We Can’t Believe Everything We Read – Hybrids and Hummers
by Jenna Watson, Barcelona 
on 02.15.07
This week the sparks have flown over the constantly revisited debate of whether hybrids are as efficient as they claim in comparison to a regular gasoline powered vehicle. Again, this is a controversial topic, and I will start by saying that I am in no way trying to bash hybrids. Both the Economist and Grist have had their say regarding a controversial report , so now it’s one Treehugger’s turn. It started with the Economist’s article that “Diesels are the Smart Green Choice”, which says,
The dirty little secret about hybrids is that their batteries and extensive use of aluminium parts make them costly to build in energy terms as well as financial terms. One life-cycle assessment claims that, from factory floor to scrap heap, a Prius consumes more energy even than a Hummer H3. Diesels are unlikely to consume anything like as much over their lifetime. That could change, of course, if some bright spark decides to replace a hybrid’s petrol engine with a diesel—to launch a family car capable of 100mpg. Now there’s a thought.
They could read this to help answer that question (among a variety of other studies).
Then the smart green folks at Grist also put the article to the test along with the study that supposedly claims that a Prius consumes more energy per mile over its life cycle than a Hummer H3.
The folks at Grist did the same thing that I did – they went straight to this “life cycle assessment” prepared by CNW Marketing in Oregon (a firm that supposedly carried this study out objectively, but seems to work only with reports about the automotive industry - odd). Well, the bottom line is that Biodiversivist wrote a great rebuttal to this Economist article and critiques the study. You should read it here. Apart from their comments I have a few things to add / reiterate regarding this LCA. Firstly, nowhere in the study do the authors refer to ISO14040 standards for life cycle assessment, the internationally accepted norm to which all LCAs are compared. There is no critical review by peers or professionals working in the LCA field (of which there are many!). The information is presented in very very long tables listing each car by type or class segment. This is so uninviting to the reader that you almost rush through the information. Some charts of graphs would be useful when trying to digest all of this information that has supposedly been made “easy to read” for the general public. The results are presented in energy per mile, but nowhere do they discuss global impacts, damage to human health, resources, contribution to global warming, eutrophication or other accepted impact categories recognized within the LCA field. Note that ISO standards note that results of studies that are intended for the public should not be reduced to single scores. Perhaps these flaws are due to the fact that the authors of the study are a marketing firm (?). Certainly this type of study could have been carried out on an equally un-biased basis by life cycle professionals.
Among many other assumptions the study claims that the currently high cost of maintenance and repair for hybrids makes their expected life time shorter. They assume that hybrids will be held on to about the same amount of time as a regular budget car – approximately 5.6 years. As Biodiversivist points out, that seems odd. I would think that any greenie buying a Prius would drive it until it can’t go an emission-free mile further. But that is something that will always vary by owner. The CNW article is based on averages and assumptions and they do note that it seems that regardless of original purchase price, owners tend to keep vehicles for the same amount of time on average (5.0-5.9 years). The next issue I have with this study is its lack of data sharing or methodological transparency. Nowhere do you see how these calculations were carried out. In fact, they say (as Grist also points out):
The database used for the Excel spreadsheets is proprietary to CNW and will not be released.Additional data, other than what is presented on CNW Marketing Research, Inc.'s various web sites will remain unavailable to protect the proprietary nature of the data and the research methodology.
All rights to this information are held by CNW Marketing Research, Inc. Use of this information without prior approval except as noted above is strictly prohibited and will be treated as theft of intellectual property valued at US $25 million.
Anyone wanting data (even subscribers) cannot receive raw data bases. We control how data is released and maintain final approval on how information is presented because too often selective data points are used to "prove a point" rather than being complete, objective or neutral.
I think those statements are enough to make one feel like something is being hidden. Not only that, LCA professionals are quite open when it comes to explaining results and showing the transparency of their data and methodology to the public. In fact transparency is one of the principles of LCA: life cycle perspective, environmental focus, relative approach and functional unit, iterative approach, transparency, comprehensiveness, and priority of scientific approach.
Additionally, I have never seen customer surveys about reasons behind their purchases included in an LCA report. Nor have I ever seen surveys about the premium a buyer is willing to pay for a hybrid over a non-hybrid included in an LCA study. I suppose what I am getting at here is that I wouldn’t consider this CNW report a true LCA according to ISO standards, even though they claim to use data from the entire life cycle of each car type. Using the term life cycle in a report does not an LCA make.
We could go on for days, weeks or an entire life cycle debating this study, its robustness, its accuracy and its opaqueness but for now we’ll leave it at that. I invite you to take a look at it yourself, to read Grist’s great review and to post your comments here about the findings. Read more by TH and CNW here .
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- How to Make Your Own Infused Vodka
- Is School Food Harming Kids? Enlist a Labor Day Eat-In To Promote Fresh, Healthy Food
- 7 Ways the Troubled Automotive Industry Could Change Your Car and Your Commute
- How to Use a Solar Oven: Beans and Rice Recipe
- What is the Cheapest and Greenest Way to Travel?
- 7 Steps to a Greener Road Trip
I can't stand the Economist--everything they say on the environment is so heavily tinged with a free-market economy bias, that they always end up saying 'it's not worth doing because it'll cost too much'. They make me sick.
The Economist may be guilty of the aforementioned- yet at least they are not subject to the liberal rants that environmental advocates too often are.
That being said, I think they may have been duped on this one.
The findings are suspicious, and a refusal to reveal the data in this case is ridiculous. And remember back 3 years ago, when the american car companies were taken to task for not making hybrid SUV's. The response was that it wasn't technically feasible. Bullshale.
"The Economist may be guilty of the aforementioned- yet at least they are not subject to the liberal rants that environmental advocates too often are."
I'll take "liberal rants" (whatever that means) over being wrong.. ;)
That "study" is a farce and serves only the purpose of stirring up controversy and creating a sense of doubt around high mileage cars. It's exactly the same strategy the oil companies took to create a false controversy around global warming.
The results are full of holes and mistakes. They claim that the Scion xB and xA differ by over 50% but they are essentially the same car with identical chassis, engines, and interiors. A number of 2006 cars are missing while the BMW Z8 is included even though it hasn't been sold since 2003. How exactly did they perform research on the energy consumption at the Z8 assembly line if it had been closed for 3 years at the time of the study?
Even if a Prius used more energy than a Hummer H3 over its life cycle (which I find hard to believe) that would still be good. Because for sure, without a doubt, the "more" energy used during a hybrid's life cycle won't come from oil in the middle east, but from american grown power used to produce the vehicle. (Or Japan, since it's Toyota.)
Hybrids are transitional at best. The only good I see coming from them is R&D on batteries and motors. Until a viable full electric comes along, I'll be looking to diesel. Now if only the Mini Cooper D was coming to North America...
The Economists tends to make what are considered anti-green statements under the cloak of economic theory but seemingly based on dubious assumptions.
Toyota disagrees
More important than what country the energy comes from is whether or not it is easily replenished. It is much better, for example If a vehicle derives its energy from a hydroelectirc, geothermal, (et cetera) source than from the limited fossil fuel.
Anyone who seriously believes that a Prius uses more energy than a Hummer needs to do a Life Cycle Assessment of themself. This study just proves that common sense CAN trump science ... sometimes.
If a report is not peer reviewed, it is likely that it is just a FUD document. A document designed to spread "fear, uncertainty, and doubt".
And anybody can do that... just make up anything that contradicts or unbermines any of the points or foundations of the points you seek to attack. Takes no brain power.
Peer reviewed documents are the only ones that count... then after that, check the funding sources and those writers.
Perhaps they mean electrical energy in watts compared to gasoline energy in btu’s? I would think that the efficiency of a electric motor vs. the new Gasoline engine is less efficient per unit of power output vs. consumption.
This of course would stir up the masses for sure as we don’t compare the Efficiency equally. The real question is can we use this to cut our gas consumption? Yes. But do not confuse efficiency with consumption when comparing apples and oranges.
The goal of a Hybrid is to use less gasoline than a comparable gasoline only product. We don’t want to compare how efficient it uses its power source.
The economist is probably right. Attacking the study based on proprietary data... well, I'm all for open data, but if nobody looks at it whats the difference? I seriously doubt anyone at this site who subscribes to (or doubts) the anthropogenic climate change theory has actually ever downloaded the GHCN data it's based on. Irregardless, if hybrids have a larger footprint than hummers, it's only because hummers are produced through materials and methods which enjoy mass-scale efficiencies. As hybrid production approaches that of other vehicle types, the costs associated with production (real and incidental) will come down. The hummer has been in production for nearly three decades. Toyota's Prius - not even one. Ask the Economist again in 10 years, and you'll probably get a very different answer for the very same reasons.
That's ridiculous, Andrew.
Open data doesn't mean that everybody has to look at it, but being able to look at it is important, the IPCC reports are looked at by thousands of scientists AND the people who want to discredit it; believe me, if they could find some stuff to help their causes in it, they'd use it..
As for Hummers VS Prius, it's just a ridiculous thing, like the Reagan administration guy saying that trees were the major cause of pollution. The whole point is to create FUD and doubts in people's mind to try to stall for time.
This shos ho bad the prius really is. It has a dredful mpg compared to small diesels and produces more co2 then some vans. The prius is like the Lexus 4x4 hybrid thingy, build for fake tree hugers and people who think it will make them seem caring. Finally, I think that hybrids are not a solution to the problem