The Hybrid Conspiracy.

I would like to talk about something that I care very much about today, the Toyota Prius.
Each decade can be summed up in a handy cut-out-’n’-keep, bite-sized phrase. The Fifties was “black and white”, the Sixties was “peace and love”, the Seventies was “Disco fever”, the Eighties was “greed is good”, the Nineties was “Dot-com boom” and the decade just past was “the twin towers”.

We have similar reference points with cars. The Fifties was the Corvette, the Sixties was the E-type Jag, the Seventies was The GTO, the Eighties was the Delorian, the Nineties was the McLaren F1 and the decade just passed was a time when everyone took leave of their senses. It was the time of the Toyota Prius.

Since the beginning of cars in the world not much has really changed, they have evolved bit by bit with fewer running boards and less flared wheel arches but the general concept was the same, a gas powered engine with four wheels . It was not until the turn of the twenty first century that the automotive industry took an idiotic dog leg turn to the left with hybrid and electric cars. Whether you believe global warming is caused by man or not the simple fact of the matter is this, oil will one day run out and it would be stupid to use the last drops of it on something as trivial as personal transportation. This we can all agree on and the biggest problem with the Prius is that it uses oil, about as much as a diesel Volkswagen, but its worse for the environment than absolutely anything you can buy on the market right now.

Hybrid cars are filthy, they produce more carbon emissions in there lifespan than anything else. sure they get good gas mileage during the time they are on the road but it is what comes before and after that counts. All hybrid and electric cars have huge nickel batteries that store the energy produced by the engine to be used later. the problem with this is that Nickel mining is a terribly dirty earth ravaging process, leaving vast expanse (mostly in canada and alaska) barren and desolate. After the raw materials are mined in Canada they are shipped off to france in a huge black smoke spewing tanker ship to be refined and after that shipped by land over many many miles to japan where it is fitted into the vehicles. then the vehicles are shipped back to the U.S. and all the rest of the word to be sold as green cars, when by the time they hit the markets they have already done more damage to the environment than even the biggest of diesel trucks. Is marketed as “green” and because man is now fundamentally lazy, it’s convenient to believe the hype. Not only that but after the hipster dufuses or celebutards who want the good press are done with the vehicles, the batteries will sit in a landfill and seep into the water supply and can never be recycled or gotten rid of.

The reason for the Prius and all the other hybrid copies is that the automotive industry saw a quick fix that would make the public happy and the consumer feel good about himself. The catalytic converter was a quick fix in the late seventies and look where it has gotten us, more CO2 in the air than we know what to do with and a hole the size of Texas in the ozone layer. sense when did we become a country of quick fixes that only make the greater problem worse in the long run but seem like the miracle cure right now?

The obvious choice is not electric or hybrid but rather hydrogen, it burns the same as gas, it is the most abundant element in the universe, existing engines can be retrofitted to run on it and the only thing coming out of the tailpipe is water, pure drinkable water. But as it turns out Hydrogen is somewhat hard to store and transport and that is the reason the automotive companies are not pursuing it. They have the quick fix already developed and hydrogen would cost a lot right now to develop. We need to do this one right though.

And they are right it will be hard, but what happened to the days when we went to the moon and did the other things because they were hard? Why have we now suddenly decided that actually it’s much better to take the easy option?

Even though the Pious or Prickus or whatever you want to call it is the car that defined the last decade it is far from the best. The best car of the decade is the exact opposite of the Pious, And it was built not because it was easy but because it was, on paper, completely impossible. It is, of course, the Bugatti Veyron. Bugatti was bought by Volkswagen and the first order of business for the newly acquired firm from the slightly mad boss at VW was to make a car that was reliable, as comfortable as buckingham palace, had 1,000 horsepower and could do 254 MPH. Many people failed him and he fired anyone who did until he got it right.

Of course, it is not that hard to produce a 1,000-horsepower car that can hit 254MPH -once. But VW was talking about a normal road car that could be driven round town like a Golf. Some of the problems they encountered were overcome by great feats of engineering. for example the aerodynamics. you can easily make a shape that cuts the air well at 254MPH (about the same speed as a second world war Hawker Hurricane) but at this kind of pace, it will barely be in contact with the road. Which would make cornering a tad tricky. at the same time if you try to keep the tires pressed down into the road, the shape of the body will make 254MPH impossible. The car has a W16 engine with four turbos and 13 intercoolers to keep it from melting a hole in the asphalt. It is the last hurrah of the Gasoline age. The Concord of the motoring world, and we will never see anything like it again.

The piont here is not to talk about this car but to talk about what is possible if we work together and create a solution to something. We can make a reliable usable everyday hydrogen car, we just have to try.