Hydrid car engines - Good or bad ?

Question

i have read alot of conflicting articles on these things. Apparently they are not as environmentally friendly as the makers promote them to be . does anyone have any objective advice ?

Answer 1

more economical than petrol so lower co2 emissions

less particulate emissions than diesel

but batteries use nasty chemicals and need to be replaced eventually

Answer 2

Present hybrids are good in certain circumstances, they're good
in urban situations where the distances are not as great and the
car can run on electric alone most of the time. People who complain that the batteries need to be replaced at some point
forget that regular IC engines also need to be replaced at some point and the with the electrics you're not putting a lot of expensive gas in the car during that time, not to mention all the pollution not going into the atmosphere. There are a lot of people who seem to think just because we haven't come up with the magic car that we can just jump in and drive without using any fuel, ever we shouldn't use what we do have even if it isn't perfect. If we can get something that gives us an 100%
increase in fuel economy or 100 or 200MPG we shouldn't go for the 100% increase simply because it's not 200MPG?
that's why were going to have such a hard time making a dent in global warming.

Answer 3

All those presently manufactured are internal combustion engines, which are inherently polluting. Even the engine with the most pollution controls has emissions that a steam engine does not. Sure, a hybrid is better than a car with IC only, but using the IC engine to run a generator would be even better, because then the batteries would power electric motors to turn the wheels.

A steam-electric hybrid would be better yet. The steam engine produces less pollution than an IC engine and it can run on any liquid or gaseous fuel. Build a plug-in electric vehicle with only a 40 mile range and install a steam engine powered generator on board so that when the battery charge gets low it automatically recharges while driving. Since 80% or more of your driving is less thsn 20 miles from home the car would run most of the time on electricity from the grid and only a little while using fuel. Should get lots of mpg. It could use paraffin, furnace oil, vegetable oil, ethanol, methane, propane, natural gas, liquified coal, synthetic oil or even hydrogen.

Unfortunatley no one I have heard of is taking this idea seriously.

Answer 4

Good.
1. The reduce emissions. This is simply true. Stating that diesel has lower emissions than a hybrid engine is not an apt comparison. There are diesel electric hybrids with lower emissions that strictly diesel engines. Ethanol is better than diesel, you could make an ethanol hybrid, too.
2. Electric engines improve performance. They can produce more instantaneous torque than combustion engines of any sort. The only thing faster is a rocket. This is why the best performance Accord and Lexus are hybrids.
3. Regenerative breaking. Look it up.
4. New Lithiums are coming out that may make pure electric feasible in the near future. For now, hybrids rock.

Answer 5

Hybrid is generally better than infernal combustion alone.

small diesel cars can have better mpg and lower Co2 emissions, but do emit more particulates which are responsible for thousands of deaths
(source UK Government Chief Science Advisor Prof David King 2004)

How do people think that adding a high toque electric motor makes a car slower/less powerfull?
Electric motors are far more suited to traction than infernal combustion, eg max torque from 0 rpm see http://youtube.com/watch?v=qCpk58mBq1k

The Prius drives like an electric, smooth, instant power variable trasmission, calm when sitting in traffic ..

the downside is lugging the petrol engine around because chevron/texaco (that owned NiMH battery patents, now Cobasys) sued toyota-panasonic to stop them using the large battery pack developed in the RAV4ev; so it only has a 1-2mile ev only range so it can't be plugged into the grid.


No car can be environmentally frienldy; only less damaging.

Answer 6

Yes, hybrid engines are good for the environment.

They reduce all emissions, including greenhouse gas emissions. They also reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.

There are some myths that the batteries are bad because they're made by polluting nickel companies or because they can't be recycled. These are simply that - myths.
The batteries are fully recyclable:

"Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery."

http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/technology/2004/hybrid.html

And the whole nickel polluting myth is based on one plant in Canada which was polluting the surrounding environment 30 years ago, long before hybrids were even invented. It has since cleaned up its act and has won environmental awards.

"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

In fact, a Swiss study recently found that the Prius is the most environmentally friendly car on the planet:

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

Answer 7

Good in urban evironments, as it can run just on the electic motor. Out of town, however, the battery soon runs down, so you just use the petrol engine, so not too much advantage there. Because of this, the manafacturers claimed economy figures are a little ambitious.

A modern diesel engine are far less damaging to the environment, because they burn less fuel per unit distance in the real world. Don't believe anyone who goes on about the smoke on initial acceleration, either; this occurs because of lack of exhaust pressure at idle to force the emissions out of the tail pipe, so it gradually accumulates and comes out all at once. Net emissions are very better than hybrid or petrol.

Answer 8

Of themselves they aren't good or bad.

Electric hybrids get their power from the grid, so are as environmentally friendly as your power station (not usually very friendly at all)

Hydrogen cells require electricity to manufacture, as does compressed air, so same deal again.

Biofuels made from waste products are good, because only the energy needed to process them really "counts" towards their environmental footprint, rather like cheap leather taken from animals that are sold for meat.

Biofuels produces as a primary product are much less ecofriendly, partly due to their effects on food prices, partly because of the costs presently associated with their distribution which may change.

Answer 9

The articles which claim they aren't very environmentally friendly seem to be flawed.

Answer 10

Hybrid cars are good for car companies. They recognize there's a market for these cars so they make and sell them.

Do hybrid cars help the enviroment. Not a whole lot.

My definition of a hybrid car would be one that ran one different forms of fuel: gas, ethonal, natural gas, etc. On the way home and need gas? Image how nice it would be to see a gas station, battery station, or ethonal station at an intersection. Pull in to one of them, flip a switch (or not), and fill up your car.

That would make a huge difference for our enviroment. And make a huge difference on your pocket book.

Answer 11

They are horrible, go for the GM E85 Ethanol cars.