tree-huggers driving hummers?
Well here’s a howdy-do. According to one study, based on life-cycle analysis, hybrid cars require more energy than Hummers:
For example, while the industry average of all vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2005 was $2.28 cents per mile, the Hummer H3 (among most SUVs) was only $1.949 cents per mile. That figure is also lower than all currently offered hybrids and Honda Civic at $2.42 per mile.
So how should we approach this study, executed by a marketing firm? LCAs figure prominently in sustainable building. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has some free software for working out the lifetime ecological costs of building materials and they offer a short explanation of their methodology (pdf) as well as rather extensive detail (pdf).
So where are the details for this study? The methodology? The firm that did the study says on their website that “a full report” will be available on their subscriber website. Ah. How classy of them.
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:04 pm
i guess the real question is how many of the life-cycle costs are linked to economies of scale.
One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package.
if hybrid/electric/other hippy-happy cars were to become more prevalent, would these energy costs go down? could the factories, mechanics shops and disposal facilities shift to more energy-efficient methods if we had more of those kinds of cars? if a Prius is *always* going to consume more energy over its lifetime than a Hummer, i guess we have a problem. but i wonder how many of these costs are connected to the relative rarity of hybrids on the road. i mean, carburetors must’ve been a pain in the ass in the beginning, right?
[an aside: i'm studying for the GMAT, and this is exactly the sort of thing they put in the Critical Reasoning section. "which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the argument presented above?" "this argument relies on which of the following assumptions?" "which of the following conclusions can logically be drawn from this statement?" ach, me head's dizzy.]
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
is a good point.