Talk of Tacoma powertrain upgrade from head guy at Toyota US...

This graph doesn't make what I said wrong. Just more uninformed tree huggers than 15 years ago.

 

Chevy is trying to take money from tree huggers as any other business would. Doesn't mean the vehicles are good vehicles or that all electric is a good option.

 

The original Fords also ran on alcohol for the the same reason Diesel invented his engine, because at the time petroleum wasn't nearly as common or cheap so they intended to use seed oils and available biomass. Conspiracy theories abound, it is true Diesel may have had enemies and Ford got backing from Standard Oil as well as ran into Prohibition.

So anyway, there are political reasons why things are the way they are. Even today you could use various sources and pretty easily modify existing cars to run cheaper and cleaner on alcohol than gasoline or diesel, but there's no money in it if you can grow and distill your own fuel. Corn growers lobby against using hemp for E85, for example.

The problem with electric vehicles is the batteries and resources. The U.S. no longer mines or smelts lead and we have one currently closed rare earth mine and a couple of lithium mines (although Rock Springs, WY, sits on about 18 million tons of lithium just waiting to be mined). But China does currently mine all this stuff and the ramification on their environment is devastating. It's a nasty business getting lead, lithium, neodymium, rhodium, cobalt, nickel.

Plus you still burn plenty of fossil fuels, either coal or natural gas, to charge them. Solar and wind still require heavy metals and rare earths to construct and more batteries to store energy. The complete energy cycle must be examined, electric cars eliminate obvious problems such as tailpipe emissions but that doesn't mean we no longer have a significant impact on the Earth. It's shifted, out of sight, out of mind.

It all comes down to money no matter what altruistic wrappers they put on it. If we really were interested in the cleaner transportation in a free market then alcohol, natural gases and fuel cells would be competing with electric and gasoline and diesel. Nothing has zero impact over the whole cycle.

 

45? That's it? My commuter vehicle is a $18,000 (brand new) Hyundai Elantra. You could get my car in it's most basic form for around $16,000. No turbos or diesel or hybrid. It is rated at 39 mpg hwy but if I drive the actual speed limit (which all EPA tests are really based on), I get 45 easily. I have done this on many road trips already.

The base Prius starts at nearly $7000 more. For at BEST a 6 mpg gain? Doesn't make sense to me. Plus the cost of replacing those batteries at some point costs at least another $2000.

 

I feel like I missed something in this thread this morning

 

The only alternative technology that makes sense financially is an all electric vehicle IF you don't commute far from home or ever go on road trips and IF you have solar panels on your home and can charge your vehicle for free everyday.

 

right on man, the facts are gasoline is cheap and you can get a gasoline powered car at a cheaper price that will match the mpgs of a high priced hybrid vehicle anytime, its all an agenda that is being forced on us by granola eating types that think they know more than us ill informed hicks

 

That second part is an easy tweak to building codes to require some type of energy offset for new construction , in fact the new BC building step code is geared toward making all new buildings including homes net zero by 2030

 

But how will my steak taste?

 

I have always had trucks over the last 30 years, moved to Toyotas 27 years ago since it got roughly 20 compared to 8-10 of my gasser F250, back then that was huge improvement when I was commuting 80 miles round trip for school for 3 years. Then I moved out West, and never lived more than 5 miles away from work for 21 years, so gas mileage never was a concern. We moved 3 years ago to Idaho, now I have 60 mile round trip commute...starting thinking about gas mileage again.

They don't really take care of the roads here in the winter, so a low clearance car won't work, 50 mpg Prius would be nice, but won't be able to drive it 4 months out of the year. So that puts me in a CUV or Subaru Wagon, those get around 30. Yearly fuel cost between what I get now, 20...and 50 of the Prius is fairly substantial, between 20-30 not so much, and even less of the 4 cyl Taco and a CUV. Then you figure in that the Tacoma is more useful over a CUV or Suby, since I like to explore the back country, camp, and ride dirt bikes...the Tacoma in the end always wins these comparisons I always have in my head. But damn, wish it got better gas mileage, then the circular argument I have with myself repeats in my head and online! ha ha!

 

In my mind, it's very simple:
1. Consumers will always choose what's best for their situation. Always. Right now, they can get a vehicle that will drive 300+ miles before stopping, take five minutes to re fuel at any one of 17K filling stations and drive another 300+ miles. When they do re fuel, it's relatively cheap. They can also do it anytime, day or night, cold or hot, have thousands of people qualified to repair it and it will last a long time.

Now, they could
2. Drive an electric car, that the best can only go 200 miles, hunt for a charger, take several hours to charge and go 200+ miles again. In addition, those 200 mile cars cost at least 2X the price of their current car.

It's a no brainer. When they can produce a vehicle that can offer the exact same performance as our current car at the same price with the same infrastructure, then everyone will move to the one with cheaper fuel.

Consumers are not dumb.

 

You basically just added to my point I was trying to make before lol.
Like I've said many seem to think electric is clean but the process to make is not.

But again marketing so to speak. Its all just about air quality now. Regardless neither are good. And in all honesty I think we should really be considering ethanol. Readily available and renewable. Modern engines require minimal changes to work with it. It does still pollute but much less than Gasoline.

At least for the time being wouldn't hurt until we find better processes.

I think the main problem is then any farmer could make it themselves and then the government doesn't get their taxes. Regardless what we are doing isn't necessarily sustainable.

 

Her average is 45....that's with it in power mode all of the time, not eco mode. She routinely hits well above 50 in short city trips. I've even seen 60+ before when she drives it easy....in the city.

You can brag about highway mileage all you want. But her driving consists of 95% stop-and-go city driving. Plus she drives it like a regular car, in power mode at that....no hyper-miling techniques and still averages what you MIGHT get on the highway if you're lucky.

And as for highway mileage? Our last big trip 3 months ago was a 1200 mile round trip that included a lot of mountainous roads. 4 people, loaded down with luggage, A/C cranking and running 70+ mph most of the way. When we got home our trip average was 52 mpg.

You can talk peak numbers all you want. But if you're actually implying that your Elantra can touch any of those numbers.....well, you're just making yourself look silly.

 

A diesel would be fine, (other than having to fuss with the BS emissions systems) I don't care how they do it to achieve better mpgs...but VW screwed it up for the rest...think the small diesels we are finally seeing in trucks now are going to be short lived when the balance of power is shifted again in Washington.

 

Mm. Indeed. But it has character, to say the least. Like the 1st gen. Sadly, the same could not be said about the 2nd gen. Is it a Nissan? Or a chevy? Who can tell. It just looks... generic. I have to seek out pictures to remember what the 2nd gen looks like.

 

My average in city and hwy driving is about 36. It would take you a long time to make up the $10,000 advantage I have over you IF you bought the base model of the Prius. You probably bought something closer to the $30,000 range which means it would take you at least 10 years to make up the cost difference.

 

A hybrid makes sense in a city environment where you might need or want to go further sometimes. Ford realizes this with their new hybrid cop car. It's a little faster than the old Crown Vics and the slowest of the current options, but it gets 38 MPG compared to the Crown Vic's 19 in real use which isn't high speed pursuits 99% of the time but rather idling.

https://jalopnik.com/fords-hybrid-cop-car-may-be-slow-but-it-still-smokes-th-1819148718

 

If you can get 52 mpg running 70 mph with 4 people and a weeks worth of luggage loaded up and the A/C kicking running up and down the Smokey mountains.......well you have some Mythical Elantra that runs on unicorn blood.

 

I never said that. But I get about 80-90% of the fuel economy you do for about 70% of the cost.

 

I think of it as akin to banning smoking in bars & restaurants.