Living Like Ed Ed Jr. (best ereader for pdf and epub txt) 📖

I hate pumping gas. I just loathe it. Now I hardly ever have to. The hybrid is so dependable, too. It’s quiet, it’s fun, and it’s easy to steer. It’s very roomy inside, but small enough that it’s very easy to maneuver.

Ed doesn’t preach to people about being green. He doesn’t walk into anyone’s house and say, “You know, you could be a little bit better about recycling.”

He doesn’t. I do that. It’s a flaw, a character defect. If I have to make sacrifices, you all have to make them, too. Misery loves company. But I don’t consider driving a hybrid a sacrifice at all, so I have no problem telling someone, “You gotta get rid of that car.” We must have sold a hundred Priuses that way! By now a majority of our friends have some kind of eco-friendly car, or they’re thinking about getting one.

The Prius really is a great car. It burns superclean and it works very well. So when I have to go beyond the range of the electric, I just take the hybrid. It can go 500 miles on a fill-up, easy, and I can fill it up like anyone in America, anywhere, with gasoline.

Hybrid Technology

There are several different ways to make a hybrid, but they all, whether a car or a truck, have some things in common. At least for now, they all have both a gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine, like most vehicles on the road, and an electric motor.

While most cars waste 25 percent of their gasoline when they’re just idling, the gasoline engine in a hybrid shuts off when the car’s stopped. This not only reduces fuel consumption dramatically, both around town and in highway traffic, but also reduces emissions dramatically.

Some hybrids can also run on the electric motor exclusively when coasting and when traveling at slow speeds, like in stop-and-go traffic or coming down a steep hill. The Prius falls into this category, as does the hybrid version of the Ford Escape, the Toyota Highlander, and the Lexus RX 400h (h is for hybrid). Under these conditions, the hybrid is just as clean as an electric car—and you don’t have to worry about charging it.

That’s because hybrid cars make their own electricity. Today’s hybrids don’t ever have to be plugged in to recharge. For one thing, hybrid cars—like those electric cars we talked about earlier—use regenerative braking to recharge the batteries that power the electric motor. Basically, when you hit the brakes, the electric motor applies resistance to the car’s drivetrain, which makes the wheels spin more slowly. The energy from the wheels then turns the electric motor, which acts like a generator, converting energy that is normally wasted in a car—when you’re coasting, when you’re braking—into electricity. That electricity gets stored in the car’s battery until it’s needed by the electric motor. The gasoline engine also charges the battery while you’re driving (much as it does in a gasoline-only car).

Some hybrids engage both the electric motor and the gasoline engine at the same time. They use the electric motor to provide more power—when you’re accelerating, when you’re passing, and when you’re climbing a hill—so then they can put a smaller, more efficient gasoline engine into the car. That helps to reduce emissions and improve gas mileage even further.

For instance:

• The 2007 Nissan Altima hybrid has Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ratings of 42 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway.

• The 2007 Toyota Prius is rated at 60 mpg city, 51 mpg highway.

• The 2007 Toyota Camry hybrid is rated at 40 city, 38 highway.

• The front-wheel-drive version of the 2007 Ford Escape hybrid is rated at 39 mpg city, 31 highway.

• And the 2007 Lexus RX 400h is rated at 32 mpg city (31 for the four-wheel-drive version), 27 mpg highway.

Now, as you probably noticed, not every hybrid was designed to get in-credible gas mileage. Some are larger, like the sport utility vehicles, and they were designed to provide a sort of “best of both worlds” alternative: the ability to haul stuff and still have a more environmentally sound vehicle.

If they don’t get phenomenal gas mileage, how can people say they’re more environmentally sound? Because what comes out of the tailpipe is cleaner. In many cases, these vehicles have far lower emissions than an internal-combustion-engine vehicle that gets the same mileage numbers.

According to the EPA, the expected greenhouse gas emissions from a front-wheel-drive Ford Escape hybrid are just 5.4 tons per year—compared with 14.9 tons for the highest polluters on the market right now. And that figure for the Prius is just 3.4 tons. That’s a dramatic difference.

I’ve also found that the maintenance costs—and needs—are largely reduced on hybrids. I’ll only speak to Toyota, because those are the hybrids I’ve been driving for seven years. In those seven years, after racking up 130,000 miles, all the car has needed is a lube and oil change, and the routine scheduled maintenance at 50,000 miles and at 75,000. I’ve never had any other car that made it to 130,000 miles with my only investment being the lube and oil changes plus a $700 bill at 50,000 miles and maybe an $800 bill at 75,000 miles.

So these hybrids are multifaceted beauties. It’s not just the emissions. It’s the mileage, and it’s the carefree maintenance. And then compared with electric vehicles, there’s also the advantage of unlimited range.

Alternative Fuels

Beyond electric cars and hybrids, you’ve got other choices that are generally considered greener than regular gasoline-powered internal-combustion-engine vehicles. Alternative-fuel vehicles are squarely in this camp.

What exactly are alternative fuels? They’re as follows:

• natural gas, in the form of compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG)

• propane, also called liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)

• biodiesel

• ethanol blends

Someday, hydrogen also might be a viable alternative fuel. It burns extremely clean. And it’s the fuel that will be used in fuel cell cars, a type of technology that the government