View Poll Results: Would you do a hybrid IS?
I would rather keep my IS250/350.
47
38.84%
I would change my IS250 to an "IS250h."
27
22.31%
I would change my IS350 to an "IS350h."
36
29.75%
I would rather get a different hybrid altogether...
11
9.09%
Voters: 121. You may not vote on this poll
Hybrid IS possibilities...
04-28-08, 08:03 AM
#46
Lexus Fanatic
Here's what I really think about the whole electric bandwagon. It's a LONG way from primetime, and it's an even longer way from green.
04-28-08, 05:02 PM
#48
Tech Info Resource
iTrader: (2)
With the cost of oil currently selling for over $115 a barrel, and Iran's President Ahmadinejad saying that price is too low, I'd think the advantage of harnessing domestic sources of energy would be obvious. Coal fired power plants are predominant because coal is abundant and cheap. Just as clean-air regulations have spurred the auto industry to develop technologies to clean up tailpipe emissions, similar regulations imposed on the power industry would likely result in the development of technology to utilize coal more cleanly. Depending on the costs of doing so, it might even shift new plant construction towards cleaner and more renewable energy sources.
The other feature of this is, if we are powering our transportation sector with electricity and the primary energy source is coal, the absolute volume of pollutants increases. The mercury, arsenic, lead, uranium, and cadmium in coal aren't going away. The only thing changing is what we do with the ash (highly toxic) and what we do with the captured pollutants. So, there's a cost involved and there's a net increase to add to our pile of waste at the end of the process, and we need to be responsible with what we do with this waste. In the end, it will cost more. So - unless and until we do some re-engineering, electric power isn't the "clean" panacea the greens are talking about. It's just shifting one kind of pollution for another, one waste stream for another.
That's why I've always maintained it's a shell and pea game in the end.
05-01-08, 06:22 PM
#49
I'm still holding on to my 2001 TL until someone comes out with a nice semi luxury car with great mileage. Obviously it can be done but when and how good? I replace my PC every time I can double the speed, replace a piece of HT equipment when it has greater bandwidth and audio capability. If I replace my 8 year old car with the next gen TL what do I get - same crappy gas mileage but with more HP - frankly they don't let me drive my current car nearly as fast as it can go so I really don't need more HP. Honda assumed that people didn't really want a hybrid because their big balled accord hybrid didn't sell well - same mileage as the 4 cylinder - just more HP. I bet they could have sold a ton of them if it got about the same HP as the 4 cylinder but 20% better gas mileage.
I drive in a state with speed limits and I don't plan on towing a boat or a trailer with my car so anything around 200HP should be fine.
They can make the 250H for people looking for MPG and the 350H for people who plan on being chased by Roscoe P Coltrain on the way back to the farm before boss hogg comes to auction it off.
I hate going to the gastation - period. Even if gas was still $2 a gallon instead of $4 a gallon I wouldn't enjoy going to the gas station. The amount I save or lose by going hybrid isn't an issue - going to the gas station is. Supporting countries that hate us doesn't seem prudent.
I drive in a state with speed limits and I don't plan on towing a boat or a trailer with my car so anything around 200HP should be fine.
They can make the 250H for people looking for MPG and the 350H for people who plan on being chased by Roscoe P Coltrain on the way back to the farm before boss hogg comes to auction it off.
I hate going to the gastation - period. Even if gas was still $2 a gallon instead of $4 a gallon I wouldn't enjoy going to the gas station. The amount I save or lose by going hybrid isn't an issue - going to the gas station is. Supporting countries that hate us doesn't seem prudent.
Last edited by boe; 05-01-08 at 06:25 PM.
05-02-08, 04:47 AM
#50
Lead Lap
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^^ yeah don't buy Citgo gas it just goes to Venezuela/ La FARC.. the more gas we buy the more guns and ammo they get -- http://www.boycottchavez.com/
as for the whole hybrid gig, i think a whole new theory of automotive construction has to be made. We started with this gas/oil engine beacuse it was cheap and available at the time, when i was growing up (early nineties) i would see gas at 1.00 a gall0n, i cant imagine what it was back in the 70's with the muscle cars n crap. But now everyone is on this gas engine track, and the only attempts to make it more efficient are simply to make it to use less gas.. - hybrids, whatever they call the engines that shutoff 2 engine cylinders at cruising speeds, and other ****
but what we really need to do is start looking for a fresh start, a new way to make 4 wheels turn and support a cabin on 5 people. I just wish these ideas and concepts could get some more mainstream support, if people would take their heads out of the gutters and look for something NEW AND DIFFERENT rather than new and improved
Clublexus, here is the solution to the entire Hybrid/Electric/Gas Guzzling issue
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-car1.htm
^ Simple, in our standard engine, gas and oxygen combine in a chamber, and a spark plug times up an explosion to push down the cylinder, creating power. Well these just use a tank of compressed air, and puff bursts of air at the cylinder (mimicking that explosion) and the compressed air forces the cylinder down... making power. All you need to do is compress air in a tank... which the show this was on (history channel) said would take 3$ worth of energy coming from a household outlet. This 3$ is your only cost for every 125 miles. The danger of storing compressed air seems very real, except when you see on the show they unload a clip for a .38 revolver from about 5 feet at it, and there are little paint chips on the outside, and they drop it from some predetermined height (i think it was like 2 stories up i'm not sure) and it just bounces around a little and then settles
The car above was just found randomly, this was the car that was on the history channel (great show lol)
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/air-cars.html
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-car...y-storage.html
Unfortunately General Motors and other Oil companies have bought out the rights to many of these car designs in earlier years (80's and 90's) and took the perfectly eco-safe, road ready vehicles... and melted them down or had them crushed, and the engine designs thrown away. Go oil monopoly?
Similarly, on Futurecars, this design was explored
http://www.5min.com/Video/The-Future...eboard-6475583
^^ thats a 6 minute video that fully explains how the Skateboard vehicle works, and it is quite amazing, hoepfully enough money is invested in these cars to make them a reality. We can build a missile that can track and hit a terrorist in a building with 3 foot thick concrete walls from half a world away, yet we can't build enough of these to put them on the road?
as for the whole hybrid gig, i think a whole new theory of automotive construction has to be made. We started with this gas/oil engine beacuse it was cheap and available at the time, when i was growing up (early nineties) i would see gas at 1.00 a gall0n, i cant imagine what it was back in the 70's with the muscle cars n crap. But now everyone is on this gas engine track, and the only attempts to make it more efficient are simply to make it to use less gas.. - hybrids, whatever they call the engines that shutoff 2 engine cylinders at cruising speeds, and other ****
but what we really need to do is start looking for a fresh start, a new way to make 4 wheels turn and support a cabin on 5 people. I just wish these ideas and concepts could get some more mainstream support, if people would take their heads out of the gutters and look for something NEW AND DIFFERENT rather than new and improved
Clublexus, here is the solution to the entire Hybrid/Electric/Gas Guzzling issue
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-car1.htm
^ Simple, in our standard engine, gas and oxygen combine in a chamber, and a spark plug times up an explosion to push down the cylinder, creating power. Well these just use a tank of compressed air, and puff bursts of air at the cylinder (mimicking that explosion) and the compressed air forces the cylinder down... making power. All you need to do is compress air in a tank... which the show this was on (history channel) said would take 3$ worth of energy coming from a household outlet. This 3$ is your only cost for every 125 miles. The danger of storing compressed air seems very real, except when you see on the show they unload a clip for a .38 revolver from about 5 feet at it, and there are little paint chips on the outside, and they drop it from some predetermined height (i think it was like 2 stories up i'm not sure) and it just bounces around a little and then settles
The car above was just found randomly, this was the car that was on the history channel (great show lol)
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/air-cars.html
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-car...y-storage.html
Unfortunately General Motors and other Oil companies have bought out the rights to many of these car designs in earlier years (80's and 90's) and took the perfectly eco-safe, road ready vehicles... and melted them down or had them crushed, and the engine designs thrown away. Go oil monopoly?
Similarly, on Futurecars, this design was explored
http://www.5min.com/Video/The-Future...eboard-6475583
^^ thats a 6 minute video that fully explains how the Skateboard vehicle works, and it is quite amazing, hoepfully enough money is invested in these cars to make them a reality. We can build a missile that can track and hit a terrorist in a building with 3 foot thick concrete walls from half a world away, yet we can't build enough of these to put them on the road?
05-02-08, 09:51 AM
#51
I hate going to the gastation - period. Even if gas was still $2 a gallon instead of $4 a gallon I wouldn't enjoy going to the gas station. The amount I save or lose by going hybrid isn't an issue - going to the gas station is. Supporting countries that hate us doesn't seem prudent.
The VAST majority of gas sold in the US comes from US refineries. The majority of the oil used to make it comes from... The US and Canada.
Overall very little of our oil actually comes from the middle east. Saudi Arabia is the only nation in the middle east that's even in the top 5 import sources (and a fair bit of our oil is still produced right here in the US.
We get more oil from the US than any foreign source, and 2 of the top 3 foreign sources are Canada and Mexico.
Oh, and avoiding citgo won't do much for you- if demand at say Shell goes up and they need more fuel they'll just buy it direct from Citgo. Oil, being a global commodity, is really immune to those kinds of "boycott" actions.
You might put your local gas station owners out of a job though.
05-05-08, 07:32 AM
#52
Super Moderator
We import over 1.6 million gallons of crude per DAY from Saudi Arabia, and more than 1 million gallons per DAY from Venezuela. That 1.6 million gallons/day of Saudi oil is more than we pump out of the ground in Texas, the biggest oil producing state in our own country. In January, our trade deficit with Saudi Arabia was nearly 3.4 billion dollars, and in February (the most recent data I could find) was over 3.5 billion dollars. From war-ravaged Iraq, we imported over 780 million barrels of oil per day in February, and ran a 1.58 billion dollar deficit in that month alone. Spin it any way you want, those numbers frighten me.
05-05-08, 09:18 AM
#54
We import over 1.6 million gallons of crude per DAY from Saudi Arabia, and more than 1 million gallons per DAY from Venezuela. That 1.6 million gallons/day of Saudi oil is more than we pump out of the ground in Texas, the biggest oil producing state in our own country. In January, our trade deficit with Saudi Arabia was nearly 3.4 billion dollars, and in February (the most recent data I could find) was over 3.5 billion dollars. From war-ravaged Iraq, we imported over 780 million barrels of oil per day in February, and ran a 1.58 billion dollar deficit in that month alone. Spin it any way you want, those numbers frighten me.
Why?
Saudi Arabia, outside some rich oil sheiks, is a bunch of poor people. What do you expect us to be selling to them that would negate such a trade deficit?
Same with Venezuala. Even more so Iraq.
What, specifically, makes you afraid, besides the fact someone is telling you to be?
Oil remains, compared to anything else currently available, a cheap way to power cars and a lot of other things.
And despite anyones scare tactics, there's plenty left for the foreseeable future too, though it certainly will be a little more costly to reach than it was in the 80s.
Heck, shale in the US and tar sands in canada have -insanely- large amounts of oil available.
The US has more in shale oil than the entire rest of the world has in conventional oil reserves.
But we haven't bothered extracting it yet because it's a lot smarter to buy the cheaper stuff from overseas than dig up our stuff right now. By the time we need it it won't be much of a problem though.
I'm certainly a lot less afraid of buying oil from the Saudis than I am anyone thinking Ethanol is a good idea.
05-05-08, 09:22 AM
#55
As I noted- far less than half our oil comes from the middle east. Only about 12-15% of our oil comes from the middle east. The rest comes from US production (the largest share of any source), then Canada as the next largest... after Saudi the next largest is Mexico, then other non-middle-east sources.
05-05-08, 10:09 AM
#56
I think our future cars should be run on hydrogen. The technology already exists, and the only emission out the tail pipe is H2O. I know there would be some pollution created by generating it, but the end result would be every car on earth would be releasing nothing but good old H2O. Air pollution would be reduced dramatically. Our oil dependance to foreign nations would stop.
05-05-08, 12:29 PM
#57
I think our future cars should be run on hydrogen. The technology already exists, and the only emission out the tail pipe is H2O. I know there would be some pollution created by generating it, but the end result would be every car on earth would be releasing nothing but good old H2O. Air pollution would be reduced dramatically. Our oil dependance to foreign nations would stop.
If your answer is water, it takes considerable electricity to do that. Which will come from...?
If you're getting it elsewhere, that's doable... from gas and coal.
Current viable methods for producing large amounts of hydrogen actually make less efficient use of fossil fuels than just burning gasoline.
Seriously, there's a -reason- gasoline is what we're still using today. And the reason isn't just 'to make exxon rich"
05-05-08, 10:16 PM
#58
Tech Info Resource
iTrader: (2)
Every time I hear the "we should use hydrogen" I laugh out loud. The only bulk source of economical hydrogen is natural gas. Unless you want to use more energy creating the hydrogen than you'll get by burning it. That's what the peak oil pundits call negative Energy ROI. It sure doesn't make sense to me.
As Kurtz said, there's still a LOT of oil. We've just been primarily focused on the low hanging fruit. Over the next 50 years, we'll have to do better with less because the cost of recovery is higher. Back to that EROI problem again...
As Kurtz said, there's still a LOT of oil. We've just been primarily focused on the low hanging fruit. Over the next 50 years, we'll have to do better with less because the cost of recovery is higher. Back to that EROI problem again...
07-01-08, 11:45 AM
#60
You could use solar, geothermal, wind, hydro or even wave energy to produce hydrogen from water. So should we just accept $5 a gallon now, $10 a gallon 10 years from now for gasoline or consider some long term planning?
Does everyone here who just knocks any alternative to gasoline think it is an unlimited source of energy, that global demand for it will decrease next year and it should settle back down to 72 cents a gallon soon oh wait it hasn't gotten back to that in decades, make that $1.72 - oh wait it hasn't been that in over a decade OK, $2.72 a gallon - hmm gas doesn't seem to go down in price over the years does it? Strange - we have more efficient extraction processes and can get far more from a "dry" oil site than we did before. Do you think it won't have any negative impact on the environment? I'm not saying we go cold turkey but the rising price of fuel is the only thing "fueling" alternative engines. We didn't need gasoline 100 years ago when some of the first engines ran on plant oil - but crude oil was easily accessable. Now that there is more competition for that crude oil we are finally reconsidering technologies that could have developed many years ago but weren't "economical". The economies are changing so you can be a myopic luddite or at least consider some small evolutions now to help us in the long run towards complete solutions.
Does everyone here who just knocks any alternative to gasoline think it is an unlimited source of energy, that global demand for it will decrease next year and it should settle back down to 72 cents a gallon soon oh wait it hasn't gotten back to that in decades, make that $1.72 - oh wait it hasn't been that in over a decade OK, $2.72 a gallon - hmm gas doesn't seem to go down in price over the years does it? Strange - we have more efficient extraction processes and can get far more from a "dry" oil site than we did before. Do you think it won't have any negative impact on the environment? I'm not saying we go cold turkey but the rising price of fuel is the only thing "fueling" alternative engines. We didn't need gasoline 100 years ago when some of the first engines ran on plant oil - but crude oil was easily accessable. Now that there is more competition for that crude oil we are finally reconsidering technologies that could have developed many years ago but weren't "economical". The economies are changing so you can be a myopic luddite or at least consider some small evolutions now to help us in the long run towards complete solutions.
Last edited by boe; 07-01-08 at 11:50 AM.