At The Wheel: Feature – Hybrids…Choices and Costs

by Gerry Frechette

In the decade or so that hybrid vehicles have been on North American roads, the technology has become the accepted leader in alternative propulsion systems for passenger vehicles. If you want something more economical and environmentally-friendly than a gasoline-engined vehicle, your primary choices today are diesel and hybrid, with hydrogen, ethanol and natural gas in the background for various reasons. The wider acceptance of diesel is encountering headwinds in the form of onerous emissions standards and high fuel prices, but hybrids seem to have clear sailing. Or do they?

Certainly, hybrids are the darlings of both celebrities and environmentalists, the fashionable anti-gas guzzler. The hybrid label on any vehicle is a badge of honour, so to speak, gaining its owner entree into an exclusive club of sorts (to say nothing of dedicated lanes and parking spots), that of the socially-conscious doing their bit for the future of responsible personal mobility. If you absolutely must drive a car, you can’t do better than doing it the hybrid way.

But as with most relatively new technology, there are drawbacks, such as competing visions for how the technologyshould be applied. And, what it should all cost versus the benefits derived therefrom.

The various manufacturers building and marketing vehicles called “hybrid” have not been totally up-front with the fact that not all hybrids are created equal. Of course, we refer to the “partial” versus “full” hybrid technology faceoff.

A full hybrid like the wildly popular Toyota Prius can run a certain distance (not far before the Ni-MH batteries need recharging), at a certain speed (typically about 50 km/h), solely on its electric motor. Given the slow speed/short distance reality, this means full electric power happens on city streets only, and that is why when you see fuel consumption ratings for a full hybrid, the city numbers are always better than highway, something impossible with a traditional gasoline engine.

On the other hand, a partial hybrid, such as the type built by General Motors, for example, will not run solely on its electric motor to actually propel the car. The motor does assist the gasoline engine, which is shut down during deceleration and at rest. And this is all good; every bit helps, and if all cars did only this, we’d save billions of barrels of oil a year. It is also much less expensive technology to produce.

But now, the game is being changed. We are soon to see hybrid vehicles with lithium-ion batteries, opening up all sorts of new developments in technology. Early reports have the new Porsche Cayenne hybrid (good grief, an electric car from Porsche!) being able to run at highway speeds on electric only. With their higher capacity and quicker charge time, more possibilities exist, including the much-touted plug-in hybrids. Plus, of course, pure electric cars, which is another story, one of which you can read elsewhere in this issue of RPM.

At some stage in this discussion, one must give some consideration to cost-benefit analysis. How far do you have to drive to make up in fuel savings the added amount you have to spend to buy a hybrid? At what level does the price of gasoline make one decide a regular economy car becomes too costly to run? Questions like that should be answered by every prospective hybrid owner, but we imagine that is not always happening.

One manufacturer, Honda, is asking those questions itself. Honda is credited with having the first hybrid on North American roads, but it and every subsequent one it has sold between then and now has been a partial hybrid. Very economical ones, it must be said, but still, not one has gone down the road solely on electric power. Actually, the new Insight is said to be capable of brief electric-only movement at low speed, although Honda curiously seems to be taking a low-key approach to what seems like a major advance technologically and competitively.

Maybe that is because Honda has clearly set its course towards finding fuel consumption reductions by  combining other design and gasoline-engine technology with its existing IMA hybrid system, rather than going “all the way” with more-costly full hybrids.

Over the years, “we have been making incremental improvements to efficiency, but using that efficiency for things other than fuel economy,” says Robert Bienenfeld, Senior Manager of Environment and Energy Strategy for Honda. Efficiency has been mostly used to increase other attributes more highly valued by the consumer, such as performance, comfort, utility, and safety, according to Honda and EPA data.

Honda (and other manufacturers) have brought to the modern car features like lighter engines, friction reduction, more efficient transmissions, improved aerodynamics, and so on, all of which cost a not-insignificant amount each time something new is developed. “This is all expensive technology, and the improvements moving forward are even more expensive,” Bienenfeld says.

Hybrid technology is right up at the top of the cost list today. Honda’s position is that, like all advanced propulsion technologies, there are pros and cons to hybrid, both in social values and marketability. Air quality, infrastructure support (gas is everywhere) and consumer appeal are very good, while the issues surrounding gasoline, and the cost, are considered only fair. “As we put more $200 technologies on cars,” Bienenfeld continued, “will consumers buy them? Consumers are notoriously sensitive to fuel price in their choice of vehicles. If they are not long-term supporters of new technology, then we have a problem going forward.”

Are hybrids, including plug-ins, going to turn out to be as far as propulsion technology needs to go in cars for the foreseeable future? If you look at an MIT study that projects greenhouse gas emissions from “well-to-wheel” (the entire process) for all known technologies, today’s hybrid generates the least of all of them. Yes, less than plug-ins, and less than even fuel cells and pure electrics.

So, as things stand now, Honda’s approach is with a partial hybrid, with nearly equal consumption to a full hybrid, and significantly less cost. Long term, hybrids may end up as “the answer” to the need for efficient and cost-effective personal mobility. For the moment, we have a choice of hybrids – partial, full, and something in between that has not been so clearly defined.

Within the ongoing debate as to which technology will ultimately power the world’s vehicles into the middle of the century, there is a sub-battle as to which of the hybrids is the best combination of cost and benefits. In the court of public opinion, the jury is still out.

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