for gas lights, provided by a producer plant about 10 blocks away-- much of the city of Brunswick used this source, long ago.
The plant stood until a few years ago, then became victim of a "cleanup" effort that left a still empty lot. We used to have a coal supplier, too-- this old house had coal fireplaces. Very shallow iron grates, too small for wood.
BTW, I'm quite fond of steam cars- I vaguely recall the Stanley's had some sort of flash boiler that allowed a fairly quick start, unlike contemporaries which had to build a head of steam. This also mitigated hazards from boiler explosions.
I'd love to see experimental work on a modern version.
Somewhat offtopic, the last time I was in Victoria was about 26 years ago, and it was a lovely town.
http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=403
Have a look at that link, should lead you to an Austrian light twin aircraft, the Diamond DA-42 Twin Star.
Twin turbo diesels.
There are people in retirement communities in Florida who use standard golf carts to get from their apartment building to the store, etc. Put a solar panel on top, and you wouldn't even need to plug it in at all if you just do short trips
use standard golf carts to get from
I considered that but don't live in a retirement community and golf carts are only allowed here on streets where the speed limit is under 40 mph. Not that many streets that I'd be travelling on are under 40 mph limits. Thanks for the reply though.
My mother-in-law is in a gated community, primarily retirees. It has interior roads that hook up to the nearby shopping center, so golf carts need never leave the private property
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