[NewMinivanUser]

Hello -

I'm in the market to purchase the Pacifica Hybrid and looking forward to taking it for a test drive. I'm pretty excited actually! I've never owned a hybrid or electric vehicle but I like the thought of saving on gas and also being more green for the environment.

A few people have put a damper on my excitement by pointing out to me that there really is no "green" benefit to a hybrid or electric vehicle because of the additional cost in electricity (electric companies will need to "work" more to provide more electricity) and also the cost to make the car by the car manufacturer.

Also, these same people have pointed out that maintenance may be worse than a regular car because its electric and things may go "haywire".

For anyone that's had experience with hybrids or all electric vehicles - can you please weigh in? Thanks so much.

 

[Tiz]

Hello -

I'm in the market to purchase the Pacifica Hybrid and looking forward to taking it for a test drive. I'm pretty excited actually! I've never owned a hybrid or electric vehicle but I like the thought of saving on gas and also being more green for the environment.

A few people have put a damper on my excitement by pointing out to me that there really is no "green" benefit to a hybrid or electric vehicle because of the additional cost in electricity (electric companies will need to "work" more to provide more electricity) and also the cost to make the car by the car manufacturer.

Also, these same people have pointed out that maintenance may be worse than a regular car because its electric and things may go "haywire".

For anyone that's had experience with hybrids or all electric vehicles - can you please weigh in? Thanks so much.

Not sure on the maintenance end but I suspect it to be no worse than a typical gas automobile. Electric drive motors are a proven quantity and the gas engine operates at the optimum RPM , typically lower RPM at cursing speeds, since it is basically a generator to supply electricity for the drive motors and it operates on the Atkinson cycle as well.
As far a "going green" don't kid yourself. No free lunch. Someone has to burn something to make the electric to charge your vehicle although that fuel may be bit cleaner or possibly hydro. As as far as solar or wind, the sun sets and the wind dies so that power source must be supplemented by something else.
Not sure about the lithium ion batteries but nickel-metal hydride batteries used in the Prius consume more energy and cause more pollution to manufacture than the car will eliminate depending on which source you tend to believe.

 

[dmg2010]

Plug-in hybrids are "green" if you charge them with solar. Otherwise, it's probably a push.

Maintenance: who knows? The hybrid in some ways is simpler than the gas model, and could be more reliable. Most issues will probably be with things other than the power train that are common between the gas and hybrid models; e.g. sliding doors, UConnect, seats, etc.

My biggest concern with the hybrid would be longevity and depreciation. The battery pack will likely have a shorter lifespan than the gas engine; and while a ten year old gas vehicle maintains some value, a ten year old electric has almost none. If you don't keep your cars a long time this probably doesn't matter.

 

[onusbonus]

Think Prius. It is hard to see a difference in the layout of electric motor. Think 3 phase electric motors that have been around for 100 years. Yes the chassis and other hang on parts have less of a reputation for quality in FCA compared to Toyota but it is hard to mess up the electric motor. In the Pacifica, the gas engine is their tried Penstar with known performance.
You will have less wear on brakes and the motor since it will run more controlled RPM.

 

[onusbonus]

As far as burning carbon for electricity, yes coal fire plants will put out more CO 2 than oil which is more than natural gas which is more than wind or solar. But it is important to remember that all of those productions get better efficiency that a ICE which tops out at 30%. The electric motor and the efficiency of power plants will get at least 50%. With renewable it gets up to 90%
Batteries store energy that otherwise is turned to heat at the end of grid. And removed gas use for at least that part of the drive of the vehicle. And can be as much as 1/4 the cost in that battery use.

 

[generaltso]

typically lower RPM at cursing speeds

Is that the optimal speed at which to yell curses out the window at other drivers?

 

[relytgerg]

Hello -

I'm in the market to purchase the Pacifica Hybrid and looking forward to taking it for a test drive. I'm pretty excited actually! I've never owned a hybrid or electric vehicle but I like the thought of saving on gas and also being more green for the environment.

A few people have put a damper on my excitement by pointing out to me that there really is no "green" benefit to a hybrid or electric vehicle because of the additional cost in electricity (electric companies will need to "work" more to provide more electricity) and also the cost to make the car by the car manufacturer.

Also, these same people have pointed out that maintenance may be worse than a regular car because its electric and things may go "haywire".

For anyone that's had experience with hybrids or all electric vehicles - can you please weigh in? Thanks so much.

People who tell you this have fallen for the propaganda put out by big oil. In the US, driving on electricity is definitely greener than driving on gasoline, even when you take the emissions of producing electricity into account. Unbiased studies (not funded or influenced by big oil) have shown this repeatedly. And, it will only continue to get greener, because the US power grid is continuously adding more renewable energy sources. So, if driving a 100% electric car is greener, it's certainly the case that driving a plug-in hybrid is greener than driving an equivalent gas vehicle. If you are really concerned about emissions from the generation of electricity, then install solar panels and you'll have a 100% green electricity. By the way, since the vast majority of electric vehicle charging is done off-peak, so far there has not been a significant impact to the grid.

As far as maintenance is concerned, only time will tell. I agree that a hybrid has more parts than either an electric or gas vehicle, so there are more things that could go wrong. On the other hand, it's been my experience that there is far less brake maintenance since the regenerative braking is doing most of the work. Also, since the electric motor is reducing the load on the internal combustion engine, it should need less frequent maintenance. In my daughter's Honda Civic Hybrid, for example, the maintenance schedule calls for oil changes only every 10,000 miles. And, as another poster pointed out, electric motors are a proven technology that last a very long time.

In my humble opinion, you should move ahead confidently with your choice of a plug-in hybrid.

 

[Norbert]

Yea, I'm surprised no one mentioned the erroneous "studies" about hybrid batteries using minerals from a giant strip mine. lol. More BS fake news big oil uses. Anyway, if you understand the way electricity is generated in the US, you'll find that using the grid to charge your car at night actually helps, because the grid can't "power" down at night so a lot of excess electricity is just wasted away. That's what anti electric car guys don't understand.

 

[kd6gwz]

Mother Nature does not allow electricity to be "wasted". Somewhere every watt introduced to the grid instantly becomes light, heat, sound, or mechanical energy. Usually in combination. If that's not in a controlled environment is takes matters into it's own hands so to speak. In the late 19th century we claimed that we had harnessed the sun. Then in 1946, no, wait, now we have. Ponder residing in the middle of 3 million people that hasn't had access to the electrical grid for six weeks. I just hope to have enough battery in my iPad to rewatch Game of Thrones for pointers.
Oops. �� How did I get there. Anyway night time gives you the opportunity to generate the electricity with the most efficient methods. What's wasted is that opportunity.

 

[mathmann]

I purchased a Chevrolet Volt in March 2012, and passed it onto my son in June 2015. I purchased a Chevrolet Spark EV in September 2014, and still have it. I purchased the longest extended manufacturer warranties on both of these vehicles. I also installed solar panels on my home which went online in July 2014. In our area, coal is not used at all to generate electricity, and natural gas is used to generate about 60% of the electricity, with the rest being a mix of nuclear, solar, wind, hydro-electric, geothermal, and others.

Most of the charging for both the Volt (while we owned it) and the Spark has been done at our home at night. Although our solar panels obviously do not produce electricity at night, we do send a lot of excess electricity from our solar panels back into the grid during the day. Thus, in my mind, I am replacing the "dirty" electricity that I use at night to charge my electric car with "clean" excess electricity that I send to the grid during the day. I send enough excess electricity to the grid during the day, that I anticipate I will be able to add charging the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid to my home's electrical load, and still have a negative electric bill. So, if I don't count the cost of installing my solar panel system (which I don't because that is a cost I have incurred whether or not I purchase the Pacifica Hybrid), the cost of charging the Pacifica Hybrid at home will be free.

Concerning maintenance, the Volt now has more than 80,000 miles on it. When I had it, I changed the engine oil once a year (not because the oil life gauge said it was needed, but because I think the oil should be changed at least once a year anyway). The car still has the original brakes. Tires, windshield wipers, and the 12-volt battery were replaced at about the same intervals as a gasoline-only car. There were a few items that had to be replaced on recalls, and about a year ago, some major electric drive control components had to be replaced (some of that on recall, some of it on the extended warranty). The Spark EV has more than 40,000 miles on it. Because it is all electric, there is no engine oil to change. The car still has the original brakes. I have replaced the front tires and the windshield wipers. There have been a few items replaced on recalls. I have not yet used the extended warranty to do any work.

In my opinion, in general, other than the traction battery, I expect the electrical components of an all-electric or a hybrid car to last longer than similar components in a gasoline-only vehicle. When driving on electric, there is less heat under the hood, and that is better for everything under the hood.

I hope that this is helpful.

 

[NewMinivanUser]

You guys - thank you SO much. I really appreciate everyone's input - its been very helpful. Some posts I didn't understand, lol, but that just means I need to research a little on my end. I would love to get solar panels but my husband is not on board - but that's for another forum.

Anyway, I may have follow up questions but for now I think I have enough to continue on my path to get the Pacifica Hybrid - if my dealers ever get it.

Thank you again!

 

[Mike]

The more common tropes that people use to argue against the electrification of vehicles are typically:
1: mining the resources for batteries is terrible for Africans or kids or African kids or something...
2: power generation is dirty therefore electric cars are dirty
3: more complex so less reliable
4: electricity is expensive, gas is cheap

All of these points are demonstrably false.

The 'mining' of lithium which is one of the main components of most EV batteries (lithium ion) is done primarily in South America and Australia and is an evaporative process more than a mining one which basically means the lithium is a salt dissolved in water so they let the water evaporate to free the salt which they then extract the lithium from. No kids working in mines or anything, that is a myth. The worst mineral used in EV batteries is probably cobalt which only comes mostly from the Congo (DRC) for now, at least until the cobalt mines here in Canada resume production anyway. Cobalt mining isn't nice and there's a lot of black market activity and human exploitation around that mineral so yes, that sucks, but when compared to the terrible things that oil extraction does around the world (fracking, the Niger delta, oil spills, Deepwater Horizon...etc. etc.) it isn't even in the same league. Don't be fooled. Oil extraction is a terrible terrible thing all over the world. Bad for people, bad for the environment, bad for international stability and conflicts, just bad in general.

Power generation is another trope people like to bring up. Here in Canada most of our power is clean. The majority of power generation here is from hydro dams (which is why all the power companies here are called 'Hydro' companies) but the rest comes from a combination of nuclear (say what you will but it's zero emissions), wind, solar, and some natural gas peaker plants. I understand the US still uses a lot of coal but those are increasingly being shut down for economic reasons as they can't compete with natural gas and solar. Regardless of all that, the grid is pretty clean as is and is constantly getting cleaner. It's also simply more efficient to ship electrons around the country to power cars than it is to ship actual liquids. Electric vehicles are already more efficient than oil cars and as the US grid cleans up they become even better.

While hybrids like the Pacifica are more complex, pure electric cars are much simpler and therefore have less stuff to break than oil cars. Even in the case of a hybrid though, the added complexity isn't that bad. As others have pointed out, the electric drive compliments the oil-based drive rather well and as a result it treats the oil parts a little better than a pure oil car would. The regenerative braking saves wear on break pads and the fact that the PacHy can go so long on its batteries will save engine wear so I'm expecting it to be a little more reliable than the pure oil Pacifica just because the oil bits are treated more gently. You also won't need to buy brake pads nearly as often and oil changes should also be much less frequent...as will fuel stops hopefully.

As for cost, other threads have the breakdown of electric cost vs. gas. Depending on where you live electricity can be significantly cheaper than gas but in most cases it's almost always cheaper than gas regardless of where you live. Here in Ontario for example, driving electrically is about half the cost of gas using peak rates, which means off-peak it's probably even cheaper since most charging is done at night in the off-peak hours.

So yeah, there's a lot of misinformation about EV's out there spread by various parties - namely the Koch brothers, but others as well. People blaming 'Big Oil' here aren't crazy conspiracy theorists or anything. The Big Oil is a real thing and their anti-EV propaganda is well documented and goes back decades if you want to research it. Heck they were even found guilty of conspiracy and collusion for ripping up all of the electric street car lines throughout North America in the mid 20th Century because they wanted to sell more diesel (and buses). (Their scheme worked and that's exactly what they did. Very few North American cities managed to keep their street car lines. It's a fascinating story if you want to look it up.) They know their days are numbered and are doing everything they can to delay that eventuality. They have lots of money at stake and lots of political sway because of that money and they've learnt from Big Tobacco how fight the inevitable future. Also like Big Tobacco they do not have our best interests in mind, they are in it to make money - pure and simple, and at all costs.

The future is electric transportation, the question now is only how long will it take to get there.

 

[snorth]

You missed the manufacturing process for the batteries and what happens to the waste byproducts. A friend of mine from China used to work for a solar panel manufacturing firm. She said she was appalled at how the pipes from the factory dumped the chemical waste right into the river.

There is an environmental cost to all parts of the life cycle. The trick is trying to quantify it to be able to compare the end-result products. How do you compare chemical waste dumping to fracking to Deep Water Horizon, without cherry picking one particular pollutant?

 

[ScorpyMjolnir]

She said she was appalled at how the pipes from the factory dumped the chemical waste right into the river.

We can't forego moving the human race forward because China has a general "screw the Earth" philosophy. The correct answer is fixing that philosophy, not "let's all pollute since they do".

All the people that use "China pollutes, so why should I stop if they won't?" as their argument piss me off. This isn't playing with blocks in pre-school, this is the future of humanity on the line.

We can do better.

I know you aren't arguinig in favor of pollution. You just hit a nerve.

 

[kvmiller]

There are lots of articles about the environmental impact of electric vehicles vs. gasoline.

For example:
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/

Despite the title, it does lay out the pros and cons pretty well, and shows that even though they take a higher environmental toll to manufacture, overall electric vehicles are better in terms of environmental impact.

Here's more information about the power grid:
How Green Are Electric Cars? Depends on Where You Plug In - The New York Times

EV Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings (2012)

And my commentary is this: a gasoline-only vehicle can run on one fuel, with carbon emissions that at best, stay the same throughout its life. It is what it is. An electric vehicle's carbon footprint improves over its lifetime, as the power grid becomes more and more green. Your gasoline vehicle that you buy today and own for the next ten to fifteen years is not getting any greener. Your electric vehicle gets greener as the grid changes, when you add solar panels to your home, or if you move to a region of the country with a greater percentage of energy generated from renewable energy.

 

[DucRider]

The Hybrid version IS more friendly to the environment to operate. How much depends on your electricity source. Areas that rely heavily on coal for electricity will still be better than a gasoline engine, but to a lesser extent.

image: i.imgur.com/1zADEOB.png?1

This data was prepared for the Portland auto show, and uses the info for grid power production to calculate "upstream" greenhouse gasses. You can visit fueleconomy.gov and plug in your zip code to get an number for your region:
link: fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2&year=2017&vehicleId=38491

Compare side-by-side with the "regular" Pacifica here:
link: fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=38491&id=37292
Click the "Energy and Environment" Tab, then "Show: Tailpipe and Upstream" under Greenhouse Gas Emmisions.

You can also customize usage (freeway/city, etc) to get an estimate of annual fuel costs for your zip code by hitting the "Personalize" button.

Can't put in links/pics since this is my first post on this forum. Don't want to spam the board to create post count, so can someone embed the links?
Thanks!
Gary

 

[spicedham]

Here you go...

The Hybrid version IS more friendly to the environment to operate. How much depends on your electricity source. Areas that rely heavily on coal for electricity will still be better than a gasoline engine, but to a lesser extent.

image:

This data was prepared for the Portland auto show, and uses the info for grid power production to calculate "upstream" greenhouse gasses. You can visit fueleconomy.gov and plug in your zip code to get an number for your region:
link: fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2&year=2017&vehicleId=38491

Compare side-by-side with the "regular" Pacifica here:
link: Compare Side-by-Side
Click the "Energy and Environment" Tab, then "Show: Tailpipe and Upstream" under Greenhouse Gas Emmisions.

You can also customize usage (freeway/city, etc) to get an estimate of annual fuel costs for your zip code by hitting the "Personalize" button.

Can't put in links/pics since this is my first post on this forum. Don't want to spam the board to create post count, so can someone embed the links?
Thanks!
Gary

 

[dlieu]

If i am reading this link correctly (fueleconomy.gov), PacHy is even greener per mile than Model X by about 11-12% (as long as one manages to keep it in 100% electric mode, of course). But of course it would be severely underpowered vehicle in that comparison, so not really very surprising.

 

[Norbert]

You missed the manufacturing process for the batteries and what happens to the waste byproducts. A friend of mine from China used to work for a solar panel manufacturing firm. She said she was appalled at how the pipes from the factory dumped the chemical waste right into the river.

There is an environmental cost to all parts of the life cycle. The trick is trying to quantify it to be able to compare the end-result products. How do you compare chemical waste dumping to fracking to Deep Water Horizon, without cherry picking one particular pollutant?

See here is an example of someone believing the fake news big oil put out there. The whole "life" cycle argument that some fake news website used to show that a Chevy Suburban is more environmentally better than a Prius. That "study" used the battery warranty of 100,000 miles to use as the life span of the Prius. lol. Its a Toyota! There are plenty of Prius's used in taxi duty that surpass 300,000 miles! Probably you can find ones with 500,000 miles! With original batteries!

Hey I live in Houston, I have plenty of friends in the oil business. I'm not anti-oil. But you can certainly be pro-environmental and still be pro oil. Seems like for some its black or white with no shades in between. Rant over.

 

[igor_klay]

if you look for green effect beyond direct emission, please read very interesting article about tesla
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/

any technology has own pluses and minuses, I personally believe that hybrids are future (still not convince on 100% electric)