2010 Prius a Plug-in after all?

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by Prius 07

... and from the same source (Popular Mechanics) here is a story dated today - test drive of a PHEV Prius conversion:
Plug-in Toyota Prius Hybrid Test Drive: Is 100 MPG Possible with A123 Systems Hymotion Kit? - Popular Mechanics

When I was debating to buy my Prius or wait for the plug-in version there were stories floating around about Toyota's desire to accelerate the introduction of the plug-in model. With competition like Honda in the hybrid market Toyota wanted to maintain their dominance. Looks like they maybe succeeding in getting their plug-in to market quicker than anticipated.

Posted a couple of comments on this article, based on the other comments there:

It all depends on your priorities. If your focus is on reducing our dependence on foreign oil, or oil in general, MPG is still a very valid measurement. It accurately shows the reduction in gasoline consumption. The problem with any sort of alternative accounting, is that it is highly dependent on assumptions which make it very susceptible to bias. Where do you assume the electricity comes from? How do you determine equivalence? BTUs? Lbs of CO2? Lbs of NOx? Lbs of SOx? In my mind the beauty of PHEVs and eventually BEVs is that you have a choice about where to get the electricity from. A car that drives on gas is 100% dependent on oil. A car that drives on electricity can be powered by coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydro, solar, wind, methane, biofuels etc. That flexibility has a lot of inherent advantages with regards to pollution, cost and energy independence. Thats not to trivialize the importance of keeping pressure on the electric industry to expand their use of renewable, but at least the option is there unlike the current petroleum dominated situation.

Sorry, but there is really no question about the vastly improved energy efficiency possible with electric vehicles. The only shell games in town are those being played by the oil companies. A recent study by the DOE estimated the well to wheels BTU efficiency of conventional and hybrid gas electric vehicles, comparing them to fuel cell vehicles fed by coal gasification. Their numbers were 5,900 btu/mile for an average 2005 gasoline car, and 4,200 btu/mile for a 2005 gas/electric hybrid. The fuel cell vehicle was estimated (in an ideal lab environment) at 5,100 btu/mile in 2005, and they are hoping to hit 3,200 btu/mile by 2030. Unfortunately they don't include full electrics in the same paper, but we can take a pretty good wag at a comparable value. A modern combined cycle natural gas or coal electric plant runs at about 7,000 btu/kWh. US average transmission and distribution loses are around 7.2%, so lets add 25% overall for transmission and charging inefficiencies. That gets us to 8750 btu/kWh. Electric car efficiencies range from about 3-5 miles/kWh. The Volt mentioned above is coming in at ~40 miles/8kWh or ~5 kWh/mi, the Prius has been found to be right around there as well or even a little better. So 8750 btu/kWh / 5 miles/kWh = 1750 btu/mile. So even on natural gas and coal, an electric (PHEV or BEV) is more than 3 times as efficient as an average car, almost 2.5 times more efficient than a hybrid, and almost twice as efficient as they hope a fuel cell will be in 20+ years. From a CO2 perspective, a modern coal plant emits ~1.8 lbs/kWh, natural gas about 1.0 lbs/kWh. With 19.6 lbs released per gallon of gas, coal is the equivalent of 54mpg, natural gas 98 mpg. When you look at solar, wind, hydro, nuclear etc the picture gets even better for electrics in terms of both btu and CO2 efficiency.

Rob

[PeakOilGarage]

I saw the Popular Mechanics article reviewing the Hymotion system.
I responded on my blog. These guys did not learn enough prior to testing.

www.peakoilgarage.com