Prius vs. HUMMER: Exploding the Myth

[MegansPrius]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ May 12 2007, 06:21 PM) [snapback]440743[/snapback]</div>

Boy, do we have our work cut out for us! In Google, "Prius outdoes Hummer in environmental damage": 10,600 hits.
[/b]

But progress is being made. The Mail on Sunday has finally retracted (sort-of) the arid wilderness story. The story is no longer on line, and the link to it now produces:

Toyota factory
Last updated at 09:34am on 9th May 2007
It has come to our attention that a story originally published in the Mail on Sunday has apparently been misinterpreted by some of our readers.

In order to prevent further misinterpretation, we have removed the article from our website. The following letter was published in the Mail on Sunday on May 13, 2007:

Your article about the Inco nickel factory at Sudbury, Canada, wrongly implied that poisonous fumes from the factory had left the area looking like a lunar landscape because so many plants and trees had died. You also sought to blame Toyota because the nickel is used, among countless other purposes, for making the Prius hybrid car batteries.

In fact any damage occurred more than thirty years ago, long before the Prius was made. Since then, Inco has reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by more than 90 per cent and has helped to plant more than 11 million trees.

The company has won praise from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and environmental groups. Sudbury has won several conservation awards and is a centre for eco-tourism.
Dave Rado
Colchester
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/a...in_page_id=1770

[Stev0]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ May 14 2007, 08:38 AM) [snapback]441578[/snapback]</div>

But progress is being made. [/b]

True. I haven't needed to add to my list in over a month.

Also, I just double-checked those names. With the exception of Albertus, NONE of those thread starters have had more than a handful of posts since starting their threads, and most haven't posted AT ALL.

[mkaresh]

Good to see that the press is finally waking up to the problems with CNW's study. Various blogs were way ahead of them.

I made two entries in my blog:

http://www.truedelta.com/blog/?p=48

http://www.truedelta.com/blog/?p=66

And I thought I was late doing so. I simply didn't bother at first, because I figured no one would take such an obviously wrong study seriously. How wrong I was...

[zenMachine]

Latest rebuttal from the Pacific Institute

Hummer versus Prius: “Dust to Dust” Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science

[jkash]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zenMachine @ Jun 4 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]454924[/snapback]</div>

Latest rebuttal from the Pacific Institute

Hummer versus Prius: “Dust to Dust” Report Misleads the Media and Public with Bad Science
[/b]

Latest editorial on the Prius vs. Hummer debate.

[Ornery Critter]

I'm a conservative...

Economic conservative.

Social conservative.

Conservative driver.

We bought a Prius because I knew three other Prius owners who could verify the MPG (of ca. 50 MPG) and comfort of the vehicle.
We test drove and made the decision. We paid $25K for this 2006 Prius. NB: We did NOT have the $50K for a Hummer.
Gas is over $3/gal. We commute 100 miles per day, five days a week. We save ca. $70 per week in gasoline costs. Each month, that's 3/4 of our car payment for the Prius.
We bought the Prius because we commute and we need to save money on gas. We've happily been doing this. NB: We did not buy the Prius to make an "environmental" statement or to be "green."
We DO NOT need Rush Limbaugh's help encouraging meatheads in SUVs to tailgate us down the highway! Conservatives buy and drive Prii (Pree-eye).
And, yeah, if you drive any vehicle like an aggressive jerk, you'll probably get poor mileage.

[wogue]

Could it be that some of you mix up the lifetime of the hybrid-vehicle with the lifetime of the battery-pack?

For replacing the Prius-battery we pay about € 2000-2500,- here in the EU!

And after 1 minute googeling i found out that there are prius-taxis that still drive around and have made 250,000 miles and more.

so whats the buzz?!

[bobdavisnpf]

Yes, well, the hummer H3 still has 250 whole pounds more carrying capacity than the Prius...!

[ohershey]

Thought it might be useful to compile a list of rebuttal articles/studies to respond with, and add them to the sticky, rather than have them burried off in the many other threads.

The Pacific Institute Study:
http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of...er_vs_prius.pdf

The retraction of the Sudbury mine article:
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/a...p;in_page_id=17

The CNW Study (includes the excel spreadsheet w. their data):
http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

cwerdna's excellent analysis debunking some of CNW's assumptions:
http://www.my350z.com/forum/showpost.php?p...mp;postcount=25

I can't figure out how to link to the attachements in cwerdna's original post, but his original post was here:
http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=1...mp;#entry272611

Anybody else have debunking resources to add?

[efusco]

More ammo:
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo...-car-002538.php

This week David asks "how much more energy efficient does a new car have to be to make up for the energy of production vs a used car? For example, if someone was considering buying a used car that gets 18 mpg vs. a new car that gets 30 mpg. At what point in driving would that increase in mpg make up for the energy of production of the new vehicle?" Read on to find the answer in this week's AskPablo.

The Argonne National Lab has done a great job in analyzing the material intensity and energy consumption in manufacturing vehicles and vehicle fuels. Their work is packaged in the GREET 1.7 and 2.7 models (Excel-based and available at: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREET/). According to the assumptions in their model the average conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) is made up of 61.7% steel, 11.1% iron, 6.9% aluminum, 1.9% copper/brass, 2.9% glass, and around 13.6% plastic/rubber. This data will help us determine the energy required to produce a vehicle. We will also have to look at the energy used in operating a vehicle. To help us along in our analysis we will look back at AskPablo: Lighten the Load to find the relationship between vehicle weight and fuel efficiency.

According to the GREET model it takes 100.391 mmBTU (million BTU) to make the vehicle, batteries, and fluids in an average 3,201 pound vehicle. This comes out to 31,362 BTU/lb. The obvious lesson in this is that heavier vehicles require more energy to make than lighter ones, in general. There has been a study circulating that states that hybrids are more environmentally damaging than Hummers because of the battery production but this has been widely disputed. According to the GREET model a Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) that weighs 2,632 pounds requires 101.726 mmBTU to make, or 38,650 BTU/lb. As we will see, this small difference in production energy becomes negligible when you factor in the increased fuel efficiency.

Using the GREET assumptions I will compare several vehicles, a Hummer H2, a Toyota Prius, and the Toyota Highlander (standard and hybrid). I will use the vehicle's published curb weight to determine the energy used in manufacturing, based on the mmBTU/lb factors above and I will use the average MPG (city and highway) to estimate fuel usage over a 160,000 mile lifespan. The energy required to manufacture the vehicles is:

• Hummer H2: 200.717 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Prius: 113.322 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Highlander: 107.133 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Highlander Hybrid: 155.18 mmBTU

Gasoline contains 113,500 BTU (0.1134 mmBTU) per gallon. By dividing the expected lifespan of a vehicle (160,000) by its average MPG we can determine the gallons of gasoline used over that lifetime. We can also multiply this by the energy content of the fuel to get the total energy used. The gallons used during a 160,000 mile lifespan and the energy contained therein is:

• Hummer H2: 13,913 gallons ($44,800 at today's prices!), 1579.13 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Prius: 2,883 gallons, 327.207 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Highlander: 6,400, 726.4 mmBTU
  
• Toyota Highlander Hybrid: 5,424, 615.593 mmBTU

So, in comparison, 89% of the energy consumed by a Hummer H2 is in burning fuel, whereas the Toyota Prius uses 74% of total energy on burning fuel. This means that, in relation to weight, the Prius requires more energy to manufacture, but the Hummer uses far more energy to operate. What we also learn (click on the graph to enlarge) is that a Hummer H2 uses more energy in the first 24,000 miles (roughly 2 years) than the Prius will in its entire lifetime.Here is my advice, David: Continuing to drive an older car with poor fuel economy is less environmentally friendly than getting a new car that gets drastically better fuel economy. You can take my factors above and calculate the exact energy use for your old vehicle and a new vehicle to see the comparison. Keep in mind that these results are for the energy used, not the carbon dioxide emissions, but the two are highly correlated since most of our energy comes from fossil fuels.

Pablo Päster, MBA
Sustainability Engineer