Help find crap about Hybrids/Toyota prius

[Shraon2]

Hello everybody

I need some help pertaining towards information about hybrids in general. this is for a class project, actually its for a public speaking course in college. The goal of the speech is to take a serious topic that we feel passionate toward and turn it into a persuasive speech. In brain storming for ideas people in the class came up with topics such as global warming, genocide in darfor, oh and why people should drive hybrid vehicles. I then at this point came up with a topic for my speech "Why you should not drive a hybrid car" I have alot of tree hugger, hippy fuel efficient, recycle a can or die type people in my class, and when they found out about my topic they gave me the "what the hell are you thinking" glare.

I know that Jeremy Clarkson has in the past talked trash about hybrid vehicles and i need to know what episodes that they came from.

I need solid arguements pertaining to why hybrids suck, I have already incorporated in my speech the type of people who drive hybrids, but i need concrete evidence that will demonstrate why these vehicles do suck in general....

I know that fuel ratings by the EPA are skued and that Hybrids dont really get milage that is rated, they are super expensive to fix and in accident could be deadly to not only the occupant, but the rescuer as well. The only problem is finding credible sources to document that evidence.

any help about why hybrids sucks would be appreciated.

[SL65]

Use the Sticky at the top of this section of the forum as it contains episode guides that'll help you find what eps the Prius is in

Good luck with the speech! I'm sure there'll be some members willing to give you good points but be sure to credit FinalGear at the end of it!

[jeffy777]

His new DVD features it as well ("The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly"). It gets the crap shot out if actually

[SL65]

Just remembered:
http://forums.finalgear.com/general-automotive/against-hybrid-8541/

That should help

[nomix]

What's interesting with a Prius, is that when it genenrates electrisity, it transforms the energy that is made when braking to electrisity, which is good, but at the same time, it draws from the engines power to make electrisity.

Anyone seeing my point?

The electrisity generated in a hybrid, has to be converted one time too many in the energy chain.

If you look away from the fact you don't have to spill exhaust in the streets, there really is NO point to it.

You burn petrol to get electrisity. And unless you get more power when you do that - which would be physicly impossible - WHAT IS THE POINT?

[thedguy]

Originally Posted by Shraon2

I need solid arguements pertaining to why hybrids suck, I have already incorporated in my speech the type of people who drive hybrids, but i need concrete evidence that will demonstrate why these vehicles do suck in general....

I know that fuel ratings by the EPA are skued and that Hybrids dont really get milage that is rated, they are super expensive to fix and in accident could be deadly to not only the occupant, but the rescuer as well. The only problem is finding credible sources to document that evidence.

any help about why hybrids sucks would be appreciated.

I can give one reason not to buy or drive them, they are nothing more than a red herring. The car manufacturers were trying to kill off the mandate in California requiring 10% of cars sold in California to be electrics, so they inked a deal with the democrats (and for $8 billion in Federal funding) to come up with hybrids. Toyota and Honda only got in on the action cause they didn't want to end up behind.

Dig around on torrent sites or buy the dvd and watch "Who Killed the Electric Car."

BTW, while the Prius' numbers are bullshit, I've got a racing magazine (Grassroots motorsports) right next to my desk that showed a civic hybrid getting 60mpg, this includes 14 laps on a small racing curcuit in Florida, and running the car with the a/c on for the duration of ther 80 mile trip to the track. The EPA numbers say it should have only maxed at 57 at 48mph with no a/c.

You have an uphill battle ahead of you, but good luck. And if you come up with some good stuff I'd like to see you post or speech.

[andrebsd]

Why you should not drive a hybrid? Simple... Price (of the car itself)

Say you get a hybrid for oh, 20,000 usd... you can probabaly get a similar car with a regular engine for maybe 14,000 usd. (making the numbers up, but you'll get the point). So the difference of 6,000 usd can really buy you a lot of gas especially when a hybrid might only have slightly better gas miles.

If the hybrid is getting an extra 10mpg then thats what you save. Many people are like omg! my hybrid gets 55mpg (of which it realistically gets 40mpg) and they make it sound cheap as they somehow seem to forget that they would have bought gas in a regular car. So its not really cheap, as you paid more for the car to begin with and to break even will take 5-6 years. Many people don't keep their cars by that time.

As for saving the environment, didn't clarkson have a rant once durring the news where a cow outputs more fumes than a car? So if you want to save the world from pollution, become a vegiterian.

[Blind_Io]

How about this article: Civic owning households get better fuel economy than Prius owning households. Why? Because the Prius is parked next to an SUV.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15658052/site/newsweek/

Also you could point out all the stars that drive a hybrid also have garages full of supercars and one (Travolta) has his own Boeing. They are rarely the only car in a family but they make them feel better about owning the SUV or Bently.

Originally Posted by andrebsd

As for saving the environment, didn't clarkson have a rant once durring the news where a cow outputs more fumes than a car? So if you want to save the world from pollution, become a vegiterian.

Shouldn't you become a carnivore to reduce the population of those nasty cows.

My burger came with this spiffy leather jacket!

[Karagoth]

While there are alot of reasons why you shouldn't drive a hybrid, not many of them are actually useable in a good debate.
To start of is the price of a hybrid, making a car with a normal engine and a eletric motor + all of its batteries involved uses alot of materials, which brings the prices up.
If you are in a crasch there is a higher chance of the battery getting smashed up and starts to leak highly toxic batteryfluid in to the ground.
Another drawback of the dualengine design is weight, batteries are Heavy, so you need a highly efficent conventional engine. As pointed out in Top Gear many times before, weight spoils everything.
And for the flaw in the concept of the hybrid. You have an eletric motor which doesn't use petrol or diesel. Great, but you charge the batteries with the normal engine, so you just waste energy in the process of charging.

But there are good things with a hybrid. In a city with alot of congestion, the eletric motor can drive you so the normal enginge doesn't use fuel when you're not moving. Yes you can turn the engine off in a normal car but starting an engine uses alot of fuel, so it isn't any good in situation with a lot of starts and stops.
However, when driving out of town you need the normal engine to reach higher speeds. As pointed out before, a diesel will do much better here.

So that is my points on the hybrid, also try and find some more figures on fueleconomy and compare with other economic cars.

[Adunaphel]

THE reason why the Prius doesn't work is that the more efficient engine combo (in general, the electricity is generated when you use engine braking) has to lug around a few hundred kilos of battery packs, completely negating the fact that the engine is more efficient. If you want REAL economic cars, look at the Audi A2 1.4 TDI and the VW Lupo 3L, which differ from the Prius by the simple fact that they do work. Were the Prius equipped with a small turbodiesel engine, it could have been twice as fuel efficient as it is now with a petrol engine.

[kaBOOMn]

What about all the extra materials and energy used to make the hybrid to start with? Isn't there ment to be a figure of how many years it would take vs a "normal" car for their energy useage to be the same?

Still kudo's to Toyota for giveing the hybrid a mass market appeal, but it seems to me that they have missed the point, and are useing it to score "greeny points"

[Dsemaj]

Well.. I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago. Just not as a speech, just an essay

They're slow, expensive, poorly built, not as economical as they make out to be and completely pointless. I mean, why would you even bother to try and make an internal combustion car better? It's still going to pollute. If you want to save the earth, drive a lupo diesel.

Just a big marketing con.

@kaBOOMn yeah, I remember reading something about how chevy trucks used more environmentally friendly materials. Hell, even the S600 won an environmental award over the prius.

[kurtiejjj]

Try pistonheads.com forum there are a lot Prius haters and probaply some useful info when you use the search function!

[vanMould]

I have actually done exactly the same thing. Criticize the Prius in front of the class that is. Although my speech was probably on a smaller scale than yours will be (3 min iirc) and was about the Prius instead of all hybrids. I'd say I made quite a success as well. A classmate of mine bought a Lupo after that, partially because of what I said.

Here, have my slightly extended notes:
>Since the beginning of time... (intro speech about humanitys constant strive towards better gas milage)
>Fast forward to the Toyota Prius
>Talk about how hybrids work
>Quote Toyota on the Prius and bash every single argument
>Talk about alternatives (diesel for good milage and ethanole for ecofriends)
>Finishing ("If the Prius is the car of the future, it can wait until tomorrow")

[Blind_Io]

Has anyone looked at the environmental impact of the car? I mean you need to extract and refine or synthesize the materials for the battery packs, most of which are toxic. There is the way the copper for all the electrical wire and motors is mined (open pit) with terrible environmental impact. Here is one of the largest open pit mines in the world: http://www.ghosttowngallery.com/htme/kennecott.htm Kennecott has literally moved mountains and turned them into holes in the ground. The tailings pile is so toxic that no plants will grow on it and the entire city of Salt Lake has to look at this eyesore. Kennecott even tried to genetically engineer a plant that would survive on the tailings pile to cover it up, but the EPA and USDA forbade them from using it. After all, anything that can live on that would easily force out native species.

How about disposal of those batteries? They are hazardous waste and need special attention. What about the energy cost of trying to make those things safe for disposal? Let's not forget that those batteries wear out, and a Prius may use 3-4 sets of them in it's lifetime.

[the Interceptor]

I might not be helping in terms of finding arguments against a Prius here, but still, I'd like to point out that a Prius or other Hybrids do not suck generally. There are certain situations where Hybrid cars work and run much more efficiently than regular cars. Unfortunately, Hybrids like the Prius often are not compared to normal cars in an appropriate way. Regarding the size of the vehicle and specific traffic situations, a Prius does work very well. It might not be a petrolheads choice, but generally discrediting this type of vehicles is wrong in my eyes.

Regards
the Interceptor

[mautzel]

Am I right in assuming that emotional aspects like driving pleasure (cornering, acceleration and so on) are not exactly suitable in that discussion?

Oh, one thing just pops into my mind - what about the safety aspect when speaking of cornering - on what kind of tires are Priuses running (are they smaller than on ordinary cars in order to save fuel but hand that in for braking distance?)

[Viggen]

"Good for yooouuu!!!" "Thaaanks!!!"

Really, these are all good examples listed here, but coming down to all this I have more beef with the quantity of smugness from hybrid owners (particularly Prius owners).

That, and they sit on the express lane doing 55 trying to get the highest gas mileage as possible while having a long trail of cars behind them.

[Blind_Io]

Originally Posted by mautzel

Am I right in assuming that emotional aspects like driving pleasure (cornering, acceleration and so on) are not exactly suitable in that discussion?

Oh, one thing just pops into my mind - what about the safety aspect when speaking of cornering - on what kind of tires are Priuses running (are they smaller than on ordinary cars in order to save fuel but hand that in for braking distance?)

Top Gear did a segment of the worst handling cars, and the Prius was a contender. It's heavier than a normal car of that size because of the batteries and complex drive train, plus it leans heavily in corners with nearly dangerous understeer. The tall skinny tires do a fine job of reducing friction for better economy, but friction is also what stops and turns a car.

That's not petrol-head talking, that's just common sense and safety.

[thedguy]

Perhaps you coult talk about the fact that the way hybrids are done now is a complete joke?

Why is the Fuel powered engine connected to the wheels at all? Engines hate changing speeds. Electric motors on the other hand seem to excell at it. So why the hell don't they use less batteries, add a 9-12hp diesel generator run at a constant load to keep the batteries charged at all times?

My brother and I have been looking into doing a homebuilt electric car, and judging from the numbers, it you'd likely not need more than a 9hp generator, constantly keeping a charge going into the batteries. A low hp generator like that can run for hours on end on a single gallon of fuel. I'd wager in a 2500lb car that is as aerodynamic as any other modern car would easily break 80mpg.

Somewhat back on subject
Sight examples of how great the car companies are at recycling. GM when they finished up with the ev1 program claimed "we will recycle every bit of the cars", in arizona at a GM facility in plain view is all the cars crushed and stacked sitting on top of trucks. They've been that way for years.

Honda had all of their cars shredded, Toyota tried, but the EV groups found out and were able to convince them to let people by them outright or atleast continue leasing them.

Atleast with gas/diesel cars you reycling them just means being a decent mechanic. Look at how many Ford flathead powered cars are being put back on the road, if that ain't recycling then I don't know what it is.

How do you recycle a li-ion battery? you can't. once they are done, they are done, most of the material in them can't be recycled. NiMh batteries can be, but car companies don't care about cars after they no longer have to warranty them, other than to hope they can rape the owners on maintenance costs. At which point the owner will get no savings when the batteries have to be replaced and recycled. They will just have to shell out for brand new batteries, the dealership will then send the batteries off to the scappers as they will probably be cheaper than paying to have them recyled.