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New Speed Record For Hybrid Cars
prostoalex writes "According to CarPages, Toyota Prius set a new world record for hybrid vehicles. It 'set the mark at 130.794 mph on the three-mile short course using a standard Hybrid Synergy Drive power-train - a mixture of 1.5 litre petrol engine and an electric motor.'"
An engineering group from Toyota Motorsport in the USA prepared the car by changing the gear ratios (4.32:1 to 3.2:1) and increasing the inverter voltage from 500 to 550 volts. A transmission cooling system was added to decrease the temperature of the inverter and electric motor to maximise efficiency. Ambient temperature on the salt flats was nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit with nearly 100 degrees humidity. Ice was added between runs to keep the system cool.
The interior of the car was stripped to save weight, a roll cage added for safety and the whole car lowered by five inches to improve the aerodynamics for this highly specialised record attempt. Even the 26 in front and 25 in rear tyres were made especially by Goodyear.
This can help crush myths (and not-so-myths) about Hybrids being slow and laggy.
Though they are not built for speed, most people would like to know that their car can easily go 80. Further, Hybrid racing is an interesting idea. Virtually all types of races are about getting good speed under certain limiting conditions... what an interesting limit to be up against.
You seem to be forgetting a very basic marketting effect: look at rally racing cars in europe these days: most cars entered are mom-and-pop 4-door sedans, or bargain basement 2-door econoboxes that are strategically souped up and modified for racing by the manufacturers themselves (if not simply a racing chassis with a fake body of the model in question).
That way, mom and pop's teenage son fresh out of getting the driver's license, and young adults, associate the shite econobox with the powerful race cars they see on TV and they buy it.
So guess what? hybrid manufacturers are doing the same. The least thing they want is for their vehicles to be associated with being a mature person's choice for economy and savings. So they race hybrids, even if it makes no sense, to make them sexy to young male drivers. Plain and simple.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hybrids aren't all about pure fuel economy. They're also about pollution. If you do a lot of city driving, you will pollute less. In your roommate's example, the 38 mpg city compares to between 55 and 60 mpg city. So for the driving that most people do(city driving) the Prius gets about 1.5 times the mpg and pollutes less as well. The EPA rates the Prius at 60 mpg. The 55 was from a blog.
The rest of your comments sound an awful lot like fud.
And yet we do not hear people complaining about Hummers wasting all our time at stop lights. This is because people buy Hummers to show they can. Just like people who buy hybrids do so not to go fast, but to conserve the US stratigic supply of fuel for those Americans who are dying and might need it Iraq rather than thier selfish need to look flash.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
One of the things that always has me kinda scratching my head is why nobody's making a diesel hybrid.
It would seem that with diesel's natual tendancy towards lower engine RPMs (and with most diesel engines delivering peak torque around 2500 RPM), it would make a natural fit towards a design like Toyota's (generating power which is applied to the wheels by electric motors).
In fact, that is how railroad locomotives work.
Plus, there are all kinds of advantages to using a diesel engine, including the fact that the raw materials for diesel fuel need not just be petroleum.. diesel fuel has been engineered from coal and vegetable oil, and can theoretically (although I personally haven't seen practicle examples) be made from methane.
If VW can make a turbodiesel New Beetle that can average 40-50MPG out of just swapping the gasoline engine for a diesel one, what could they do if they engineered a smaller diesel + electric motor combo?
The Prius gets about 45mpg in realistic useage (based on the independent reviews I've read). That's worse than most european diesel cars get - diesel cars that have decent performance and aren't made of plastic in an attempt to compensate for the weight of lugging two complete power sources about all the time. Oh yes, and they're a helluva lot cheaper to make for the same reason.
I have a Prius, and you're right, I do get about 45 mpg. Keep in mind, though, that diesel is currently a little bit better than hybrid technology in terms of efficiency, but it lags far behind in terms of emissions...the hybrid is far, far better for the environment.
Also, I fail to see how hybrid and diesel are mutually exclusive. Many of the technological breakthroughs that Toyota and Honda have pioneered in making their hybrid engines could be used with diesel engines, too, right? Regenerative braking, continuously variable transmission, fast-starting and stopping of the engine - there's no reason these can't be eventually used in virtually every automobile.