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[edjack]

The San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission is concerned with hybrids clogging the HOV lanes, if allowed to use them with a solo driver, as some legislators are wont to do.

Here's a solution to relieve potential HOV lane congestion: mandate that only licensed drivers qualify as the second passenger. This will eliminate about 50% of the users of HOV lanes.

When soccer moms (or the "Professional Woman") and their kid occupy the HOV lane, it does nothing to alleviate highway congestion (no second car is removed from the road). This meets the letter of the law, but not the spirit!

Enforcement: look for an adult passenger in the car. Assume they are a licensed driver. If no adult passenger, write them up.

BTW, hybrids are a knee-jerk reaction to the fuel supply problem. Have any idea what's gonna happen to all those hybrids in five years, when the owner faces a $5000 battery replacement bill? They're gonna end up in the landfill.

[JRS]

quote:

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Originally posted by edjack:
.. Have any idea what's gonna happen to all those hybrids in five years, when the owner faces a $5000 battery replacement bill? They're gonna end up in the landfill.

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In 5 years I'd expect new types of interchangable batteries to be available to the consumer. Think back for the past 5 years and note that batteries have evolved. Nickel Cadmium (NiCad) to to Nickel Metal Hydrides (NiMH) and now Lithium. Lithium is "new" to the consumer and more affordable than 5 years ago- - and is lighter, or maH (power), charges faster, and takes up less space.

A clear example of battery evolution can be found in your ordinary cellular phone. Cellphones today are smaller, lighter, and last 3-4 hours of talk time before recharge. Think back 5-years ago and you'd be happy to get a small phone that lasts 1-hour of talk time.

JRS

[Tangent]

Toyota says that today the replacement cost of a battery pack (Which they expect to last the life of the car) to be around $2000- $3000...

[kyshadetreebmw]

Our college motorpool fleet has a couple of the Prius. About two years now. We have had to replace the battery in each of them already!!

[McK]

pushing this a little further off the original topic but the landfill comment reminded me of a news piece I heard on the radio the other day. Pretty sure it wasn't on the 1st of April... Ford is pushing legislators to create a tax incentive for people purchasing hybrid vehicles (to help offset the higher sticker price). Ok. And to further convince people to go hybrid they suggest levying an additional 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline. How ridiculous, this second part. I hope nobody in gov't actually tries pass that. Penalize the drivers who own cars older than 2-3 years old, to persuade them to junk a perfectly good vehicle and buy a new environmentally friendler hybrid? That's a great way to improve the environment.

I don't think hybrids are actually a kneejerk reaction. These are ideas that have been kicking around for a while now but the interest and funding hasn't been adequate to push the technology further ahead. What we're seeing now is the more rapid development of a few good ideas that had been simmering, slowly progressing. Fuel cells, hybrids, solar. I'd expect some huge advances across the board in the next 5 years, if not sooner..

[graha13836]

Not to go political but the Democrats are the big fans of the Hybrid, gas tax to the extreme, penalize those of us that are to damn cheap to buy a new car because we like to drive a good quality older bimmer than a new, god forbid, cavalier, neon..... The HOV lane thing kinda is funny because in every city I have been in that has them, they are never full during rush hour. I keep thinking how much that mostly wasted piece of pavement is costing the taxpayers to maintain.