There was an outfit called "CNW Marketing" who published a report "Dust-to-Dust." Their press release announced that the Hummer was cheaper per mile than the Prius and they received a whole bunch of press. We soon discovered this was based upon:

• very long lives for Hummers and large, Land Rover style vehicles
• always shortened lives for hybrids and the Prius
• extremely high costs assigned to hybrid development and salvage

Attempts to discuss their results and understand the data were rebuffed by "CNW Marketing" who seemed very secretive about the numbers. Although claiming it was self funded, the announcement that the original H1 was ceasing production followed shortly after the "Dust-to-Dust" report came out. Furthermore, every other peer reviewed paper on vehicle life-time energy use had reported 75-80% of the energy cost came in operation, not in the design, manufacture and disposal. Still, CNW Marketing insisted they were right and the world was wrong.

It is May 2008 and gas prices had already reached $3/gallon and climbing. GM announced possible ending of the last H3. Dealer lots are choked with SUVs and large pickups and Toyota sold every one of their Prius to the point that sales in the USA are now one-for-one with factory shipments.

Curiously, CNW Marketing now reports the Prius price per mile is in the middle of the pack, $2.19/mile, versus their original $3.25/mile. Well isn't that nice.

Bob Wilson

 

. . . so where did they put the Hummer?

 

Hi,

I tossed the spreadsheet and graph but their May 21 data release is an excel spreadsheet that shows their 'annual' accounting for $/mile for each car. I then plotted the values and it formed a curious 'curve' that starts at ~$.60/mile and increases in a slightly flattening curve until the far right edge when it takes a sharp jump upwards around ~$3.50/mile and shoots up to huge numbers ~$30+/mile for luxury vehicles.

I was thinking that maybe the shape of the curve would give a clue as to the underlying algorithm but no luck. It may be possible to do some sort of mutli-variable analysis but I'm left wondering why?

It is sort of like looking at a failed test result and trying to reconstruct the thinking that led to the wrong answers. In contrast, I can work on the "Quiet Car" initiative or analysis of my Prius data and get some payback.

The reason I even looked was in May Toyota sold every Prius in the USA while the CNW favorites are sitting unsold on the lots and their factories are shutting down. There are some facts so blatantly obvious that even CNW Marketing, who claims to offer accurate vehicle sales data, could not ignore. No I was surprised that CNW Marketing continues like the Black Knight in the Monty Python skit to hold on to their "Dust-to-Dust" report.

Bob Wilson