Paul McCartney’s Lexus Hybrid Gets 4 MPG
In a perfect example of why Cliff’s Notes don’t substitute for reading the whole book, the method by which Paul McCartney’s new luxury hybrid was delivered to him has ruined any environmental gains that might have been made by driving a hybrid in the first place. Indeed… his brand new Lexus LS 600h hybrid was flown to him by cargo plane. Questions of whether or not a 5.0-liter, V-8, 19 mile per gallon luxury behemoth really exemplifies the spirit of a “hybrid” aside, the judgment involved in shipping cars by airplane is enough to cringe at.
Doing some of my own napkin calculations (below) I came up with a fuel efficiency for the 5,966 mile trip from Tokyo to London of 4 mpg. That’s assuming the cargo plane burned 5 gallons of fuel per mile and there were 19 other cars in the plane. I’m not so sure there were 20 cars on that cargo plane, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. What this means is that the former Beatle’s new Lexus hybrid got 4 mpg for the first 5,966 miles of it’s life without ever starting up or even getting the chance to enjoy it’s V-8 glory on the open road. What a shame.
To be fair, we’ve all been guilty of this kind of inefficient transportation at some level (think bananas from South America), and Paul McCartney is simply an easy target. In fact, most new cars being bought off the lot will have a large “carbon debt” due to the simple act of manufacturing. This debt, even in the case of a Prius, will take tens of thousands of miles of driving to pay off versus something like a fuel efficient used car. In the end, the lack of wisdom here points out that we can deliver all the great new technology we want, yet without the conscious decision to change our habits we won’t make much headway in improving energy efficiency.
*Editorial Note: Nick Chambers is the newest writer on Gas 2.0: welcome Nick!
Posts Related to Fuel Economy and Carbon Emissions:
- The World’s Most Fuel Efficient Car: 285 MPG, Not A Hybrid
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(Note: this comment was inserted at the top of the comment string after the first 18 comments were received)
I appreciate all the activity associated with this post. I’ve got some comments that should address a few of the recurring concerns with my article both here and on Digg:
1) Paul McCartney is one of my music heroes. Without him much of the music we love today would not exist… at least not in its current form. It should be clear from the article that I specifically never blamed Mr. McCartney directly for the shipping of the car by air freight. He has indeed been an outspoken and influential activist when it comes to many, many environmental issues. For sure, this one instance in which he most likely didn’t have any influence over how the car was shipped is far outweighed by his life’s work.
2) Obviously all cars on this planet at one time were shipped from somewhere. It’s a matter of economies of scale. A typical transoceanic cargo ship can hold upwards of 2000-4000+ automobiles. The amount of energy used per automobile when shipping by boat is a fraction of the energy used when shipping by airplane.
3) Being satirical in nature, not everything in my article was meant to be taken seriously. Of course his car didn’t actually get 4 MPG. Yes this title doesn’t fully express the complexities of the situation. But it got people reading and thinking. Isn’t that what editorials are supposed to do?
4) Actually, no I don’t have a life. This has nothing to do with my desire to write articles like this, and everything to do with the fact that I have two children under the age of three.
5) Lastly, the whole point is that technology can only bring us so far. Changing attitudes, actions, opinions, and habits will, by far, have the most profound effect on our future welfare. Hopefully we’ll reach some point in time when a shipping manager in some far off port will decide, based on corporate policy, that shipping by air is unnecessary when shipping by boat will consume much less energy… regardless of the pop stature of the intended recipient.
I’m curious about the comparable equation for a Japanese car delivered via container ship, but I’m lacking more of the numbers to plug into the equation. Any ideas?
LOL, when you have his kind of Money in the bank I guess MPG is a moot point!
JJ
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
You know, I am sick of hearing stuff like this when there are much more important environmental issues to be addressing. Who the hell cares how the company that gave him his car felt like getting it to him???? So they chose a cargo plane, big freaking deal. It was probably so he could get the car in time for some event, like a grand unveiling, or something, which is scheduled in advance with press and what not. Surely, they could’ve put it on a boat and pushed the date out, but that isn’t the point. All that really matters here is that you shouldn’t be harping on such bs, and stating innacuracies such as it’s getting 4mpg before even started. If you’re going to bother doing that, why don’t you figure out how much gas it took to get the steel, and rubber, and leather and other components to the location it was assembled in the first place?!?!?! Transportation is part of the whole equation of buying an automobile, simple as that. Sometimes time constraints warrant blowing more money. It cannot be helped.
Go attack China for all the coal they are using, not a single celebrity trying to make a global difference by raising awareness, even if Toyota ultimately messed up this particular part of it.
Why did you do all that unnecessary math? let me simplify it for you:
20 Cars / 5 gallons per mile = 4 miles per gallon per car
This isn’t exactly a fair calculation. What you need to compare is the fuel used per vehicle to ship it via an ocean cargo ship vs. air cargo. a cargo ship could carry several hundred cars per ship, but runs for much longer - up to several weeks. A small 1,600 container ship burns 40 metric tons of fuel per day (works out to about 21.4 gal/mile). The fuel cargo ships use is called bunker380, and is a thick dirty leftover from the fuel refining process after they produce gasoline for cars and jet fuel, etc. I would put the numbers together more accurately, but I don’t have the time right now. You’d have to factor in # of cars/ship vs. # per plane, and then the total gas consumption of 5 gal/mile used above vs. 21.4 gal/mile for boat. Here’s some decent info: http://www.juddspittler.com/freighterbum/engineroom2.htm
There’s a bit of info you left out. Your calculations (if your MPG estimate on the airplane was correct) are accurate, but that’s only the MPG the car “got” before it started being driven.
If you wanted to calculate this initial gas usage’s effect on the MPG during the life of the car, you’d need to include in the MPG it’s getting as it’s being driven, estimate how many miles the car will be driven over its life, and then integrate over that. It’ll be more than 4mph.
Let’s face it hybrids are just another class of lifestyle vehicles like sports cars or SUVs. Building any cars is never going to ’save the planet’.
Er, mpg that is.
How much more depends on how long he drives the thing.
One thing that wasn’t mentioned in this article was the “He’ll be horrified after learning it was delivered by plane. Paul has always campaigned for green issues and he can’t understand why anyone would send an enormous car from Japan to Britain on a plane.”
Whether or not he actually WAS upset by it all remains unknown, but I just thought it should be addressed here.
Interesting article though.