Green motoring
Is there such a thing? It is arguable that there isn’t. Yet who am I to judge, I am just another crazy West End cyclist. However, a lot of people have been saying that they want to do their bit for the environment by buying a Toyota Prius. I have always thought that hybrid cars are more green-wash than anything else, so I decided to investigate. Before you fork over $37,400 of your hard earned, you should find out the facts.
According to the Green Vehicle Guide published by the Australian Government, the Toyota Prius is the clear winner in all categories in terms of its fuel consumption and impact on the greenhouse. It has been awarded a 5-star rating, the highest available. However, claims that it only uses half or a third of the fuel of conventional vehicles are quite misleading. Just below the Prius, is the Fiat Punto, also on five stars. The Punto uses 5.9l of regular petrol per 100km compared to 4.4 for the Prius. While, this may sound like a huge difference, for the average 20,000km a year driver, this will save you a little over $300 worth of fuel.
Putting this all in perspective and compare it to the fuel consumption of Australia’s favorite car. The Holden Commodore has a fuel consumption of 11l per 100km. When you realise that this is what most people drive it is hard to tell the difference in fuel consumption between the Punto and the Prius.
There are other factors that make it hard to distinguish which is the cleanest vehicle. The Prius, due to is hybrid drive performs very efficiently when driving in stop-start traffic. When the car isn’t moving, the internal combustion engine (ICE) is not running, leading to little fuel wastage. When taking off from the lights, the electric motor kicks in, and the ICE is only fired up when the batteries need charging or under heavy acceleration, where the Prius requires both the electric and the ICE operate. Once the Prius is on the highway, it runs solely on the ICE, with extra capacity drawn to charge the batteries.
The Punto, with a conventional engine will tend to waste a bit of fuel while idling at the lights, but once it hits the open road, it is using just enough fuel to power the car along, without the overhead of charging the batteries. While Toyota have employed numerous other tricks to improve the performance of the Prius, most of these gains are to be had in the city. On the open road, a conventional engine such as that found in the Punto is likely to be a much be a better performer.
And then there is the price difference, both purchase and on going. The Punto retails for $19,990 drive away, almost half the price of the Prius. The savings in fuel from the Prius will never make up for the higher purchase price. Then there is the issue of longevity. After 10 year and regular servicing, the Punto will keep driving along. In the Prius, you can almost guarantee that the battery will have to replaced within 10 years. This costs in the order of $6000. This cost is reflected in the poor resale value in 5 year old Prius’.
I might be going out on a limb here in stating the Prius is worse for the planet than the Punto. One could argue that the reason the batteries are so expensive is because they require a lot of raw materials and energy to create. Hence, the use of batteries in cars is not actually reducing greenhouse pollution. It is, instead just moving it to the battery factory, and the power station and mines that feed the battery factory. While one day, these factories may be feed by clean and green energy, at the moment this is not an option. The large scale migration to renewable energy depends on the world reducing energy guzzling industries to the bare minimum.
To sum up, while the Prius looks good on paper, it is a very expensive and technology intensive way to solve the problem of reducing pollution. The Punto is the antithesis to this and follows the age old saying KISS (Keep it simple, stupid). For greener motoring, I would buy the Punto over the Prius any day of the week. Spend the $17,400 you save on planting trees and good, organically grown produce. Your wallet and your planet (but maybe not your bank’s loans officer) will thank you.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Ned
Intersting and valuable perspective. A few points. Its wore noting that most people in Australia do live in cities and do most of their driving in cities (even me!). Any advantages of the hybrid for city driving are valuable and valid. What is the capacity of the Punto engine versus the Prious – are they similar? Are you sure on the net emssions effects? I would like to see an actual calculation on the emissions costs of producing the new battery (and versus the fuel savings -even the $3oo pa -times 10 or 20 years…) Also, I understand the Honda hybrid comes in at $30,000 odd and that even cheaper hybrids are on the way, particularly as demand sores. So your price issue may evaporate. Hybrids are not the answer to the end of the biosphere. But lets not throw the baby out with the bath water…at least in the short term. Maybe there’s some psychology here as well. I suspect lots of middle class aussies may be persuaded to buy a Prius to assuage thier consciences (and appear smart to their peers/competitors and precisely because it is expensive) but in the alternative will not buy the Punto but rather a Volvo or VW or Audi and make another small but significannt step up in emissions… A small point but opens up another line of enquiry…
R
March 21st, 2007 at 11:29 pm
They are all valid points Russell. The capacity of the Punto and the Prius engines are about the same (1.4l vs 1.5l). However, the Punto has slightly more power. Emissions are essentially determined by fuel consumption. X about of petrol burned equals Y amount of carbon dioxide. There are other emissions produced during combustion, but it looks like they have a marginal effect on the greenhouse. As for the embodied energy in the battery, it was just a guess that it would be worse than the extra fuel used based on what a lot of people have said when using batteries to store power from renewable energy in off the grid houses.
The Honda Civic comes in at $32,990 + delivery and other charges. It’s better that the Prius in terms of price, yet it only gets a 4.5 star rating (lower than both the Prius and the Punto).
I can understand the argument that people are more likely to go for the Prius rather than a luxury car to appear that they are doing something. Yet we can’t really expect to save the world through consumption. If you really want to make a statement, buy a Smart ForFour (marginally worse than Punto in terms of greenhouse gasses) which is designed by Swatch and engineered by Mercedes.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
There is no doubt that the use of hybrid technology in new cars reduces the direct need for transportation fuel per new car. The overall benefit of reduced petrol use to the car buyer can fairly easily be compared to the cost of a similar non-hybrid model car.
Doubt has been cast, though, on the energy efficiency of the whole life cycle of hybrids when compared to the whole life cycle of similar models. This comparison is much harder to make, but a study by CNW (admitttedly a market research company, not exactly peer reviewed) found that the Corolla was by far the better choice in terms of the total amount of energy needed to design, manufacture, ship, sell, drive, maintain and dispose of.
This comparison, however, is based on the assumption that a new car is to be bought. If people are replacing a perfectly good (though gas-guzzling) car with a brand new one, then that\’s one extra car to account for in addition to whatever amount of fuel will be needed over the life of the car.
The truth is that there is already way too many cars in the world. No more should be built, not hybrids or otherwise, or certainly at least not until their entire life cycle can be supported by a range of renewable energies. Until then, surely we can get by sharing the hundreds of millions of cars already on the roads around the world, and doing everything we can to get away from car dependancy.
Reference:
CNW Marketing Research. Dust to Dust – The Energy Cost of New Vehicles From Concept to Disposal (2006)