|
|
| Hybrids sales to hit record levels. Is that a good thing? |
September 7, 2007 |
Hybrids sales to hit record levels. Is that a good thing?
And: the “Web” and “blogging” seem popular nowadays. Maybe someone should tell Ottawa
Hybrids: seen to be doing good. There is a funny episode of South Park in which Gerald Broflovski dumps his old car for a shiny new hybrid. He then spends all day driving around telling people he’s an environmental hero, and eventually everyone in town starts driving hybrids.
The residents all become so self-righteous that soon a dark cloud of smug settles over the town, forcing everyone to go back to their gas guzzlers in order to clear the air.
While the story is played for laughs, the underlying social satire is dead-on: environmentally aware consumers are ditching older vehicles on the premise new ones are better for the planet. Toyota announced in July that it had sold one million hybrids worldwide—16,066 to Canadian buyers. And according to J.D. Power and Associates, hybrid sales will set a record in the U.S. in 2007, increasing 35 per cent over 2006.
But while burning less gas per kilometre is a good idea, replacing a serviceable car with a hybrid may not be because the environmental cost of making it could outweigh any efficiency gains.
A new car is made from parts manufactured in far-flung locations, shipped to a central plant and then assembled. The new car is then shipped to the buyer. Each step creates pollutants.
A study from CNW Marketing Research quantifies this. The company looked at the dust-to-dust lifetime of a car, starting with its birth on the drawing board and finishing with its death in a scrap yard. CNW then calculated a dollars-per- lifetime-mile figure for various models and their conclusions are not good for the Gerald Broflovskis of the world: over a lifetime, hybrids consume more energy. The Honda Accord Hybrid has an energy cost per mile of US$3.29; the conventional Accord’s cost per mile is US$2.18. That means the hybrid’s energy footprint is 50 per cent greater.
Worse news: the behemoth Hummer H3 clocks in at only US$1.95 per mile.
These startling stats, CNW said, come from the higher eco-cost of the manufacture, replacement and disposal of items such as advanced batteries, electric motors and lighter-weight materials.
The study (available at http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy) is not without its detractors; many find fault with the elements measured and the conclusions drawn. But even allowing CNW a significant margin of error, its dust-to-dust take on hybrids should be enough to give buyers pause. Backbone planned a full story on this topic but, interestingly, at least a couple of automakers wouldn’t talk. GM, for example, ended an interview abruptly when the CNW report was mentioned.
Web 2.0 is missing on the Hill. Hats off to Hedy Fry, Garth Turner and any other Canadian politician who regularly uses the Web to communicate with citizens. The Internet, and especially Web 2.0 collaborative technology, is the best communication platform ever created and, as detailed in “Politics 2.0” on page 32 of this issue, politicos in Canada are decidedly behind the online times.
Turner was aggressively using the Web even before his unwillingness to let political prudence govern his mouth left him sitting as a lonely independent MP for a number of months, and hits to his already-popular blog at www.garth.ca only increased after he was slapped down by Stephen Harper. Turner has continued to develop his online presence: his site now offers MPtv, video segments in which Turner promises “behind-the-scenes news of your elected representatives and government in action in Ottawa.”
The site gets two million hits a month. How many other politicians talk to that many Canadians in a year?
Check out the Backblog: Back in July, professional accountant and blogger Neil McIntyre wrote about the increased use of Facebook and LinkedIn as job recruiting sites for large companies such as Ernst & Young. It was a timely post, appearing as it did prior to the cover story of this issue.
McIntyre joins a number of other prominent bloggers who post or cross-post at www.backbonemag.com/Backblog. Give the site a read, leave a comment, and if you would like to contribute, drop us an e-mail.
Peter Wolchak
Editor
pwolchak@backbonemag.com
|
|
|
| Top 300 Issue |
 
|
| PICK20 Web 2.0 Awards |
 |
|
Presented by
|
 |
|
| Gadget of the Week (Canadian) |
|
Bring an e-book on vacation
Sony Reader
E-books have yet to take off in the mainstream; it seems people really like the old technology: paper. Enter Sony’s new Reader, which goes further towards duplicating the paper experience than has any other device.
more>>
|
| Gadget of the Week (Japanese) |
Sounds of Japan
Why record just the visual when you can capture the sounds as well.
more>> |
| Backblog RSS feed |
Click to subscribe  |
|
sponsored by 
