A Word on Hybrids

[Laurence MacNeill]

I just watched the “A Word on Hybrids” (and it’s re: video) and wanted to make a couple of comments about it…

Like you, I think a company which advertises that their product will do something, and then it doesn’t do that thing, should be held accountable. As you mentioned, the EPA-derived fuel-mileage numbers are the *only* numbers that an auto-manufacturer may advertise. Since that’s the case, I disagree with your position on this specific case — Honda was forced, by law, to advertise those numbers, and thus shouldn’t be held responsible for them. The court-decision against Honda being overturned is a good thing, in my opinion, based on the fact that Honda had no choice but to advertise the EPA numbers. The EPA is the entity who should’ve been held responsible, not Honda — it is the EPA who should’ve been forced to pay the woman who sued Honda. But good luck making that happen. 🙂

One other thing I wanted to comment on — you mentioned that at one point you thought Hydrogen would be the solution, but then decided against that because of the Platinum and Palladium “problem.” Well, yes, it’s true that Platinum and Palladium would be needed to make Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles — but an internal-combustion engine can be made to run on Hydrogen instead of gasoline or Diesel fuel. So, personally, I still think Hydrogen is the answer, as long as we don’t concentrate on making Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles — if we continue to refine and improve the internal-combustion engine, we can make all the Hydrogen-fueled internal-combustion engines we need without having to worry about the Platinum and Palladium supply. In fact, a Hydrogen-fueled internal-combustion engine wouldn’t even need a catalytic converter because there would be so few (if any) pollutants coming out of the tailpipe — so the world’s supply of Platinum and Palladium would actually *increase* if we were to switch to Hydrogen-fueled internal-combustion engines, since we would no longer be using those materials to make catalytic converters.

As always, I enjoy your videos — keep up the good work!
L.

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[EricTheCarGuy]

Thanks for sharing your opinions. Personally, I don’t think theres much more improvement left in internal combustion. I think the answer might lie in something we haven’t thought of yet. The public has yet to embrace a solution because each has it’s flaws. I think in the end it will be high fuel prices that drive the technology and will hopefully lead us to a solution. Till then, we can keep trying different things until we find something that’s viable, hybrids included.

[Author]

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