>>I don't think this is likely. True if you take a brand new hybrid designed for low emissions, and compare it to a typical care pulled off the road you probably will not only get lower total emmissions but lower emissions per amount of fuel used. But take a brand new non-hybrid designed specifically for low emissions and there might be no difference per amount of fuel used.<<
Tim -
It isn't a matter of whether or not it's likely. It's a fact. The reasons have to do wiht the fact that the gasoline engine can be made so that it always operates in its most efficient range, since the electric motor does a lot of the work of propelling the car.
I don't see hybrids as the entire answer either, but they're an excellent start. And I'm talking about hybrids that don't even use gasoline at all as a concept.
One thing I do agree with you about, in terms of the approach, is that we should increase CAFE standards and let the car companies figure out how to meet them. If it means they have to stop selling Hummers, I'm not going to cry about it. Current Hummer owners will have cars that don't depreciate as quickly, and people who want Hummers will have to buy them used.
I'm sure we would disagree about how aggressively CAFE standards should be increased. I think we have to challenge Detroit, and if it requires some subsidies, so be it.
If, each time somebody in America needs a new car, they get either a hybrid, or some other kind of highly efficient, especially one that uses some kind of renewable fuel, within a decade or so 80 percent of the cars on the road would no longer be guzzling gas. Within 15 years it would be more than 90 percent.
Where's the problem?
And how does a slower solution turn out to be more efficient, necessarily?
Let me ask you this - how efficient is the war in Iraq? I submit that market efficiency is not always, nor should it be, the primary consideration in formulating public policy.
- Allen |
