Sunday, April 10, 2005
Honey don't forget to plug in the car!
It looks like the crazy automobile fanatics are trying to find ways of making their cars more efficient. I was just reading an article on the New York Times regarding "hybrid-car owners" (registration required) and it seems they've found a way to do it... seemingly. A few owners of the Toyota Prius have gone ahead and modified the car so it can be plugged into the wall to charge its batteries. Doing this, they claim, has made it so it can get upwards of 100 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Pretty crazy isn't it? What's funny is that Toyota and Honda, two of the premiere manufacturers of hybrid-cars, have made the assertion that the cars don't need to be plugged in--and they really don't want you to do it, even going so far as to make a commercial about it.
I'm all for clean, efficient propulsion, but I want to mention--like others have, that when you plug your car into the wall outlet, it's being charged by a power plant somewhere, and 60% of the power plants here in the United States burn coal, which is far more polluting than gasoline. Clearly a trade-off isn't it? You can have higher gas mileage if you modify your already expensive hybrid-car and charge it with electricity from a source that's probably very polluting, or just go with the hybrid-car and skip the wall outlet option--getting less miles to the gallon in the process. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still a few years away, and most of the other "green car" options just aren't as robust as a normal car or a hybrid-car.
At least we're making some progress in that area. I'm really looking forward to the day when we don't depend on the Middle East for anything. :-) ¶ 4:22 AM
It looks like the crazy automobile fanatics are trying to find ways of making their cars more efficient. I was just reading an article on the New York Times regarding "hybrid-car owners" (registration required) and it seems they've found a way to do it... seemingly. A few owners of the Toyota Prius have gone ahead and modified the car so it can be plugged into the wall to charge its batteries. Doing this, they claim, has made it so it can get upwards of 100 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Pretty crazy isn't it? What's funny is that Toyota and Honda, two of the premiere manufacturers of hybrid-cars, have made the assertion that the cars don't need to be plugged in--and they really don't want you to do it, even going so far as to make a commercial about it.
I'm all for clean, efficient propulsion, but I want to mention--like others have, that when you plug your car into the wall outlet, it's being charged by a power plant somewhere, and 60% of the power plants here in the United States burn coal, which is far more polluting than gasoline. Clearly a trade-off isn't it? You can have higher gas mileage if you modify your already expensive hybrid-car and charge it with electricity from a source that's probably very polluting, or just go with the hybrid-car and skip the wall outlet option--getting less miles to the gallon in the process. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still a few years away, and most of the other "green car" options just aren't as robust as a normal car or a hybrid-car.
At least we're making some progress in that area. I'm really looking forward to the day when we don't depend on the Middle East for anything. :-) ¶ 4:22 AM
