Sunday, June 21, 2009
The June 9 Business article “Toyota Wants New Prius to Be America’s Next Top Model” called the Prius an “eco-icon” and said that it has allowed Americans to “advertise their eco-correctness.” A Toyota spokesman was quoted as saying that many Prius buyers want to “make an environmental statement.”
The Prius’s reputation as a “green” car is completely undeserved. The culprit is its nickel metal hydride battery.
The nickel is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, and smelted nearby, doing damage to the local environment. The smelted nickel is shipped to Wales, where it is refined. Then it is sent to China to be made into nickel foam. Then it goes to Japan, where it is made into a battery. Then it goes into cars, some of which are shipped to the United States and some of which go to Europe. All of that seaborne transport consumes a lot of fossil fuel.
CNW Marketing rates cars on the combined energy needed “to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage.” A Prius costs $2.87 per lifetime mile. By comparison, an H3 Hummer costs $2.07 per lifetime mile. Then there will be the problem of disposing of the used batteries.
This is not a “green” car; it is a “brown” one.
JAMES CLIVIE GOODWIN
Fairfax
This comment on the nickel in Prius batteries has been debunked so many times in the past few years, the fact that you published this without any of the debunking references is truely incompetent.
Prius NiMH battery nickel consumption pales in comparison to traditional uses for Nickel. Oops, if your reading this while eating better put down those NICKEL containing stainless steel forks. Got one of those shinny stainless steel kitchens – 1/3 of that shinny metal is nickel! Do not take your next jet engine powered aircraft ride either, as the turbine blades contain high nickel bearing alloys for temperature resistance. Oops, better not ride around in those hummers, they have more nickel than the entire Prius, including the NiMH battery.
The London tabloid that published this story from which all this misinformation has been regurgitated has long ago retracted the story. The Sudbury mine, while once a nasty place, has cleaned up, and now wins enviormental awards – probably why Toyota picked that mine in the first place.
CNW’s articles have been laughed at for years too. The US Government ORNL ran two second generation Prius for 125K miles (used as bank messenger cars in the Phoenix area). After the trial, the cars were still both running strong, and the total cost of operation, including purchase, gas and insurance was $.20 / mile. How CNW comes up with $2.67/mile ($2.87 – $.20) for recycling a scrap Prius is beyond me. Even if the perfectly good 125K mile Prius’ from the ORNL trial were recycled, that would be $333750 to recycle each car! The last time I was to a junk yard, these were not gold-plated Taj Mahal operations. And their is no way they are getting 14.5 times the original cost of each vehicle to crush them.
Thank you for the comment. I was premature posting this article without researching current facts. My postings are generally very current information as it is released.
Thank you again for your comment and hope you visit again.
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