On Hummers, part I

One of the sillier articles floating around the internet lately is a report that the Hummer H3 is significantly more energy efficient than a Toyota Prius, when you consider the total amount of energy used to construct, drive, and dispose of the cars. This report is being referred to by a number of conservative-oriented websites as an in-your-face proof of the hypocrisy of those enviro-radicals who like hybrids. Google Prius + Hummer to see what I mean.

Guys, guys, guys, just because something implausible was published on a marketing website on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true, even if you sorely want to believe in it. You might want to apply at least a tiny amount of skepticism now and then. I was curious, so I actually read the report, available here: http://www.cnwmr.com. I mean the actual report, not just an article talking about it. And … it’s not very credible.

Before getting to the report, let’s look at this from a high level. The Prius does have some high-tech components and some advanced materials, so it’s certainly plausible that it takes more energy to design and manufacture than a run-of-the-mill vehicle. At the same time, a Hummer has high-tech components as well. The bottom line, though, is the fact that the Hummer costs more, and you would think that if the Prius used significantly more energy to build, or for R&D, then that has to show up in the price.

On to the report. It says that a Prius, over a 110,000 mile lifetime, uses an average of $3.50 worth of total energy per mile driven. A Hummer H3 uses about $2.05/mile over its 200,000 mile lifetime (numbers rounded up). Therefore, the H3 uses less energy and is better for the environment.

Ok, so skipping over questions about how someone would know that a vehicle that was released two years ago has an average lifetime of 200,000 miles, some astute people have pointed out that if you do the math, the report is claiming that on average, a Prius burns up on the order of $380,000 of energy over its lifetime, which seems a bit extreme. What’s funny is that I’ve seen “proponents” of the report debate that conclusion, saying that the critics have misinterpreted the numbers. Ummm, no. Read the report, which shows a table listing the average energy cost of a Prius to be $384,329.24. That’s not me doing math; that’s a direct quote from the report.

I thought about writing a detailed rebuttal, which would be easy enough, but I have better things to do with my time, so I’ll keep it short.

The breakdown of the Prius numbers are:

Fuel	$ 8,000
R&D	$ 30,000
Manufacturing	$ 13,000
Maintenance	$ 22,000
Recycling costs	$ 147,000
Landfill costs	$ 131,000
Reusable parts costs	$ 48,000
Other	$117,000

I’m not sure what exactly is in the ‘Other’ category, which I calculated by subtraction. The numbers quoted in the report didn’t add up to the stated total.

Some of these numbers look reasonable; some not. Let’s just look at the landfill costs. Actually, let’s take the stated landfill cost for the average car, which the report puts at $275,000 per car. According to the government data here: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2005, there were 7.5 million cars sold in the U.S. in 2003. Multiplying the numbers, this puts the landfill costs of all cars sold in the U.S. in 2003 at around 2 trillion dollars. The total GDP for the U.S. was around 12 trillion dollars, so this is saying that one sixth of our economy was devoted to the landfill business for cars alone. Throw in another seven million trucks, and another two million “conveyances”, as the government puts it, and we’ve got the landfill segment taking up about half of the American economy. Right.

Look, I understand hidden costs, subsidies, externalities, and the like, and how real costs are not always what they seem. But there’s no way those are going to inflate the cost of a car that lists for $23,000 all the way up to $385,000 without someone in the consumer chain noticing. This report is severely flawed.