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Google Spends Money to Jump-Start Hybrid Car Development
slugo writes "Internet search giant Google (GOOG) hopes to speed the development of plug-in hybrid cars by giving away millions of dollars to people and companies that have what appear to be practical ways to get plug-in hybrid automobiles to market faster. 'While many people don't associate Google with energy, analysts say the fit isn't all that unnatural. Renewable energy, unlike coal or nuclear, will likely come from thousands or tens of thousands of different locations. Analysts have long said that one of the big challenges will be managing that flow into and out of the nation's electric grid, and that companies that manage the flow of information are well placed to handle that task.'"
* The advanced hybrid vehicle research center at University of California-Davis (founded and directed by CalCars advisor Prof. Andy Frank) has converted nine sedans and SUVs into PHEVs that have repeatedly won prizes in US Energy Department-sponsored "FutureTruck" competitions. Dr. Frank, widely known as the "Father of the Plug-In Hybrid," has been working on PHEVs for thirty years, and building them with students for more than a decade.
* CalCars produced the world's first plug-in Prius (the PRIUS+) in 2004. Since then a number of companies have emerged to offer conversions for sale to consumers and fleet buyers, and CalCars has worked to support a growing open-source conversion movement.
* In 2003-04, the US Marine Corps demonstrated a diesel-electric PHEV-20 HUMVEE. (The military likes the silent, zero-heat "footprint" in all-electric mode, and appreciates saving fuel that can cost well over $100/gallon to deliver to front lines.) This advanced Shadow RST-V (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Targetting Vehicle PHEV, built by General Dynamics, uses lightweight lithium-ion batteries and motors in four wheel hubs. See details and photos and more descriptions.
* Long Island, NY has converted a city bus to a plug in hybrid with 40 miles of all-electric range. Many more heavy-duty vehicle conversions (including three recycling dump-trucks that will run in "silent" mode for pickups) are in progress. see here
How we know is more important than what we know.
"They are just as efficient as non-hybrids."
Non-hybrids have about a century of refinement behind their current performance.
Getting hybrids into the production stream can pave the way for better hybrids, gradually reducing the need to run the internal combustion engine for support. Until energy storage tech improves, the gas engine "crutch" is among reasonable workarounds.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Overall, Biofuels are a mistake. About the only place that I see them of use is in the algae's ability to accumulate a LOT of CO2. But if we move from fuels in the first place, we will almost certainly move to electric cars. That means that we will have the ability to manage the pollution at single sources rather than multiple points.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I like how Google Maps updates all the time.
Back when MapPoint was the only game in town, Microsoft was still 2 years behind in map updates. Sure, the up-to-date construction information was nice but I'be been stuck in 2 states where there was no road in MapPoint and I had to resort to old school tactics by buying a map.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=ev1&start=0&ie=u tf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official
Seems to me the oil companies are just making sure we keep using oil and make sure no competing infrastructure exists to provide vehicles with energy.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Google has reduced the energy consumption at its giant data centers by more than 50 percent compared with "standard" data centers, using evaporative cooling for its servers and other means, said Urs Hoelzle, a senior vice president of operations. At the same time, he admitted, Google is growing so fast that its energy consumption each year is actually increasing. Funding hybrid development is apparently one of their "carbon neutral" endeavors.
Google is doing this simply because they can not lose and may gain big. This is not going to change anything else that they are doing.
The article is very long on fluff and does not give up a lot of details which makes it very hard to read between the lines or even to read much into the article. This is not something that aligns itself with Google's "core business" so one must ask why is Google doing this?
Almost everyone will agree that the folks at Google are smart. Frankly they have not comitted a lot of money. It could be that they are just funding this for the goodwill (and publicity) that they will gain. From the amount of money that they have pledged, this could be the only reason. Aligning yourself with an energy issue that everyone cares about is worth a million or even ten million to a company with the reach (and pocketbook) of a company like Google. Google is certainly doing "no evil" with this.
Going back to the part where I said the folks at Google are smart makes me think that this may be something a bit more. Something that they can justify simply for the goodwill and publicity that the effort generates but can maybe give them something more. It seems like this is how they almost always work. In this light, I am wondering if this is a "testing of the water" of the energy venture capital business. Low risk (with billions in available cash one or ten million is not a big wager) with huge potential rewards if the smart folks at Google pick the right project(s) to fund.
The smart people at Google come from a wide range of sciences and specialties. If you put the right people together to review the requests for funding, they stand a fair to middlin chance of picking the right one(s).
Google is indeed smart.
In my opinion, the energy storage system to work for is a generalized alcohol fuel cell, designed to be able to handle methanol and ethanol mixtures in any proportion. This system has a number of advantages: for one, this would largely be a refinement of existing technology, and for another, light molecular weight alcohols are very easy to generate from waste biomass. Anything from hemp, to straw, harvested algae, to waste products from paper and other industries, and yet again that it is a carbon neutral technology no net carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Alcohols also have the considerable advantage of being liquid at standard conditions, which makes transport very easy. It's really just a matter of putting the infrastructure in place.
Manufacturing the batteries and disposing of them when they wear out after five years or so is an ecological nightmare. Hardly... at least insofar as the Prius is concerned. Its batteries are recyclable, and NiMH isn't toxic or dangerous like lead-acid or lithium anyway. Furthermore, the batteries should last the life of the vehicle; testing showed no measurable degradation after 150,000 miles.
because cars are a necessary evil and yet there are some of us who would like to lessen the impact of the cars we need to use.
Yes and No. Most people can get away with one car and a bicycle or velomobile for their daily short commutes. adding electric assist would greatly improve your distance. Every wingle other country on the planet has more bikes on the roads than cars.
Americans are just too lazy and fat. They would rather drive 2 blocks to get ice cream instead of riding a bike or god forbid... walk there.
Cars ARE a necessary evil for trips over 10 miles. and even then I guarentee I can find at least 1000 people that will disagree with that and mention that public transit like busses and trains will get you there.
But I'm like you, I cant stand sitting next to some icky poor person or not look like I'm rich by pulling into work in my Mercedes.
so I ride in to work on a $4500.00 recumbent. I'm hoping to buy a velomobile by the end of this summer for all weather commuting (yes even winter) simply with the money I am saving on Heath club membership, gas and insurance.
Side benefit, I stay in way better shape than everyone else, my cost to commute is zero, and I get to be even more smug than the prius drivers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I totally agree with you. Google doesn't direct traffic. People request things from them, and they provide it. Yes, Google is working on knowing more and more about the people that use them, but their 99% use case is still anonymous user traffic.
How about Red Hat? They make a Linux distribution, so certainly they must be good at distribution. How about Starbucks? They are used to distributing energy to people, so this should translate to hybrid cars. What about McDonalds? They...oh just stfu slugo.
Why does every Slashdot story contributor wander off into his own little world of conjecture? Can't we just stick to the story? If you want to comment on the subject, just put it as a reply. Oh yeah, because no one would see it after it got modded down.
I think one of the biggest issues with electric cars and plug-in hybrids is not battery life, but charge time. Right now, Tesla has a car that goes 200 miles on a charge at freeway speeds. The problem is that it takes several hours to charge it. When it takes hours to charge a car, then range is a problem. If you could charge a car in minutes, then a slightly reduced range is less of an issue.
One manufacturer (ZAP) is claiming their new ZAP-X car, based on a Lotus chassis, can get 350 miles with a charge time of 10 minutes using new nanotechnology batteries. Aerovironment (designers of the EV-1) has independently tested these batteries and claim they deliver as promised. But who knows, it could still be hype.
If Google can focus their attention on reducing charge times, then a lot of the problems associated with electric cars go away.
There is one very sever problem with doing trucks first; trucks actually have to be economical. You can sell a consumer a car that costs more over life of the vehicle on warm thoughts and green trendiness. For a truck, you will have absolutely no such luck. Trucking companies run on thin margins and will demand economics above all else. Further, trucks are the hardest of all possible problems to solve. Namely, a truck demands extreme range and extreme power. The range issue in particular is very hard problem for 'green' cars to solve.
Cars are (relatively) low hanging fruit. You still need range, but in truth, if you can offer a car that for the first 40 miles runs off the grid and then switches over to gas, you have just made a car that will spend 95% of its time on the grid and make a dent in the problem. For a 'first 40 miles is on the grid' truck on the other hand doesn't even begin to touch the problem nor entice any trucking companies to buy your product.
I am not suggesting that shipping is not a major environmental problem. It is. That said, it is a problem that is much farther out of reach then the issue of personal transportation. To fix shipping, it is going to take a major technological breakthrough that really is not yet on the horizon. Cars on the other hand can be tackled with the tools of today and have a significant environmental impact.