hybrid math

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josmith
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Post by josmith »

Check back issues of NV for a series of articles on EV's. It was many years ago, definatly large format.
josmith
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Post by josmith »

The first Toyota hybrids cost $40,000 to produce. The selling price was half that. The point of todays hybrids is not so much to save fuel or money but to demonstrate that there is a market for alternate technology and high milage cars.

Look back to the introduction of the IBM "PC" . It was slow, expensive and not really cost effective. All it took was a market to develope. Everybody wanted one so better faster cheaper was soon to follow.
jimandy
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Post by jimandy »

I don't think I saw it mentioned here that there is supposedly a big differential in mileage of hybrid cars between hi-way and city driving. I seem to recall the Prius was touted to get around 60 mpg city vs <40 hi-way (sort of backwards from the way we usually think of mileage estimates.) If this is true then calculations for gas savings should factor in that differential if one plans to buy the hybrid for primarily one or the other useage.

I took a 2 hour trip in a rented Prius to check it out and found it was too noisy for comfort on extended trips and steering was so tight I coould never relax. But around town it was fun, especially when bikers were shocked because they didn't hear my silent approach as I overtook and passed them.
"if it's not another it's one thing."
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jollyrgr
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Post by jollyrgr »

John Brown wrote:
Places like California want to start charging drivers by how many miles per year they drive. I believe they are doing this in the UK already.
I don't know where you heard that, but it's not true.
We do have a "congestion charge" in central London (and in some other cities, I believe) and we have a at least one stretch of toll road.
We also have a graduated vehicle tax system that is supposed to discourage people from buying big gas-guzzling SUV's, but the difference is so minute as to be laughable, and the sort of people who spend £50,000 on a 4WD Mercedes just to drop one kid off at a school a hundred yards from home aren't going to be put off by having to find an extra £50 a year.
I checked for the story again and found that my memory is a big foggy. I thought it was a done deal in the UK and that is where the California guys got the idea. They (UK officials) are still "thinking" about doing this but have not implemented it yet. Turns out Oregon is thinking about it as well as California. I'd guess New York and Chicago (OOPS! I mean Illinois) would follow in their footsteps.

Sample story: http://techdirt.com/articles/20050606/0312245_F.shtml

As far as being put off for driving a SUV it will take a lot more than £50 (about $90 USD) for me to give up my Suburban. (This isn't even a full tank of gas for me anymore.) It is not that I'd welcome the additional tax, just that I like my truck.

Whenever there are more than four of us (at work) going out to lunch I will end up driving. Try getting five adult men into a Saturn sedan; very difficult. Yes most of the time it is just me and I still drive the 4WD. No, I won't drive a mini van. No I will not switch back to a six cylinder car (had one, it sucked) and a four cylider is painful compared to a Chevy 350.
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced!
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Chris Smith
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Post by Chris Smith »

Any thing that cuts the Arabs out of our life is better than wasting lives and political B.S. in DC.

No matter what the cost.

Subsidies cost ten times what what you think you spend at the moment.

Time to WAKE UP sheep. Bahahahahah
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