Posts Tagged ‘degradation’
Critics who whined about Toyota Prius 10 years ago – were wrong
The launch of vehicles like the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf has stirred up a debate over battery longevity. Critics say battery output will degrade and cite outrageous replacement costs as a possible downside to these breakthrough machines. Well, it turns out that skeptics posed similar concerns over a decade ago, when the Toyota Prius made its U.S. debut. Turns out, those worrywarts were too, well, worried.
Based on data gleaned from more than 36,000 Prius owners in its annual survey, Consumer Reports gives Toyota’s best-selling hybrid top scores in terms of reliability and ownership costs. As we noted in January, CR set out to answer questions posed by skeptics by taking a 2002 Prius with 206,000 miles on it and putting it through a battery (get it?) of tests.
After extensive testing, CR’s numbers show that the first-gen 2002 Prius returned an overall fuel economy of 40.4 miles per gallon, which is virtually identical to the 40.6 mpg that CR recorded when testing a new Prius back in 2001. Likewise, CR found that, with 206,000 miles on the clock, the old Prius’ acceleration numbers had only dropped by a few tenths of a second for both the 0-60 miles per hour dash and the quarter-mile run.
… The tested Prius’ nickel-metal hydride battery pack showed virtually no signs of degradation after ten years and 206,000 miles…There’s a good case to be made that the critics might not always bear listening to.
Whining and whimpering about new tech is always a feature of Luddites who will deny to their death that they are Luddites. Maybe there should be a new category for those who have finally caught up with engineering designs that are a century old – but, still fear moving forward?
How the Gulf of Mexico became the nation’s ‘toilet bowl’
When Nazia Dardar looks at the seemingly endless lake of water behind her stilted bayou home, the 76-year-old sees what once was a farm. Cows roamed there, she says, back when the lake was land.
“C’est le jour et la nuit,” she says in French, the most common language down here on the farthest and swampiest reaches of the Mississippi River delta. “It’s day and night.”
Perhaps nowhere is the protracted death of the Gulf Coast more apparent than in Pointe-Aux-Chenes, Louisiana, and other indigenous bayou communities where, decades before the BP oil disaster, the marsh started disintegrating and environmental problems washed in from as far away as North Dakota and New York.
The Gulf of Mexico became, in effect, the United States’ toilet bowl — known for its seasonal “dead zones,” high erosion rates, dirty industry, ingrained poverty and, now, for the biggest oil disaster in the history of the country. Compare that legacy on the Gulf Coast with the East Coast, with its wealth, and the West, with its more-sterling record of environmental stewardship…
These wetlands, a 20-minute boat ride from the stilted homes of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, provide nearly all the needs of people here. Shrimp, crab, fish and oysters spawn and hide in the protective grasses. Those creatures are the basis for the local economy.
They’re also what everyone eats…
Since 1932, more than 1,875 square miles of Louisiana have shriveled and died, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That’s enough land to nearly cover Delaware…
The Corp of Engineers – BTW – can take credit for the taxpayer-funded portion of the destruction.
