Driving off the fat of the land.

November 1, 2006 10:41 AM

Biodiesel or hybrid? I need a new car, and of course there's

I'm interested in hearing opinions, facts, pros, cons, conjectures, slander, and testimonials regarding both biodiesel and hybrid technology.

Which is better for the enviornment? Which is more efficient? Which is cheaper? Cleaner?

Also, which cars are available? I want something with a bit of personality as well as some reasonable get-up-and-go, and most of the hybrids I see are boring sedans. On the other hand, most diesels I see are trucks. What are my options?

posted by kaseijin to travel & transportation (19 comments total)

As per mileage efficiency:

If you are driving around in a city, stop and go a lot, then hybrids are your best bet.

If you do a lot of long distance traveling, then diesel is better.
posted by sulaine at 11:03 AM on November 1, 2006

If you're concerned about "get up and go", you should take a hybrid for a test drive.

Mrs.Tacos drives one, and it's far more drivable than the diesel-sipping car we had on vacation.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 11:11 AM on November 1, 2006

Recent TDI engine VWs. I have an '01 Golf TDI, and it's very fun to drive, no conversion necessary, plus youc an mix regular diesel the tank if you travel someplace biodiesel is hard to get. MPG go as high as 50 for this car.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:26 AM on November 1, 2006

What are your biodiesel options in your area? How far are you going to have to drive to get it?

Biodiesel has lower emissions in a couple of categories, but it doesn't qualify your car as a Very Low Emissions Vehicle. That could be worth money if states start offering discounts for VLEVs, but there's no guarantee that'll happen.

Here's the list of current and upcoming hybrids. The MPG dropoff for SUVs and trucks is enough that I don't see the point. If you must have funky, get one of Honda or Toyota's non-hybrid subcompacts, which get mileage real close to our Priuses in the real world. (I'm getting 46 w/o A/C driving 75% surface 25% freeway, driving efficiently as much as I can. My husband gets 39ish on a longer, congested, mostly freeway commute, not really driving to maximize efficiency.) It's pretty good for stop and go with a max speed of 45mph and the occasional highway jaunt; you lose a lot if you're going to have to sit or creep very much, or if everyone's going 80.

The Prius is not a small car, really; it's a small station wagon. It's very nearly as long as my old Cherokee. If there'd been a smaller option, I would have taken it - that upcoming 08 Fit hybrid, for example, would have been perfect. The Prius is quite safe, though, which is my one concern with subcompacts. And the handling is pretty nice, nicer than you'll get on a sub. And on preview, yes, it is quite zippy when it needs to be, though you'll pay for fast takeoffs in your efficiency.

I can't say right now that my car is cheaper to operate than, say, a Jetta on biodiesel. It was probably true a month ago, though, and I'd put money on it being true after the elections next week.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:38 AM on November 1, 2006

One problem posed to me is that I am absolutely opposed to ever owning another VW. The car that I'm getting rid of is a VW...and a true lemon in the most terrible of ways.

That, and they don't seem to be offering TDI models this year.
posted by kaseijin at 11:52 AM on November 1, 2006

Rapid points:

* Diesel exhaust is not nice stuff. (This point assumes you'll typically be using a blended fuel.)
* Ethanol-based fuels are not sustainable in the long term. They produce only a little more fuel than they consume to produce (fertilisers and pesticides are commonly petrolium-based), plus they take up farming land. (While they can be produced from otherwise wasted parts of crops, existing crops are either already or soon will be not enough.)
* Hybrids are great if you're in gridlock, as when you aren't moving you aren't using any power/fuel.
* If you're not typically in gridlock, a Swatch Smart has the same fuel economy as a Prius and is significantly cheaper (and easier to park)
posted by krisjohn at 2:59 PM on November 1, 2006

Smart cars are awesome but sadly unavailable in the US, unless you are willing to import it yourself and jump through all sorts of hoops to make it street legal in the US. I know one person who has done this, and loves his Smart car, but money is not an object the way it is for most of us.
posted by ambrosia at 3:38 PM on November 1, 2006

Hybrids are great if you're in gridlock, as when you aren't moving you aren't using any power/fuel.

Not true for the non-plug-in hybrids on the road in the US right now. You're using less fuel, but you are using it. Maintaining the cooling and other subsystems still drains the storage batteries, which do not carry an extensive load. Sitting still (especially sitting completely still, where you're generating no charge off the brakes/engine braking) in the Prius, the gas engine cuts on and off every couple of minutes. It's hell on the gas mileage but still better than sitting there idling the whole time.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:53 PM on November 1, 2006

"Clean" diesels (i.e. with catalytic particulate-destroying filters) are at least another year out (the sulfur regulations are in effect, but aren't being rigorously enforced yet). If you need it now, get a hybrid.
posted by oats at 3:54 PM on November 1, 2006

kaseijin: you should get in touch with my friends', the bonezes, (you've met them before at a variety of birthdays). They have a hybrid and love the hell out of it. It also seems to come with quite a bit of vroom, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. Find me on google talk or some such and I'll pass on their info.

Also: I freaking miss you and I am very glad for the last couple hours we spent together.
posted by nadawi at 4:14 PM on November 1, 2006

Well, this Audi is the best diesel-powered car I know if, but you probably can't afford that particular model. VW, Audi and Mercedes are the only brands famous enough for selling diesel-powered cars in North America for me to have heard of them. I don't think you'll find much else in the way of diesel, assuming you are in fact American.

None of the current crop of hybrids really appeal to me that much, so personally I'm waiting for battery technology to improve a bit more and plug-in hybrids to become widely available before spending any more money than necessary on automotive technology.

"Clean" diesels (i.e. with catalytic particulate-destroying filters) are at least another year out

I've heard somewhere that there will be kits available to modify old cars to burn clean with the new low-sulphur fuel. I don't think it's likely to matter much if you're just running biodiesel, though, but maybe something to look into.
posted by sfenders at 4:35 PM on November 1, 2006

assuming you are in fact American.

On checking querant's profile; dude, if you live there, where you can ride a motorcycle year-round, then that'd be the efficient, environmentally-friendly thing to get.
posted by sfenders at 4:39 PM on November 1, 2006

Lyn, i think you're doing something wrong in your prius. i regularly get 52-54mpg with 80% freeway driving, and if i could do 75% city driving, as you seem to be, at ~45mph i could probably get 60-65mpg.

unless your air temperatures are significantly below 65 degree F, of course. and this assumes flat terrain, hills are hell on the mpg.

anyway to answer the question, my understanding is what krisjohn posted above... the emissions from a diesel are bad news, and the prius emissions are lower than regular cars that get similar gas mileage but are not hybrids.
posted by joeblough at 4:41 PM on November 1, 2006

White paper with some relevant numbers here.
posted by flabdablet at 5:22 PM on November 1, 2006

Biodiesels are a little cleaner than regular diesels from an emissions stand point (a bit lower NOX, but the same PM10). Most biodiesel producers use 1.2 to 1.3 times the energy to make the fuel than it produces. Biodiesel prices are currently about twice that of petrodiesel, wholesale. It's very hard to find commercial biodiesel at the pump though.

Modern diesels, like the VW, are almost indistinguishable from driving a gasoline-powered car. Diesels do get more miles to the gallon than gas, but produce approximately the same carbon dioxide per mile. Diesel costs less to operate, but is a wash from a greenhouse-gas-emissions pov.

Ethanol-blended gas is a scheme to subsidize the big corn-growing multinationals. It has little connection to reducing greenhouse emissions (net higher CO2 emissions for corn ethanol), or better gas milage. With E85, you'll burn about 50% more fuel than unblended gas.

Hybrids are worth the hype. They're not quite as good as advertised (because most people accelerate too fast), but they do reduse a normal driver's fuel usage. They are especially good if you drive in stop-and-go traffic a lot. If you mostly drive on highways, they're not much better than a regular car.
posted by bonehead at 6:26 PM on November 1, 2006

To clarify -- I do live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. My commute to work consists of about an hour and a half of stop/start highway gridlock each way. Riding a motorcycle isn't so much of an option for a variety of reasons:

1 - I have worked briefly in an ER and consequently will never ride a bike on a freeway.

2 - Road (as in, on the tarmac -- not air temp) temperatures in this area get up to 120 in the summer. I don't want to be without the AC for that.

3 - Rain/hail. Ouch. Also, the highways here are absolutely befouled by a MASSIVE number of rock-tossing construction vehicles. Seriously. IH-35 is a major trucking thoroughfare.

It sounds like hybrid may be a good option. Can anybody tell me how exactly it works? People who have them? Pros and cons? Given my commute, is it a good option? Would it really be that efficient?

A smart car would be stupendous if I could get one in the states, and if it was highway safe. Freeway driving in the D/FW area is not for the faint of heart.

(nads - miss you guys, too! Quite jealous that you and the fella get to move to cooler climes whilst I am incinerating here!)
posted by kaseijin at 7:15 PM on November 1, 2006

joeblough, I live in DFW. If I only went out at midnight I could get in the 50s; in fact if I gas up on Friday night, I do get in the 50s until Monday. I'm not seeing anybody on the various hybrid/prius boards getting bingo mileage in large urban areas working more than a couple of miles from home. I could squeeze a little more efficiency out of it, except as I said I'm in DFW and don't want to get shot for holding up traffic. I'm already at a higher risk for not exercising my god-given obligation to consume gasoline at the highest possible rate.

Someone would back their H2 over a Smart Car here, maybe even accidentally.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:33 AM on November 2, 2006

:) texas is weird.

my evening commute is full of stop-and-go traffic (0-10mph) and i'm able to get 65-70mpg for at least 15-20 minutes in that situation. i dont know how much longer that would keep up since that's about the extent of the traffic jam. but the battery isnt empty after that portion of my commute, and the engine is running on and off. the key is just to be very easy on the throttle and try not to get the engine coming on every time you start up from a standstill again.

of course, yes, if the AC was running it would be a very different story. that thing sucks the battery down like no tomorrow.

kaseijin - i work 42.1 miles from my home, but the weather is pretty temperate and i dont need the AC. so i guess Lyn Never's experience is going to be more like yours. i think the prius is pretty sensitive to air temperature when it comes to gas mileage. in the winter, when air temps are in the 50s-60s, i seem to get about 45MPG where in the summer its closer to 50-52 as i mentioned above. hot weather may be similar, both because of the AC and perhaps because of engine efficiency.
posted by joeblough at 2:32 PM on November 2, 2006

My wife has a hybrid, and we use it anytime we expect to be stuck in traffic. The mileage just gets better, the more obnoxious the driving is.

I saw a Smart car on the road yesterday, but I have no idea what state/country it was registered in. Personally, I wouldn't want one in stop and go traffic. I'd be afraid of getting rear-ended.

The wife's Prius seems to get around 45-50mpg in stop and go driving. (More if I drive, less if she does.) Her old Civic Hybrid was substantially lower than that (35-40mpg, probably).

They work by running a big-ass electric motor much of the time, and recharging a battery whenever you are stopping. The gasoline motor also puts excess energy into the battery, which then runs the motor. On a Prius, there's a nifty little dashboard display that shows you exactly where energy is going to and from at any given moment, if you're curious.

Honestly, I don't know of any Cons to the hybrid. There is a federal tax credit that cuts the initial cost by a little (the prius got us $3500, the civic got us $2k), and a lot of states have similar tax credits to stack on top of it. In some states you can drive in HOV lanes by yourself in a hybrid, and in LA you can park for free in a hybrid.

Pretty good deal, really.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 10:51 AM on November 9, 2006