Sound Off: Luxury hybrid vehicles
Holy chick magnet?Check out the BMW M1 hybrid. Not only are you rich, but green.
I mean George Clooney probably already has a down payment on one.
Likewise, those private jet flights down to the latest and greatest Caribbean hot spots don't have to feel so guilty for the jet-setting crowd if they pick up one of these hotties.
All joking aside, a BMW plug-in hybrid is a great idea, as is an all electric Audi E-tron, for instance. Luxury hybrids and EVs are ALWAYS better than their gas-bonging relatives.
Still, are these vehicles really proving anything? Are there enough buyers of such very expensive vehicles to really scale down the costs of these technologies for the masses? And, if these vehicles are just sucking down dirty electricity rather than dirty petroleum, is anything really being gained?
Certainly, luxury hybrids are a step forward, but do they really mean anything more than a good pat on the back?
Labels: plug-in hybrid vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:46 AM
11 Comments:
About the dirty electricity, I've been waiting for a post where I could finally share the study that seems to show that plugins produce less net emissions than regular cars.
http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
Here's the summary of results:
http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf
PHEV Impact on Nationwide Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Researchers drew the following conclusions from the modeling exercises:
Annual and cumulative GHG emissions are reduced significantly across each of the nine scenario combinations.
Annual GHG emissions reductions were significant in every scenario combination of the study, reaching a maximum reduction of 612 million metric tons in 2050 (High PHEV fleet penetration, Low electric sector CO2 intensity case).
Cumulative GHG emissions reductions from 2010 to 2050 can range from 3.4 to 10.3 billion metric tons.
Each region of the country will yield reductions in GHG emissions.
there are a number of other studies out there contradicting EPRI's study from University, even Argonne, if I recall correctly.
Considering that EPRI has a vested interest in plug-ins, initially, i find this study disturbing.
"Annual and cumulative GHG emissions are reduced significantly across each of the nine scenario combinations."
That simply doesn't jive with a lot of other objective research out there.
I'm not saying EPRI is wrong, but how can their study be so rosy and others not?
Again, this would be more believable if EPRI didn't have an interest in promoting plug-in vehicles, but they do.
That's cool. Can you point me to the other studies? I'd like to read them and see the differences.
Here's one from MIT via GreenCarCongress I covered in the past.
I've seen a few others in the past couple of years, but I'd have to dig. Likewise, I haven't always made posts because I find the issue slightly irrelevant.
Personally, I'd sacrifice a little global warming, or take a wash, to end foreign oil dependence. The money saved, i believe, could fund the innovations to later deal with CO2 emissions.
Personally, I'd sacrifice a little global warming, or take a wash, to end foreign oil dependence. The money saved, i believe, could fund the innovations to later deal with CO2 emissions.
I agree with that.
BTW, I scanned the blog post about the MIT study, and I don't think it says that green gas emissions would increase. Granted the conclusions don't seem very comprehensive so it isn't clear exactly what they are measuring.
I'll read more deeply and report back.
That was just the first study that came to mind. I've seen others that are even more negative, and I've seen others that are positive.
Likewise, there are other forms of pollution from coal beyond CO2.
Nonetheless, the worst case scenario is probably a wash overall, because in some areas, CO2 emissions would increase - I think that's fair to say.
Overall, and long term, this should be easy to alleviate.
Still, if you want to sell plug-in vehicles to America, the case should be made around foreign oil dependence, not global warming.
Not only is the science more clear and simple, but it also resonates much better with the public.
Agreed on the best way to sell plugins, and the MIT study was very clear that eliminating dependence on foreign oil was very possible with BEV, PHEV, HEV, etc. by 2030.
I'm just looking to get educated on the expected impact to GHG emissions. If you won't be spending much time on that in your blog, that's fine. I can report back what I find elsewhere as an FYI.
Over the years I have covered this topic a number of times, and I'm sure I'll cover it again.
Still, this topic begs a lot of questions. For instance, it would be a heck of a lot easier and cost-effective to quickly convert the entire US fleet to conventional hybrid vehicles, rather than focusing so strongly on plug-in vehicles, and the CO2 reductions could be just as great, and they could happen much sooner.
Likewise, a significant percent of these vehicles would be eligible for plug-in conversions when the technology becomes more cost-effective.
And, in the interim, we're having a greater and quicker affect on CO2 emissions.
So, is the focus reducing CO2, or is it plug-in technology?
If we're looking for the greatest effect in the quickest amount of time, it's not the plug-in vehicle.
Too often, it seems to me, these studies are built on the premise that the plug-in vehicle is the only solution, and then the results are built around this solution.
I think we should be more focused on our goals and solutions first, then the products to get us there.
goals and objectives, i meant to say.
That makes sense. But I'm looking for something descriptive/predictive not necessarily prescriptive.
My goal is to find insights on expected impacts to GHG emissions from a reasonable model of plugin car sales (with many more hybrids than plugins, for example) and a reasonable model of US electricity production overtime (renewables vs hydro vs coal, CA 20/20 type legislation, Federal renewable energy programs, expected efficiency gains, etc.). Something predictive of what is likely to occur given current and expected conditions, not necessarily prescriptive of what the best approach would be.
I don't know if that study exists, or whether existing ones ask slightly different questions. So, I'll take whatever studies I can find and see what insights they provide minus any shortcomings.
interesting.
and, please, inject your findings on this into this blog.
this is an important issue, but one full of politics and massive amounts of money. thus, being able to objectively aggregate data on this matter is vitally important, but not very easy.
so your impressions on this subject will be highly valued here.
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