WaPo Editorial: New study shatters the myth of hybrid cars saving the planet
Posted by Bill Dupray
on Dec 18 2009 Filed under Politics.
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Many on the right view the Toyota Prius as a tree-hugger’s feel-good car. They are much more expensive than non-tree-hugger cars of the same size, and while the mileage is better, the added cost of the vehicle will never equal the gas savings over the life of the car. But the enviro-buyers don’t really care about the cost savings (if they did, why would they overpay for the car?). It is really only about one thing: showing the world that they care more about saving the planet than you or I do. To those of us in the global warming denier camp, Prius drivers just make us think, Here’s your sign.
Well, it turns out that a new study has proven the deniers correct; the hybrid drivers have been sold a bill of goods.
From, of all places, the Washington Post editorial page.
An Energy Department-funded analysis by the National Research Council, a congressionally chartered body, has concluded that plug-in electric hybrid vehicles probably will not produce significant savings in either greenhouse gas emissions or fuel consumption for at least another two decades — even with massive government subsidies. . . .
So there goes the global warming angle. For those thick-headed warmists out there, that means you will not cool the Earth with a Prius.
Second strike is that they are a ripoff.
Therefore, plug-in hybrid vehicles will remain extremely expensive — the gas savings more than canceled out by their sticker price. They’ll probably account for only about 13 million of the 300 million vehicles on the road in the United States by 2030. Not until 2047 is it probable that the fuel savings of the entire fleet of plug-in hybrids would balance out the subsidies necessary to make them cost-competitive with conventional vehicles. And the government will have to spend $303 billion to get to that point.
Note that last part. Electric vehicles won’t be competitive with normal cars for 38 years.
Don’t get me wrong, hybrid drivers should be able to continue to buy these little scam-boxes. It is a free market and Americans are free to waste their money on whatever they want. Just note that if the the shoe were on the other political foot and conservatives were the hybrid lovers, the left would look at this study and ban hybrids as a fraud, a waste of money, and tell us that the ban was for our own good.
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