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Gas/Electric Hybrids, Air Cars in the News

Posted by michael on from the i'd-buy-a-civic-hybrid-if-the-price-came-down dept.

hackshack writes "eCycle is developing a hybrid diesel / electric motorcycle designed to get 180 miles per gallon. The small diesel engine kicks in at speeds over 12mph, and the electric motor handles acceleration. Target retail price is $5,500. They've got a beta test program going as well. Now I can laugh at all those "gas-guzzling" Insight drivers as I zoom by!" Reader clen writes in about the Toyota Prius doing well in a road rally, and fishdan sent in a note about a pure-electric concept car called the Tango. And the air-powered car is getting a little more media attention, too.

20 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. A great all-electric already exists by Ellen+Spertus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Drivers of the GM EV1 are trying to save the car, or at least stop GM from falsely claiming that nobody wants electric cars. See http://cleanup-gm.org.

    1. Re:A great all-electric already exists by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well this is a pretty simple problem if you ask me. Instead of trying to get GM to change its evil ways, why not just buy from a manufacturer that caters to your demands? Sure, they're not electric, but the Insight, Prius, and new hybrid Civic have the best fuel economy in the whole fleet, plus an infinite range (unlike the EV1's 70-140 mile maximum range) anywhere gasoline is available. Plus, these cars are purchased, not leased, so you never have to give them back.

      I hate to drag Microsoft into an article about cars, but this isn't a market where one giant company has monopoly control over the market and for most things you're stuck dealing with them. There's lots of car companies, none with >50% marketshare, and of course any car you buy or build can be used on any road, so support a manufacturer that's more closely aligned with your ideals rather than one which doesn't.

    2. Re:A great all-electric already exists by silentbozo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Generally, the batteries used in electric vehicles are absorbant-mat type valve-regulated sealed batteries. This means you can shoot holes in the batteries and very little, if any electrolyte will spill out. Think of them as bigger, more advanced gel-cell lead acid batteries.

      Also, given the fact that your vehicle will probably be heavier (since you're carrying the lead acid batteries, and the steel to support them) the other vehicle (unless it's a huge-ass truck) will probably come out of the accident in much worse shape than you will.

      I haven't a clue as to what they put into the EV-1, but I doubt that it would fare worse than a Toyota Corolla in an accident.

      As far as GM crushing their EV-1s to permanently get them out of consumer reach, well, they're assholes who have already written off the money they spent building what amounts to a working fleet of prototypes, so from their point of view, "disposing" of the asset makes sense, tax-wise, since they feel that they're no longer going to be in the electric-car business (despite the fact that fuel-cell cars ARE electric cars!!!)

      The biggest joke is on states who built electric car charging stations with proprietary Magnacharger paddles to support EV-1s. With the EV-1s off the road, there really isn't any use for those charging stations anymore - I haven't heard of any hobbyists using the very expensive magnacharger system as part of their EV conversions, so there you go, more taxpayer money wasted on the behalf of these corporate bozos.

    3. Re:A great all-electric already exists by Phil+Karn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The inductive charging situation is even worse than that. Some years ago, GM talked Toyota into adopting inductive charging. Toyota imposed a condition: a new, smaller paddle would replace the original large paddle used on the EV1 and S-10 and become the inductive charging standard.

      The new small paddle fits into large (EV1 and S-10) cars with a simple adapter, but the older large-paddle chargers are useless with the Toyota RAV4EV, the most common EV with a small-paddle receptacle.

      GM was in the process of retrofitting all the public large-paddle chargers with small-paddle units when the California Air Resources Board decided to make conductive charging the California EV standard (the right decision, IHMO). In a snit, GM abruptly took all its marbles and went home. They stopped leasing EV1s and stopped replacing large paddle chargers with small paddle chargers.

      So when the last EV1 leases are up, we'll be left with a whole bunch of large-paddle public chargers that the Toyota RAV4EV, the only inductively-charged EV still on the market, will be unable to use.

      The poor RAV4EV drivers get the worst of both worlds: an expensive, inefficient and unreliable inductive charging system without even the benefit of the many public charging stations that we EV1 drivers have.

      Inductive EV charging was a worthwhile experiment, but it was a failure. The sooner we junk it and move to conductive, the better.

    4. Re:A great all-electric already exists by SoftwareJanitor · · Score: 3, Informative

      Perhaps it isn't "nobody wants electric cars", but not enough people want them to make them economically feasable to produce, or at least not enough people are willing to pay what they really cost, and GM isn't willing to sell them at a loss (who can blame them). I personally don't want an electric car because I am unconvinced that they are really better for the environment. Unless your power comes from a truly clean source (and that means wind or solar, even hydro has environmental downsides because damming up rivers does affect the environment), then they aren't zero emissions, let alone zero environmental impact. Even ignoring tailpipe emissions, manufacturing and disposing of all those batteries isn't without environmental impact, since they generally contain hazardous chemicals and/or heavy metals.

      Frankly though, I don't want an electric car because even with subsidies they don't make economic sense for me. For that matter even hybrids don't make economic sense, since according to my estimates you've got to drive something like a Prius about 180,000 miles before the gas savings make up the difference in price between it and the Echo. That completely ignores maintenance costs, and my guess is that the Echo will be far cheaper to maintain, making it unlikely that a Prius will ever be as cheap to operate as an Echo. And by the way, the Echo is a nicer car to drive. And for what its worth, little cars like the current hybrids don't really suit my needs very well, let alone completely, so they'd be at best a 2nd or third car in my household, and further limiting any supposed economic or environmental advantage. And electric cars are even less pracical for my needs than hybrids.

      So quit trying to make GM out to be the bad guy. They built EV1's and lost money on every one of them. The eco nuts didn't put their money where their mouth was and buy enough of them to make it profitable.

  2. Air powered car safety by XNormal · · Score: 3

    It may be cleaner than gasoline powered cars - but is it safe?

    Four tanks of compressed air at 4500psi contain a lot of potential energy. If they rupture in a car crash this energy will be released in an instant, spraying their surroundings with shrapnel. Sure, a tank full of gasoline isn't exactly benign, either, but outside of Hollywood cars generally do not explode in a fireball.

    --
    Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
  3. Re:Efficiency? by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How much energy does it take to charge up? This car will only be worthwhile if it takes less energy to charge it than would be consumed by a conventional auto in the form of gasoline over the same distance and hauling the same load.

    Well I haven't ridden one of these or anything, but the basic premise is this; You have a very small engine which is mostly efficient in one very short range of operation, and an electric motor which is good at accelerating. As they say in the article, electric motors tend to have maximum torque at 0 RPM. So you can use the little motor to cruise (and charge the battery off the drive motor.) The motors are usually very efficient.

    Also there is the issue of regenerative braking. If their charge control system is good (and there are many engineers out there who are capable of building a good control system) then you get very good anti-skid braking by changing the load on the generator (the motor.) The batteries are the load, and when you brake, you store a fair amount of that energy.

    I'm also a bit perplexed by the air exhaust filter. Why filter the outgoing air at all? If it's just expelling air that was pumped into it from the atmosphere, why would there be any reason to filter it? Surely the filtration decreases the efficiency of the car, since it would take energy to force the expelled air through the filter.

    I can't answer this one for sure either, but I can tell you something about diesel exhaust, which is that it contains carcinogenic particulate matter (soot). Rudolf intended us to be running something a little more environmentally friendly in his engine. So it would be beneficial to filter it out. And second, backpressure tends to tune your engine towards torquey-ness (as in, power comes on at lower RPMs) rather than for maximum horsepower (more power but only at higher RPMs.) So if your exhaust were unrestrictive enough, which should be easy considering the small displacement of the diesel engine, a filter might not be unreasonable.

    Instead, I think I'd design my exhaust for quiet and run biodiesel. Environmentally friendly, smells better, won't give the person behind you cancer. The bike goes as fast as you ever need go, and it should be light and relatively trouble free. You'll have to replace the batteries every few years, which is no big deal. They're not THAT expensive and remember, the idea is that you're going to be getting 180 miles per gallon. Diesel fuel is currently cheaper than gasoline, at least in my area.

    I am somewhat concerned about the 80 mph top speed, however. I think that you really need the capability to hit 100 in case some asshole in a sports car tries to kill you or something. But maybe a hot exhaust and an ultraprecise balance job on that tiny little motor will let you get a little more speed.

    Also: It only weighs 230 pounds! I want one set up as a funduro.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. I strongly recommend the Civic Hybrid by Beebos · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've had a Honda Civic Hybrid for about two months, 4,000 miles. I couldn't be more impressed.

    It has enough pickup for the driving most people do. Its more comfortable than my Subaru Forrester, including more leg room. It handles well. Best of all, I average 50.8 miles to the gallon. Yes, there is a MPG gauge. It has a range of over 600 miles per tank of gas and is a Ultra Low Emmissions vehicle.

    It charges its own batteries through regenerative breaking and cruising without depressing the gas pedel, e.g. going down hill. The electric engine kicks in for some extra horsepower when you drive uphill or are accelerating. The gas engine is only about 96 horsepower, but that is enought when you are driving a light car on level roads . I drive it through the Green Mountains and it performs very well. It can cruise at 70 mph or more on a highway very easily, though I find I downshift a little more in the Civic than my Forrester for some extra oumph.

    I've added a Sirius Satellite radio, so now I can drive coast to coast on five tanks of gas while listening to the same radio station!!!!

    Put your environmental money where your environmental mouth is and buy one! I believe congress has just pased a tax credit for people who buy a hybrid.

    Go forth and be GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. Re:I strongly recommend the Civic Hybrid by Knobby · · Score: 3, Informative

      So, you are saying that I should drive a 100lb piece of plastic at 70MPH (putting my life on the line) down the CA freeways

      Actually, trucks are not held to the same safety standards as cars and are often less safe to drive. If you smash into a Honda Civic, you're correct in assuming that the Civic with bear the brunt of the damage and the Civic owner may sustain much more severe injuries than you. This might also be the case if you collide with a Lincoln Town Car despite it's large mass. In both cases the cars are designed to crush and absorb impact. Your truck is not designed in such a manner and the impact experienced by the car will approximate an impact with an unyielding object (such as concrete pillar) at an increased velocity.

      So, you're probably safer if you smash into cars, but if you hit anything that is not designed to crush, you're screwed! The frame will keep your vehicle from absorbing the impact energy, and your body will be forced to compensate..

  5. What about safety? by User+956 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And just how would you ensure safety of these air tanks? That's a HELL of a lot of pressure!

    I used to scuba dive quite a bit, though I haven't for a few years now. For those of you who don't you may not be aware that there are quite a few laws/guidelines about air tanks and safety.

    Each time you pressurize a dive tank you are doing two things: first, you're causing a huge amount of heat to build up and secondly, you're stressing the metal of the tank. The hotter the tank gets the more quickly the metal it's made of will become stressed over time and become unsafe. That's why scuba tanks are placed in water when they're being filled. A dive shop is required by law (at least around here) to render a tank unusable if they see ANY signs of damage or metal fatigue. It's just a fact of physics that a tank has only so many use cycles before the metal fatigue renders it unsafe.

    The dive shop owner who trained me had an interesting story about an experience he'd had. Many years ago his shop purchased a number of surplus tanks from the military. They had certified that they were in good shape and safe to use. Being a cautious guy he decided to fill them up and use them himself before selling any to his customers. While he was filling one of them he noticed a slight odd sound. He thought it could be a leak, so he placed his hand near the gasket at the top of the tank to see if he could feel any air escaping. He didn't actually touch the tank.

    The next thing he knew he was lying on his back in a different room. The tank had exploded, blowing him over 50 feet through two walls! All the interior walls in his shop were flattened, his ear drums were broken, he was bleeding from tears at the corners of his mouth and eyes, plus tons of other crap was damaged/destroyed. The tank was about 3/4 full when this happened.

    This was a steel tank, which has a max pressure of 1500PSI. And these cars are at 4500PSI???

    I dunno. I'd have to be VERY confident of the safety measures they use before I'd consider riding in one of these things.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  6. Diesel smart cars. by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Informative

    A Diesel smart car can do 68mpg(US) which is around 86mpg(UK) IIRC. Top speed of 86mph, group 2 insurance and a doddle to park.

    Ideal for running around town.

    They won't be officially released in the US till 2004, but there are importers already planning to ship them. The cars themselves have been around for a few years in Europe and they are all over the place. Daimler are planning a Diesel/electric hybrid version of the car.

    --
    Deleted
  7. Automatic bikes are dangerous by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Informative

    In a car, changing gear and power delivery mid-corner isn't a problem, the car won't fall over or change line.

    A bike, however needs completely predictable power delivery, if you change the power delivery on a bike mid-corner the line you're taking changes, you run wide or you fall into the corner. The rear tyre can also spin up. It's one of the reasons the new Honda VFR800 with VTEC is not doing so well (It's also as ugly as sin). The VTEC kicks in at around 7,000rpm and starts delivering more power.

    --
    Deleted
  8. Compare these to Clive Sinclair's C5 from 1985 by rufusdufus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Clive Sinclair's C5 from 1985.
    The idea was a huge loser then, and its a huge loser now. People will buy cars that do more, not less.

  9. Not really impressive - but this is! by allanj · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's nice - 180 MPG is roughly equivalent to 80 km/l to the imperial-challenged crowd. But check out the 100 km/l car done by Volkswagen(yes, that's 100 km to the litre, or 235 MPG if you don't like SI units). I'm not affiliated with Volkswagen or anything - it's just cool technology.

    --
    Black holes are where God divided by zero
  10. Re:probably safer then petrol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why?

    High pressure containers can be designed to fail safely. Simply put, the majority of the tank is stronger then it needs to be, then create intention weaker "seams". This encourages the tank to tear itself apart rather than disintegrating.

    Why is tearing good? Because as the tank tears, the hole get bigger and the trapped gas can expand through a larger hole thereby decreasing the relative pressure. Combined with a kevlar webbing around the tank, and protection in the floor of the vehicle, these tanks are probably safer than petrol cars, simply because you can't burn to death.

    For an illustration of this tearing effect, the easiest search is +fireworks + flowerpot. or look for failed oxygen cylinders.

  11. I regularly carry a 4500 PSI tank under my arm... by raehl · · Score: 4, Informative

    And I don't give it a secoond thought. While I don't know what particular type of tank they're using here, I'd guess it's a carbon-fiber wrapped tank. They're actually pretty resilient - crushing damage isn't going to do much, as whatever pressure you manage to put on the side of the tank is going to be small compared to the 4500 PSI pushing back from the inside. Really the only likely way to fracture one is with some sort of piercing damage, and if that happens there's no shrapnel, the tank just kind of tears apart leaving you with a bunch of un-wound carbon fiber. You obviously wouldn't want this to happen right next to your ear, but other than that, as long as the passengers are separated from the tanks, safety shouldn't be an issue.

    --
    paintball
  12. Paris-Dakar by Perdo · · Score: 3, Funny

    This bike would be nice with a BMW style 17.5 gallon fuel tank.

    That works out to just over a 3000 mile range...

    Have a nice trip across the United States and then up to Alaska.

    You would have to gas up to come back.

    --

    If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

  13. Hybrids are a better solution for now by MtViewGuy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think electric/fossil-fuel hybrids are the way to go for now until the arrival of low-cost, practical fuel-cell engines.

    The Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and Honda Civic Hybrid have demonstrated you can get a very practical car with good driveability, very low emissions, and most importantly long range. Why get a car with 70-100 mile range (at best) when you can get something that can be used as a daily driver and also take a small family on long trips?

    It's small wonder why both Toyota and Honda have begun to expand hybrid technology to their other model lines. Don't be surprised within a few years we'll be seeing small vans and station wagons with hybrid drivetrains from both Toyota and Honda; Toyota has stated they may produce a hybrid version of the Corolla and Honda is looking at putting hybrids into the Latitude (neé Stream) minivan and Jazz supermini hatchback.

  14. Re:strictly being by smallfeet · · Score: 3, Funny

    >> I (pretend to think I (and I can admit that (as I just did))) Are you a Lisp programmer or do you just lisp when you type?

  15. The US has cheaper fuel.. so Europe needs 100mpg! by wackybrit · · Score: 3, Informative

    Correct. I have a Mercedes C200 that was converted to LPG. Got no grant, but hey.

    It works out about 6.9p (about 10.5 cents) per mile in the Merc now on LPG.. whereas my Corsa 1.2l works out at about 9.6p (about 15 cents) per mile.. so I can drive a 2 litre Merc for cheaper than a 1.2l Corsa ;-)

    Of course, the fact that fuel is three to four times more expensive in Europe means that even a 100mpg car is only /just/ going to be approaching the economy of a regular American car. :-(

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments