..........want to be really environmentally friendly

That comment always bugged me because everyone "knows" this but I've never seen any data showing it.

I was reading a magazine at work yesterday (Toyota Technical Review). A far from impartial magazine but it is the only time I've seen any sort of Life Cycle Analysis data on the Prius. This was the graph they generated.

Shows just how little effect there is from it being a hybrid and general manufacturing and how much of the impact comes from running cars. The comparitor car is a car of the same class. Take a car from the 60s/70s and that impact from running is just going to be huge.

 

even if the car only 'breaks-even' after 2-3 years vs a normal powered car, who writes a car off over that period? most cars are 10years+ life expectancy. you could probably push that to 15-20 years now. what used to be 100k, is now 250-300k.
i think it would cost you around 6k for a typical battery pack replacement on electric cars, every 8 years minimum (most seem to give 8yr warranty). most people would use that in a year or 2 of fuel consumption alone.

i'm still interested in the true cost of hybrid/electric vehicles over petrol/diesel, over 100,000 miles or so. i guess no-one has got those sort of mileages done yet and everything would be speculation. my view is an electric-only car would pay for itself fully in 4years, at todays prices.

 

I can't actually see what that graph tells you.

Nothing is quantified.

 

WGAF

It's a pile of crap Fluffy!

 

Not saying I want one Lofty, I just hate that type of off the cuff assumption that people take as gospel. Personally I'd take classic and sod the environment
Lower, so far as I can tell its just a ratio C02 compared to a conventional build (being 100% or 1). Therefore showing a marginal increase in the manufacturing output of CO2 compared to conventional but with a large improvement in running outputs

 

Glad I'm not the only one holding that view...

 

I think its true. If someone gave me a preeus i still would never drive it

 

i would sell it and buy petrol and tyres for the v8.

 

I agree with what it appears to be showing, but it doesn't qualify where the info comes from and has clearly been produced to optimise comparing a modern car with a prius. What car have they compared with the prius? What do they define as the same class? Diesel cars are more efficient than petrol so why not compare with a current low emissions diesel?

Nor can you use this chart to give any indication of how an older car compares to a prius. For example, the Co2 has already been produced in manufacturing an older conventional car, so surely an ongoing evaluation should compare the total cost of producing and running your prius with just the running costs of the older car.

 

That's not a comparison really worth doing, though. If someone's going to buy a new car, then the only fair way to make the comparison is with a new car.

If one were to to an older car comparison, then how much older would you go. A 70s car will have vastly higher CO2 emissions than a 90s car, for example.

There's a lot more detail here http://www.toyotagb-press.co.uk/prot...eclaration.pdf see page 10 for an older version of Fluffy's graph but states that "comparable vehicles are: Conventional petrol (Euro 4) and diesel vehicles (Euro 5) and Equivalent power performance"

What's very clear is that the CO2 emitted in production is pretty low compared to that emitted from driving, and that goes for all types of cars, whether, petrol, diesel or hybrid.

Whether CO2 emissions actually matter is another story...