Thread: Is my Rangie more environmentally proper than a Prius?

The production of batteries for the prius have a huge environmental cost having circled the globe from mining of the minerals, through manufacture of the batteries to supply to Toyota for installation into the Prius, before it is shipped to the customer. The NRMA man down the road has suggested that he has seen numerous Prius less than 6 years old that needed replacement battery packs, in spite of the warranty period from Toyota. While it may not cost the owner to replace the pack, it does cost the environment.

In peak hour bumper to bumper traffic the Prius is significantly more environmentally friendly than your P38a, but once travelling over 75KPH any number of modern conventionally (petrol) powered vehicles of similar size to the Prius are more enviro friendly than the Prius. The Prius in the fleet of cars for the Child Health Network at Dubbo had the worst fuel economy of all the vehicles (Corollas and Ford Focus') and had less performance at the highway speeds the vehicles travelled on trips as far away as Broken Hill and Bourke.

Yes your P38a will outlast the Prius and have a lesser footprint over the vehicle lifespan, (dust to dust) but not while you sit in the daily traffic jam.

Diana

The Prius works well in the environment it was designed for but extremely poorly outside it. If it had a small turbo diesel engine rather than its pidley petrol engine it would be even more efficient - unfortunately its main market is the US where diesels in cars are frowned upon so the petrol stays.

The environmental damage in building older cars has already happened so there is a lot of value in retaining them - maybe with improvements to engine efficiency - building new cars pollute now.

Garry

With you 100%. Did you see the top gear episode where they did a comparison with a pre and m3 on fuel. M3 v8 won when driven normally. Pre are too heavy so they do not work. Yes, all those batteries.

I think you're right - at the moment. The mistake often made is to think of todays hybrid as the end-point. Certainly at this point they are less than ideal for anything other than inner-city stop, start driving.

If you think of the current crop of hybrids like the first model Rangie, imagine what the L322 of hybrids could be - 30 years of development using real world testing by real world users. The L322 would never have been (nor, arguably would any coil sprung constant 4x4 luxury off road machine) without 30 years of refinement.

I like to imagine we are on the crest of a new wave of vehicles - some will tumble down the face and be lost, others will make it to the shore and leave a high-water mark.

On a related note, although the batteries are environmentally unfriendly (undisputed), the issue that hybrids and other alternative power vehicles do address is Peak Oil.

Enjoy your reborn Rangie, it sounds like a beaut! I'm going to keep enjoying my old Landies too, as long as I can (then the IIA is getting a leccy motor!)...

Cheers,

Adam

Originally Posted by Sydr

He bought a Prius, boasted of its fuel consumption

What does this forum think?

Yea ...right .... "have a ride in me Prius" ....

... Real chick magnet there ..



At least he'll be popular at the shopping centre for Jump starts

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

The production of batteries for the prius have a huge environmental cost having circled the globe from mining of the minerals, through manufacture of the batteries to supply to Toyota for installation into the Prius, before it is shipped to the customer. The NRMA man down the road has suggested that he has seen numerous Prius less than 6 years old that needed replacement battery packs, in spite of the warranty period from Toyota. While it may not cost the owner to replace the pack, it does cost the environment.

In peak hour bumper to bumper traffic the Prius is significantly more environmentally friendly than your P38a, but once travelling over 75KPH any number of modern conventionally (petrol) powered vehicles of similar size to the Prius are more enviro friendly than the Prius. The Prius in the fleet of cars for the Child Health Network at Dubbo had the worst fuel economy of all the vehicles (Corollas and Ford Focus') and had less performance at the highway speeds the vehicles travelled on trips as far away as Broken Hill and Bourke.

Yes your P38a will outlast the Prius and have a lesser footprint over the vehicle lifespan, (dust to dust) but not while you sit in the daily traffic jam.

Diana

Well, my gut feel is that despite my car's thirst, given its life cycle and the fact that it is worth recycling it (to me, a personal view admittedly), then over its entire life cycle there is a case to argue that despite its thirst, its overall impact may be less than the footprint of 1 conventional vehicle plus two hybrids. Or am I out with the fairies?

And surely the overall dust to dust impact is what we should be concerned about, not the fact that while it is idling or in traffic, for that instant it is a poorer option.

Originally Posted by Sydr

Well, my gut feel is that despite my car's thirst, given its life cycle and the fact that it is worth recycling it (to me, a personal view admittedly), then over its entire life cycle there is a case to argue that despite its thirst, its overall impact may be less than the footprint of 1 conventional vehicle plus two hybrids. Or am I out with the fairies?

And surely the overall dust to dust impact is what we should be concerned about, not the fact that while it is idling or in traffic, for that instant it is a poorer option.

Yes the dust to dust is where our vehicles come out ahead, but to more time our vehicles spend in stop start traffic, the longer they need to survive before they have a lower impact than more modern efficient vehicles. (Like my new D4 SDV6 )

By the way, I absolutely agree with you, I generally despise Prius, but in very limited car congested environments they have their place. I reduce my RRc's greenhouse impact by LPG and starting work after the morning peak and finishing after the afternoon peak. At 27 years in my possession, my RRc must have a very small footprint considering others will have had 8 cars in the same timeframe.

Originally Posted by Sydr

Well, my gut feel is that despite my car's thirst, given its life cycle and the fact that it is worth recycling it (to me, a personal view admittedly), then over its entire life cycle there is a case to argue that despite its thirst, its overall impact may be less than the footprint of 1 conventional vehicle plus two hybrids. Or am I out with the fairies?

And surely the overall dust to dust impact is what we should be concerned about, not the fact that while it is idling or in traffic, for that instant it is a poorer option.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Yes the dust to dust is where our vehicles come out ahead,
[snip]

My gut says the same, particularly when development and tooling costs are taken into account.

This is why I have no qualms driving a Defender, and I'm considered a yoga practising, chick pea munching hippy in these parts