Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 4, 2006

Hybrid Cars Not That Energy Efficient

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In his latest book The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery suggests we can all do our bit for the environment including by considering buying a hybrid car.

However, according to CNW Marketing Research Inc. as reported at Auto Spectator, and they spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage, well, hybrid cars are not that energy efficient:

“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.

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.

While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles.

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.”

And I recently bought a little red manual Ford Fiesta (non-hybrid) as my 17 year old daughter is now learning to drive. She is doing OK, but I keep my eyes closed a bit.

Good News About Gouldian Finches

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Its good news that numbers of the endangered gouldian finch appear to be increasing in northern Australia.

Colleen O’Malley, from the Threatened Species Network, told ABC Online that:

“We’re talking birds in the vicinity of 200 to 400 in a flock, which is a really exciting thing that sort of harks back to the days when there were flocks of thousands of birds.”

And ABC Online were following up on a media release from WWF. WWF runs the threatened species network with public money.

Interestingly the WWF media release doesn’t come with a link to a full report or a chart showing bird numbers, but rather with a link to page where we are told WWF wants your help to find Gouldian finches in the wild and have produced the Gouldian Finch Sightings Kit. The kit does include some information on the ecology of the species in northern Australia.