Big Caveat: I would guess these plots don't take into consideration the Prius' "zero-emmisions" at stop and (electric-only) low speeds.

In "normal" urban driving environments, it adds up. In my Honda Civic Hybrid I only have the benefit of auto-stop (no electric-only drive mode), but it changes how you approach stop lights and signs; no creaping 'cause it turns on the gas engine and kills your mileage.

Here is the problem.
A person gets a prius, because they need that size of a car. Sometimes an Echo is a bit to small for people with larger families. Given it's size, it does rather well.

I mean I could get 50mpg in a Fiat 500, but I cannot lug the same amount of people and equipment.

I agree that calculating the upstream energy costs for manufacture is the key to this "environmental acccounting."

Unfortunately we don't know what it costs to make and install all the electrical components (not just batteries, but motors, etc.).

I don't suppose Toyota actually knows either.

THey know. As a rule of thumb the "use phase" burden for any car is one or two orders of magnitude greater than the "manufacturing phase" burden. The longer you keep the car and the more mileage it accumulates the more favorable the ratio is of course.

When I was a kid average time before a title was "expired" was 8.5 years . Now its over 13 years and climbing. Also, person-miles per year are consistently increasing. Therefore, to compare vehicles objectively you really should unitize over time and distance and then normalize for expected design life as well. It will take decades for EPA to do this. My guess is that the EU or Japan will force the issue soon.

The potential fatal flaw in the hybrid path is battery waste management at product end of life. Imagine how many batteries eventually hit the heap once 50% of the national fleet becomes hybrid? No one is discussing this anywhere. Not even Toyota or Honda. Its a risk managment issue that needs to be confronted sooner than later.

Hybrids are a great step forward for the urban commuter, but once you move a few miles out of the city their advantages are gone.

I commute daily 40 miles on the interstate at a constant 70 mph, with my bio-diesel powered TDI I consitntly get 48-50 mpg, and have a signifigantly reduced emmisions compared to most gasoline powered cars per mile. Buddy in town has a similar drive in a hybrid (had an Insight, now a Prius) he drives 60-65 mph and only gets 38 to 45 mpg depending on wind. Now it is a hilly section of interstate at constant speed. But the advantage decidedly goes to the diesel especially when you consider the use of bio-d and the fact that less energy is required to refract petro-diesel.

Now if this was stop and go city driving it would be different. But to think beyond the urban areas you have to think beyond a gas/electric setup to get more rural people to change their habits.

-JW

I was concerned about the battery too but I found that Toyota takes the batteries pretty seriously. :

"Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery."

http://pressroom.toyota.com/photo_library/display_release.html?id=20040623

I do wonder why Toyota is against California's clean car act?

In cross country drives in my Toyota Corrola (same body frame as Prius), I consistently got 36 to 40 mph. Variation depends on wind and # of passengers. But in the city/town its much lower (26). Ideally I'd have a small hybrid for every day use and bio-diesel with more cargo capacity for hauling of long distance trips. Wish one could rent them reliably.

May as well add another wrinkle. What if you could plug the Prius into your rooftop photovoltaics? http://www.calcars.org/
That would change the entire equation. What type of PV you used would matter but the thin film products, requiring much less energy, should be on the market soon.
So we can't buy a plug in hybrid or cheap PVs yet but we can ask and look for them.

Insert obligatory comment here about how much better than either of these a B100 or SVO-chugging VW Golf would be.

what's an SVO-chugger?

Seems to me that the match up of bio-diesel and hybrid would be the best intermediate step to a totally end-use designed future fuel/engine system. If only the Prius came as a CDI version ! Anyhow, the best market for hybrids would seem to me to be the true off-road SUV (Jeep) market, mainly because the electric motors would have the torque and quietness you'd want off-road and the fuel economy would allow longer range into the back country. Fuel cells would go best as a replacement for two-stroke recreational vehicles since they'll never need to have the range but they would have the torque and quietness you'd want to experience the back country.