Yahoo News Are Hybrids Better for the Environment?
A hybrid vehicle's mass-market appeal centers around its fuel-economy ratings. As gas prices remain high, car buyers want to put as little fuel into their cars as possible. Without stepping into the EV realm, that means getting a more fuel-efficient vehicle, such as a hybrid. But while they ease the burden on our wallets, are hybrids actually doing good for the environment?
The answer is a somewhat unsatisfying "probably, but it depends." Fuel use is a major factor in a vehicle's environmental impact and one where hybrids have an advantage, but we also have to take into consideration what goes into building and maintaining a hybrid and what happens to it after its useful life comes to an end.
Using Less Fuel Is Less Bad
The obvious, tangible advantage of a hybrid vehicle compared to a similar-sized gas-only vehicle is reduced fuel use.
Of course, the hybrid still burns fuel, and unless and until synthetic fuels become commercially available, that means using our finite reserves of dino juice. The combustion of petroleum products at any scale creates harmful byproducts, and the acquisition of petroleum isn't the most enviro-friendly activity. When it comes to fuel use, hybrids are better (or less bad) for the environment than nonhybrid internal-combustion cars, but they still pollute.
Environmental Supply-Chain Issues
Sadly, hybrids don't just show up in our driveways, carried by a unicorn riding a rainbow. Both the batteries and electric motors that go into hybrids have associated environmental costs that are absent with a conventional internal-combustion vehicle.
On the battery side, the specific chemistry dictates the recipe, but materials can include nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare-earth metals. All of these have to be collected, which uses energy and brings obvious environmental harms, and can be dangerous to boot.
Making some electric motors requires pulling rare-earth magnets out of the ground. Permanent-magnet electric motors, which are common in today's hybrids and EVs, largely use neodymium magnets. The mining operation is costly and complicated, and it uses a good deal of energy, as does processing the raw materials into a usable magnet.
That said, automakers are working to find alternatives to these most unsavory hybrid ingredients. This includes reducing or eliminating the need for rare-earth magnets.
And everyone is in the race to make the cheapest, most energy-dense battery possible while increasing the pack's sustainability.
Keeping a Hybrid on the Road
All cars require maintenance of some kind. Hybrids tend to have smaller engines, which generally means they require a smaller volume of oil at each oil change. And since a hybrid's engine isn't running all the time, it may not need an oil change quite as often. Also, a hybrid's brake pads will last longer because of the regenerative braking that makes them work, so less brake dust will accumulate along the roadside. Slight advantage: hybrids.
If the battery has to be replaced, however, that's another negative hit on the enviro-meter.
Please Recycle Responsibly
When a hybrid reaches the end of its service life, it should be properly recycled like any other car. This includes collecting the parts that were especially resource-intensive to create—the battery and motors—and either reusing them or recycling their contents. Here again we have some control over the environmental impact of our vehicles. Fortunately, there's a financial incentive to recycle these components.
Just as with your cellphone, the parts can either be repurposed or the valuable materials inside can be harvested and then live on in new incarnations. The hope is that, as we build more battery packs, we can use the remnants of the older ones to feed back into a circular economy and lessen the need to mine virgin materials.
Breaking Even with Mother Earth
The point at which a hybrid crosses over into an environmental win compared to a gas-only vehicle varies from model to model. But, just like the financial breakeven point at which a more expensive hybrid pays for itself in fuel savings, there is an environmental breakeven point, and it's generally not too far into the expected life of the vehicle. As with any car, the longer a hybrid can be kept in service, the lower its environmental impact will be.
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