Why would I want a hybrid car?

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As long as there's gasoline available my butt will be sitting in my pickup that only requires one battery, the one used to start the engine.
 
I hate the buying process and am no longer up to an hours long marathon runaround. A retired police buddy loves to haggle, offered to go with me so I may take him up on that.
I too hate the dealership experience but am being forced to jump into that arena.
Would your cop buddy be up for a contract job to do the haggling for me in California?
(There is a joke in there, but I won't go there.)
 
My daughter lives 600 miles away. I can make 500 miles of that in my Silverado on one tank, all the way if I chose to carry a 5-gallon can of gas with me. Five minutes to dump the can of gas in at a rest stop. What EV can do that? Even if I loaded a portable generator in the back, there's still a long charging time to "refill."

No one is forcing us to go electric? Someone isn't paying attention.
 
. . . To me, the diesel has the most promise in the near term but, the "Establishment" won't lighten up on the diesel regulations.

Just sayin:D

Diesel should be the focus of environmentalists, not gas. First of all, it stinks, second it emits 15% to 20% more total carbon than gas. (correction - not CO2)

. . . oh forgot it turns to gel at temperatures lower than 15 degrees. Plenty of those temperatures here all winter. Of course, if you plug it into a wall socket, a tank heater might work . . . Just sayin

And here is my latest purchase. Just got the new CO emitter in September and the dealer said he was sorry to see it go since he could have sold it a dozen times while waiting for me to come and pick it up. He said that it was probable the last gas Charger his dealership will see. Lovely sounds come from the dual exhaust and I expect it to be the last until I no longer drive or the government takes it away from me!!

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... The state proposal, though, has faced considerable bipartisan opposition from state lawmakers led by Republicans, but also from Rep. Jared Golden, a House Democrat. Golden noted this week that a strong storm would render electric vehicles useless, given their need for reliable electricity generation and supplies.

"In two days, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection will vote on proposed rules that would establish a California-style set of mandates forcing Maine auto dealers — and ultimately their customers — to purchase zero-emission vehicles," Golden said Tuesday.

"Earlier this year, I submitted testimony in opposition to such a mandate and have taken every opportunity in Congress to vote against policy that amounts to de facto electric vehicle mandates," he added. "Forcing Mainers to purchase cars and trucks powered by electricity when our grid is insufficient, charging stations are few and far between, and a storm like yesterday’s would render 80% of cars useless is, to say the least, ill-advised."​
Yup. Just as "an army marches on its stomach", EV's can only march on a robust and reliable grid. Same applies to heat pumps. And ideally that grid should be "green", which is not always possible.
 
My daughter has a ford plug in hybrid car. Something has gone wrong with the electric motor or battery, something with the system. Anyway they told her they have no remedy to fix it. She’s driving around with a hybrid that she can’t even use the electric portion of the car and they have no fix and apparently none in the near future. I actually feel sorry for her, she thought she was doing the right thing when she bought it.

Does her state have a lemon law? If so, make Ford buy it back. Remember, I’m a retired Ford Powertrain guy. The hybrid Escape we own has an 8 year warranty on all hybrid system components.
 
Yup. Just as "an army marches on its stomach", EV's can only march on a robust and reliable grid. Same applies to heat pumps. And ideally that grid should be "green", which is not always possible.

Maine receives most of it's grid power from Quebec hydro power. That's about as green as you can get. They recently passed a ballot question that outlawed Maine Central Power from expanding their transmission lines to increase the amount brought into and distributed in the US. They have been going back and forth in court and spending millions which, of course, is passed on to the rate payers. In the mean time, they continue to clear cut thousands of acres so that tax incentives for solar power and wind mills can be mined. The consumer end of the grid is fragile to say the least, with people routinely going without power for weeks after a storm like the NE just experienced. I mention these things to illustrate how disingenuous and dishonest the whole "carbon footprint" argument has become. Especially against the backdrop of realities like this. If they started today and concentrated on it continuously, it would still take at least 1, maybe 2 generations to bring the grid up to the point of reliability anything close to what we now enjoy with our fossil fuel based transportation system. Not to mention how much that scale of investment into the grid would increase cost. Yet we continue down the path of mandates and prohibitions. Enjoy your gas stove while you can.
 
I’m having trouble keeping quiet. Much Earlier I posted the “regulations are failed designs.” Think about that for a minute. When I lived in Southern California in the 60’s, photochemical smog was unhealthy and ugly. The California Air Resources Board (carb) stepped up and made the industry figure out how to reduce unburned hydrocarbon emissions. That started it all and now we have electronically controlled, direct injected, turbocharged engines that require very little maintenance, produce great power density and fuel efficiency, while essentially being ambient air cleaners compared to the soft coal specials of the past. Would the industry have accomplished this without CARB/EPA regulations? I was there….designing and developing engines for Ford for nearly 4 decades. We were in business to make money. Our Shareholders and Board of Directors insisted on it. Fast forward and today we’re looking at climate change resulting from burning carbon. I forecast A LOT of activity over the next decade or so to reduce the use of carbon. I could go all night talking about this without taking a drink, but I’ll leave it that. It’s not what happens that’s important, it’s what you do about it that matters. Tom

BTW, the only thing I believe is written in scientific journals that are peer reviewed. The rest is generally amusing. As Ben Franklin said, “the only thing certain is taxes and death.”
 
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I’m having trouble keeping quiet. Much Earlier I posted the “regulations are failed designs.” Think about that for a minute. When I lived in Southern California in the 60’s, photochemical smog was unhealthy and ugly. The California Air Resources Board (carb) stepped up and made the industry figure out how to reduce unburned hydrocarbon emissions. That started it all and now we have electronically controlled, direct injected, turbocharged engines that require very little maintenance, produce great power density and fuel efficiency, while essentially being ambient air cleaners compared to the soft specials of the past. Would the industry have accomplished this without CARB/EPA regulations? I was there….designing and developing engines for Ford for nearly 4 decades. We were in business to make money. Our Shareholders and Board of Directors insisted on it. Fast forward and today we’re looking at climate change resulting from burning carbon. I forecast A LOT of activity over the next decade or so to reduce the use of carbon. I could go all night talking about this without taking a drink, but I’ll leave it that. It’s not what happens that’s important, it’s what you do about it that matters. Tom

Back in the 60's, regulations like you talk about were based on engineering and designed to address real problems. The difference now is that the mandates and regulations are based on virtue signalling and mass hysteria and are more about political control than fixing a problem.
 
It sounds like there’s confusion about hybrid vs EV in here. In the also dept: merchant ships have been running on diesel electric for a long time. There’s no reason we can’t have more vehicles running on propane or NG, too; and making the gas vehicles run better is always an option, IF our scientists will work on it. I got 52 MPG on trips in my ‘84 Encore. First car in the AMC that The Big I got rid of when the took over AMC as I recall. We hafta see who wins in ‘24 to figure out how much longer we’re gonna have to live with the EV mandates. Not everyone goes for them.
 
Maine receives most of it's grid power from Quebec hydro power. That's about as green as you can get...
Pardon my geographical brain blip. Yes, Québec and we in BC are fortunate to have very "green" hydro. But, as you say, if it doesn't feed a robust grid at the consumers' end, it doesn't amount to much. I can understand the desire not to have to import power, but all the time spent squabbling just moves the goal posts further and further away.

There are a lot of carts being put behind horses in all this.


noonster said:
It sounds like there’s confusion about hybrid vs EV in here.
Not so much confusion as thread drift, I think :)
 
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Diesel should be the focus of environmentalists, not gas. First of all, it stinks, second it emits 15% to 20% more CO2 than gas.

. . . oh forgot it turns to gel at temperatures lower than 15 degrees. Plenty of those temperatures here all winter. Of course, if you plug it into a wall socket, a tank heater might work . . . Just sayin

And here is my latest purchase. Just got the new CO emitter in September and the dealer said he was sorry to see it go since he could have sold it a dozen times while waiting for me to come and pick it up. He said that it was probable the last gas Charger his dealership will see. Lovely sounds come from the dual exhaust and I expect it to be the last until I no longer drive or the government takes it away from me!!

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Our diesel maintenance trucks worked fine at temps down to -50 in Alaska. Just have to switch to the right grade of diesel fuel. Just saying.
 
Sorry I made a mistake in stating CO2, but rather is should have stated total carbon, a combination of particulate carbon in exhaust, CO, and CO2.

You can find about half of the publications out there today stating diesel is cleaner and half stating that gasoline emits less carbon. If one calculates the total amount of carbon in the fuel, diesel has more, so where does it go when burned?? Some content that the testing done to measure emissions is not the total carbon emitted by diesel. The culprit is the filter that traps particulate matter, which is almost all carbon and periodically "burns" off while driving. The soot trapped needs to be removed to enable proper performance of the filter. One can see this when trucks and pickups regenerate the filter under rapid acceleration as a black fog.

The process is called DPF regeneration where excess soot in the filter is burned off. In reality, it is incinerated and blown out the exhaust pipe. I can not find any tests where it is measured or considered when looking at carbon emissions testing for diesel.

Which is cleaner? That is a debate that will never end.
 
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Sorry I made a mistake in stating CO2, but rather is should have stated total carbon, a combination of particulate carbon in exhaust, CO, and CO2.

You can find about half of the publications out there today stating diesel is cleaner and half stating that gasoline emits less carbon. If one calculates the total amount of carbon in the fuel, diesel has more, so where does it go when burned?? Some content that the testing done to measure emissions is not the total carbon emitted by diesel. The culprit is the filter that traps particulate matter, which is almost all carbon and periodically "burns" off while driving. The soot trapped needs to be removed to enable proper performance of the filter. One can see this when trucks and pickups regenerate the filter under rapid acceleration as a black fog.

The process is called DPF regeneration where excess soot in the filter is burned off. In reality, it is incinerated and blown out the exhaust pipe. I can not find any tests where it is measured or considered when looking at carbon emissions testing for diesel.

Which is cleaner? That is a debate that will never end.

It has to be looked at in the context of how much work gets done for how much is released. A locomotive, for example, emits a huge amount more than a truck but it would take many more trucks to haul what the train is pulling.
 
Which is cleaner (gas or diesel)? That is a debate that will never end.
Biodiesel is cleaner than petrodiesel or gasoline.

And it doesn't release NEW carbon into the environment. Just like burning wood or other plant matter, it is just recycling existing carbon already in the environment.

The theoretical negative impact of fossil fuels is that they release carbon that was previously trapped (sequestered) underground into the environment.

Biofuels don't do that.

Biodiesel and ethanol made from waste products are the best of all alternatives. As long as we make them from waste biomass and NOT from our grain/food supply (as we are currently producing it).

A biodiesel fueled hybrid would be the ultimate best of all worlds IMO.
 
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