Amusing Anomalies

The Seattle Times: Sports: Pac-10 to investigate family residence of Reggie Bush

NCAA college athletics, yes the activity designed to build character and strength, the noble institution of young people playing their hearts out for the glory of their schools, the roar of hyped up crowds, and for $757,000 homes.

Uh, $757,000 homes...? Can't be. But yes it appears so. The Miami Herald and the Associated Press penned a story suggesting that the University of Southern California's Heisman Trophy winner, Reggie Bush's family lived a $757,000 home in Spring Valley California during his Junior year at USC. Now for those of you outside of California, a $757,000 home is not a palatial estate, in Cali $757,000 would get you a decent 3 bedroom 2 bath home in a decent neighborhood in Berkeley. Yet in any part of the country free rent on a $757,000 home is nothing to sneeze at.

The home apparently is owned by an individual named Michael Michaels, who coincidentally was "planning to form a marketing and contract agency that would feature Reggie Bush as a client". I'm sure the plans to form a marketing company anchored by Bush had nothing to do with the rent free residence...but I've been wrong before.

After having this arrangement exposed in the press, USC has forwarded the matter to the Pac-10 for investigation. The NCAA is "likely" to conduct an investigation as well. I'm shocked and nonplused. Money and payola tied to self interest? In college sports? Can't be happening. Well at least Reggie is going to hit paydirt after the draft. You'd hate to see his family put out on the street. Although mysteriously, since the story broke a moving van has uh...picked up all the furniture and moved it out of the house.

I just love college sports. It's just much more pure than the Professional leagues.

The Economics of Hybrid Technology

One of the most confusing and possibly the most controversial issues surrounding hybrid technology are relative economic merits of the technology. There has been a lot written about this subject and the conclusions run from wholly with merit, to break-even to wholly without merit. The conclusion about the beneficial aspects of hybrid technology vary greatly, because those analyzing the technology make entirely different assumptions and individually value different things.

For example, the gasoline advantage of hybrid technology is heavily dependent on what people expect gasoline prices will be in the future. Hybrid technology looks like a sure loser if prices average around $2.65 per gallon, they look like a sure winner at $4.50 per gallon. Depending on where gasoline prices are headed in the future hybrid purchasers may or may not be making a wise economic choice.

Beyond assessing basic petroleum economics, comparing hybrid technology vehicle to conventional gasoline powered engines is often not an "apples to apples" analysis. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid and the Toyota Highlander Hybrid are substantially more expensive than their non-hybrid counterparts. However, each vehicle offers a set of features distinct from the non-hybrid models and each hybrid vehicle, contrary to stereotype, has substantially more power than their non-hybrid cousins. The Honda Accord Hybrid only offers marginal fuel advantages over the standard Honda Accord EX. The Toyota Highlander Hybrid offers substantial both fuel economy gains and 53hp of additional power. Another example, the hybrid version of the Highlander offers a silky smooth CVT transmission, in contrast the non-hybrid version offers a conventional automatic transmission.

Other aspects of hybrid technology represent value, but not to the owner. Hybrids, all things being equal, consume less gasoline and produce less pollution than their non-hybrid counterparts. Those benefits are not fully captured by the owner of the vehicle but are generally spread throughout society. It is almost impossible to economically quantify this potential value. But I suspect that it exceeds the value of the tax credit that the government provides to hybrid users.

I mentioned earlier that we were in the process of buying a new car. The photograph on the right is a fair representation of the car we purchased, a Toyota Highlander Hybrid. The decision to purchase the Highlander Hybrid involved an evaluation of personal need, personal preference, and a bit of political philosophy.

Let me start with a bit of a description of the car. The Toyota Highlander Hybrid is a mid-sized sports utility vehicle with approximately a 268 horsepower hybrid technology electric/internal combustion engine powerplant (As a comparison point, our 2002 Subaru Forester had a rated 165 hp engine). Essentially the car has both a gas and an electric engine that sometime operate in tandem or separately to power the vehicle. The particular model we have can seat 7, (if two of the 7 people are midgets) and our model is a two-wheel drive vehicle (although there is a awd version). The Highlander Hybrid has an efficient, if not exciting interior and is comfortable and reasonably well designed.

The Dance of the Engines

The feature that stands out for this vehicle is the gas/electric hybrid engine and the technology that surrounds it. Rather than getting into the details of the technology I'll discuss how the technology is experienced by the driver. The first time you notice when you turn the key on this SUV is that "nothing happens". I mean, the dash board instruments come on and a ready light blinks on, but you don't hear a starter and you don't hear the familiar rumble of an internal combustion engine (ICE) turning on. Why? The ICE doesn't turn on. The electric motor is what powers the vehicle initially (although if the battery is low when you turn the car on, the ICE will turn on to charge it). So you sit there in silence for a moment and finally convince yourself that the car is really running and press the pedal gently---the car moves forward.

After you get the car moving a bit you'll fell an almost imperceptible tremor--that tremor is a sign that the ICE engine has decided to show up. Here's where it gets interesting. As you drive the ICE and the electric motor start this interesting little tango, sometimes together, sometimes apart. For example, if you're going up a hill using mostly gas power, if you need step on the pedal for a quick burst of speed you'll see the electric motor kick in to provide additional power. When the batteries that power the electric motor start to run out of charge, the gas engine sends power to the batteries. If you're moving at a decent cruising speed and the electric batteries don't need a charge, the ICE will cut off and the electric motor will be used to power the vehicle.

One of the big jokes in the hybrid community (and strangely enough in the internet world---there is such a thing), is that a man let's his brother-in-law borrow his car. Fifteen minutes later he gets a call. It's his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law informs him that he's driving the car to the shop because the engine keeps cutting off at the stop light.

When you stop the Highlander Hybrid at a stop light a couple of interesting things happen. First as you brake, the energy that goes into slowing down the car is transferred into charging the battery. This contributes to conserving fuel and it reduces wear on your brakes. The second interesting thing is that once you stop, the ICE turns off, conserving fuel.

What is particularly fascinating about this dance is that it pretty much occurs in background. You notice it all, but it doesn't overwhelm you. However, if you are aware of how this dance occurs, you can learn to take advantage of it. The car provides incredible freedback. It tells you instantaneously what your current mpg performance is, it tells you when the car switches from gas to electric, from electric to battery, etc. In this sense, you as the driver can choose to become part of the relationship between the technology, the engines. Or if you choose to you can pretty much ignore the whole thing and take advantage of the enhancements at the margin. Driver participation is important. The EPA rates the 2wd Highlander Hybrid at 33 city and 28 highway. Consumer reports rated it at 22 mpg. Right at the moment, in mixed mode driving, city and highway I'm averageing 27.6 mpg. The differences I suspect are all related to how well you take advantage 0f the technology.

I plan to address some of the policy implications of hybrid technology in the future. I figure, I did all that research, I might as well put it to some use.

It's been a long time since I've put in an entry. Contrary to some rumors, my absence is wholly unrelated to the Stanley Cup. (Are they playing the Stanley Cup Playoffs yet?), I haven't been abducted by aliens, nor have I done the wise thing and given up on blogging. All I can say is that life sometimes catches up and more mundane things have to be attended to. In this case the other things involve doing research for a new car, (since bought) getting details ironed out about taxes (since filed), and learning all the ends and outs about scooter lifts: interior-exterior, powered-manual, (still to be determined).

In addition to these amazingly exciting activities, I've been catching up on reading. Two books, not surprisingly, are about Iraq. The third, more surprisingly is about the bible.

The first book, America at the crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, is Francis Fukuyama's look at the neoconservative movement. Fukuyama's book takes both a historical and analytical look at the neoconservative political movement and declares it a suicide. Fukuyama, an academician type, is not an academician type writer, meaning, reading this book was an absolute joy, not a trudge through deep swamp. It's clean, concise and refreshing short--and yet the analysis is subtle. I'd highly recommend it.

The second book, Cobra II, by Michael R. Gordon (free registration required NYTimes), of the New York Times, and General Bernard E. Trainor, ret. USMC. Cobra II is a dense book, looking into every nook and cranny of the Iraq invasion. From it's planning to execution and the beginning of the occupation. After reading this book you will fully understand why US Generals are calling for the sacking of Donald Rumsfeld. It's another book I'd highly recommend.

The third book, Misquoting Jesus, is a book by Bart D. Ehrman. Bart Ehrman, chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman's history is rather fascinating, he started out as a biblical literalist that started his religious education at strongly fundamentalist educational institutions. He learned Greek, Latin and various other languages necessary to read the ancient text, and discovered much to his surprise that 1) no one has the original text and 2) the text we do have suffers from mistranslations, changes, edits and errors. Ehrman's conclusion? If there was an original text of the bible, we sure in the world don't know what it is now and really have no means of discovering it. Ehrman is now an agnostic. Read the book if you have a chance, you're unlikely to be disappointed.

I will be blogging more in the near future and I will probably touch on energy policy and transportation policy a bit more in the future. The car buying decision forced me to do research on those issues *grin*