THE HYBRIDS ARE COMING
	November 2003

by Don Huntington
Photos by Brad Shifflett

I’ve been a fan all my life of transportation alternatives and still regret that the steam engine car and the gyrocopter, both of which I wanted to buy, died almost at birth. The standard automobile technology, with its inefficient and pollution-generating internal combustion engine, has been with us since 1903 when gasoline-powered cars took ascendancy over steam-powered automobiles. The standard internal combustion engine has soundly defeated all challengers until, finally, “a new kid on the block” is providing consumers with a genuine alternative.

The emerging HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) technology has a chance of overcoming the almost insurmountable barriers to creating a successful revolution in automobile technology because of one, indisputable fact: These things really get great mileage.

How HEV Works
The most widespread misconceptions about HEV technology are cleared up when you realize that an HEV is much different than a BEV (battery electric vehicle). You never have to plug one of these babies in!

Battery-powered vehicles have been around longer than Willie Mays but never got into the mainstream marketplace because they could never overcome the grim reality that a battery-powered vehicle has to have a truly enormous battery in order to provide conventional performance. In fact, someone said that a battery-powered automobile is a vehicle designed to carry around a battery. The only way it can carry much more than its battery is to have a much larger battery.

HEV technology is based upon the fact that most of the time an automobile really doesn’t need such a huge battery. A car at cruising speed requires a minor amount of energy. Once you understand the concept of the “hybrid-electric” drive system, you can see that it really is a great idea! The revolutionary idea is to put a small battery into a car with a small gasoline engine and electric motors. The engine generates electricity that powers the motors that operate the car.

The gasoline engine stores extra electricity in the battery to be called upon when demand for power increases — such as during acceleration or when climbing a hill. The power from the gasoline engine is additionally diverted to the drive chain to assist the electric motors during periods of high demand.

The small engine in an HEV doesn’t speed up or slow down, but just runs smoothly at its most efficient RPMs to keep the battery charged and to provide sufficient electricity to the electric motors to maintain cruising speed, and to supplement the power of the electric motors in times of particularly high demand. In technical terms, the engine is only required to handle the maximum continuous load not the peak load.

An Egg for the HEV Beer
In fact, the hybrid solution gets even better than that. Stepping on the brakes in any vehicle generates heat. Heat, of course, is energy, which the hybrid vehicle captures and runs through generators thus creating additional electricity. As much as half of the energy extended in braking may be recovered in this way.

When the engine in a hybrid doesn’t need to run (at least in the Toyota version), it just shuts itself off. Obviously, the engine shuts itself off whenever the car stops moving, but it can even shut itself off when, for example, the car is coasting. The electric motor itself is sufficient in that case to charge the batteries. On the other hand, when you need acceleration right away, both the engine and the electric motor work to give the vehicle the power it needs. It’s amazing!

Hybrid cars are wonderfully quiet. At first it seems strange that you don’t have to use a starter. It is startling to stop moving and have everything go perfectly quiet. Most fun of all for some hybrid owners is enjoying the looks they’re getting from fellow drivers. Some other drivers are curious about how your car actually works and others are grateful for what you’re doing to keep the earth inhabitable for their kids and grandkids.

Since the drive system in an HEV combines the three sources of power (engine, battery, and electric motors) into a unified propulsion system, the engine in an HEV shrinks to a fraction of the size required in the smallest normal car. Weight is reduced. Cost is reduced. Efficiency is increased. Fuel consumption plunges. The environment is protected. And, best of all, you save money. Most people don’t realize that hybrid-electric vehicles can have performance advantages in addition to better mileage. As a matter of fact, hybrids are banned from Formula 1 competition by the international sanctioning body because they would have an unfair advantage on the track.

Passing the Pumps
The fuel efficiency on hybrid vehicles is quite amazing. Here are the mileage reports from the three hybrids currently on the market.

Sometimes the fuel-efficiency report on the window sticker of a new car doesn’t really represent the miles per gallon that an individual will actually get. However, drivers are reporting getting just over 40 combined city/highway driving. This is an increase of about 10 MPG over the fuel consumption by a typical subcompact. On the other hand, Consumer Reports Magazine, which reports these MPGs, uses a special course, including a series of stops and a set pattern of speeds, which ensures that each car’s gas consumption can be measured under the same conditions. Some owners not driving under these constraints claim much higher mileage than reported by Consumer Reports research.

One driver calculated that driving 15,000 miles per year and paying $1.50 per gallon, his HEV, in that case, was saving him $250 per year in gas. The owner of a Pizzeria estimated that delivering pizzas in his Prius saved him up to $10 a day. That comes to $200 in savings per month!

Nobody would object to anything that saved them even $250 per year (that’s the cost of a new TV). It’s difficult, however, to get real excited about that. However, I love the other savings that HEV owners report. Owners of hybrid cars are able to drive past many more gas stations than owners of standard automobiles. That rate of increase also means a savings of about 12 trips to the service station per year.

My wife and I hate filling up cars with gas. In fact, I have to fill up hers and mine. The whole experience of picking out a station, finding a pump that is actually working, doing the credit-card thing, and standing around while the gas is flowing into the tank represents minutes out of my life. It would be great to save a bunch of these trips to the gas station every year. (What I really want is a 500 gallon gas tank!)

A Quiet Sneaky Machine
GM is planning hybrid diesel combat vehicles for the Army and the initial hybrid Humvees will be showing up in the Army’s catalog in a few years. It turns out that hybrid technology has an advantage that some of us might not have thought of. One general made the comment, “You run those things on battery power; there’s no noise.”

The general didn’t mention another advantage: having a bunch of hybrids in a military situation would relieve some stress on supply lines, since the hybrids’ wonderful gas mileage would have the obvious effect of requiring fewer shipments of fuel to keep the hybrid part of any military effort mobile.

Making Mother Nature Happy
Even greater savings from these hybrid cars than those passing into owners’ pockets are savings that are passing into the environment. Hybrids greatly reduce auto pollution, which plays a proven role in contributing to respiratory diseases, heart conditions, lung damage, and cancer.

Every time hybrid owners get into their cars they can congratulate themselves about the step they have taken to reduce stress on the environment. In the very place where hybrid owners live, work, and play they no longer create the excessive pollution that creates so many problems. As one commentator said about hybrids, “They pollute less, they consume less, and darn it, they make you feel good.”

When the original Honda hybrid came to market a couple years ago a TV ad depicted a Honda Insight pulling up next to an old VW bus with a cloud of smoke coming from its exhaust and sporting a prominent sign, “Save the Earth.” The ad very effectively got across the meaning that buying a fuel-efficient, nonpolluting automobile is far better than a bumper sticker as a way for people to demonstrate their concern for nature.

It’s in everybody’s ultimate interest to get these things on the road. The Insight pollutes only half as much as most compact cars. They produce only 25% of a larger vehicle’s output of greenhouse gases.

Because of their concern for the environment, courageous politicians in several counties in Florida have paid the extra money to equip some of their deputies with these environmentally friendly hybrids. In addition to saving the environment, the cars appeal to the Florida bureaucrats’ patriotism by helping reduce the country’s reliance on foreign oil.

By buying over 100 of the hybrids, the State of Florida has become one of the leaders in government purchase of these cars. One of the hybrid cars is used for safety inspection of government facilities and bears on its side a Homeland Security label, causing the Sierra Club’s global warming coordinator in Florida, Darden Rice, to call it “the most patriotic car in America.”

Hybrid owners might even congratulate themselves in helping to preserve the human race from extinction, since scientists tell us that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels play a leading role in global warming.

Just the Facts, Ma’am!
A gallon of gas weighs only about six pounds but scientists tell us that, when burning in an automobile engine, those six pounds of gas create carbon that combines with oxygen from the air to create about 19 pounds of carbon dioxide.

We can apply simple arithmetic to our hypothetical example of saving ten MPG and driving 15,000 miles per year, and show that the driver is saving 150 gallons of gas a year. That means that every year the hybrid owner is pumping 2,850 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide into the air than if he/she drove a standard subcompact.

At the other end of the scale, the fuel consumption for an Enzo Ferrari is rated at eight MPG in city traffic. Gas consumption goes up to 12 MPG on highway conditions. (I wasn’t able to find out what the gas consumption on the highway drops to when one of these Ferraris is driven at 150 mph.)

GM, which markets and distributes the latest version of the Hummer (Humvee), claims 10-13 MPG for the huge vehicles, but dealers say Hummers actually average 8 to 10 MPG. Mileage for the Ford Expedition “soars” (in comparison) to 14-19 MPG, and the three-quarter-ton Chevy Suburban gets 13-17 MPG.

It’s a curious fact that Hummers are so heavy they are exempt from mileage-reporting requirements. Of course, let’s admit that anyone who pays $75,000 for an automobile to drive to the grocery store or to a movie theater isn’t concerned about paying $100 per month for gasoline.

The Actual Reality
According to www.fueleconomy.gov, even the hybrids create a lot of pollution — over three tons of greenhouse gasses for the Insight and over four tons for the Prius.

That seems like a lot of pollution and these cars look good in that field only when compared to the five tons of greenhouse gasses produced by a typical subcompact.

Of course, they look great when compared to the 14 tons of greenhouse gasses produced by some SUVs and luxury cars.

Uncle Sam Will Pay Us?
The Federal Government sees the advantage of the hybrid’s contribution to cleaning up the environment. The Clean Air Act provides a one-time $2,000 tax deduction to hybrid drivers. Under the same law, businesses can save even more.

Actually, the government doesn’t quite pay us, but it does provide a hefty tax deduction for those who purchase an HEV. The government designed the income tax deduction as a means of offsetting the higher manufacturing costs of these vehicles, which cost auto makers more to make.

Everyone who purchases one of the new hybrids before the end of 2004 is entitled to a tax credit of at least $2,000, with the following provisions and restrictions (from the IRS).

1. You are the original buyer.
2. You have certification from your dealer or manufacturer of the cost difference between your hybrid gas/electric vehicle and an all-gasoline model.
3. You can deduct the cost differential, up to $2,000, on your individual income tax return for the year the car was purchased.
4. If you are buying the vehicle this year, claim the deduction on your 2003 income tax, which you will file in 2004. You claim the deduction as an adjustment to income. You do not have to itemize deductions to take the deduction. Make the adjustment to your income on Line 32 of your 1040 and write “clean fuel” on the dotted line. This can also be done if you bought the car in 2002 and have filed for an extension.
5. If you already own a hybrid gas/electric vehicle, the IRS says you can claim the tax deduction retroactively for the past two years when these vehicles were available. Get certification of the cost differential from your dealer or manufacturer and file an amended tax return Form 1040X for the year you bought the vehicle.
6. Keep the dealer or manufacturer’s certification for your records.

For taxpayers in the top bracket (38.6%), a $2,000 deduction amounts to $772 off the amount of taxes being paid.

It’s the Law
Here are two passages quoted directly from the Electric Vehicle (EV) and Alternative Fuel Vehicle (AFV) Tax Provisions — Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 (Public Law — 107–147).

10% tax credit, up to $4,000, available to businesses and individuals that purchase a BEV, FCEV, or a hybrid EV that is “primarily powered” by electricity before December 31, 2006. The credit begins to phase out in 2004 and sunsets December 31, 2006.

A tax deduction, based on the incremental cost of the vehicle, for clean-fuel vehicles (including hybrid electric vehicles) from $2,000 to $50,000 depending on the gross vehicle weight (gvw). The deduction begins to phase out in 2004 and ends in 2006.

Serpents in the HEV Paradise
Of course, this being the real world, hybrid technology doesn’t create an automotive nirvana. For one thing, there is a nagging question: How much extra money can an intelligent consumer afford to spend on a new car for the purpose of saving gas through increased gas mileage?

Honda currently subsidizes hybrid manufacturing and distribution, but it is still a fairly expensive purchase. All the hybrid cars cost $20,000, or more, which compares to similar-size cars which might cost half that. How much gas could you buy for the $10,000 difference?

Some analysts maintain that hybrids have too many unknown costs relative to the benefits of great gas mileage. The cost of annual maintenance is about the same as that of conventional cars, but a potential source of additional expense will come when the hybrid’s special batteries need to be replaced. You can’t use DieHard batteries in these things! Replacements will cost thousands of dollars.

It should be noted, hybrids are sold with longtime warrantees on the batteries — 100,000 miles for the Toyota and 80,000 for the Honda.

How Much Saving? How Soon?
A hypothetical case study can illustrate the amount of money that you might actually save.

For example, suppose you purchased a Saturn SL 2 for $13,000 and spend $700 a year for fuel. This would be $350 more per year than you would spend fueling the Insight.

You would have paid $7,000 more for the Insight. The $350 savings on gas won’t make up for the $7,000 extra spent on the car for 20 years.

On the other hand, mileage savings is greatest in the city, which would mean that if you drive mostly in city traffic, you’re going to pay back the $7,000 much more quickly.

Also, who knows how much gas is going to cost in two years? If you bought one of these cars and gas went up to $5 per gallon, you would look like a genius!

The High Price for Novelty
Potentially expensive drawbacks are inherent in any emerging technology. For example, the innovative hybrid drive trains are built to brand-new and competing design and marketing standards. Next year’s drive train might be completely different from this year’s. When Ford and GM get into the market, their cars will be built to different standards yet.

An old joke in another industry runs, “The good thing about standards is that we have so many of them.” Of course, the joke is that multiple standards are, in fact, not good.

The issue of new technology also raises the potentially annoying problem of not being able to take the car to George and Stan’s garage down on the corner because neither George nor Stan knows anything about the drive train and probably have no plans ever to find out. This means you’ll have to take your hybrid car back to a dealer for maintenance and repairs which, of course, is no problem if (A) the dealer is right down the street and (B) you have a lot of money in your checking account.

The problem is compounded by the reality that hybrid vehicles are selling only a few thousand units per year. Only 150,000 have been sold worldwide in the 2.5 years since hybrids were introduced. After-market manufacturers and junkyards aren’t going to compete strongly to provide cheap replacement parts. Rare parts create expensive maintenance. If hybrids move quickly to other manufacturing standards, manufacturers will not be anxious to produce the now-obsolete parts.

It’s the Size
The lack of a lot of users flocking to buy these new machines was reflected by the attitude of the dealership we visited. No brochures were available for either Honda hybrid. Nor could I test drive an Insight because the dealer didn’t have any on the lot. The salesman told me that the dealership didn’t sell enough Insights to keep them in stock, since buyers thought they were expensive for a two-passenger car.

A different kind of problem comes for some people from the fact that hybrid cars are smaller cars. An engineering principle called “mass decompounding” means that reducing weight and drag in hybrid vehicles increases their efficiency. Soccer moms who needs to transport kids, equipment, and groceries at the same time need to purchase some larger kind of transportation.

Of course, many Americans just like things that are biiigggg. Half of all vehicles sold in the United States are SUVs and pickup trucks, which belong at the other end of the size continuum from the little hybrids. My neighbor lives by himself and owns an SUV so large it fills his whole driveway. He is a handicapped person but his other vehicle is a perfectly useless (to him) pickup truck that is so enormous he can’t shut his garage door on it.

Huge SUVs and oversize pickup trucks are selling like hot dogs at a ballpark. No vehicle is too big. In spite of the drawbacks of the Humvee’s immense sticker prices and truly gargantuan proportions, dealers are selling out their Hummer inventories without offering discounts, rebates, or special financing. GM, the company making and marketing the Hummer sold 18,861 H2s in 2002, its first year on the market. “It’s been a wildly successful launch for us,” GM spokesman Chris Preuss said.

Another negative marketplace force against the hybrids is apparent on any page of the dozen sport car magazines in circulation today. The sad fact is that many of us will always choose pleasure when making a choice between something good for our self-esteem and something good for our wallets and for our world.

An Actual Experience
I went to one of our local Honda dealers to get an actual experience of driving one of these revolutionary machines. The Honda Civic hybrid I drove didn’t actually seem like a revolutionary machine. Outwardly, it looked much like any other Civic. The instrument console was interesting. All the meter levels — gas, heat, battery, etc. — were indicated by nifty circular violet analog bars.

The most interesting part of the driving experience was the battery charge indicator. The readout had two sides indicating whether the batteries were being charged or were contributing power. It was fascinating watching the indicator change from one side to the other as the car accelerated or slowed.

Performance was indistinguishable from any Civic. Acceleration was perfectly acceptable. The car maintained freeway speeds with no problem. The operation was quiet, but then new Civics are always quiet-running machines.

Getting on the HEV bandwagon
Many auto manufacturers are now allocating hefty resources to the research and development of hybrid-electric cars, which is a huge leap forward in its own right. Toyota and Honda have been selling these for a couple years by themselves. General Motors and Ford are spending millions in an effort to catch up.

Strong forces are pushing the case for hybrids. Environmentalists are championing the cause, of course. They see in the clean-running gas-miserly cars a partial solution to the problem of cleaning up the environment as well as reducing the pressure to drill more oil wells. Government regulators in Sacramento are putting into place rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. Hybrid technology is really the only game in town at this time for car companies trying to respond to this challenge.

The chairman of Ford recently made the frank admission, “Hybrid technology is one that has great appeal because we don’t have to really invent anything.” And then added, “If these vehicles don’t get customer acceptance, I really don’t know what we do next.” So perhaps the tide is beginning to turn for the beleaguered hybrid industry.

As the hybrid industry matures, cars will continue to improve, and a groundswell of acceptance will move many more buyers into the hybrid marketplace. Analysts are predicting that hybrids could eventually capture as much as 15 percent of American vehicle sales, depending upon government incentives, gas prices, and manufacturing costs. Pressure for adopting hybrid technology is being exerted by the Japanese, who really believe that hybrids are going to be core to sales in the automotive industry for the next ten years or so.

What Will They Think of Next?
Car makers are finding ways to apply parts of the HEV technology to increase gas mileage in larger vehicles. Ford has demonstrated in a “concept” prototype, a three-ton Super Duty Tonka Pickup, that uses the hybrids’ trick of storing energy from braking. The Tonka Pickup, however, conserves the energy from braking in a hydraulic tank, which it then reuses when starting up.

Here’s how that works: The Tonka Pickup turns off its diesel engine when it comes to a stop and then uses the stored energy from the hydraulic launch-assist system to get rolling again. The engine only starts back up when the Tonka Pickup reaches 20 MPH.

This system performs the remarkable trick of increasing the Tonka Pickup’s starting and stopping performance; at the same time it is increasing the truck’s mileage in city driving by 30-40 percent.

Car makers are gearing up for a broader rollout. GM finally announced they were getting into the technology and would sell a hybrid version of its Saturn Vue sport utility vehicle in 2005 and announced modified versions of the hybrid which will offer more modest fuel increases.

Here are some other bright ideas that are being made into (or put into) next-generation products:

Honda Dualnote
Sports car prototype that conserves energy from braking in an “ultracapacitor,” which is a storage device with a much higher discharge capacity than any battery. The result is a hybrid sports car that boasts 400 horsepower and whiplash acceleration, while averaging 42 MPG.

Lexus SUV
Luxury hybrid — planning to sell 300,000 units per year.

Ford Escape hybrid SUV
Gets 40 MPG while turning in 200 horsepower performance on a four-cylinder engine.

Mobile generators
Dodge and GM hybrid trucks will be equipped to act as power generators during a blackout, or at a remote construction or camping site.

Hydrogen fuel cells
Hydrogen fuel cells will be in widespread production before long. The hydrogen fuel cell produces electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. The only byproduct is water. No pollution whatsoever. The first production plant opened almost a year ago.

Hybrid power will soon become an option on new cars — like buying a CD Player or air conditioning. When new car buyers have a choice between an SUV that gets 40 MPG and one that gets 26, how could they not opt for the higher mileage?

Buying a new car is one of the largest investments some of us make. Hybrid cars complicate the decision. Now we have to make a choice for or against increased fuel efficiency and helping keep the environment clean. Whether a hybrid becomes our next car-buying choice, or not, these new types of automobiles are here for the long haul. The rising price of oil and the declining tolerance for pollution will ensure the survivability of these cars into the foreseeable future.

We each can make a decision about what role these hybrids will play in our immediate future.