Posted on 01/04/2003 2:48:29 AM PST by kattracks
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- More than 70 hybrid cars were parked outside the Los Angeles Convention Center to send a message to Detroit automakers: There is a demand for fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles.
The gathering Friday of hybrid car owners from Sacramento to San Diego, as well as Hollywood celebrities, contrasted with the muscle cars and gas-guzzling SUVs inside at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show.
Hybrid cars combine a gasoline engine with an electric motor. Some cars, like the Toyota Prius, use the electric motor exclusively at low speeds, while others, such as Honda's Civic, use power from both at all speeds.
"We're here to show that people are interested in something to promote clean air with less fuel," said Jessie Williams, who drove his Prius from El Cajon.
Actress Nancy Allen traded her Volvo in for a Prius last July.
"It's so peppy," she said. "Every day I drive it, I feel I'm giving something back to the environment and giving something back to myself."
The protest came as the Union of Concerned Scientists released a report concluding that American-made cars and trucks could reach an average of 60 miles per gallon by the end of the next decade by adopting the best hybrid technology.
Hybrids cost more than conventional cars. But buyers can qualify for a federal tax deduction and local tax incentives in some areas.
Chrysler Group President Dieter Zetsche downplayed hybrids in a speech Thursday, saying fuel cell technology is the ultimate answer and that improving existing diesel technology is a better short-term alternative.
Ford is producing a hybrid SUV and introduced a reduced-emissions Focus at the show Thursday.
Actress Donna Mills stopped driving her Lexus when she bought one of the first Prius hybrids 2½ years ago.
"Enough already with being dependent on foreign countries for oil or drilling in the Arctic for oil," she said. "People want these cars. People love them. Make them."
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On the Net:
Greater Los Angeles Auto Show: http://www.laautoshow.com/
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Yes, just listen to them scream and whine when gas prices rise...
Meanwhile, I'll just continue to fill up every 10 to 14 days and get 52 MPG in the meantime. ;-)
Argument 3. Extra Safety Concerns
Unlike current cars these cars have lethal battery voltages. Most manufactures plan to go to 36/42 volts in the near future, but the Civic uses 144 volts and the Prius 274 volts. Careless poking around in the wiring is likely to light up some do-it-your selfers! Even of more concern would be the exposed voltage due to a car wreck. Rescuers better be very careful where they use the jaws-of-life!
Probably even worse is high energy potential of these batteries; either contains the power of a large commercial welder. In an accident, a short could melt major hunks of steel around you and serve as an excellent ignition source for the gasoline they still carry.
I expect some every interesting crashes over the next few years.
Utterly false. "A fire involving a hybrid vehicle will be able to be handled by following normal vehicle firefighting procedures." University of Extrication.
You gas hog fans are sure worried about the availability of highly efficient vehicles, to put forth so much effort into trying to squash sales. Are y'all worried about not sending enough money to keep the Saudis in air conditioning? How's the buggy whip industry doing?
How smug. Enjoying your ride in my tax dollars, are you?
I can't wait until your car is out of warranty and you get hit with that bill for all that fancy technology under that teenie-tiny hood.
Heck yes! I'm very proud to not be sending as much money to our enemies as I used to. Are you happy with your financial support of terrorists?
Enjoying your ride in my tax dollars
You pay taxes in Japan?
I can't wait until your car is out of warranty and you get hit with that bill for all that fancy technology under that teenie-tiny hood.
I'm trying to figure out what you meant... It's been out of warranty for a while now. What bill? :-P Keep paying the oil sheiks, Benedict...
Not bad at all! (As opposed to the gas hog fan speed freaks, who would burn roughly 40 gallons of gas on the same trip...) What volume tank does the Jetta have? On the same trip, my Prius would have to stop once for gas 'cause of its 11 gallon tank.
You're quite a piece of work. And calling me Benedict. Too funny. You're the one who would have America flying fuel-efficient fighter jets made by the Japanese to defend your sorry-minded ass against "real" enemies.
Now, shoo. Go away, oh, pompous ass. You are truly annoying.
He's not. Did you read the first technique to cut off HV? Turn off the key. No, firefighters don't do that in ordinary vehicle crashes already, yeppers, a special complicated technique for those newfangled hibrrids...
As stated previously, the best method is to turn the ignition switch off. This simple action:
Turns off the engine and the motor, which prevents electric current from flowing into the cables from the motor or high-voltage battery, and,
Turns off power to the airbags and the seatbelt pre-tensioners.
After turning off the ignition switch, it is recommended that emergency responders remove the key so the car cannot be inadvertently restarted. To let everyone at the crash scene see that the key is removed, place it on top of the dash, directly in front of the steering column. In this location, it can be viewed from every side of the vehicle.
After discussing isolating the 12 volt battery, also a special and unique technique (/sarcasm) to those hybrids...
With the ignition key turned off and removed and the 12-volt battery disconnected, the hybrid vehicle is safe to work on for vehicle rescue evolutions. High-voltage electricity still exists, but it is isolated to the battery pack in the trunk.
Unless one's got passengers in the trunk, the extrication then proceeds normally.
And you would have us on our knees before the oil sheiks begging for fuel for our jets and tanks.
Fuel efficiency is the first step to energy independence. Why chain America to mideast oil?
Such rhetoric. Heating your home? Using electricity? Buying anything to eat commercially? Is there anything in your house not transported by truck, boat or plane at some point. Are those things energy positive, i.e., took no energy to build (including your smug little car)? Does your employer heat your workspace? Do they consume energy that requires oil from far away places? If so, why haven't you quit?
You're being radical simply because you bought a car. Incremental change will get us the same place in due course.
Not me. I drive my SUV approximately 15K miles per year at 18 mpg. If gas goes from $1.50 to $2.00 per gallon, then the additional cost to me is around $272 per year more than I would have to pay to drive the piece of crap that you drive. Since I'm in the 1% club, the extra $272 per year that I would save or spend (depending upon what side you're on) is neither going to make me rich nor poor nor change my life style one bit.
BTW, could you please explain how my neighbor is more green than I am simply because he drives a 40 mpg Honda 120 per day back and forth to work each day, when I only drive my 18 mpg SUV 6 miles round trip. On a typical day. Mr. Green burns 3 gallons of gas, whereas I use .34 gallons. And when you consider the energy that Mr. Green used to construct his 7600 square foot house where he lives with just his wife and dog (don't ask me which is which), plus the annual energy cost to maintain, heat, and cool his beautiful but unnecessary and overly extravagant place of abode, then perhaps Mr. Green should change his name to Mr. Pollute.
It looks like I'm wasting the opportunity to be a caring phony on this fuel saving issue, as I swapped a 4WD pickup for a miniscule hatchback two years ago. I'll have to forego patting myself on the back, since my decision had nothing to do with leisure-class earth worship. I gravitated to the small cars because I found that I enjoyed driving them a lot more than the big stuff, but the increased mileage merely allows me additional money to flush away on something else. Every vehicle is a compromise, and I couldn't care less what my neighbors drive; in a free country, I expect reciprocity.
The procedural benefits of the hybrids haven't risen to the level where I would be willing to put up with one (yet). While styling is not one of my primary concerns anymore, it would also help to make the hybrids less bland/butt-ugly (although the Insight at least pays lip service to aerodnamics). For now, I just wait for the day I can swing a Mini Cooper S or Subaru WRX.
Sigh. I should have more patience, 'tis true. However, if one were to look at the early posts on this thread, and on other threads here at FR discussing fuel cells and other advanced, so-called "alternative," energy devices, one will see a great deal of mocking derision. As I point out above, the gas guzzler fans are working overtime to make fun of highly efficient vehicles and to impugn the intelligence of those who design, build, and drive them. (I do two of the three...)
It irritates the heck out of me, and I do get bristly on these threads. (Which is why I'm in R&D, and not PR...) I wonder if these people would have, if they had been living 100 or so years ago, mocked and derided the horseless carraige and the Wright flyer?
I do not care for my putative allies in the Green movement. Advanced energy is a nifty technical challenge. The bonus is, of course, that I am working to liberate America from energy dependency. Our energy dependency is, to mix metaphors, the Mother of all Entangling Alliances.
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