Hybrids and Full Electric cars? Maybe, maybe not...

In a recent edition of this blog, I made the comment that making batteries for hybrid automobiles did more damage to the environment than just driving a regular car would do over its life. An admittedly broad statement and one of my readers asked if I had any sources to back up that statement.

Actually the source for that comment was me. And no, I don't have any actual facts to back it up, just an application of common sense to how my limited knowledge of how these things are made. He made mention of two articles in his blog that have opposing points of view on this issue. Both make valid and interesting points, and below I offer a few of my own. The following is an edited copy and paste quote from the comment I left on his blog in reply and I have added links to the articles he mentions so you can read them for yourself.

The TreeHugger article (found here: Life Cycle Analysis of Electric Car) is interesting and I don't dispute the information in it with one exception. It concentrates on lithium-ion batteries and those are used mainly in full electric and "plug-in" hybrids and there just aren't that many on the roads. The Prius and other popular gas-electric hybrids use a nickel metal hydride battery pack, not lithium-ion. Nickel mining has been linked to all sorts of ailments in humans and to any number of environmental problems from fish kills to acid rain. Toyota has recently announced a lithium-ion plug in version of the Prius will become available sometime in the future, but it has yet to go into production. The eHow article (found here: Environmental Impact) make mention of the tremendous amounts of energy consumed by mining and processing these materials, but neither article explores the logistics of it all. The mining equipment consumes an enormous amount of energy, as does the refining process. This is true whether the metal is lithium or nickel. That energy is in the form of diesel, gasoline, and electricity, natural gas and propane. It also takes a lot of energy (trucks, forklifts, cranes, railcars, ships) to get from the mine to the refinery. Once the metal is refined, it gets moved to the factories that make the batteries. More trucks, ships, rail cars, cranes, forklifts, etc. That factory uses lots of energy as well, but now we have to package these batteries so that they can be shipped safely. That creates a demand for cardboard, plastic and wooden crates, and all sorts of energy must be used to produce and ship these to the battery factory. Once crated, they then are shipped to various warehouses around the world until needed, when they get shipped again to where ever they are installed. Then if you think about it further, there is even more energy consumed to haul away the waste products from each stage of this process. The amount diesel exhaust alone would give Al Gore nightmares. If you then add the energy and materials consumed to make the equipment necessary to produce and ship these batteries it just gets worse. And for what...a car that gets 5-15 more miles per gallon than its gasoline powered counterpart? Not to mention that a diesel version of that same car would get about the same mileage as the hybrid (end of quote).

It’s currently very fashionable to drive around in a hybrid and pretend that you’re doing your part to save the planet, and if the point of these cars are to give everyone warm fuzzies about doing that, then fine.  If the point is to simply reduce the cost associated with getting where we need to go, ok these cars do that quite well. But are they really environmentally friendly?  Hardly.  Most of these batteries are made in Japan, Korea and China. The nickel used in the nickel metal hydride batteries comes from Russia, Canada, Australia and Indonesia. Most of the world’s lithium comes from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and the United States. Large reserves have recently been discovered in China as well.  So if you have to ship this stuff all over the world, how is that “green”?

Let’s take a look at some of the currently available hybrids and plug-in electrics. The source for this information is Hybrid Cars.com . At the top the list is the Prius, made by Toyota. They start at around $22,000 and get an estimated 50 mpg. Its closest competition is the Honda Civic Hybrid, which costs more and gets less gas mileage (42 mpg est.). Following closely on the Civic’s heels is the Honda Insight at 41 mpg and and MSRP of around $18,000. This car bears a striking resemblance to the Prius, by the way.

Ford makes two entries at 39 mpg, in the form of the Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids, but with a much higher MSRP at more than $28,000.  Hyundai throws it’s hat in the ring with a hybrid Sonata tipping in at 38 mpg and and MSRP of just under $25,000.  Of course, if your tastes run to more exotic and luxurious cars but you still want your warm fuzzy about saving the planet, you can get a BMW ActiveHybrid 7.  It has an MSRP of $103,000 and gets all of 20 mpg, but you can feel good about driving it because it’s a hybrid, right?

Keep in mind too, that for about the same money as a Prius, you can get a Volkwagon Jetta diesel that offers 140 hp, will get an estimated 42 mpg on the highway and comes in a wagon if you need one. And a big plus to any diesel powered car is the option of biodiesel, which frees you from petroleum based fuel all together.

On the petroleum free note, let’s take a side trip down the “all electric” lane for a bit.  There are not many of these to talk about and unless you live very close to where you work and shop, they aren’t very practical. First up is the Nissan Leaf. According to Plugincars.com, the Leaf is a 5 seat sedan, with a base MSRP of $32,800, a zero to 60 time of around 8 seconds and a top speed of 90 mph,so it compares to most small gasoline powered cars in performance.  There’s no transmission, so no need to shift gears and it is very quiet. Where it falls down is range. Nissan says you can go up to 100 miles on one charge, which is great if you intend to use this car as an in town commuter with a short trip.  Add heavy cargo, or hilly terrain, or cold weather, or 4 full grown adults, or all of the above, and you could be looking at as few as 40 miles on a charge. Recharging has a couple of options, but the standard 3 prong 110-120 VAC outlet at home can take as long as 17 hours to fully recharge a depleted battery.  For those of you who live here in Arkansas and are familiar with the area, let’s put that in perspective.  If you left Fayetteville at 8 in the morning headed for Ft. Smith, assuming it took 90 minutes to get there and it depleted your battery, you wouldn’t get back home till 4 a.m. the next morning. Still, if you could afford it as strictly a “work” car or “grocery getter”, you could make a stand for the environment if you drove it for 50 years or so.

The Chevy Volt, while technically all electric, does have a gasoline powered generator on board to charge the battery pack, and extends the range up to 300 miles. This use of gasoline at least in my book makes it a hybrid and at an MSRP starting at over $40,000, there won’t be many of these out saving the planet.

Tesla on the other hand claims an impressive 245 miles per charge, as well as 0-60 in 3.7 seconds (as fast as a Viper or Corvette) and a top speed of 125 mph for the Roadster. They also claim that using the Tesla High Power Wall Connector at 240VAC will recharge the battery in 3 ½ hours (see Tesla for more information).  All this performance is not cheap, with the MSRP at over $100,000. These are by far the best looking of all the electric cars, but at that price, they will be toys for the wealthy. 

That’s my biggest beef with any of the so called “green” vehicles. For a vehicle to contribute in a positive way to saving fuel, or reducing emissions, it is going to have to be in the hands of the masses.  Having a few thousand of them out there sitting in garages and going out for a spin in an “eco-race” from time to time makes these things have a much greater impact on the environment than any contribution they make. If you only drive 50 miles a week, even if your car only gets 10 mpg, you’re only going to use 5 gallons of gas a week.  Even at $5.00 a gallon, it would take 23 years for an electric car that cost $30,000 to pay for itself if you paid cash for the car. And there’s no way one of these things will ever save enough fuel to make up for what was expended in creating it.

Granted, most of us drive much farther than 50 miles a week.  My wife’s commute is a 34 mile round trip each day. With the terrain and the extremes of weather in this area to consider, and the fact that the bulk of that trip is at high speed on a highway, she would be pushing the limits of what the current crop of all electrics would be capable of doing just to get there and back on one charge. If it takes 17 hours to recharge, it wouldn’t be ready go before it was needed again, so she’d only be able to use it every other day.  So in reality, if you are really concerned about saving the planet, keep the car you have now. Fix anything that’s wrong with it, keep it in good operating order and drive it 25 years.

There is one very bright ray of hope for an answer to all this…the new Honda FCX Clarity (see it here: Honda FCX Clarity. This car uses no petroleum based fuel at all, relying instead on something called a Vertical Flow hydrogen fuel cell stack to create electricity to power the front wheels.  The only emissions from this process are water vapor and heat.  It can be refueled as needed by the average driver, and even though it’s totally electric, like a gasoline car it can keep going as long as there are refueling stations within its range. Instead of taking hours and hours to recharge, it refuels in about the same amount of time it takes to fill the tank on an ordinary car, and for about the same price currently. 

The Clarity is currently in a testing phase, with about 200 slated to be leased to customers in southern California over the next 3 years.  Its greatest advantage is that it is completely free of petroleum based fuel, but that is also its biggest problem.  Hydrogen fueling stations are few and far between.  However, since hydrogen is sold by the kilogram, it will be easy to attach taxes and the government will be easily convinced to support this technology since it will work the same way sales of gasoline and diesel do.

This technology holds the greatest hope for freeing us of the need for fossil fuels of any that have come along so far. Let us hope that it becomes a reality.

Next time we'll explore some alternative fuels, and why you'll never see some of them catch on.