Mon 30 Jun 2008
Jack’s World: Think before you speak about Hybrid cars
Posted by admin under Environment , Transportation [8] Comments
I get so tired of people telling me that future is in battery powered cars. I am frustrated at these people. Blanket statements like. “Why can’t the auto companies just put batteries in ALL the cars they make and there-fore make them ALL hybrid cars”. Why why why?????
I guess I was once bland and general in my thinking as well. I guess I shouldn’t be mad that these folks who are sierra club members, WWF members and Greenies as well as regular folks with no affiliations to any organized club and yet still don’t understand what they are saying. Or better yet, the long term ramifications of what they are asking for.
I have a relative who is an engineer at GM, I know many engineers at GM, Chrysler and Ford. Friends and family who understand the reality of the automobile business. Not just the “if we make it this way people will buy it” garbage. There is more to it then that. There are consequences to EVERYTHING, and unfortunately before a car is made or before a technology is introduced these companies have to look at the CONSEQUENCES of their actions. Mostly, that is left up the engineers then lawyers and finally the accounts to ponder.
They just don’t think about the lawsuits and the lawyers and people suing them for unsafe products or for cars mysteriously blowing up upon the slightest impact. No, they have to look at ‘other’ things too. Things the average person never even considers.
Now to the problem. With the battery package that GM, Honda and Toyota are putting in some of their vehicles to make them more energy efficient ( hybrid). The biggest question that these automakers and engineers have, in the quiet recesses of their offices and at lunch and when they are just sitting around and talking is..
- 1. What are we going to do with all these batteries when they are no longer useful?
- 2. How do you dispose of millions and millions of batteries that are 8 feet long and 3 feet wide?
- 3. What is going to happen to the contents of those batteries over time?( yuka mountain?)
- 4. How many lawsuits will the auto industry face as a result of improper storage or disposal?
- 5. What is the impact on the environment? Will it be worse then carbons impact? If so then what?
- 6. Will the individual engineers be held liable for the products they invest or implement?
A friend of mine, who is an engineer posed these questions to me and the most important one in his mind was number #1. What are we going to do as a Nation and a world with all these batteries once they have outlived their usefulness? Will the disposal have a greater impact on the environment then the impact that man generated carbon is having today? And is it worth it in the long run?
So the next time you think that hybrids or anything else is the way to do, think about the future and the impact that invention or event will have in the future. Even if you are not a greenie or an enviro-crazy you can see that this battery issue is a serious quandary. They either do it and damn the torpedos and see what happens and hope for the best or go slow and steady and see what happens to those first Toyota Prius owners who turn in their cars and those cars go to the junk yard.
One last thing to think about; do you want to get in a car accident in a car with a gas tank only in the back or would you rather get in a car accident in a car with a gas tank in the back while you are sitting on a stack of lithium ion batteries that basically sizzle underneath you? Or how about getting rear ended in a car with a large hydrogen holding tank in it, under great pressure?
Wait until we start seeing and hearing about accidents involving hybrid cars.
Jack Murphy                                                                                                                                        Commentary
Jack Murphy is an independent real estate investor, professional and author of “For Rent: Building our future through Investment Propertiesâ€. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Yeah, just wait until one of these hybrids gets in an accident. I mean the Prius is just one, no two? three? four?
eight years old?
July 1st, 2008 at 6:40 am
Hi Mike, just a cursory check of the internet can pull up MANY instances where Prius’s have been in accidents and what the results are. 8 years? what does that mean? I owned a Prius, did you? Here is just one example of a thread off a hybrid chat…….
I cut and pasted this…..
I have a Paramedic freind who has tended to a couple of car accidents involving Prius cars. There is a growing aprehension when dealing with crashed up Priuses because of the very high voltages involved (300V). They have been warned to deal with this car as though it were a live current hazard. This means that occupants must wait until proper grounding measures are taken beforereceiving medical assistance.
I like the styling and layout of the car. Hatchback designs are extremely practical. Unfortunately the car drives like a toaster on wheels. Terrible. My first test drive I was focused on the digital display and the lack of any sound when the car came to a stop. My second drive I took it through a twisty section of town and was left wondering how I could live with such boring heavy ride long term? I chose not too. Instead I have decided to start cycling to work again after many years of driving and I have purchased a used 2002 Jetta TDI wagon for family outings and shopping trips. I have even taken to using a 20% mix of french fry oil (biodeisel) that I get free from my local burger joint (neice works there) Amazing!
Wanna be in THAT car waiting for the parameds to use the jaws of life on you or your family? I dont.
Shall I do more research for you?
The question still remains Mike. Would you rather get in a car accident with a Jeep Cherokee with just a gas tank or with a Prius with a gas tank and a load of batteries?
Having been an owner and driver of a prius, I can tell you what I feel, and the answer is gas tank only.
However, now that you are confident in the safety of the Prius after a few years, then you should be totally fine with Nuclear power and reactors right? There has not been a major accident in the USA pretty much ever ( who died at 3 mile island? )….
July 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Jack, since you ask, I do think it’s time to reconsider nuclear power.
The Prius has been out for eight years and in the last few years it has outsold the entire line of many established names such as Volvo. If there was a significant hazard, we would know about it by now. Your post has an air of anticipation, but the time to tell is already here.
Your example is a single anecdote of heresay about someone else’s concern, not an actual example of a hazard or a mishap. Some guy on the internet is worried, so I should be too? Some evidence would be prefered over conjecture.
Most of the comment is griping about how the car drives, which I couldn’t disagree with more. I own a Prius, 20,000 miles in, and have virtually no complaints (except when driving over the grapevine at my desired speed).
July 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am
while we’re at it:
1. What are we going to do with all these batteries when they are no longer useful?
Nickel-cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium Ion are recyclable.
2. How do you dispose of millions and millions of batteries that are 8 feet long and 3 feet wide?
see 1
3. What is going to happen to the contents of those batteries over time?( yuka mountain?)
see 1
4. How many lawsuits will the auto industry face as a result of improper storage or disposal?
see 1
5. What is the impact on the environment? Will it be worse then carbons impact? If so then what?
see 1, also cars provide much more than carbon pollution. Have you seen our sky lately?
6. Will the individual engineers be held liable for the products they invest or implement?
They will be thanked and made quite wealthy.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
nmh is not. They say ni is benign but the proof to everything is long term. As an environmentalist you your self should know that. That is why smarter people then you and I are concerned about all those issues I addressed.
And again, someone like yourself, who later in life will SUPPORT suing these companies for improper disposal or neglecting safety concerns that were un-foreseen should appreciate that these companies are being cautious and not just pumping these things out like M&M’s.
They are not afraid of putting these cars on the market in mass numbers, they are afraid of people like you that demand they do, then blame them later on for not doing their due diligence.
That said, I appreciate the dialog with you!! You care and that in and of itself is important.
Jack
July 1st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Not much an environmentalist really, and these days there’s no sense in being self-congratulatory about owning a Prius, as you can imagine, it’s light on the wallet and 20,000 miles and 18 months along, it’s worth about the same as it was the day after I bought it. I like that I’m burning less fuel, but it didn’t require too much sacrifice.
These aren’t cell phone batteries that are thrown away without any thought. As you mentioned, these are large batteries of uniform size At present, Toyota handles all recycling of old Prius batteries. I fully expect an organized and uniform method of dealing with these. They won’t be in landfills.
Thanks for the back and forth, take care.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
We sold our Prius for $5,000 more then what we paid for it one year after ownership. It had the car pool sticker on it. Today, if we would have sold it it would have fetched maybe $8,000 more.
I dont dispute that Toyota has a program. Its $200.00 for any battery too outside the service schedule and they are supposed to last 200K miles.
but the reality of this is, they just dont know. You have currently a production schedule of 15 plus MILLION cars being sold annually by the auto companies, now you toss in 15 million batteries into the mix. Multiply that by 10 years worth of production and you can see what these gear heads are concerned about. If the entire fleet of cars made for 10 years all have different types of batteries you are looking at 150 plus million batteries out there. Somewhere. Degrading or what-ever. thats a serious serious concern.
Now, I understand what some people are saying too. ” you have batteries now in cars, and they dispose of them ok, even though they are smaller”. Thats true. but those batteries are both easy to get at and easy to trade in or dispose of. These nih and other batteries are just huge and not easy to get at nor are they easy to take out and install.
My original point stands. These gear heads are concerned about the future. And I think we ought to give them credit for being concerned too. They are not giving in to demand just to sell cars, although based on the sales results that just came in for all the auto companies I bet they wish they did just give in to the demand.
That said, even toyota, with a large fleet of both small and hybrid cars had dismal sales numbers.
A little inside here in Detroit that I am hearing too is that the big three are not planning on a major re-tool in the coming years just because of the current gas price concerns. Yes, they are planning on reducing the number of SUV’s they build and increasing the number of small cars, but they are focusing on the current line of small cars. Sebring for one. They have stepped up shifts at those plants to produce more. The auto companies have been down this road before in the 70′s and it cost them dearly. What they are doing is slowing down production of the unwanted trucks and suvs but not closing the doors yet. They think prices on gas will stabilize and once that occurs we will all start our suv’s back up again.
Plus, they all have union contracts and commitments that they cant abandon.
What a world he? : )
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Jack, I just have a second, but thought that you may find this article interesting. It’s pretty long, but a behind the scenes look at the development of the Chevy Volt. It touches on a lot of what you’ve mentioned. Really interesting stuff, and aside from what we’ve been discussing, it would be great to see an American company pull this off:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/general-motors