Prime destined to be doa?

good point. and i've been complaining about the lack of charging stations. and i can fill up at home before leaving.

 

have you start supporting green energy and pay the higher utility rate or do you still depend on nuclear or coal fire power plant?

 

I don't have the option with Duke Energy. (They destroyed their one nuclear plant and have converted coal plants to natural gas, so nuclear and coal are not the fuels used.) What I do have the option of doing is minimizing all energy use regardless of the source. So a whole lot of cooling, lighting, and appliance selections have my utility bill less than half of what it was when I started working on being efficient. Likewise, an EV is overall more efficient than a gas burner, so even with conventional utility power, there is an overall gain. The ideal would be solar panels, but that would require cutting down three huge oak tree well over a hundred year old. That is out of the question. So as you can see, I have made advances to sustainability but have quite a ways to go...and keep going I will do.

 

Only the grids in the Midwest have a large majority of coal for power. On the national level, the amount of coal is dropping as old coal plants are finally retired. New coal isn't getting built. Instead, the majority of new power plants are natural gas. A fuel that burns cleaner in an ICE than gasoline. If new coal was built, it would have to comply with stricter emission standards than what the old grandfathered plants had to deal with.

I'm okay with nuclear power. Some of the old plants might need to be shut down like the old coal, but they emit less radio active material into the environment than a coal plant does. If we weren't so paranoid, there is more that can be done about recycling and disposing the other waste. But we aren't going to see much, if any, new nuclear power.

Along with natural gas, the new power being built is renewable, like wind and solar.

Plus, it is much simpler to monitor, and improve the emissions of a few thousand power plants, than it is for the millions of mobile ICE cars. Then the ICE cars will get dirtier over time. Not just from worn parts, but as we have to switch to more energy intensive sources, like tar sands, for their fuel.

Electric motors don't have the amount of overhead as an ICE. Along with the fuel burned at a stop or coasting, when the electric is using no energy, the difference between the ICE's least efficient and most efficient speed is likely greater than and electric motor's. Then a performance car likely is spending most of the time in the engine's least efficient point in everyday driving.

It's a little more nuanced than that. Like ICEs, electric motors have points where they are more efficient for the power out put. Two motors allows Tesla to keep them in that efficient point more often than with one.

The first year Volt didn't qualify for HOV stickers in California. Then the Energis had less space and worse fuel economy than the PiP. The safe bet is that the PiP would be the more attractive purchase for just the HOV sticker.

PHEVs will be around for awhile simply because there will be some that a BEV won't meet their total needs. Really fast charging is possible, but may not be practical in terms of long battery life. Then the improvements that make longer range BEVs possible, will make PHEVs with less space compromises possible. So a 20 to 30 mile PHEV could have as much function as today's hybrids.

I think we'll see a split in the PHEV market. There will be those 20 to 30 range ones, that get good fuel efficiency when off the grid energy. They also don't require the installation of thicker wire and an EVSE for reasonable charge times. Thus, no extra cost beyond that of a new car to adopt a plug in. Better batteries and their packaging will allow less intrusion into the passenger and cargo areas. So these cars should easily work as the primary, full function car or for single car household.

The new Volt takes 10 hours or so to fully charge from a 15 amp outlet. So ranges up to 50 miles are possible for this short range group. Adoption of 20 amp standard for household wiring make ranges over that 30 mile mark more feasible in terms of charging, but they'll have space compromises that will limit their appeal to single car households, and multi-car ones with larger families.

Which leads to the second PHEV group of 50 to 100 mile EV ranges. They'll all be EREVs that are willing to compromise on ICE fuel efficiency for better packaging of the range extender. A pure series hybrid is less efficient than a parallel/series split one, but it doesn't need the required space for the transaxle, nor does it need to fix the ICE's location to that of the drive wheels. Then rotorary engines have a high power output to displacement ration. Their smaller size might be more important to the car design than higher fuel efficiency. Hopefully CARB's hobbling of REX PHEVs will go away in time for this group.

Going over 100 mile EV range for a PHEV doesn't make make much sense. The required space for batteries and ICE range extender will intrude upon more usable space in the car. For most people that don't want to accept the charging times for a BEV on long trips, a shorter range PHEV with better hybrid efficiency is likely a better choice if long trips are a regular endeavor.

ICE cars will still be around for them also. The spread of start/stop and regenerative braking technologies is going to make calling which one a hybrid and which one not more difficult. Mild or micro PHEVs might show up. They'll have little to no official EV range, and be focused on using grid energy to greatly reduce the amount of ICE fuel they use; like the original DIY plug in Prii. Decreased ICE fuel demand by the fleet will make the adoption of renewable fuel replacements easier to implement.

Alternate range extenders will likely first appear around the 100 mile range mark. Such as metal air batteries and non-hydrogen fuel cells.

 

Nuclear is green energy, in that it does not emit CO2 or contribute much at all to global warming. Fourth generation nuclear energy, as explained in the book "Prescription to the Planet" by Blees, is much safer than current nuclear, will burn as fuel the dangerous waste created by current nuclear, and it's fuel stays radioactive until burned so terrorists cannot use it.

 

my points being electricity isn't necessarily cleaner than gas for everyone. for consumer, one of the noticeable differences would be rate/price had gas price stayed way up there, but not sure if it's worth it for price differences of the car if government subsidies aren't there

also, how is the battery recycle/renewable on current *EV cars?

then there are people/activists who demand green/renewable energy, but shut their mouth or ignore when provided the option to use green/renewable energy at higher rate

it's green if you have safe places to store the nuclear waste for thousand of years.
or simply ship those waste and garbage to the other country and let them handle it and take it off your problem list?

 

erev . . . what does this term do - but justify a GM tradmark. any car that can either never or always run on battery or gas, is different in what way ... range of either fuel? and what is that cutoff? sorry ... but I kind of struggle to see the difference, other than gm marketing. imo both are the same, but I'll try to conform. in reality? both are just plugin hybrids. why does gm need to distinguish its product - other than to make folks believe in the unneeded label.

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Electric is cleaner for most, depending on what they want to clean up. For many now that is carbon emissions. On the mostly coal grids in the Midwest, the typical plug in emits as much CO2 as a gas car that gets 38mpg. It isn't as good as Prius, but the large majority aren't buying Prii.

For other emissions, coal is already being shut down, and being replaced with natural gas. That burns cleaner even before emission controls get added. It can also be made renewable if desired. Even if the plug in is still charging on coal, the power plant's emission are likely far from urban centers where a car's pollution is emitted right at to form smog and cause health problems.

In the US we are afraid of the wrong people getting a hold of our nuclear waste. That fear is keeping us from recycling spent fuel rods into more fuel for power plants. Reducing waste and getting more power should be seen as win-win, but it isn't.

GM does not appear to have any trademark in relation to EREV. They just invented the term in order to differentiate how the Volt worked from other PHEVs. Before the Volt, the only PHEVs people had familiarity with were the DIY and kits for the Prius, which were still limited to 25 or 35 mph max speed in EV mode.

EREVs are PHEVs, just ones that have full range of performance on EV alone; the only reason the car enters hybrid mode is because the battery is drained or the driver chooses to do so.

For further PHEV confusion, there is the REX. It has a full range of performance like an EREV, but the ICE side has limited performance. For times when the EV range will be exceeded, hybrid mode is turned on early so as to have a buffer of grid charge in the pack to cover the times the ICE can't meet power demands. At least that is how they work in the world. Thanks to CARB, they are hobbled in the US. The driver can't turn on the ICE until the SOC is down 3%, leaving them now driving a no under powered car. Plus the gas tank can only hold enough fuel to match the car's EV range in hybrid mode.

I think I might hate CARB more for hobbling the REX than for their hydrogen push. I can buy an i3 REX where I live right now, but because of CARB, it will be less of a car than if I was living Europe and bought it.

Storing the other waste is an issue, but there actually isn't a lot of it, and it isn't simply getting dumped in the environment. Even with nuclear power, we would need to address the waste disposal of radioactive waste from medical treatments and research.

 

Hmm, kind of off topic, but I wonder if a nuclear plant from design to end of life actually emits a lot of CO2. They use a lot of concrete, and making that generates a ton of CO2. Ditto for the steel. I insist we add the CO2 generated by the manufacture of the materials used in each type of plant.

Here in Alberta, most of our power comes from coal. There is little CO2 capture. The current NDP govt. (think socialist) has set a date to either shut them all down or convert them to natural gas, by 2022, as I recall. I'm not sure how much that will drop the CO2 generation. Then of course, we have the -oil sands- (it's actually not "tar sands"). If you mess with it you will see. I have soaked sandy gravel in used oil (for a "paving project" on my driveway - filling undulations and steps in the grade of the gravel driveway). After a few years that stuff looks identical to the oil sands I've messed with from the Ft. McKay area. There is no "tar" in there. Not trying to "clean up" the image, just ensure "truth".

 

nature can handle CO2. it's just that people are claiming we human are producing way more than nature can handle

on the other hand, nuclear waste and batteries aren't. their disposal cycle are completely different from CO2. are these really cleaner than things generating CO2? ex. natural gas burning power plant or regular cars?

 

i do not know, but what are we gonna do when we run out of natural gas?

 

Yeah you're right. I read a report from Battery Council International (a lead acid battery consortium) that 96% of lead acid batteries are recycled. Walmart alone sells 9,000,000 every year. I'll let you do the math and you can tell me how many lead acid batteries hit the landfill from Walmart alone. But don't worry about it, we won't have to pay to clean it up, our grandchildren will. Just like we are paying to clean up after our parents and grandparents because they thought it was a great idea to put mercury, PCBs, used oil, arsenic, chromium into the ground, lakes and rivers. We gave them a pass because they had to fight wars and live during a depression and so we created the EPA Superfund. They were also ignorant - we aren't. How do you think a natural gas plant makes electricity? I think there are bigger things to worry about than the 15000 or so electric cars that are sold and the batteries in them getting repurposed as backup batteries.

 

Nature can handle the extra CO2. Humans just may not be happy we nature's solution.

We can clean up or handle nuclear waste. We just don't have the drive to do so.

Make more. Just need excess renewable electric, CO2, and water. Or beans.

 

my wife says i'm contaminating the environment...

 

What??? You mean after the beans?

 

exactly.

 

The answer is yes, but because those processes need yesterday's energy. The issue comes down to the energy source for making all the raw materials into finished products....for all products from cars to power plants to concrete. If the energy used comes from fossil fuel, then CO2 is generated, or vice versa. It becomes a circular tail chase if not thought through.

The actual source of nearly all CO2 pollution is from burning fossil fuels. So the key for making any power plant (or any finished product) of any technology with minimum CO2 pollution is to use power from plants not burning fossil fuels.

 

...long term, nature can probably handle all of the CO2 but perhaps not without some negative impacts. But I agree the cure could be worse than the disease. Bottom line is multiple alternative pathways to the future, with differing opinions on which pathways to take and why.

 

Do note that -modern- electric cars use lithium batteries, not lead-acid ones. It is my understanding that lithium batteries are much easier to recycle and if disposed of in a landfill, they are not very toxic. At least nowhere near as bad as lead-acid ones.

 

Yep this I know. Just trying to point out there is more to ICE cars than burning of fossil fuels and that those if us who drive hybrids and EVs are trying to make a difference. Even if it is a small one like advancing knowledge.

Back to the topic. I'm almost positive the Prime will actually cannibalize sales of typical Prius. Especially if the consumer takes both for a test drive. The one-way clutch gives the Prime more HP in EV mode than the combined HP of the Gen 4 Prius. Particularly at the low end where it will be noticed more.


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