[dub_scratch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', ' ') Replacing 25mpg cars driving 12,000 miles a year with 50mpg cars driving 6,000 miles per year would reduce transport oil consumption by 75% using existing technology - that has to be a smarter idea that switching to coal.

[tugboat]

You can buy one now

http://www.hymotion.com/products.htm

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fergus', 'B')ut when is detroit anyone gunna make 50-100 mpg vehicles that an average person can buy.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tugboat', 'Y')ou can buy one now
http://www.hymotion.com/products.htm

[emersonbiggins]

Dub_Scratch has brought this up before, but I'll say it again:

With the projected increase in fleet turnover rate to a PHEV or biodiesel paradigm, what to do with all the existing vehicles?

As long as they're drivable, they will be driven - probably in Mexico or the poorest barrios of south L.A. or backwoods Arkansas. They might not be driven as much, for economic reasons obviously, but they will still be adding to the consumption rates that we see today, especially as nice vehicles go for fire sale prices. Even with $10/gal gas, a car is still worth more as a car than as scrap metal.

[clv101]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'I') think you have the right idea with reduced driving.

[ClubOfRomeII]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', ' ')I will replace a 45 minute drive every morning and evening with a 15 minute walk which is sure to improve my physical and mental health as well as freeing up an hour each day. A win win win win situation.

If more people did this (and many more people can but choose not to) then we could buy ourselves a lot of time with respect to peak oil.

[Seraphim]

Personally, I feel a shift in transportation from cars to mopeds on a large scale could off-set the trouble a bit.

A moped can get 3 times the mpg's of most cars/suv's, and sells for 1/15 of the cost. People would loss utility however.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'A')s long as they're drivable, they will be driven - probably in Mexico or the poorest barrios of south L.A. or backwoods Arkansas.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', 'T')housands of these vehicles are streaming south of the border every month because I see these convoys every time I get on that highway, at all hours of the day and night.

[aflurry]

Doesn't anyone else get put off by all the magical "100mpg!" claims about PHEV's? It's just untrue and blatantly so. They are running off of grid energy, which in most cases comes from a non-renewable source.

Now, I do understand the benefits of diversifying your energy sources in this way, to take advantage of arbitration opportunities between relatively scarce and plentiful resources. Overall PHEV's could contribute to making energy usage more efficient, if not so much in terms of actually saving evergy, more-so in terms of enabling usage of the most appropriate source at any particular time.

However, we shouldn't overlook a huge price that we pay for encouraging this type of energy diversification for the sake personal transportation. In doing this we are easing access to energy for the purpose of encouraging a relatively frivolous and wasteful use of energy. And we are hiding the cost of driving in what we pay for other things.

Even more distasteful, if PHEVs become widespread, one individual's choice to stop driving and modify their behavior to ACTUALLY use less energy, will become more difficult, because at that point they will be subsidizing other people's unsustainable driving habits by paying higher costs for the energy they do use for more essential activities.

There are numerous corrolary disadvantages to encouraging the development of these vehicles as well: the energy cost of building the new fleet and disposing of the old one, the underestimated problems of battery toxicity and disposal, and the general exacerbation of the trend toward backing ourselves into car-dependent living environments. I am also skeptical that PHEVs help environmentally. Sure, they cut down on the exhaust you see day to day, but they just relocate the pollution. Much of this electricity in generated by coal plants for which emissions standards could be less rigid than those for automobiles, or from hydroelectric plants with an entirely different environmental impact.

The bottom line is that personal transportation in individual vehicles is a dead end. These long-lasting problems with the PHEV idea far outweigh the short term and diminishing gains to be found in energy arbitrage.

Sometimes it is more important to protect and isolate a resource rather than efficiently exploit it. Things that are more difficult to obtain retain value. What has happened for the last 150 years with fossil fuels is that they have been waaaay too undervalued.

Furthermore there is something disingenuous about the whole PHEV idea from the ground up, starting with the attempt to sell the idea on this 100mpg claim. People with PHEVs will go prancing around like they are the good guys who are taking action on this whole environment/PO problem, but what is actually happening is that they are forcing everyone else to pay for their driving. Incrementally, off-peak energy prices will rise. Each dollar of increase you experience in your electricity bills will actually be going to fill some PHEV owner's "gas tank."

How is this a wonderful idea?

[denverdave]

PHEV's would make sense if we could ramp up wind power to offset the extra load on the grid, and there is no reason why this couln't happen barring a fast crash. Using coal-fired plants to power PHEV's is pointless though, when it would be much more efficient, economical and simple to turn the coal directly into motor fuel via liquifaqtion.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tugboat', 'Y')ou can buy one now
http://www.hymotion.com/products.htm

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I') can't drive for more than a 10-20 mile stretch of I-35 without seeing one of these caravans heading to Mexico with 5-10 year old F-150s, Explorers, Voyagers, Tauruses,...

[Clouseau2]

The real payoff with PHEV is when V2G (vehicle to grid) becomes widescale, along with an upgrade in grid capacity.

Now suddenly intermittant renewable energy sources become much more viable, since we can draw off the batteries of millions of cars plugged into the grid as the baseline, instead of fossil fuel or nuke power plants.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '
')Yet another benefit of Peak Oil!

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'R')emember, every PHEV/hybrid sold means that the economic viability of a third-world motoring utopia powered by exported ICEs remains a little longer.

Let's do what we can to kill that "dream" now!

[matt21811]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('aflurry', 'D')oesn't anyone else get put off by all the magical "100mpg!" claims about PHEV's? It's just untrue and blatantly so. They are running off of grid energy, which in most cases comes from a non-renewable source.

[dagod1]

Gas is starting to get expensinve. I notice gas is the lowest in jan and feb, this is when I fill up for the summer mowing season. I buy 15 gallons, and this will mow the yard for the summer.
Summer at 1.99 x 15 is 29.85 3.00 x 15 is 45, so I save 15 bucks, not much but it helps.

Also I started car pooling with my buddy to work every single day.
I pay him 15 per week verses paying 53 to 55 in gas and he drives his car I don't use mine , I then put the jeep in the garage for storage and we use my wifes high mpg car for now and take the jeep out i the winter.

Gas savings over nine months(teacher) $1368
Insurance on the car savings. $35 per month is $315 in 9 months.
not to mention the waer and tear on the car. and repairs.
Total savings in 9 months $1683 at least.


I also went and looked at the pontiac vibe stick shift gets 34-37 mpg manual.
Rob

[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('matt21811', '
')I dont buy this. My view is that by creating the arbitrage opportunity PHEV's will drag the price of electricity up to that of oil and not the other way around. If the price goes up, saving energy becomes easier not more difficult.