Data to Support Science

A letter to the editor, OMR, published Apr. '07.

I’d like to congratulate Susan Sears on her purchase of a Toyota Prius. As she correctly described on 03-31-07 in her LTE, the Prius gets great fuel economy out of the show room and even more importantly for an old motor sport competitor like myself, it flat gets off 0 in a hurry. I’d love to own one and a Hummer as well; alas each price sticker is way out of my income reach. Of coarse in my LTE 03-23-07 I did not refer to a marketing clip from Toyota and I should have used any number of other vehicles other than the Hummer (CNW used the H3 in its research) to make my point. The point still stands and Susan Sears missed it.

In today’s world we are rushing to discover alternate forms of energy, not only for transportation, but also for manufacturing. J.D. Powers, whom my industry depends for marketing share, will not attempt to consider “dust to dust” information. CNW Marketing did an extensive study on pre-showroom energy costs. Even on “green” blogs where the group is slammed hard, there is an acceptance that a good deal of the research is valid. But the “feel good about doing something” syndrome is not data based nor is it correct to assume that as long as Susan is saving cash on gas that she is saving the world energy supply.

Let me give two examples of at least a hundred studied where energy costs differ.

1. Susan did not consider the energy consumed for the nickel in the Prius battery to travel from Canada to Europe, then to China, Japan and finally back to the US.

2. The production of lightweight steel in the hybrid consumes 15%-20% energy more than conventional steel that also is easier to recycle.

Drive that around in your environmental conscience for awhile, would you please!