Hybrid Calculations

[ouij]

Finally someone has decided to do the hard econometric number-crunching on whether getting a hybrid car saves you money.

The conclusion, surprisingly, is not really:

it is painfully obvious that existing hybrids lack the ability to make up for their steep prices with gas savings. While a hybrid would present significant savings over something like

Comments

[ouij]

Hybrids in VA are considered "clean special fuel" vehicles, and as such, are entitled to drive in HOV lanes, even as single-occupancy vehicles, until July 1 , 2006. (so get on the hybrid bandwagon, quick, especially if you intend to commute on I-66 or the various spaghetti-like variants of I-95.

(although, if you're commuting on I-66 into the District, you should be shot, since the Metro is a far better alternative.)

I also have anecdotal evidence that hybrids are exempt from all or most of the personal-property tax on cars, but I can't find any official pronouncement on the 'net to that effect. Worth asking someone with a hybrid in VA.

[stemware]

I think there's a 2 year exemption from the state or something similar, and the federal government also gives a tax credit of some sort for them.

The HOV lane deal is supposedly illegal under the eyes of the federal government and was supposed to expire this year. I don't know what happened with that.

[ouij]

In new news, the Feds are going to give up to $3000 or so in tax breaks to purchasers of hybrids, starting January 1. The catch: only the first 60,000 vehicles per manufacturer will qualify.

[stemware]

This is an interesting analysis

[ouij]

Environmental costs are indeed very difficult to calculate. You bring up an excellent point about battery toxicity and possible costs for disposal/recycling. But there is the case to make that at least battery waste is concentrated and thus easily-contained.

In contrast, tailpipe emissions waft everywhere. There is an emerging academic literature on the public health costs of local atmospheric pollution, which presumably increases with the total amount of petroleum burned. NOx, unburned hydrocarbons, and fine suspended particulates, added up over thousands of tailpipes, makes for some pretty potent smog in many places of the world. DC is a pretty clean area in this regard; when I left London, I felt like I'd given up smoking. Manila is even worse

[stemware]

You know, you bring up an interesting point there - battery waste can be concentrated. I was thinking about this concept this morning as a matter of fact.

Before we started removing lots of resources from the earth's crust, there were deposits of minerals and other here and there, some of them toxic such as oil. There really is no difference between having an iron ore deposit in northern Michigan and having a junk yard in Texas.