Navigation
User login
Quote
CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
This "journalism" (using the term lightly here, thus quoted) is irresponsible. CNN/Money of course have every right to be wrong, just surprising that they would do so with such commitment and vigor.
I think the "dont buy the hype" article is off for various reasons. Lets start with the term "financial sense" in the way CNN/Money uses it, strictly the cost of the car and the "average" cost of fuel for a car driven 15K miles a year (yeah because thats a realistic average, sure). Financial sense should include not only the straight up math for fuel economy, which is skewed in the article because they used only two moderately fuel efficient examples among the hybrid lot (Accord and Escape, versus say Civic or Insight, average them all out), but also should include environmental factors (how much is clean air "worth", how much is helping to slow down global warming worth) and foreign policy factors (how much is foreign oil independence, or at least improvement in that direction, worth).
(How much would all oceans not being warmed up by one degree centigrade - per researchers at Ga Tech is the cause of the intense hurricane season and is caused by man - be worth to the Gulf Coast of the states right now? How much would a greatly lessened dependence on foreign oil be worth to military families and for that matter all Americans and Iraqis and people in general right now? How much would cleaner air be worth to many people suffering from various pulmonary issues be?)
And the article totally bungles the "tax deduction" information. The new energy bill, passed last month, changed deductions to tax CREDITS. Credits take real whole dollars right off the top and change the equation quite a bit (credit to the Bush administration and Republicans in congress for this, we SHOULD be crediting hybrid buyers even more, the new tax credit rules are overly complicated and do have some problems but overall at least they are there - a "flip flop" of sorts for President Bush who laughed at hybrid tax credits in 2000 and vowed to have them removed altogether).
In a real world example the "financial sense" comes out quite a bit better than the article states, even if you just do the math, then if you have the foresight to figure in any of the other "values" to the hybrid (not just "making a statement" as the article notes - its much more than that) its really a lot more than "hype".
TotSP Search
Community
Chatter
- You don't need anything
1 sec ago - Hey nice article however, i
2 days 13 hours ago - Appreciation
4 days 9 hours ago - thanks for information...
6 days 6 hours ago - In total agreement on this one
2 weeks 17 hours ago - Suggested change to wrapper
2 weeks 4 days ago - Hmmmm...i jus called it and
2 weeks 4 days ago - I just quit!
2 weeks 4 days ago - Touche!
Pun intended.
2 weeks 6 days ago - Re-pricing the Touch
2 weeks 6 days ago
Comments
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
The real question is, "Why do we have to buy a car from Japan in order to get a hybrid?"
Now, I'm not opposed to buying a Japanese car, but why don't I have options?
What the hell is wrong with the US auto makers?
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
I know, good question. I have been asking that also for a few years now.
Even the current Ford bybrids are technology they bought from Toyota and all the American auto companies are complaining that they cant get parts due to "predatory" practices with parts hogging by the Japanese companies.
Ford is bitching and all Ford has is the Escape which is pathetic when it comes to fuel effeciency in 2005 and its built on Toyota parts!
Where the hell is the American innovation?!? Where are the American electric motor companies and engineers and auto companies - why arent the Japanese buying this stuff from US.
Oh yeah, because Detroit was saying 5-10 years ago that hybrids would never sell and they could not be bothered to waste their time.
That and all the American innovation is now putting its effort into proving that Jesus horses lived the same time as Jesus rather than dealing with actual science.
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
If I saw some actual movement in the hyrdrogen camp, that'd be one thing, but somebody is seriously dragging their feet.
...and another thing... Toyota announced that they were going to make a hybrid version of the MR2 Spyder a while ago... where the hell is it? It was supposed to show that you didn't have to sacrafice performance for economy. Then they stopped selling MR2s in the US now.
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
I think this is some really important info, the 107th congress, all Republican led with Bush as President, totally balked at improved CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards in 2001!!!!
Now everyone is concerned about it, but the Republicans thought concerns over foreign oil dependence, the environment and mileage were basically less than worthless back in 2001.
In fact on August 8th 2001 Paul R. Portney "Chairman of the CAFE Committee
Board on Energy and Environmental Systems and Transportation Research Board National Research Council" held a hearing at the "Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation" before the CAFE vote.
Paul said some crazy shit:
"The two main factors the committee considered are oil imports and global climate change."
"significant improvements in fuel economy are quite possible at reasonable cost."
His point was to introduce the report the Natl Academies had created: Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards
This report recommended various changes to the CAFE program to remove loopholes and "level the playing field". In addition it recommended higher standards. More fuel efficiency, and cited greenhouse gas concerns and foreign oil dependence as reasons for giving a shit.
CAFE standards were proposed to have been updated, for great and real reasons and yet the congress failed to pass them.
"The Senate began debate on comprehensive energy legislation at the end of February 2002. Senators Kerry and McCain reached a compromise to propose a combined fleetwide average of 36 mpg by MY2015. However, on March 13, 2002, the Senate voted (62-38) for an amendment to charge NHTSA with devel-opment of new CAFE standards. The Senate then approved an amendment (56-44) to freeze "pickup trucks" at the current light truck standard of 20.7 mpg. The Senate passed its energy bill April 25 (88-11). On September 19, the conferees agreed to the House-passed goal of saving 5 billion gallons, but shifted the window to MY2006-MY2012"
The 107th-108th senate voted to uphold the CURRENT ratings for trucks, and passed the CAFE buck to NHTSA despite having all sorts of information and viable new standards in front of them to simple pass. Now all sorts of congresspeople are proposing all sorts of stupid ass laws to try to lower gas prices, rather than help fuel economy.
About an once of foresight in 2001 - and prior - could have helped a great deal with a lot of the quagmires we are in today.
And the new "Energy Bill" - HR-6 is what actually passed as best I can tell -
8/8/2005: Signed by President.
8/8/2005: Became Public Law No: 109-58.
is 1800 some pages, text not yet online, and apparently (cant really tell) is just a big tax break for oil companies and was gutted of any actual efforts to improve effeciency or use, and no CAFE standards.
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
s/once/ounce
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
The CNN study is total crap, read my full post at Hybridcarblog.com.
The CNN study is not just based on flawed "financial" data, but it also based on flawed EPA data.
According to Consumer Reports, the EPA is off by as much as 50 percent. Of course Detroit continually lobbies against fixing the EPA.
Additionally, the Accord hybrid is a performance hybrid. It wasn't created to achieve the best fuel efficiency possible.
I live in Los Angeles and in my commute the Prius can achieve 60 mpg, but let's use CR data. According to CR, the Prius achieves 45 mpg in the city. The Ford Focus achieves 17 mpg. Hmmm. Sure sounds like hype to me.
In city driving there simply isn't one competitor to the Prius. More important, hybrid cars are an emerging technology.
Plug-in hybrids and experimental hybrids have been created that achieve as much as 250 mpg, at a fraction of the cost of fuel cell vehicles.
That's not worth the investment? That's just hype? What is CNN's problem?
While some hybrids are not cost competive, some are, especially if you live in a city. More important, buying a hybrid car is an investment in the future.
CNN should be ashamed.
Chad Snyder
Soultek.com
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
Also regarding improved CAFE and Republicans. CAFE uses EPA data. Both EPA and CAFE changes have been opposed by a majority of Republicans, but there are some moderates.
Earlier this year, both could have been address. If all Dems voted to do so there were enough moderate Republicans; however, Labor Dems oppose fixing CAFE or the EPA.
So it isn't purely the fault of Republicans.
Chad Snyder
Soultek.com
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
Agreed its not all Republicans, but it was a majority "conservative" republican Congress and President in charge when all the efficiency stuff was not only voted down, but laughed out of the chambers.
Dems do deserve their own share of the credit for the current state though, we have had many years to improve things, we just havent given a crap.
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
And I just wanted to also say that hybridcarblog.com entry by Chad is good stuff. I think the original CNN/Money author used the Accord and Escape on purpose just as a general grab from the set of cars, but Chad accurately points out neither of those are built for real fuel efficiency (better than non hybrid counterparts, but by no means good among hybrids). Thats what I meant in my post when I said average them all out (to be fair to both sides of the pendulum swing, take all hybrids, whats are there 6-7 models now?).
And yes EPA numbers are off, but to be fair to the CNN/Money author thats what we go by to make comparisons because thats the only real data we have (unless we do independy studies or own the cars - as Chad does - I used to own a Honda Insight, and with the wind right and careful driving I could get 70MPG - no bullshit, drove from Atlanta to Tampa a few times without filling up and had petrol left over).
While the original article does miss a lot of technical details and makes some unfair comparisons, I still think the most egregious error is in not even mentioning what value hybrids have in terms of environmental and geopolitical areas. Most of the "hybrids dont make sense" articles (and there are quite a few) dont mention the other factors, or write it off to "make a statement" like the CNN/Money thing did, and thats just offensive nonsense. (And no I no longer own a hybrid, long story.)
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
Soultek is a pretty cool site too ;).
RE: CNN/Money misses the mark with "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype"
While I agree with everything said here, I think that to the average Joe American most of your considerations (global warming, environmental, foreign oil dependence) are so intangible as they don't really factor into the equation. Most consumers will not care about whether buying a Prius (a very cool car by the way) will help to keep Osama at bay or keep ocean water from gain 1 degree of temperature. Sad, but true. If you look at it from a direct cost perspective, hybrids are more expensive and that extra cost cannot typically be made up for with gas and tax savings.
This is a sad but true fact, I feel. Most people will not change anything about their habits until the costs directly hit them.
Me, I own a 4x4 extended cab pickup. But a month ago I got sick of paying $60 a week for gas just for the work commute. So now I take the bus, which costs me $18.50 a week, which I immediately get back in not paying for parking alone. So I'm saving damn near $250 a month. I made the switch because the cost directly affected me.
The best way to get people to change their habits - make gas as expensive as possible. Stop any efforts at price capping or trying to fine 'gougers'. People will start to find better ways.
Oh, and I'm helping the environment out even more than you damn hippies who drive cars to work. Nyah! lol