Priuschatters help me respond to this guy

Another item you may wish to add under the BATTERY line: Unlike "modern lead-acid batteries", the Prius traction battery is almost 100 % recycle-able (if not fully recycled.)

Others on this forum could clean-up and add further information concerning this statement.

 

I think the original letter-writer made three valid points:

1. The present trend of one driver and no passengers in 5-passenger sedans and 7-passenger SUVs is unsustainable. We need to provide real economic incentives and safe roadway conditions for bicyclists, and we need good mass transit. Instead of giving big tax breaks to buyers of a car so popular they can't build them fast enough to meet the demand, we should provide FREE mass transit and real financial breaks to cyclists.

2. Even though the Prius is extremely recyclable, building new cars and junking old ones has an environmental cost. Maybe his very old Corolla is a pollution disaster, but a recent model used car is more economical to drive than a new car.

3. Manufacturers have made cars steadily bigger and heavier and more powerful. The 2010 Prius is an example: Bigger, heavier, and more powerful than the 2004. With the technology improvements, if they had kept the size and weight the same, or even cut them down a bit, it would get even better FE than it does. The trend to bigger and more powerful cars is unsustainable.

He got a lot of stuff wrong about the Prius itself, and about the technology that went into it. But his underlying thesis about the unsustainability of modern car trends is correct.

 

Well, SULEV is a California standard, and there are some differences in the car that affect emissions (largely the coolant thermos, which speeds warmup and entering closed-loop fuel control, which is where air/fuel mixture control takes effect).

South Africa is using European-derived standards. The 2004-2009 Prius was tested to Euro 4 but meets the requirements for Euro 5 (by quite some way). The new Prius has been tested to Euro 5.

The UK government Vehicle Certification Agency Car Fuel Data website lists the Prius emissions as:

0.180g/km CO
0.020g/km HC
0.010g/km NOx

Euro 4 limits are 1.0g/km CO, 0.1g/km HC, 0.08g/km NOx for petrol cars. Euro 5 reduces permitted NOx emissions to 0.06g/km and limits non-methane hydrocarbon emissions (NMHC) to 0.068g/km - this is a new test, but the Prius total HC emissions are less than this value already.

It isn't possible to get data back as far as 1988. We didn't start regulating emissions until 1992, and catalytic converters were only coming factory-fitted in around 1990 or so - that's when I recall getting my family's first car that required unleaded petrol from the factory, although my parents did get their 1986 Ford Orion converted to accept unleaded. The initial Euro I levels were 2.72g/km CO, 0.97g/km HC+NOx.

 

Hi Mike, I agree that historical data on vehicle emissions (especially pre-catalyst) are rare. A small amount pf per-vehicle averages can be calculated from the data presented here:

Key Events in the History or Air Quality in California

and they were (1970) extremely high compared to the HC and NOx numbers we think about now.

 

are you a publisher? is that an offer? i could be talked into it! however did you lay your hands on a 12?

 

A vanity publisher, I'd bet. Save your money.

 

Thank you for bumping a two-year-old thread for your bizarre post! Let's take a look at it with my two friends Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo.

Crow: As opposed to the priuschat.com gopher site?
Tom: Yes, it's amazing what spambots can find nowadays!

Tom: Could you make your statements a little more generic, please?
Crow: If you're delighted by that wait 'til you see my singing and dancing!

Tom: Have you thought about stuffing your spam up your...
Crow: Hey! This is a family message board!