-----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 2:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: AE Economics - Hybrids: Do buy the hype!
Zell, Chris wrote: >The Prius needs to be compared with a car of similar size - like a >Corolla. On that basis, savings might be hard to come by. I really, really hope that the Japanese can bring down the hybrid premium by a LOT and fast. I am old enough to recall similar arguments about Solar homes and panels that would appeal to the rich - made in the '80's. The real horror here would be a situation in which the premium NEVER comes down in real dollars - enough to justify the difference. That would suggest that the price difference represents the value of the additional energy put into the vehicle and thus - (gasp!) NEVER WOULD MAKE ANY NET DIFFERENCE in energy consumption. It's all well and good for 'experts' to calculate but the economic reality MUST agree. It reminds me of a debate between Lovins and Herman Khan many decades ago. Khan claimed that you could just drill ever deeper and Lovins countered that the extra drilling represented more fossil fuel energy expended, so that at some point, you couldn't justify going deeper. Damn! I wish somebody would invent a super battery and end this nightmare!
