Battery pack upgrade for Prius claims 150MPG
By Conrad Quilty-Harper 
posted Oct 20th 2007 6:53PM
posted Oct 20th 2007 6:53PM
[Thanks, I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY]
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what caps lock?
hes a dude that it is very informative that comments here sometime
THIS CAPS LOCK.
"Prius that can hit up to 150MPG in city areas. .. [by] charging overnight using a regular power plug, owners will be able to drive for up to 50 miles on battery power alone"
Am I the only one who finds it odd to measure battery performance in "miles per gallon" = MPG ...?
I love Prius, but come on. Is Toyota going to pay my power bill by any chance? No. How come this isn't figured in the calculations?
suv4x4 said:
Is Toyota going to pay my power bill by any chance? No. How come this isn't figured in the calculations?
It is - that is why they use a MPG equivalent.
Imagine it cost £5 to buy a gallon of petrol, or £5 to charge the battery. The price is the same, but the number of miles I can get is different.
These figures are easily found. Less than one dollar per "gallon".
http://calcars.org/vehicles.html
There are some places in California where this entire conversion could be offset by local initiatives & state funded rebates.
I own a Civic Hybrid, but will certainly consider other options that allow for a sizable chunk of my driving to be gasoline free when I next purchase.
Even electric cars like the Tesla Roadster have government MPG ratings.
suv4x4 - Thanks for confirming how dorky the Prius looks.
It would be so much easier if they just said miles per dollar...
All of these "Why is it listed in MPG?" comments are seriously uninformed. The car is a hybrid, so it uses gasoline. Yes, it's for charging the battery, but you can drive this car for 150 miles and only consume 1 gallon of gas.
Why is that so hard for people to understand? It's not rocket science.
That's OK for someone who parks in a garage where they have an AC outlet, but for those of us who park outdoors, it's useless.
It's not about the money, it's about the O-ZONE!!! but really, the world is more important than the gas money. . . really it is.
Mike Cohen
- Extension cord... unless you live in an urban place where you can't do that without it being stolen. Still, get enough of these out on the roads, and I'll bet the parking garages here in the city will start offering battery charging. No you say, of course they will, it's another thing they can over-charge (pun intended) for.
The 150 MPG number is bullshit. If it was truly 150 MPG - then you could go 1500 miles on 10 gallons of gas WITHOUT STOPPING!
I love the technology, but I hate the liars pushing it.
I agree...I think a MPG estimate for a hybrid is not particularly helpful. In any case, hasn't it already been proven that owning a hybrid is still way more expensive than a regular car unless gas prices hit $10/gallon or something? I remember seeing a website about a year ago that does the calculations and determined that aside from a smaller carbon footprint you are wasting your money on a hybrid. Until a hybrid is both environmentally responsible and fiscally feasible, I will pass.
These "MPG" complainers are either oil-company trolls or seriously misinformed idiots.
The car is a HYBRID. You get the equivalent of 150miles-per-gallon when you have at least 1 gallon and a full battery charge. How is this difficult to understand? The batteries simply extend your gasoline mileage (or you can run batteries alone and get a lower equivalent mileage).
Again, 1 gallon + full batteries = 150MPG. How is this hard to figure out?
Because no one likes to talk about electric cars in a realistic manner, they just fantasize about the marketable aspects.
You love the caps lock key? LOL!
...j/k, I know you're talking about the "I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY" who comments here some times.
i have a prius, and i actualy bought it for this reason, people have been doing this to the prius for a while. How ever the 10,000 price point is too high.. I wish i had waited and got an ELECTRIC car. This Car requires GAS. The best thing about these cars is not the 50 MPG i get average but the EMISSIONS. This car has one of the lowest emissions in the world, meaning less pollution. If you getting a car strictly for MPG your missing the point entirely. Sometimes i think "damn i could have gotten "(some bad ass car like a nissan Z)" instead, but thats just my ego talking, and i quickly quiet him up. I know why i got the prius, and im happy because the emissions are so low, but i CRAVE for all electric.
p.s.
Did i mention that 10,000 is a little to much? how many prius owners do you know are willing to plop down 10G's? betch please.
Well, Prius is half electric and there are dozens of conversion kits and modifications out there to allow you to run your car on full electric most of the time. One of the more interesting ideas is the solar roof that puts 30 mile charge per day on your Prius; so any short distance driving will not involve non-renewable resources. Since the infrastructure for electrically powered cars has not matured enough, it's still a good thing you can still fall back on your Atkinson Cycle Engine (ACE) to get you home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reB7KTQkbjk
http://www.nextenergynews.com/electriccars/electriccars74.html
What about the emissions generated by the production of electricity? What about the ozone produced in the motor?
The current crop of electric cars are just a marketing game and many studies are beginning to show that the TOTAL COST of ownership is harder on the environment than a gasoline driven automobile in the same class.
I will stick with my SAAB, thank you.
Touchsky, if you can't get electricity from clean energy sources in your area, you can offset any emissions used by your hybrid by purchasing carbon offsets:
http://www.terrapass.com/
https://www.buycarbon.org/EmissionsCalculators/Order_Form.aspx
If you were half as bright as dim bulb you could have figured this out on your own. But of course you never gave a shit about emissions in the first place, so shove it.
Really, it's the emissions? Where do you think the electricity comes from to charge your car moron......COAL FIRED ELECTIC PLANTS! It's a zero sum gain. Until electricity is produced exclusively from wind and solar it's a loss to use electricity as the Coal Fired plants give off more relative emissions than the cars that have emissions standards.
$9500 would be a better spend on buying a 4 stroke EFI scooter that passes EURO4 emission test. Not upgrading the Prius....
This prius is a much better idea because it fits more of an average person's needs.
To go further, there's a reason why people drive so many SUVs and pickup trucks in the US. It is because if you have a house with a yard 1/4 an acre and up especially, you pretty much need one to take care of a house and children. That's the unfortunate side effect of suburbia. Since we can't convert suburbia, then we simply need to use technology to come up with better solutions to meet our environmental and personal needs. I believe that humanity is smart enough to do that, and that we find solutions when the need is there. The need is here, and this prius is a great step in the right direction. You're comment is giving up. Don't give up. Believe in people. We, as humanity, will figure this out.
Too bad nobody wants a Prius because it looks DORKY.
"Too bad nobody wants a Prius because it looks DORKY."
Ever seen a Toyota Prius at all? Here: http://www.supanet.com/media/00/08/29/toyota_prius_430.jpg
In fact, ever bought a car?
Drove a car?
Been more than 14 year old?
Is that why I see at least two Prius' on a single trip to the store? Not including the trip back.
Then please explain why Toyota cannot make the Prius fast enough to meet the demand and why there is an occasional waiting list to buy one... I've got questions, you'd better have answers.
I love the looks of the Prius.
as great as the prius is, i still think that it's looks don't live up to its name. even my dad who has worked for toyota for over 20 years thinks that the prius designers could have done a better job....
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/images/south%20park.jpg
He's right. It's a stupid looking car. I'm 30, btw and have owned several cars, to preemptively defend against attacks on my car knowledge/age.
When you consider that the electricity may have come from a coal-fired plant that bought pollution credits and passed on the cost to its consumers, claiming fantasy mileage is completely irresponsible. Or maybe the plan is for drivers to plug in at work
That is a known factor. On the west coast, especially in California, the emissions from going electric are indeed lower. On the east coast they either balance out or are worse.
The best gasoline engine can only be about 40% efficient. Large power plants, coal or otherwise are over 90% efficient, so you are getting at least twice the energy per unit consumed. To me, that's cleaner. Not perfect, but cleaner. Couple that with much better mileage per joule (which I believe is the correct way to measure it) and we are looking at about a 3 fold increase in fuel savings, which is significant IMO.
you're forgetting transmission losses among other things.
Well, transmission loss is only about 7%, so it's still way more efficient than an internal combustion engine...
The thing that you're missing is that even the worst coal-burning electric plant is far more efficient that the best gasoline engine. It's simply a matter of scale.
The two pollute differently. You're working under the assumption that they produce the same pollution, and the same type of pollution, per whatever unit burned. They do not. You're also not working in nonpoint source pollution. Mileage numbers are pretty meaningless if you're just looking at what pollutes more or less per unit burned.
Gasoline efficiency is lower than you state. On average, worldwide, it costs half a barrel of oil to get the next barrel out of the ground. By looking at that energy usage, coal is also lower than you state. You have to actively feed a coal plant and that takes..dun dun dun.. gasoline or diesel or worse yet, heavy fuel oil. That stuff is worse than crude oil. You don't have to actively feed a dam, but you do have to rebuild it every 20-50 years. An on-site garbage incinerator requires little input because the garbage is already on hand even if the incinerator wasn't there. Wind farms get built once. Solar gets built once and the very first solar cell EVER is still producing about half its maximum wattage. They don't dip under 75% of their maximum for almost 30 years and the glass is endlessly recyclable. Geothermal is good until your source cools off; no nonrenewable sources needed.
Once you work out all those things, electricity will push a car the same distance as gasoline but with less pollution if you're on the west coast.
Perhaps you noticed it was shown at a canadian carshow, and canada is very heavily electrically powered by water power, which means 0 pollution.
And over here in europe consumers can actually select if they want green electric power or 'classical' from their powercompany.
besides, I thought california was full of nuclear power plants? and that americans for some reason think that's 'green' and 'safe'.
last time i checked your precious EU has france in it, which, last time i checked, receives 70% of its power from NUCLEAR PLANTS. With that in mind, considering a major nation gathers the majority of its power from nuclear, it would be reasonable to conclude that it is relatively safe or france would be a radiation zone and all of europe would look like prypriat, and since you are living smugly in your european home writing nonfactual comments on engadget to look 'cool' because bashing america is in right now, i am going to assume that europe is not a giant prypiat.
A fully electric car sounds great, but having an engine to assist would be nice when you are dead out of power and don't have time to stop and charge. I would love to see a fully electric power train like that of the Tesla that can perform on par with modern luxury sedans (lexus, bmw, acura, etc.) as the people with enough money to afford a fully electric car for sometime in the future will probably be used to having a fair bit of power behind the wheel.
this is Ontario, CALIFORNIA (to the guy in europe who thinks it's in Canada).
Even though power plants may be 90% efficient, the transmission of the electricity to the home makes it less efficient, and perhaps most importantly the charging of the battery and then discharging makes it less efficient.
They've done studies before comparing pure electric vehicles against hybrids, and IIRC, the hybrids actually had better efficiency overall after you accounted for all the losses.
That said, if your electricity comes from hydropower or wind power, even if it's less efficient it's also way cleaner.
Using these same type of exaggerated calculations, I could fill my car with 1 teaspoon of gasoline and roll it down a 1 mile long hill, and conclude that I got 768MPG (1 mile divided by 0.00130208333 gallons) Just make sure you ignore all the gas required to get UP the hill.
I just wish Toyota or Honda would build a plug-in hybrid to begin with. The Prius is already expensive for the savings you get, compared to a comparable gas powered car. Another $9500 is just too much money. The Chevy volt is looking promising. I hope they pull it off.
A plugin hybrid won't work for me since I park outdoors and don't have an AC outlet nearby.
So install one.
Or get an extension cord....
I wouldn't be comfortable with an open electrical outlet from my house being so accessible to anyone who walks by. That and the chance of the neighborhood pranksters unplugging my electric car and leaving me stranded...
Wonderfull and poo to all you nay sayers.
I just hope that this sort of thing (should electrics take off in the future) doesn't lead to the government just making up for lost taxes on oil etc.. by loading on taxes for power consumption.
In the end, they're the ones who will determine how cheap it really is.
I just wish I was close enough to work to pedal it each day.
At 10,000 dollars, the battery pack addition might be worth it.
1) 50 miles without a drop of gasoline..
2) Piece of mind...you wouldn't have to worry at all about the price of oil.
3) Electricity is way cheaper then oil, and it doesn't climb up and up at the drop of a hat.
The price of oil will still be extremely important since probably 90% of the components of and in that vehicle are made from petroleum based products.
The price of electricity will increase greatly if we switch to these crappy electric cars. By the way, Toyota sucks. So does GM.
"It'll cost $9,500 including installation, but half of that could be covered by rebates as part of a new electric cars bill soon to be before Congress."
This is great. The taxpayers will get to pay to improve the Prius, at the expense of those of us that have been driving 36mpg gas cars for years.
@Mark
"3) Electricity is way cheaper then oil, and it doesn't climb up and up at the drop of a hat."
That idea goes against the laws of economics.
Reason:
Majority of electric power is produced from fossils fuels (Coal and Natural Gas) Natural gas goes up in the winter time due to heating, so does coal because more power is used to heat electric powered heaters.
If everyone used only electricity, gasoline would be extremely cheap and electric bills would be through the roof. The only reason oil is ever changing is the giant deamnd for the product. That's everything in the world. It's the simple laws of supply and laws of demand.
Also I hope we don't do what the end of this article says: "Onwards we go, tip toeing towards a petrol-free future."
Tip toeing our way to another form of energy which will have the same extreme price drops and extreme price increases as gasoline does now. The only way to utilize the equalibrium of a market such as power is using every different form to achieve the supply equalibrium. Enviromental wise yes less petrol is good, unforunately the laws of chemistry and physics really aren't completely enviromentally freindly to produce all the other forms of energy we have/want to have.
The interesting part will be in 5 or so years. Prices should drop substantially and upgrading an older prius should be cheaper.
The interesting part is when you get in an accident. The people who buy these things are stupid and I do not think they are very good drivers. Thus, more accidents.
in 5 years you will need another ten grand to replace all the original batteries in the prius and end up filling a landfill with a pile of toxic waste
@thomas There are battery types around that are recyclable. No landfills required. With a sustainable supply of materials worked up, the price of manufacture will fall. You just take your battery to the person that sold you your last one and get credit towards the next set.
or you can just get a diesel jetta (for the amount of that battery pack) that has enough power to spin the tires in first and second gear and get OVER 50 mpg on the highway and doesn't look like a prius...
oh forgot.. you can run a diesel jetta on fuel thats GROWN in america
Ethanol fuel is one of the most environmentally harmful fuel out there. It requires more energy to make the fuel than what you get. I know there have been improvements, but it will never be cost effective in America based on geography, not to mention the starving people who will see their food price jump up because of ethanol. Only reason ethanol is as cheap as it is right now is because tax payers are subsidizing the hell out of it, so we are not paying less, we are paying more. Although oil has jump up to $90 a barrel, ethanol is just not a good way to go, and never will be. We are using food for fuel, and the damage to the environment is huge. So before you get sucked into the idea that it is grown in America, so it must be good, you better damn well know what you're talking about. This ethanol fuel is a catastrophy, and the fact that we are still subsidizing it, wasting billions of dollars as we're in huge debt right now, which is also why the dollar is fallen hence the subsequent increase in the price of oil, we all need to learn the facts. Grown in America, hurting the world.
ETHANOL!!????? thats a total disaster.. DIesel engines run on diesel not ethanol... i am talking about biodiesel.. any oil or waste oil runs in my car and it still gets better fuel mileage than a prius.
Ops, thought you were talking about ethanol, then read that you were talking about diesel.
"tip toeing toward a petrol-free future" !?!?
With the attitude of most car companies and American consumers, it's probably better to say "dragged kicking and screaming toward a petrol-free future."
Not me, of course... I haven't bought a drop of gasoline since early April. I've been driving an electric bike since then, and I'm still doing it, even with the cool weather. I predict I'll stop when the snow actually shows up and sticks on the ground. I calculate that I probably saved over $1200 by not driving an internal combustion car to work, the grocery store, and other places all spring, summer and fall.
But the rest of you can keep driving your SUV to the corner store and enjoy those wonderful gas prices to keep your mobile entertainment center on the road. You gotta have your air conditioning, stereo, TV, electric butt-warmer, and other things, and you're paying for them in gasoline. I might be a little colder than you when I get to work, but I'm also not going to have to stop for gas on the way home.
I also never have a problem finding a parking place, or worse- Paying for a parking place.
I still like having a car, but you can bet as soon as an affordable electric car is on the market, I'll be getting it.
Well aren't you just the bestest person on the planet.
Great! Are there any four passenger electric bikes so that I can fit my whole family on it for those 80km round-trips to see my parents?
"If everyone used only electricity, gasoline would be extremely cheap and electric bills would be through the roof. The only reason oil is ever changing is the giant deamnd for the product. That's everything in the world. It's the simple laws of supply and laws of demand."
This would be true is oil wasn't an inelastic good. Unfortunately Gas is inelastic and even if everyone in the US switched to electric our oil would just be sold to other nations. Now though we are trading one demon for another, which will be taxed heavily at some point so that the government can recoup it's lost income from the eventual decline of Gas sales and it's tax revenue. The upside is that as this is all coming about in the next few decades the technology for "green" energy sources is becoming cheaper. This will mean that energy from wind, water, and sun can be used to generate the energy we need. I know this may sound a bit optimistic, and it is, but I am not expecting this to happen over night. I could see this happening in the next few decades though.
I do want to say that at this time I don't feel that American car drivers are the real pollution problem in the world. Is it a part of the problem, yes, but the real pollution comes from business and factories as well as developing countries such as China which don't have the strict car emission standards we have here.
We don't have strict emission standards. Our standards have fallen in the last 30 years. What we do have is more than half the total pollution of China and less than a third of China's population. We own more cars per person. We pollute more per person.
ever taken a gander at the Dept of Energy website?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.htm
the net imports of US oil are twice that of the next nearest competitor (japan) and almost 4 times as much as china.
If you count all of china's 3 billion people, sure, but how many of them are actually capable of using the resources that are the cause of the poplution? I would guess at something like .5 to 1 billion people that live on the coastline that is so polluted that it is beginning to reach the US. To cover the whole planet in toxic crap is terrible and not even the US is THAT bad.
We own more cars per person because we can afford to own more cars per person and can afford to clean up most of our mess, all of this comes from the lovely 40,000$ per capita GDP we have compared to China's 1000$, 40X more $ --> better, safer, cleaner, environment in the US.
Hi All,
The guy who I first heard saying cars like this (PHEV's) getting 150 mpg was the Ex CIA director. His point was that 150 mpg is 150 mpg less oil imports. In actuality the MPGE (mpg equivalent) is more like 100 for cars like this, which includes the energy put into the battery, as well as the engine consumption during accelleration and high speed cruise.
Standard gasoline engines (not like the one in the Prius) are horrendously poor in fuel economy at partial load. And that is most of driving. Only accelleration is under fuel efficient loads. Unfortunately, accellerations need to occur quickly, and they send a extra squirt of gas in to go from stop to accelleration in engine only vehicles. Which even kills the efficiency during full load.
Power plant engines are much more efficient as they are specialized and run at a constant RPM. This allows the internal aerodynamics of power plant engines to be finely tuned. 40 to 55 % efficiencies are quoted for these engines. Which is a world of difference than 10 % of an Otto engine creeping along in traffic.
Additionally, gasoline requires electricity in refining. EV people are commonly commenting that that electricy it takes to make a gallon of gasoline, will run an electric car for the same distance as that gasoline in an traditional car. One really does not even need the gas, since motors are that much more efficient than car engines during low speed crusing and traffic accellerations.
Interestingly the linked site says:
this aftermarket kit converts the car into a plug-in hybrid and allows it to run on electric power for the first forty miles of a trip. As you can expect, total gas mileage goes through the roof and company executives claim drivers can easily exceed 150 miles-per-gallon in the city and 100 MPG on the highways.
The logic being (I'm assuming) that citytrips are short and you can recharge and end up seldomly using the gaspowered part of the engine.
Oh and to solve the start/stop thing manufacturers can install flywheels that store the breaking power and use it to accelerate, been tried and tested I hear.
have fun driving 50 miles at 35 miles per hour...
In the NYC area, you'd be lucky to get that fast during rush hour.
OK, that's great. It really is. But, why should Congress be giving away tax dollars to fund your car's upgrade?
where I live the hybrids are cheaper then cars that are not.
I live in ISRAEL. The tax on Cars is 85% and the tax on a hybrids
is 30%. So at the time when you buy your hybrid you have saved
some times over $3000.
I really hate the MPG or KMPL or Liter Per 100 KM or whatever they want to use on hybrids..
None of them tell the real truth that "we eco friendly consumers" put on it.
I would much rather see a whole other measure that tells us something about how much the thing pollutes.
How about a miles pr kg/ton of CO2/lead/other toxins put into the atmosphere?
A car running on electricity still pours out loads of stuff into the atmosphere just not directly but through the powerplant that produces the power i plugs into.
I realise that some places use hydro or nuclear power, but some places use coal or oil that spreads loads of bad stuff into the air.
Using these measure Im sure the hybrid will still win over the regular cars but the playing field will be a much more relevant one than MPG.
TouchSky are you serious? -> *Emissions generated by the production of electricity?*
Um what? Do you even know how a prius produces its electricity? And do you understand that a prius is A HYBRID and not an ELECTRIC car?
Do you really think your saab is more efficient than a prius?
"many studies are beginning to show that the TOTAL COST owner ship is hard on the enrvironment than gasoline driven automobile" - THIS STATEMENT IS COMPLETE BS. and i would like to see proof.
A gasoline engines is only 20% efficient, meaning that it can only use 20% of the energy in liquid gas, the rest goes out your tail pipe. Not to mention engine repairs, clutch repairs, tranny repairs, transmission repairs ETC.
How ever Electric cars use 80% of the energy from a battery or other source, and there is only ONE moving part, The engine which will last a VERY VERY long time.
I dont know where you got your statics from, but they sound ridiculous, kinda of like "weapons of mass distraction" scenario, and you haven't provided any evidence of the weapons, but you claim they are there.
Stick with your saab, gas cars are over rated and we should have never have had them in the first place, electric cars were first anyways :).
Seriously though TouchSky, i would like to see some of this evidence suggesting that owning an electric car is more harmful in the long run than a full gas car (it makes me laugh inside just typing that out..)
First of all, if you want to have this dialog with me, you have to remain civil. Failure to do that will instantly terminate all future responses to your comments.
The total cost of ownership studies on electric hybrids are well known and published. You can google them on your own time. However, lets take a look at what I meant by Total Cost of Ownership.
1) Material Production - This is roughly balanced for body including frame. US safety regulations mandate much of this so there is little variance between vehicle types. However, where there is a imbalance is the battery packs and the cost of recycling the chemicals contained in them.
2) Fuel Usage - Electricity does not magically appear, the Hybrids produce electricity while using the gasoline engine. A proportion of the gas/diesel fuel is consumed to generate electricity, which in turn produces emissions directly related to the electricity stored in the battery packs for later uses. The conversion of potential chemical energy to thermal expansion to mechanical force used to turn a generator that then produces electricity which is then stored in a battery pack for later conversion to mechanical force to move the vehicle is less efficient then then directly using the initial mechanical force to move the vehicle. This is mostly because of lost of energy to friction and resistance in wiring.
So, your gasoline engine which is, as you state, 20% efficient passes on the same efficiency to the electricity it generates for the battery pack on less you obtain electricity from another sources. If the electricity generated is strictly on-board, you will always have a built-in 20% efficiency which will only get worse each time you transform the energy from one form to another. You pointed that out yourself, the battery then loses 20% of the energy that is stored when transformed to mechanical energy.
The proposed 'extra' battery back would seem to indicate the added mileage is a benefit of power grid recharging rather on-board recharging. If that is the case, one has to consider efficiency and the cost of the emissions generated by the power grid to supply the electricity to recharge the battery pack.
Instead of measuring efficiency is miles per gallon, we really need to look at the problem at BTU used per mile. This will actually capture a more accurate picture of the overall efficiency of the vehicle.
The reason the Pirus is fuel efficient is not that power train system is more efficient but in the way the Pirus shuts down the gasoline engine when it is not needed allowing the vehicle to use stored electricity. This makes a huge difference in energy efficiency for city travel when large amounts of time a vehicle is running is spent idling or slow moving traffic. Needless to say, this is a well understood problem that is neatly expressed in the difference between city and highway mileage. In fact, if I read the article right, the Prius gets getter city mileage than highway which is a reflection of the engineering design of the power transfer system.
As I said, the hybrids are not all they claim to be and I am sure that you can google up the studies that show the problems I have attempted to outline in this message.
You've given some good pointers. I would like to give some evidence you might take into consideration as well. The comparison between material costs you give are likely accurate, however one thing does need to be taken into consideration; the operational life of the battery. This website http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html provides information on hybrid batteries, and includes a discussion about the lifetime of the batteries. Basically, they last a long, long time, and are NiMh batteries which are environmentally friendly. Since the introduction of the Prius, their batteries have not had to be replaced because of "wear and tear" (perhaps the wording is specific because they are replaced due to accidents). This website http://www.buchmann.ca/Article16-Page1.asp talks about battery recycling, and confirms NiMh batteries are considered environmentally friendly unless there are high concentrations if nickle. So, considering some cars have well known problems with engine, transmission, and other equipment failures that require replacement all too quickly, the material cost would likely go down if all cars were to be immediately replaced with hybrids.
And actually, electricity does "magically appear" in this case. I don't know if all hybrids are designed this way, but several of them are. As you break and any time you are coasting, the momentum is somehow converted into electricity used to recharge the battery. So while I am coasting and breaking down a hill, the gasoline engine turns off and the momentum is converted to stored electricity, meaning gravity is creating the electricity. While I have no direct data on how much of this is done, the efficiencies that have been quoted thus far have not taken regenerative breaking into consideration, and the overall efficiency of the vehicle may very well be over 20%.
The way in which the electric motor uses the stored energy is much more efficient than the combustion process in the gasoline engine is. For example, only 20% of the energy in gasoline may be used to move the car, but 90% of the energy stored in the battery may be used to move the car (example numbers, I don't have electric motor efficiency numbers in front of me, I just know it is much more efficient from previously read articles and discussions with individuals in various science fields). Also, you talk about the pollution from producing energy from other places which are put into the power grid, and then used to power the car. Well, it would depend on which method of creating the energy was used wouldn't it. For example, what if hydro generation, wind energy, solar panels, etc., were used to charge the batteries? They have a much higher efficiency than gasoline engines, produce much less pollution, and therefore a higher efficiency would be transfered to the battery from the very beginning with a lower cost to the environment. In fact scientists have discovered a way to increase solar panel efficiency by a tremendous amount. Previous solar panels used to require many photons to produce one electron, and now new experimental panels only require one photon to create many electrons. If nothing but solar panels were used to recharge the battery in a purely electric car, not only would the efficiency be tremendous, the cost to the environment would only be the cost to recycle them after 10 or more years, with the likelihood being on the more side. None of these ideas are far fetched either, they are being developed right now as well as cars to take advantage of them.
You say that the power train isn't more efficient, yet proceed to say it is more efficient because it turns the gasoline engine off. The whole system makes the car move, and so it is all considered part of the power train. If using the battery was not more efficient than the gasoline engine, then how else do you explain the increase in gas mileage? I'm still using less gasoline, no matter how you look at it. I just bought a Prius, and my MPG jumped nearly 3 times what it was in the previous car, and it is still more efficient than the most gutless 3 or 4 cylinder car available at this time.
That is all of the data, thoughts, and evidence I have to offer. If you want to think that your Saab is just as efficient or more efficient than a hybrid, then you have all rights to think that way. However looking at all of the changes that are happening right now in energy development, storage, and usage, your Saab is going to be far and above more harmful/wasteful then any hybrid or pure electric car.
The battery pack is wall charged, so the electricity does not magically appear.
At present, the TCO and environmental impact for hybrids still exceeds traditional vehicles. What the future may bring is anyone's guess, but I suspect eventually, the hybrids will surpass traditional cars.
Compared to my 5.2 liter, V-8 pickup, the SAAB is very efficient, but I live in the country and need a powerful vehicle for moving horses from time to time.
As for hybrids, I will wait for the technology to mature and development of vehicles that are able to meet my needs.
Just switching from Gas to Electricity does not mean it is clean. Most of the Electricity today in US does not come from renewable sources. The renewable portion is approximately 5%.
Another factor to consider is the cost of the electricity per mile vs cost of gas per mile.
I live in québec city where we have the lowest electricity prices in the world because of all our dams. Filling up the battery would cost me next to nothing. We still complain about the price of it though , people are never happy.
The Prius is hideous, inside and out. Toyota could do a much better job. Love the function, hate the form. If you want to say they look good, you are biased and obviously own one. Yes I care about the looks of my vehicle, Prius doesn't and there is nothing wrong with that.
Isn't this basically the exact same thing as the Chevy volt concept? At 20k + 10k it certainly gives hope that the volt will come in under 30k like they're hoping. Also I noticed 50 miles of city driving, I take it I'm not going to be getting on the freeway with this?
It's not the static numbers that matter, it's the rate of growth. China's economy is growing at a record rate and is poised to be an economic world power in the next decade. With this growth comes a large number of people who can now afford cars along with factories that create huge amounts of pollution.
For more info on the topic check out this link.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html
Why would anyone want to stop using petroleum?
Great! With all the gas-money you save you can purchase "cadmium-offsets" to mitigate the environmental impact of purchasing a prius + even more batteries.