« Vista Sucks | Main | Obama's Gun Control Agenda »
June 10, 2008
The Hybrid Illusion
Most tree-huggers seem to think that hybrid vehicles are the best thing since sliced bread. Mainly, I think they believe this because the car can run on electricity, which means zero emissions. This is true only if you're an idiot and stick your head in the sand like most tree-huggers. That is, you don't count the emissions from the coal-fired plant that produced the electricity. Most tree-huggers have no problem with this. (Watch the South Park episode about the "smug alert" if you're not sure what I'm talking about.)
However, if you think about it, it doesn't take a genius to see that adding a thousand pounds of weight to a car in the form of lead-acid batteries is a spectacularly bad idea. The law of conservation of momentum says that it takes more energy to get the batteries moving, to stop, and to turn. (I know - the Prius stores energy from the braking system - this mitigates the problem somewhat, but only partially and the car would still be more efficient if you took the batteries out of the car.
Finally, this guy comes around and says exactly that - to make cars more efficient, you have to get rid of the weight. This means - don't put 37 car batteries in the vehicle.
"A racing car is ultimately the most efficient vehicle on the planet. - Professor Gordon Murray"
If you're thinking "who is this guy Gordon Murray", well, as it turns out, he "designed some of the most successful Formula One cars ever built - as well as the McLaren F1, for years the world's fastest road going car."
Adding bricks (batteries) to the new car designs is not the answer. Plugging it in is not the answer. The solution to making a car operate more cheaply is making it lighter and using a smaller gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine.
Posted by Rob Kiser on June 10, 2008 at 10:12 PM
Comments