Topic: CD Article: 2008 Nissan Altima Hybrid

[Autos_Editor]

Today's Test Drive:

Nissan's first hybrid offers great gas mileage, though not as good as advertised, reports Editor-in-chief, Greg Wilson.  It's easy to drive without any major compromises in driveability, he says, but rear headroom is tight for adults, and the trunk is small.
   
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Read the article | View the photos | All The Test Drives

[2JDM]

Very nice looking sedan. I'd choose this over the Camry Hybrid.

[jww]

I really don't get hybrids very well. They seem to me to be alot more money with very little real payback unless you drive lots of miles. I get the environment thing, it just seems to me that there are better options being developed than hybrid.

Personally, I'd like to see manufacturers sell a hi-output turbo-diesel or one of them new-fangled alternate fuel cell engines that Nissan has been working on over the past couple of years instead.

[johngenx]

I don't get it.  On a recent road trip to the mountains and back our C230 averaged 6.5L/100km.  Why can't people just buy a reasonably sized sedan with a good four cylinder and get mileage comparable or better than an overweight hybrid model? 

I just read about the Escape Hybrid that gets poorer mileage than our Forester!  Huh?  So what if it get better than the "normal" Escape?  When you can spend less and get small UV that gets better mileage without the hyrid technology, the technology makes no sense.

[sailor723]

I can't help thinking that a few years from now we'll look at hybrids as sort of a strange passing fad.It seems to me that that compromises in design and the extra expense really don't buy enough benefits.

[tpl]

I really don't get hybrids very well. They seem to me to be alot more money with very little real payback unless you drive lots of miles. I get the environment thing, it just seems to me that there are better options being developed than hybrid.

Personally, I'd like to see manufacturers sell a hi-output turbo-diesel or one of them new-fangled alternate fuel cell engines that Nissan has been working on over the past couple of years instead.

Surely if you drive lots of miles, unless you are a pizza delivery person, the car will be mostly on the highway. And that is the case where the virtues of the hybrid disappear as it will be running the gasoline engine all the time.

if you ARE a pizza delivery person then a hybrid like the Chevy Volt, an electric car with an onboard battery charging motor, would be very efficient I think.

[jww]

I can't help thinking that a few years from now we'll look at hybrids as sort of a strange passing fad.It seems to me that that compromises in design and the extra expense really don't buy enough benefits.

 

As is often the case - we have many Hollywood celebrities to thank for making hybrids popular. Last time I saw something on this said that half of so-called Hollywood 'stars' have a Prius. Many of them park it beside their Hummer or Range Rover. Cheeze Loo-eeze - gimme a break!!

[safristi]

tpl ...I'm still waiting fer MY EXTRA LARGE HAWAIIAN..are ya Hula dancin' wif her again.......

[gotak]

It's already slowly passing, i think. Example like how Honda's decision to stop the Accord Hybrid and supposedly replacing it with a diesel.

However, it might still stick around perhaps in small city cars or altered into a fully electric drive system with a motor that only charges the batteries.

With Hybrids I often wonder about it's other environmental foot print. That being what happens when you need to get rid of the battery.

[random006]

Why do we have both a 2007 Altima hybrid thread and a 2008 Altima Hybrid thread when they both point to the 2007 Altima article?

[jww]

It's already slowly passing, i think. Example like how Honda's decision to stop the Accord Hybrid and supposedly replacing it with a diesel.

However, it might still stick around perhaps in small city cars or altered into a fully electric drive system with a motor that only charges the batteries.

With Hybrids I often wonder about it's other environmental foot print. That being what happens when you need to get rid of the battery.

Fewer hybrids and more diesels - that's my hope.

[G35X]

Gotak wrote:
"It's already slowly passing, i think. Example like how Honda's decision to stop the Accord Hybrid and supposedly replacing it with a diesel."

Is Altima the first and the last hybrid from Nissan?  We do not know. One thing we know is the fact that Nissan has to pay royalties for many patents Toyota owns.  Emission wise Toyota already proved that hybrids are much cleaner than diesel.  Also, the cleaning up process is much simpler and cheaper for gas engines.  With the price of platinum family of metals keeps going up combination of a small displacement gas engine and electric motor(s) to propel everyday-use automobiles makes economic sense.  Therefore, demise of Altima/Accord or not Toyota will keep bringing out new hybrids with more improvements and refinements.


“…or altered into a fully electric drive system with a motor that only charges the batteries.”

Although this simplifies driving mechanism, it is very difficult power wise. Suppose you need 50 bhp to go from zero to 50Km/h in 10 seconds, you have to keep supplying some 75 amps to the electric motor if the battery voltage is 500 volts. That’s 3125 amps for a regular 12-volt battery! For just cruising you would need some 15 bhp. That’s 22.5 amps for a 500-volt battery.  You need a big battery here. A small gas engine to drive a generator to charge it should have enough power to charge a fully-drained battery in a reasonably short time. Suppose the battery run out of the juice while going up hill trying to pass that big log truck on Coquihalla Highway with an Escalade right behind you, what do you do?  A small 3-cylinder gas engine (in the Volt) won’t help you.

jww wrote:
“Fewer hybrids and more diesels - that's my hope.”

Why? Diesel is not a better fuel from the standpoint of emission cleanliness.  As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum the popularity of diesel in Europe is not because it is cleaner. It is made cheaper than gasoline politically.  Diesel is not cheaper to produce than gas. The cheap price (less tax) started as a form of subsidy for farmers in France.  Here in Canada there is not much difference in price between diesel and gasoline per volume. So, why bother.  The advantage of diesel here is it is packed with more energy per volume thereby letting you go farther than gas (and diesel engines are more efficient thermally).  But, gas hybrids are just as efficient overall.

[johngenx]

My hope - More diesels, more hybrids and fewer gas guzzlers overall.

[jww]

Why? Diesel is not a better fuel from the standpoint of emission cleanliness.  As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum the popularity of diesel in Europe is not because it is cleaner. It is made cheaper than gasoline politically.  Diesel is not cheaper to produce than gas. The cheap price (less tax) started as a form of subsidy for farmers in France.  Here in Canada there is not much difference in price between diesel and gasoline per volume. So, why bother.  The advantage of diesel here is it is packed with more energy per volume thereby letting you go farther than gas (and diesel engines are more efficient thermally).  But, gas hybrids are just as efficient overall.

Fuel efficiency is better with a diesel than with gasoline - which makes it less about the price as diesel's better efficiency offers far better fuel mileage. The diesels of today are miles ahead of their fore-father products of even as recent as only a few years ago. The black smoke puffing out of the rear is a thing of the past with the diesels now being built today. Peugeot being by far and away the most advanced (and reportedly also the best) diesel engines available at the moment.

If we want to consider the environmental footprint issue, there  there's always the bio-diesel option which can be produced from soy beans.

Don't think that I am proposing that diesel is the ultimate fuel - nothing is going to be perfect for some time yet, I suspect (at least until they figure how to make a car run indefinitely on rain water). I am simply suggesting that the hybrid phenomenon, has become over-hyped and I that I, for one, would simply like to see at more diesel options than what we currently have, that's all.

[safristi]

..these ALT FUELS ideas are sick.......already the Ethanol craze has tilted food supplies and costs negatively.....Huge SUBSIDIES fer CORN/Ethanol plants has raised costs for foods by having Farmers switching heavily to higher priced CORN PRICES(who can blame them!!??) and leaving other crops in short supply hence MORE EXPENSIVE...witness big increases in Dairy & Meat..just at a time 3 rd world countries are getting richer and wanting these comestibles...a DEOUBLE WHAMMY if U will.......soy and Palm oils in place of Gasoline will kill some countries economies....time to get OFF this GREENIE BAD!!! WAGON......

[G35X]

safristi wrote:
"..these ALT FUELS ideas are sick.."
I agree. It is only making Iowa farmers rich and evrybody else, especially those tortilla-eating Mexicans and soy bean-eating Japanese, hungry.

jww wrote:
"I am simply suggesting that the hybrid phenomenon, has become over-hyped and I that I, for one, would simply like to see at more diesel options than what we currently have, that's all."

The “new” diesel is also being hyped now. VW, MB and other European manufacturers have spent enormous amount of money in R&D to clean up inherently dirtier diesel.  That’s because economy-minded European consumers want to keep using the “subsidized” fuel.  The European manufacturers know that government won’t be able to equalize the fuel tax (if anything diesel should be taxed more because of its higher content of combustible material per volume). Even a hint of increasing the tax by the government will result in revolt of farmers and consumers. And the French is know for revolting.

So, VW, MB et al want to bring their diesel automobiles here to amortize their R&D investment as much as possible, thence the diesel hype.  Fossil or bio, diesel is dirtier than gas. NOx is NOx regardless of where the fuel comes from. The industry still does not know how to meet the new, stricter California emission regulation.  The carbon particulate colleted by the filter must be burned off by using platinum catalyser (read: expensive and scarce) emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.

[jww]

I think that in the end, the only way we are going to reduce the carbon footprint from vehicles is to stop driving them entirely. Unfortunately, that isn't an option for most of us at this point in time so we'll continue to look for perceivably affordable options including smaller engines, alternate fuels, and hybrids.

[IMAMAn]

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