Does the Toyota Prius really pollute more than it saves?

Question

I've heard that there is more pollution involved in the manufacturing of the car battery cells than of the actual cars usage. Is this true?

please post reference links if you have them thanks.

Answer 1

False.

"A 2006 study from Argonne National Laboratory concluded that around 75% of all hybrid and internal combustion vehicle energy use comes from the operation of the vehicle. The rest comes mostly from producing the fuels and the manufacture and disposal of the vehicle and its materials."

Similar studies have found that 80-90% of the lifetime energy is used during operation of the vehicle. Construction (including of the battery) is negligible. See pages 4-5 of the study below for further details.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf

There's also a rumor that nickel plants which produce the nickel for the NiMh hybrid batteries massively pollute the surrounding environment. This is nothing more than a myth based on one nickel plant which was polluting long before hybrids were even invented and has since cleaned up its act.

"In fact any damage occurred more than thirty years ago, long before the Prius was made. Since then, Inco has reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by more than 90 per cent and has helped to plant more than 11 million trees.

The company has won praise from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and environmental groups. Sudbury has won several conservation awards and is a centre for eco-tourism."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

People who don't like environmentalists tend to make up and spread ridiculous rumors like this, but in reality hybrids are much more environmentally friendly than non-hybrids. The Prius was even named the greenest car on the planet by a recent study.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2733658020070727?feedType=RSS

Answer 2

That article has a lot of fallacies and was probably written by someone trying hard to dig up a tabloid-like bash-article on hybrids.

A diesel (even the new, clean ones) is far dirtier than the Prius.

Pinning the pollution from the battery plant on the Prius is a big stretch. That plant has been running for decades and a very small percentage of their products are Prius batteries.

Prii are clean to build, clean to drive, and clean to recycle (once they stop selling gasoline)

Answer 3

I know that NIMH batteries aren't environmentally friendly. Producing them is still really bad. Most Prius owners aren't environmentalist but posers. They want to stand out among the crowd. While they emit less into the atmosphere than internal combustion engines, they are expensive to manufacture and the batteries are messy to dispose of. I have a NIMH battery headlight for my bicycle and believe me, these are horrible to dispose of.
There are many people who want to spread negative rumors about the Prius. At the same time, there are more people who look for instant gratification at any cost. Many Prius owners fall into this last category. The car isn't as bad as a lot of critics claim, but it's not as good as most owners claim either. My mother used to own a 2005 Prius. She sold it and bought a 2006 Corolla for half the price and gets over 40 mpg-that's not that far from the Prius' real world mileage.

Answer 4

Unknown,yes I have read as you likely have about the battery production impact on earth I think there maybe some truth to it. Then again misinformation to rail a product could also be in play. I think all the hybrids are just a step in the transition away from internal combustion transportation that use fossil fuel, change happens.

Answer 5

All the tales about the pollution supposedly generated by the manufacture of nickel metal hydride batteries in the Prius is pure crap.

Each Prius has a 45kg battery in its hybrid system, which contains about 40kg/88lbs of nickel. Toyota sold around 100,000 Prii last year, that equates to 4,400 tonnes of nickel used.

4,400 tonnes of nickel for last year's total Prii sold is nothing compared to the MILLIONS OF TONS of nickel used in industries worldwide every year. Heck, the U.S. and Canadian Mints use far more nickel metal per year making coins alone.

Every U.S. 5-cent nickel coin contains 3.75g of copper and 1.25g of nickel. You can multiply that by a few hundred billion to get the weight of all the U.S. and Canadian coins in circulation today, and that alone works out to FAR MORE nickel than you can ever use to make Prius batteries.

(A hundred million dollars' worth of U.S. 5-cent coins contains 27,500 tonnes of nickel, for example).

Funny how we don't hear anyone complaining that the U.S. and Canadian governments are wrecking the environment making currency, eh?

Answer 6

oh no, not these poorly-researched misinformed opinion articles again...

It's been refuted (easily) numerous times on many environmental or Prius user groups. for example:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/message/100734

see also: http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_versus_prius.html
http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_Car_News/Prius_Versus_HUMMER_Exploding_the_Myth.S196.A12220.html
http://www.betterworldclub.com/articles/hummer-not-more-efficient.htm
Retraction article: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=417227&in_page_id=1770

Toyota's rebuttal: http://www.toyota.com/html/dyncon/2007/september/hummervprius.html

Meanwhile, here's the 2004 Toyota Prius Green Report (life cycle assessment):
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf
(you'll need to download the Japanese fonts for your PDF reader inorder to read it, but the entire document is written in English. note that this was published well before the Inco-Sudbury "article" and CNW "report.")

Over the lifespan of the Prius, when compared to a comparable mid-sized gasoline vehicle, the Prius comes out ahead in the lifecycle assessment (LCA) for airborne emissions for CO2, NOx, SOx, HC, but actually does worse for PM (thanks to the material and vehicle production stages). Lifespan is given as 10 years use/100,000km. The CO2 break-even point for the 2004 Prius compared to this unnamed gasoline vehicle is given at 20,000km. (more CO2 is emitted during Prius production, but the Prius makes up for it over it's driven lifetime.)

Answer 7

It is probably not that bad, people with hybrids and people that make and sell hybrids tell you one story, other people tell another story, somewhere in the middle is the truth.
Disposing of the batteries and the cost of replacing them after a few years is going to be a big issue I think. No matter what they say, rechargable batteries have a definite lifespan.
I dont think hybrids are anywhere near as good as the owners all tell each other they are.
But they are part of an overall equation that we all need to be part of.
Did you see the recent opisode of south Park concerning hybrid cars? It was hilarious, they changed the name of it to Pius.

Answer 8

I think you will enjoy this in site about the Prius. Yup! we are not polluting with this car. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070404_Hidden_cost_of_driving_a_Prius.html
But we are using one &^$* of a lot of fossil fuels to create and transport these materials. Why don`t they go back to sail in smaller more advanced boats and stop using half their cargo getting here?

Answer 9

all electric and hybris cars are very expensive to produce and to dispose of....carbon footprint very large, even over the life of the car, you are still better off for the environment buying a small economic petrol or diesel car

Answer 10

better off getting a diesel