Posted on 02/25/2009 7:54:03 AM PST by reaganaut1
Remember last spring, when Seattle's mayor rolled out the city's first car that could be "filled at the plug instead of the pump?"
It's called a plug-in hybrid. They are all the green rage — "possibly the most sought-after technological innovation since Captain Kirk first flipped open his communicator," says The New York Times.
You may have seen the city's cars around town, painted with an eye-catching claim on the rear bumper: "This plug-in hybrid gets 100+mpg."
Also, a greener boast: "150+City MPG!"
Not exactly, it turns out. Not even close.
Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.
It's what 14 plug-in Priuses averaged after driving a total of 17,636 miles. The pilot project is one of the few in the nation to subject plug-in hybrid cars to regular motor-pool duty, as opposed to being driven by hypermilers or alt-energy enthusiasts.
"We're not putting these cars on a test track," said Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Light, which has three of the plug-ins. "We've got them on hills and wet streets, in the cold and the hot, on short trips and long — all the conditions that real people deal with every day."
Getting 51 miles per gallon sounds fine compared to most gas cars. But it's a black eye for a technology that trumpets it will get twice that. And which doesn't pencil financially unless it hits at least 80 miles per gallon.
"That's not anywhere near close to the ballpark of what plug-ins need to be getting," said Therese Langer, of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Turbo-Diesels do just about as well, at a lower initial cost and with a longer life expectancy and no range degradation.
Gasoline and Diesel are the only fuels which make sense for transportation.
But some folks like to live on wishful thinking.
Yes, let’s just throw a few trillion at it, while we shut down the coal plants and the nuclear plants and raise the taxes on the power utilities. So people can have a choice of whether they want to use their electric ration to light their houses or run their cars.
Repair costs for hybrids are out of sight.
Sixth grade math wins again. Too bad it’s become an arcane, dark, unknown study among the ruling elites who know better. After all, their feeeeeelings are so much more important than irritating facts and simple calculations.
Didn’t read the whole article but if it’s like all the rest, it doesn’t take into account the electricity consumption at that ‘lil ‘ole plug in the wall. I know that many in Liberal Amerika think that electricity just magically appears at the wall socket but here in the real world we know that there is a “cost” to producing electricity.
I guess I was busy editing my reply when you beat me to the punch. I defer to you O Wise One.
PS..It didn’t take 12 hrs to charge, with $10 or so in elec, and it didn't have a freaking $8000 battery that has to be replaced every 3 years!
We need to build a whole bunch of nuclear plants whether we’re going the electric car route or not.
“Not counting the cost of the electricity”
That’s particularly lame then.
O wise one??? LOL!!
Seen my tagline?
; )
Wait till everyone in the city gets a plug in car, and plugs them in at 5pm when getting home from work.
It will create peak demand spikes. Without power generation the grid will fail. The lack of common sense is astounding.
But we need to hurry up to save the Earth so who needs to worry about meeting long range needs?
Nonsense. Coal has twice the volume energy density of diesel...
WA Ping
As long as the noise and smoke(exhaust) is kept away from them,they FEEL so good about the electric car.
Many liberals are terrible at math and cost-benefit analysis.They just FEEL enough electric can be made by tiny ,unobtrusive windmills and solar panels.They ignore the manufacturing and maintenance costs,and the need for storage.
That said,present technology could convert the roofs of most of America's private homes and many commercial buildings into energy sources.The trouble is it would only cost 5 or 10 times as much as just using modern coal and nuclear power plants.
We can keep people in cold, dark cities.
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