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High Efficiency Hybrid Car Planned For 2009
An anonymous reader writes "You may have heard some of the hype last month when California-based Aptera let out first word of its allegedly super fuel-efficient (and cheap) Typ-1 electric vehicle. A video test drive and gee-whiz specs breakdown at the Popular Mechanics site proves that this thing is for real. The plan is to have a vehicle that goes 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009. Aptera is also mentioned in Wired's new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize."
Where's my flying car?
Non-fossil fuel vehicles will start selling when they are made as inexpensively as traditional vehicles. And, when they have the range, capacity, and easy and quick refuel capabilities.
Until this point is reached, they don't stand a chance in the American system.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
An interesting and radical design -- but the three wheel arrangement bothers me:
Single wheel drive? According to the video, much of the weight is over the front, but the driving wheel is at the back. That might be OK for California, but I wonder how well this vehicle would cope with a little ice and snow.
I see that they've done it that way to simplify the transmission, but I'd much rather have four wheels.
When american culture stops idealizing the 60's.
In other words, this is how effective cars look. Sure, you can make the detals a bit more aestethically pleasing, but this "futuristic golf car"-look will generally stick because it gives a perfect mix between performance and efficiency. They do what they were designed for well, and those who desire this mix of performance and efficiency will learn to like this look, because it will symbolize what they desire.
So basically, this is a case of the beuty being in the eye of the beholder. However, I do think this car was unusually ugly, but its over all style was good.
I completely understand that part -- our own home(s) are moving to get off the electric grid, but not for ecological reasons (we want to save money as the dollar plummets).
:)
Solar isn't clean, that's for sure. The 3 solar-panel investors we speak with have told us of the ecological burdens of producing solar panels. We're still moving to solar (and to geothermal A/C and heat) for our primary residence to lower the long-term cost of energy, but we know that we're likely causing as much damage to the environment elsewhere to bring our cost-reductions home, over the long run.
We have a few greenie friends who really think they're saving the environment, but the more I research it, the more it seems that there is nothing you can truly do to reduce your carbon footprint, even if it seems logical. There are too many parameters to wade through to calculate what a certain mode of transportation or energy generation costs.
I'd love one of those basement-nukes, even if it cost $5b. Run the thing at 5c/KwH, and feed the rest of the power back to the grid for a nice refund each month. After a decade of inflation, I wonder how much energy would cost.
I also don't feel safe in some of the lighter cars. My favorite car happens to be a diesel Land Rover, but it's outside of my price range. I do like feeling safe, and I like something that can handle Chicago winters. Our little Subaru (2.0l I4) is fairly decent on gas mileage, but I'd love a diesel if they ever started making one. It handles great in snow and ice, is definitely safe (my wife totalled one of my Subarus years ago at 75MPH and walked away), but it's still no eco-friendly machine.
For me, the best reduction of polluting we've done is cut our driving significantly, but we travel by plane much more than before, so I'm sure that's a negative reduction
Things I'd rather see:
How about employer incentives like working from home, so we don't have to drive there in the first place?
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Your employer puts up solar panels in the employee parking lot for anyone driving an electric car to work. You park your car in the cool shade under the panels and plug in for a free 9 hour recharge.
It'd be cheaper to simply put up a carport and pay the electric bill each month. Discounting massive subsidization of the solar panels, of course.
Actually, make it simple. Put an AC plug next to every parking stall. In cold places we do it for block heaters. Employers pay for all sorts of perks to attract good employees. Why not add free recharge to the list.
This would work well, I think. Especially if you have the carport charging plugs be on a circuit that allows discretionary turnoffs by the power company - this would increase baseload and not peak.
The power company is willing to cut quite a deal per kwh for these deals, as baseload power can cost them a third or even less than their more expensive peak sources.
People complain about how slow charging will be - but a major difference between pouring gasoline into a car and charging the batter is that pouring gasoline pretty much needs to be an attended activity - charging a car you only need the 30 seconds or so to attach the plug, then remove it before you leave. Heck, you could even set it up so that the act of backing out of the slot disengages the cord, which is on a auto retraction wheel. With 130 miles of range current, I still wouldn't need to charge every day.
I don't read AC A human right
``On many of these electrics, you do need to plug-in to get your initial charge. Isn't that causing just as much, if not more, pollution than burning oil locally?''
It depends on how you generate your electricity. I would have thought that's obvious, but apparently it isn't to many people.
``I'm still not sure that anyone can actually decipher all the different impacts that "environmentally-friendly" vehicles or machines have.''
I agree. The only thing that is certain for now is that they _do_ cause pollution. Exactly how much, I couldn't say, but it means that the environmental friendliness is only relative.
``I know I read an article this year that spoke of the CO2 emissions for just peddling a bike or taking a walk, so even not using machinery seems to have an impact.''
Of course. The human body consumes O2 and emits CO2. But there is something worth noting: the carbon we emit typically comes from renewable resources (i.e. plants or animals). This means it is released after recently having been absorbed, so the net effect is 0. Contrast this with burning fossil fuels, where you are releasing carbon that had been buried for millions of years into the atmosphere.
``Then again, I'm not a big fan of the global warming scams out there, nor am I a fan of peak oil theory.''
Global warming is a fact, and that mineral oil extraction will peak at some point is given. Whether these are things we should be afraid of or feel guilty about is a different matter.
``I just need to see the whole picture, rather than what some people will say is a small portion of the picture, but ignores other ramifications of decision making.''
It is very hard to get a clear picture, with all the clueless people shouting so loudly. One the one hand, there are people still pretending and trying to convince others that the changes that are happening to the environment aren't really there. On the other hand, you have people who have blind faith in some clean technology and think it will solve all problems if only the evil governments and oil companies stopped fighting it. Millions of people just parrot one camp or another, and they're all wrong. In the meantime, there _are_ good ideas that we could implement, but they are mostly left by the wayside because they don't stand out among all the wrong-headed noise makers.
``I'd rather pollute MY area, so we can see the direct effect, than push it off to a poorer neighborhood where we won't.''
That, of course, is the main problem with any kind of pollution. The effect isn't felt in full by the people generating it, and thus doesn't factor into the cost of things. Therefore, cleaner alternatives almost universally seem more expensive. Thus, it makes economic sense to pollute. It's hard to do something about this without resorting to heavy-handed, commitee-decided, wrong-headed measures. Like, for example, in the Netherlands, where there is a tax cut on hybrid cars. Think about it. It's on hybrid cars. Not on clean cars. If it's a hybrid, it gets the cut, no matter how polluting it is. If it's a clean car but not a hybrid, it doesn't get the cut. Madness!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
And has been doing this for millions of years. The only thing that changes the ocean methane equation is reduced atmospheric pressure, or a very wicked ocean warming--- more than what's forecast.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I've read the articles, of course, but I feel the need to respond to the part you quoted.
You see, I feel that the 300mpg figure is cutting it very close to being fraudulent, and at least deceiving.
Because I really doubt that if you drained the batteries at the start that it'd get 300mpg, or even if you drove it over the test course in such a way that the battery was equally charged at the beginning and end. Say, 50% charge - enough room for regenerative braking to be utilized, not so low that the car's trying to charge the battery back up.
As such, I'd like to see some new figures quoted - average mileage per kwh, plus a figure for how many kwh the battery stores, then gas mileage as I proposed.
'300mpg over the first 300 miles' isn't as useful as '1 mile per kwh city, 250 kwh pack, 50 miles per gallon gasoline, 10 gallon tank'.*
*Plus the standard disclaimers about driving habits, patterns, routes make a difference here.
I don't read AC A human right
I agree it doesn't make sense to think Chevoron bought Texaco just to get Ovonics.
However, the situation is very odd, if Texaco truly thinks it is doing all it can to introduce NiMH technology for automotive applications. If you are making money by licensing the technology, you want to see that technology in as widespread production use as possible as quickly as possible, before something comes along to obsolete it.
If people want to use a technology you have patented, and you are not in the business of producing a competitor technology, then licensing a technology only on terms that discourages its adoption is madness. You don't put early adopters in a catch-22 situation where you'll only license large scale producers, but potential producers have no user base to sell too. If foreign firms who produce your technology where you have not patent want to import, you offer them licensing terms that will be attractive for them. You don't scare them away.
So, we can only conclude that either (a) the people managing the licensing for large format NiMH are utterly deranged or (b) Chevron has some reason to discourage the adoption of NiMH technology in automotive applications.
Of course it doesn't seem exactly likely that NiMH technology could have a measurable impact on Chevron's petroleum profits in the near future. Once Li-Phosphate technology becomes available on the scale needed to support production of EVs and PEHs, we can put this unlikely proposition to the test.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
(I should mention for the conspiracy fans among us that the patent holder is Chevron).
With all of the publicly available information surrounding the patents on large format NiMH batteries it pretty self-evident that the company, which is Cobasys, has an agenda to keep the technology out of the marketplace. How many corporations do you know that will deny themselves an additional revenue stream by not licensing their patents, especially patents that are due to expire very soon? Anyone?
Somehow, he was rated insightful, when he really isn't. Flying cars and driving cars may have epistemological equivalence (both = vehicle operation) but they are not ontologically equivalent. Example: hacking up a cooked turkey and brain surgery are both examples of (episteme) knife wielding, but they are not the same (ontologue) activities and have radically different social values and results.
Similar to the brain-dead postmodernists who insist that theory has no value, because "it's all theory".
All he did was act contrarian in a very adolescent manner - the kind of numbskull pigheaded idiot logic I expect from a dull second year university student - the kind I normally give a C- and a recommendation to do some follow up research to get the grade up.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Gas is going up in price. You can expect $4 or even $5 per gallon in the not too distant future. As this climbs, standard vehicles will become more and more expensive relative to hybrids. In addition you mention 100,000 miles, but that is low. Most modern cars are good for 200,000 miles or more. There are Priuses that have over 300,000 miles on them on the road today.
A $25,000 50 MPG Prius, run for 200,000 miles at $3 per gallon will cost you $12,000 in gas. Your $15,000 30 MPG Corolla will cost you $20,000 in gas. The Prius would cost you only a net $2,000 more in this scenario, and that does not include the unscheduled maintenance cost penalties you pay (see below).
If gas goes to $4 per gallon it is about $17K vs. $27K, making the Prius a wash. If it goes over $4 per gallon, the Prius is cheaper.
As hybrids become more effecient and cheaper, these numbers will dramatically swing against owning a regular car. A 300 mpg hybrid like the article mentions that costs $30,000 will only cost $2,000 to $4,000 in gas over the lifetime of the car even at $5 per gallon. Such a car is free in comparison to the cost of the Corolla. You would literally save in the low tens of thousands of dollars by buying the 'more expensive' hybrid.
There is another big factor. Scheduled maintenance costs on hybrids are about in line with regular cars, but their unscheduled maintenance costs tend to be much lower. Cab companies and fleets like this one are starting to publish the reliability and maintenace results of using hybrids. The data is still sketchy, but even with the early hybrids (2001 models or so) that these sets of data apply to, the data indicates that you can save from $1 to $2 per 50 miles (very rough estimate) or so in unscheduled maintenance costs (ie, unexpected repair costs) over the life of the vehicle for a good hybrid vs. a regular IC vehicle. In other words, if you drive 200,000 miles you, statistically speaking, save about (200,000/50)*(1 to 2) = $4,000 to $8,000 over the lifetime of the car. Now that is a statistical average of course, and you might get a car that costs you almost nothing over that time. But that again you might not.
Hybrids are also holding their value much better than regular cars. You don't take a huge hit to the value of a hybrid just becuase you drove it off the lot. Go look around you'll find used Priuses going for almost as much as new ones.
Finally, I'll point out that Toyota (since we compared Corolla to Prius) no longer makes or sells regular IC cars in Japan. It's hybrid only. They are only making their older cars for America and some other markets, but they have already shown that they consider all non-hybrid lines to be end-lined soon.
In short I would not buy a high-end new IC car today. If you're not ready for a hybrid or you don't drive enough for it to make economic sense to you, then do your best to buy a cheaper used regular car and wait. In the next few years you will see IC cars fall out of favor. For a period of time IC cars will become dirt cheap as demand for them drops through the floor, making the greatest buyers market in history for IC cars. Then IC cars will all but disappear. It's a pretty standard model for technology that has reached the end of the line.