Dark Side of Hybrid Vehicles

The current edition of "Car and Driver" (magazine) has an
interesting article about the dark side of the hybrids on page 26.
The date on the cover is September 2005.

If you own a hybrid vehicle or plan to buy a hybrid vehicle,
I advise you to buy a copy of the magazine and read the article.

 

Can you provide a summary of the articles' main points?

 

See his FIRST post in alt.autos.honda (Jul 29 or 30, I think) and then all
the responses about the well executed recycling that IS being done on
electric/hybrid batteries!

 

Could also read it at the library or maybe even online.

 

I would stay away from hybrids. Saw one die in the middle of traffic -
no power and creating massive backups. The industry will eventually go
to hydrogen systems, but never electric.

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=27&article_id=9489&page_number=1

Hardly any bias evident there! lol....

He drives an F-350 dually and a H2.

 

That happens to internal combustions engines as well, just in case you
haven't noticed.

 

Can't stand Yates. Arrogant, pompous twit. YMMV.

And as an aside, it was Tom Friedman, not Fareed Zakaria.

 

Yep. Good writer though. Loved Cannonball.

 

Yeah, cause that never happens to regular cars...

 

hydrogen? no. logistics prohibitive. wildly unsafe.

 

Great point. I did not mean to start a thread about batteries but I did.
My goal was to make the subscribers aware of the article. That's why I
reposted and left out the comment about batteries. I like Hybrid
vehicles--especially the new Accord Hybrid but the cost of it is too much
for me to pay. I was not aware of the dark side of hybrid vehicles until I
read the article.
Jason

 

Actually, that's what scares me about the Toyota parallel system. It's
SO dependent on the software, there's no way to limp home.

A simple series system like Honda's IMA is really the essence of Honda
engineering.

 

It's being tried. Check out the Honda FCX.
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/

Not sure Q should use these for 007, though... ;-))

 

but abe, have you ever seen a scuba tank explode? those things have way
less pressure than that necessary to store even a trivial quantity of
hydrogen.

gasoline fuel cell, absolutely. hydrogen fuel cell? no chance. read
some of the archives for sci.materials. oh, and capacitors don't have
anywhere near the storage capacity of batteries.

it really amazes me the political lengths car companies have to go to to
placate the many manifestations of technological ignorance. or the
shameless idiots that exploit that ignorance by begging research funds
for what they know to be fundamentally flawed.

 

Didn't some people once said that about the gasoline engine too?

There actually more hydrogen fuel stations (9) than consumer hydrogen
car (1).

 

The hybrid is not true electric, thus the word "hybrid".

 

Actually, they're true gasoline since that's their *only* power source.
"Hybrid" is a spin that gets people to purchase something they otherwise
wouldn't.

 

i'm not referring to the engine [although that has fundamental problems
too] - i'm referring to hydrogen storage & transportation.

 

All I said was it's being tried, jim. The RAND Corporation thought in
1954 that home computers of 2004 would fit within a single room. I don't
have the source of the picture/caption I have (probably from something
like Popular Science), but the sucker is complete with a large steering
wheel (yes, a steering wheel), lots of analog gauges covering a whole
wall (yes, gauges!), and a maybe 18" teletype tractor feed printer. It's
also got a large TV mounted high on a wall. With the Fortran language,
it was expected to be easy to use. Hah hah.

Point is that we don't get anywhere unless we try stuff, however
far-fetched and unworkable it may seem to some. Fact is that Honda is
trying the fuel cell in consumer vehicles. Whether it will ultimately be
safe enough for mass use, I dunno, but they're trying it with hydrogen
and I'll be interested to see where it goes. I don't think that the
project would have gotten as far as it has if the safety issues were
insurmountable.