Is The Hybrid Vehicle Today’s Filtered Cigarette Promoted by the Automotive Industry?

 

By Nancy Williams and Michael Coppola

The tobacco industry touted the filtered cigarette as being safer than their unfiltered brands in order to keep selling cigarettes, but the filtered cigarette was not actually safer.

Now we see similar misinformation from the auto industry, backed by the powerful fossil fuel industry that the Hybrid Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle [HICEV] is less polluting than the Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle [ICEV] and, therefore, it can get us to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement of staying below a 2 degree C increase or hopefully below a 1.5 degree C increase.

How much time do we have left to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement? According to all sources we cannot meet the 1.5 goal by 2030 as required and are headed to exceeding 2.0 C by the mid 2030’s if we continue on our current path. However, it is still possible to halt warming to 2.0 C if we were to immediately dramatically reduce our greenhouse emissions. The latest data shows that limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires global Greenhouse Gas, GHG, emissions to stop increasing before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by mid 2030. That is a formidable task and would require reducing the emissions from the sector contributing the largest amount. 

For decades the power generation sector was the largest emitter. The replacement of fossil fuel burning plants with solar, wind and geothermal reduced their contribution. By replacing their most polluting plants with the least polluting plants they made a significant reduction in emissions. The transportation sector has recently taken the lead over the power generation sector in contributing the largest amount of Greenhouse gases. The transportation sector consists of planes, trains, ships, buses and large long-haul trucks and a combined category of passenger vehicles and light trucks. The passenger/light truck sector produces more than 50% of the GHG emissions of the transportation sector. This makes the reduction of GHG’s in this sector very important. Reductions are needed in other sectors such as agriculture and electric generation, but if we allow the passenger vehicle and light truck sector not to be addressed aggressively, we are missing a great opportunity to reach our goal.

The auto and fossil-fuel industries have decided that they will use hybrid vehicle to reduce their emissions, and not fully electric vehicle. Can the hybrid achieve our goal? Does the hybrid produce significantly less emissions than the traditional gasoline Internal Combustion engine vehicle? Let's compare the difference in emissions between the three types. 

Battery Electric Vehicle [BEV]

Hybrid Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle [HICEV].

Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle, ICEV.

What are the mechanisms that the BEV and the HICEV use to reduce emissions. For the BEV its very simple the ICE is replaced with an electric motor that is powered by a battery and regenerative brakes are used to help charger the battery.

For the HICEV 

There are three things added to the ICEV; 

An electric drive motor/generator

A regenerative braking system 

A small high voltage battery pack

These additional items allow the HICEV to have a smaller engine. The electric motor can take over when driving less than 30 mph, thereby reducing the use of the gas engine. A small amount of energy is returned to the battery with regenerative braking. Under highway driving the electric motor provides additional power when needed. The gas engine in an HICEV is the main way the battery is recharged, especially in highway driving. The gas engine is under greater load while it recharges the battery. That is part of the reason why MPG is lower during highway driving of a HICEV and the GHG emissions are higher. The gasoline engine ultimately is used to power the vehicle because it provides the energy to charge the battery. The regenerative braking provides a very small amount of energy to charge the battery. 

The efficiency of a hybrid to reduce emissions is directly related to how much the regenerative braking system is used. It will be most efficiently done at a stop and go speed greater than 30 mph. When the vehicle is going too slow to generate enough kinetic energy, or the battery is already at capacity, the regenerative braking is not activated.

What does the US EPA say about how much these vehicles reduce the emissions from that of a ICEV?

According to the US EPA the HICEV can reduce the amount of gasoline consumed and greenhouse gases emitted from its tailpipe by 25% if driven under optimal conditions compared to the equivalent ICEV. EPA estimates are based on 45% highway, 55% city driving, and 15,000 annual miles. If the hybrid is used primarily on the highway its tailpipe emission will not reduce by 25% but something considerably less.

For all practical purposes, the HICEV is a gasoline powered vehicle.

The following chart shows the US Government’s website “fueleconomy.gov” data on the annual petroleum used and the emissions that come from the direct operation of each type of vehicle; ICEV, HICEV and BEV. It compares a 2024 RAV4 AWD; HYBRID RAV4 AWD and the Ford MACH E-AWD, (with standard battery pack). These three vehicles are very comparable in size and features.

MODEL	2024 RAV4 AWD	2024 RAV4 Hybrid AW	2024 Ford AWD Mustang Mach-E
Energy Impact Score (1)
Annual Petroleum in barrels used /yr.	10.3 barrels	7.6 barrels	0.1 barrel
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
grams per mile of CO2 from Tailpipe	301	224	0

The Energy Impact Score shows the following difference between the three vehicles.

HICEV 2.7 barrels less than the ICEV, a 26% decrease in gasoline use.

BEV 10.6 barrels less than the ICEV, a 99 % decrease in gasoline use.

For greenhouse gas emissions:

HICEV 77 grams less than the ICEV, a decrease of 25 %.

BEV 291 grams less than the ICEV, a decrease of 97 % .

What the data shows is that compared to an ICE vehicle the HICEV reduces the amount of gasoline consumed and greenhouse gases by 26% and 25% respectively, while the BEV reduces the amount of gasoline consumed and greenhouse gases by 99% and 97% respectively.

Another way to look at it is that the BEV is almost 4 times more effective in reducing the amount of gasoline consumed and the amount of greenhouse gases produced.

This data only shows a partial comparison of pollution and GHG’s that occurs by having HICEV and ICEV on the road. The U.S. Energy Information Administration points out that gasoline leaks happen at gas stations every day. As people fill up their gas tanks, gasoline drips from the nozzle onto the ground and vapors leak from open gas tanks into the air. Gas also leaks when the filling station tanks are loaded. Gasoline leaks can also happen in pipelines or in underground storage tanks. As long as gasoline is being used these leaks will occur. This has to be taken into consideration when tallying the GHG and pollution from a hybrid vehicle because it is a gasoline powered vehicle. 

Another often overlook contributor to global warming by the vehicles using a gasoline engine is the waste heat of the engine that rises into the atmosphere. Any heat rising up from the surface of the earth reaches the GHG’s and heats them up. Seventy percent of the energy is lost as waste heat in the combustion of gasoline in the ICEV. This heat is readily noticed when driving in stop and go traffic and felt when pulling your car into your garage. The real world decrease in GHG’s and its effect on global heating by the hybrid is more like 10% when the aforementioned activities are counted.

The BEV does not involve gasoline spills and produces almost no heat. It is also important to note that the electricity being produce is becoming greener every day. Nine five percent, 95%, of all applications for new generating station are for wind, solar, geothermal and hydro. The remaining 5% are for small natural gas plants, many of which will be used only for periods of peak demand.

The window of time to prevent our earth from getting to that unlivable condition is getting smaller every day. Even if every ICEV was replaced by a HICEV and it operated at maximum efficiency it cannot contribute enough to the goal of a dramatic reduction nor a reduction of 43% in GHG emissions by mid 2030.  Similar to the tobacco industry saying filtered cigarettes are better for your health than unfiltered ones, the auto industry is saying the hybrid vehicle is so much better than the ICEV that it can save the planet from global warming when in truth it continues to add almost the same amount of greenhouse gases as the Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle. The data clearly shows that if you want to reduce the emission dramatically the BEV is the clear way to go.

REFERENCES

How Do Hybrid Cars Work? - Consumer Reports

The CAT Thermometer | Climate Action Tracker

The evidence is clear: the time for action is now. We can halve emissions by 2030. — IPCC

AI predicts global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees in 2030s | Stanford Report

Cigarettes filter-safety-myths protects-your-health

How Much Carbon Monoxide Does A Car Produce? - The Environmental Literacy Council

Gasoline and the environment - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)