This student journalist has helpfully collected every falsehood about the Prius from the last 3 years and put them in one handy article. Although the MPG one is new, I think.
It's certainly one way to get your work spread round the internet, as every Prius-hater forwards it to every forum they can find.
Firstly, the MPG "comparison" involves comparing the Prius under the new EPA test to the Aveo under the old test. The Aveo on the new test has also been revised down to 27mpg, compared to the Prius' 45mpg. Hardly "spitting distance".
The nickel plant stuff is similarly nonsense. The environmental damage from the plant was caused decades before the Prius was built; some proper environmental legislation is now in place. The Prius is a pretty minor customer of nickel, considering how much goes into consumer electronics batteries and stainless steel. But one important difference in the Prius is that its battery pack gets recycled.
As for the shipping of the components and materials, there's no evidence the Prius is any more of an offender than all the other cars in production.
As for the energy to build the car, yes the Prius takes more than a similarly sized car, although I doubt the comparison to the Hummer. But it recoups it several times over during its life. Oddly enough, studies have been done on this...
The CNW "cost-per-mile study" is self-evidently flawed, given that they've plucked a life of 100,000 miles for the Prius but 300,000 for a Hummer out of their ass. Correctied to give equal lifetimes, that makes the Prius a factor of two cheaper.
The "long time to recoup initial cost" argument is the only thing that makes the slightest bit of sense. Even then, that's no doubt assuming petrol prices don't go up at all in the next five years. Yeah, right.
But hey, if it makes you feel better to bash cars you're afraid of, whatever...
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Oh, and don't forget that's US mpg. So 32mpg for the Aveo and 54mpg for the Prius in sensible units.
And I've just noticed he's even lying about the Prius's EPA figure. It's actually 46 US mpg, so 55 UK mpg.
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Just found out a bit more detail on the nickel plant. I'd certainly seen the story, but not that much follow-up.
Turns out the photo and doing the rounds, courtesy of the Mail On Sunday, was taken in 1994, before the Prius was even shown as a concept car. There has been massive clean-up, reclamation and tree planting in the last couple of decades, and it no longer bears any resemblance to the photo or description.
www.daverado.mvps.org/Letters/MayorReplyToMail.pdf
www.daverado.mvps.org/images/Ramsey-Lake.jpg
So, the usual level of journalistic integrity from the Mail, then.
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I know its a minor point BUT the Prius is an auto and while is may not be that economical ( there are petrols that can better it let alone diesels ) it is FAR more economical than any petrol auto car of similar size.
Bear in mind that this makes it a great purchase for older buyers who want an auto but one that doesnt guzzle fuel. There are loads of these cars local to me and almost exclusivly driven by 60+ owners.
As an economy car, not good, as an econimcal automatic, it has its place.
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KMO - An excellent response to yet another poor quality tabloid article doing the rounds. What I found worrrying is the level of ignorance that we see in the world today and how easily people fall for what is obvious propaganda. There are big bucks to made in the oil industry and plently of people have incentive to write and promote these kind of stories.
I'm all for a debate, and I also have reservations about the Prius but I wouldn't go so far as to write misleading articles. It's important that we look at the real facts before drawing any conclusions, once angain thanks to KMO for providing the other side of the story.
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>>there are bigbucks to made in the oil industry and plently of people have incentive to write and promote these kind of stories.
Ditto the global warming industry. It might not be comparable yet, but look at the growth in the last 5 years, and the growth likely in the next 5. Carbon offset companies, environmental consultants earning big bucks off governments, research, development and sales of carbon capture technology, research, development and sales of renewable energy technology, research, development and sales of carbon storage methods .... the list goes on. Not to mention the opportunity for governments to make a fortune in higher taxes on fuels and "undesirable" environmental behaviour by the public.
It's important that we look at the real facts before drawing any conclusions, once angain thanks to KMO for providing the other side of the story.
I completely agree, but with so many vested interests on both sides, the real facts aren't so easy to come by. Every argument I've read from either side seems to have more than a hint of self interest or bias.
I'd rather concentrate on the fact that fossil fuel supply will not be able to keep up with demand at some point in the next 10-20 years, and that we need to find alternatives before that happens. Sadly, the Prius is not the answer, as various road tests have shown it returns less than 50 mpg in realistic daily driving conditions. My aunt has a by comparison "primitive" diesel Renault Clio that does over 60! Based on what I've seen, it's going to come down to a combination of fuel cells and conventional IC engines running on biofuels or even hydrogen if a suitable source of renewable energy can be found to produce it.
Cheers
DP
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The Prius certainly isn't the answer, but it's a step in the right direction. My primary motivation for choosing it was that it was the closest thing to a battery-electric vehicle available. The more hybrids like the Prius are sold, the more work is going to be expended on bringing all the battery & motor technology needed for real EVs closer to mass-market reality. The most feasible looking car technology for the future looks like battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids. We just need a few more increments in battery technology to give the cars practical range. And the current hybrids are spurring that on.
The transition from a hybrid like the Prius, through plug-in hybrids, to electric cars with back-up generator, to pure electric car, is a pretty continuous one.
Obviously, we also need to get more electricity made from renewables too; but electric cars actually have the potential to solve part of the problem with renewable energy - demand smoothing. Historically electricity suppliers have controlled consumers' electric storage heating systems and similar remotely to smooth demand. This could be extended to remote controlling of cars' charging cycles, and even requesting the cars to inject power back into the grid - mini electricity storage stations in every garage.
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and even requesting the cars to inject power back into the grid - mini electricity storage stations in every garage.
err No.
1/ You cant take power from the grid, stick it in a battery, and then send it back to the grid. This is so far not green as to be better driving a Hummer. Power gets lost, you might as well direct it down a drain.
2/ Mini generators in (ie semi hybrid in garage?) again no, Far too much transmission loss of power, again better throwing it down a drain.
Nice idea but technically DEEPLY flawed.
Now a garage at home with a solar panel roof and wind turnine charging your car? NOt so far fetched
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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"Now a garage at home with a solar panel roof and wind turnine charging your car?"
Windmills on the roof?! That's gonna go down well in Hampstead Garden Suburb. You're not even allowed to have a satelite dish.
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"Now a garage at home with a solar panel roof and wind turnine charging your car?" Windmills on the roof?! That's gonna go down well in Hampstead Garden Suburb. You're not even allowed to have a satelite dish.
AH no but yes but no but yes but.....
This is for the environment, Sat dish for Money in Murdoch pocket fund? No Sir, but to appear green? then yes indeedy. Specially in hampster Garden.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Course you can. If you have solar panels or wind turbines the infrastructure exists to feed excess energy into the grid.
The point is that renewables are often accused of being inconsistent, plus you have the problem of a need to meet peak demand. There are pumped storage "power stations" in Scotland and Wales that spend their off-peak times pumping water up-hill, then run it back down again to generate power at peak times. So they're not generating net power (except a small amount from rainfall into the upper reservoir), but they're avoiding the need to run extra real power stations just for peak demand. This is exactly the same principle - but using more local storage to meet peak demand, or to fill in if your wind/sun/whateer is sagging.
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> Course you can
you misunderstood, of course you can put power into the grid, BUT the energy you are putting back you have ALREADY taken out earlier from the grid when you were charging it up. In effect you are borrowing it, throwing some away, and putting it back, And that you put back you take out again later. Each time you do that you loose some. If everyone did that all your power would be lost. If you then leave your motor part of your hybrid running to charge the grid, that has to be the most wastefull way to generate electrickery.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Well, obviously it loses energy. This isn't generating electricity. It's smoothing demand, and covering supply fluctuations. One of the hardest things about supplying electricity is that demand jumps up and down all over the place during the day, as every turns their kettles on in the advert breaks in Corrie. If a lot of electric cars were hooked up to chargers, and the suppliers had remote control of the chargers, they could greatly smooth demand. Even more if they could request energy to be pumped back from batteries to cover the highest peaks. Even with the 20% energy loss from charge/discharge, this could well be economically viable.
And I'm NOT talking about leaving the motor running.
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Good argument this
Of course its not economic to borrow power, stick it in a car, expend power to move it around london, hook it up and put it back?
Smoothing demand does not work from gazzilions of small devices, but does work with big major stored water ones where *instant* power is available from a know place on the grid, with a know switch path at the touch of a button.
Demand is actually pretty smooth during the day, or at least with well known and timed/defined cycles most of which are when the very cars you need are not at home availble for supply, The worse unpredictable peaks is in the evening. Caused by us unpredictable private consumers.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Of course its not economic to borrow power, stick it in a car, expend power to move it around london, hook it up and put it back?
That's not really what I'm talking about. You certainly wouldn't come home and routinely discharge your car into the grid, then charge it back up again later.
The point is that a large number of cars will at any time be hooked up to their chargers. With remote control, you can manipulate the charging cycles of that mass of cars. Charging can be deferred, initiated, or reversed. With a large number of cars, that's a significant demand sink/source that can be manipulated to make the electricity supplier's job easier.
All this would be done under remote control from the supplier. The user would have to have some sort of control that said "I need a 95% charge by 8.00am"; the rest would be down to the supplier, and intelligence in the charger. As to "borrowing" charge, you'd need some sort of option for the user - something like "allow power to be borrowed, as long as charge remains about 80%". The user enabling this option would have to be appropriately reimbursed, of course.
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FWIW, I do agree to a large extent on the pumping energy back. It is inefficient, so you'd do it as a last resort. The main benefit is from stopping and starting the charging cycles.
But, what if the energy supply was nearly or totally renewable? In that case, you may well at some times have excess energy from wind/solar, and there's no point in throwing it away by shutting down the generators, so you may as well pump it into batteries, even if you only get 80% back.
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Ah, just to clarify - you may have slightly mis-understood. I wasn't talking about running the engine to generate power. I was talking about:
a) telling cars to start charging, to smooth demand
a) telling cars to stop charging, to lower demand
b) telling cars to feed energy back, to help cover peak demand
The first two are straightforward, and this technology is already fairly widely used with electric storage heaters. Radio signals are sent out by the electricity suppliers - they can raise and lower demand by turning on and off thousand of peoples' heating. For short-term peaks this is easier and more efficient than turning on and off power stations.
The third I've already explained.
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Journalist in 'telling lies to make a name for himself' shocker!
It must be difficult to get the true environmental costs of something with as many parts as a car, so it's difficult to verify what's written.
I see lots of hybrid cars zipping down the M1 every morning, I think they're exempt from the London congestion charge?
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Stu - good point on the automatic. I have a Prius as a company car, and we wanted an automatic. If you're excluding all manuals, the Prius suddenly looks a lot better. You can't get many automatic diesels outside luxury barges. And it's a _good_ automatic; totally seamless CVT-like behaviour, no dodgy shifts at the wrong time. The company car tax helped too - around 10-12% rate (depending on year - it's going down to 10% next year) - that offset the higher cost. And of course automatic is a cost option on other cars, reducing the gap.
As for the journalist - note he's a student journalist writing in his university paper. But he's certainly got off to an interesting start...
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Yep, exempt from the congestion charge, if you fill in a yearly application form with a £10 fee. So there are loads of them in London. I read somewhere last year that Jemca - a big Toyota dealer in London - reported that the Prius was their biggest-selling model, about 1 in 3 cars sold.
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