Alternative-Fuel Vehicle Recommendations?

Ellen Spertus asks: "My husband and I lease a pure electric GM EV-1, which we love, and need to replace our second car, a conventional Honda Accord, which recently died. We'd get a second EV-1, but GM has stopped making them. I haven't been able to find any available all-eletric car with the range (>=50 miles roundtrip) and speed (>=65 mph) that I need. Does the Slashdot community have any experience, wisdom, or advice on choosing an alternative fuel car?"

"I'm currently considering:

• Toyota Prius, a hybrid sedan
• Honda Insight, a hybrid two-seater
• Honda Civic GX, a compressed natural gas (CNG) powered sedan

We test drove a Toyota Prius today, and it seems like a nice car. It's said to provide a quieter and more comfortable ride than the Honda Insight, and it uses pure electric power at low speeds. The Honda Insight, on the other hand, has better gas mileage. I could refuel either at regular gas stations. The Honda Civic GX would need to be refueled at special stations, but there are many where I live and work, the San Francisco Bay Area. The GX is the lowest in emissions, which would qualify me to drive alone in the carpool lane. All of the cars are about the same price, around $20,000 new. Used cars are also available."

BIODIESEL

[carlhirsch]

Biodiesel [biodiesel.org] is one alternative energy means that I think has real potential. Apparently there's all sorts of new grants available for folks wanting to get involved.

Just don't try to start that french fry grease up on a cold morning.

Ethanol

[Lord_Slepnir]

If you live in the Midwest, it's very feasable to use a conventional gasoline car, just fill it up with ethanol [ethanol.org]. It burns cleaner, hotter, and more effeciently than traditional gas. More importantly, you will be supporting a fuel source that can be grown out of the earth, and unlike oil, you won't be giving your money to a foreign dictator or Texas oil-baron.

Simple. Don't

[Tyler Eaves]

Okay, first let me state a few points.

1. For any given task, a certain amount of energy is needed.
2. Batteries are highly inefficient as stores of energy.
3. Admittedly, gasoline isn't much better, but it is somewhat more efficient.
4. Highly efficient fueled cars such as the VW Jetta TDI (4 cylinder diesel) can get upwards of 50MPG on the highway, and 40-45 city.
5. The vast majority of electric power comes from...wait for it.. fossil fuel plants.

So thus, in the context of a car, you ARE going to consuming fossil fuels directly or indirectly. Given that, to minimize environmental impact, find the most fuel efficient car you can.

EV1 == very interesting ride

[jamesmartinluther]

I took a test drive at the local Saturn dealership and, well, I was amazed at the smooth (and very powerful) acceleration. I had expected anemic performance and what I got was a rather wild drive through the city. While the need to recharge the battery and small size may be serious drawbacks, the sheer joy of taking this car for a spin really made me think about applying for one.

It is disappointing that electric cars are not yet economically viable. Just take one for a test drive and you will see that there is a lot more work to be done in improving personal transportation.

Still delighted with my Prius

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

After a year of driving it (on the rare occasions when I can get it away from my wife) it's still an utterly satisfying car, with super-ultra-low emissions (SULEV) and high gas milesage as icing on the cake.

Society of Automotive Engineers voted it best engineered car of 2001. I think it's the car Dilbert would drive.

The Honda Civic hybrid is the most direct competition. The Prius transmission is more elegant and *may* last longer, and the availability of pure-electric drive means the engine never needs to do destructive low-speed operation once it's warmed up. You may prefer the feel of the brakes on the Civic, and in ten years I bet it's easier to find Civic parts than Prius parts.

On a side note...

[Zen Mastuh]

...but GM has stopped making them.

GM stopped making electric vehicles, but they will probably spend $10 Billion over the next several years advertising how green they are.

Re:Whatever you do, don't go with the Prius

[soupdevil]

There are non-hybrids that do as well as the Prius on the highway (45mpg.)

But the Prius also does that well in city driving. No non-hybrid does that.

Jetta TDI has better mileage

[Coolfish]

The Jetta TDI has better mileage than the Civic hybrid.. in fact i believe it has the best mileage for any vehicle that still uses a fossil fuel of any sort.

http://www.vw.com/engine/index.htm?locnav=jetta

Re:Whatever you do, don't go with the Prius

[tylerdave]

Prius is still a better choice if you spend all of your time in the city (or stuck in stop-and-go) on the highway.

Re:BIODIESEL

[Mr. Slippery]

Isn't there a fundamental problem with biomass fuels, that it would require a large increase in the amount of farmed land?

Since we've got a lot of farmland right now that we're paying people not to farm...and since crops for biomass fuel are generally easier on the soil than food crops...and since a lot of what would otherwise be waste can be converted to biodiesel...I don't think that's a problem.

Re:Whatever you do, don't go with the Prius

[paulschreiber]

You're forgetting something important:

In addition to getting excellent gas mileage, the prius is also a SULEV (your other car is maybe a LEV if you're lucky).

Insight, if you are careful

[Lumpy]

The Honda Insight is a neat car, there are serious problems with it though...

The battery pack is replaced often.. If you get one get the hyper-extended warrenty, as you will be replacing that battery pack many many times.. my friend has had his 18 months and has replaced his 3 times.... and from what I hear this is not uncommon for insights that are used as a daily driver in anyplace that is not 70-72degF all the time. winter causes the packs to die horribly.

weight limit.. I CANNOT ride in his car (Ok I'm a fat ass..) as I with him exceed the car's weight limit completely... most any american couple will do this unless you are in souther california and live the bolimic lifestyle or are not normal weight (180 - 230 lbs typical american weight.)

finally , they ding really really easy. a pop can has thicker metal. dont lean on it, dont fart at it dont even look at it funny as it will ding/dent instantly.

Diesel and Biodiesel

[kris]

Get a diesel car, and fuel it with biodiesel. Driving properly, you get along with ~3 liters per 100 kilometres or even less, and biodiesel is not being made from mineral oil, but plants. Plus, you have about the same performance as a regularly fueled car would have.

Scoot the seat back!

[Zachary DeAquila]

I own a Honda Insight (2002 model), and am 6'0/185... Maybe you need to move the seat back some, because I fit in mine just fine...

--Z

Re:Simple. Don't

[ranulf]

My point is that the 50mpg you can get from a hybrid is more fuel efficient than the 50mpg you can get from a Jetta TDI

50mpg = 50mpg, however you look at it. Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

Re:Bumper Stickers

[Xaoswolf]

The local theatre group here did a skit like the commercials about not doing drugs where people would come up on the stage, the focused a spotlight on them and say things like
"I support a foreign terrorist regieme, but what do I care, I like driving my SUV"
In the end, they gave a message about buying foreign oil.

Re:Ethanol

[swb]

I'm not opposed to fuels created from plants grown in the ground.

The bad things with Ethanol are:

1) Its a false economy. Subsidized by lots of taxpayer dollars (direct, and indirect via forcing it into mixtures with gas). Its really just a crutch for farmers who can't quit the corn habit and ADM, which can't quit the free-government-money habit.

2) It mostly (exclusively?) uses corn as its source, and I'm not convinced that corn is the best crop to provide a fuel source. What about hemp or some other crop that might require less insecticide, fertilizer, etc etc.

3) It's kind of fuel-intensive to make. Planting, harvesting, fertilizing, insecticiding, AND DISTILLING all take machines that use fuel. If you get 20 gallons per acre (totally made-up) and you use 20 gallons per acre (again, totally made up) to make it, how "fuel efficient" is it?

4) There have been complaints about ethanol wreaking havoc with engines. I'm pretty sure I've seen warnings in owners manuals not to use too high of an ethanol concentration.

I'm sure there's a plant-to-fuel combination thats a winner -- low mechnical input to growth and harvesting, low energy input to distillation. Unfortunately I don't think ethanol is it -- its a way to get more money to corn farms in the midwest with some marginal pollution and oil dependency benefits.

Ethanol is no solution, it's part of the problem

[Spamalamadingdong]

Between fertilizer, pesticides/herbicides and fuel required for cultivation, a gallon of ethanol yielding 77,000 BTU of energy requires inputs totalling about 131,000 BTU (if memory serves). In other words, it's a complete boondoggle.

Re:Bogus Environmentalism

[Xeger]

This isn't quite true. While I agree that electric cars are not final solution, they do have a number of benefits over dead-dinosaur cars. Let's look at it from a thermodynamic standpoint. Your gasoline engine is a very good engine indeed if it achieves 20% efficiency. This means that 20% of the energy liberated from the gasoline goes toward doing work (spinning your wheels), and 80% escapes into the surrounding environment, as waste heat. In contrast, the electric motor(s) that power your EV are more along the lines of 80% efficient. This means that a whopping four-fifths of the energy coming out of your batteries is directly converted into work! That's four times as efficient as a gasoline engine. Electricity may not grow on trees, true. But most methods of generating electricity are far more than efficient than 20%. Nuclear power has a bad rap, but if done properly it's quite safe. Advances in solar power may soon make it a viable option, and there are a whole slew of experimental technologies out there--nuclear fusion, fuel cell, zero-point--enough that one of them will pan out.

Re:Whatever you do, don't go with the Prius

[ShavenYak]

Yeah, the Insight is so much better than the Prius. Unless, of course, you need to carry more than two people somewhere. Or you need to go to the grocery store. I don't think the Civic hybrid gets significantly better mileage than the Prius, either.

Get a Prius!

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone else stated, the Prius is a SULEV while the Insight is only a ULEV. In addition to having lower emissions, the Prius uses its electric motor for more than 30% of its power. The Insight uses electricty for about 20% and the Civic Hybrid uses electricty less than 15%.

Pure Electric, Bad!.....Hybrid, Good!

[nexthec]

And the reasoning is somthing more sociological than scientific. Pure Electric is all fine and dandy in theory. However, lets through in the the human factor, and because California (read LA and Area)is pushing these vehicles the most, we will use that portion of the world. And for people, the DINC, because they are the most likeley to be purchasing an new car.

The Idea is that everyone will recharge at night and, drive to work, finish recharging, then go home and be used to fill local high deman areas. Unfortunaly, what happened almost all of the time is that people go home, at about 5 o'clock, and plug in their cars, and start charging them, so that they can go out that night and do the movie thing, the bar scene, or whatever. Now you have the largest peak consumption time in the day growing to an even higher peak. This ofcourse has made the power transmission/generation shith their collective nickers. This makes the problimatic california even more so. This is one of the reason the major companies have stopped pushing it.

This still dosent bother CARB, even though the most in-efficeint sources are used at peak loads. These sources would be coal-fired steam plants in wyoming. Which is fine for california, they have moved their pollution across state lines.

The key is using state of the art stuff and non petrolium sources in conjunction. Current market level stuff uses brushless DC drives...ICK! Now here is some truely cool stuff [acpropulsion.com].

More poillution than a Hybrid ...

[CDWert]

You gotta love people that dont have a clue,
PURE electrics are responsible for the generation of more polution than comprable hybrid vehicles.

No ? Just look around at EV sites and it wont take you long to realized that generating electricity at a plant ??? miles away, transmission loss and all the fun add up to MORE FRIGGING polution in the generation of that electricity than a hybrid creates.

Not to metnion the long term battery and chemical disposal issues. Thats a whopper too.

Wait for one of the Borax Powered Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicles from Chrysler. Cost is supposed to be low, and emission zero.

Barring that look at some of the hybrid vehicles.

Sometimes I have to question peoples motives of EV , if its convinience thats OK, my neighbor has been using the same elctric lawn mower for 20 years, its easy, quiet cheap, the only thing he spends money on is a new extension cord every 3 years or so after he's chopped his umpteen times. If you are looking at an EV for enviromental reasons, PLEASE get a clue. PURE EV pollute more than hybrids, and some more than LEV.

My favorite action by an enviromental group was the guys in Calif, that burned an allotment down under construction. POINTS , 1 for burning, 2 like inscurance isnt going to pay and end up cutting more trees to rebuild ? 3, the fumes from all the insulation cooking ? 4 we deforest more area to rebuild an allotment "TREE HUGGERS" were protesting the cutting of trees ?

I would seriously wait for the Chryslers to be sold they seem AWFULL SLICK !

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/auto/article/0,1254 3, 212456,00.html

If you havent seen or heard about it ....

Re:The technology's a little old...

[ichimunki]

You know what stinks? This joke is the only post in the whole discussion that actually tries to get serious about what it means to be "alternative fuel"-- oddly by suggesting one of the oldest fuels known to humankind.

You want low emissions and breathable air? Stop driving so damn much in the first plce. In fact, stop driving altogether if you can-- at the very least share cars [sfcarshare.org] more often... that the original questioner here is looking to buy a SECOND vehicle is a big red flag that someone has lifestyle issues that aren't going to be solved by simply saving a few miles per gallon.

Most of the driving done by Americans is done in the name of personal convenience: to save a few minutes of having to sit next to your fellow human being on the bus or train or to prevent you from having to walk or bike a few feet.

As I see it, the environmental, social, and psychic impacts of car culture go way beyond just the emissions questions. Personally I'm finding that the less time I spend in cars, the more time I have to read (on the bus), the more time I spend seeing neighbors (on the bus or while riding my bike). Not only that, I feel healthier than I have in a few years, since getting some exercise is no longer optional.

What the hell happened to gas mileage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 80's, car companies were advertising cars that got 60 mpg (toyota?). Now here we are in 2002 and we need weirdo electric-gas hybrids just to get 45 mpg? Who's paying off who here?

Re:Big fan of CNG

[ackatack]

Last year I did a 45 page report for my Environmental Studies class on alternative fuel vehicles. What I found is that CNG is, at this time, the more economical, environmental, and reliable choice. California no longer allows for vehicles that have been converted to burn CNG from LPG because they proved that the aftermarket kits that are sold here deteriorate over two years which leads to higher emissions. As for the safety concern, CNG vehicles have stronger tanks that must be checked every year. Another fact to consider is that being as methane doesn't pool, when the fuel tank is crushed, like gasoline, some critics suggest the fact that CNG cars are safer than their LPG counterparts. CNG vehicles get approximately the same range off of one tank of fuel as LPG cars. Finally, with the surging costs of gasoline and electricity in the SF Bay area, I'm from Walnut Creek, it makes financial sense to go with the CNG vehicle.

P.S. If you have a hard time believing any of this stop for a moment and think about UPS which maintains one of the biggest, if not the largest, fleets of CNG vehicles. It had to make sense to some of their bean-counters.

Site your sources

[DaveWood]

This is really important stuff. You may very well be right, and I'm extremely interested in what you're saying, but with specific information like this (where everyone's memories are contradicting each other) it's all meaningless unless you site your sources!

-Dave

Re:Some Quick Math

[sterno]

Alright, now that I sit and think about the numbers some more, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Got it from the government. Which may not speak highly to it's accuracy but anyhow:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hsfaq.htm

Specifically they show motor fuel usage about halfway down the page:

In 2000, gallons of fuel consumed were:

128,883,609 (Gasoline - highway use)
33,376,587 (Special fuel - highway use)
162,260,196 (Total fuel - highway use)
2,971,636 (Non-highway use)


Actually I just realized I added those up incorrectly and total use (according to them) is actually lower by these numbers. It should be Total fuel plus non-highway use. But I agree with you that this number doesn't make sense, so I'm guessing there's an order of magnitude that they aren't making clear. So hunting elsewhere:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question417.htm

Okay, so from there we get 360 million gallons of gas every day. Sounds like a more realistic number. So multiply that and we get roughly 130 billion gallons of gas every day....

So, nevermind then, if we took every single piece of arable land we wouldn't come close to the amount needed. So go with hydrogen, there's plenty of that around :).

Re:Ethanol

[fean]

yeah, but every car produced within the last 5 years (and most within the last 10 years) can run on 80-90% ethanol....

oh no... you can't run 100% ethanol... but at least do your part, and if nothing else, pay your countrymen rather than the foreigners... (and besides, it's cheaper because of the tax differences)

Re:Bicycling, the unsubsidized solution

[K-Man]

Still, the government will not subsidize the acquisition or operating costs of a bicycle, despite that it perfectly meets the definition of "Zero Emission Vehicle". Likewise, the use of an electric bicycle is somehow not good enough to get an Electric Vehicle Tax Credit. The idea of a national energy policy which is nothing but pork for the auto and oil industries is hardly a new phenomenon, although perhaps greenwashing it is.

Bicycle paths are mostly meant to mitigate the danger created by motorists on other roads, which are subsidized.