Yep. And Ford's latest incarnation of their hybrid, the Ford Fusion, just about kills the competition (Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid) in fuel economy by getting an EPA rated 39mpg combined.
The Camry/Altima hybrids get an EPA rated 34mpg. The Fusion Hybrid even eeks past the much smaller Honda Civic and Insight hybrids in the city portion of the EPA test at 41mpg compared to 40mpg the Civic/Insight get in the city.
Now if Ford could get their hybrid into a lighter, more aerodynamic vehicle with a smaller gas engine, they might be able to build something that can compete with the Prius which would be great for all consumers.
But I'm really hoping to see some affordable pure EV vehicles soon. Would be perfect for my daily commute and we can use the hybrid for long trips.
The Toyota HSD / Ford Hybrid system which uses a planetary gear and two induction motors to create a CVT transmision allowing an infinitely variable transmission which allows engine off operation up to certain speeds.
The pancake motor sandwiched between the engine and transmission - for example Honda uses this style hybrid now. Very simple, but the engine must always turn and output of the motor is typically fairly limited.
The GM 2-mode which has a couple induction motors in the transmission with a clutch to disengage the engine and more. This system allows the engine to be decoupled from the wheels to run purely on electric power, but can also operate as if the motors aren't even there.
The Ford/Toyota style hybrids seem to produce the best improvements in fuel economy at a nominal cost. The Honda style hybrid seems to be a bit less expensive, but also less capable since the engine must always be turning. The GM 2 mode is also very capable, but heavy so currently only well suited for larger vehicles.
Then there's the serial hybrid (as in the upcoming Chevy Volt) where the engine is completely decoupled from the drivetrain is operates purely as a range extender.
I would argue that all current production hybrids are actually fairly simple (except the 2 mode) and efficient - if they weren't, they wouldn't produce any appreciable improvement in fuel economy on the highway - and all of them do.
Can 25lbs of super caps really store enough energy to get a 3,000lb vehicle up to highway speeds?
A quick seems to show that super caps can store up to 30Wh/lb. So 25 pounds would get you 750 Wh. Let's say you want to accelerate your 3,000 lb vehicle to 60mph in 10 seconds.
Back of the envelope calculations put the average power requirement (ignoring air resistance) at 40 kW for 10 seconds. That seems pretty low given that most cars that do 0-60 in 10 seconds typically put out about 100 kW, so I must have done that wrong. Anyway, 100 kW for 10 seconds uses less than 300 Wh of energy so it does seem like it could be done. I assume that price of these supercaps must be keeping these from seeing production vehicles?
80% is quite optimistic, IMO, especially considering that charging a NiMH battery is at best 66% efficient and most motors/generators are top out a bit over 90% in ideal conditions.
It seems to be considered that getting half that (40%) is quite good these days. (though somehow I've seen multiple claims that the 2010 Ford fusion is able to capture up to 94% of all braking energy, I have a hard time believing it for the previously mentioned reasons!).
Hopefully once more manufacturers start using lithium batteries which have near negligible charging losses 80% will start to become a reality.
You also have to deal with the fact that in all production hybrids today, the motor/generators/batteries are far too underpowered to produce the power required to accelerate with the demands of your typical driver.
In any case, Prius batteries, which contain 32 pounds of nickel each, require only a fraction of the world's supply. More than 94 percent of the 1.55 million tons of nickel mined each year is used for stainless steel, alloys, and electroplating. So the batteries for the one million hybrids Toyota has sold so far have required only one percent of the world's annual nickel-mining production. Since the estimates on nickel recycling indicate about 80 percent is being reused, a million Priuses' share of newly mined nickel would really only be about two-tenths of one percent.
Toyota expects to sell about 200,000 Prius worldwide this year that would be about 3,200 tons of nickel or about 0.04% of worldwide nickel consumption (assuming that there is still 1.55 million tons of nickel mined each year and that about 80% of nickel used is recycled). Even if no nickel is recovered through recycling, the Prius battery pack would only use about 0.2% of worldwide nickel consumption.
You said that the air coming out of car exhaust is cleaner than the air in many cities.
I said, that while in some aspects, car exhaust may be cleaner, it is no where near being clean enough to live on as there are other pollutants emitted in toxic quantities. I apologize for omitting the obvious lack of oxygen, but later stated that even with sufficient oxygen, the other pollutants in car exhaust will quickly make you ill or kill you.
The air in a city has the benefit of being high diluted into relatively safe concentrations given a bit of time. Thankfully, most of the highly toxic pollutants either tend to fall out of the air (soot) or get broken down into less toxic forms (CO, NOx) relatively quickly so they build up into highly toxic concentrations.
In cities where air tends to stagnate (Los Angeles, Denver, Mexico City) it is quite easy to see the effects of air pollution from vehicles and the health of people with less than perfect respiratory systems suffer as a result.
A quick google search reveals that if you can't find a place to properly recycle your NiMH battery, it is safe (and legal) to dispose of it in the landfill. The point is moot - both Toyota and Honda willingly would take your battery for recycling if it happened to fail. Toyota even pays you $200 to do so.
The primary reason that the focus is on lithium batteries instead of NiMH batteries is not because of the nickel content, it's because NiMH batteries have limited power and energy density compared to lithium batteries - not to mention that lithium is a safer/cheaper material than nickel to use.
The "dust to dust" study made outrageous assumptions like that a Hummer would run 250k miles before being retired and that the Prius would run something like 100k. It also made outrageous assumptions in the energy cost of production compared to the energy cost of operation.
The energy cost of operation of a vehicle by far outweighs the energy costs of production. Any added energy costs due to battery manufacture are quickly gained back by the gains in efficiency.
Common sense tells you that it's better to keep on using an old product rather than replacing it with a new one of the same efficiency. But hey, if everyone only had efficiency on their mind, the roads would be filled with old Geo Metros.
I assume by "gas" you mean propane/LPG or natural gas. Yes, "gas" engines typically run very clean compared to their dirty "petrol" counter parts.
However, that does not have anything to do with the air/fuel ratio.
The stoichiometric ratio of all three fuels are very similar, with petrol being 14.7/1, propane 15.5/1 and natural gas 16.8/1. The stoich ratio is widely considered to be the optimum ratio.
At air fuel mixtures slightly richer than stoich, CO and HC emissions go up.
At air fuel mixtures slightly leaner than stoich, NOx emissions go up.
This is true for all the fuels - propane/natural gas just have the benefit of being a much cleaner fuel to start out with.
At some point if you lean out the air/fuel mixture enough, combustion temps lower enough that NOx emissions start to drop (considered a lean-burn). However, extremely lean mixtures don't produce much power and are tricky to ignite reliably. Currently, one of the most effective method for lowering NOx emissions is the use of EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) which kind of "simulates" a lean-burn by pumping in oxygen depleted exhaust gas into the combustion chamber.
Soot does increase significantly if you use an air/fuel ratio that is richer than stoich. And engines are often designed to run richer than stoich under high load because of the tendency for knock or preignition at high combustion temperatures - dumping in more fuel is a cheap way to cool the combustion chamber. But that does not mean that it has to be done - you could simply live with slightly less power output, instead.
You do understand that your average commute only uses 15-35hp, right?
I think you grossly underestimate the amount of power that the "average" commuter uses on a daily basis.
Most commuters will use at least 60+hp accelerating away from a stoplight. Double that if they're driving a heavy truck/SUV.
Sure, once they're up to to speed, say 65-70mph, horsepower requirements are only about 25-50 depending on the vehicle (quick google search reveals that a Corvette probably uses about 25hp at 65mph and 40hp at 70mph). But add any acceleration at those speeds, say to pass someone and you're going to need a lot more power.
Yes, downsizing the engine in a gas-electric hybrids does let them eke out a bit more fuel economy. But the real gains in fuel economy with the best gas-electric hybrids come from running the engine on the Atkinson cycle instead of the typical Otto cycle. While the Atkinson cycle is significantly more efficient, peak power output does suffer compared to the Otto cycle (an optimization as you say).
Surprise, there are alreadycompanies that are producing thin-film solar panels for less than $1/watt.
The problem is that demand is so high for these inexpensive cells that at least for Nanosolar, you can't even buy them unless you are buying tons and tons of them. That leaves First Solar and those panels get significantly marked up because of the lack of competition at the low end of the market.
That said, wholesale prices of traditional silicon panels are around $3/watt and as an end user you can get them for slightly above that if you shop around.
But once the system is installed you're looking at a minimum of $6/watt currently. So while the panels are still the most expensive part of the system, pretty soon the other components (inverter, mounting hardware, wiring, labor) will exceed the cost of the panels.
We're getting very close to the point where solar systems make financial sense for just about everyone. It already makes sense for any high electricity users who pay a premium for electricity. We'll probably see solar system pricing continue to drop over the next couple years as manufacturing capacity continues to come online.
Feel free to mix in all the oxygen you want... you still can't breathe exhaust fumes for any significant period of time. If it were truly cleaner than city air, you should be able to breathe it for years.
the emissions are as far as I remember cleaner than the air it breaths in most cities.
I dare you to suck on the tailpipe of any internal combustion vehicle. Please have paramedics on standby before you do.
While cars are very clean these days and can in fact emit exhaust that is cleaner in some aspects than normal air, any claims of exhaust coming out cleaner than "city air" has to be taken with a grain of salt.
BTW, the fact that it is able to shut off half the engine at low speeds only points out the fact that the engine is grossly over sized and powered for those speeds. It would be far more efficient if it simply had half the cylinders to start with (but then it wouldn't be able to push to speeds of 245mph).
And you'd certainly do more damage ecologically in a Prius.
You're full of shit. But hey, you sound like you know what you're talking about, so you must be right.
The Prius has about 90 pounds of NiMH batteries in it. Those batteries are largely benign, so you could toss them into the trash if you wanted to with the rest of your refuse if they failed, but Toyota will pay you to recycle them.
Now, I think the "toxic manufacturing process" largely comes from the nickel that goes into the battery back. Now, I'm not sure how much of each cell is nickel, but I do know that your standard steel is about 10% nickel. Given that most of your standard vehicle is steel (and I'm sure the Bugatti is made of a ton of exotic materials like carbon fiber whose manufacture is more toxic than steel and can't be recycled like steel), and that the Veyron weighs about 1,000 pounds more than the Prius - even if the Prius battery was 100% nickel the nickel content of both cars would be similar.
Plus when you factor in that the lead-acid battery in the Prius is about half the size of your typical lead-acid battery, you cut the possible leakage of lead into the environment (which is much worse than nickel) in half.
I suspect that most of your assumptions about the toxicity of the Prius (and all other NiMH batteries) come from the widely debunked CNW "Dust to Dust" marketing study which claimed that the Prius alone was responsible for the widespread destruction of the area around a mine in Canada and that a Hummer (and thus a Veyron, apparently) is more environmentally friendly than a Prius.
Too bad the greens don't want us building any more power plants.
The "greens" are paying you plenty to put a power plant right on your own roof.
If fact, they are subsidizing it so much that it cuts the price of a solar power system in California just about in half.
30% Federal tax credit.
$1.50-$2.00 tax credit per watt of installed power generating capability depending on your utility and how much solar power has already been installed.
My current PG&E top tier rate (and every kWh I add is billed at this rate) is $0.33/kWh, for a total of over $23 per recharge.
People in California (myself included) pay an extreme premium for exceeding their baseline usage. For example, for my house (SDG&E), the baseline is 330 kwH and billed around 12c/kwH, tier 2 is 101%-%130 at about 14c/kwH, tier 3 is 131%-200% and billed at about 30c/kwH and tier 4 is 201%+ and billed at about 32c/kwH. FWIW, I rarely go into tier 3 territory by any significant amount and that's with a family of 4. We have made a conscious effort to conserve electricity, use all fluorescent bulbs, but still have two computers running 24/7 that I've been too lazy to get running less (they're both low power servers that draw about 50w).
Basically, baseline usage is subsidized by high tier usage - but if you use a significant amount of high tier power, you should seriously considering two things: 1. Figure out where you are using all that electricity. 2. If you can't cut power any more, look at solar power systems.
If you're paying 30c+ kwH, a solar power system will "break even" in 6-7 years with current subsidies, which is a GREAT deal. The 1BOG group is a great way to get an even better price - I co-worker who has a very large salt-water aquarium that consumes a lot of electricity is getting a system through 1BOG - they make it simple.
If the new Honda Fit hybrid really comes out to 45 MPG highway, it will cost less (@$3 per gallon) than this Tesla car to operate and will cost over $40,000 less to buy the car.
After seeing Honda's 2010 Insight, I'm not that impressed with their hybrid systems. You'd think that Honda would have to at least matched the older Honda Civic Hybrid in fuel economy, but the numbers are basically the same (even slightly worse) at 41mpg combined. It even tried to make the car look aerodynamic by using a classic kammback shape, but it's also slightly less aerodynamic than the Civic hybrid (probably why the Civic hybrid does slightly better on the highway in fuel economy at 45 vs 43 mpg).
The only thing they've succeeded in doing is making the Insight cheaper than the Civic, but for only a bit more than the Insight you can get the Prius which for 2010 Toyota has improved fuel economy by nearly 10% to 50mpg combined and given it a significant amount more room.
Sales of the Prius for June (about 13,000) killed Honda's combined Civic Hybrid and Insight sales (about 3,600).
Ford on the other hand has done very well with the new Fusion Hybrid which gets a combined 39mpg which nudges out the Insight in the city and does a bit worse on the highway despite the Fusion weighing about 1000 pounds more!
So frankly, I wouldn't expect the hybrid fit to do any better than low 40s in fuel economy. I'd expect to see a small hybrid from Toyota or Ford that will post some stellar fuel economy numbers especially in the city if they can get their hybrid drivetrains into something that is in the 2600 lb range.
None of that takes away from your original argument that the Tesla is nothing more than a rich person's toy which is absolutely true. Even the Model S at $50k+ will be the same.
When you can buy a real highway capable car capable of seating 4 people with a range of 100 miles for less than $25k, I think we will be close to the point where the car will be viable for a significant portion of the public (considering that most people have two cars in the garage). The closest people to that is Aptera, but they are already way behind schedule and many people don't consider the 3-wheel vehicle to be a "real" car, not to mention it only seats 2.
We probably have at about 3 years before we start seeing cars meeting those specs - I just wish it was sooner!
Uh, how am I comparing a large station wagon to a small hatchback? Both the Jetta and Prius are rated "midsize" and you said it yourself - according to the numbers the Prius actually has more interior volume (I haven't verified). I actually would have expected the opposite.
I could have compared the regular Jetta to the Prius, but I wanted to use the wagon since it's performance is basically identical to the sedan and gives it an advantage. After all - most people seem to value larger vehicles more than smaller vehicles.
You seem to have totally dismissed my comment that gallon for gallon, diesels have more energy and emit more pollutants. Let's take your 55 mpg typical commute and subtract the ~15% energy advantage that diesel has over gasoline and all of a sudden, your 55 mpg is equivalent to about 47 mpg in a gasoline car.
Never mind that your average fuel economy seems to far exceed the results of what most people seem to get (see fueleconomy.gov where I sourced my data), so your results are purely anecdotal.
Yes - I know that lead-acid batteries are mostly recycled - so are the traction batteries in a hybrid. Toyota *pays* you to take your old battery for recycling. There are Toyota dealerships everywhere and chances are if you are one of the unlucky ones who does have to replace it out of warranty (they are warranted for 8-years 100k miles across the US and 10-years 150k miles in CARB states) you'll be taking it to your Toyota dealership for service where they will handle it for you.
You can't but those new in the USA. And the used ones emit a LOT of pollutants. The closest thing is a Jetta Sportwagon Diesel, so I'll use that to compare to the Prius.
which has practically the same dimensions and performance
I think the Sportwagon is actually bigger than the Prius, so +1 VW. Sedan has a bit less usable space since it's not a hatchback.
gets superior mileage in average driving
Citation please. If I head to fueleconomy.gov and look at the end-user reported fuel economy, the Prius (I checked multiple years) seems to average very close to it's EPA rating of 46 mpg, while the TDI seems to average well above it's EPA rating of 33 mpg getting close to 40 mpg.
So, no, I'd have to say that the Prius gets superior fuel economy in average driving (seems to get about 15% more miles per gallon than a Jetta TDI), not to mention that diesel has significantly more energy in it than gasoline so if comparing mpg you should take that in to account which puts the TDI even farther behind.
and which doesn't have all those batteries in it
True, but the NiMH batteries in a Prius are significantly less toxic than even the lead-acid battery in all automobiles. People tend to overstate the environmental impact of battery packs citing flawed and obviously biased studies. Toyota will even pay you to take it off your hands if it reaches the end of it's useful life.
They also have better visibility.
That may be true, but having driven a Prius on extended trips, visibility is actually pretty good. I never found myself wishing I had more.
Dude - shred is used to write directly to the disk. No files or applications involved here.
The disk's data is completely gone.
What I typically do is stack up disks to be wiped in one box and when I get a bunch of them, plug them into a system with a bunch of IO controllers and boot up DBAN - Darik's Boot and Nuke. A lot easier than wiping disks one by one.
The moment Toyota stops extending the battery warranty, all Prius cars of that age are then worthless.
WTF are you talking about?
When the warranty is up on the battery and the battery happens to fail, you either pay the couple grand to Toyota for a brand new one, or you go to your local pick and pull and buy a used battery from a wreck at a fraction of the cost.
The same thing you do when your engine or transmission fails out of warranty.
Yes, I definitely agree that a number of technologies should be pursued to achieve the goal of national energy independence as well as the environmental benefits of eliminating emissions from transportation fuels which will have a dramatic effect on air quality, especially in urban settings.
Biofuels are part of the answer, but as of now, they are too resource intensive to compete on a large scale. This doesn't appear to be changing any time soon - perhaps 15-20 years from now at best.
Hydrogen as a energy carrier is part of the answer, but it has to many drawbacks compared to pure EVs and again, is probably at least 15-20 years out before it starts becoming viable.
Electrification of the vehicle fleet is the most promising. It is already viable for many applications, and costs promise to drop significantly over the next 5 years as investments into battery technology and manufacturing has been ramping up significantly. Not to mention, it is far more efficient than burning fuel in an ICE or hydrogen fuel cells.
It's very rare that you'll need to quick charge. The only time you need to do this is if you need to travel farther than the range of your vehicle. The rest of the time, a slow, 8 hour charge is more than sufficient. So you don't need to quick charge at home or in parking lots.
If you do need to quick charge, you'll go to a quick charge station which will have high power running to them (which is not that hard to get). They'll reduce peak load on the grid by using a big bank of capacitors to store the charge. 250kW chargers are already available today (see AeroVironment). With your typical electric car using about 200wH/mile, that's enough to get you 200 miles of travel in 10 minutes.
Your argument of using the "stretched thin" grid is weak. No matter what alternative energy carrier or fuel is used in the future, new infrastructure will have to be built to replace the gasoline and diesel distribution networks.
Electricity is everywhere. Once electric cars start reaching significant numbers, you'll start seeing charging stations in parking lots, on streets, everywhere. They'll work like modern parking meters. Slide your credit card or drop in a few bucks and charge away.
If you need to charge quickly (less than 30 minutes), there are battery chemistries which can do that, too.
For people who are able to park their cars and charge them over night - essentially eliminating the need to stop and "fill up your tank" periodically, is a huge gain in convenience.
Hydrogen is a decent energy carrier which many people like because switching to it wouldn't require a significant change in behaviour. It also has the drawback of either requiring a significant amount of electricity (if using electrolysis) or natural gas to produce. Not to mention that all hydrogen fuel tanks leak a significant amount of their fuel within weeks. It's more efficient to use that electricity to charge batteries for electric cars, or if using natural gas, simply use the natural gas in a regular combustion engine.
All you have to do is store the dead ones in one of those cardboard boxes you'd otherwise be carting 10 miles to the recyclers until you make a trip to the hardware store to either buy new ones or need to buy some other piece of hardware.
It takes next to no extra effort to properly recycle CFLs, yet you're willing to drive 10 miles to recycle items which are far less harmful when improperly disposed of?
Maybe if your apartment can't regularly put out it's recycling bins, you should volunteer. Sounds like a lot less effort than taking a 30+ minute trip out to the recyclers and back carting all your recyclables.
It should be normal, especially considering that Home Depot takes them for recycling and you don't seem to have to drive more than 5 miles to find one.
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Correction - Ford and Toyota cross-licensed patents to avoid litigation. Neither company pays the other anything for use of those patents.
Yep. And Ford's latest incarnation of their hybrid, the Ford Fusion, just about kills the competition (Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid) in fuel economy by getting an EPA rated 39mpg combined.
The Camry/Altima hybrids get an EPA rated 34mpg. The Fusion Hybrid even eeks past the much smaller Honda Civic and Insight hybrids in the city portion of the EPA test at 41mpg compared to 40mpg the Civic/Insight get in the city.
Now if Ford could get their hybrid into a lighter, more aerodynamic vehicle with a smaller gas engine, they might be able to build something that can compete with the Prius which would be great for all consumers.
But I'm really hoping to see some affordable pure EV vehicles soon. Would be perfect for my daily commute and we can use the hybrid for long trips.
There are 3 hybrid drive trains in use today:
The Toyota HSD / Ford Hybrid system which uses a planetary gear and two induction motors to create a CVT transmision allowing an infinitely variable transmission which allows engine off operation up to certain speeds.
The pancake motor sandwiched between the engine and transmission - for example Honda uses this style hybrid now. Very simple, but the engine must always turn and output of the motor is typically fairly limited.
The GM 2-mode which has a couple induction motors in the transmission with a clutch to disengage the engine and more. This system allows the engine to be decoupled from the wheels to run purely on electric power, but can also operate as if the motors aren't even there.
The Ford/Toyota style hybrids seem to produce the best improvements in fuel economy at a nominal cost. The Honda style hybrid seems to be a bit less expensive, but also less capable since the engine must always be turning. The GM 2 mode is also very capable, but heavy so currently only well suited for larger vehicles.
Then there's the serial hybrid (as in the upcoming Chevy Volt) where the engine is completely decoupled from the drivetrain is operates purely as a range extender.
I would argue that all current production hybrids are actually fairly simple (except the 2 mode) and efficient - if they weren't, they wouldn't produce any appreciable improvement in fuel economy on the highway - and all of them do.
Can 25lbs of super caps really store enough energy to get a 3,000lb vehicle up to highway speeds?
A quick seems to show that super caps can store up to 30Wh/lb. So 25 pounds would get you 750 Wh. Let's say you want to accelerate your 3,000 lb vehicle to 60mph in 10 seconds.
Back of the envelope calculations put the average power requirement (ignoring air resistance) at 40 kW for 10 seconds. That seems pretty low given that most cars that do 0-60 in 10 seconds typically put out about 100 kW, so I must have done that wrong. Anyway, 100 kW for 10 seconds uses less than 300 Wh of energy so it does seem like it could be done. I assume that price of these supercaps must be keeping these from seeing production vehicles?
80% is quite optimistic, IMO, especially considering that charging a NiMH battery is at best 66% efficient and most motors/generators are top out a bit over 90% in ideal conditions.
It seems to be considered that getting half that (40%) is quite good these days. (though somehow I've seen multiple claims that the 2010 Ford fusion is able to capture up to 94% of all braking energy, I have a hard time believing it for the previously mentioned reasons!).
Hopefully once more manufacturers start using lithium batteries which have near negligible charging losses 80% will start to become a reality.
You also have to deal with the fact that in all production hybrids today, the motor/generators/batteries are far too underpowered to produce the power required to accelerate with the demands of your typical driver.
BTW, thanks for setting me straight on the plain steel vs stainless steel nickel content. I was totally off on that one.
But I did find some other interesting figures from this site: http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200711/mrgreen_mailbag.asp#headaches
Toyota expects to sell about 200,000 Prius worldwide this year that would be about 3,200 tons of nickel or about 0.04% of worldwide nickel consumption (assuming that there is still 1.55 million tons of nickel mined each year and that about 80% of nickel used is recycled). Even if no nickel is recovered through recycling, the Prius battery pack would only use about 0.2% of worldwide nickel consumption.
You said that the air coming out of car exhaust is cleaner than the air in many cities.
I said, that while in some aspects, car exhaust may be cleaner, it is no where near being clean enough to live on as there are other pollutants emitted in toxic quantities. I apologize for omitting the obvious lack of oxygen, but later stated that even with sufficient oxygen, the other pollutants in car exhaust will quickly make you ill or kill you.
The air in a city has the benefit of being high diluted into relatively safe concentrations given a bit of time. Thankfully, most of the highly toxic pollutants either tend to fall out of the air (soot) or get broken down into less toxic forms (CO, NOx) relatively quickly so they build up into highly toxic concentrations.
In cities where air tends to stagnate (Los Angeles, Denver, Mexico City) it is quite easy to see the effects of air pollution from vehicles and the health of people with less than perfect respiratory systems suffer as a result.
A quick google search reveals that if you can't find a place to properly recycle your NiMH battery, it is safe (and legal) to dispose of it in the landfill. The point is moot - both Toyota and Honda willingly would take your battery for recycling if it happened to fail. Toyota even pays you $200 to do so.
The primary reason that the focus is on lithium batteries instead of NiMH batteries is not because of the nickel content, it's because NiMH batteries have limited power and energy density compared to lithium batteries - not to mention that lithium is a safer/cheaper material than nickel to use.
The "dust to dust" study made outrageous assumptions like that a Hummer would run 250k miles before being retired and that the Prius would run something like 100k. It also made outrageous assumptions in the energy cost of production compared to the energy cost of operation.
The energy cost of operation of a vehicle by far outweighs the energy costs of production. Any added energy costs due to battery manufacture are quickly gained back by the gains in efficiency.
Common sense tells you that it's better to keep on using an old product rather than replacing it with a new one of the same efficiency. But hey, if everyone only had efficiency on their mind, the roads would be filled with old Geo Metros.
I assume by "gas" you mean propane/LPG or natural gas. Yes, "gas" engines typically run very clean compared to their dirty "petrol" counter parts.
However, that does not have anything to do with the air/fuel ratio.
The stoichiometric ratio of all three fuels are very similar, with petrol being 14.7/1, propane 15.5/1 and natural gas 16.8/1. The stoich ratio is widely considered to be the optimum ratio.
At air fuel mixtures slightly richer than stoich, CO and HC emissions go up.
At air fuel mixtures slightly leaner than stoich, NOx emissions go up.
This is true for all the fuels - propane/natural gas just have the benefit of being a much cleaner fuel to start out with.
At some point if you lean out the air/fuel mixture enough, combustion temps lower enough that NOx emissions start to drop (considered a lean-burn). However, extremely lean mixtures don't produce much power and are tricky to ignite reliably. Currently, one of the most effective method for lowering NOx emissions is the use of EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) which kind of "simulates" a lean-burn by pumping in oxygen depleted exhaust gas into the combustion chamber.
Soot does increase significantly if you use an air/fuel ratio that is richer than stoich. And engines are often designed to run richer than stoich under high load because of the tendency for knock or preignition at high combustion temperatures - dumping in more fuel is a cheap way to cool the combustion chamber. But that does not mean that it has to be done - you could simply live with slightly less power output, instead.
I think you grossly underestimate the amount of power that the "average" commuter uses on a daily basis.
Most commuters will use at least 60+hp accelerating away from a stoplight. Double that if they're driving a heavy truck/SUV.
Sure, once they're up to to speed, say 65-70mph, horsepower requirements are only about 25-50 depending on the vehicle (quick google search reveals that a Corvette probably uses about 25hp at 65mph and 40hp at 70mph). But add any acceleration at those speeds, say to pass someone and you're going to need a lot more power.
Yes, downsizing the engine in a gas-electric hybrids does let them eke out a bit more fuel economy. But the real gains in fuel economy with the best gas-electric hybrids come from running the engine on the Atkinson cycle instead of the typical Otto cycle. While the Atkinson cycle is significantly more efficient, peak power output does suffer compared to the Otto cycle (an optimization as you say).
Surprise, there are already companies that are producing thin-film solar panels for less than $1/watt.
The problem is that demand is so high for these inexpensive cells that at least for Nanosolar, you can't even buy them unless you are buying tons and tons of them. That leaves First Solar and those panels get significantly marked up because of the lack of competition at the low end of the market.
That said, wholesale prices of traditional silicon panels are around $3/watt and as an end user you can get them for slightly above that if you shop around.
But once the system is installed you're looking at a minimum of $6/watt currently. So while the panels are still the most expensive part of the system, pretty soon the other components (inverter, mounting hardware, wiring, labor) will exceed the cost of the panels.
We're getting very close to the point where solar systems make financial sense for just about everyone. It already makes sense for any high electricity users who pay a premium for electricity. We'll probably see solar system pricing continue to drop over the next couple years as manufacturing capacity continues to come online.
Feel free to mix in all the oxygen you want... you still can't breathe exhaust fumes for any significant period of time. If it were truly cleaner than city air, you should be able to breathe it for years.
Hate to tell ya, but you've got a flat 6, not a V6, sitting behind you...
I dare you to suck on the tailpipe of any internal combustion vehicle. Please have paramedics on standby before you do.
While cars are very clean these days and can in fact emit exhaust that is cleaner in some aspects than normal air, any claims of exhaust coming out cleaner than "city air" has to be taken with a grain of salt.
BTW, the fact that it is able to shut off half the engine at low speeds only points out the fact that the engine is grossly over sized and powered for those speeds. It would be far more efficient if it simply had half the cylinders to start with (but then it wouldn't be able to push to speeds of 245mph).
You're full of shit. But hey, you sound like you know what you're talking about, so you must be right.
The Prius has about 90 pounds of NiMH batteries in it. Those batteries are largely benign, so you could toss them into the trash if you wanted to with the rest of your refuse if they failed, but Toyota will pay you to recycle them.
Now, I think the "toxic manufacturing process" largely comes from the nickel that goes into the battery back. Now, I'm not sure how much of each cell is nickel, but I do know that your standard steel is about 10% nickel. Given that most of your standard vehicle is steel (and I'm sure the Bugatti is made of a ton of exotic materials like carbon fiber whose manufacture is more toxic than steel and can't be recycled like steel), and that the Veyron weighs about 1,000 pounds more than the Prius - even if the Prius battery was 100% nickel the nickel content of both cars would be similar.
Plus when you factor in that the lead-acid battery in the Prius is about half the size of your typical lead-acid battery, you cut the possible leakage of lead into the environment (which is much worse than nickel) in half.
I suspect that most of your assumptions about the toxicity of the Prius (and all other NiMH batteries) come from the widely debunked CNW "Dust to Dust" marketing study which claimed that the Prius alone was responsible for the widespread destruction of the area around a mine in Canada and that a Hummer (and thus a Veyron, apparently) is more environmentally friendly than a Prius.
I'll simply point you to this link: http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/is-the-prius-battery-toxic where in the comments the claims are quite easily refuted (see especially comment #8).
The "greens" are paying you plenty to put a power plant right on your own roof.
If fact, they are subsidizing it so much that it cuts the price of a solar power system in California just about in half.
30% Federal tax credit.
$1.50-$2.00 tax credit per watt of installed power generating capability depending on your utility and how much solar power has already been installed.
People in California (myself included) pay an extreme premium for exceeding their baseline usage. For example, for my house (SDG&E), the baseline is 330 kwH and billed around 12c/kwH, tier 2 is 101%-%130 at about 14c/kwH, tier 3 is 131%-200% and billed at about 30c/kwH and tier 4 is 201%+ and billed at about 32c/kwH. FWIW, I rarely go into tier 3 territory by any significant amount and that's with a family of 4. We have made a conscious effort to conserve electricity, use all fluorescent bulbs, but still have two computers running 24/7 that I've been too lazy to get running less (they're both low power servers that draw about 50w).
Basically, baseline usage is subsidized by high tier usage - but if you use a significant amount of high tier power, you should seriously considering two things: 1. Figure out where you are using all that electricity. 2. If you can't cut power any more, look at solar power systems.
If you're paying 30c+ kwH, a solar power system will "break even" in 6-7 years with current subsidies, which is a GREAT deal. The 1BOG group is a great way to get an even better price - I co-worker who has a very large salt-water aquarium that consumes a lot of electricity is getting a system through 1BOG - they make it simple.
After seeing Honda's 2010 Insight, I'm not that impressed with their hybrid systems. You'd think that Honda would have to at least matched the older Honda Civic Hybrid in fuel economy, but the numbers are basically the same (even slightly worse) at 41mpg combined. It even tried to make the car look aerodynamic by using a classic kammback shape, but it's also slightly less aerodynamic than the Civic hybrid (probably why the Civic hybrid does slightly better on the highway in fuel economy at 45 vs 43 mpg).
The only thing they've succeeded in doing is making the Insight cheaper than the Civic, but for only a bit more than the Insight you can get the Prius which for 2010 Toyota has improved fuel economy by nearly 10% to 50mpg combined and given it a significant amount more room.
Sales of the Prius for June (about 13,000) killed Honda's combined Civic Hybrid and Insight sales (about 3,600).
Ford on the other hand has done very well with the new Fusion Hybrid which gets a combined 39mpg which nudges out the Insight in the city and does a bit worse on the highway despite the Fusion weighing about 1000 pounds more!
So frankly, I wouldn't expect the hybrid fit to do any better than low 40s in fuel economy. I'd expect to see a small hybrid from Toyota or Ford that will post some stellar fuel economy numbers especially in the city if they can get their hybrid drivetrains into something that is in the 2600 lb range.
None of that takes away from your original argument that the Tesla is nothing more than a rich person's toy which is absolutely true. Even the Model S at $50k+ will be the same.
When you can buy a real highway capable car capable of seating 4 people with a range of 100 miles for less than $25k, I think we will be close to the point where the car will be viable for a significant portion of the public (considering that most people have two cars in the garage). The closest people to that is Aptera, but they are already way behind schedule and many people don't consider the 3-wheel vehicle to be a "real" car, not to mention it only seats 2.
We probably have at about 3 years before we start seeing cars meeting those specs - I just wish it was sooner!
Uh, how am I comparing a large station wagon to a small hatchback? Both the Jetta and Prius are rated "midsize" and you said it yourself - according to the numbers the Prius actually has more interior volume (I haven't verified). I actually would have expected the opposite.
I could have compared the regular Jetta to the Prius, but I wanted to use the wagon since it's performance is basically identical to the sedan and gives it an advantage. After all - most people seem to value larger vehicles more than smaller vehicles.
You seem to have totally dismissed my comment that gallon for gallon, diesels have more energy and emit more pollutants. Let's take your 55 mpg typical commute and subtract the ~15% energy advantage that diesel has over gasoline and all of a sudden, your 55 mpg is equivalent to about 47 mpg in a gasoline car.
Never mind that your average fuel economy seems to far exceed the results of what most people seem to get (see fueleconomy.gov where I sourced my data), so your results are purely anecdotal.
Yes - I know that lead-acid batteries are mostly recycled - so are the traction batteries in a hybrid. Toyota *pays* you to take your old battery for recycling. There are Toyota dealerships everywhere and chances are if you are one of the unlucky ones who does have to replace it out of warranty (they are warranted for 8-years 100k miles across the US and 10-years 150k miles in CARB states) you'll be taking it to your Toyota dealership for service where they will handle it for you.
You can't but those new in the USA. And the used ones emit a LOT of pollutants. The closest thing is a Jetta Sportwagon Diesel, so I'll use that to compare to the Prius.
I think the Sportwagon is actually bigger than the Prius, so +1 VW. Sedan has a bit less usable space since it's not a hatchback.
Citation please. If I head to fueleconomy.gov and look at the end-user reported fuel economy, the Prius (I checked multiple years) seems to average very close to it's EPA rating of 46 mpg, while the TDI seems to average well above it's EPA rating of 33 mpg getting close to 40 mpg.
So, no, I'd have to say that the Prius gets superior fuel economy in average driving (seems to get about 15% more miles per gallon than a Jetta TDI), not to mention that diesel has significantly more energy in it than gasoline so if comparing mpg you should take that in to account which puts the TDI even farther behind.
True, but the NiMH batteries in a Prius are significantly less toxic than even the lead-acid battery in all automobiles. People tend to overstate the environmental impact of battery packs citing flawed and obviously biased studies. Toyota will even pay you to take it off your hands if it reaches the end of it's useful life.
That may be true, but having driven a Prius on extended trips, visibility is actually pretty good. I never found myself wishing I had more.
Dude - shred is used to write directly to the disk. No files or applications involved here.
The disk's data is completely gone.
What I typically do is stack up disks to be wiped in one box and when I get a bunch of them, plug them into a system with a bunch of IO controllers and boot up DBAN - Darik's Boot and Nuke. A lot easier than wiping disks one by one.
WTF are you talking about?
When the warranty is up on the battery and the battery happens to fail, you either pay the couple grand to Toyota for a brand new one, or you go to your local pick and pull and buy a used battery from a wreck at a fraction of the cost.
The same thing you do when your engine or transmission fails out of warranty.
Yes, I definitely agree that a number of technologies should be pursued to achieve the goal of national energy independence as well as the environmental benefits of eliminating emissions from transportation fuels which will have a dramatic effect on air quality, especially in urban settings.
Biofuels are part of the answer, but as of now, they are too resource intensive to compete on a large scale. This doesn't appear to be changing any time soon - perhaps 15-20 years from now at best.
Hydrogen as a energy carrier is part of the answer, but it has to many drawbacks compared to pure EVs and again, is probably at least 15-20 years out before it starts becoming viable.
Electrification of the vehicle fleet is the most promising. It is already viable for many applications, and costs promise to drop significantly over the next 5 years as investments into battery technology and manufacturing has been ramping up significantly. Not to mention, it is far more efficient than burning fuel in an ICE or hydrogen fuel cells.
It's very rare that you'll need to quick charge. The only time you need to do this is if you need to travel farther than the range of your vehicle. The rest of the time, a slow, 8 hour charge is more than sufficient. So you don't need to quick charge at home or in parking lots.
If you do need to quick charge, you'll go to a quick charge station which will have high power running to them (which is not that hard to get). They'll reduce peak load on the grid by using a big bank of capacitors to store the charge. 250kW chargers are already available today (see AeroVironment). With your typical electric car using about 200wH/mile, that's enough to get you 200 miles of travel in 10 minutes.
Your argument of using the "stretched thin" grid is weak. No matter what alternative energy carrier or fuel is used in the future, new infrastructure will have to be built to replace the gasoline and diesel distribution networks.
Electricity is everywhere. Once electric cars start reaching significant numbers, you'll start seeing charging stations in parking lots, on streets, everywhere. They'll work like modern parking meters. Slide your credit card or drop in a few bucks and charge away.
If you need to charge quickly (less than 30 minutes), there are battery chemistries which can do that, too.
For people who are able to park their cars and charge them over night - essentially eliminating the need to stop and "fill up your tank" periodically, is a huge gain in convenience.
Hydrogen is a decent energy carrier which many people like because switching to it wouldn't require a significant change in behaviour. It also has the drawback of either requiring a significant amount of electricity (if using electrolysis) or natural gas to produce. Not to mention that all hydrogen fuel tanks leak a significant amount of their fuel within weeks. It's more efficient to use that electricity to charge batteries for electric cars, or if using natural gas, simply use the natural gas in a regular combustion engine.
All you have to do is store the dead ones in one of those cardboard boxes you'd otherwise be carting 10 miles to the recyclers until you make a trip to the hardware store to either buy new ones or need to buy some other piece of hardware.
It takes next to no extra effort to properly recycle CFLs, yet you're willing to drive 10 miles to recycle items which are far less harmful when improperly disposed of?
Maybe if your apartment can't regularly put out it's recycling bins, you should volunteer. Sounds like a lot less effort than taking a 30+ minute trip out to the recyclers and back carting all your recyclables.
It should be normal, especially considering that Home Depot takes them for recycling and you don't seem to have to drive more than 5 miles to find one.