Hybrid Vehicles: Doing More Harm Than Good?

Radite Adyanawa

Ms. Oryza Martinez

Research 10

15 May 2016

Hybrid Vehicles: Doing More Harm than Good?

The great engineer and entrepreneur Elon Musk once predicted that the majority of all cars will be electric in thirty years’ time. This is a bold claim and a great achievement in the development of the automobile.  

When the first automobile capable of transporting people went on sale in 1885, it wasn’t such a great deal. Only the ultra-rich could buy them and they were hot, noisy, slow, and hard to maintain. However when Karl Benz introduced a new type of engine that used gasoline to propel it, people got hooked to them since they were very fast and much easier to maintain and use. This technology progressed across the centuries with very influential cars such as the Ford Model-T and the Volkswagen Beetle that made the modern automobile accessible to the masses. Now cars are faster, safer, and cheaper than ever. This spike in the global car population has caused the consumption of around 380 million barrels of gasoline every single day in America alone (“How Much Gasoline Does the United States Consume?”).  This has allegedly caused damage to the ozone layer, the climate, and the quality of air. More and more users and consumers of automobiles are being more aware of the environmental side-effects that they are causing.

To meet the increasingly strict and stringent government tests and regulations, and the ever increasing demand in more eco-friendly alternatives, the major automotive manufacturers have invested vast amounts of time and money in the production and development of hybrid cars. A hybrid vehicle is one that couples an average internal combustion engine with electric motors and many batteries, usually lithium-ion, to run the stated electric motors. The automakers claim massive increases in efficiency and significant decreases in the consumption of gasoline. However the researcher believes that these claims only show one side of the story.

During a recent survey conducted by the researcher, 81.5% of the respondents commute by car which is the root cause of pollution. And 91% of the respondents do not own hybrid vehicles, this is due to the currently high cost compared to conventional cars however experts believe that the prices will start to decrease as with the trend of all technology. This reduce in cost would be due to the increase in supply of batteries with producers such as Tesla with their new Gigafactory (Heisler). This may be an issue since more and more people would want to own a hybrid car. The general public views them as good for the environment based on the survey and that 76% would want to buy one if they could afford it. This is because most of the population know about hybrid cars from the advertisements of auto makers and the marketing and public relations. These parties only want to show the benefits of their products and they have succeeded in doing that. Only 26% of the respondents know about the harms posed by hybrid vehicles. The researchers believes that this should be changed, consumers should at least be aware of the environmental consequences of purchasing a hybrid vehicle.