pred8r
30th July 2008, 07:40 PM
I figured this (http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=53914) would get lost somewhere in the internets pretty quickly, so I thought I'd post it here, for you to read, as it's spoken by someone we would assume knows his stuff.
Holden Special Vehicles boss Tom Walkinshaw claims most hybrids are less-efficient than petrol engines. Andrew Heasley and Richard Blackburn report.
http://images.drive.com.au/drive_images/Editorial/2008/06/20/walkinshaw-head_m_m_m.jpg
Tom Walkinshaw
Diesel cars, alternative powertrains and alternative bio-fuels are not the broad environmental panaceas they are made out to be, Holden Special Vehicles boss Tom Walkinshaw claims.
The performance car expert, whose company is investigating the idea of developing a diesel model (http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=53909)for its range of high-powered Holdens, claims most hybrids (http://www.drive.com.au/hybrid)are less fuel-efficient than regular petrol-powered vehicles.
Hybrid engines make sense on large commercial vehicles, less so on cars, he says.
"There's a lot of BS at the moment about hybrid cars. If you actually study the fuel consumption of most of the hybrids out there (they) are worse than a petrol-driven car. But it's a nice marketing thing.
''At best they're no better than anything with a conventional powertrain,'' he said.
The comments, made at a press conference to announce the limited edition, VE Commodore-based HSV W427 (http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=53885), put Walkinshaw at odds with HSV managing director Scott Grant, who regularly spruiked the advantages of hybrid technology in his former role as head of Lexus in Australia.
“Lexus also offers diesel variants, but its long-term view is that hybrid will prevail over all single-fuel sources,” Grant said at the launch of the GS450h in 2006.
In the past, Grant has also refused to rule out a hybrid HSV, while Holden recently announced it should have a hybrid Commodore on Australian roads by 2010.
But Walkinshaw believes diesels are a more logical solution, although he says governmental tax policy on fuel is critical to the environmental debate.
"At the moment you have the answer to fuel consumption by looking at diesel, but governments then charge extra taxes on it so they make that option really unavailable to the public because they chose to put a levy on the fuel.
"Goverments throughout the world have to sort themselves out: are they really serious about cutting down fuel consumption or are they just interested in raising tax?''
"At the moment there is a lot of stuff done under an environmental heading that's only just a veiled cloak for increasing tax revenues.
"Diesels will get you 30 per cent better fuel consumption so if they're interested in cutting down the consumption of fuel, then why not make that fuel the same tax levy as petrol? They don't.
''It's not a genuine attempt to solve the problem,'' he says.
As for so-called bio-fuels (such as ethanol or bio-diesel) derived from crops, their production method raises another set of problems, he says, including robbing poor countries of land for food production.
"I don't know that cutting dowm rainforests to plant soya beans to generate fuel is too good for the planet.
"How can you use ... food production to fuel motor cars without causing a problem for people ... in poor countries.
"Where are they going to get the food to eat? If you're taking millions of acres of food producing land and say that's now going to be fuel producing land, where's the food going to come from?'
Substituting fuel for food production has serious global consequences, he warns.
"We've got a whole lot of social unrest coming down the track at the moment at a million miles an hour if we're not careful.
"I don't see how you can take a whole lot of food production out the chain without having a massive social effect,'' he says.
Despite his scepticism about hybrid cars, Walkinshaw, who heads a group of automotive companies, confirmed his European engineers were developing diesel-electric hybrid technology for commercial use in trucks and buses.
Development is based on a 2.2-litre diesel engine that acts not as a propulsion unit, but a generator for an electric motor. The technology is about a year away from being able to be commercialised.
"I think there's a big opportunity for efficiency in buses and commercial vehicles for hybrid that could make a huge impact,'' he said.
"There's a lot of pollution that comes out of that type of vehicle - so there's a lot of potential for making quite a significant improvement.''
Local governments in European cities are quite interested in the technology to clean up their cities, he says.
"Before we started, we had a lot of sounding out of governments and cities throughout Europe that were all very receptive to the concept of being able to cut down the pollution in the city,'' he says.
Other measures that his companies were investigating include "stop-go'' and cylinder de-activation engine technology to eke out better fuel economy.
"You have to ... be at the forefront of anything that's being developed,'' he says.
Holden Special Vehicles boss Tom Walkinshaw claims most hybrids are less-efficient than petrol engines. Andrew Heasley and Richard Blackburn report.
http://images.drive.com.au/drive_images/Editorial/2008/06/20/walkinshaw-head_m_m_m.jpg
Tom Walkinshaw
Diesel cars, alternative powertrains and alternative bio-fuels are not the broad environmental panaceas they are made out to be, Holden Special Vehicles boss Tom Walkinshaw claims.
The performance car expert, whose company is investigating the idea of developing a diesel model (http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=53909)for its range of high-powered Holdens, claims most hybrids (http://www.drive.com.au/hybrid)are less fuel-efficient than regular petrol-powered vehicles.
Hybrid engines make sense on large commercial vehicles, less so on cars, he says.
"There's a lot of BS at the moment about hybrid cars. If you actually study the fuel consumption of most of the hybrids out there (they) are worse than a petrol-driven car. But it's a nice marketing thing.
''At best they're no better than anything with a conventional powertrain,'' he said.
The comments, made at a press conference to announce the limited edition, VE Commodore-based HSV W427 (http://www.drive.com.au/Editorial/ArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=53885), put Walkinshaw at odds with HSV managing director Scott Grant, who regularly spruiked the advantages of hybrid technology in his former role as head of Lexus in Australia.
“Lexus also offers diesel variants, but its long-term view is that hybrid will prevail over all single-fuel sources,” Grant said at the launch of the GS450h in 2006.
In the past, Grant has also refused to rule out a hybrid HSV, while Holden recently announced it should have a hybrid Commodore on Australian roads by 2010.
But Walkinshaw believes diesels are a more logical solution, although he says governmental tax policy on fuel is critical to the environmental debate.
"At the moment you have the answer to fuel consumption by looking at diesel, but governments then charge extra taxes on it so they make that option really unavailable to the public because they chose to put a levy on the fuel.
"Goverments throughout the world have to sort themselves out: are they really serious about cutting down fuel consumption or are they just interested in raising tax?''
"At the moment there is a lot of stuff done under an environmental heading that's only just a veiled cloak for increasing tax revenues.
"Diesels will get you 30 per cent better fuel consumption so if they're interested in cutting down the consumption of fuel, then why not make that fuel the same tax levy as petrol? They don't.
''It's not a genuine attempt to solve the problem,'' he says.
As for so-called bio-fuels (such as ethanol or bio-diesel) derived from crops, their production method raises another set of problems, he says, including robbing poor countries of land for food production.
"I don't know that cutting dowm rainforests to plant soya beans to generate fuel is too good for the planet.
"How can you use ... food production to fuel motor cars without causing a problem for people ... in poor countries.
"Where are they going to get the food to eat? If you're taking millions of acres of food producing land and say that's now going to be fuel producing land, where's the food going to come from?'
Substituting fuel for food production has serious global consequences, he warns.
"We've got a whole lot of social unrest coming down the track at the moment at a million miles an hour if we're not careful.
"I don't see how you can take a whole lot of food production out the chain without having a massive social effect,'' he says.
Despite his scepticism about hybrid cars, Walkinshaw, who heads a group of automotive companies, confirmed his European engineers were developing diesel-electric hybrid technology for commercial use in trucks and buses.
Development is based on a 2.2-litre diesel engine that acts not as a propulsion unit, but a generator for an electric motor. The technology is about a year away from being able to be commercialised.
"I think there's a big opportunity for efficiency in buses and commercial vehicles for hybrid that could make a huge impact,'' he said.
"There's a lot of pollution that comes out of that type of vehicle - so there's a lot of potential for making quite a significant improvement.''
Local governments in European cities are quite interested in the technology to clean up their cities, he says.
"Before we started, we had a lot of sounding out of governments and cities throughout Europe that were all very receptive to the concept of being able to cut down the pollution in the city,'' he says.
Other measures that his companies were investigating include "stop-go'' and cylinder de-activation engine technology to eke out better fuel economy.
"You have to ... be at the forefront of anything that's being developed,'' he says.