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Available, Affordable Gas/Electric Hybrid Vehicles?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "For those of us with aging vehicles, what hybrid gas/electric car models are out for 2002 and what will come out for 2003?" I have to admit, looking for vehicles such as these will be a lot easier to find than those that run on vegetable oil, but it would be nice to see more vehicles relying less on unleaded petrol or diesel.
As far as maintenance goes, I have found that I can get great deals on routince stuff. My dealership offered me a the same card as for other cars with 10 oil changes for $100. Because the car uses special oil and it is extra work to take off the wind screens under the car to change the oil, the changes can cost up to $50.
The other big expense will be replacing the batteries when they wear out. They are designed to last about half the life of the car and need to be replaced at about 80,000 miles. That should run about $5000.
In the end you are paying a bit of a premium for a hybrid, but you may find, as I did, that it is worth it. I can go 700 miles on a 10 gallon tank of gas. I also love explaining the tech features of my car. Everybody that sees it asks about it.
I call my car "The FJM". When I first got it, I went out to lunch at the local sandwich shop. There was construction on the street outside and it was hard to get around and into the parking lot. As a result, the parking lot was mostly empty. The sandwich shop hand unusually few customers. I parked my hybrid in the middle of the lot (no other cars around it at all) and went in to pick up lunch. The only other people in the shop we a couple of painters. Total redneck hicks. Beards, crooked teeth, the works. They got their sandwiches just before I did and I walked out the door just behind them. The first thing they saw when you walked out was a profile view of my car with little antenna an the roof and the wheel covers over the back tires. (Very sleek looking I think. ;-) As soon as they saw it, they stopped so abrubtly I just about ran into them. They stared for a couple seconds and then one of them put his hands on his hips and then crowed, "What the FUCK is that? A fuckin' Jetson mobile?". I showed them around the car, I don't think they were so keen on it, but I really liked the name they gave it.
Its not quite as impressive as the Honda Insight since its so much bigger, but it will get 40 MPG (combined city and highway) and have a range of around 500 miles on a tank of gas. The price is expected to increase by about 3k over its current 18k base rate for the hybrid model. And its based on a car/unibody chassis so you wont flip over if someone breathes on you. More details are here.
My mom bought a Toyota Prius last year and I often get the chance to take it for a spin. If you can deal with a waiting list, they are $20,000. Its pretty much the same car as a Toyota Echo, but with some interesting guts inside to make it run.
Its a cool car. The only way someone can tell if its electric is by noticing the car often does not make any noise when driving by. Except for the faint singing from the inverters that drive the car and charge the battery from braking. Did I mention the car is very quiet? When tooling around the city, the most noticeable thing you can hear is the fine gravel on the asphalt crunching under the tires.
A computer screen graphs what kind of energy the car is using at the moment and what kind of milage it is getting. With light effort, 80mpg (or more!) can often be achieved for a trip across town. Its a very smooth ride. On the highway with the traffic, the milage is much less, often dropping to about 45mpg. The gas savings could pay for this car very quickly.
How fast does it go? Acceleration is very good as cars go due to its variable speed transmission. Leaving a stop sign is very smooth and brisk without any jerking commmon with usual automatic or manual transmissions. Top speed may be just over 100mph. I remember reading a magazine (Road and Track?) documented a top speed of 102.
Since it is an "experimental" car, Toyota pays for all service for 4 years. The batteries have a 10 year warranty. We have had no problems with it yet, except for driving over debris from an accident, slashing a rear tire.
Oh, the stereo is awesome. Imagine hearing every faint noise during a concert when driving.
The air conditioner was great during the blistering summer. It will start the engine when the cooling system needs some fresh liquid freon (or whatever they use these days.)
Oh, you'll rarely notice when the engine starts to charge the battery. The engine seems to be well insulated from noise and vibration and starts almost instantly.
The way the engine-battery way this car works is pretty cool. When you put the key in, you start it like a normal car, but it tops off the batteries. I suppose you could run out of gas and just run on the batteries too. Perhaps you could disconnect the batteries and just run off the engine. Pressing on the gas in nuetral just starts the engine and revs it up. It can behave and act just like the normal cars we are used to. Very friendly operation.
Everyone needs to get one of these. Why people continue to buy cars that have the same room inside and gas milage of 30mpg or less is beyond my understanding. Yes, the interior has plenty of room for my step dad who weighs over 300lbs.
Prius
Estima minivan
As an owner with access to the owner's manual...
What's the towing capacity on one of these things?
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
If you are mechanically inclined and ambitious, you CAN make your own car that runs on grease if you like. Here are some good links on converting a gas cars into pure electrics or hybrids like the Insight. More links here.
On a tangentially related topic, for the slightly eccentric there's info on "performance" electric vehicles here. The world record holder's page is here. 8.801 seconds in the quarter on batteries, and the baby pulls 1200 amps. Amazing.
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
The Society of Automotive Engineers voted the Prius "best engineered car of 2001". It has a continuously variable transmission you could fit in your pocket, computer-controlled variable valve timing, and such sophisticated charge control that Toyota claims the battery is still in great shape after 150,000 miles of simulated testing in the lab. Still too early to be sure, but with some owners at 30,000 miles it looks like the Prius will have the reliability and durability you'd expect from a Toyota.
The drawbacks are that you can't really tow anything with it, the specialty low rolling resistance tires are hard to find, there are scattered reports of premature paint chipping, and if you break down in the boonies Joe's Garage doesn't have a chance of fixing it. And you have to wait at least four months to get one.
There's a ton of good real world information on http://groups.yahoo.com/toyotaprius, free registration required.
2002 should see a hybrid Honda Civic. 2003 may be the lanuch of the hybrid Dodge Ram, with the nifty feature of AC outlets so you can use your truck as a construction-site generator.
Yep, we had a week's wait on getting that rear tire. We were tempted to get a cheapo Firstone tire put on, but that would have lowered the resale value.
As far as repairing the car, the electric drive is very similar to the electric forklifts I repair. If anyone needs a technician to work on one of these things, I start at $30.00 an hour. hehe...
Bicycle...Not comfortable in bad weather
Wrong. There's no such thing as bad weather. Just bad clothing. Electric clothing takes a few minutes to put on, but well worth it. Just seconds after plugging it in during 20 degree weather, you are guaranteed to feel like a toasted cheese sandwich.
I ride my motorcycle through the freezing weather whilst most are driving their cars waiting for their heaters to warm up. Snow, ice? You would be surprised. Its interesting to see them look at me like I'm nuts when I can see their breath in their cars as their frozen hands attempt to grasp the dangerous cup of coffee.
Not much more difficult than a dirt bike. Remember those bikes in the James Bond movies tearing through the mountains with guys shooting machine guns at the same time? Take away the studded tires and the grip is decreased, but traction is still strong (I would dare say its still better than what a car would see.) Just keep the bike from dissappearing from underneath you and traction is not a problem.
Until my current client, I was a dedicated cyclist commuter. Rode my bicycle to school, and then to work, until 3 years ago (when my company placed me with a client 45 miles from where I live). So, 28 years cycling experience. (Nothing makes you feel old like counting the years.)
Once you get riding a bike, even in foul, cold weather, keep in mind that the two biggest muscles in your body are pumping away to move you. It warms you up in a hurry. Even on really cold mornings (zero degrees F), I had to slow down to avoid breaking a sweat. Most winter clothing breathes less than lighter clothing, so I was actually hotter when I wore warmer clothes (which makes sense), but in colder weather.
Good clothing really makes the difference, but with goretex, and zip-off goretex pants, you can ride in anything. Biggest nuisance and threat in bad weather are: drivers of autos, drivers who refuse to scrape their windows, unplowed shoulders.
I think modern tanks have better visibility through their little periscopes than most motorists in winter.
Honda has announced hybrid versions of its Civic for 2002 or 2003 in the US, if I remember correctly. While their Insight would be a great second car, it can't really work as a primary car for a single person-- a tiny two-seater with a 350 lb. weight limit isn't practical as an only car. The hybrid civic will be built with a traditional steel frame, so it should be more affordable than aluminum-frame cars like the insight. Look for the nifty gearless CVT automatic to show up on it, too-- I have one on my 2001 Civic HX (not a hybrid, but it gets 40mpg and is a ULEV) and it it's pretty sweet to always be at just the right rpm.
The Prius is okay, but Toyota's hybrid system seems more complicated to me (it can drive gas only, electric only, or both instead of gas with electric assistance like the honda) and I'd shy away from it until it's a few years more mature and less expensive. Honda's CVT transmission has been in use on the Civic HX since 1996, so it's a little more time-tested, and the simpler IMA hybrid system will have several years of work on the Insight to back it up.
In short, it looks more practical and cheaper than the insight, simpler than the prius, and is identical outwardly to an existing, popular car. I would wait for this one. (in fact, I tried to, but my '89 wagon finally quit completely a year and a half too soon for me to get one.)
From what I understand, in a gas/electric hybrid, the gas engine drives the electric motor, and also charges batteries in some way. Braking is done via regenerative means to recover energy during braking.
One thing I wonder about is whether a hybrid would benefit from using the gas engine to bring the car up to speed, then using the electric motor to stay at cruising speed. In other words, the gas engine would directly drive the wheels (and the motor, which could act as a generator during this time to charge the batteries a bit as well), then at a certain speed would disengage via a clutch, allowing the motor to take over. The engine could run at a relatively low speed, just enough to get going, and perhaps shut down once up to speed and the electric has taken over. It could start up again when a full stop is reached.
A lot of current (and thus a lot of the energy used) is drawn by a motor going from a dead stop to running speed - but the running current is generally a lot less. Would a system like I described work, be practical, save anything? Has it already been done (I would almost have to believe it has)...?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
A "Hybrid Gas/Electric" car could be pretty much any mix of gas and electric systems. Toyota's Prius is very similar to what you describe-- their transmission allows the use of just the gas engine, just the electric engine, or both, as the situation warrants. The downside to that is that the battery packs in most hybrids are small (out of necessity due to weight and expense) so you couldn't cruise on just batteries for long before the gas engine had to kick in to charge them. So although the Prius could theoretically do what you want, it's impractical until battery storage improves. (Currently the prius cruises on "electric only" only at low speeds, and "gas only" once you're really moving.)
Honda's IMA hybrid system uses the gas engine all the time when the car is moving, and the electric motor as a "booster" when accelerating-- thus keeping the gas engine size smaller since not so much power is needed once rolling. There's never any "electric only" with Honda's IMA.
Somebody else is making a "through the road" hybrid SUV that powers 2 wheels gas and 2 wheels electric, rather than having a complicated transmission system to mix the power. Unfortunately, I've forgotten whose vehicle that is (Ford Escape, maybe?) I doubt there will be an "electric only" mode for the SUV, but I could be wrong. (who would want a low-horsepower rear-wheel-drive-only mode in their SUV?)
Now that is interesting. The high cost of battery replacement is the potential bug that makes hybrids a problem. (And the performance of the batteries in winter in cold climates.)
I've test-driven a Prius, and it rocks. The high-tech display is a great example of user interface design -- by giving the user continual feedback on mileage, users tend to adjust their driving habits to maximize the MPG readout -- a classic example of a UI that lends itself to a desired outcome, namely fuel-efficient driving habits that apply to any sort of vehicle.
Actually, the primary drive of electric is the better system. Gas engines run at "optimal" conditions, which is a really narrow RPM band. Narrower still for diesels. You basically want it to hit a certain RPM, and stay there.
As for electrics, they have no real relationship between speed and torque. (Horsepower is torque times RPM, btw.) Electric motors supply almost the same amount of torque at any speed, up to a point (inverse geometric). Gas engines supply more torque with more RPM, up to a point (hyerbolic). So, from a dead stop, it's more energy efficient to use the electrics to get going.
So, the most efficient thing is to use electric all the time, gas when charging gets low, or when extra power is needed, and to switch the gas engine (power source) on and off constantly to meet demands.
Several of the large ships use diesels to generate power, and then electric motors to drive the ship. Nuclear-powered carriers are an example (they have big backup diesels if the nuclear reactor goes offline).
Several of the large ships use diesels to generate power, and then electric motors to drive the ship.
Locomotives do this too. They run the diesels at the optimum RPM to drive a generator. High torque electric motors then drive the wheels.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
> they are $20,000. [...]
> The gas savings could pay for this car very quickly.
Only if you were planning on buying a new car anyway. My car (Subaru L-series) cost £750. It's nothing like as cool as a new Prius, but it's not a complete mess like my £250 cars (UK Ford Escort Mk2) were. My wife's Ka is newer (£3000), but that's still a lot of gas to save.
rant