Have you hugged your Hummer Today?

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Reason.org
July 19, 2006

Have You Hugged a Hummer Today?
Hybrid vehicles' overall energy costs exceed those of comparable non-hybrids
By Shikha Dalmia


Ford Motor Company did itself a huge favor recently by backing away from its pledge to bump-up its hybrid production ten-fold in four years. But, as it turns out, the company might have done the planet a whale of a favor too.

Just last fall, CEO Bill Ford was valiantly promising in a mega-million dollar ad campaign that the company would never, ever turn away from its hybrid pledge because these vehicles were central to the company's reputation as an "innovator and environmental steward."

Never mind that at the time Ford was losing $2,000 to $3,000 for every hybrid it sold because consumers won't pay the entire $6,000 extra that it costs to produce a hybrid over its gas-powered counterpart. Never mind also that in the real world -- outside of the Environmental Protection Agency's tax-payer funded testing sites -- hybrids don't deliver anywhere close to the gas mileage that the agency attributes to them, as auto-writer Richard Burr reported in the Weekly Standard.

Bill Ford had given his word on hybrids and you could take that to the bank (ruptcy court). But hybrids have received such a thrashing in the market lately that even Ford was forced to take-off his green eye-shades and read the red-ink on the wall.

According to Art Spinella, the uber-auto analyst and President of CNW Marketing Research, hybrid sales every month this year have been down compared to the same time last year. Even sales of the Toyota Prius – the darling of the greens – have dropped significantly. The only segment besides taxis where hybrids are still holding steady – taxpayers will be happy to note -- is the car fleets maintained by the government.

What's particularly interesting is that individual consumers are defying all expectations and turning their backs on hybrids at a time when gas prices are soaring. (The average U.S. retail price of gas spiked to a record high of $3.01 last September following hurricane Katrina, and just last week it hit its second highest price ever at nearly $3.00.) Nor is the reason all that mysterious. Spinella's customer satisfaction surveys show that 62 percent of hybrid owners are dissatisfied with the fuel-economy performance of their cars given what they have paid for them.

This means that when gas prices go up, these people don't rush out to buy more hybrids. "They buy a Chevy Aveo," says Spinella. "It delivers the same fuel economy as a Prius, but at half the price."

Consumer interest might revive if the cost of hybrids goes down substantially – or the cost of fuel goes up and stays up for a long period of time, Spinella believes. Until then, however, the hybrid market is unlikely to come out of the deep freeze, a reality that even Ford had to finally acknowledge.

But despite all these drawbacks, hybrids are at least better for the environment than say….. a Hummer, right? Nope.

Spinella spent two years on the most comprehensive study to date – dubbed "Dust to Dust" -- collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a car from the initial conception to scrappage. He even included in the study such minutia as plant-to-dealer fuel costs of each vehicle, employee driving distances, and electricity usage per pound of material. All this data was then boiled down to an "energy cost per mile" figure for each car (see here and here).

Comparing this data, the study concludes that overall hybrids cost more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. But even more surprising, smaller hybrids' energy costs are greater than many large, non-hybrid SUVs.

For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.

As for Ford cars, a Ford Escape hybrid costs $3.2 per mile – about a third more than the regular Escape. But on the whole, ironically enough, the dust-to-dust costs of many of the Ford non-hybrids – Fusion, Milan, Zephyr – are not only lower than comparable Japanese hybrids – Prius, Accord -- but also non-hybrids – Seville, Civic.

Spinella's finding that a Hummer on the whole consumes less energy than a hybrid than even some smaller hybrids and non-hybrids has infuriated environmentalists. And on its face it does seem implausible that a gas-guzzling monster like a Hummer that employs several times more raw material than a little Prius' could be so much less energy-intensive. But by and large the dust-to-dust energy costs in Spinella's study correlate with the fanciness of the car – not its size or fuel economy -- with the Rolls Royces and Bentleys consuming gobs of energy and Mazda 3s, Saturns and Taurus consuming relatively minuscule amounts.

As for Hummers, Spinella explains, the life of these cars averaged across various models is over 300,000 miles. By contrast, Prius' life – according to Toyota's own numbers – is 100,000 miles. Furthermore, Hummer is a far less sophisticated vehicle. Its engine obviously does not have an electric and gas component as a hybrid's does so it takes much less time and energy to manufacture. What's more, its main raw ingredient is low-cost steel, not the exotic light-weights that are exceedingly difficult to make – and dispose. But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

It is not possible to do this with a specialty product like hybrid. All in all, Spinella insists, the energy costs of disposing a Hummer are 60 percent less than an average hybrid's and its design and development costs are 80 percent less.

One of the most perverse things about U.S. consumers buying hybrids is that while this might reduce air pollution in their own cities, they increase pollution – and energy consumption -- in Japan and other Asian countries where these cars are predominantly manufactured. "In effect, they are exporting pollution and energy consumption," Spinella says.

But while the environment has dodged Ford's hybrid foray, Toyota has shown no planetary concerns. It is going full throttle ahead with its plan of putting one million hybrids on the road by the end of the decade. Nor is there much hope that it will back-off in the near future given that it has already sunk $2 billion just in hybrid-related research and development, Spinella points out. Ironically Ford and some of the other car makers' exit from the hybrid segment means that Toyota will be able to consolidate its domination in it even more.

Thus the only hope of prodding Toyota to get out of the hybrid business would be if its customers jumped off the Prius bandwagon and embraced non-hybrids – even Hummers -- instead.

Now here's a catchy slogan for the next Save the Earth campaign: Have you hugged a Hummer today?

Shikha Dalmia is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation. An archive of her work is here and Reason's environment research and commentary is here.
 
Great article. Thanks Dan. I never saw the light when it comes to hybrids, especially after "real world" fuel economy reports started entering the foray. Why by one when a new Corolla will get just about the same mileage as a Prius? I've lately been getting 39-40 highway with my 130,000 mile 94 Corolla and older Civic models get 45-50!
 
sometimes the comparissons border on idiotic... to me, this one is one of them.

I am no fan of hybrids, and would never buy one... However, this kind of banter, starting from the title of the article, is what creates polarization and bad names for one group or the other, regardless of how 'reasonable' the authoring group claims they are.

JMH
 
I guess I have to see more to understand.

The 300K vs 100K mile comparison makes it a bit suspect.

Others questions are the quantities of vehicles produced.

If R&D energy is counted, then something that only 10K copies of are made will be hit harder than 100K copy models.

I would fall in the camp of not wanting to own neither a hummer, nor a Prius.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Drew99GT:
Why buy one when a new Corolla will get just about the same mileage as a Prius? I've lately been getting 39-40 highway with my 130,000 mile 94 Corolla and older Civic models get 45-50!

If your objective is to buy the least expensive vehicle that offers the best fuel efficiency, then a Corolla would win hands down. But if you need a vehicle with the room of a Camry, then the Prius wins hands down. That simple. Two different way to look at it, really.
 
yeah, arent there a number of documented prius owners with well over 100k on them?

This idiot woman probably knows nothing of battery chemistry or any other related technology.

And I have to assume that this "study" figures all new materials and manufacturing for battery packs, when the SOA of recycling might be quite good (not sure though).

Lifecycle pollution production for the manufacture and recycle of battery packs IS going to negate some of the efficiencies gained...

but this study is no different than if I replaced my c. 1975 refrigerator with a brand new one that energy star says is 3x more efficient than the old one... and then use up my energy savings by buying two more, because I can and Im an American so I need to exercise my rights. After all, 0.01% of the time I might actually need the capabilities and capacities of three refrigerators, right?

Lets leave the comparissons as apples to apples and oranges to oranges... compare to a similarly equipped civic, corolla, accord, camry, etc. and there will ne some validity (despite the still apparent agenda)...

Alas, its just a waste of time and energy to read... its a pity this "author" makes a living off of this garbage that is trying to make people with few reasoning skills feel inteligent.

JMH
 
Noooooooo Critic, if you want to pull up at the yuppie gathering and be hip and green, then you buy a Prius
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My car has plenty of leg room, unless your a whiny baby who just has to feel like your in a Barka Lounger.
 
Nah, Scion tCs and Lexuses are the new sizzle, with the exception of the eco-friendly crowd.
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The point is overall design and manufacture and its effect on the environment. The study isn't limited to the consumer. It's completely understandable to the beureaucratic mind.

It reminds me of my employer, a govt agency that manages lots of, um, forests. We spend so much time coming up with management plans; doing the environmental prep work involving archaeologists, botanists, wildlife biologists; devising alternatives to our plans etc; that we lose money in the end much of the time when we "sell" timber. In the end, it'd be better for everyone if we sold less timber but then we wouldn't look like we were doing something important.
 
quote:

Originally posted by The Critic:
Nah, Scion tCs and Lexuses are the new sizzle, with the exception of the eco-friendly crowd.
wink.gif


What's funny is that in that study, there are numbers for the fuel economy of 5 and 10 year old Scion tC's and estimates of them lasting about 10-11 years, etc.

IIRC, the Scion tC has only been around since 2004. I don't think it's a rebadged JDM model like the xA and xB.
 
The other thing that struck me odd was the 2005 Escort.

Was the Escort still sold in 2005, perhaps as a fleet only model. I know the ZX2 was still sold a few years after the regular Escort was replaced the the Focus.

But up to 2005?

Plus, if a vehicle really cost $1 to $2 mile in total costs to all parties involved from dust to dust, how could folks afford many of these $500,000 cars?

It is possible I'm missing something, but I don't really see dust to dust costs being much more than $0.25 to $0.50 for typical cars. Sure, some high end exotic hardware might be $1+/mile. A Camry that runs 198K miles is not going to be nearly $400K in total costs over it's 10-15 year lifespan.
 
quote:

Originally posted by javacontour:
estimates of them lasting about 10-11 years, etc.

Some time ago, I ran across the data from when Virginia did it's pilot roadside emissions testing.

They had a chart showing the percentages of each vehicle by age or model year that had driven by the test van (which they located on highway on ramps and areas like that).

The percentage of vehicles 10 years old or older was something like 1 to 2%.

If the majority of vehicles last 10 years or longer, they sure as heck aren't around here.

EDIT: They determined the vehicle age by recording the license plate number and running it through DMV.

I think it would be interesting to see what percentage of vehicles registered by Virginia DMV in 1996 are still registered today. Perhaps this dearth of old vehicles is confined only to the prosperous Northern Virginia area.
 
quote:

Originally posted by javacontour:

quote:

Originally posted by The Critic:
Nah, Scion tCs and Lexuses are the new sizzle, with the exception of the eco-friendly crowd.
wink.gif


What's funny is that in that study, there are numbers for the fuel economy of 5 and 10 year old Scion tC's and estimates of them lasting about 10-11 years, etc.

IIRC, the Scion tC has only been around since 2004. I don't think it's a rebadged JDM model like the xA and xB.


When somone is just making up numbers, they can be anything they want them to be.
 
I have a list RIGHT HERE of 3500 card carrying members of the communist party!!! Opps ..wrong era.

I want the Scion Clown Car. It's so absolutely "odd" looking ...I must have one (visions of Steve Martin's "Cruel Shoes" routine
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)
 
This article sounded good until I read more of it. As javacontour mentioned, the per-mile costs are totally unrealistic. I also don't believe a Civic Hybrid or Prius uses more energy than a Hummer. For readily available items, I perceive cost to be directly proportional to energy consumption. Of course, that's not totally true due to subsidies on some things, but I'll let the government shoot itself in the foot on that and worry about my own finances. Even with that, the idea of a Civic Hybrid using more energy than a Hummer is absurd to me.
 
I don't understand the need to factor in the energy necessary to plan, build, and sell a vehicle. Isn't that factored into the cost of the vehicle? It's not like there's some magic slush fund auto makers dip into when they decide to engineer a new model. All their monies come from only one source - the consumer, the person why buys a new car. It is these monies that they hope to get to recoup the cost of designing and manufacturing a vehicle.
 
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