There have been discussions (Hybrid Review Hybrid Cars Blog) on what's better, flex-fuel vehicles (aka ethanol and biodiesel) or hybrids. My best guess is that Ford set this conversation topic off when they announced that they won't make their hybrid target but are also focusing on flex fuels to reduce the CO2 performance. Toyota has also been at the press-release podium, but they banging the drums hard on plug-in hybrids, more hybrids, and "Oh, yeah, flexfuels too". Both these positions make sense: Toyota's got the hybrid experience and sales, while Ford is making flexfuel gestures toward the US domestic market (the corn industry loves ethanol talk) because they're not as hybrid ready. Flex fuel compatibility is easy to implement, priced in the hundreds of dollars, while hybrid technology is difficult and priced in the thousands of dollars.

That's great and all, but what about the big picture? It's all about getting unhooked from the oil spigot and keeping more CO2 and emissions out of the air, right? I think that neither thing will be sufficient by itself. Full-on ethanol is not going to get us there for a while. The Oil Drum has had several posts on why we can't severely dent our oil consumption with ethanol - we're limited by the corn we can produce. Corn to ethanol is what we have right now until cellulosic ethanol is taken out of the labs. This is why we have to come up with more efficient vehicles, and hybrids are one solution to the problem.

The one false idea in all the conversations is that these are competing technologies - THEY'RE NOT! Flexfuels are targeting what the engine burns, hybrids are targeting how to use the energy found in the fuel most efficiently. Research in both fields are necessary because one solution isn't solving all the problems. Corn and cellulosic ethanol will progress (after all, it will get better) and eventually become a large source of fuel. Batteries will advance and hybrids will transition to plug-in hybrids and efficiency will increase.

In the mean time, if you hear your elected representatives calling for E85 pumps around the country, be sure to remember that they havn't yet figured out how to put fuel in the pumps.

A while ago, CNW Research put out the results of what they called a Dust-to-Dust research study. The most notible claim of the study: Hummers (H3's actually) are more energy efficient (cradle to grave) than hybrids. After reading through their published paper, I think the study is tragically flawed, but the study's claims are getting repeated across the blogsphere under titles like "Have you hugged a Hummer today?".

Several other places have great comments on what's flawed, (Digg, Give Up, and Uncertain Principles to name a few), but here's a few

• The study's raw data is not disclosed and calculation methods are only casually mentioned. If you can figure out how they added up their total environmental impact number, you've got me beat. Hiding your methods is bad science.
• I'm convinced that they over-calculated the disposal costs. They claim it takes $200,000 to dispose of a $20,000 MSRP car. If you claim something that defies logic, you need to back it up, and they havn't.

If someone puts out a good study, I'll give it some weight, but this one needs to be knocked down.

The US July auto sales numbers came out yesterday. There seemed to be general doom and gloom in the reports, but Honda and Toyota (Lexus included) were kind enough to publish breakouts for all their hybrid vehicles. Toyota alone did >20k hybrids in the US. If anyone spots Ford, Mercury, or Saturn hybrid numbers, please post them in the comments.

Civic Hybrid	2,673
Accord Hybrid	504
Prius	11,114
Camry Hybrid	5,023
Highlander Hybrid	2,784
GS 450h	157
RX 400h	1,220

The US IRS tax credit has caught my attention when it was announced that Toyota was crossing the magic threshold and would be losing the credit. In reading the IRS pubs on it all (yes, I need to get out more or something), something caught my attention. The 2006 Honda Accord Hybrid (HAH) has 2 tax credits - $1300 if it's got "updated calibration control" and only $650 if it doesn't. Ok, great - what's calibration control?

Since I was going to be in the neighborhood of the dealership where we bought our last Honda, I talked with the salesmen I knew there. He was unfamiliar with this (probably due to the fact that they're selling slowly). I also gave a call to Honda US customer service phone number. The representative did her best, but was only able to tell me that the updated control improved emissions.

Finally, with no where else to turn, I got down to brute for Googling. After some furious searching, the Green Hybrid forums held the answer. Honda has a new firmware version for the car that improves the milage, though they havn't published new EPA numbers that I can find.

I do realize that I need to give pause to harping on the Accord hybrid's fuel efficient until updated numbers get published. What I find suprising is that this hasn't been talked up at all.

The site is beginning to approximate my vision for what I want it to be. I started it because I'm a news junkie and I couldn't find another site that delivered news how I wanted it. So, I went out and built it. With the addition of comments using Haloscan, I'm just polishing now.

Beyond that, my goals are to clean things up a little more and get more consistent on writing to the blog and updating the weekly digests (which are, in fact, up to date). It is definitely the dog days of summer, and news is slow. I'd expect things to pick up once Labor day is over in the US, all the Europeans return from holiday, and the 2007 models start appearing in showrooms.

The weekly digest for Friday, 8/11 is up. Check it out.

I'm glad to see that there's more blogs around the web actively questioning the CNW Dust to Dust study. Doug has found several research papers that contradict their findings

He found 3 papers from the technical side (MIT, Argonne National Labs, and Carnegie Mellon University) that do some element of life-cycle analysis for vehicles. Check out his comments and these papers:

• On the Road in 2020: An Assessment of the Future of Transportation Technology
• Energy and Emission Effects of the Vehicle Cycle
• Automobiles: Manufacture vs. Use

Following up on Honda's firmware upgrade for the 2006 Honda Accord hybrid, I think it's possible to guess at the expected fuel efficiency improvement. We know the change in tax credit ($1300 after upgrade versus $650 before). If we can determine how the tax credit is calculated, may be there'll be some useful information about the fuel economy improvements for the Accord hybrid (and therefore, I must stop berating it for it's wussy milage). The information is hidden in the 551 page tome that is the Energy Policy Act Of 2005 and can be found by wading through the best legalese the US Government can produce. If you bore easily, skip to the bottom.

The section we're looking for is around page 446 (Subsection D - Alternative Motor Vehicles and Fuels Incentives). Warning: we're wandering into US Government writing - if you're prone to narcolepsy, run away now. You've been warned. So, wading in, there are 4 possible tax credits to be broken down

• Credit for fuel cells (section b) - not for the HAH
• Credit for new advanced lean-burn technology (section c) - Maybe
• Credit for new hybrid motor vehicles (section d) - Maybe
• Credit for alternative fuel motor vehicles (section e) - Don't think so

Looking through the regulations, I don't think Honda is claiming the hybrid motor vehicle credit. I do not think their improvement over a comparable vehicle is sufficient to get the credit. The law requires at least a 30% fuel efficiency improvement over a comparable vehicle - if the comparable vehicle is an Accord, they fall down on the job.

What about the advanced lean-burn technology credit? First, I find it telling that the before and after tax credits are multiples of $650 - just the right amount for the lean-burn technology credit. It's made of two parts, a lifetime fuel savings credit and a fuel economy improvement credit. The award for both these parts are based on the average mpg for all cars based on weight - this may be an easier hurdle than for the hybrid motor vehicle credit. The first tier of both of these credits sums to $650 ($400 + $250) and the second tier sums to $1300. Did the hybrid Accord jump tiers? The calculations are ugly, so I've skipped showing it and just posted the conclusions below. It assumes the hybrid Accord is in the 3500 lb car class.

The $650 tax credit implies that the hybrid fuel efficiency numbers are 29.2 - 33.9 mpg. This does match the Green Hybrid database but not the 2006 EPA numbers. To jump to the $1300 tax credit implies that the hybrid fuel efficiency numbers went to 34.2 - 39.6 mpg. Interesting. Start poking holes via the comments to entertain until we get some real numbers.

Note: this has been edited from my first posting. No more late night scribbling for me.

The weekly digest for Friday, 8/18 is up. Check it out.

Ok, I'm fixated, but at least I can admit that. First, the GreenHybrod Accord forum folks have found the Honda Technical Service Bulletins that discuss the Accord hybrid firmware upgrade. It's an interesting note on the firmware change. Second, by a random fluke of Google, I've stumbled on some of Toyota's hybrid tax credit certification forms. They've posted (or accidentally left loose for any fixated fiend to spot) the 2006 Highlander, 2006 RX400h, and 2006 Prius forms. I do have copies should they "accidentally" disappear, but there's some interesting notes about the calculations in it.

The biggest thing of note is that they're not using EPA city miles per gallon to calculate the fuel efficiency improvement. This matches with the head-scratching on my previous Accord hybrid calculations. If you didn't catch it, the tax credit is based on the city MPG, not the highway or combined MPG. Here's what I've extracted from the three certifications and the EPA.

Car	Certification MPG	EPA MPG
Highlander 2WD	36.8	33
Highlander 4WD	35.5	31
Prius	66.6	60
RX400h	33.2	30