Hybrids and why they may the be wrong idea...

**Mark in Oshawa** · 14th January 2010, 21:54

The link:http://www.topgear.com/au/jeremy-cla...ids-2009-01-12

I was perusing one of the Top Gear sites through a link on Facebook. Tripped across this Jeremy Clarkson take on the rush to Hybrids, and draws an interesting link to the rush to Catylitic Convertors in the 80's. It seems Cat's create more CO2 and Margaret Thatcher of all people was against this (it seems Ms Thatcher maybe isn't as dim as some of you want to believe). Anyhow..she was ignored, and we have them on every car now, and I personally don't think not having them or having them makes a HUGE difference, but there you go.

I do agree though with Clarkson that Hybrids are a dead end technology. I would LOVE to see Hydrogen fuel be perfected....

**Brown, Jon Brow** · 14th January 2010, 22:01

I'm with you on Hydrogen

Plentiful, clean and gives the car designers more room to innovate .

Hybrids seem a bit pointless to me, Top Gear proved that a powerful M3 is more economical at certain speeds than a Prius.

**Daniel** · 14th January 2010, 22:09

Hydrogen cars create even more CO2

**Brown, Jon Brow** · 14th January 2010, 22:24

Originally Posted by Daniel

Hydrogen cars create even more CO2

In the same way that powering up a battery for an electric car does?

**Daniel** · 14th January 2010, 22:27

No, they produce more CO2 than battery powered cars.

**Brown, Jon Brow** · 14th January 2010, 22:41

Originally Posted by Daniel

No, they produce more CO2 than battery powered cars.

But it is still possible to produce Hydrogen in a 100% clean way. It just takes a lot of energy to produce.

**Mark in Oshawa** · 14th January 2010, 22:48

Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

But it is still possible to produce Hydrogen in a 100% clean way. It just takes a lot of energy to produce.

It is the one problem really, how to make enough Hydrogen at an affordable price and infrastructure to deliver to the consumer.

**Macd** · 14th January 2010, 22:51

Water and home conversion stations. Its like all tech, when it is mass produced it will fall in price.

**Mark in Oshawa** · 14th January 2010, 22:52

Originally Posted by Daniel

No, they produce more CO2 than battery powered cars.

Explain? Hydrogen is "burned" when exposed to o2 to make water out the tail pipe as far as I have been led to believe based on the articles I have read. Or used in fuel cells.

I do know Hybrids at the rate they are going will use up the world's supply of Titanium in a huge hurry if they don't find alternate ideas in the battery dept.

As for the energy used to create Hydrogen, last time I looked Nuclear power was a "green" technology as far as the greenhouse gas thing is concerned...just some cant get past the waste product, and the dirty little secret is it isn't really a problem if society just decides to get on with storing the stuff properly.

Every technology has greenies complainging. We have anti-windmill people, we have people protesting the building of dams, we have people against solar projects in the California desert, and we have to conclude that many of the greenies don't want solutions, they just want to run everyone back to the stoneage...or at least, they would be in charge of how it is handled as we go back to the stone age...

**Hondo** · 14th January 2010, 22:53

Hydrogen has to be manufactured. I love the commercials though, "the only waste product is pure, clean water...".

10 years later they'll be at it again, waving their juiced figures around while proclaiming that all this extra water is causing sea levels to rise, evaporation is at saturation levels causing rainfall levels to increase four fold, and almost constant rainfall in some areas. The humidity levels in the air are causing constant wood rot and the spread of all manner of exotic molds in addition to playing hell with the electrical grids.

Yup, hide and watch. Never happy.

Funny to think back about how happy everybody was when the automobile became the majority form of transportation and the streets were no longer covered in horse manure and urine.