Hybrids responsible choice but still a stopgap in energy crisis / LJWorld.com

Archive for Monday, December 10, 2007

By Elizabeth Black

December 10, 2007

Coming back from Topeka one afternoon, I approached the West Lawrence exit tollbooth with no car either in front or behind me. The usually superefficient toll collector was looking down engrossed in something, counting money perhaps. She didn't even notice me. This was highly unusual. My window was rolled down, my ticket in hand. Moments went by. She still didn't notice me.

What should I do, clear my throat, say hello? As I was contemplating the most polite way of summoning her attention, she glanced up and jumped. Literally jumped.

"Oh, you hybrids, just sneaking up on me. I'm so sorry. I didn't hear you."

She was right. My car is quiet. It was on auto stop. And the engine may have switched off as I was coasting to a stop. That was the hardest thing to get used to when I first picked up my new Honda Civic hybrid - it literally turns itself off any time I pause at a stoplight. At first, I had to constantly fight the tendency to turn the key.

I didn't buy a hybrid to save the world. And I don't think hybrid technology is the answer to the dilemma of a world running out of fossil fuel - or global warming. I bought it for selfish reasons. Right now, I'm just trying to save money on gas. I know it's only a matter of time - and not very much time - before gas is $5 a gallon on its way up to $10. It's inevitable as demand skyrockets around the globe and supplies dwindle. If the Middle East blows up and catapults us into World War III - and I know it will eventually happen - then foreign oil will stop flowing and America produces only a fraction of what it normally consumes. Well then, even my hybrid will be of no use. It needs oil, even if less.

Driving a hybrid is merely stopgap. Its technology is dated - the first hybrid was actually built in 1901 - and likely to be replaced with something better. I predict that when I'm ready to get rid of it - I usually hang onto a car for seven or eight years - no one will even want to buy it because it burns too much gasoline. By then, CNGs (compressed natural gas), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and who knows what other new techno-wonder will be standard. By then, people will be using air and water to power their automobiles. Anyway, that's what I hope. Honda has already announced its sleek new hydrogen car, the Clarity, will hit Los Angeles dealerships next summer. All it would take is for a few fleets to place orders - FedEx, UPS, Post Office - and mass production would be off and running, bringing down prices. We can't expect government help. Congress hasn't even tightened fuel efficiency standards in more than 30 years.

Actually I wish I'd been able to buy an all-electric car rather than a partial one. That would have been so nicely old-fashioned. I could have done that if I had been in the market for an automobile in 1897. Most of the first horseless carriages were, in fact, electric. The first vehicle to break the mile a minute speed record was an electric car driven by French racer Camille Jenatzy in 1899. In the early years of the 1900s, thousands of clean, quiet, electric taxis, cars and trucks coursed through the city streets of America. A whole fleet of electric taxis serviced New York with a central battery swapping station on 39th Street, a swap that took a mere 75 seconds. Battery-charging devices designed by General Electric were to be installed throughout cities like parking meters, dubbed the Electrant. The electric cars were expensive and made one at a time by a variety of manufacturers. Steam engine cars and internal combustion gas-burning cars - also expensive to produce - were locked in a fight against electric for supremacy. All had their strengths and drawbacks, but in the final analysis, whatever automobile was mass-produced first was the technology that would win out.

Internal combustion won out early on - gasoline was lighter than lead batteries and dirt cheap for a while. When gasoline prices jumped 75 percent in 1912, a resurgence of interest in electric cars occurred. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford got together and hatched a little-known grand scheme to mass-produce electric cars and install charging stations all across America. A striking advertisement ran in a 1914 Saturday Evening Post with the two men posing beside their stylish electric cars with the headline: How Would You Like to Have these Master Minds Help You Choose Your Electric Car?

The story of why it didn't happen, and why internal combustion went on to become the automobile of choice, is complicated. It involved corporate corruption and a lot of dirty tricks. But a major market force was also key: "the Vroom Factor."

Electric cars were too quiet and too clean. The gasoline proponents derisively called them "ladies cars."

The Vroom Factor is still a driving force today. How else can you explain the popularity of SUVs on steroids, Hummers and huge macho pickups as personal transportation? Their emergence came well after the oil embargo and gas lines of the '70s, and at a time when the Middle East was in increasing turmoil amidst worries about oil supplies running out, and when global warming concerns were already heating up. The Vroom Factor outweighed it all. Look at the current season's TV car ads aimed squarely at the macho "mine is bigger than yours" crowd. The automobiles are filmed looking up from ground level to make the machines look even more fearsome, with fronts and grills like the sinister grinning mouths of monsters. Vroom, Vroom, Vroom.

Am I offended by these gas guzzlers? Yes. What business is it of mine? There's a finite amount of gas left, and they're using up more than their share. But then maybe that's good. The sooner we run out of it, the sooner we'll come to our senses on alternatives. So go ahead, guzzle away. I'll stick with my hybrid even though my wee attempt to do the right thing doesn't do much good in the overall scheme of things - a virtual drop in the giant bucket of our planet's impending crisis. But it sure is quiet and pleasant.

I'll stick with my ladies car, thank you very much.

Elizabeth Black is a writer living in Lawrence. A southwest Kansas native who attended Kansas University, she recently returned to Lawrence after living in Chicago and then on the East Coast for more than 30 years.

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10 December 2007
at 10:42 a.m.

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merrill (Anonymous) says…

U.S. Ranked Second Worst Nation For Combating Climate Change

Meanwhile a new report by the climate research group Germanwatch has ranked the United States the second worst industrial nation in the world when it comes to combating climate change. Of the 56 nations ranked, the United States came in a second to last, ahead of only Saudi Arabia.
Sweden ranked first on the list. The ranking is based on energy use and carbon dioxide emissions data and on an evaluation of the climate change policies in place in each country.
10 December 2007
at 11:35 a.m.

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Gab (Anonymous) says…

Dear Elisabeth, Your doom and gloom attitude about the Middle East scared me. My daughter works in Dubai. I was visiting the UAE and Oman this summer and they are feverishly building and moving forward. Dubai would take your breath away and you would see that they are thinking of the future and not doing away with it. I can not imagine where you get this notion of the “IF” Middle East blowing up and Word War III, but it scared me even more then the ice storm coming tonight. - And when you give predictions for the future, try to be positive. The Middle East is very important part of the world, not just because of oil, but because of millions of people are living there. So, be kind Elisabeth, and know, they are building and planning and working on a better future, and the UAE is giving jobs to tens of thousands of people from the Philippines and India and Egypt and Jordan, and are not preparing to blow themselves up. All people have in common of wanting a decent life and house over their heads and a good future, the Middle East is no exception. The UAE is doing a lot to generate money from other sources then oil, and they are succeeding at it. We need the Middle East, and they need us. Let's spread positive thoughts. His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai is a visionary. He is working on improving the life of his people. Think of good thoughts and have hope. This planet is all we got. Let's build each other up and think of a future where we show respect and express hope. Gab
10 December 2007
at 12:01 p.m.

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Mackadoo (Anonymous) says…

I love my ('03) Honda Civic Hybrid as well. I agree that it's certainly not the long-term answer to our problems, but I definitely don't mind the 55 mpg I get taking the backroads to work everyday.
10 December 2007
at 12:30 p.m.

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otto (Anonymous) says…

article says “Congress hasn't even tightened fuel efficiency standards in more than 30 years.”

Apparently there is tougher fuel regs.

dearborn, Mich. | Ford Motor Co. will meet tougher federal fuel economy regulations without dropping any of its lower-mileage truck or sport-utility vehicle lines, Chief Executive Alan Mulally said Monday
Http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/388227.html
12 December 2007
at 3:32 a.m.

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asiansensation (Anonymous) says…

When in Lawrence, KS will you need a 4x4 hybrid? Let alone a 4x4 in general. We don't live in the rockies where we would get snowed in. If it does the ice storm like it is now, you're going to slide around regardless of how many wheels are spinning. I think 4x4 vehicles are just and ego statement. If you knew how to drive in the snow (unlike most people in this town) then you wouldn't feel the need for 4 wheel drive. The only reason I see for a 4x4 would be for trails and terrain of such. In that case, get a 4 wheeler or dirt bike and tear it up.
12 December 2007
at 1:37 p.m.

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Anakim (Anonymous) says…

Electric-boosted hybrids can always haul more and further than any pure gasoline powered vehicle. Pound for pound, hybrids are simply more powerful, whether they cars, trucks, or diesel-electric locomotives. The army has Abrams tanks and trucks on hybrid engines and is experimenting with hydrogen. Hybrids btw have been around since 1901.
12 December 2007
at 10:40 p.m.

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toefungus (Anonymous) says…

I think high bread cars are like high bread people. Smuggy.