maintenance requirements and no "green" benefit?

10962 Views 36 Replies 20 Participants Last post by generaltso, Apr 15, 2017

NewMinivanUser

Discussion Starter · Apr 8, 2017

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.

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snorth

· #13 · Apr 10, 2017

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?

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snorth

· #22 · Apr 11, 2017 (Edited)

snorth said:
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 said:
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.

No problem, I'm completely with you on that sentiment. My point was to simply point out that everything as an environmental cost. I'm a fan of EVs, but also a fan of diesel engines because they can burn biofuels (and not crappy ethanol).

Additionally, the longer you use that EV, or those solar panels, the upfront environmental cost is amortized out further, making the overall negative impact less and less.

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snorth

· #23 · Apr 11, 2017

snorth said:
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?

Norbert said:
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.

Eh? What? I think you either missed the point of my post, or had something else on your mind that you really wanted to discuss. I've never heard of any study that claimed a Suburban was more eco-friendly than a Prius, but I'd laugh my ass of at it. You can't say that the manufacturing process for solar panels and batteries has no negative environmental impact. My point is that people who buy these should be aware of the of the full environmental cost, and advocate for improvements, similar to what Scorpy was saying. Just don't be blissfully ignorant thinking your EV or solar panels have no environmental footprint.

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snorth

· #25 · Apr 11, 2017

Norbert said:
That's the whole point, trying to discredit green cars by encompassing every thing that goes into making/transporting/marketing/research/etc to show how un-environmentally sound that makes it. Like your post about solar panels (unsubstantiated btw). A ruse by anti-greeners to make EVs look bad.

Well, this is an Internet forum, not a research fellowship. I'm telling you that I have a friend that gave me an eyewitness account. You can take it or leave it, but it matters enough to me to want to put pressure on manufacturers to do better. I still intend to buy EVs and alt-energy tech, but I like to know what impact my purchases have, just like I want people to know what impact gas cars have, both environmental and geopolitical.

Who cares? The only point that matters is when you buy it. By choosing an EV/Hybrid instead of a gas car, that's when it starts making a difference. Since that's one less gas car on the road. All the other stuff is just propaganda.

The problem is we lose credibility as proponents of alternative energy technology. We should include objectivity with our passion, and let the "anti-greeners" be the ones whose bias shreds their credibility. And FYI, when we use terms like "fake news" (I hate that one) and "propaganda", you're hurting your credibility: people who are not already in your camp will start tuning you out. That's who cares.

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