Hybrid cars are useless.

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I just hate people driving a hollier than thou hybrid car. It's a sight that's more common everyday. I just think that those cars are the stupidest idea someone could ever have and should be banned from production.

So I'll explain briefly why I think that

1) Hybrid Cars are not a solution: It takes a great deal of exotic metals to produce a hybrid car. There just aren't enough of these materials to replace every car in the world with a hybrid.

2) Hybrid cars aren't as economycal: The economy of a car is not only determined by the way it's constructed, but also by the way it's driven. If you accelerate and brake a lot, drive fast, use an automatic transmission and drive recklessly, that'll translate on lower fuel economy.

3) Hybrid cars are not economycal to produce and are not economycal to dispose off once their life cycle comes to an end.

4) European diesel cars are way more economycal, and use less oil, since it takes less crude oil to produce one gallon of diesel than one gallon of gas.

5) Car pooling, use of public transportation, bycicles. All those things are way more environmentally friendly that hybrid cars could ever be.

6) Hybrid cars are hollow they are driven by people who want to make a statement. It's not good for the planet, it just built so that other people would think that.

its to make those who "care" feel more important and holy

clean diesel hybrids would be a dream, though a TDI VW Golf will probably be the first car I purchase.

My dream Volt-esque ride is this:

The Ford Cmax Energi




Supposed to be close to the Volt in performance, and in my opinion, more attractive.

i wonder if compressed air cars are any better cost/efficiency-wise, than electrics?

they probably are better but no one so far has been able to produce one that is also safe enough to drive on US streets and pass safety crash tests by NHSTA and IIHS. The fuel efficiency in terms of mpg ratings of every car would be increased dramatically if no one had to worry about all the safety bits engineered into the car.

They don't make that much of a difference really, just an ego booster for the modern day hippie..

That's not the whole picture, OP. Hybrid cars are useless at present, yes, they're toys for the rich, but effort put into developing hybrid cars (and cleaner technology in general) is not wasted, because hopefully they will improve; the hybrid car of 2030 should bear as much resemblance to the hybrid car of today as my 2002 Astra does to one from 1980.

Yeah, if we'd really want to save the environment we'd jut outlaw cars (except for special vehicles like emergency vehicles or trucks) - or just outlaw driving alone.

the energy required to run the compressors at the "air" stations has to be a factor to consider.
also, to compress air to the degree that it could shift a 2 ton mass for even a few miles, would require such high pressures that it would rupture the tank. i have seen a documentary about an air powered vehicle, but it was extremely stripped down and made from fiberglass, and it looked like 4 men could lift it up (by the way it bounced over the bumps). it managed a trip around a small village. to make a viable vehicle that weighs even 800kg to travel for say 200km would require such a pressure, that the cylinder to contain it would have to be very large (and heavy), and if it failed, there would be an extreme blast wave that would be fatal to those in the immediate vicinity.


there seems to me to be many questions i can not easily answer regarding the various "green" technologies regarding cars (and other motive processes).

for example, when i think of electric cars, i wonder how much dirty energy it takes to charge their batteries.
in the event that the charging was performed in a region which is electrified by coal power stations, then is the carbon emission produced by the amount of coal burned to charge the battery less than the amount of the carbon emission produced by the petrol that it would take to drive the car the same distance?

people think that if a car is electric, then because it has no exhaust then it is completely clean, but it seems to me that the exhaust pipe of the electric car may be the smoke stack of the power station that charged it up.

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i once thought about harnessing negative acceleration, and because it is an obvious idea, it has been thought of by others who are in a position to develop it. i am not sure how many people are developing it but i am sure it will be the most effective way of becoming more "efficient" in the short term if fully exploited.

when a person applies the brakes to slow a vehicle, the kinetic energy of the vehicle is completely lost, but it could be stored.

think of a spring like a clock spring

that can be wound many times. a very large clock spring that is a heavy duty one that no man could wind.
when the brakes are applied to bring the vehicle to a halt, instead of brake pads grabbing discs, it is the spring winding mechanism that provides the resistance, and the harder the pedal is pressed, the lower the gear ratio of the winding mechanism is, and it provides exceptional stopping power in return for being wound (one revolution of the winding pin) 65 times and thereby storing that energy for future release to assist the propulsion of the vehicle when the unwind ratchet stop is retracted, and the spring could even catapult you forward faster than the engines full power if it was chosen to be released in a pulse.

but more than braking, there are many periods of time where cars coast down a gentle slope (that may go for miles) and there are no feet on their accelerators, but they manage to not speed up too much. that is because the compression of their engines resists the inevitable rev rate that accompanies higher speeds when the transmission is engaged. if they disengaged their transmissions and put their cars in neutral and did not use their brakes, they would eventually be far over the speed limit.

if the transmission was automatically disengaged (put into neutral) when there was no load on it, and if the spring winding mechanism could be employed to provide the equivalent braking force as an engaged transmission, then additional energy could be captured.

maybe if you replace "winding springs" with "charging batteries" you will think it is a smarter idea, but i like to stick with springs because they are so efficient at capturing energy, and batteries are not.

springs stay wound up for ever whereas batteries go flat whether they are used or not in a short amount of time.

so springs do not lose energy except through release of tension, and that is what can replace much motive force in the propulsion of a vehicle.

I've owned a hybrid car for the last nine years. Average fuel economy is at least twice that of my neighbor's non-hybrid car of the same weight. I did not buy it to be "holier than thou" or to give anyone the impression that I'm an owl-loving, tree-hugging environmental wienie. I bought it because it's a geek thing. Some of the hacks I've made have actually increased the mileage, and thus its value.

As for being a rich man's car, it cost me just a little under 20K$, and I paid it off in five years.

As for the myths associated with hybrid vehicles, I see their creation and propagation being motivated by jealousy - whether it's because I received a tax break at purchase, drove for 8 years alone in the express lanes, or simply because I can afford a car in the first place. I also encounter a few burr-head types who brand me a traitor for not buying an American-made car.

If anyone really wants me to own an American-made gas-guzzler, then they can buy it, pay it off, and then give it to me for no cost out of my pocket. Otherwise, they can take their self-righteous, smarmy attitude and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.

"tree hugging" is a tired buzzword.
"tree-hugging environmental wienie". spend more of your energy in investigation and less in hollow sentence construction.

the rest of what you wrote i may possibly read at a later time, but i am otherwise busy. i am sure you will excuse me.

My 91 year old grandmother drives a Honda Civic hybrid. It's great, she gasses it up twice a year.

YEP!

Refining technology and doing things the smart way (as efficiently as possible) will be the key.

Just look at biofuels. Corn ethanol has a net energy gain of 1.3 (gasoline neg is about 9). That's the stupid way to do biofuel.

Brazilian sugarcane ethanol has a net energy gain of 8 according to some sources. That's a good deal and the smart way to do biofuel!

It's also why Brazil is set to be the new power in the western hemisphere.

The answer is a very qualified yes. Power stations are more efficient than a car, but there is some loss involved in transmission; coal is inherently more polluting than petrol weight-for-weight (well, energy-for-energy); power stations may employ carbon capture and storage to reduce emissions. But the full equation must include the whole supply chain of the fuel and all the hardware, which becomes ludicrously complex. But in short, yes, an electric car is more worthwhile if charged from a renewable source, not a coal power station!


Yeah - it's a good idea, but it's not particularly effective because there are high losses. They use it in Formula One (KERS, Kinetic Energy Recovery System). Flywheels are always cool.

qualify it then.
i will not refute you if you are correct. you can not play if you can not think.

You missed the point. These are the labels that others have tried to place on me for owning a hybrid car. Not only are they insulting, but they're sadly out-dated. But what can anyone expect from the über-patriots that think they run this country?

"the point" is only conceived in your head. the fact that i "missed" it proves that we do not think alike.

no matter how smart you are in the ways that you are smart, i am also smart in the ways that i am smart, and if the twain do not meet, i will not shed a tear as i suspect neither will you.

off to unconsciousness i dive with gay abandon exactly now!!