Costs of Manufacturing Hybrid Vehicles

Hi Cate

Sorry I cannot contribute any data to your question, but it is one I find myself asking about many products and activities. The whole issue of net energy, or energy return on energy invested, is one we all need to pay much more attention to. There is a Kiwi website devoted to this issue you may already be aware of ( www.eroei.org ). If you do get useful info on the hybirds, I would appreciate a copy.

Cheers
Jack ( Canada)

Nancy,

I think your engineer friend is right. It takes about 90 barrels of oil energy equivalent to mfg a car. Each barrel contains the energy equivalent of over 12 years of an average person's energy output. So waiting to you really need one makes sense. If your circumstances allow it you might even consider joining/ starting a car sharing cooperative.

Cheers
Jack

I've been considering buying a hybrid; and an engineer friend who knows a lot about energy recommended waiting to buy one until I really needed a new car because of all the energy it takes to produce a car. It's quite a lot. I really want a plug-in hybrid so hope my present car can last that long, sigh.

Nancy Adams

Here's study on hybrid vs non-hybrid Life cycle analysis. http://www.ngvglobal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=663&I

Interestingly, it's conclusion says there's not much difference.

Monique

Monique Bayer
Project Manager
National Center for Sustainability
Swinburne University of Technology
John St., Hawthorn VIC
[email protected]
Tel: (03) 9214 4692

Interesting study results, but I am always leery of studies funded by folks who have a vested interest in the outcome. The International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles is hardly a neutral observer in this debate. I would want to see the details of the study.

Thanks & Adios,
CJD

Carol J. Dollard, P.E.,
LEED AP Utility Engineer
[email protected]
(970) 491-0151
(970) 491-6116 FAX
Mailing Address: Facilities Management
Colorado State University
6030 Campus Delivery
Fort Collins, CO 80523-6030

I would like to reinforce Carol's cautionary note. If you ask any engineer they will tell you that there is no standard methodology for net energy analysis, and changing the boundaries of what is included can significantly change the results. Before making any sense of results like these, we need to understand the specifics of the methodology.

Cheers
Jack
The Sustainable Scale Project

Jack,

90 barrels of oil is ~1800 gallons of gas. In a year of driving a 20mile/gallon car for 20K miles you would use 1K gallons. If you swap out for a car which gets higher gas mileage (say 50miles/gallon) then you would use 400 gallons, saving 600. The 600 gallons you save would reduce CO2 emissions by 12000 pounds, or 6 tons per year. The 600 gallons you save would put $2Kback in your pocket. The emissions from the barrels of oil used to produce your car are not as bad as the emissions your car makes.

Here is another view on car manufacturing vs. car use: http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.php?theme=5&fid=53 The car you trade in will be recycled, offsetting the energy required to create the new one. My guess is that it will take about a year to pay back the oil used in manufacturing. Gas prices are only going to go up -- there is little doubt we are at or very near peak oil. The cost of a car will increase as fossil fuel costs increase, and the prices above will tip more in your favor. You are correct that driving less, and combining trips is a win-win. You can also buy carbon credits to offset the effect of your driving: http://www.terrapass.com/?gclid=CNTJ_7q1kIYCFRuXFQodrSBPww http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/ I would not rush out and trade in a new car, however I would certainly upgrade a used car at your earliest convenience.

Curt

Dear Colleagues--

The following is a forwarded e-mail from the Finger Lakes Permaculture mailing list (Central New York), one of a series in a similar conversation.

Tom Shelley

According to the complete list of energy use (the last spreadsheet link on the site), and the Honda and Ford web sites, here are some energy use, city/hwy mileage, power@rpm, and curb weight numbers. I used the auto transmission 2WD numbers for each: Civic: $2.42/mile, 30/40mpg, 140hp @ 6300rpm, 2690lbs Civic Hybrid: $3.24/mile, 49/51mpg, 110hp @ 6000rpm, 2875lbs Accord: $2.18/mile, 24/34mpg, 166hp @ 5800rpm, 3192lbs Accord Hybrid: $3.30/mile, 25/34mpg, 253hp @ 6000rpm, 3589lbs Escape: $1.95/mile, 24/29mpg, 153hp @ 5,800rpm, ?lbs Escape Hybrid: $3.18/mile, 36/31mpg, 133hp @ 6,000rpm gas + 94hp @ 3,000-5,000rpm elec, ?lbs My intial reaction was that the Accord comparison is a bad one, because it has the same fuel efficiency in both cases (the hybrid has more power). The escape wouldn't be great either, because it is a different type of hybrid engine. However, the civic/civic comparison is more compelling, as is a prius/echo comparison. Also, only around $0.10/mile can attributed to gas in the given numbers. I have seen similar (but more extreme) results for comparisons between electric vehicles and conventional ones. I believe this was using lead-acid batteries, and EV's need more battery capacity than hybrids or conventional vehicles. Here's some related info, but not the exact comparison: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/B/239.pdf . As for the disposal quesion, here are the dollar values: Civic: $0.253/mile recycle, $0.462/mile non-recycle, $0.715 total Civic Hybrid: $0.493/mile recycle, $0.354 non-recyle, $0.847 total Therefore it takes more energy (according to their numbers) to dispose of the hybrid than conventional civic, even per pound. It appears that more of the hybrid is being recycled, because less energy is spent on non-recyle. We still don't know how much of this is an effect of early technology and scale, and how much is inherent in the materials involved. It is also worth noting that the energy used in each case is different. Hybrids appear to save oil, but use more production energy: some combination of coal and the mix of electricity sources.

Tom Shelley

118 E. Court St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607 342-0864
[email protected]

Respectfully, I must disagree with the responses so far. 1. Regarding energy used for production: According to a study that looked at the complete life-cycle of a VW Golf, approximately 20% of the total energy involved in the entire life of the vehicle is attributable to its actual production. This includes all the mineral extraction, materials and parts manufacture and energy consumed in the production plants. The remaining 80% is attributed to the fuel that is produced for, shipped to and consumed by the vehicle during the vehicle's use period. (Roughly 0.2% is attributed to the disposal phase). 2. Regarding the "wait as long as you can" theory: I would advise this only from a financial perspective, given that hybrids are a reasonably new technology and are still be refined and perfected. As more and more hybrid models become available, the prices will inevitably come down. However, given the recent spike in oil prices, the financial arguments against hybrids are becoming less and less relevant. From an environmental perspective, however, the optimal time to trade in your current vehicle is after 4 to 6 years. After this point, the engine components (such as the catalytic converter) do not function as optimally as they used to. As a result, you will be spewing out more emissions than you would with a newer vehicle. Furthermore, advances in engine technology are continually resulting in better performance, fuel efficiency and emissions reduction capabilities. For example, just 7 or 8 years ago, the first hybrid vehicle came to market. And just 2 years ago, manufactures introduced Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT), cylinder deactivation, flexible fuel vehicles and even more hybrids. With so much happening, so fast, my advice is "don't wait". You'll be doing the world a favour by getting rid of the old clunkers.

Dave Crowder
Senior Project Officer / Agent principal de projet
Environmental Affairs Division / Division d'Affaires Environnementales
Environment Canada / Environnement Canada
Phone / Tl: (819) 956 - 5936
Fax / Tlc: (819) 994 - 5068
Email / Courriel: [email protected]

I guess most who read this listserv also know that for every ton of vehicle produced, an average 60 tons of waste are involved from cradle (eg. mining metals and oils) to grave!

SUE B

Davis Crowder said, "From an environmental perspective, however, the optimal time to trade in your current vehicle is after 4 to 6 years. After this point, the engine components (such as the catalytic converter) do not function as optimally as they used to. As a result, you will be spewing out more emissions than you would with a newer vehicle. Furthermore, advances in engine technology are continually resulting in better performance, fuel efficiency and emissions reduction capabilities. For example, just 7 or 8 years ago, the first hybrid vehicle came to market. And just 2 years ago, manufactures introduced Continuously Variable Transmissions (CVT), cylinder deactivation, flexible fuel vehicles and even more hybrids." What I'm wondering is how much good is it really doing to resell your old car after 4-6 years to someone else who will drive it as a used car? You might as well keep it and be responsible for the emissions rather than starting a new waste stream by purchasing a new vehicle. This is one part of the equation that you're all not looking at - unless you junk your old car, someone else is just buying your old problems. It might make you feel better that you're not the one driving the polluting vehicle anymore, but it doesn't address the underlying problem of auto emissions.

Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road,
MS 4555 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
[email protected]

As the owner of a 2002 Prius, I find the following information troubling, if not downright unhelpful. It seems to me that this is an example of finding and using numbers to tell whatever story one wants to. First, no information on the Prius was included. There is a statement that uses the echo as the comparison car. Dead wrong. The Prius has many luxury features that are simply unavailable on the echo. It rides better, is quieter and simply is a much better put together car. A better comparison would be the Camry. Second, there is the statement that only .10/mile is attributed to gas usage. Obviously that number changes substantially. If gas gets near $4/gallon as some are predicting by the end of the summer, and if $2/gallon was used when these numbers were run (this would not be unusual), I suspect that the impact is more than just saying only that gas will account for .20/mile. I do agree that of the following list, only the civic and civic hybrid comparison are really valid.

Thomas L Eggert, Esq.
Senior Lecturer UW-Madison,
School of Business
4121Grainger Hall
975 University Ave
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 267-2761
[email protected]
http://www.instruction.bus.wisc.edu/teggert

The figures on cost per mile for recycling in the message below make no sense to me. From the data below it appears that a fixed cost per mile is assigned to recycling. That would mean that it would cost twice as much to recycle a car driven 50,000 miles as it did to recycle a car driven 25,000 miles. Clearly this is not the case. The cost of recycling is independent of the number of miles driven. Since I have no idea what formed the basis for the energy cost estimates, I can't comment on those except to say that it is likely there are fixed costs to the batteries in a hybrid and variable costs. So the more miles a hybrid is driven, the lower the total energy cost per mile (both manufacturing and operating costs) would be. Are those figures based on some estimate of average lifetime miles driven? The document located at: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/B/239.pdf claims "The batteries will make up a significant fraction of vehicle mass (~20-40%)." Yet the Honda Civic hybrid weighs only about 7% more than the regular one, and the Accord hybrid weighs less than 12% more than the gas only vehicle. This suggests that the estimates of energy costs for hybrids may be on the high side since they seem to be based on estimates of larger than actual battery sizes.

This posting went around in July. Here some thoughts on effectively conveying a message. It stikes me that the unit used in this study to compare vehicles is "energy cost per mile". Read that unit again, and give the unit a short thought. Today different interest groups would use different units depending on their interests (i.e. their marketing objective) equivalents per mile would be used by environmental departements focused on reducing GHG's. Using CO2 equivalents would restructure the order of most friendly vehicle to least friendly in this study, i.e. favour smart cars for hummers. energy consumption per mile: of interest to the end user. This is self explanatory. production & recycling energy: of potential interest to electricity utilities. production cost per mile: would be used by economist, presently short sighted, no full (life) cycle interests, interests are simply "financial return on investment". This unit would be their primary "selling feature". These are thoughts that can be used in any kind of study when using units. Whoever writes such articles and conducts such a study knows what message they want to convey; keep in mind this was done by a marketing company. So making such thoughts (and taking the time for it) is crucial. Clearly it appears that this organization performed the study with (too much) personal interest in mind, personal interest in keeping the car economy (with all its subsidiaries) going at business as usual. They are painting themselves a bit green by considering aspects of cradle-to-grave. Fundamentally, they're using wrong units though that are not representative, and not accurate for cradle-to-grave statements. $$ for craddle to grave!? The above assumes that we NEED to drive a certain amount of kilometers and this is not variable. How about, Demand side management? Leave the "..per mile" in "energy per mile" away which leaves us with absolute "energy", meaning "let's lower our kilometers" and not fly to Chicago for our next business meeting, or an equivalent. That being said the talk here is not about efficiency anymore, but about absolute environmental impact. $$$ are don't do a good job at talking about environmental impact, CO2 equivalents are more accurate, but what do you do when most people really only relate to Dollars?

-Richard
YES Engineering

Richard Siegenthaler
Principal
YES Engineering
T: 604.224.7421
E: [email protected]

I just read the now dated posting about Hybrid vehicles. I must agree with the statement that you must consider who is writing and distributing information and what there motive is as information is not always correct, especially that coming out of the USA with the masters of spin at work.. After all they managed to convince the world that we needed to go to war so its not too much of a stretch to downplay Hybrid cars. Put simply I have been driving a Toyota Prius for over 12 months and as a driver of a Hybrid vehicle I love it. The car has reduced fuel costs by $3,000+ (Aus) in a year. I have had no problems with the car and it is a pleasure to drive and considering the cost of a Hummer in Aust (twice a Prius) I think I will stick to my Prius and I strongly encourage people, companies and organisations to consider introducing them (or hybrid vehicles) to their fleets.

Regards
Russell

Russell Gladigau
Resource Efficiency Officer
NevRwaste
Tel: (03) 5722 9498
Mob: 0407 201 021
Fax: (03) 5722 9655
PO Box 672 Wangaratta 3676