Somewhat unexpectedly, my last entry drew a decent response on Facebook, in person, and via email. Most responders agreed with me, though there was one person at work (I'll call her "Ms. Greene-Earthmother) who took exception to my criticism of the Green "movement," as she called it. She accused me of being insensitive to the "growing environmental crisis" facing our planet and snidely remarked that I as a gearhead just wanted to use up all the resources I could and leave none for my grandchildren after I died. To this, I would respond that I will be Greener than ever after I pass away, as I will have little choice at that point except to leave my body to compost.
The problem with today's Green technology in the automotive sector is a simple case of dollars and sense. The technology is simply not advanced enough or cost-efficient enough to make it an acceptable return on investment, so it ends up being more of a gaudy "look how awesome I am" sort of fashion statement, like a bedazzled Ed Hardy T-shirt or a "diamond" encrusted "Princess" choker. Case in point: the loudest reason by far for hybrid ownership is the fuel savings; this seems reasonable enough - everyone wants better gas mileage out of their vehicle so that Big Oil takes fewer dollars out of their pockets. Honestly, that line of thinking is fine, so long as the analysis stops right there and goes home for the day. Dealers know this - in fact, they count on it.
With hybrids having swiftly become Green status symbols, dealers can afford to slap an elevated price on their windshields as compared to the conventional versions because their elevated fuel efficiency makes them special vehicles to the under-informed. In fact, a common reply that I hear from the Greenheaded - and from Ms. Greene-Earthmother herself - in regards to hybrids' pricing is that "The money I save on gas more than makes up for the difference in price."
Side note: it turns out that responding to this statement with even the mildest snark ("Were you told that there would be no math?") tends to end the conversation, not that there was anything profitable to be gained from it in the first place. People do not take kindly to being educated about their own idiocy for some reason, but it is a mere matter of fact: crunching a few figures - using no post-5th grade math - shows just how efficiently a hybrid sneaks the buyer's money into a salesman's pocket and does little more for the consumer than allow them to start conversations with "Yeah, it's a hybrid." Though for most buyers, this seems to be enough.
With no direct competitor for the Ms. Greene-Earthmother's Prius currently available on the market (no gas-only option, and no comparable model made by a competitor), let's turn the mathematical microscope to the Lexus RX350 SUV, which has both a conventional and a hybrid version available, and is a favorite of the dreaded "soccer-mom" variant of the species. Its front-wheel drive hybrid trim carries an MSRP of $43,560 according to Lexus, which is rather pricey for a smallish SUV. This trim line is roughly equivalent to its front-drive base trim, which presents the buyer with a conventional six-cylinder engine, mostly-equivalent standard features, and a $38,500 price tag. Remember those numbers, as we'll be coming back to them in a minute.
Using the same given numbers as in the previous entry (12,000 miles per year and average gas price of $3.02), we now note that the hybrid's average fuel economy is 30mpg, while the conventional version manages 22mpg. Over the 12k miles in a year, the hybrid uses 400 gallons of fuel for a cost of $1,208, while the conventional version racks up 545 gallons for a cost of $1,646 per year. Edge: hybrid by $438 per year.
Now factor in the cost of the vehicle itself: excluding taxes, interest, and so on, the hybrid RX (referred to as the "RX450h" in Lexus-ish) costs $5,060 more than its conventional sibling. When divided by the average fuel savings per year - again, the most-oft-cited reason for buying a hybrid when the buyer doesn't want to simply come out and say "Because I'm better than you" - we find that it will take 11.6 years for those fuel savings to recoup the price difference between these otherwise-identical models. Most people don't even keep their cars that long. Heck, most people don't even keep their pets that long. Sorry, Molly.
Our next example follows the same basic pattern. The Honda Civic Hybrid commands an MSRP of $24,550, while the closest equivalent conventional model has a price tag of $19,155, but eschews the hybrid model's CVT for a traditional automatic transmission. The hybrid pulls an impressive EPA average of 42mpg, while the conventional version manages 31mpg; this is a difference of 11mpg out the gate, which is fairly substantial. Over the course of the 12,000 miles, the hybrid drinks 286 gallons at a cost of $864. The conventional version gulps down 387 gallons over the same distance and racks up a tab of $1,169 in the process. This results in a difference of $305 per year in favor of the hybrid, but once again, the difference in MSRP proves to be a very wide gap. With the hybrid costing $5,395 more than its conventional counterpart, the $305 that the consumer would save on fuel will take a staggering 17.7 years to make up for its price difference.
To put that in perspective, it only takes slightly longer to give birth to, raise, and finally send a child out into the world. And just like all the money you spend on that child over those many, many years, you will never see a full recouping of the money you spent on that hybrid either.
The next Greenheaded statement is usually something to the effect of "But I drive a whole lot more than 12,000 miles per year. I'll recoup my money much more quickly." Again, snark will not prolong the conversation, so statements such as "If ignorance truly is bliss, you must be happy all the time" are not generally acceptable responses. Unfortunately, neither is a rational presentation of the facts, apparently.
Going back to the RX450h, the hybrid version costs $5,060 more than its comparably-equipped conventional counterpart. To make up for that difference in even the life of a standard car loan, the driver would have to be a prolific road warrior, because in order for the fuel savings to break that mark over five years, you would need to drive around 30,000 miles a year. Even more astoundingly, it would take the Civic owner roughly 45,000 miles a year to do the same thing. While Ms. Green-Earthmother might consider her weekly latte-in-hand errands to be the stuff of vehicular legend, I can assure you, dear reader, that the only way she would reach this mark would be under the following set of circumstances:
McKenna's gymnastics classes would need to be in New York, little Bayden's soccer practices in Seattle, their playdates would have to live in Los Angeles and Miami, and mommy's weekly mani-pedi (heaven help me, I didn't have to look that one up) appointments would have to be in Texas. Even then, I doubt that the mark would be reached, as I overhear Scottsdale trophy wives complain from time to time about having to drive "all the way to Chandler" for one reason or another (for the Google-impaired, Scottsdale and Chandler, both in Arizona, are separated by about fifteen miles of straight freeway. A grueling drive, to be sure).
I have absolutely no objection to the advance of technology, and certainly don't see anything wrong in aiming that technological telescope at fuel efficiency and other Green tech. My objection to the Green movement lies in the fact that for the true benefit of the consumer, a product's Green-ness should not come at an elevated price premium or at the expense of common sense, and the vast majority of today's Green tech fails on both counts. Until this is fixed, hybrid technology is little more than a fad and a marketing cash cow - yet another trendy way for the self-important to be proud and for snobs to be snobbish. As Hetfield mused, "Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand."
Friday, August 13, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Greenpiece of My Mind
Being a bit of a car nut, chances are that if you are talking about anything automotive while I am within earshot, I am very likely at least casually listening in. I don't mean it in a stalker-ish sense, but the automotive world is inherently interesting to me, as are people's ideas, likes, dislikes, and misconceptions about it. Recently, my interest was piqued at lunch as I overheard a couple talking about a friend's new car.
Apparently said friend was very excited about and proud of her new car. While I didn't hear what kind of car it was, it was patently obvious that the couple in question likely couldn't be troubled to care any less about it. If anything, they seemed annoyed by their friend's exuberance, as she was apparently very proud of its newness, its style, and its green-ness. The lady remarked that the friend wouldn't shut up about the great gas mileage, and how it was a "flex-fuel" vehicle, which apparently made it more special.
Clearly confused, her husband asked. "What's that mean?"
"I don't have any idea," the woman said dismissively, "but she says it means it gets better gas mileage."
"Oh. Like a hybrid."
It turns out that people take offense to random strangers correcting their misconceptions in public without solicitation, so I refrained from doing so in this case. I just shook my head at the unfortunate commonality of it; while this couple wasn't the issue, their green-brained friend was - so caught up in her own Earth Mother smugness that she somehow misplaced her grasp on reality. Or at the very least least her ability to fact-check.
In the last decade-plus-a-few, car companies have stepped up their approach to vehicle efficiency and economy by several orders of magnitude. While this has resulted in some great technological leaps, there has also developed a sort of "Green Ideal" that is creeping into every aspect of society. Everything is Green - or at least it's supposed to be, and if it's not, some poor baby polar bear is crying on a slowly-melting iceberg in the north Atlantic, and it's all your fault.
The automotive industry is not the only guilty party these days, as every industry and market sector seems eager to bank on the Eco-Fad. Some computers, for example, are now being marketed as "environmentally-friendly" based on the amount of power they use and the construction of their GBs. A certain potato chip company, as another example, is now bragging about the fact that their bags are made from plants and as such are biodegradable. Several restaurants, fast food and traditional alike, heavily hype the fact that the cows used to make their steaks were served hormone-and-additive-free menus and not confined in holding cells. All of this is supposed to appeal to our ingrained desire to save the planet and make Mother Earth sing happy songs of joy. Or something like that. Your fanaticism may vary.
The problem with all this is that there is so much hype and haughtiness caught up in the whole "Let's Be Green and Save the World" ideal that objectivity suffers on account of it. The computer company neglects to mention that their Green Computer Box is priced like - or higher than - its competition but offers about half the performance of some of those competitors. The potato chip company's product tastes like eco-friendly cardboard, the same as it always has; given the hype surrounding the bag, though, perhaps I should try eating that - it certainly couldn't be any worse. And finally, despite claims that the animal was treated better and had a better life, the restaurant's non-hormone-addled cow was still led into a slaughterhouse and ended up dead on my plate in the form of an A1-drenched T-bone. Green perhaps, but still not very fortunate for the cow. The bottom line is that there needs to be more thought and reason behind our consumeristic decisions than falling into the Green trend just for the sake of being Green. The earth isn't going anywhere for a while, and contrary to popular belief, the planet will not be saved by your boycott of the KFC Double Down.
The automotive industry has a lot of these traps in it, mostly thanks to its occasionally-brilliant marketing departments. They come up with ways to entice the public into believing that "Green is good" (apologies to Gordon Gekko), that it is easy being Green (apologies to Kermit the Frog), and that you are a lesser man if you are not a Green Man (note: I will not extend apologies to Jim Belushi, as he should apologize to humanity as a whole for 'According to Jim.' I do apologize, however, for even making a passing reference to it).
Regarding the exuberant friend's "Flex-Fuel" vehicle, like many Green consumers, she was an easy mark for some marketing sleight-of-hand. "Flex-fuel" by definition denotes a vehicle whose engine is built to run on either regular gasoline or an ethanol-blended concoction known as E85. Of every gallon of E85, 85% of it is ethanol (a corn-derived alcohol) and 15% is gasoline. The Green argument is that these cars, by using E85, are using considerably less gasoline and therefore helping save the poor, crying polar bears on their melting ice floes.
While a good idea on paper, the practicality of this argument is offset by a few factual issues. The first is the availability of E85 to begin with: of the thousands of gas stations in the country, there are only 1900 or so stations that carry E85, with most of those being located in corn-rich states in the Midwest. As you might imagine, Arizona does not make that list, so it is doubtful that the Green friend had ever touched a drop of E85 (or for that matter, likely even knew of its existence or its necessity for her Greenmobile to live up to her hype).
Then there's the cost, both on the vehicle itself as well as the consumer's wallet. Ethanol by nature is a less-efficient combustor, which means that each combustion event generates less energy than its gasoline counterpart. In real-world terms, this means that overall fuel economy drops considerably compared to regular gasoline, even in engines specifically built for it. For the average consumer, this means that though the cost per gallon is lower, the vehicle will require more gallons to cover the same number of miles, meaning that you are paying more for the privilege of having lower fuel efficiency.
OK: math time.
As an example, let's use the Chrysler Town & Country minivan - bane of the suburban parent for fear of losing whatever coolness and dignity that may have been remaining in life. The standard gasoline-only engine is rated at an average of 20mpg, while its flex-fuel counterpart weighs in at an average of 13mpg while drinking E85 - that's a 35% difference right out of the gate. According to AAA, the average American motorist drives about 12,000 miles per year, so we'll use that as a baseline number. The standard Town & Country covers that distance using 600 gallons of gasoline, while the E85 version needs 923 gallons to do it (divide 12k miles by average MPG to get that number). From there, we can extrapolate the price over that distance: with an average gas price of $3.02 in Arizona at the moment, the standard version's 600 gallons of fuel cost a total of $1,812. With E85 fuel currently averaging $2.60 per gallon nationwide as of this writing (a price difference of 14% less than gasoline), the flex-fuel vehicle's 923 gallons ring up a yearly tab of just a few pennies under $2400.
Conclusion: while the E85 vehicle uses 85% less petroleum per gallon of fuel, it gets 35% less mileage per gallon and costs the consumer 25% more per year for the privilege.
Paying more money for less efficiency simply does not make financial sense, and until E85 engines can be built to at least match their conventional cousins' efficiency per gallon, they will serve as little more than feel-good Green options with more bark than bite.
And depending upon who your friends are, that can be a loud, annoying, smug and misguided bark to be sure.
Apparently said friend was very excited about and proud of her new car. While I didn't hear what kind of car it was, it was patently obvious that the couple in question likely couldn't be troubled to care any less about it. If anything, they seemed annoyed by their friend's exuberance, as she was apparently very proud of its newness, its style, and its green-ness. The lady remarked that the friend wouldn't shut up about the great gas mileage, and how it was a "flex-fuel" vehicle, which apparently made it more special.
Clearly confused, her husband asked. "What's that mean?"
"I don't have any idea," the woman said dismissively, "but she says it means it gets better gas mileage."
"Oh. Like a hybrid."
It turns out that people take offense to random strangers correcting their misconceptions in public without solicitation, so I refrained from doing so in this case. I just shook my head at the unfortunate commonality of it; while this couple wasn't the issue, their green-brained friend was - so caught up in her own Earth Mother smugness that she somehow misplaced her grasp on reality. Or at the very least least her ability to fact-check.
In the last decade-plus-a-few, car companies have stepped up their approach to vehicle efficiency and economy by several orders of magnitude. While this has resulted in some great technological leaps, there has also developed a sort of "Green Ideal" that is creeping into every aspect of society. Everything is Green - or at least it's supposed to be, and if it's not, some poor baby polar bear is crying on a slowly-melting iceberg in the north Atlantic, and it's all your fault.
The automotive industry is not the only guilty party these days, as every industry and market sector seems eager to bank on the Eco-Fad. Some computers, for example, are now being marketed as "environmentally-friendly" based on the amount of power they use and the construction of their GBs. A certain potato chip company, as another example, is now bragging about the fact that their bags are made from plants and as such are biodegradable. Several restaurants, fast food and traditional alike, heavily hype the fact that the cows used to make their steaks were served hormone-and-additive-free menus and not confined in holding cells. All of this is supposed to appeal to our ingrained desire to save the planet and make Mother Earth sing happy songs of joy. Or something like that. Your fanaticism may vary.
The problem with all this is that there is so much hype and haughtiness caught up in the whole "Let's Be Green and Save the World" ideal that objectivity suffers on account of it. The computer company neglects to mention that their Green Computer Box is priced like - or higher than - its competition but offers about half the performance of some of those competitors. The potato chip company's product tastes like eco-friendly cardboard, the same as it always has; given the hype surrounding the bag, though, perhaps I should try eating that - it certainly couldn't be any worse. And finally, despite claims that the animal was treated better and had a better life, the restaurant's non-hormone-addled cow was still led into a slaughterhouse and ended up dead on my plate in the form of an A1-drenched T-bone. Green perhaps, but still not very fortunate for the cow. The bottom line is that there needs to be more thought and reason behind our consumeristic decisions than falling into the Green trend just for the sake of being Green. The earth isn't going anywhere for a while, and contrary to popular belief, the planet will not be saved by your boycott of the KFC Double Down.
The automotive industry has a lot of these traps in it, mostly thanks to its occasionally-brilliant marketing departments. They come up with ways to entice the public into believing that "Green is good" (apologies to Gordon Gekko), that it is easy being Green (apologies to Kermit the Frog), and that you are a lesser man if you are not a Green Man (note: I will not extend apologies to Jim Belushi, as he should apologize to humanity as a whole for 'According to Jim.' I do apologize, however, for even making a passing reference to it).
Regarding the exuberant friend's "Flex-Fuel" vehicle, like many Green consumers, she was an easy mark for some marketing sleight-of-hand. "Flex-fuel" by definition denotes a vehicle whose engine is built to run on either regular gasoline or an ethanol-blended concoction known as E85. Of every gallon of E85, 85% of it is ethanol (a corn-derived alcohol) and 15% is gasoline. The Green argument is that these cars, by using E85, are using considerably less gasoline and therefore helping save the poor, crying polar bears on their melting ice floes.
While a good idea on paper, the practicality of this argument is offset by a few factual issues. The first is the availability of E85 to begin with: of the thousands of gas stations in the country, there are only 1900 or so stations that carry E85, with most of those being located in corn-rich states in the Midwest. As you might imagine, Arizona does not make that list, so it is doubtful that the Green friend had ever touched a drop of E85 (or for that matter, likely even knew of its existence or its necessity for her Greenmobile to live up to her hype).
Then there's the cost, both on the vehicle itself as well as the consumer's wallet. Ethanol by nature is a less-efficient combustor, which means that each combustion event generates less energy than its gasoline counterpart. In real-world terms, this means that overall fuel economy drops considerably compared to regular gasoline, even in engines specifically built for it. For the average consumer, this means that though the cost per gallon is lower, the vehicle will require more gallons to cover the same number of miles, meaning that you are paying more for the privilege of having lower fuel efficiency.
OK: math time.
As an example, let's use the Chrysler Town & Country minivan - bane of the suburban parent for fear of losing whatever coolness and dignity that may have been remaining in life. The standard gasoline-only engine is rated at an average of 20mpg, while its flex-fuel counterpart weighs in at an average of 13mpg while drinking E85 - that's a 35% difference right out of the gate. According to AAA, the average American motorist drives about 12,000 miles per year, so we'll use that as a baseline number. The standard Town & Country covers that distance using 600 gallons of gasoline, while the E85 version needs 923 gallons to do it (divide 12k miles by average MPG to get that number). From there, we can extrapolate the price over that distance: with an average gas price of $3.02 in Arizona at the moment, the standard version's 600 gallons of fuel cost a total of $1,812. With E85 fuel currently averaging $2.60 per gallon nationwide as of this writing (a price difference of 14% less than gasoline), the flex-fuel vehicle's 923 gallons ring up a yearly tab of just a few pennies under $2400.
Conclusion: while the E85 vehicle uses 85% less petroleum per gallon of fuel, it gets 35% less mileage per gallon and costs the consumer 25% more per year for the privilege.
Paying more money for less efficiency simply does not make financial sense, and until E85 engines can be built to at least match their conventional cousins' efficiency per gallon, they will serve as little more than feel-good Green options with more bark than bite.
And depending upon who your friends are, that can be a loud, annoying, smug and misguided bark to be sure.
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