Plug-in Hybrids May Not Go Mainstream, Toyota Says

mattnyc99 writes "Honda's challenger to the Prius — the Insight hybrid that we discussed so lividly a month ago — got its official unveiling today at the Paris auto show, with insiders confirming it would be cheaper than the world's most popular 'green' car while still hitting the same fuel-efficiency range. But the hybrid-electric showdown comes in the midst of a sudden rethink by Toyota about plug-in hybrids. Apparently all the recent hype — over the production version of the Chevy Volt, plus Chrysler's new electric trio and even the cool new Pininfarina EV also unveiled today — has execs from the world's number one automaker, and alt-fuel experts, questioning how many people will really buy electric cars, whether people will really charge them at night to keep the grid clear, whether batteries will make them too expensive and more. "

Comments

I work in the power industry

[dj245]

The grid can handle this. Millions of cars aren't going to be plugged in overnight. Yes, it takes years for a large power plant projects and big high-voltage lines to be planned, designed, and installed. It also takes years for a new car to become a significant percentage of cars on the road. When you consider that the economy is starting to squeeze people, its pretty clear that millions of people aren't going to run out and buy a new car just because its shiny.

Re:I work in the power industry

[Chris Burke]

You may feel nice and fuzzy warm about getting an electric vehicle, but then, you get a whoop-ass dose of reality when you find out, low and behold, your electric provider uses COAL FIRED plants to create this invisible power. What is the dirtiest method of power?????

The dirtiest would be a tiny mobile power plant burning fossil fuels that can't afford to have large-scale scrubbers on them because, being mobile, this power plant has to carry its own weight so any emissions controls directly effect the amount of fuel needed to travel.

Being large and stationary means coal plants can be made more efficient and have more environmental controls with minimal impact on operation. Even with electricity generated from coal, an electric car is producing less pollution per mile traveled than your gas car.

And hey maybe you didn't know but us tree huggers are also pushing for more green power generation. So while your gas car stays as bad as it is for its entire life, the tree hugger's electric magically becomes more green every time someone builds a wind farm.

Re:I work in the power industry

[sqrt(2)]

Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.

Re:I work in the power industry

[TooMuchToDo]

Dude, the Department of Energy says you're wrong:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/excess_nightime.php

One common critique of an electric car revolution is that the increased energy demand might just lead to the generation of new power plants, negating some of the cars' positive environmental benefits. Well, according to a new study by the U.S. Department of Energy, those critiques are misguided. The study shows 84% of the 198 million cars, light trucks and SUVs on America's roads could be fueled by the existing energy infrastructure if switched to plug-in hybrid vehicles. When you add vans and other vehicles in the "light duty fleet," 73% of the 217 million vehicles could be powered with the power plants we have in place today. In switching from 6.5 million barrels of oil every day to electric cars fueled by off-peak power production, the study estimates a reduction of greenhouse gases by 27%.

Even with America's current power mix, with a heavy dose of coal power generation, electric vehicles are show to reduce total greenhouse emissions, however the picture isn't all rosy. The Department of Energy study also points to an increase in total particulate emissions with the grid pumping power all night. This, however, is much easier to tackle than petroleum-based pollution. As alternative energy gains a greater share of the American power pie chart, we can look for less particulate emissions as well. In the meantime, check to see if your power company offers green power or try to generate your own. Then, when you get your electric speedster, you can rev it up without worry.

Emphasis mine.

Re:I work in the power industry

[CrazyJim1]

Some greens don't even like wind power because it kills the birds. Some even don't like solar because they have a feeling that we'll ruin the deserts. The greens don't seem like they have any specific leader they follow, so they seem to be all over the board in what they think is bad for the world. The sad thing is that nuclear is probably more green than most other power because of the advances we made in the last few decades, but no one can seem to change the image of nuclear to the people... If there was ever the need for public relations for something, I think nuclear could use it. There is no reason some people should have to pay most of their income just to keep warm through the winter.

Re:I work in the power industry

[lgw]

Winds farms don't scale, and do affect the environment some. Hydro doesn't scale, and building new dams just to make power certainly screws with the local environment. Geothermal doesn't come anywhere close to scaling, and may affect the environment in surprising ways.

Right now, nuclear is the only scalable choice for clean power. Eventually, solar will work too, but since solar isn't reliable it will never be a primary power source until someone invents a magic battery. However, with a magic battery, solar power is "fusion power too cheap to meter" so hopefully somone makes that happen.

ULEV cars are *far* cleaner than existing coal plants, and may be cleaner than a pure-electric car depending on where you live.

"Serial" hybrids (motor turns generator, not axel) are a fantastic idea, because they allow turbine engines to replace reciprocating cylinder engines. Gas turbines can be may much *more* efficient than 4-stroke engines, because you can make good use of the waste heat. I think the theoretical limit for a turbine is double tht of a 4-stroke - anyone know for sure?

Re:I work in the power industry

[afidel]

Nah, unless you are completely flat like Florida the reverse flow water storage is significantly more efficient and cheaper than molten salt.

Re:I work in the power industry

[tthomas48]

Um... have we managed to find a place to store nuclear waste? Have we uncovered an unlimited trove of radioactive material? Most intelligent people realize that a change is coming where we're going to have to move away from the oil economy. Oil is finite. Do we really want to spend all our time and money on building infrastructure that's also non-renewable? Nuclear is a lot of money and risk for a non-renewable energy source.

That said, will we add more nuclear as we move away from oil? More than likely. Should it be a goal? No. It's unsustainable.

Re:I work in the power industry

[polar red]

Wind farms don't scale

They do. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/december5/windfarm-120507.html

Re:I work in the power industry

[Sloppy]

There is no way the grid can handle so many cars being plugged in to recharge at night. .. your electric provider uses COAL FIRED plants to create this invisible power.

Coal doesn't burn at night? I think you got coal confused with solar.

Re:I work in the power industry

[joggle]

Unfortunately, unlike you and I, most "greens" are dead set against expanding nuclear power. They seem to think wind/solar/"biofuel" will be able to get the job done (no, covering the surface of the Earth with solar panels or wind farms is not practical, feasible or desirable). Most of them don't bother to think of the logic behind their positions so it's no wonder they don't have an answer to where all this new electricity will come from. All they know is that their trendy new EV doesn't burn any evil hydrocarbons.

As someone who has worked in Boulder, CO for years I can attest to the truth of your statement. There certainly are greens that don't think nuclear should be used at all and isn't needed. I've tried several times to convince them that it's possible to construct a nuclear plant that cannot have a melt down and certainly could not explode Chernobyl-style. I may as well be talking to a wall. And trying to convince them that wind and solar alone is insufficient also doesn't work.

However, I think I'm the exception to the rule in that I'm very much in favor of green power, drive a Prius and am in most ways the stereotypical green type of person. I'm just one of the rare ones that didn't stop cheering when Obama mentioned in his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium that he was in favor of constructing safe nuclear plants. (I remember one Democrat volunteer near me ask in shock, "Did he say nuclear??").

Re:I work in the power industry

[Free the Cowards]

Nuclear is not comparable to oil because the quantity of substance needed and expelled is literally millions of times less.

There is enough Uranium on the planet to run modern civilization for many millennia. And waste is a trivial problem which does not deserve all of the attention it gets. France has similar nuclear generation capacity to the US but is a much smaller country (75% of their electricity is nuclear), and you don't see a looming French nuclear waste disposal problem.

The current problems with nuclear power are all political. Uranium supply is not a problem. Construction of new plants is only a problem because it's politically impossible. Waste is only a problem because waste reprocessing is politically impossible.

Re:I work in the power industry

[zippthorne]

You could vaporize the waste and shoot it up through chimneys, and still release less nuclear waste per watt than coal plants.

But seriously.. it's not waste. It's still mostly-unused-fuel. You do the same thing the foundries do with slag: store it on site until it's economically or politically favorable to process it and run it through again.

There is plenty of fuel available for a LONG time. The only thing more "sustainable" than nuclear power is still, technically, nuclear power.

Re:I work in the power industry

[bavid]

Winds farms don't scale, and do affect the environment some.

Gah. I wish that people would stop throwing around this FUD. There are plenty of studies out there, including one that I'm sure you've heard of that say relatively high wind penetration will work just fine. A lot of people like to recite the knee-jerk reaction that wind won't work, but I have yet to see much evidence that the sky is actually falling.

Re:I work in the power industry

[tthomas48]

The amount of high-quality useful uranium is unknown and I find both sides reporting on the amount to be highly suspect. The model, however, is very similar to oil in that we can probably keep recovering it in more and more expensive manners as the price of it goes up (thus where the "nearly-unlimited" supply comes from). But how much is there that is equivalent in price to coal, oil, wind, or solar?

Nuclear power is simple economics. It will start making political sense once the lower cost outweighs the publics fears. What's that cost? I don't know but it's significantly higher than the cost of oil currently, and the fact that we have very promising solar and wind technologies makes it very high indeed.

Re:I work in the power industry

[tthomas48]

"Environmentalists don't care where Coal, Gas, or Oil waste goes"

Wow. That's one of the most stunningly ignorant statements I've read in a long time. Seriously. Almost every environmental political and legal group is constantly working on issues related to air-pollution from power plants.

You are right in that it's hypocritical to have higher standards for nuclear power than the other power sources. But I'd prefer to bring our standards up, rather than lower nuclear's standards to that of coal. The way most coal powered plants are run it'd look like Chernobyl around the plant, and they'd store the waste in big piles out in the open.

Re:I work in the power industry

[pimpimpim]

A nuclear plant gets about 20x10^9 kWh in a year, a windmill about 2-3 x10^6 kWh (a local windmill with >30m wings on has a real-time display of its performance over its lifetime). You will need about 7000 windmills to get the power of one nuclear plant. Where to put them? This is unfortunately not an easily avoidable environmental problem. You cannot put them too close, because that will decrease the efficiency (and change the influence of wind on local climates, be a danger to birds etc). You can not put them on all mountain hills because it kills the scenery (I personally don't mind, they are beautiful displays of engineering).

Solar cells are maybe less of a problem to hide in the countryside, but their current efficiency is still way below power demanding applications.

Geothermal is bad in so many ways, that I'd rather see it left unused. The chances on groundwater and even lower water depots contamination are too high (never underestimate the importance of safe drinking water), geologically risky (ground may move, with a very costly destabilizing effect on houses). And you can't have many per surface area.

BTW based on the numbers from Tesla for the power need per kilometer including the loss at the loading station, a country like the Netherlands with 7 million cars averaging 15000 km/year, could have its electric need for car mobility completely covered by just one 20x10^9 kWh/year power plant.

Re:I work in the power industry

[mmontour]

Um... have we managed to find a place to store nuclear waste? Have we uncovered an unlimited trove of radioactive material?

Sort of. You start by re-using the "spent" fuel (with a combination of breeder reactors, and reactors like CANDU that don't require enrichment of the U-235). This greatly reduces the amount of waste that needs to be stored, and also reduces the need to dig for new uranium.

For the radioactive waste that is left over, the storage place is "underground" (for example in old uranium mines). Or you can use the depleted-uranium trick of calling it "ammunition" instead of "radioactive waste", then disposing of it (at high velocity) in someone else's country.

Re:I work in the power industry

[whtmarker]

In canadian winters everyone plugs in their cars at night (block heater) or else they won't start in the morning, so I don't see what the big deal is. Canada's electricity infrastructure is just fine for plugging in cars at night.

Besides how hard is it to build a device with an autoshutoff when the battery is full. The big problem will be people who forget to unplug their cars, and drive away with half a power cord attached!

Re:I work in the power industry

[mrcaseyj]

Don't bother trying to convince environmentalists that it's possible to build plants that are melt down proof. People will never again fall for the massive campaign of lies that was fed to them before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Trying to sell that again just ruins your credibility.

Maybe point out that Chernobyl was bad but not too terrible, especially when the cost is offset by the harms of solar panels or windmills and especially coal. Maybe point out that non-environmentalists probably won't be willing to pay for solar and wind and backup batteries, so we'll be left with coal. Coal is way worse than nuclear. Maybe point out that the waste becomes hardly a problem after a few hundred years and even if it's poorly buried it's not much to worry about, especially in those tough casks. Maybe point out that while the possibility of melt down can never be eliminated, they're much less likely with modern procedures and designs, and the environmental benefits are huge.

Re:I work in the power industry

[Derek Pomery]

That article doesn't say wind farms scale, it just notes that multiple wind farms can take up the slack for each other.
That article has a rather pathetic output for each one of these. 1.5MW of *peak* power which they are not producing all the time.

A nuclear power plant will produce 2000MW.
The average wind turbine according to Wikipedia, produces an average of 0.35MW.
"Typical capacity factors are 20-40%, with values at the upper end of the range in particularly favourable sites. For example, a 1 megawatt turbine with a capacity factor of 35% will not produce 8,760 megawatt-hours in a year (1x24x365), but only 0.35x24x365 = 3,066 MWh, averaging to 0.35 MW." (thanks wikipedia)

That means almost 6000 turbines(!) to match one nuclear power plant.

I don't think the parent was questioning our capacity to distribute power, I think they were questioning the number of turbines we can reasonably fit without 'em taking over the landscape (wind power kills far more animals than nuclear power - think of the fuzzy bats).
And, yeah, those turbines are *huge*.
You can count the number of turbines that you can fit in a massive wind farm in the dozens.

6000 turbines to equal one nuclear power plant. Dunno. I think that's what he was talking about.

Re:I work in the power industry

[Gordonjcp]

I do find it pretty funny what non-environmentalists try to play up as environmental concerns

I *am* an environmentalist, and also an automotive engineer. I know exactly what goes into making cars, right down to the energy budget required for the manufacture of individual parts.

The most environmentally-friendly cars on the road today are mid-1980s diesel Landrovers. They'll be going long after the Priuses and Insights are leaking their toxic crap into the water table. Next after that are Volvo 240s, which are more-or-less tied with Citroen 2CVs. Yes, the engine in the latter isn't especially clean, but you can improve the ignition system with electronic ignition to sort that out.

What do these three have in common?

They're all incredibly repairable.

It's far easier (both physically and in terms of energy use) to keep repairing an old vehicle, than it is to make a brand-new one. Furthermore, they're mostly all just steel and aluminium, with small amounts of plastics (the Volvo interior has a lot of plastic, including rather ecologically nasty polyurethane foam. There's always something...) and PVC wiring insulation. Modern cars tend to make extensive use of plastics, which are hard to usefully recycle and very unpleasant to make.

The petrol engines used in older cars can be adapted to run on a wide variety of fuels. I've successfully run car engines on bottled gas (this is now fairly common in Europe, and is very very clean indeed), ethanol/methanol mix (okay, moonshine), and coal gas (not so very pleasant, but it does work). People have built producer gas generators and run petrol engines off them - Denmark in particular used producer gas to run farm machinery during WW2. You simply can't do this with modern petrol engines, because the electronic engine management systems get in the way.

Oh, and here's the kicker: Hybrids aren't actually that efficient! Talking to a neighbour who owns a Prius, it turns out that around town he gets an incredibly 36mpg, dropping to 30mpg when it's driven on the motorway. My all-mechanical, carb-fed 1988 Citroen CX, with its rattly clattery 1970s petrol engine, gets 30mpg in town and 34mpg on the motorway. Oops! So your lovely clean hybrid is only a *tiny* bit more efficient, when it's clogging the streets with traffic! Once you actually use it for a long run (which is what I tend to do - I know others may want to obstruct the streets with their noisy messy cars), it becomes *worse* than a car twice the size and 20 years old. Oh dear. It's not looking so good now, is it?

Why so doubtful?

[philspear]

These same american car companies seemed all too eager to give us bigger, less fuel efficient tanks while demand was high. Obviously, that was a fad that was unsustainable, but they kept churning them out. Here we have clear proof that people want more efficiency and at least to feel like they're driving green, yet car companies aren't convinced they should give us them? Why is that stopping them now? Surely they haven't learned their lesson to think long-term rather than "Everyone is buying this right now, if these trends continue forever, and they will, then WOO HOO!"

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Altus]

Plug in hybrids still use gas. That's why they are hybrids, otherwise they would simply be electric cars.

The idea here is to juice up the batteries at home and use them for the first x number of miles (hopefully enough to handle your commute). After that, when the batteries are low, a small diesel (or gas) engine will start up and begin charging the batteries providing you with more range. So if your out of juice you would simply fill up just like a regular car.

Of course I'm curious how they will report the millage on these cars. I would want to know the range on the electric system and the millage when running purely on gas, but I worry they will come up with some new way to measure it that has little to no meaning.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

unlike gas, which you can only get from one place, electricity would allow you to charge your car while you push it home. Convert calories to green energy, what a win-win situation.

So what could you do to charge your car?

* hook a generator up to a stationary bike
* lay out a few yards of solar panels for a few minutes (if you are only a few miles from home)
* knock on someone's door with an extension cord in your hand and ask to use a few cents of power
* harness some wind power using a wind strip

and last/worst case

* actually use a gas can and use a generator to charge for the few miles home.

converting energy into electricity is so easy and so flexible, it's hard to think what couldn't be used.

FUD

[globaljustin]

why are automakers so irrationally risk averse! I understand making sound decisions, but damnit...the market was ready for electric plug-ins in the late 70's...today it's a no brainer!

questioning how many people will really buy electric cars

yes

whether people will really charge them at night to keep the grid clear

yes

whether batteries will make them too expensive and more.

no

If you build it, they will come...in my podunk former GM factory town, everyone would own a prius if they could afford to get a new car (many working and middle class people can't afford ANY kind of new car, no matter what make/model)

The people that can afford to buy a new car are buying Prius's in record numbers...a friend at the Toyota dealership (who helped my parents get their Prius) says they always order the maximum from Toyota and sell out before they hit the lot...for almost two years that's been the case

Plugging in at night is just a logical progression, and from an automaker's perspective, a simple engineering isssue (professional engineers can easily handle redesigning a Prius to have plug-in capability)

As far as added cost of batteries, the Prius my parents own now has more than sufficient battery power, all it needs is a plug-in...

Re:FUD

[Bombula]

Absolutely. I'm in Michigan now too and there's still a waiting list on the Prius at local dealers, despite the ramp up in production and delivery. Sooner or later the demand gap will close, but it may still be a while yet. As for plug-ins, I think the real proof will be in the pudding. There is no PBEV on the market right now from a major automaker. When there is, it'll change everything. GM's EV-1 was a huge hit in LA when I lived there in the late 90s, and consumers were furious when they stopped making them.

If you ask me, this is just a ploy by Toyota to get the other automakers to doubt themselves a bit. It's a reverse psychology tactic from the market leader - it make perfect sense. At any rate, Toyota needs to stop dicking around and get its PBEVs into the US market and forget about self-competing, because if they wait until the Chevy volt and other EVs come out, they're not going to be on top of the market for long.

The market works to reach equilibrium!

[compumike]

When fuel prices got too high, interest in electric vehicles and alternative energy sources boomed, but simultaneously demand weakened. Now oil prices have come off ~30% from their highs, and suddenly EVs are not a totally obvious solution anymore? Duh... this is how the market it supposed to work. This means that electric vehicle companies are going to have to start competing on real merits and not just squishy fuzzy green feelings. And I hope that makes them stronger! But it's not the worst thing in the world if conventional gas-burning cars remain an acceptable/affordable thing for the time being.

--
Learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:The market works to reach equilibrium!

[TooMuchToDo]

EVs don't compete on squishy green feelings. They compete on the fact that their maintenance costs are substantially less (no or small transmission; no ICE parts; motor, batteries, inverter are primary drivetrain components) and the cost to drive is around 2 cents/mile compared to 15 cents/mile for gasoline. The problem is that the playing field isn't level. Oil is subsidized in the US through heavy tax breaks to oil companies, and energy density in batteries is still low because not much R&D has been done (due to cheap oil).

Re:The market works to reach equilibrium!

[sqrt(2)]

Regular unleaded is still around $3.60/gl where I live. That doesn't sound like much of a drop off. An EV would still be a very attractive option for me and everyone else in the state of California. Also the longer gas remains "cheap" (in a relative way) the longer we will put off developing alternatives--and meanwhile the environment continues to be affected--so it is harmful if gas burning engines remain acceptable and affordable.

Re:The market works to reach equilibrium!

[Immostlyharmless]

This has 0 to do with the market and everything to do with the ELECTION. If gas was still $4.50 a gallon Obama would have way more than a 6 or 7 point lead over McCain. All last year and the beginning of this one we heard that prices were going up because of such a massive increase in demand and less supply, mostly due to the influence of the Chinese and Indians, it's pretty obvious, they aren't using any less, right? Last summer every time a hurricane even threatened the gulf, prices shot up 10-15 cents. There's been a gas shortage now in the southeast for several weeks because refineries were creamed and gas prices are *still* falling. Please, don't fool yourself into thinking this has ANYTHING to do with market forces at all.

Are these issues really that big?

[MozeeToby]

As long as the charger comes with a simple timer I don't see why people wouldn't be willing to charge the car at night, especially if you're in an area that has different rates for different times of day. As for batteries being too expensive, that's probably true right now, but do they really think we'll still be using today's lithium ion batteries ten years from now?

The cars being showcased today aren't the ones that are going to solve our energy problems. They are little more than prototype, proof of concept vehicles. That's why GM is only producing 10,000 volts the first year they are in production. Lets start producing them now and work out the issues that are bound to come up so that in 5 years we can begin producing them seriously. Or we can think like we always have and look one year out at a time, never bothering to invest in the future.

Re:The problem isn't plugging them in

[Lumpy]

The chevy volt will fail because it will cost $50,000.00US by the time it's released. Only the rich eco-trendy will buy that car.

If you want to get hybrids and eco friendly cars to be adopted widely you gotta get the price down to where it's dirt cheap. $19,000 is the MAX price for the low end model. They refuse to make a car like that so they only end up as curiosity toys for the rich.

They gotta get the price way WAY down. two seaters that are tiny and hybrid are the answer. If you get a Smart fourtwo as a hybrid that get's 80-100mpg for $19,000 you will have a car that will out-sell any other car in history.

Problem is, The car makers and the oil companies do not want that car to exist and will do what they can to keep it from existing. The current smart is one of the safest cars on the planet yet it was a uphill fight to get the thing in the USA and then they had to "add safety features" to a car that was already a 5 star crash rating car.

add safety features? why? oh to make it more expensive... I see. They wanted to make sure that the masses would not go out and buy it in droves destroying sales of higher profit margin cars.

If you make a cheap efficient small commuter car, everyone will buy one. I'd rather blow 12mpg on the weekend in my high power sports car on the back roads and clear highways than at 32mph stop and go, in 5 lanes wide traffic on 696 in detroit.

people wont want to plug it in? oh come on, the populace is not THAT lazy.

Time Based Charge

[autocracy]

A lot of electric providers allow a system where electricity is charged at a higher rate in the day, and a dirt-cheap rate at night. Plug in the car when it's in the driveway, use a timer on the plug. Tada.

Re:Time Based Charge

[TooMuchToDo]

I ordered an electric vehicle, and am building another one from scratch. To charge them, I built a charge controller that fetches the current price of power from my utility, and only charges the vehicles when the price of power is below a threshold. This way I take advantage of Time Of Day pricing (1-2 cents/kwH between midnight and 4am, Nuclear power in Northern Illinois).

Re:Time Based Charge

[SaDan]

The volt has a charge timer built into the car's charging system. Set the timer once, and plug the car in any time. It will start charging (and/or stop charging) when you specify.

Who cares about Toyota?

[MMC Monster]

Brand loyalty is fleeting in the automotive industry.

Toyota doesn't want to build a plug-in hybrid? Fine.

My dad got invited to see the Jaguar Plug-in hybrid, which will run off the battery for 50 miles before burning any gas.

Considering my dad has a 22 mile commute, he can't wait for this thing to hit the road.

He doesn't know when it will become available, but he's already on the wait list. (Estimated price ~$80,000, by the way)

Diesel could be an alternative but...

[MtViewGuy]

...there are serious issues with the pollution output from a diesel engine, even if you're using biodiesel fuel. Reducing the higher NOx gas output and the diesel particulates is a very expensive proposition, and just to make a diesel engine meet the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 standard is expensive enough that you might as well buy a Toyota Prius or the new Honda Insight instead at pretty much the same price.

Re:Diesel could be an alternative but...

[Aapje]

That may be true, but the generic EPA standards are biased towards petrol. Petrol engines spew a lot of hydrocarbons, such as benzene. If the situation would be reversed, where 99% of americans are using diesel, petrol would have a hard time meeting the (diesel-based) emissions standard.

In Europe, particulate filters will become mandatory for new car models in 2009 (Euro 5) and cars without may only be sold until 2011. The NOx limits will also be tightened, but will still be 2.5x higher than for petrol cars. In 2014+ (Euro 6) the NOx limit for diesel will almost be the same as for petrol. That limit is about halfway between Tier 2 Bin 8 and Tier 2 Bin 5. That should be achievable without urea, with a NOx catalyst.

In the US, all diesel will be low sulfur in late 2010 (it's already mandatory in California). That will allow for low NOx cars such as the BlueTec to be sold everywhere.

Toyota may be right.

[fahrbot-bot]

The Chevy Volt uses an IC engine to recharge the battery when necessary - like all other hybrids (though Chevy calls it a "range extender"). Plugging it in overnight simply pre-charges it. I guess that's a bit cleaner, but that would really depend on your local power plant. I don't know if pre-charging the battery via the grid is cheaper than using petrol on the go -- if not, why bother.

Calling the car an electric w/range extender, rather than simply hybrid (or series-hybrid) is marketing speak.

Re:Toyota may be right.

[Chris Burke]

The Chevy Volt uses an IC engine to recharge the battery when necessary - like all other hybrids (though Chevy calls it a "range extender").

Calling the car an electric w/range extender, rather than simply hybrid (or series-hybrid) is marketing speak.

I don't think that's fair. In all other hybrids (on the market in the US today), the ICE is connected to the transmission and provides power to the wheels directly, in concert with the battery. They will use the battery and ICE proportionally to drive the car based on the speed. At highway speeds, they only use the ICE to drive and don't use the batteries at all. The range of most hybrids on pure electric power would be very small, and is really only the case when accelerating from a stop. On any normal daily commute of even a short distance, you're burning gas.

The big difference in the volt, whether you call it "electric w/ range extender" or "series hybrid", is that the ICE is not connected to the drive train at all. It is nothing but a gas generator to recharge the battery. Thus why I think it's fair to call it an electric car, because the motor is in fact pure electric, and the fact that so long as the battery has sufficient charge, the ICE will not turn on at all. Also it has some big practical advantages. The ICE can be made smaller, and can be optimized for its task and made to operate at only at its ideal RPM -- the Prius' CVT means it can operate in a narrower band, but it still varies as it has to increase power to the wheels to accelerate.

So I think it's fair to call it an EV. If you're only doing a short commute each day, then that's absolutely true, since the car will drive on nothing but electric power. If you need to go farther, the generator kicks in, extending your range. It's not just marketing, it's correctly emphasizing the real practical advantages that differentiate it from a normal hybrid.

Oh, and in most places, yes it is cheaper to use electricity from the grid instead of gas. Especially if you charge during off-peak hours.

Re:Toyota may be right.

[HairyCanary]

IIRC the important difference is that when a series hybrid like the Volt has sufficient battery power, it is 100% electric. Doesn't a Prius have to use the gas engine for freeway speeds regardless of battery charge?

Electric w/range extender is perfectly valid terminology IMO, since plenty of people will see 100% electric usage. With a plug-in parallel hybrid like the Prius, what driving parameters have to be met to keep it electric only?

Re:Are vapor cars cannibalizing current car sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes: I've been holding off buying a Prius waiting for the plug-in version next year. Now Toyota is changing their mind, and I might actually look at the GM product.

Unfortunately "GM==craptastic" is etched in my brain from years of experience. The Volt might have good engineering behind it, but I expect it to be produced with low quality and have trashy style. Chrome-painted radio dials, anyone?

Re:If we only had the technology

[SaDan]

This functionality is already present in the Chevy Volt. It has a timer so you can plug it in to the wall socket when you park your car in the evening, and it can be programmed to charge the battery starting at midnight, etc.

Re:Main disadvantage: What if you forget to charge

[irenaeous]

The Volt is supposed to answer that issue by having a combustion engine as a backup -- it runs and generates electricity that is used to run the car. So, in theory, you should never be in the situation you describe. You would also just fill up at the next gas station.

Re:The problem isn't plugging them in

[TooMuchToDo]

The Roadster mileage is now 244 miles/charge. A significant efficiency gain was had with the transmission fix (which really we beefing up the inverter and the motor).

I'm buying an EV or PIH

[TheMiddleRoad]

My wife and I might not buy a Volt immediately because so many companies are entering the market, but we'll buy the best EV or PIH we can afford sometime around 2010-2011. Most of our trips are 10 miles round. Rarely do we go more than 40 round. In the future, we'll make those once or twice a week at most.

So give me an EV for most of my trips, a PIH for the rest, and a Lotus Elise (30mph highway) for weekend blasts through the canyon.

Re:Main disadvantage: What if you forget to charge

[Locke2005]

You can also use inductive or capacitive charging. Just park the car over a "grid" on the floor of your garage, and you don't have to remember to plug the damn thing in! (You could do the same thing for your phone and MP3 player if you put it in the exact same place every night.) That being said, I'm convinced plug-in hybrid and not full-time electric is the way to go. I already own 2 hybrids, and I'm ready and willing to buy a plug-in hybrid just as soon as they make one available that I can afford. (I'm anxiously awaiting Aptera availability in my area.) Of course, few people will be buying new cars of any sort until we get off this economic roller-coaster we've been on lately.

I give Toyota some credibility here...

[dpbsmith]

Around the turn of the century, electric cars had a range of about forty miles... the same as the Chevy Volt. All the improvements in battery technology have been able to do no more than keep up with our expectations of automotive comfort and speed.

Electric cars have, for a century, been waiting for the big breakthrough in battery technology that has yet to occur. The brilliance of the basic TRW design--the one they could never get U. S. carmakers interested in, the design that is fundamentally the same that Toyota uses in the Prius--is that it only relies on the battery as a short-term buffering device, a "torquer" as TRW called it, to make up the difference between the torque that can be provided by a little economical gas engine and the torque that's needed in normal driving.

So, a Prius provides a very meaningful increase in fuel efficiency without demanding a battery made of unobtainium. The Prius battery in fact only stores about enough energy to drive the car for about a mile.

Despite the possibility that Toyota is putting a spin on things, what they are saying makes sense. As hobbyists have confirmed, a Prius is virtually ready to be a plug-in hybrid, needing only a bigger battery. It would seemingly be so easy for Toyota to compete in the plug-in hybrid market that I have to believe they have sound reasons for skepticism.

Another possibility is that Toyota has encountered some serious snags that they're not talking about in trying to produce a plug-in version of the Prius. Perhaps GM knows about these snags and has some trade-secret ways of overcoming them... or perhaps GM hasn't discovered them yet, or is ignoring them because the Volt isn't really intended to succeed and is just a very elaborate "image" ploy.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[afidel]

I often wonder why Toyota pulled the plugin capabilities from the Prius, the hardware is there in the first generation models, my friend has a kit to convert his once the battery warranty is up and there's not a lot to it, just a plug that attaches to some internal terminals and a chip mod to delay the engine warm-up until the battery is much further drained.

Oh noes!

[TheDarkener]

Car dealer #1: Will people actually BUY a hybrid car, saving them hundreds/thousands in fuel costs?
Car dealer #2: No, they just want GPS and a phat system, yo. /me wants "+1 Sad But True" ...

Re:Oh noes!

[TooMuchToDo]

Car dealer #3: Really? We can barely keep them on the lot

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a53gio3BiJec&refer=japan

Prius sales fell 4 percent this year through August, a decline Toyota blames on insufficient inventory. ``We still have about a 48-hour supply of Prius and a pretty big waiting list,'' Lentz said.

It's gotta be great as a car company when sales are going down because you can't make them fast enough

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[RabidMoose]

I would want to know the range on the electric system and the millage when running purely on gas
They never run purely on gas though. Like you said, the gas engine merely charges the batteries, it isn't directly connected to power the wheels at all.
Personally, I'd like to see a MKw measurement (miles per kilowatt) become standard. Then, for the gas generators, you could get Kw/gallon.

Re:Main disadvantage: What if you forget to charge

[Areyoukiddingme]

In suburbia, at least, I predict a charge robot. I get home at night, I get out of my car, I walk into the house, hitting the garage door closer button on the way in. A few minutes later, the robot (which is nothing but a simple arm attached to the wall), reaches out and plugs into the car. The car has some method for helping the robot locate the plug integrated into it, which means the robot can find the plug without having to get silly with natural vision expert systems, making it quite cheap and simple. In the morning, I walk into the garage, hitting the door opener button, and the robot disengages its plug and retracts before I hit the driver's seat. I drive out with a 100% charge every morning. What could be easier?

Going to a gas station to have to climb out of your car, fiddle with your credit card at the pump, get the nozzle into the car, begin fueling, then get the nozzle back to the pump, and fiddle with the pump some more to get your receipt, and make sure to put your gas cap back on... all of it will just feel primitive, after a few months of literally never having to think about it. Sure you've got a charge indicator, but most of the time you don't even care what it says. You've got enough charge to go anywhere you're likely to go in a day, and you ALWAYS do. Every day.

I'd buy a Tesla Roadster in a heartbeat, if I could afford it. As many other posters have pointed out, whoever can meet or beat "standard" new car prices of $20k or so won't be able to keep one on the lot for a decade.

Doesn't want us to buy them?

[wurp]

You are living in some weird cynical fantasyland. Plug in hybrid cars are expensive because they are new technology. The factories to build them have to be built, we haven't spent enough time figuring out ways to keep individual unit costs down, and R&D costs haven't been amortized over long periods of selling millions of units as with standard ICE.

The first electric cars will be expensive. Probably the only ones that will sell well will be expensive luxury cars, because the people who can afford to spend $38,000 on a plug-in hybrid car that looks like crap & has no features probably prefer to spend $50,000 on a plug-in hybrid car that looks nice and is fun to be in.

Then we'll get better at making individual units cheaply, the manufacturing infrastructure will become more established, and car companies will get more comfortable about how many PIH cars will sell. And then they'll get cheap.

Car companies would gladly sell us cars that never required fuel if they could figure out how to make them at prices people would pay. If 90% of car companies elected not to sell cars that don't use petroleum (or use less petroleum) which everyone could afford simply because the people making decisions have a stake in petroleum sales, the other 10% of car companies would put them out of business.

Compressed air is better (Deakin T2)

[Nefarious Wheel]

I think for short hauls compressed air might be better than electricity. Deakin University just won an award for "the Model T for the 21st" or some such (JFGI).

Their car was a three wheeler with no steering gear. Front wheels are fixed, rear wheel a freewheeling caster, steering by pressure differential in hub-mounted turbines. There's no chemical reaction involved in power transfer -- the sucker doesn't even emit ozone.

Given that many folks prefer air over electric for power tools (myself included) the better & cheaper control over power delivery could leap past the electric hybrid altogether. For long drives you'd still need auxiliary power, the difference being you'd replace engine + generator + battery with engine + compressor + air tank. No battery at all -- no lithium, no nickel, no cadmium, no lead.

Re:Compressed air is better (Deakin T2)

[fred fleenblat]

(replying to my own message)

the wiki for compressed air cars says a prototype air-powered car did 7.22 km, or about 4.5 miles. that's much better than I thought, but still not practical for most commuters.

Re:Compressed air is better (Deakin T2)

[mweather]

Part of the reason compressed air cars are efficient enough to be feasible is the weight savings from it's simplicity. I don't think it would be feasible for it to have an engine for compressing air. If it did, it would need to be small, and take a long time. It would only be practical for getting to the next gas station.

Re:Compressed air is better (Deakin T2)

[thepotoo]

IIRC, compressed air is orders of magnitude less efficient (in terms of energy conversion) than electric is.

Also, the battery technology is almost there already. All we really need is something like the Chevy Aveo that runs on electricity only. That would be awesome.

I will

[MrNougat]

I will buy an electric car. I will charge it at night. I will. I promise. Start fucking building them.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[mweather]

Electricity costs will go up, but nowhere near the rate oil prices will. We have a ways to go before we hit peak coal.

Re:Charging at night

[compro01]

For any kind of sizable battery, you'd likely want a dedicated circuit anyway.

The current Prius battery is about 1.5KWhrs, so assuming a dedicated 100-120V 15A circuit, it would take about an hour to charge from dead to full, but that will only get you a few miles on pure battery.

The current plug in modification kit's battery is about 6KWhr, so 4x the time.

Sources I see on the factory plug in say a capacity between 6 and 12KWhr, and a 12 would require a full 8 hours to charge, which is getting to the limit of "charge overnight", so you might want to put in a dedicated 240V 20A circuit, like you would use for an electric range.

And you'd definitely need a dedicated circuit for a full EV, like the Tesla, as the battery pack is 53KWhr, which would take about 35 hours to charge on a dedicated normal circuit, and still 7.5 hours on a dedicated 220V plug.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[dohboy]

The best comparison is $ per mile (or euro per km)

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Altus]

It seems obvious that electricity will still be cheaper than oil.

I'm curious to see what impact this has on time based electricity pricing. If everyone is charging up a car at night wouldn't overall demand even out between morning and evening? Right now people talk about charging the cars at night when electricity is cheep but I cant imagine that would remain the case.

Re:The problem isn't plugging them in

[jcnnghm]

57% of Prius buyers cited "Makes a statement about me", as the top reason for their purchase.

Price of Electricity

[rock56501]

If the price of electricity goes up in the summer just due to the demand from AC, what would current rates do if everyone started plugging in their cars? Maybe gas will drop to $0.50/gal and the cost of electricity will jump to the equivelant of $5.00 gas.

Re:Price of Electricity

[jeppen]

The Tesla Roadster electric sports car is supposed to get 3.12 miles per KWh. Let's say a full tank of ordinary gas gives you 312 miles, then we'd need 100 KWh electricity to match this. I don't know about U.S electricity prices, but I'd guess you might pay around 10 bucks for 100 KWh? Also, a Tesla going 15,000 miles per year will use 4800 KWh per year. Thus, a single 1250 MW nuclear reactor would power 2 million such cars. I understand the U.S. currently has plans for twelve such reactors.

Re:Price of Electricity

[jeppen]

I do not think you realize the proportions here. 400 KWh per month multiplied by fifty million cars and 12 months gives 240 TWh per year. This is only 6% of the current United States electricity consumption of about 3800 TWh/year! The increase in demand would come over perhaps two decades, making the year-on-year increase about 0.3%. But the average yearly US consumption growth during the last decade has been 2.2%! You will cope easily. And 50 million cars driving 300*4*12 = 14400 miles at 25 MPG, the United States would save 29 billion gallons a year. Imagine sending $100 billion less to the Middle East every year and instead running about 25 nuclear power plants (you already have a hundred) for an up-front investment cost of only $200 billion and then peanuts for some canadian uranium and operation&maintenance.

Re:Um

[2ms]

The American SUVs have basically all been around for 50 years, it's just soccer moms didn't want them before. They were originally for things like towing boats, horses, etc around and general work. They were based on pickup platforms that already existed -- the "american car companies" you single out did not create them for the craze.

However, Toyota has more lines/platforms of SUV than any other car manufacturer, and has introduced almost all of them within the period of the craze -- almost all of them were introduced during the last 10-15 years. And, each one has been bigger and bigger, basically. In fact, they're so "gung ho" about them that they're still coming out with their largest and most wasteful ones ever now (eg the brand new 14mpg Sequoia and their newest SUV nameplate the lovely 16mpg 6cyl FJ Cruiser).

You've basically got things backward. The American manufacturers had SUVs all along (conceived as worktrucks). It's Honda, Toyota, Nissan, etc that have been scrambling to make as many SUVs, conceived for soccer moms and people trying to be cool) as they can possibly shove out the door to feed the craze.

Re:The problem isn't plugging them in

[Robotbeat]

You're forgetting the "sweetener" that Congress just added to the financial bail-out, a tax credit that Congress is giving consumers for at least $2500 for plug-in hybrid capability, with an additional $417 per kwh capacity past 4 kwh (with a limit of $7500 for small vehicles, and much more on larger vehicles). This evens the playing field much more: http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/10/bailout_bill_includes_tax_brea.html

That means up to $7500 for a good plug-in vehicle. This is a big deal. It could totally change the minds of the car manufacturers.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[marnues]

Since we're engineering minded people here, I would assume you realize that $ per mile is pretty useless as a comparison tool since prices can fluctuate per time, per region, per battery, per EV engine, etc. Yes much of the point of these vehicles is to give us a cheaper replacement for us normal folk. However, let's give them a chance to get the engineering right before we start talking about the dollar signs involved. Once we have something that works we can generally figure out a way to lower costs.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[twistedsymphony]

But you have to figure that electricity costs are going to go up over time

Funny enough, Solar panels are becoming more efficient and more affordable as time goes on too.

I for one look forward to the day where my garage has a solar panel on the roof and my full electric car charges overnight costing me ZERO dollars to "fill up". If we see a full electric with a 200 mile range where you can buy the car+ solar charging equipment for under $35K in the next 10 years... that would do wonders to end the oil dependency... I think it's plausible too.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[superdave80]

The Chevy Volt seems to be using two basic metrics.

1. How far you can run on fully charge batteries (40 miles)
2. MPG when the generator kicks in (50 MPG)

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[noidentity]

Plug in hybrids still use gas. That's why they are hybrids, otherwise they would simply be electric cars.

And in fact they are the only true hybrids. These other so-called hybrids run on gasoline only. Simple proof: no gasoline, no drive (once the battery discharges).

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[TooMuchToDo]

The engine warm-up needs to take place at time of start so if you DO need the engine (passing, etc) the catalytic converter is warmed up to work properly. More info at the link:

http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Main_Page

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Martin Blank]

I prefer doubloons per league.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[amliebsch]

That would have to be some kind of solar panel to be able to charge your car at night.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[superdave80]

The 50 MPG is based on using only the gasoline generator without any energy input from the batteries.

So, if you start up in the morning with completely dead batteries, you can still drive and get 50 MPG.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Walpurgiss]

Perhaps connected to some sort of ultra capacitive charge storage solution that charges during the peak sunlight hours, then discharges when you connect your vehicle as a load?

Not sure how efficient that could be, but it's unlikely that the op completely overlooked the fact that there isn't much sun at night.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[DragonWriter]

I often wonder why Toyota pulled the plugin capabilities from the Prius, the hardware is there in the first generation models, my friend has a kit to convert his once the battery warranty is up and there's not a lot to it, just a plug that attaches to some internal terminals and a chip mod to delay the engine warm-up until the battery is much further drained.

The second part of that, IIRC, only requires a mod of any kind in US models, its activated by an "EV mode" (often called "stealth mode") button that's standard in Asian and European Prius models (both in the current and first-gen models).

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[CrimsonAvenger]

The Chevy Volt is slated to be in the 35-40k range,

So, for the price of this thing, I can buy a 25K sedan that gets 30 mpg, and run the sedan for 75000+ miles before I reach the cost of the Volt?

Or, looking at it another way, using the same vehicle as a comparator, the Volt and the generic sedan break even on cost at about 187,500 miles. Not counting maintenance, of course, since we have yet no way to evaluate the cost of maintaining the Volt.

Note: the above is for highway driving, not commuting. Strictly for commuting, the Volt will break even at somewhat over 75,000 miles, depending on the cost of electricity.

I'll pass, thank you.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[amliebsch]

A "plug-in hybrid" does have a gas engine for charging the batteries and energizing the motors, by definition. That's what makes it a "hybrid."

Well, there's the Tesla.

[Animats]

Well, there's the Tesla, with 200 mile range on a charge. The price, at $100,000+, is excessive, although not by supercar standards. The energy density of batteries is at last good enough. Price, though...

I've seen a Tesla being driven on the road past my house. It was a rather dirty car, so it was actually being used. I live in the northern part of Silicon Valley, near the Tesla dealership, and am on a scenic route to Woodside, so it's not that surprising to see an exotic. The number of Teslas on the road is still under 100, though.

Re:Well, there's the Tesla.

[Taibhsear]

I love the Tesla, however I'd never be able to afford it. How about they keep the body style, keep the range (maybe allow as low as 100 mile range) and skimp on that 0-60 in like 4 seconds. Get the price dropped to about $30-35k and they can sign me up.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[shmlco]

"Of course I'm curious how they will report the millage on these cars."

Most are reported as MPGE (miles per gallon equivalent). "MPGe is based on the quantity of heat energy that can be obtained by burning a US gallon of gasoline (115,000 BTUs). The equivalent in terms of another fuel is the amount of such other fuel that would produce that same amount of heat. That other fuel equivalent is then the unit that enables mileage per that unit. On this basis MPGe is a meaningful measurement."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPGe

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[AJWM]

They should design hybrids so that the transmission switches the energy source. Higher gears switch to battery power, lower gears switch to gasoline.

That's pretty much the opposite of what you want. Electric motors develop peak torque at low RPM, gas engines at high RPM. In fact I wonder about the losses in the additional transmission if you want to drive the wheels from the gas engine; mechanically it makes more sense to use the electric all the time (much simpler transmission) and run the gas engine at a constant speed (more efficient) to keep the batteries charged.

They already invented the magic battery

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Eventually, solar will work too, but since solar isn't reliable it will never be a primary power source until someone invents a magic battery.

They already invented it. It's called the "vanadium redox flow battery". (Also a good match for wind power in single-mill residential applications. Added bonus: DC voltage conversion is free, simplifying peak power tracking controllers for wind and solar.)

It's already being deployed in power-grid sized units, used as an alternative to local peaking-generation plants. (Charge during off-peak and discharge during peak. Cuts line losses, eliminates local noise and pollution, lets you power more locally than you have lines to supply during peak times, and moves power from cheap times to expensive times while losing less than the price difference to battery inefficiency.)

Home-sized and electric-vehicle-sized units will probably be available when somebody decides there's a demand, licenses the patents, does a bit of product and manufacturing engineering, and starts supplying them. If something better doesn't come along first, that is. (The new fast-charge long-life lithium ion batteries, for example, might beat them, due to simplicity and high power-to-weight ratio for vehicle applications, followed by economy-of-scale price advantages once they're adopted for buses and autos.)

Re:The problem isn't plugging them in

[AgentPaper]

5-star, as in NHTSA 5-star? That doesn't exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy. The NHTSA test only applies to two types of crash: a controlled head-on crash at 35 MPH, and a controlled perpendicular side-impact (T-bone) crash at 35 MPH. Neither of those have any bearing at all on crashes in the real world, which tend to be either offset or rollover (or both, when a car flips as the result of a lateral impact). IIHS, who actually issues crash test results that have some real world validity, said the Smart did well against cars of similar size and weight (ha!), but threw up some major red flags in the lack of a front crumple zone, reliance on restraints to decelerate passengers in a crash, and poor door engineering (read: the doors popped open during the crash test, and if the dummies hadn't been belted in they would've been ejected). None of that, to my mind, tracks with "one of the safest cars on the planet."

That, of course, does not take into account my knee-jerk reaction: You're going to take a Smart through the Mixing Bowl on a daily basis? Just let one semi hit you at 85 MPH and there won't be enough left of you for the EMTs to scrape off the pavement. I wouldn't want to take my chances against a deer either. I'm sure the Smarts are okay for city driving (I know one person who owns one, and that's exactly what they use it for, zipping between Troy, Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills), but on the freeway... not on my life.

(Full disclosure: The author is a Detroiter, and drives a Saab 9-3. Don't look at me like that, GM owns them...)

DOE study

[shmlco]

To quote, "A new study for the Department of Energy finds that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84% of the country's 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics. If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles."

http://www.metrics2.com/blog/2006/12/11/us_power_grid_could_fuel_180_million_plugin_hybrid.html

Re:DOE study

[lgw]

People are going to plug in when they get home. They aren't going to wait till later in the evening, forget, and have no power in the morning. In some cities (such as Houston), people get home while electrical power demand is still high (thanks to A/Cs, which are a huge draw in someplace like Houston).

Still, *if* we actually built new distribution infrastructure in this country, we could probably keep up with the change-over. People may buy new cars quite often, but it would take many years for the idea to become popular and the new cars to trickle down to the used-car market &c. The problem is, we *suck* at building new infrastructure in the US. It's embarassing, really.

Re:DOE study

[shmlco]

"People are going to plug in when they get home."

Fine. Plug it in. But I don't suppose you've heard of a new, top-secret invention that's just now making it's way out of the lab?

It's called a timer. Read the DOE study, and you'll see that timers and/or "smart" recharging systems eliminate most of the load-balancing issues. Heck, quite a few of the newer home A/C systems (since you brought them up) now negotiate with the grid and shutdown intermittently to reduce peak loads.

If they can do it, so can a car charger.

On a side note, I wish more people would actually do some research and consider SOLUTIONS to these kinds of issues, and not just spend their time smugly shooting entirely theoretical holes in other people's proposals.

stop and go

[shmlco]

"People who mainly commute could fill up as little as 2 or 3 times a year, and would probably be riding on 1/4 of a tank most of the time."

A Volt can do 100 miles on a quarter tank. A Prius 150. How far away do you need to be?

Further, in a crawling out-of-town emergency stop-and-go situation such as you envision a Prius PHEV would do even BETTER than a typical gas-power car as a Prius can and will shut down and conserve the gas motor in those kinds of conditions. It's just not needed.

Talk about a lame, ill-considered excuse for an argument...

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[mattack2]

"once the battery discharges" disproves your "no gasoline, no drive" statement. In other words, if it can go _at all_ with an empty gas tank, then it's showing that it's not gasoline only.

Also, isn't it true that Japanese versions of the Prius have a way that the driver can make them work entirely in electric mode?

Re:Not for those living in apartments

[Ungrounded Lightning]

For everyone else, utility companies need to come up with a way to vary their rates generally according to load on the system - by introducing smarter metering systems.

They already have them. They're deployed in many areas - where the economics of providing peak/offpeak rate differentials makes sense.

At the moment providing such differentials in California does NOT make sense. Much of the electricity in California is used for moving large amounts of water around the state. There is enough water storage that this can be done only at offpeak times, and enough power used that doing it only at offpeak times can be used to level the power load. So that's what they do. Thus there isn't enough economic advantage from moving utility customer load to offpeak times to pay for a differential-billing infrastructure.

A large deployment of plug-in cars - being plugged in after the evening commute at peak load time - might overwhelm this leveling. Or encouraging them as an antipollution measure might be politically advantageous. So once they're available you can expect the utility regulations to be modified to encourage electric cars - with separate, lower, rates for charging cars and offpeak-timing built into the new infrastructure. (Also: California utilities have a sliding-scale electric rate that drastically penalizes large residential electric consumers - with rates doubling or more for consumption sufficiently above a freeze-in-the-dark "baseline" rate. This will have to change for electric car recharging from residential power to be economically feasible.)

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[camperdave]

I think you mean miles per kilowatt hour.

Please no! Let's not go mixing metric and imperial.

Re:Not for those living in apartments

[Radical Moderate]

Easy:
Assigned parking with locked and metered outlets. Our utility already varies its rates, it's not real hard to figure out when the low-load times are.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[fredmosby]

Oil makes up an insignificant fraction of electricity generation. The last time I checked the breakdown for the U.S. was around: 50% Coal, 20% Nuclear, 20% Natural Gas, 10% Hydroelectric. Here is the wikipedia page on it.

Re:Um

[amliebsch]

What are you talking about? You're all backwards. Please read this slowly: This story is about TOYOTA dissing PLUG-IN HYBRIDS - PLUG-IN HYBRIDS that *GM* is PUSHING. GM is pushing PLUG-IN HYBRIDS. PLUG-IN HYBRIDS are being pushed by GM. PLUG-IN HYBRIDS are being dismissed by TOYOTA. TOYOTA is dismissing PLUG-IN HYBRIDS.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[sketerpot]

Better to just hook the panel up to the power grid. Sell power during the day, when there's more demand and the prices are higher, and buy power at night. That way you lessen the need for expensive peak-power generation and get more bang for your buck. It's a win for everyone.

Re:Um

[philspear]

Oh, yeah I did fail to read TFA. But you did say "But...it's GM that's saying Toyota is wrong..." which sounds like GM saying toyota is wrong.

You're right though, GM does sound like finally they're getting up off their asses. They did take their sweet time though.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Miamicanes]

> I for one look forward to the day where my garage has a solar panel on the roof and my full electric car charges
> overnight costing me ZERO dollars to "fill up". ... as long as you don't live in Florida or somewhere else vulnerable to hurricanes. Solar hot water heaters became VERY popular here during the 80s and early 90s... until Andrew destroyed every single one in Dade County, insurance companies refused to insure them because they're pretty much GUARANTEED to sustain expensive damage in even a mild hurricane, and the sale of new ones pretty much ended... then the parade of hurricanes in 2004 destroyed just about every single solar hot water heating system in the state.

Could they be made hurricane-proof? Unlikely, short of building the roof from concrete, anchoring the panels with steel bands embedded into that concrete, and putting half-inch aquarium-glass or aluminum oxide covers on them (which might affect their performance in addition to making them prohibitively expensive). Could you take them down and stow them inside the house? Well, it depends... how enthusiastic are you about carrying a hundred or more heavy rectangular panels at least the size of a half sheet of drywall down a ladder, one at a time... moving all the furniture in the living room to make room for them, putting down plastic (they're dirty, after all... don't want to ruin the floorcovering), carrying them inside, piling them up... then repeating the whole process, in reverse, after the hurricane? Moving a few panels inside is one thing... moving an entire ROOF's worth of them is another matter entirely.

Vanadium redox isn't a magic battery

[sshore]

I too was excited to read about vanadium redox flow batteries. For such a promising technology, it does seem to be poorly commercialized.

It seems unlikely that we'll see this in mobile applications due to the low energy density. To quote wiki:

Current production Vanadium redox batteries achieve an energy density of about 25 Wh/kg of electrolyte. More recent research at UNSW indicates that the use of precipitation inhibitors can increase the density to about 35 Wh/kg, with even higher densities made possible by controlling the electrolyte temperature. This energy density is quite low as compared to other rechargeable battery types, e.g. Lead-acid (30-40 Wh/kg) and Lithium Ion (80-200 Wh/kg).

The main advantage of vanadium redox in mobile applications is quick fills, however certain types of lithium ion batteries also allow very fast charging with much better energy density.

The flow batteries look promising for load-leveling of stationary alternative power sources. It would be interesting to see how they compare with lead-acid in $/Wh. I haven't found any figures on this.

Re:Electric Gas Cans?

[Sandbags]

unfortunately, once electric cars take off, the demand will actually be higher at night.

Ultracapacators are an option, but are dangerous. More likely, you'll have a battery pack that gets charged and then it charges the car.

However, wind is still going to be cheaper than solar for 15-20 years. Home solar can't even generate 100% utiilization fro most homes today. An enelctic car by itself uses more than whole homes do. Imaging 2-3 electric cars... Even in 30 years scientists don;t expect to have solar cells capable of meeting those demands, let alone all the folks that live in milti-family homes and apartments who can not benefit from solar.

Fact is, we have enough wind alone in America, mostly just in texas and the norther wind corridor, to power the entire hemesphere. Wind is cheap, and reliable. On a nationally scaled system, localized wind drop offs are easily compensated for by the grid. This system is not only affordable, but more profitable than coal poewr, and thus you see the existing and continuing heavy investment.

The power grid overall is being overhauled seperately. Hundreds of billoins have been earmerked to replace our existing national grid with a superconducting system. It's already begun as Long Island's super grid came online months ago. Europe has thousands of miles of this new cabling in place already. We can aford it, we can keep up with demand. Any contrary report is FUD being spread by other industries, or by local power companies who will be forced to lower rates once you can buy power from other places in america to come to your home (decentralized power grid).