Independence Day for Slugs NO MORE HYBRIDS

NoSUV,
Unless you drive a whole tank doing only highway speed, AND another whole tank with only city driving, your calculations are meaningless in this discussion. Of course you don't need a computer to figure your average MPG on a tank of gas. That's a no-brainer! You haven't proven that you get better MPG driving in one place over driving in another. That you can divide xxx miles by xx gallons is not relevant to your claim.

One EXTREMELY important calculation that isn't being factored in is waste disposal.

I just sold a 1966 model vehicle. It runs great. It's not in a junk yard somewhere. It's a "conventional" combustion engine. Doesn't have all the latest safety features, but a good car.

I have a 2000 Toyota Avalon. It is a 6 cylinder. Gets 27 mpg average based on my driving habits. It has all the latest safety features (at least enough to make it safe for quite a few number, 30?, of years to come).

Does going out and buying a new or used vehicle simply because it's called a "hybrid" make sense to junk either of those fine vehicles above especially if I were to be overcome with the temptation to drive SOV in the HOV (which the law is finally catching up to a more common sense approach)?

Selling my Avalon doesn't take it off the roads and do much/anything for emissions reduction since someone else is going to drive a comfortable and safe vehicle anyways?

The only way to get my "pollution factory" off the road is to completely scrap it. Tear up every salvagable piece on it so it can't be recycled to keep other "gas guzzlers" on the road--hey, you don't wanna contribute to furthering others' polluting habits do you?

So, if we scrap the "polluters", we're just filling up landfills with good machinery which could last for years as viable transportation.

Some zealots of hybrids would argue to fill up the landfills (what you don't say is as important as what you do say!) with our current state of the art technology in order to make room for the "latest and greatest" technology.

My Avalon is designed to last MANY more years, avoiding the landfill as long as feasible/economically practical. It's 7, maybe 8 years old (I bought it used). If it were a hybrid, it would be nearing the end of its service life and the batteries would need replacing. Which makes more practical sense in a HOLISTIC approach to being environmentally friendly.

Oh yeah, when my Avalon travels N_bound or S_bound, it has at least 3 for HOV--sometimes there's maximum seating occupied (5 of us) and comfortably seated I might add.

It's so easy to get fixated on some zealots petty rationale for hybrids and lose sight of the larger mosaic (big picture). Don't be fooled....marketers know how to manipulate your perceptions because they induce prejudices in your thinking without you even being aware of it.

NoSb

SOV because you can, HOV because you care!

Hybrid owners shouldn't count on the computer in their car for determining their MPG at any point during their trip. It's there for entertainment purposes. I'm sure there is a disclaimer in the owner's manual.

If the manufacturer says that they get better city MPG than highway MPG, I'm prone to believe them.

Welcome to the discussion, May. One answer to your question lies in the technology system used.

Most hybrids use their electric motors at low speeds and at times of low power demands, like stop and go city driving, while switching to their gas engine at highway speeds. So their fuel effeciency is lower in highway use than in city driving. In this case, you have made a correct assumption and hybrids do not get better "highway" MPG than another comparable car. But because their reported MPG is averaged across varying usage patterns, including city and highway driving, hybrids can 'report' better overall MPG. The reality is that when the gas engine is running at highway speeds they are just like any other car.

So although hybrids operate just like any other gas burning car in the HOV lanes, they are exempt from common sense HOV requirements. These exemptions allow hybrid owners to sleep better at night in blissful ignorance and eco-self-justification, while we, the informed, wisely HOV commute (and hybrid marketers laugh all the way to the bank)!

Yes May, the truth is that the emperor wears no clothes, and hybrids are just another version of fossil fuel burning cars.

Let's rethink the exemption and allow only vehicles with 50 + MPG EPA estimates cruise the HOV in SOV mode.


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