Hybrids revisited

Back in the foggy depths of history I posted on the personal economic merit of hybrid vehicles.  With gas prices running at full tilt towards oblivion, lets have another look shall we?

In November 2005 I said that, ignoring tax credits and battery replacement costs, gas would need to be somewhere between $2.17  and $3.53 to recoup the initial costs of buying a hybrid Civic over a traditional Civic.  On Honda's website a nice tool is now available to compare competing cars, including Honda vs. Honda.  The Hybrid is shown to cost $4840 and $3090 more than the LX and EX Civic sedans, respectively, when comparably equipped.  Mileage is 40/45 for the hybrid and 25/36 for the LX and EX.  Using the same argument as before, gas would have to cost $3.49 and $2.23 for the Hybrid to make financial sense against the LX and EX, respectively.  

Since I'm paying well over $3.00 per gallon, the hybrid, as before, is not an unreasonable choice.  However, it seems (according to the Honda website) the hybrid depreciates faster and has somewhat higher maintenance costs, which further hurts the financial strength of the gas-electric car.  

Thus, overall not much has changed in two years.  A hybrid's additional cost is small but not trivial, and the cost may be worth it to obtain the peace of mind that comes with knowing you are supporting crazed oil barons 28% less when your drive.

Ever wonder just how GM's lineup of LS motors is organized...?

Yeah, me neither. But, it's still interesting to find out.

Safety safety safety

I recently stumbled across a website that amalgamates all the auto crash test data, along with weight and safety features of the car, to give an overall safety rating. The percentage of total crashes that each specific type of crash makes up (e.g. frontal, side, rollover) is used to weight the crash test results. The website is from Informed for Life.

Overall, I like the idea and most of the execution of the website. It is hard to figure out what all the crash tests mean and what their relative importance is, and combining them all together is an important public service. Nonetheless, I have a few issues with the site. First, since they assign an average score to any category without data, some safe cars are brought down and some unsafe cars are brought up. This can give an unrealistic rating for a car, which is evident from comparison between cars that share significant parts of their design. Second, the crash tests are given uncritical trust in rating the safety. Perhaps this is the only realistic way to go about it, but I've noticed strange discrepancies in crash tests that may be worth taking into account. For instance, the NHTSA side impact tests seem overly sensitive when giving out five stars. I've noticed some cars go from a five star rating to a four star rating with the addition of side airbags. Thus, I think the IIHS side tests are much more important in determining side impact protection. Finally third, the rhetoric on the site is overly preachy and condescending. As rational as it sounds, it is not the whole truth that "...the purpose of our vehicle is to move us from point A to B, as safely as possible, and to avoid unnecessary risk-taking." If this were the case, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and the rest wouldn't (or shouldn't) exist. Perhaps it's all a matter of what "...unnecessary risk-taking..." entails, and perhaps these criteria are the ones we should usually consider and give most weight to. However, not everything in life should be a dry servitude to the safest path, and there are mixtures of enjoyment and safety in all things. Not driving at all would probably be the safest bet in any event, which would make this site useless.

I'll end on a positive note though: the site is important and I hope it stays active. With a few tweaks here and there it can become an invaluable resource, one that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone.

Microcars

I like that GM is getting around to building small cars for the US market. I also like that I can do my best to vote out the two ugly ones. Here is the website with details of what I'm talking about; follow the "Vote for Your Minicar" links to vote for the Beat. In this design I see more than a little of the Chevrolet Rally Concept that was touring the auto shows not too long ago, which is a good thing.

Sales Volume Fun

There are a few articles (Autoblog) tooling around the information superhighway about automotive sales volumes for 2006, broken into individual models. I've always thought it was strange to pick out certain models like that since many companies (that is, the domestics) sell mechanically similar cars under different names (for example the Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6). Therefore, I've compiled a list of compact, midsize and large car sales volumes from some of the major manufacturers. I've left out any overt luxury cars, since that's a different story from the mainstream offerings. The data was gathered from the Automotive Information Center for sedans, coupes and wagons. Here you go:

• Toyota
• small (Yaris, Corrolla (incl Matrix), xA, xB, tC) 630730
• midsize (Camry, Prius) 555416
• large (Avalon) 88938
  

• Honda
  
• small (Fit, Civic, Insight) 345294
• midsize (Accord) 354441
• large 0
  

• GM
  
• small (Aveo, Cobalt, Ion, Vibe) 416956
• midsize (Malibu, G6, Aura) 341243
• large (Impala, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, LaCrosse) 503687
  

• Ford
  
• small (Focus) 177006
• midsize (Fusion, Milan, Taurus, Mustang) 519688
• large (Five Hundred, Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis, Montego) 224214
  

In many cases these categories involve one platform for many cars, such as GM's midsize entries, though others clearly combine disparate designs (e.g. Ford, with the Fusion, Taurus and Mustang in the midsize category). However, I've included all the cars sold in the size class to even out the companies' marketing strategies. To that end, I think it's interesting to see GM selling almost as many midsize cars as Honda by using three closely related models. (We'll also see how the Aura does as it gets a full year of sales in 2007, likely adding more to GM's total here.) Moreover, GM clearly owns the large car market with the W-body platform cars (i.e. the ones listed). Some may call these midsize, but they are routinely compared with large cars (Car and Driver). They certainly are a step up in size, if not in price. On the other hand, Toyota clearly wins in the small car category and follows a multi-model strategy similar to GM.

NAIAS

For my annual post on the North American International Auto Show, I've snapped a few photos of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) automobiles. They're included below, along with snappy commentary in (mostly) grammatically correct sentence structures. Enjoy!

First up is my favorite car of the show, the Chevrolet Volt. I'm a nerd, so the advanced drivetrain is right up my alley. Also, I'm impatient, so the ready to be mass-produced quality is music to my ears. This is very similar to the request I made when reports of this car first surfaced a couple months ago. I hope they make it soon.

I was also impressed by the car below, the Mazda Ryuga. The organic flowing shape is modern and yet conveys a classic car look in the fenders. And dig the texturing on the sides. I love it.

Next up is the Acura sports car below, essentially the replacement for the NSX. As Car and Driver have pointed out, a shift has been made to a front engine, GT style people mover (the NSX being mid-engined). Though I like the looks of this concept, nothing is a done deal in that super competitive class, and we'll have to wait to see how this pans out for Acura.


Finally, I have to comment on a car many are hailing as one of the most important cars at the show and a huge positive for GM, the new Chevrolet Malibu. The looks have been roundly praised, with many saying it looks even better in person. I'm here to tell you it doesn't, and I wasn't impressed at all. Maybe all the hype got me too excited, but I thought it was dull looking, especially the somehow Passat-esque rear end treatment. I'll reserve my final judgment until I see them on the road however.