Hybrids- A DANGER to the environment!

[SVOboy]

This article is seen on many sites because it is inflammatory and serves an agenda, not because it is correct. If you can find a rigorous study done by a reputable institution supporting these claims, then it might be worth having a conversation about. Otherwise, this report is BS.

[SVOboy]

Originally Posted by Hermie

That it isn't just a marketing ploy and should be of genuine concern, if you actually do care about the environment as opposed to just getting the best MPGs out of your car.

Being lots of places doesn't prove either of those things. Just like the newspapers that recently published fake stories from The Onion doesn't make the fake news any more real: The Onion Keeps On Embarrassing Newspapers

[jesse.rizzo]

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg.

Did the revised EPA testing only lower the mileage of the Prius? I must have missed where all other cars mileage estimates stayed the same.[/sarcasm]

This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

So I guess an EPA combined 50mpg is within spitting distance of EPA combined 30mpg.

The other problems with this article have already been pointed out. These just bothered me a lot more.

[jkp1187]

Originally Posted by Hermie

That it isn't just a marketing ploy and should be of genuine concern, if you actually do care about the environment as opposed to just getting the best MPGs out of your car.

The environment I love, but the truth I love even more. And this report you're citing to is bogus.

[Christ]

I'll state once again:

There were studies done through the 80's and into the 90's that showed explicitly that areas which had more than one Catholic Church undoubtedly had a higher violent crime rate.













That DOESN'T make Catholics criminals, it just means that someone made the wrong assumptions about studies that were released.

What should have been gotten from those studies (and eventually was gotten, after the media and public forums had their way molesting the study by proliferating the same crap that the OP has here) was that areas with more than one Catholic Church are also more highly/densely populated. Now, you can make an inference that the higher population concentration is the cause of the elevated crime rate, and not the Catholic religion.

Figure out what studies were incorrectly referred to, and you'll almost certainly debunk anything of the sort.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Hermie

.. I misread. By "Report cited in the original post," I thought you meant the article itself.

The cost-to-own may not be acurate, but the environmental damage done from battery production is there nonetheless.

The comparison of environmental damage done isn't accurate either. Specifically, the excess steel/chrome used in the H3, which conveniently isn't looked at. The most common type of steel used contains ~6-22% Nickel, which means that only 500lbs of extra steel with the minimum in terms of Nickel contains enough Nickel to equal all the Nickel in the Prius' pack. Considering the H3 weighs nearly a ton more than a Prius, it probably has more than 500lbs of extra steel, and uses more Nickel than the Prius does, not counting the extra due to more chrome (for instance on the wheels).

Formerly most decorative items affixed to cars were referred to as "chrome", by which phrase was actually meant steel that had undergone several plating processes to endure the temperature changes and weather that a car was subject to outdoors. The most expensive and durable process involved plating the steel first with copper, and then nickel, before the chromium plating was applied.

The CNW Marketing "study" is just marketing. It isn't even up to the rigor of junk science...

[Christ]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

The comparison of environmental damage done isn't accurate either. Specifically, the excess steel/chrome used in the H3, which conveniently isn't looked at. The most common type of steel used contains ~6-22% Nickel, which means that only 500lbs of extra steel with the minimum in terms of Nickel contains enough Nickel to equal all the Nickel in the Prius' pack. Considering the H3 weighs nearly a ton more than a Prius, it probably has more than 500lbs of extra steel, not counting more chrome (wheels).


The CNW Marketing "study" is just marketing. It isn't even up to the rigor of junk science...

I was just looking that up, and you beat me to it.

Also, nickel plating (with electricity, probably from coal/petro fired plants... LOL) is used before chrome plating, to smooth the surfaces and fill imperfections.

[jamesqf]

In terms of sheer BS, that article contained and generated so much that if we had it all going into a biomethane system, our oil problems could be cut in half :-)

Just to add one more cowpie to what others have pointed out, there's this howler:

Originally Posted by Hermie

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway.

So what's so incredible about those, other than the fact that a few not-very-skilled drivers don't beat them regularly?

[Christ]

"The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second."

8MPH/S means that all cars have a 0-60 time of less than 8 seconds... I don't think this is true at all... If the EPA is testing this way, EVERYONE should be able to BEAT EPA estimates easily. Hell, I could always beat the old numbers, and I never thought of myself as an "efficient" driver, until recently.

[orange4boy]

TOTALLY DEBUNKED MONTHS AGO!!!!!!!!

Public relations company did the "study".

It is true that building ANY new car consumes a lot of energy. But this report is so full of manure that I can smell it from here.

The point about the nickel mine is true, I'ts a wasteland. BUT: I'll make the same point Christ does: Lots of nickel used in the chrome on a Hummer and the nickel in the batteries can be recycled. The nickel under the chrome? not so much.