Getting excited about wise energy use

This entry was posted on 7/8/2007 1:11 AM and is filed under Energy Conservation.

My friend Dave sent me the email below a couple of days ago.  Using less energy CAN be fun.  I'm looking forward to getting a ride -- regenerative braking is the joint.  Rita and I have decided that our next car is going to be a hybrid.

    We just got a new car, a Toyota Prius!  Took about a month, but what a machine!  This is the coolest car i have ever experienced, I do not need a Ferrari anymore.  Just the tech features alone make it, then there is the mileage and lower emissions.  It teaches me how to drive better, the big challenge is to not be driving it all the time. It has this "stealth" mode, where one uses the gas engine as little as possible. It coasts so easily, I need to learn how to brake all over.


In his reply to my request to use his email on the blog, he had this to say (Dave, hope it's OK that I'm using this....) -

    Delighted to be a part of it!  My first tank yielded about 50 mpg and i will do better as it breaks in and I get the technique down.  The great challenge is not to be driving it all the time because it is so much fun. I smile as i drive. 

    I agree with you about the tax structure. The only way to communicate to cement heads is through money, the only "scarce" commodity that they perceive. 

Money IS a motivator of change......

        

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Comments

• 7/8/2007 7:27 AM Mark Jeantheau wrote:
  Bravo to those considering hybrids. But more generally, people should be looking at MPG and tailpipe emissions, regardless of whether the vehicle is a hybrid or not.
  
  Don't get me wrong---I'm a fan of hybrid technology, but there are non-hybrids today that are doing pretty well on both MPGs and pollution (and are cheaper), and some hybrid models are really muscle cars in hybrid clothing, where the engineers have put the extra efficiency into more power, not more MPGs. Honda recently announced it was dropping one such turkey from its lineup.
  
  Here are some resources:
  
  Yahoo Green Auto Center
  http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/
  
  EPA's Green Vehicle Guide
  http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/
  
  FuelEconomy.gov
  http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
  
  Mark
  Reply to this
• 7/13/2007 10:06 PM Robert wrote:
  Congrats Dave! Loved the excitement of his story. This is exactly the excitement and passion you saw with the EV owners in CA. Now that you have experienced your car, and the added pride of doing something for our envirnoment, can you imagine Dave having the car taken from you and CRUSHED?
  GM is not just burdened with the enormous pension/health care costs of their retiring workforce. They have the added cost of failing to have vision for the future as well as a conscience for the envirnoment!
  Reply to this
  1. 7/14/2007 5:40 AM Paul Riehemann wrote:
     

     Robert, great points.  But, Dave would never let this happen - have you ever seen him?  He's an animal.

     
     Reply to this
• 7/14/2007 9:43 AM Jim Blair wrote:
  Hi,
  
  Simply getting more miles per gallon of gas is not the "solution" Consider that there are ever more cars on the road, both in the USA and especially world wide, as even formerly poor countries like China and India (to name just 2) begin to build and buy cars. And each car in the USA drives ever more miles (on average) each year.
  
  The currently politically popular buzz words today are "renewable" and "biofuels" which means mostly ethanol from corn and vegetable oil from soybeans. While these probably both qualify as both, neither is a solution to either US oil addiction or to GHG/Climate change.
  
  The hybrid car is only a first step in the right direction in so far as it is a plug-in: can be charged at home and driven the first 40 miles or so using NO gasoline. The longer range goal should be all electric cars, or at least ones where the plug-in charge replaces most of the gasoline in ordinary use.
  
  Of course the next issue becomes: where does the electricity come from?
  
  Coal solves the "importing energy" and "oil addiction" problems, but makes the "climate change" and "local air quality" (and various other) problems even worse.
  
  Solar won't charge car batteries overnight, and wind is not reliable. Hydro and geothermal are not available everywhere.
  
  And we can't even THINK the "N" Word.
  
  So what is left?
  Reply to this
• 8/4/2007 12:08 PM Jim Blair wrote:
  Hi,
  
  While in Canada last week I read an article in the local press claiming that hybrid cars are not better for the environment than SUV's. (Was that in the US papers also?).
  
  Some of the reasons given sound reasonable: the Ni in the batteries is very energy intensive to mine and the batteries don't last long enough.
  
  Some reasons are open to question: the owners of hybrids don't keep their car as long and don't drive them as much, making the initial energy investment to produce the car spread over a smaller base. That line of "logic" would say that by driving your cars more miles you reduce its "energy per mile driven".
  
  And of course, the use of ethanol instead of gasoline saves little or no net energy, depending on which study you believe.
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