Alpha's Open Discussion

Hi folks,

So you think you are helping to reduce CO2 emissions by buying Toyota Prius or Honda Insight? Think again!
Let’s take 3 very different cars and compare CO2 emissions:
Porsche 911 Carrera, BMW 325 and Toyota Prius.
While their price tag varies from $22,400 for Prius to $77,000 for Carrera,
let’s assume that price does not matter to you, and you just want a car that’s Earth-friendly.

Straight facts:
Toyota Prius CO2 emissions: 104 g/km
BMW 325: 170 g/km
Porsche 911 Carrera: 225 g/km

Now, Prius is a hybrid, so it has to get its electricity from somewhere, right?
Where do you think it comes from? If you’re thinking coal and oil – you are absolutely right.
Just like the electricity for your TV and hot water, it comes from high CO2-emmitting standard energy resources.
If you take the emissions required to charge up the battery of your awkward-looking Prius
and add 104 g/km CO2 emissions from its regular oil-based engine, guess what?
You’ll be darn close to CO2 emissions of BMW 325, and not so far from Porsche 911 emissions.
My point is: maybe it’s time to stop cheating yourself by buying Prius,
Insight and other soulless automobiles and pretending that you care about mother Earth,
when in fact you’re short on cash to buy a machine that actually was meant to be driven, doesn’t get you depressed or mocked at?
May I suggest the iconic 911?

This is very interesting information maybe not appropriate for a Modeller's forum but interesting nonetheless. Being no expert on the the Toyota hybrid line I thought the power was generated by the braking sytems?! So please forgive if I don't understand how the battery generates CO2 emissions. Could you please elaborate for those that are unware of these facts. Thank you.

not everybody has 100,000 of dollars to throw away although it sounds like you do... for people that are daily commuters the pirus is a nice comfortable and affordable car.... as for the CO2 emissions i dont really believe the pirus is a car you plug in... the cars batteries are charged off of the deceleration of the car... when you take your foot off the gas and apply the brake the generator in the car kicks in and starts recharging the battery... not to mention you arent stating any facts as to the amount of CO2 emissions are actually created if this car was to be charged off of a wall outlet... i would think the battery would be trickle charged over night drawing less than 1 amp up to 6 amps depending on the batterys energy levels... if you were to do the math... on that the power consumption for an 8 hour charge... starting at 960 watt going up to 5,760 watts... the average person wouldnt need to charge the vehicle every night so lets say it gets charged 5 nights out of the week... 4,800 watts up to 48,800 watts thats relatively small CO2 emissions compared to your overpriced sports cars you are comparing... your home air conditioner and furnace use more hydro than the pirus in half the time even with the energy star rating...