Ever find yourself driving behind a hybrid car?

With larger number of hybrids sharing the public roads, hybrid cars are becoming common sights everyday. So here’s the question: if you’re “caught” driving behind a hybrid, do you find your blood pressure soaring, or do you feel this is actually good for your health?

Now before everyone jumps on me for being mean or arrogant, let me explain. By design hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid and the Honda Insight Hybrid get higher mileage due in large part to the electric motor drive and regenerative braking, or regen.

Regen is the capability of the electric motor and battery systems to recapture the forward momentum of the car during deceleration and convert the energy back into electricity that can be stored in the battery packs. Depending on specific car design, regen can occur as soon as you let off the accelerator pedal (simulating engine braking,) when you “ride” the brake pedal lightly (regen only with no friction brake,) and when you push harder on the brake to activate both friction and regen. Typically, regen is not active below certain low speed range, like around 7 mph.

By definition, then, when you’re coasting, you’re recharging your battery packs. It’s also a known technique among hybrid drivers that while coasting, either on flat road or downhill, lightly riding the brakes to activate just regen and not friction braking will give you more energy capture. Drivers can do this safely and only use friction brake to finally come to a complete stop.

So regen is an important part of the overall hybrid system performance. In fact slowly coming to a stop without hard braking has always been an age-old advice for conventional car drivers. We just choose to occasionally forget efficient driving techniques, that’s all. Hybrid car or not.

I guess driving behind a hybrid car, or driving like driving a hybrid car, is actually good for your health, and a lot of other people’s health too. Now if I can just deal with those hybrids driving faster than the speed limit on the highway, just because they can still get great mileage at high speeds with their more efficient engines.

For those interested, here’s some hard core hybrid drivers discussing regenerative braking on the GREENhybrid.com Forum on the Toyota Prius versus the Honda Civic Hybrid.

Driving Behind a Hybrid – Soaring Blood Pressure or Good For Your Health? is a post from: CleanCarTalk

CNN did a piece on the Mini E electric car on February 2, 2009. I don’t particularly have problems with CNN reporting in general, as a lot of their fluff can be filtered out – if you watch CNN long enough, you know. Anyway it’s an interesting piece on the Mini E because of several reasons.

Like many other news outlets, CNN does have its moment of sensationalism, just maybe more often than the rest. So if you keep this in mind while watching this news clip, you’ll see other more important things at play here. I certainly had my initial reactions. But I’ll let you watch it first then discuss on the other side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tE938F511M

While the news piece on the Mini E electric car is informative for sure, it seems to have sparked many negative reactions about “moronic reporter and commentator”, “great way to promote saving the earth” (sarcastic), etc. For me my first reaction was, “Nice! Electric cars are getting national and international coverage!” Then my second reaction was (after viewing it live and then recorded version several times), “Hmm, interesting comments are made by the CNN people, like “I’m about to back up .. and it’s not working,” or, reference to driving like “a bumper car,” or, negative comments at the end about the $850 per month lease.”

So here are my thoughts. I think CNN is reporting the news like it is in this case. While this was not live, they decided to leave in the clip of the car stalling. If the car stalls, it stalls. If she had trouble driving the car the first time, then that’s probably what would happen with many other first-time drivers of the Mini E in particular, and electric cars in general. To me it was a good editing decision.

Secondly, if it feels like driving a bumper car, why try to say it in any other way? Everyone can relate to driving a bumper car, especially when she relates it to the car’s behavior in relationship to the petal action. We can all feel the effect of regenerative braking with that single statement, yet many feel that the statement does not help the car’s cause and is out of place, and I disagree. It’s time consumers understand how these things work so they can make buying decisions, and not just through shiny cool looking models on the auto show floors.

With respect to keeping an eye on the Mini E‘s remaining charge level, thus how much distance you have left to drive, she was absolutely right about not wanting to be stranded in the middle of the road which is always a serious issue. Many marketing people would just gloss over this serious issue.

CNN did also give plenty of video time for Mini USA Vice President Jim McDowell to say what he needed to say about the car and company goals. So again it was OK reporting there.

Finally, the $850 monthly lease amount. Here’s my take. Granted, the commentator was just a tad over-reacting. But my guess is it would be the exact reaction of many consumers. Forget about going green and saving the earth. People can’t pay for this now or possibly even in the near future. If I’m in a market for a new car, let’s go check out other 30 or even 40+ mpg cars that I can afford and drive today. This Mini E is not for me, and it’s not for many people.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking on the Mini E. I think it’s a great concept. On the other hand I advocate that we should all do our part to promote this great solution to a world problem, but do it with at least one foot on the reality ground.

I’ve always maintained that car manufacturers are jumping on the clean driving bandwagon and bring out cars that are not necessarily ready for the consumers. See my recent post on “New Hybrid and Electric Car Choices Can Fail the Car Industry.” Many just want to ride the buzz and free press at auto shows and drive demos, etc. While it may be part of a good development process (such as getting customer feedback and measuring levels of interest), at this stage they’re all really part of the marketing machines churning out sales pitches. If it weren’t for the current economic situation I doubt if we’d see this many announcements for hybrid and electric cars.

In summary, I think this CNN piece is right-on, in that it keeps car manufacturers honest.

So what do you think of the CNN news piece? Do you have a different view on the subject? Would you prefer the news to cover green car technology differently, and what would you consider helpful for consumers to make good decisions about hybrid and electric cars? Share your thoughts with us.

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CNN Test Drives a Mini E Electric Car – Missing the Point or Just Reflecting Public Views? is a post from: CleanCarTalk