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Alternative-Fuel Vehicle Recommendations?
Ellen Spertus asks: "My husband and I lease a pure electric GM EV-1, which we love, and need to replace our second car, a conventional Honda Accord, which recently died. We'd get a second EV-1, but GM has stopped making them. I haven't been able to find any available all-eletric car with the range (>=50 miles roundtrip) and speed (>=65 mph) that I need. Does the Slashdot community have any experience, wisdom, or advice on choosing an alternative fuel car?"
"I'm currently considering:
- Toyota Prius, a hybrid sedan
- Honda Insight, a hybrid two-seater
- Honda Civic GX, a compressed natural gas (CNG) powered sedan
Biodiesel is one alternative energy means that I think has real potential. Apparently there's all sorts of new grants available for folks wanting to get involved.
Just don't try to start that french fry grease up on a cold morning.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
The The Honda Civic Hybrid ? It uses gas and electric, and gets pretty sweet mileage, plus its battery is self charging....
I'm a very happy owner of the Toyota Prius... I've actually gotten about 55 MPG in city driving, assuming I'm not in a hurry, above even the manufacturer's figures. It has been 100% reliable thus far.
/. after all, there's a growing subculture dedicated to "hacking" the prius (eg, installing MP3 players that integrate with the onboard touchscreen system, or even wiring video input into the screen, installing cameras for seeing when you back up, etc... :-) )
I was considering the Insight, but it's only two seats, and two doors as you mentioned, so I decided to go with the Prius, as it's basically the same size as any other compact sedan.
I was looking into pure electric and gas cars, but decided not to at this time, because sometimes I like to take long-distance trips (eg, between the Bay Area, and LA, or to Nevada/Las Vegas) and there are no electric or gas refueling stations for long stretches outside urban areas, making long-distance road trips impossible with these vehicles' current range.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/ It might be useful for you as well, although it's geared more towards current owners.
As for the car itself, It's proven to be 100% reliable thus far in the 14 months that I've had it, and I've been averaging 50 MPG or so. It definitely is worth it, at least for me, since I commute about 45 miles a day round trip.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. If you want an independent assessment, john1701a.com has a lot of info on it from a owner. The group groups.yahoo.com/group/toyota-prius/ has a lot to offer as well with many helpful people.
Finally, since this is
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
First, the Corbin Sparrow really seems to taking hold in places like Los Angeles and to a lessor degree Atlanta.
However, the lowest emissions vehicle around is a bicycle. I mean this in all seriousness. The Bay area has a uniquely nice bicycling climate, and since you already have one car, you don't have to give up the occasional hauling-of-big-stuff cars are good at. And don't underestimate the health benefits of such daily exercise. I love it since you don't have to take extra time out of your day just to go to the gym.
In the Bay Area, there's even a service to shuttle bicycles over the Bay bridge for $1.
The Jetta TDI has better mileage than the Civic hybrid.. in fact i believe it has the best mileage for any vehicle that still uses a fossil fuel of any sort.
http://www.vw.com/engine/index.htm?locnav=jetta
Hi,
;) Biodiesel is actually technically non-toxic and very hard to burn, and IIRC can be drop-shipped anywhere, so I _THINK_ you could even have it delivered to your house in large drums.. It's expensive (~$3/gal) but it may be worth it to you if you want to contribute to (a)saving the ozone layer and/or (b)keeping US$ out of the hands of despotic Arab states (and their terrorist pawns)..
Hybrids really don't count IMHO as 'alternative fuel' vehicles, since they use two fuels that are exceedingly ordinary: gasoline and electricity. They should qualify for partial EV credit, and they're great for reducing fuel consumption, but without E85 they just aren't 'alternative fuel'.
I would recommend a late-model Volkswagen diesel and biodiesel as a true 'alternative fuel' vehicle. Diesels are more efficient, create less CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and last FOREVER. I just recently purchased a Mercedes diesel with 362000 miles on it, and I expect to get at least another 130000 miles on it with proper care and feeding. My car can't take 100% biodiesel without some fuel-line upgrades (bio eats rubber away since it's more oxygenated than petro) but any diesel since 1994 can take 100%. Another option, particularly in colder climes or with older cars, is B20, which is 20%bio/80%petro. Biodiesel doesn't contain sulfur, and is naturally oxygenated enough to prevent smelly particulate exhaust. In fact, tailpipe exhaust smells like french fries
Couple interesting Wired links on biodiesel:
here and
here
Even non-biodiesel is a better global environmental choice than gasoline/petrol since it's less intensive to refine. Diesel creates more NOx, large-particulate exhaust and sulfur (which lead to smog and acid rain), but the balance of impact is in its favor overall due to the efficiency of diesel engines. Also, if we could press for low-sulfur diesel, NOx could be handled with catalytic converters.
Oh, did I mention that biodiesel can be made from any biological substance that contains triglycerides? Hempseed, soybean, even used cooking fats can be 'cracked' into biodiesel, leaving glycerin. What to do with the glycerin though, that's the main Q...
I've put about 11,000 miles on my Prius in the first year of ownership. About half of them are highway miles on roadtrips; about 10% of them are short (1-2 mile) hops in town. Its lifetime fuel economy is about 48MPG. Range is about 500-600 miles. On the highway it consistently gets over 45 MPG (and I'm not gentle on the throttle -- 70-80 MPH on the level, and I floor it when I'm crossing the Rockies -- I live in Colorado). In town it gets 35-38 for the first mile or two, until the engine is warm -- then more like 48-52.
The Prius has no transmission at all -- just a second differential that shunts power between two electric motors/generators and the engine. (How it works). It's all drive-by-wire: the gas pedal is just a rheostat connected to the drive computer.
The engine has a lot of cool stuff to it: an off-center crankshaft, variable compression ratio, and (ISTR) noncircular pistons. Because of the differential it runs at more or less whatever speed the computer wants, regardless of how fast you're going.
For me (in Colorado) a pure EV was right out because of the low energy density of batteries -- it's hard to climb mountains in a pure EV. The Prius battery is used for load leveling on the engine (gas engines run best when the load is conditioned). Climbing over about 2000 feet vertical at freeway speeds drains the battery, but the computer handles it gracefully and the car just slows down to about 55 mph (on a standard 7% freeway grade). Conversely, coming down more than about 1000 feet of altitude will fill the battery to the top from regen braking, and again the computer does the Right Thing, using the engine as a conventional compression brake rather than blowing up the battery pack.
So even though the Prius isn't designed for mountain climbing it works acceptably under even strenuous climbing conditions. The interior is roomy and holds five people with no trouble. The trunk is adequate. The ride is quiet, and the gas mileage sure doesn't stink. Cornering is very good: tight turn radius and surprising traction given the high-mileage tires. Clearance is adequate but low: it's 4 inches under load, though the bottom 2 inches is just a flexible plastic air dam -- so you can get over 5" high obstacles without killing the car.
The Insight gets better gas mileage, looks cooler, and has better acceleration when you actually want it (though I imagine Prius ROM mods will come out one day that boost the acceleration -- the computer really does use conservative settings), but it's also really tiny -- the Insight is more of a "geek sports car". Toyota went out of their way to make the Prius look-and-feel like a basic (if plush) family car, and they succeeded.
First a disclaimer: I'm unemployed right now (please check out my resume and hire me!) and driving a '68 VW camper. I can't afford a new car, but that hasn't stopped me from looking.
The Honda Insight is a fascinating car. It's as if Honda took every neat new technology they've been working on and crammed it in. Unfortunately, it's small--just a two-seater--and expensive--in the low $20Ks.
For that much money or less, you can get a Volkswagen with the TDI engine. The two-door VW TDIs (the Bug and the Golf) get better mileage than any other car sold in America except for the Insight. You can drive non-stop from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles on one tank of fuel, and that's a trip I personally would take at elast two days to drive. They're also among the least-polluting cars available, though there are cleaner ones out there. The Bug has (one of?) the highest safety ratings you'll find.
The catch? They're both turbocharged diesel engines. Wait! Don't run away! A diesel engine doesn't have to be the awful, smelly, polluting nightmare you're all thinking of. When properly engineered, as is the TDI, it's superior to gasoline:
But the real thing to do with one of these cars is run it off of biodiesel instead of petroleum-based diesel. Biodiesel is a high-cetane (the diesel version of octane) fuel made from vegetable oil. It's non-toxic; you could drizzle it over your salad...though it'd likely taste awful. The maufacturing process is very similar to the soap-making process; if you've ever made soap in your kitchen, you can make biodiesel in your kitchen. Biodiesel and petroleum-based diesel can be blended in any ratio desired simply by pouring them together.
The real advantage to biodiesel, however, is that every pound of carbon put into the atmosphere via the tailpipe had been previously removed from the atmosphere by the plant. No increased CO2! (Petroleum-based diesel pumps carbon from the ground and puts it into the air.) And, because the plant pulls more carbon out of the air for itself (instead of just its seeds), each pound of biodiesel results in a net decrease of atmospheric CO2.
In essence, biodiesel is the solar storage mechanism everybody keeps looking for. Run all those trains, trucks, and power plants from solar power (by way of corn and soy) and reduce dependence on oil all at the same time! All the infrastructure is already in place....
So, buy a car with a TDI engine, and you get incredible mileage and have the option of using either fuel you can find anywhere or a very environmentally-friendly fuel.
Now, if only somebody would give me a job, I'd go out and buy one....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
I'm not opposed to fuels created from plants grown in the ground.
The bad things with Ethanol are:
1) Its a false economy. Subsidized by lots of taxpayer dollars (direct, and indirect via forcing it into mixtures with gas). Its really just a crutch for farmers who can't quit the corn habit and ADM, which can't quit the free-government-money habit.
2) It mostly (exclusively?) uses corn as its source, and I'm not convinced that corn is the best crop to provide a fuel source. What about hemp or some other crop that might require less insecticide, fertilizer, etc etc.
3) It's kind of fuel-intensive to make. Planting, harvesting, fertilizing, insecticiding, AND DISTILLING all take machines that use fuel. If you get 20 gallons per acre (totally made-up) and you use 20 gallons per acre (again, totally made up) to make it, how "fuel efficient" is it?
4) There have been complaints about ethanol wreaking havoc with engines. I'm pretty sure I've seen warnings in owners manuals not to use too high of an ethanol concentration.
I'm sure there's a plant-to-fuel combination thats a winner -- low mechnical input to growth and harvesting, low energy input to distillation. Unfortunately I don't think ethanol is it -- its a way to get more money to corn farms in the midwest with some marginal pollution and oil dependency benefits.
It is not at all clear that ethanol saves any oil at all.
In a good year (with high corn yields) most studies show that ethanol production is slightly energy positive. That is, the energy content of a gallon of ethanol exceeds by approximately 15% the energy that goes into producing it. In a bad year, when yeilds are lower, it can easily require more than 80,000 BTU to produce a gallon of ethanol. (See, for example, this study.) On average it's probably about a wash. It would be interesting to see what the reaction would be to requiring ethanol producers to use ethanol instead of fossil fuel for all steps in production.
It is also questionable whether ethanol reduces CO2 emissions. From that standpoint, it would probably be better to grow trees or hemp, which would recycle more CO2 than any reduction due to burning CO2 rather than fossil fuels.
>From Washington Post
washingtonpost.com
Ethanol's Ambitions
Tuesday, April 16, 2002; Page A18
THE ETHANOL lobby is normally content to fleece taxpayers in two ways.
First, it promotes public payments to those who grow the corn from which
ethanol is made: Right now the House and Senate are cooking up a terrible
farm bill that would lock in 10 more years of subsidies. Second, the lobby
has used the tax system to penalize gasoline that is not one-tenth made up
of ethanol: Motorists who fill their cars with ethanol-free gas pay around 5
cents extra per gallon. Some might reckon two federal favors enough, but the
ethanol folks think bigger than that. A provision recently inserted into the
Senate energy bill by Sen. Tom Daschle, the majority leader, and Sen. Jeff
Bingaman, the energy committee chairman, would mandate a big jump in ethanol
use and give ethanol producers protection against environmental liability.
This outrage is disguised in reasonable garb: It is part of an effort to
promote renewable sources of energy. But ethanol, though made from corn, can
only loosely be thought of as renewable, since making it consumes nearly as
much non-renewable oil as the ethanol replaces. Moreover, ethanol's
environmental benefits are debated: Including it in gasoline reduces carbon
monoxide emissions but can increase smog. In any case, a sane policy on
renewables should give promising alternative energy sources a government
boost, but it shouldn't pour billions in taxpayers' cash into products that
will never be remotely viable. Remember, ethanol already gets government
help: Since 1996, crop subsidies alone have been worth nearly $30 billion to
the industry. Increasing this help would be going too far, even if ethanol's
environmental merits were more certain.
Both ethanol's drawbacks are reflected in the Senate's legislation. The bill
creates a "safe harbor," protecting industry from suits arising out of
defective additives in gasoline -- hardly a sign of confidence in ethanol's
environmental merits. It also mandates increased ethanol consumption --
again, hardly a sign that ethanol expects to gain market share on its own --
requiring that gasoline refiners step up their use of ethanol from the
current level of around 1.7 billion gallons a year to 5 billion gallons by
2012. This mandated tripling of consumption might cause shortages and
therefore price spikes, especially since the ethanol market is dominated by
three producers, which could find ways to orchestrate scarcity and pocket
windfall profits. The biggest producer is Archer Daniels Midland, which in
1996 pleaded guilty to a charge of price-fixing and was fined $100 million.
The four Democratic senators from California and New York are calling this
ethanol provision what it is: a scheme to funnel money to agribusiness and
corn states at the expense of the rest of the country. One amendment to
limit the ethanol mandate was rebuffed last Thursday, but there may be
another chance today. The Senate should back the effort to remove the
ethanol provision from the energy bill, and Sen. Daschle should not resist,
despite his farm-state loyalties. Democrats have been trying to score points
against the Bush administration by demonstrating the link between corporate
lobbyists and the White House energy policy. If the Senate's Democratic
leaders now use the energy bill to funnel money to Archer Daniels Midland
and its ilk, they'll look like hypocrites.
Guvegrra?
Just a note ahead of time. Some of the cars listed below are only available in certain parts of California and are only available in relatively low numbers.
Pure Electric:
2002 The Nissan Altra EV (pilot?)
2002 Ford Thi!nk City
2002 Toyota Rav4-EV
2002 Lido Motors Lido
2002 Ford Ranger EV (fleet only?)
2002 Nissan HyperMini (pilot only?)
Selectria Force (out of production?)
Hybrids:
2003 Honda Civic Hybrid
2002 Honda Insight
2002 Toyota Prius
Web Sites of Interest:
EV World
US DoE Alternative Fuel Car Buying Guide (many listed)
US DoE Alternative Fuel Vehicle Listing (many listed)
California ZEV Buyers Guide
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Get a Volkswagen TDI model (http://www.tdiclub.com/). In the US they have TDI jetta's, beetles and golfs (nearly every model in europe has a TDI, passat, lupo etc). In the US they are only rated for about 90hp(and 155hp of torque stock, they can get up to 115hp fairly easily), but get 49MPG (over 700miles a tank) for highway mileage. The TDI lupo (only in europe) is rated for 90MPG and costs far less than a honda!
They do offer a 150hp TDI engine in europe which still gets really good gas mileage, but won't run on current US grade diesel (which is real poor). There is even a TDI GTI! VW/Audi sells six different diesels in Europe (1.2l, 1.9l - 90hp, 1.9l - 110hp, 1.9l -115hp, 2.5l - 150hp, V8 3.3l - 225hp[available soon]) compared to only the 1.9l - 90hp available in North America. When mentioning these horse power figures though, we must also think where this power is available. On the 1.9l 90hp it peak torque is available at just 1900RPMs with 155 ft/lbs torque up to the V8 3.3l which generates 355 ft/lbs torque between 1800 and 3000RPMs. I guess we can only dream of these really high output models.
Diesel is good, unfortuneatly it got a bad name in the US due to the amount of black smoke earlier cars and big trucks would put out (about 2% of US cars are diesel compared to over 25% in Europe. A properly tuned diesel shouldnt spew black smole and has gobs of torque which is great for driving around town(you won't win a drag race).
VW is really the only auto manufacturer who still offers diesel cars, and their prices start around 15k. Plus you get a car which is much nicer than a civic both on the in and outside.
I expect more manufacturer's to bring diesels over to the US once the fuel standards increase.
On a side note, is there any technical problem which has stop diesel electric hybrids in cars (they have diesel electric trains). Seems to me you would get a more fuel efficent car than a gas electric.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.