Hybrid Cars Newsletter: Issue No. 010
~~~ Hybrid Cars Newsletter: Issue No. 0010 ~~~
Moderator: Bradley Berman [brad@hybridcars.com]
In This Issue:
– QUICK UPDATES
Available Hybrids – Vanity Plate Contest – Blogs
– THE GAS MILEAGE IMPACT CALCULATOR
Tracking your fuel economy is a great idea, but understanding the impact of your mpg is even more important. Hybridcars.com’s new online calculator tool can help.
– HYBRIDS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The buzz around hybrid vehicles in the next year will be about how fast and/or luxurious hybrids can be. It’s time to get back to basics, and review the list of noxious pollutants being emitted from our cars—and do a quick hybrid to non-hybrid comparison.
— GETTING A GRIP ON LOW RESISTANCE TIRES
It boils down to personal preference. If you drive aggressively, you might want to use a softer tire with better road adhesion. If you’re a fanatic for mileage and a very mellow driver, then you probably should get the lowest resistance tire you can find on the market.
— ENOUGH JUICE TO OPEN UP THE HYBRID MARKET
Even if the major carmakers decided today to dramatically increase hybrid production, the supply line of nickel metal hydride batteries might not be ready for years. Delaying the decision to tool up until tomorrow will delay the hybrid revolution even further.
Greetings Hybrid Car Enthusiasts,
This issue of the newsletter offers our usual mix of hybrid news, consumer advice, and technology information. You’ll also find evidence of how hybridcars.com is becoming more interactive, creating an opportunity for site visitors to exchange information, conduct research, and let their voice be heard. New and upcoming interactive features include: an online calculator, bloggers area, contests, surveys, etc. The discussion forum on the site continues to attract new participants and wonderfully dynamic and provocative discussion. We invite you become an active member of this online community, and as always, appreciate any feedback on how to continually improve the site and newsletter.
- What’s selling?
Hybrid cars on sale now:
Ford Escape Hybrid | Honda Accord Hybrid | Honda Civic Hybrid | Honda Insight | Toyota Prius
Next in line:
2005 Lexus RX 400h Hybrid SUV- On sale April 15, 2005 - Vanity Plate Contest
The hybridcars.com vanity plate contest continues until December 15.
The front-runner: NV MY MPG. Can you top it? It’s not too late to enter:
http://hybridcars.com/discussthread.php?thread_id=65 - Hybrid Car Blogs
We’re on schedule to launch our first set of hybrid car blogs, featuring drivers from all walks of life—from Escape-driving cultural critic David Miller to Insight-driving technologist and inventor Kip Munro.
Some hybrid car drivers take mpg monitoring very seriously. They keep track of fuel usage for every trip, evaluating the effects of weather conditions, traffic patterns, and tire pressure. These efficiency freaks plug the data into their computer and produce monthly and quarterly graphs and reports (which they likely foist upon bewildered family and co-workers). More power to them for trying to get fellow drivers to wake up.
Most hybrid drivers have some kind of relationship with their “inner mpg accountant.” Every time I fill up at the pumps, I do the long division on my receipt to figure out my mpg. I make the calculation, obtain my mpg number, and smirk with self-satisfaction into the rear view mirror telling myself that I am one bad gas-sipping dude. A second later, I usually think: What does the number really mean? What’s the point of keeping track of this number, if it doesn’t motivate a change in behavior—either altering a consumer choice or encouraging us to reduce our energy use.
A New Online Tool
With this notion, the Gas Mileage Impact Calculator was born. Select a hybrid car and its conventional sibling, enter your anticipated annual driving, and price at the pump, and hybridcars.com’s Gas Mileage Impact Calculator will tell you how much you are likely to spend in a year on gas, how many gallons you’ll use, and the amount of Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Sulphur Oxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Hydrocarbons, and Particulate Matter the two vehicles are likely to emit. Other features allow you to:
- Make the same comparisons based on an anticipated lifetime ownership of ten years
- See how your driving style (e.g. speeding, coasting to a stop, jack-rabbit starts, etc.) will change the gas usage, gas costs, and emissions
- Email the results to a friend
And if you want to get serious, you can track your mpg, costs, usage, and emissions over time—bar graph included—to see how the numbers grow over time. It’s easy (and totally free) to set up your username and password. If you happen to skip one of the tank-by-tank inputs, the calculator will average it over time.
> What are you waiting for? Go to the Gas Mileage Impact Calculator. (And don’t forget to email the results to everybody on your contact list—so you can gloat about how you’re changing the world one gallon at a time.)
Special thanks to Honda, for sponsoring the creation of the tool, and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, creator of the “Green Book®: The Environmental Guide to Cars and Trucks” for granting use of their emissions data.
> Learn more about the Green Book®
> Learn more about the Honda sponsorship
HYBRIDS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT IMPACT
In our most recent newsletter, we described the trend for 2005 hybrids to become more mainstream by using hybridization to boost performance or offer special features. It’s easy to get lost in the thrill of new technology, and lose sight of the raison d’etre of hybrid vehicles: to reduce the environmental impact of our driving. For a healthy reminder about the unhealthy effects of our car culture, we recently expanded the environmental section of hybridcars.com to describe each of the major ingredients in the deadly cocktail of pollution that comes out of our tailpipes. The section also offers information about global warming, driving trends, car and health effects, and other environment impacts. Here’s a quick list of a few of the major pollutants and a sample hybrid to non-hybrid comparison (courtesy of the Gas Mileage Impact Calculator.) Some of the comparisons are to similar vehicles, and others illustrate the dramatic differences in emissions between SUVs and smaller cars.
Sample calculations are based on 14,000 miles of driving per year.
- Carbon dioxide is the dominant greenhouse gas that causes global warming. The effects of global warming are uncertain, but they potentially include disruption of global weather patterns and ecosystems, flooding, severe storm, and droughts.
2004 Toyota Camry, 3.0L, 6 Automatic: 11,000 pounds
2004 Toyota Prius, 1.5L, 4 CVT: 4,800 pounds
- Carbon monoxide, when inhaled, combines with hemoglobin in our blood, impairing the flow of oxygen to our brain and other parts of the body. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and poisonous even to healthy people (at high levels in the air). Motor vehicles remain the number one source of carbon monoxide pollution in many countries.
2004 Cadillac SRX SUV, 3.6L, 6 Automatic, Bin 5: 330 pounds
2005 Ford Escape Hybrid, 2.3L, 4 CVT,Bin 4: 230 pounds
- Nitrogen oxide is a noxious pollutant. It is a lung irritant and reacts with compounds in the air to cause acid rain and ozone (the main reason for smog). Nitrogen oxide is one of the main ingredients involved in the formation of ground-level ozone (which can trigger serious respiratory problems), and contributes to global warming.
2004 Volkswagen Jetta, 1.9L, 4 Automatic, Bin 10: 49 pounds
2004 Honda Civic Hybrid, 1.3L, 4 CVT, Bin 9: 17 pounds
- Particulate matter, consisting of tiny particles of smoke, soot and dust—primarily from engines, car parts, tires, and diesel exhaust—are an established cause of lung problems, from shortness of breath to worsening of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, damage to lung tissues, and cancer. The EPA estimates that particulate pollution kills more than 60,000 people per year. Particulates can travel deep into the lungs, or in smaller form, directly into the bloodstream.
2004 Range Rover, 4.4L, 8 Automatic, Tier 1: 670 grams
2005 Honda Accord Hybrid, 3.0L, 6 Automatic, ULEV II: 240 grams
- Hydrocarbons, in their many forms, are directly hazardous, contributing to what are collectively called "air toxics." These compounds directly irritate the lung and other tissues, can cause cancer, contribute to birth defects, and cause other illnesses.
2004 Hummer H2, 6.0L, 8 Automatic, HDT-Bin 11: 29 pounds
2004 Honda Insight, 1.0L, 3 Manual, Bin 9: 8 pounds
For more information:
Global warming: http://www.hybridcars.com/global-warming.html
Cars and their health effects: http://www.hybridcars.com/health-effects.html
Driving trends: http://www.hybridcars.com/driving-trends.html
Other environmental impacts: http://www.hybridcars.com/other-impacts.html
Total lifecycle impact: http://www.hybridcars.com/total-cycle.html
GETTING A GRIP ON LOW RESISTANCE TIRES
Moderator: The means by which hybrid cars propel themselves forward is usually the main topic of a hybrid car technology discussion. But the resistance that a vehicle faces as it cuts through air, and rolls along the road, also plays a key role in fuel efficiency. Our technical advisor, Dave Reuter, takes a look at how gas mileage is affected by tires—and makes a few recommendations for when it comes time to replace your hybrid’s contact with the road. Take it away, Dave.
Gas mileage is affected by more than just the size and weight of the tire. Rolling resistance of the tire has a larger effect. Here’s the basic rule:
Harder tires = lower rolling resistance
Beware. If the tire is too hard or too round, then the tire-patch (which is the area of tire that is in contact with the ground) will be too small to grip the road surface effectively. This in turn will allow the wheel to skid easier when trying to stop or allow the wheel to slip and spin when trying to roll out from a light.
The same holds true for tread designs and patterns. The more detailed the tread design, the more likely it will grip the road better—but also create the opportunity to trap air in each of the pockets it generates when touching the road surface. When trapping the air/water/dirt/snow in these pockets, the tire is compressing the material that is in the pocket. Therefore, the engine has to do more work to compress these pockets. This makes the tire less efficient to turn, and thereby reduces the mileage of the vehicle.
The tire companies work to balance the rubber compounds and tread patterns to find the most efficient combinations. Along the way, new compounds are discovered as well as more efficient tread patterns.
Hybrids and Resistance
Most of the hybrid vehicles use some sort of low rolling resistance tire. Sometimes these tires are called “low mu.” “Mu” is the Greek letter (used by engineers) as the symbol for “tire friction to the road surface.”
While the low resistance tires will help with mileage, there have been some complaints from hybrid owners that they did not like the way the tires handle on the road. As a result, Toyota has backed off from using the lower resistance tires and has settled with a better handling tire.
It boils down to personal preference. If you drive aggressively, you might want to use a softer tire with better road adhesion. If you’re a fanatic for mileage and a very mellow driver, then you probably should get the lowest resistance tire you can find on the market.
Choice of Tire and/or Tire Pressure
You can minimize resistance, and maximizing mpg by making sure your car uses a Low Rolling Resistance (LRR) rated tire. If you are shopping for LRR tires, you should consider the following tires available at tirerack.com:
Michelin Energy Series (look for the word "energy")
Are Hybrid Drivers Full of Hot Air?
If you change your vehicle’s tires, by increasing or decreasing the resistance by 20% for example, you may raise or drop mileage by 3 to 5%. While this is a measurable difference, it won’t make as big a difference as making certain that your tires are properly inflated. A vehicle that requires its tires to be inflated to 35 psi will have an increase in rolling resistance of 12% or more if the tires are allowed to become under inflated to just 28 psi.
Many hybrid car enthusiasts recommend an absolute minimum psi of 35 psi—and many try to push the envelope by increasing pressure to 40+ psi. You should read the manufacturer’s recommendations, and decide for yourself how comfortable you are with pumping up your tires for a gain in mpg. Bear in mind that temperature makes a difference. The rule of thumb is for every 10° Fahrenheit change in air temperature, your tire’s inflation pressure will change by about 1 psi (up with higher temperatures and down with lower).
The Hybridcars.com Discussion Forum has a thread started called "Tires for Best MPG."
BREAKING THE MARKET WIDE OPEN: OVERCOMING LACK OF BATTERIES, LACK OF WILL
For hybrid car advocates and shoppers alike, the lack of availability, low production numbers, and long waiting lists continue to be a source of frustration. It may be easy to explain that some American companies are burying their heads in the sand, and putting up a smokescreen about a hydrogen future. But for Toyota, Honda, and Ford, who are clearly playing the hybrid game for keeps, hybrid advocates keep scratching our heads wondering why the carmakers are being so cautious about the market possibilities and producing at such low levels?
Earlier this year, Dave Hermance of Toyota, told hybridcars.com:
“You’ve got to walk a pretty fine line. You don’t want to rush out and do something foolish, especially since there will be a bunch of new players in the market over the next 12 months. They’ll be a lot of new products. We need to watch that sift out, and see how it goes, see what fraction of that we can get, and what unmet demand there might be then.”
Even if it becomes crystal clear to Toyota and all the other current and future hybrid makers that there really and truly is overwhelming unmet demand, the manufacturers might not be able to respond so quickly. A November story in USA today explains that the makers of the hybrid’s rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries could be in very short supply for several years.
There are only three major suppliers of the batteries — Japan’s Panasonic and Sanyo and U.S.-based Cobasys — and they appear unable to quickly add production. The battery production lines require heavy and specialized tooling. Similar issues may exist for other hybrid components.
It’s a Catch-22, where the hybrid makers appear reluctant to make the necessary investment for a future market that’s not absolutely confirmed—and if they don’t invest and produce adequately, the market’s growth will be undercut. And to make it a Catch-23, legislators who could make a huge difference by mandating carbon reductions, increased fuel efficiency, or hybrid incentives, don’t have the political guts to make it happen. What can we do?
Maybe we can demonstrate to the manufacturers and legislators the real pent-up demand for hybrids. To take a baby step in this direction, hybridcars.com is launching an ongoing survey of hybrid drivers and shoppers. Your response to the survey—it should take less than five minutes—will help us create a report and galvanize the growing legions of hybrid car drivers and sympathizers into a political-consumer force. The survey includes a question about what strategies you think would work to help push the hybrid agenda further. You don’t need to be a current hybrid owner to participate.
WRAP-UP
Thanks for taking the time to read the newsletter—and hopefully jumping on the site to use the calculator or participate in the ongoing survey. Topics slated for the next issue include the world of “concept hybrids,” and a look at how celebrity activists are playing a role in getting more hybrids on the road. Until the next time,
Happy Driving,
Brad Berman
brad@hybridcars.com
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