Obviously, I haven't time to study this in detail, but the whole thing 
is obviously biased. I laughed out loud when I saw some of their 
assumptions which favour US built cars over non-US ones.

When I bought my hybrid (Honda Civic - I'll abbreviate this to HCH), I 
was perfectly aware that the overall cost per km would be higher than 
had I bought a conventional Civic. It doesn't require a degree in maths 
to work that out. My motive was to reduce my carbon footprint.

Now, these geniuses claim that the HCH has a lifetime of 113000 miles 
(180,000 km). My car has an overall guarantee of 7 years or 150,000 km 
and the drive train/battery 8 years/180,000 km. Very strange that the 
guarantee for the essential parts should be exactly equal to what these 
guys say is the overall lifetime, isn't it? I also question how they 
estimate the years of service which miraculously favour US cars.

Then they claim that all hybrids are more economic in urban driving than 
on the highway. This is true of the Prius, which has a unique drive 
train system that favours urban use. It is definitely NOT true of the 
HCH, which has a totally different concept. My measured highway 
consumption is 4.9-5.2 l/100 km and my urban consumption is 5.8-6.0 
l/100 km (on one occasion in totally gridlocked traffic, it rose to 6.2, 
where a Prius would be close to 0 l/100 km under the same conditions).

Another ridiculous statement was that hybrids are all made of 
lightweight materials. If that is so, why does the HCH weigh (unladen 
and empty) 1352 kg? The battery weighs 28 kg and the electric motor 
about the same, but the 1.35 l engine is lighter than the 1.8 l engine 
of the conventional HC; in fact, the HCH and HC weigh the same to within 
20 kg. Now, my previous car was a Honda CR-V, a 4-WD half-roader. 
Despite the extra weight of the 4-WD transmission, this car, larger in 
all 3 dimensions, especially height, weighs only 1240 kg. Where are 
these famous lightweight materials, then? In the imagination of the 
authors of this report.

The next claim is that the HCH costs 142.52% of the cost price in 
maintenance charges, when all parts and labour are guaranteed over what 
they consider about its lifetime. That sounds a helluva lot to pay for 
consumables like oil, oil filters, windscreen washer fluid etc. (tyres 
are calculated separately).

Accident repair: the HCH costs $2,000 more to repair an accident than 
the HC ($9439.12 and $7366.47, resp.), even though the bodies of the 
cars are identical. In any case, my total costs for accident repairs 
over the past 20 years is exactly zero, so how do they calculate it down 
to the nearest 12 cents? Most accident repairs are little more than 
fender benders and scrapes. The essential organs of a car are relatively 
rarely damaged, and decreasing all the time as safety is improved.

Anyway, it is evident that this report has zero credibility from just 
these few examples. The best part is Appendix UU. At the best, estimates 
of various costs are so variable, that it's just plain stupid to 
calculate the costs to the cent for each item and I don't believe that 
they have access to some of the costs they claim. I believe they may 
have a big hat from which they pull their numbers. Or, rather, different 
hats for US cars, foreign cars and hybrids, to make it easier to fudge 
their numbers.

Warning: the figures, even if they were accurate, apply only to the USA 
and not to the rest of the world. We pay a lot more for fuel, for 
example, than the USA and we have much higher degrees of recycling, so 
it's a totally different ballpark. Even so, the hybrid car does not pay 
for itself in €€€ costs, compared with conventional equivalent cars, but 
what is money? I am sure that they do pay for themselves in CO2 costs 
and I, for one, am willing to pay the extra for that benefit.

Brian

Steve Gregory wrote:
> This is interesting. Link to the 458-page study is here:
>  
> http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/DUST%20PDF%20VERSION.pdf
>  
> 
> Doubts Cast on Hybrid Efficiency - Daily Auto Insider
> 
> 	
> 
> The Daily Auto Insider 
> Monday, April 3, 2006
> 
> April 2006
> 
> Driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed
> than comparable non-hybrid vehicles, according to CNW Marketing Research
> Inc.
> 
> The Bandon, Oregon, auto research firm says in a news release that it
> spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build,
> sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage.
> This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee
> driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each
> vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables.
> 
> To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was
> translated into a "dollars per lifetime mile" figure. That is, the
> Energy Cost per mile driven.
> 
> One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the
> manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries,
> electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight
> materials and complexity of the power package.
> 
> For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of
> $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the
> "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50
> percent more energy than the non-hybrid version, CNW claims.
> 
> And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted
> sport-utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or
> perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per
> mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced.
> 
> For example, while the industry average of all vehicles sold in the U.S.
> in 2005 was $2.28 cents per mile, the Hummer H3 (among most SUVs) was
> only $1.949 cents per mile. That figure is also lower than all currently
> offered hybrids and Honda Civics at $2.42 per mile.
> 
> "If a consumer is concerned about fuel economy because of family budgets
> or depleting oil supplies, it is perfectly logical to consider buying
> high fuel economy vehicles," says Art Spinella, president of CNW
> Marketing Research, Inc. "But if the concern is the broader issues such
> as environmental impact of energy usage, some high-mileage vehicles
> actually cost society more than conventional or even larger models over
> their lifetime."
> 
> The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year
> 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48
> cents. "We believe this kind of data is important in a consumer's
> selection of transportation," says Spinella. "Basing purchase decisions
> solely on fuel economy or vehicle size does not get to the heart of the
> energy usage issue."
>