Comments on: June Hybrid Sales Up From a Year Ago

By: Mobile News

Mobile News — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 06:26:00 +0000

The world’s largest carmakers are significantly investing in increased production capacity for hybrid cars and advanced auto batteries.Mobile News

By: Nelson Lu

Nelson Lu — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:58:13 +0000

Jeddy writes:

"Down the road, I'll be looking to replace the gas-guzzling Dodge Grand Caravan Sport with a hybrid of better equivalent. I'm wondering where the hybrid RAV4 / hybrid CRV's are?"

The Ford Escape/Mercury Milan/Mazda Tribute hybrids have already been here for a long, long time. Granted, they're a bit on the small side -- but so are the RAV4 and CRV.

By: perfectapproach

perfectapproach — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:21:10 +0000

H2 doesn't necessarily have to come from crude oil (and I'm sure that it WOULD be very inefficient to do so). H2 can be produced from natural gas and alcohols. If alternative energy plants (nuclear, solar, wind) were use to create hydrogen from water, alcohol, and natural gas, there could be little/no pollutants created. (Even spent nuclear fuel can be recycled into usable nuclear fuel, in some cases). A great side-effect of hydrogen-based cars is that they PRODUCE potable water. I'm sure many years down the line, if/when hydrogen-based transport does become as widespread as a standard ICE is today, the water that is created as exhaust would likely be kept in a tank in the car and drained for use in the home, possibly even for drinking.

Sounds strange, but remember that when the internal combustion engine was created, gasoline was a waste by-product of fuel-oil production. No one ever imagined that people would one day want to carry around 15 - 30 gallons of this "waste" in a tank to fuel their cars. Just as common as carrying around gasoline in a tank is now, carrying around a waste-tank for water may be commonplace in a future hydrogen economy.

By: Robcares

Robcares — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:38:12 +0000

No one would be happier then me to see Hydrogen replace fossil fuels. However, Big oil will be the first supplier of Hydrogen derived from oil. How is that weening us off of oil? I have a question, I’m not a chemist, when you extract H2 from oil, what is left over? will it have a use? or does it become some sort of new pollution nightmare? Also, if you convert a barrel of oil to H2, what is the energy comparison between that and a barrel of oil converted to gas? What is the cost comparison in producing the two fuels? I don’t know the answers to all of these questions, but my intuition tells me, everything about H2 is more costly and less efficient, and that would be a huge problem. Lastly, the ultimate source of H2 would be water. Potable (drinkable) water is scarce world wide, so the obvious solution would be sea water. How much coal do you need to burn in the coal fire power plants across this country, to convert one gallon of sea water into H2? I think, at the end of the day, Ev’s will be more efficient for the majority of drivers. H2 may work in a small segment of the population, but overall, costs for fuels will need to rise dramatically before H2 will be able to compete, and big oil is in complete control of that. Happy Independance Day.

By: DJB

DJB — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:24:31 +0000

Interesting article.

Too bad hybrid cars only account for a bit over 3% of new car sales though. I look forward to the day when 3% of new cars sold AREN’T hybrids

By: Jeddy

Jeddy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:09:10 +0000

I'm not surprised in the accelerated hybrid sales. Having purchased the Prius 2010, I'm ecstatic with it's performance. I'm getting 4.6L/100km and haven't fueled yet at 650km. I'm still on the first tank of gas!

Down the road, I'll be looking to replace the gas-guzzling Dodge Grand Caravan Sport with a hybrid of better equivalent. I'm wondering where the hybrid RAV4 / hybrid CRV's are?

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is politically, financially, and environmentally the right way to go. I'd love to see hydrogen fuel cells finally get off the ground ...

All in all, a new green revolution seems to have arrived ...