Is the hybrid car good for the environment?

Electric Vehicles? When do U.S. electric vehicles come to an end? A comment by Melin on the NYT article “How often do we use 300 mile batteries?”

When Hans Eric Melin thinks of battery waste, he imagines American driveways filled with electric vehicles. They look much like the gas-powered cars of yesterday, large and handsome and well-equipped: family-haulers, boat-towers, off-road ready. They also do things that those cars didn’t do, like go from zero to 60 in three seconds and travel 400 miles without emitting any carbon. They carry a burden that can push the weight of the vehicles to over 10,000 pounds, due to the massive battery pack. Most of the time that pack is parked, or is being used to a fraction of its capabilities on school pick-ups or runs to the grocery store. Unless those cars are flying hundreds of miles down the open highway, they have little to do with the precious atoms inside of them.

It may be happening, it has been happening. For years now, technologists have promised that the age of the electric vehicle cometh. After false starts in the early 20th century (when electrics, for a short time, accounted for a third of US vehicles), the 1970s (thanks, gas crisis), and the early 2000s (when two American engineers founded a company called Tesla Motors), electric vehicles are going mainstream.

Readers were angry when the New York Times asked how often people used 300-mile battery range. Each person, it seemed, had a routine long-range commitment that mooted the article’s point: an extensive work commute, season football tickets at their alma mater halfway across the state. A 20-minute recharge along the way simply was not within reason. One person wrote that this is the kind of silly coastal stuff Republicans like to ridicule.

The Challenge of Hybrid Vehicles: a Survey of the First Half of the Year 2002-2003 Automobile Sales and Implications for the Climate Change Dialogue

13 percent of the world’s passenger vehicles were battery electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel cell vehicles in the first half of the year. The UK, Germany and China are leading the way in growth. In the US, 7 percent of cars sold in the first half of the year were zero-emission.

This is good news for governments that set aggressive targets to phase out gas car sales. The European Union and the US states of California, New York, and Washington have made their plans official for this year. Many could slow the electric revolution, even after the surge in EV sales.

Which is good because hybrids, regarded as cutting-edge when introduced decades ago, are now passé, often treated like the flip phones of electrified transportation. Even as electric vehicle sales have taken off and are expected to rise even more rapidly this year, hybrid vehicle market share has been relatively flat. Hybrid manufacturers could use the image make-over the Prius offers. And there’s more to it than just looks. The new Prius drives just as nicely, too.

But even if all drivers were totally ready to leap to EVs, Toyota argues hybrids would still make sense. Because their batteries are so much smaller, a company can build far, far more hybrids than EVs from the same battery resources.

Right now, there is a debate unfolding across the auto industry — between companies, advocates and government regulators — about whether hybrids are helping or hurting in the current fight against climate change.

Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles Aren’t For All, but They’re For All: A Pragmatic Approach to the Electric-Grid Transition

“If I were able to plug in at my home, I would do that,” she said. But as a city dweller she wasn’t sure if she could charge at home — many people can’t.

There aren’t enough vehicles to fulfill demand so the actual sales figures are lower. But the shopping figures show that a lot of people want hybrids, if they can get their hands on them.

The Prius, which got a well-received redesign, is one of the smaller vehicles. Sample review quote: “We’re not sure if we’ll write a review about this new car, but it’s fun to drive!” It still only gets a cool 57 miles to the gallon.

Then there are pickup trucks. The hybrid version of Ford’s F-150 and the popular small pickup are both available as a standard configuration. The Maverick gets about 42 miles to the gallon.

The E-Ray is the first hybrid of its kind. The gas mileage is not impressive. But with an electric motor about the size of a Folgers coffee can tucked between the front wheels, it’s the fastest Corvette ever, capable of going from zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds.

And they want all new cars on the road to be zero-emissions vehicles, which right now, means all-electric vehicles, powered by a greener electric grid. Such a transition poses daunting challenges — from building vehicles to sourcing battery minerals.

She says the pollution from transportation is going to be extended every year. “The truth is, we should have transitioned 20 years ago.”

These advocates are concerned that money invested into hybrid vehicles is not being used to develop pure electric vehicles, which means the transition will be slower.

“I guess we’re taking a pragmatic approach to this,” says Cooper Ericksen, a senior vice president at Toyota Motor North America responsible for battery electric vehicles.

And in Europe, California and a number of other states, policymakers have adopted the more radical position, essentially mandating that all new cars be zero-emission by 2035. That may leave room for plug-in hybrids, but would not allow conventional hybrids, which require gasoline to run.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1158306767/prius-toyota-hybrids-electric-car-climate-change

The Prius is a Sport car, not an electric one. Look at the Prius as a car that looks like a sports car

To understand how the views of regulators have changed, look at what’s parked in the driveway of the former director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality.

These days, however, she’s driving an all-electric vehicle. And she’s calling for her old agency to set “ambitious” national vehicle standards to accelerate the shift away from all vehicles with a gas tank — including the Priuses she used to love.

I looked at the Toyota after I parked it and walked away. I was checking my parking job, but it just looked so good. Turning around to look at a Prius is, seriously, something I never thought I would do.

The car’s sloping nose, low roof and sharply cornered back end resemble a sports car more than a flipped-over deviled egg like past Priuses. It’s a shape that’s clearly had a lot of time in wind tunnels but, with subtle bulges around the back wheels and hidden back door handles, it looks exciting rather than just serviceable.

The new Prius is more traditional in design than its predecessors, but in a good way. There’s a large gauge screen behind the steering wheel, just where it is in most cars. And there’s a touchscreen for less driver-focused stuff in the middle. The gear selector is a nice size, a comfortable shape, easy to use without looking at it and it’s down low between the front seats in, again, a traditional and easy to reach location. I became really fond of the gear selector of the Prius because it was one of my favorite things in a car.

It has a Sport mode which makes the steering feel more responsive and changes the engine and electric motor operation to provide more power at the expense of fuel economy. It felt a bit silly, to be honest, when I tried it. The engine was not happy with what it was doing and the body leaned in the hard turns very unpleasantly. Anyway, driving a Prius in Sport mode is like going to a track meet in nurse’s clogs. The Prius is excellent in many ways and this just may not be one of them.

Toyota has made the case that hybrid cars can be more powerful than electric vehicles in terms of reducing global warming. Thanks to the less raw materials used for a hybrid’s smaller battery, it’s possible to drive a pure electric car. But the argument may be partly self-serving, since Toyota has a lot of hybrids to sell and the brand’s biggest foray into electric vehicles so far, the BZ4X, has gotten tepid reviews, and was the subject of a particularly embarrassing recall as its wheels were coming off.

But there is logic to Toyota’s arguments. And they’re ones that some others in the industry, such as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, have been making, as well.

The impact of hybrid batteries on the planet and how to cut CO2 emissions on big volume vehicles: the case of the new Prius for example

What if, car companies like Toyota say, the batteries in one fully electric vehicle had been divided into 100 smaller battery packs and used to make 100 hybrid cars? In the case of the new Prius, the same type of battery used in fully electric cars is where the hybrid batteries come from. An electric motor is enough to drive the car at a low speed unless there’s a little more power needed to move it. When the car brakes, the batteries are charged up again, usually by taking a little extra power from the engine while the car is driving.

The impact on the planet is very strong and very fast should you reduce CO2 emissions on big volume vehicles because you want to protect affordability.