Anyone is using the hybrid car already ?
By magic9
@magic9 (980)
China
July 28, 2009 9:56am CST
There is still a lot of fossil fuel in the world but the fuel that is easy to find and to extract from the ground is disappearing.
At the same time, the two most populous countries India and China, have been improving economies and they have greater and greater needs for fossil fuels. These needs are due to the need for fuel for expanding manufacturing facilities as well as to the expansion of automobiles.
Some countries have developed the technology to help reduce these energy needs and to decrease pollution. One innovation is hybrid cares. According to a report, these cars are availabe in US today from two or three manufacturers and many more are on the way.
It is believed that hybrids provide gas efficiency of 40/60 miles/ gallon today. It has reduced emissions to approximately 10% of the Japanese standards.
Its system can also return energy to the battery when it decelerates. when you push on the brakes, the electric motor acts as a generator and recharges the battery. This energy is lost in a conventional car. A hybrid can shut off the gasoline motor when it is not needed. This is very important when you are doing stop and go driving in the city and you have to stop a lot.
Yet the price for this sort of car is higher than the conventional ones but it takes only one year that the money saved on petrol can compensate for the price loss.
so, just out of curiosity, is there anyone who is driving such a car ?
1 response
@xfahctor (14118)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
28 Jul 09
The problem is right now we have no propper storage or disposal method for the batteries once they are no longer any good. this is an environmental catastrophy waiting to happen. The cost of disposing of this will be eventualy passed on to the consumer who has to have it changed, in addition to the cost of replacing the battery.
There is also talk of pure electric cars being an environmentaly sund option. the problem with this is that the electricity has to come from somewhere to charge the car. What we no longer have in exhaust emmissions, we now have in emmissions from power plants that produce the electricity. The demand for electricity will go up when these cars hit the market in mass numbers and as a result, the cost of electricity will go up. We won't be saving money, we will simply be shifting where we spend that money.
I do not intend to buy one yet. I can't afford it. What I can afford to spend on a car comes in WELL below the savings in gas I would gain in buying a bybrid. It still is not a viable option for me.
