Cars and The Efficiency Debate
Cars and The Efficiency Debate
Caden Arras
Many, many years ago, British motoring show “Top Gear” featured a segment during their show in which they ran a BMW M3, which is powered by a 420-horsepower V8 engine, around a track against a Toyota Prius, one of the most fuel-efficient hybrids of all time. The objective was for the Prius to drive as fast as possible, while the BMW only had to keep up for ten laps, to see which car used less fuel and was therefore more economical and efficient. The result? The hyper-efficient Toyota Prius managed a mere 17.2 miles per gallon, whereas the gas-guzzling BMW had a fuel economy of 19.4 miles per gallon. The Toyota Prius, however, comes with an even greater hidden cost. At the time of Top Gear’s show, the batteries were constructed using nickel from mines in Canada, which is then shipped across Europe and Asia via container ships and trucks and trains, to Japan, where the cars are built. This process alone makes, according to the show, “[the Prius] do more environmental damage than a Land Rover Discovery”.
In the grand scheme of things, the fuel efficiency of the cars and trucks we drive every day play a very large role in our fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas output. As emissions from cars are responsible for roughly a fifth of all greenhouse gases in the world, it is becoming more and more crucial to make them more economical and efficient in order to reduce the amount of gases they produce and fuel they consume. This is far less impossible than it may seem. If automotive manufacturers were to double the fuel efficiency of all new cars, the world would save over five million barrels of oil every single day. Government policy has the potential to make change happen as well. The United States government sets regulations on emissions and pollution that automakers are allowed to produce from the exhaust pipes of their cars. If these regulations were to become more strict, oil consumption would be cut significantly, and greenhouse gases would be reduced as well.
This issue has not been left alone by automobile makers. In fact, certain Japanese brands, such as Honda and Toyota, are developing new technologies to remove fossil fuels from the automotive industry as completely as possible. To accomplish this, they’re employing the use of Hydrogen fuel cells. Because hydrogen is one of the most common elements on the planet, there are very few difficulties getting any cheaply and efficiently. More importantly, hydrogen emissions are, in a nutshell, water. This means that any and all fossil fuels would be removed from powering the car itself, and the emissions would be nonexistent. If this technology is implemented on a global scale, emissions would be cut drastically in all nations, and the only destructive production methods of automotive manufacturers would be the building of cars themselves.
Until these technologies become widely available, however, we are limited to what is currently available to us. That said, there is still much that can be done to reduce our emission output. When driving, as shown in the Top Gear segment, it is not about what we drive, but how we drive it. If we choose to drive efficiently, such as accelerating slowly and staying within the speed limit, we can reduce how much fuel our cars consume on daily trips. Furthermore, by maintaining our cars, we maintain their efficiency and fuel economy, and don’t end up scrapping or recycling our cars as often, which can damage the environment. So, armed with this knowledge, what will you do? Does a Prius sound like a better option than a BMW? I vote no, for more reasons than one.
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Alice