The Prius gets better mileage than the Smart Car, but the smart car is larger and uses a hybrid battery. So which one is more earth-friendly? Does the carbon footprint of fuel economy outweigh the carbon footprint from a hybrid battery?
I must be looking at the wrong Smart Car, cause it is not larger than my Prius, nor is it a hybrid. Did you confuse the two? And the Prius get better gas mileage from the figures I’ve seen.
thanks for pointing that out, i meant to say that the PRIUS is larger and has a hybrid battery…
prius
this site is great…
go to 2008, click on smart, click on coupe…
then click the “compare side by side” icon, and click 2008, toyotoa, prius. my old dodge neon coupe got around 35mpg on the highway… back in 1997… so I don’t understand what is so hard about getting these higher numbers, especially with a smaller car and smaller engine.
I know that over all the prius looks way better, but have you guys ever heard about whats IN those batteries? over all its worse for the environment since most of those cant be properly recycled.
I’d say over all the smart car would be a bit better (perferably if it was an electric version with fully recycleable batteries) its smaller, uses less materials to produce, most of the materials on the smart car are fully recycleable, and so on…
I wish GM would have ended up building exactly what they were shooting for with the Chevy Volt. Make everything entirely recycleable, let the car be a link between the electric plug in and gas powered hybrids, and a new generation for realistic proper cars.
Too bad that site doesn’t have a Smart Diesel listed. My brother’s got an 800cc turbo diesel in his that is pretty fuel efficient.
Another thing the Prius has going for it is that you can put your family in it or you and 4 friends bringing the transportation cost per person way down.
I think Hybrid cars better than electric cars. Because, few disadvantage have in electric cars like electric car is that the batteries will need to be recharged. This will require advanced planning because you’ll have to allow adequate time for the batteries to be fully charged. Prius hybrid cars is smart cars, its’ Eco-friendly car. Feature of this cars is great from other any cars.
Prius is really excellent car, its perfect hybrid and smart as well, totally updated car at this moment, its’ Eco-friendly car good Feature good cabin and vary specious in front and back, vary comfortable to drive
I will vote for Prius.
comparing these two cars Prius is Earth Friendly Than smart cars. But I think prius will not always remain the best, coz lot of company are racing to manufacture a fuel efficient earth friendly car.
If any car gets the best fuel efficiency uses the least energy, has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, and has the smallest environmental impact.
I think Prius is more eco friendly. Because Prius`s CO2 emmission are expected to be down to 90g/km.
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then click the “compare side by side” icon, and click 2008, toyotoa, prius. my old dodge neon coupe got around 35mpg on the highway… back in 1997… so I don’t understand what is so hard about getting these higher numbers, especially with a smaller car and smaller engine.
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the problem is that the rolling resistance runs away as a square law, and the aerodynamic drag is a cubic one.
so it matters that you have a smaller car with a smaller engine, but it doesn’t REALLY matter until you’ve gone below a critical threshold point, which is about 100 watts per mile per hour. so, for example, sustaining 60mph with only 6kW and using the reasonable figure of 0.28 litres per kilowatt per hour, you get 165 mpg! but, if you have even a (quite “reasonable”) drag coeffient of 0.35 and a frontal surface area of 2sqm, which is “normal” for these “superminis”, then that power figure doubles, and you “only” get 88 or so mpg, like the upcoming Suzuki Swift Hybrid.
i’ve done a quick comparison of some typical hybrids and a couple of “pure” EVs here:
Ultra-Efficient Category L7E Hybrid Electric Vehicle: 200mpg+
the bottom line is: you can’t just “take a standard car design and shove in an EV motor” if you actually really want superb fuel economy instead of just being able to jump on the environmentally-friendly bandwagon in order to offer your customers that whopping 25% rebate [in the UK] and/or take advantage of that Government Funding as a manufacturer.
take a look at the VW XL1 Concept Car - they managed it. 313mpg on an 800kg vehicle for goodness sake! what was the key thing there? despite a 2sqm frontal surface area, they got a drag coefficient 2% better than the Honda Insight and the GM EV1 - 0.186.
also, take a look at the Aixam “MEGA” Electric car. 40mph max speed (no gears) but it uses only 4kW to do that. 40mph / (0.28 / 4.6 / 4) is… equivalent to 124mpg! and that’s achieved because they don’t get into the “red zone” where that aerodynamic cubic law hits you like a brick.
so… yeah, it’s complicated 
l.
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[QUOTE=Jhony505;9097]If any car gets the best fuel efficiency uses the least energy, has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, and has the smallest environmental impact.
I think Prius is more eco friendly. Because Prius`s CO2 emmission are expected to be down to 90g/km.
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ok, you’re forgetting a couple of things:
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the batteries on the prius do not like to be “cold”. i know someone who has - had - a prius, they bought the “environmental kool-aid”, and, like clockwork, they could watch the average fuel economy nose-dive in october down to THIRTY THREE miles per gallon, and climb steadily back up through march and into april back up to 65mpg. so that CO2 emissions figure is only good for “ideal” conditions
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the first priuses had a NiMh battery pack. nickel is a heavy metal. i understand that the water table around the prius factories has been irredeimably poisoned for a 100 mile radius.
this doesn’t just apply to one particular vehicle or another: it’s all EVs - it’s just something that you have to watch out for, when using large batteries as a “power source” rather than what they really should be: a “storage” mechanism (yes, ultracapacitors are far too expensive as an alternative, right now).
rhetorically speaking: if you want to be truly environmentally friendly as a vehicle manufacturer (or, even as a DIY EV enthusiast) you should be doing everything within your power to reduce the size of that battery pack, and take the necessary steps and consequences in your stride.
l.
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According to me the Prius is more eco friendly hybrid car.It looks super stylish,awesome interior and exterior and technologically very advanced.I am astonished by this car’s looking.I want to share some information about cars with you.
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Okay dude, I don’t know where you think you are getting that information from, but here are some thoughts on your opinion…
[QUOTE=lkcl;9642]ok, you’re forgetting a couple of things:
- the batteries on the prius do not like to be “cold”. i know someone who has - had - a prius, they bought the “environmental kool-aid”, and, like clockwork, they could watch the average fuel economy nose-dive in october down to THIRTY THREE miles per gallon, and climb steadily back up through march and into april back up to 65mpg. so that CO2 emissions figure is only good for “ideal” conditions
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The batteries in a Prius, don’t mind being cold. What you are getting is that the Prius like most new cars (including non-hybrids) have an automatic warm up cycle. This is to prevent damage to the internal combustion engine and not to the hybrid traction battery or even to the starter battery of non-hybrids. It also reduces the amount of pollution that the car will over output. It however, does not reduce fuel consumption as, it means burning fuel to warm up the car. Short trip below the freezing point will significantly increase fuel consumption. However, as a Canadian owner of a 2005 Prius, I can say that winter fuel consumption (even with winter tires on) is only increased by about 10-15%, which is only marginally higher (percentage wise, not overall) than the average car. (I use about 4.8 l/100km {49MPG} in the spring/fall, 5.5l/100km {43MPG} in the winter and about 5.2 l/100km {45MPG} in the summer with the A/C on when needed.)
So the overall fuel efficiency did not change that much for me.
[QUOTE=lkcl;9642]
- the first priuses had a NiMh battery pack. nickel is a heavy metal. i understand that the water table around the prius factories has been irredeimably poisoned for a 100 mile radius.
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This is completely untrue. Priuses are manufactured until recently only in Japan, 100 mile radius of poisoned ground would have cause serious news in Japan.
So why is your statement so wrong? Well, maybe it is your understanding of chemistry or what is or what is not a heavy metal? Did you know that eating utensils (knives/forks/spoons, not chopsticks, in case you are wondering) are the biggest user of nickel? Is nickel heavy, sure if you have enough of it. But is it poisonous? NO, it is one of the most inert metals around. (The only metal that is more biologically inert is titanium.) Which is why nickel is used in cutlery, kitchen and chef’s knives, and surgical instruments. When alloyed with iron, you create a metal alloy that does not rust, remarkably. What is this remarkable alloy? Stainless steel.
On the other hand, nickel metal hydride is poisonous like most battery contents, since living organisms don’t do well with chemicals that have a high electron affinity (as in willing to take electrons from near by atoms). Since this is how batteries function, all batteries are poisonous. (Even the good old lemon battery you learned about in grade 3 science, that you make by sticking a penny and a dime in a lemon. Don’t eat the lemon afterwards…)
Now lead, used in lead acid batteries IS POISONOUS; before, during and after it is in a battery. To make a comparison: A Prius batter is only about 1.2 kW-h. A typical car battery is about 0.5 kW-h. So the Prius battery is NOT this monster that some people think it is. It is not even twice the size of a car battery. Also it lasts on average almost 500,000 miles, longer than most people would keep their cars. While most car batteries will last about 4 to 5 years, while most cars will last about 8, meaning you will need to replace that poisonous lead acid battery once or twice in the lifespan of a car. (This is worse in colder climates, where the average lifespan of a battery is only 3 years.)
[QUOTE=lkcl;9642]
this doesn’t just apply to one particular vehicle or another: it’s all EVs - it’s just something that you have to watch out for, when using large batteries as a “power source” rather than what they really should be: a “storage” mechanism (yes, ultracapacitors are far too expensive as an alternative, right now).
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Batteries in a hybrid car is just that, a storage mechanism. Hybrids do not plug in, they get their electricity from the gasoline engine. They are more fuel efficient because internal combustion engines are only fuel efficient at certain torques and speed combinations. Which is why there is a multi-gear transmission. A properly designed hybrid system merely uses an electric motor to help the engine when it is the weakest and least efficient, by using electricity generated by the engine when it is most efficient.
[QUOTE=lkcl;9642]
rhetorically speaking: if you want to be truly environmentally friendly as a vehicle manufacturer (or, even as a DIY EV enthusiast) you should be doing everything within your power to reduce the size of that battery pack, and take the necessary steps and consequences in your stride.
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The battery pack of a prius is already quite small. I don’t see how reducing the battery pack size would help things, and I don’t think that is something the end user can do… The carbon footprint to build a Prius is so marginally larger than the average vehicle, that for CNW to “prove” the Hummer is greener than a Prius, they said the average life span of a Hummer is 500,000 miles and the average life span of a Prius is only 90,000 miles… Laughable numbers. In Vancouver, they have been using Priuses since 2001. They have several Priuses that lasted about 1,000,000 miles. Many over 500,000 miles. The average non-hybrid taxi only lasts about 450,000 miles.