Good for City Hall for greening its fleet

The city of Wichita is setting a fine example with its addition of 12 hybrid Honda Civics to its motor pool, especially as the city fights to comply with new federal air-quality rules. Each $22,782 sedan gets about 40 miles per gallon while emitting 75 percent less pollution. As Joe Pajor, assistant director of public works, said at the rollout, “They make sense economically because they will save enough on fuel to pay the additional initial cost of each vehicle. Beyond that, they make great sense environmentally.”

3 Comments

  1. aldenrw
    Posted September 3, 2008 at 10:03 am | Permalink

    Hybrid cars aren’t quite “all that.” As Wired points out, it takes a lot of energy to make those batteries:

    http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-06/ff_heresies_09usedcars

  2. Maggotpunk
    Posted September 3, 2008 at 12:06 pm | Permalink

    From your article:
    “Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer, largely due to the environmental cost of the 30 pounds of nickel in the hybrid’s battery. Of course, the hybrid quickly erases that carbon deficit on the road, thanks to its vastly superior fuel economy.”

    So clearly not. Plus the battery is recyclable so the nickel can be recovered for further use. Then again, the Prius can be modified to get over 100mpg.

  3. Arabella Jensen
    Posted September 14, 2008 at 11:11 am | Permalink

    Inspiring.