Reader J. Pickens responded to my Toyota Camry Hybrid review with the following criticism :
Its really too bad that the net energy use by your new hybrid is actually HIGHER than it would be for the non-hybrid version of the Camry. This is due to the extra energy cost of the electric motors, wiring, and, especially, the nickel metal hydride batteries which are not present in the non-hybrid Camry. Add it up, you are getting around an extra 10 to 15mpg for around 150,000 miles of battery lifetime. So, the 25mpg Camry uses 150,000/25 = 6000 gallons of gasoline. The 38mpg Camry uses 150,000/38 = 3950 gallons. The difference is 2050 gallons. At $3 per gallon, that is around $6000. Try pricing out the batteries and motors, they cost far more than $6000. Why is that? Because of the energy cost of building them. Its a fun toy, but don't fool yourself into thinking you are being "Green". You are being a pseudoenvironmentalist dupe, in my opinion.
Pickens raises some common concerns when talking about hybrids, and they are largely valid. Here is my response:
There are two factors to consider, the cost to me, and the cost to society as a whole.
For me, clearly the hybrid is a win. I was going to spend $30k on a car no matter what, so the cost of the car up front is a wash. Granted, I probably would have “more car” for 30k in a non-hybrid, but each driver's personal utility/value from particular features is subjective. Personally, I get a lot of utility out of the gadget factor of a car (or many other things I own). I use fancy gadgety cell phones, gadgety computers, I am a gadget geek, and the hybrid is high on that metric. With a hybrid, your mileage may vary. (ha) So my utility is the same, but my cost is less, I get the fuel savings outlined by Pickens above ($6000 by his estimation), plus I get the tax credits. $2,600 federal, plus $500 Iowa = $3100 in tax savings, for a grand total of $9,100 in savings over the life of the car. I think the gas savings will actually be higher, since as a benefit of switching from the Passat to the Camry, I get to switch from premium gas to regular.
For me (and I think for anyone) a $9000 savings on the life of a car more than gets to the break even point, especially when you take into acount the alternative. People looking at the Hybrid Camry are not going to pick an old beater, or a new Hyundai Accent for $10k. They are going to choose a Passat, or a regular camry, or a lexus, or an SUV, or something else that is also in the $25-30k range, and certainly more than the $20k that the car actually cost ($30k - 9,100 in lifetime savings). (I am of course ignoring costs which both cars would incur like oil changes, which are just a wash).
Clearly on a personal level, this is a win.
Now on to the tougher question, the cost/benefit to society. Here, the answer is murky. For a hybrid car, today, there is probably a cost to society. The tax credits are reducing tax revenue, which will either cause an increase in the defecit, or a reduction in government expenditure (likely the former, but if it was the latter, I might consider that a win, especially if the cuts came from pork (go porkbusters!)). The reduction in fuel use is a benefit, and while my personal reduction is negligable, the aggregate reduction of all hybrid drivers probably does shift the demand curve over a bit. The increased cost of the batteries and electic motors results in a reduction of profit (but I am sure even the hybrid camry is still at least breaking even for them) for Toyota shareholders, but in exchange they are getting a lot of free publicity - I call that a wash since they pay many many millions for that same publicity throughout the year. In reality there might be no loss in profit to Toyota, since if they didn't make the hybrid Camry, I (and others) might well have bought a car from a different manufacturer. This would of course be just a redistribution of profit, and not an actual loss to society as a whole. It could have some interesting defecit impacts though, since I would have prefered to by a domestic over an import, but no equivilent domestic car is offered. Also the emissions of the hybrid are MUCH better than standard cars. EPA estimates the Camry Hybrid to have 80% less emissions than an equivilent non-hybrid.
So for the present time, the total cost or benefit is questionable, my guess it is either break even. But what about tommorow? Solar cells, another green favorite have been around for decades, and they are just now getting to the break even point on energy cost. Advances in technology take time, and early generations are always inefficient. It was probably cheaper to own a horse than buy a Model T, 100 years ago. But not many people drive horses to work today. Someone has to be the spearhead, and since it doesn't cost me anything to take that role, I choose that destiny freely.
Lets face it, the world is facing an energy crisis. Between peak oil, the industrialization of China and India (resulting in massive increases in demand for oil), turmoil in the middle east - both for the effects on oil supply, and on national sovereignty - clearly the US, and the world, are going to have to move away from an oil based economy. Hybrids are a step in that direction. Hybrids plus E85 (from sugar beets rather than corn in my opinion - even though I am from Iowa) are a second step. Full electric or hydrogen cars at some point in the future, maybe powered by a nuclear grid - who knows? But they need to work out the kinks in these systems. Having a car that is driven by an electric motor, regardless of where the electric motor is ultimately powered from, is a fundamental step to the future. We can change from gas to e85, to grid, as an incremental step later. But the first step is today, and for me...
I step into a Toyota Camry Hybrid. YMMV :)
update 7/11/06 9:16 am: I found this large entry talking about hybrid economics. It goes into quite a bit of math to come up with the numbers. It largely agrees with what I stated above, but comes out saying that hybrids are probably not a win (from a purely $ today) They do think that hybrids are the best ecological choice. I think they are ignoring the large effect of the tax credits, as well as comparing everything against an economy car, which I think is a false assumption - people are going to spend roughly the same on their car no matter what, the fuel efficiency is a bonus.
update 7/12/06 3:22 pm: J Pickens replied to this post, so I continued the thread of Are hybrids really green - Alternative Energy Sources