Quantum Rehab Q6 Performance

No more deals after Labor Day?

No more deals after summer?

“This may be as good as it gets, and get used to it,” Jeff Schuster, the executive director of forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates, recently told the AP about summer car deals.

In the past automakers have used August to unload excess inventories in preparation for new models, but more and more excess inventories are becoming a thing of the past as automakers pare down production.

So, is Labor Day your last best chance for a good deal on a hybrid?

That’s the conventional wisdom amongst most automotive analysts. Still, with hybrid sales tanking, for instance, will automakers never again offer a deal to move inventory? Obviously, only time will tell, but the deals on hybrid vehicles have typically been far less ripe than those offered on pickup trucks, for instance, so the lack of a summer sale will probably have limited impact on hybrid sales and hybrid prices.

Likewise, with Toyota anticipating a large increase in hybrid sales over the next few years, coupled with growing competition, especially from lukewarm Ford, and red hot Hyundai, cheaper hybrid prices seem an inevitable trend.

Nevertheless, the Nissan Altima hybrid is still one of the best deals this summer, so that’s worth a look if in the market. Likewise, Toyota Prius leases are the best I’ve ever seen. For other hybrids, why not make a low ball offer? The future probably holds better hybrid pricing anyway, and that makes it a bit easier to walk away if your dealer won’t budge on pricing.

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Quantum Baixa

Shifting into fuel economy

Hybrid fuel economy or hybrid performance?

When the Lexus CT 200h hybrid hits dealers it will offer 4 different driving modes – Normal, Eco, Sport and EV – that will provide a nice element of control that might be demanded from Lexus drivers.

While control is a nice option, is a focus on fuel economy slipping away from hybrid technology?

Much of my hybrid driving is focused on trying to achieve ever-greater fuel efficiency but there are times, however, when I’ve definitely taken advantage of the extra torque my Camry hybrid can provide. No one’s perfect. Even hypermilers need to step on it every once in a while just to get the blood flowing.

And, as new hybrids hit the scene, newer and more sophisticated driving modes are becoming standard. In the upcoming CT 200h hybrid for instance, EV mode can be used to power through some extremely sluggish congestion using pure electricity, and Eco mode can provide the most efficient driving in a any kind of driving conditions. Of course, if you just want a nice balance of performance and efficiency, normal is your mode, but if you need to get the blood pumping, Sport mode will help cure the craving.

There’s no harm in that, right? And in a luxury brand like Lexus, Sport mode will probably enable the CT200h to appeal to a wider range of buyers.

Still, horsepower and acceleration have been big drivers of the US auto industry for decades, resulting in a massive foreign oil dependency problem. While hybrid drivers will certainly appreciate ever greater control over their hybrid vehicles via such driving modes, isn’t it possible that hybrid buyers are slowly being led astray from the original point of hybrid technology: fuel economy?

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Too reliable for a mechanic to make a living.

Reliable hybrid cars

Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers have picked the ten cars they hate the most for being too reliable. “Yes, the cars we hate most, as mechanics,” claim the brothers, “are the cars that provide us with the fewest repair dollars.”

The list is mostly Japanese and includes 2 hybrid cars: the Ford Fusion hybrid and the Toyota Prius.

Regarding the Prius, the brothers note, “From our point of view, the Prius is terrible news for mechanics — not even the brakes wear out, thanks to the regenerative braking system. All we get to install are wiper blades. How are you supposed to buy a pair of Jet Skis on that money?”

And the Fusion, it’s one of the “few American cars that really approach the reliability of the Japanese brands.”

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GM's 'revolutionary' HCCI engine

Embracing efficient and cost-effective change

A new study claims that by 2035 US light duty fleet fuel economy could be tripled to 74 mpg without plug-in or hydrogen technology, at a much cheaper cost than achieving the same goal through plug-in or or hydrogen technologies.

So, have plug-ins become an excuse – dare I say a greenwashing effort – by automakers to delay change as long as possible? Are plug-ins just like yesterday’s flex-fuel CAFE credits?

The study A Fuel Efficiency Horizon for US Automobiles doesn’t suggest that plug-ins are about greenwashing, that’s my suggestion based upon the history of the US auto industry. It’s just that in my opinion, selling 50,000 plug-in vehicles per year doesn’t justify selling 1 million 17 mpg pickup trucks, just as adding never-used flex fuel technology to gas guzzlers didn’t justify CAFE credits that enabled automakers to blatantly violate CAFE requirements , resulting in increased foreign oil dependence.

Unfortunately, good intentions resulted in bad results.

Fortunately, that’s not to say that plug-ins or hydrogen won’t offer the world a fantastic future. It’s just that both technologies are simply not cost-effectively mature, and betting the farm on them as THE solution is very inefficient and cost-ineffective. Sadly, the evidence supporting the fact that plug-ins simply are not cost-effective, and will almost certainly not be cost-effective for decades, is nothing short of overwhelming.

Of course, some Eureka moment in the basement of some college laboratory could instantly change that, but until that happens, shouldn’t we be doing everything else that we can as quickly as we can, especially when “projected fuel savings greatly exceed upfront costs”?

Plug-in vehicles are a technology that MUST be pursued; however, if its going to take decades for plug-ins to mature into the dominant mainstream solution, shouldn’t we be putting greater focus on what else can be done in the interim? How is achieving today, what automakers want to put off until tomorrow, so bad for America if “savings greatly exceed upfront costs”?

Minimally, isn’t it time for an honest, transparent national discussion on energy policy?

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Good for just 70 mpg?

An extra 20 mpg

What’s it like to drive a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid? What kind of fuel economy does it achieve? What’s the EV range? Time to charge, etc?

MotorTrend answers those questions today in a great article on the plug-in Prius and, well, the plug-in Prius drives pretty much like a regular Toyota Prius, while achieving an extra 20 mpg in fuel economy.

Big deal? Just 20 mpg more? Well, what if the plug-in Prius costs less than a conventional Prius?

Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but according to the MotorTrend article, the lithium-ion battery pack in the plug-in Toyota Prius actually costs less than the NiMH battery pack in the conventional Prius. MotorTrend writes, “lithium-ion batteries presently cost something like $600 per kW-hr, meaning the PPI’s (Prius Plug-In’s) battery alone could run about $2000, less the price of its displaced nickel-metal hydride pack (price: $2729).”

Even if true, there is a more sophisticated battery management system, for instance, that also has to be factored into the costs, as well as a ton of new software. So, there will be additional plug-in costs beyond the battery.

Nevertheless, I’m befuddled. Not long ago Toyota stopped plans to switch to lithium-ion batteries in the third generation Prius because of additional costs. If a conventional Prius only needs 1.3 kwh of battery, wouldn’t lithium be much cheaper than NiMH at $800 for 1.3 kwh’s for lithium verus $2729 for NiMH? So, why did Toyota claim costs would be higher?

Anyway, I wonder, how many more would buy a Prius if they could achieve an extra 20 mpg for the same cost as today’s Prius? Would sales double, triple, more? Would having to plug-in to achieve this extra 20 mpg be too much of a burden for most Prius buyers? And, as a bonus question, would the plug-in Prius outsell the conventional Prius if the conventional Prius was $1500 cheaper?

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US dependent upon on China for 17 critical rare earths

Can rare earth activities in US catch up in time?

For a few years now worries about a rare earth metal shortage have been growing. Several times this topic has been covered on this blog regarding rare earths and hybrid cars, most recently in:  Just how important are rare earth metals? and Hybrid crazy China: Supply and demand manipulation?.

And the worries seem to be intensifying.

“The situation is nothing short of a crisis,” says Karl A. Gschneidner Jr., a senior metallurgist at Iowa State University’s Ames Laboratory who has been studying rare-earth materials there since the 1960s, according to fascinating piece by Chemical and Engineering News . “There is nearly zero rare-earth mining, processing, and research going on now in the U.S.,” claims Gschneidner.

Today, Electron Energy, the last US rare earth metal magnet producer – the type of magnets critical for countless technologies – is worried.

“We’ve seen rare-earth prices increase steadily in recent years,” claims Eltectron’s CEO Peter C. Dent, “but until now, we have been able to get the supplies we need. We’re very concerned now about the long-term availability of these materials.”

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Except the hybrid versions.

As red, white and blue as it gets

Essentially, every foreign brand saw their sales get hammered in August, and while US automakers also experienced declining sales, sales of pickup trucks continue to post gains.

Without big gas guzzling pickup trucks, the Big 3 would be seeing a lot of red.

Cars.com has put together a pretty scary Top Ten sales chart for August. Outside of Big 3 pickup trucks, only the Hyundai Sonata posted a gain in monthly sales.

Obviously, there were no hybrid cars on the list.

No wonder there is a double standard in CAFE regulations.

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Camry hybrid just can't compete

Camry sales, but not the hybrid, lead way

Sales of Toyota hybrid cars dropped from 17,504 hybrids in July to 15,444 hybrids in August, as the Toyota Prius dropped from 14,102 sales in July, to 11,799 sales in August.

Despite some of the best lease deals ever on the Toyota Prius, hybrid sales continue to remain unimpressive.

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