Hybrid cars and their ROI

I’ve said it before, but here goes. You buy a car and it’s already consumed somewhere between 40 and 60% of it’s ‘carbon quota’. The numbers vary with size and complexity, number of miles driven, total life-span of the car but the point is that fuel use is only one factor. Unless your new car’s steel and aluminium was smelted with hydro or nuclear power it’s likely as not come out of a coal-fired oven. Then there’s all the petro-chemical plastics that go into a car…plus the shipping of parts and the finished good to you by ship and truck. The math is not as simple as ‘oh, hybrids are better because they save fuel relative to a petrol car the same size’. Read more...