GM hybrid buses not "hybrid" enough
The promised 60 percent fuel savings General Motors said the Seattle fleet would see are barely reaching the 20 percent mark. While the buses are saving around the average of 400,000 gallons of fuel a year, it all comes down to bottom line and at the current cost of diesel fuel, Seattle will unlikely be able to make up the extra $200,000 cost of the hybrids. Though the Seattle spin is positive, "We're quite happy, actually," said Jim Boon, maintenance manger for the buses. "We did not buy these for fuel economy." That's a little hard to believe. Other cities are complaining, though giving once again the correct answer as "we intended them for emissions reduction". There's a lot of give and take in the hybrid world.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
laserwizard 10:31PM (12/18/2005)
Well, it appears that today's GM is all about promising much and then spinning the bad news into something quite else. Bobbie Putz has promised us quite a lot and we've been stuck with dull G6's which are nearly stealth because you aren't drawn to them.
GM's hybrid program is more a name only program where they have a full-sized pickup that they call a hybrid but it really isn't and isn't available across the whole US. The fact that GM's hybrid bus delivers less on the promise than the promise itself is really not a surprise. The fact that Seattle would now have to spin this to a very PC response of "saving the environment" is actually quite funny - but I guess they must spin it in some fashion where they can save face if not save money.
What is a shame is that through use of clean diesel fuel technology Seattle and GM could save both fuel and preserve cleaner air at likely a lower cost.
Seattle should be proud, however, that they own a GM vehicle that hasn't yet been recalled. Now that is quite a feat these days!
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RC 10:31PM (12/18/2005)
The Seattle comment may include a little spin, but not as much as you think. The hybrid buses have been used to replace commuter routes that were previously serviced by buses with *independent* diesel and electric drives. This was "required" by the suburbanites who wouldn't accept the idea of transferring from a (freeway-capable) diesel bus to a (bus-tunnel-capable) electric bus. The hybrid buses are able to run through the tunnels because of their lower emissions. Little gas savings is seen because these are commuter routes which make heavy use of the freeway. A more significant improvement in gas mileage would be seen if they were tasked to stop-and-go city routes. Having seen the tail pipe emissions of the previous buses and the new GM hybrids, I can tell you the latter are a major improvement.
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syzygy 10:31PM (12/18/2005)
Its also worth pointing out that hybrids help diesel vehicles out a lot less. One of the benefits to diesels is that they don't suffer throttle losses. Throttoling is restricting. On your gas car you limit the amount of air that can get to the engine, even though it is sucking as hard as it can. This is helped on a hybrid by trying to run the engine at high loads when its running. If the car is sitting still and the engine is running, make it charge the batteries, if they don't need charging, shut the engine off until the driver needs the power. This can't help a diesel as much as a gas powered car.
We've seen GMs stance on Hybrids and toyota seems to be making a laughing stock out of them... not worth putting in small cars? tell that to the plant thats working overtime cranking out Priuses...
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