New Super-Efficient Plug-in Hybrid Unveiled

WARNING, GM-bashing coming:

So, again, GM is dropping the ball here and letting yet another company/group leap-frog their yet unveiled 'hybrids'. Wth?

C'mon, if it can be done by these types of groups/companies, why, oh why, is GM just dragging it's yesteryear-tech heels?

 

I thought the UCD crew was a little more clueful than that??
.
_H*

 

I'm puzzled at the negativity here. This is the first U.S.-sponsored R&D that built on Prius technology and now may actually enable GM to produce a worthy hybrid. If so, it would enable GM to overcome its previous hybrid inertia much more quickly than anyone thought possible.

What's not to like?

 

My problem is when??? GM talks and talks and talks, has concept cars, prototypes...but when it come to the showroom and a real car to buy...nothing. Why? They seem so close, they seem to have the idea to do hybrids...but...nothing.

1997 is when the race began for Toyota. A 10 year head start for the competition is no way to run ANY business.

TEN YEARS?? Are u telling me GM couldn't see that coming? or wouldn't...

Let's get on with it GM, get me a hybrid that I can drive in the real-world. Now is as good a time as ever.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 19 2006, 08:30 AM) [snapback]257970[/snapback]</div>

Off hand, I'd say they are giving themselves 90% 'free' miles. Free of petrol, that is.

I wonder how much OEM GM remains under the hood, after Prof. Frank and his students are done

 

In 2002, according to Harbour Consulting, GM made $701 per vehicle in pretax profit in North America, worse than the Japanese importers but better than Ford and DaimlerChrysler. By the first half of this year that profit had become a $1,227 loss. Toyota, by contrast, has been earning about $1,488 per vehicle, a 23 percent improvement from 2002.

Don't look to GM for innovations.

 

GM is coming out with it's Saturn Vue "Green Line" quite soon I believe. Here's what's going to happen:
It will be plagued with problems and recalls that they won't be able to fix. This will have a negative impact on the entire hybrid image effectively hurting sales for Toyota and Honda.

Why this take? I bought a Saturn minivan in it's first year release. (2005). Edmunds rated it as the worst vehicle! It has continuously had problems that for one reason or another, the dealership has not taken care of. They do not take ownership of their problems and will do anything they can to save a buck instead of trying to please the customer and gain their trust. GM can go bankrupt for all I care. I'll be laughing on their grave!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 19 2006, 05:30 AM) [snapback]257970[/snapback]</div>

OK, I do understand and agree with that aspect of it. I tend to ignore the specifics of those claims, instead focusing on the drivetrain/battery combo, and how difficult it seems it would be to bring it to market.

The outcry leading to this rush to market a plug-in hybrid with a non-gas range of 40 or more miles fascinates me. Never before can I remember a concerted, international "demand" for a specific product to be produced. Some of us started musing about increased battery power soon after we bought '01s. Then in '02 a couple of electrical engineers who participated in the early Yahoo Prius group started speculating on ways to actually do it. By '03 experimentation was under way, and the much more powerful battery on the '04 made it more feasible. By '05 efforts such as those at UC-Davis, aided by the internet, had enabled an actual coalition to be formed to lobby both for R&D money and for (ahem) someone (like Toyota) to actually market a plug-in.

It wouldn't shock me to see it actually on the market next year. The question is who will have gotten the most efficient technology patented first, enabling them to sell it.

If I were GM, say, 2-3 years ago, and had ANY brains (yeah, big "if") I would have seen the plug-in hybrid as an unexpected opportunity to make up a lot of the ground lost to Toyota---even while publicly pooh-poohing hybrids. We'll soon find out, perhaps, whether that particular light went on soon enough at GM (we now know that, eventually, it did).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 19 2006, 05:30 AM) [snapback]257970[/snapback]</div>

Kiloran -

I admit to being a bit biased here in that I'm a mile away from these guys, and know Dr. Frank and their fantastic work. These guys fully know what they are doing, and what energy is needed. What gets reported is the big splashy headlines and sound-bites. If driven the way they say, it DOES get 200mpg, plus some electricity. People ask me how many mpg my EVs get all the time. I either tell them inifinite, or zero, depending on my desired reaction. And my answer is true both ways. The general public can only think in terms of MPG. They only care about how much gas they use, and the price of it, for better or worse.

I agree that "200mpg" doesn't tell the whole story, but it still is not lying in my book. Yes, it takes electricity to make up for the unused gasoline, but the good news is that it takes much LESS energy in the form of electricity to off-set the gasoline at least. The Prius tells the whole story with gasoline mileage, because there is no other option for energy input. These hybrids can operate *completely* without gasoline, and that should be celebrated. How to bring the public up to speed on 250Wh/mile being a GOOD thing is still up for grabs. Most folks I know worry that their electricity bill will go up WAY more than they're happy that their gas bill will go down. And that's one I'll never be able to figure out. I've told my mom that for $10 of electricity, I can save $30 of gasoline. She still thinks I'm nuts to spend all that extra money on electricity. Huh?

The whole point of the plug-in hybrids is to lower our dependence on foreign oil. Substituting that gasoline with electricity does just that. Our electricity is 99.9% domestically powered these days. So the "gasoline" metric is a useful number, though again - it obviously does not tell the whole energy input story.

I don't mean to defend "partial fact" reporting, but I do wish to defend Dr. Frank's group that is doing exceptional work in this area. If asked the proper questions, they will imediately tell you the "whole picture" answers you seek. Don't blame the engineering group for how these things get reported.

I've been invited to go see this new car, and hope to do so early next week.

 

since over 98% of off peak electricity is hydro here, it would be "free" gas in my area

 

It's not dishonest at all. They're stating the gasoline comsumed in the transporation over x miles. The point is that this method uses far less gasoline (and ultimately energy given all of the ICE's inefficiencies as well as the energy used to produce and transport the gasoline). That's their point. They didn't state that the car makes energy, free energy, or that it pulls energy out of thin air. They just stated that you don't need as much gasoline to get from point A to point B.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ May 19 2006, 03:41 PM) [snapback]258264[/snapback]</div>

yup.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 19 2006, 04:04 PM) [snapback]258309[/snapback]</div>

We're in agreement here. dishonest claims never serve the cause well in the end.

If this upsets you, I'd imagine you also have a problem with the EPA numbers for all vehicles, and more to the topic of this forum - the "gas/electric" hybrid claim of the Prius? Are you OK with Toyota (and most drivers) claiming that the Prius uses gas and electricity for motive power?

It does use both gasoline and electricity for motive power, of course. But just like my EV getting infinite miles to the gallon of gasoline, that doesn't tell the whole story, does it? The electricity the Prius uses comes from the gasoline it burns (yes, even to provide kenitic energy for the regeneration during braking). The Prius is a gasoline car that benefits from a bit of electric boost when appropriate. IT is NOT half gas and half electric as so many claim. Dishonest? It seems that by your definition it may be. Is it time to rally against that disinformation?

The UCD group is making phenominal plug-in hybrids that require ZERO gasoline in real-world driving. I'm not too upset that it is being reported as, "if you drive it like this by using battery power for a big part of your trips, you could get 200mpg of gasoline." Because again... that is true. And again, I ask that you please consider that these engineers are not lying and that they CAN perform the required energy calculations... what is being reported in your linked article is not all they know to be true. It is what was reported. Simple as that. I'm just fine with blaming the media here!

For the record, what I get out of the article is: "By using batteries and electricity, I can substantially reduce my use of gasoline." And I'm pretty sure that is the message that Dr. Frank's group is trying to send.

 

250 kwh / mile? Wow, your aircraft carrier is getting such great
mileage! How do you do it?
.
... seriously ... I've been trying to educate where I can, and the
4-miles-per-kwh figure is very convenient ... also ties back to
explaining to people what the "50 Wh" indicated by the little green-
cars video game really means, which boils down to "sit someone else
in the car and have them steer, while you PUSH the thing in neutral
as fast as you can around the parking lot for 12 minutes". Four or
five of those 50 wh chunks of work gets you a free mile. That begins
to bring home to people just how much energy it takes to push 1.5
tons of scrap metal down the road.
.
_H*

 

i saw a seminar Dr. Frank gave and he mentioned a figure of $.70 per gallon when converting electricity used via fossil fuel generation verses a gallon of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon (ok this WAS a while ago) that is nearly a 4 to 1 ratio. so if getting 50 mpg on gasoline, you are still getting 200 mpg when you consider the much higher efficiency of fossil fuel power plants.

i have to side with some in that i really dont care who comes up with it, as long as someone does it. and lets be clear on the fact that gm ONLY provided a vehicle to use. nothing else. there is no doubt that UC - Davis provided most of the brain power, initiative and guts... all of which gm sorely lacks.

besides for all nay sayers, you will be happy to hear that the same group converted a Prius TWO YEARS AGO

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ May 19 2006, 06:17 PM) [snapback]258384[/snapback]</div>

Doh! Slipped a decima, didn't I? Edited above. So easy to get the units off, and it makes a pretty big difference, doesn't it?! Yikes.

I'll tell you what I hear along these lines somewhat regularly... "Sure you can go 100 miles in your little EV, but what happens when you have to turn on the headlights, the wipers, and you want to listen to music?" The current required for those peripherals is SO insignificant when compared to the traction power, that they can be dismissed in all but the most minute calculations. Folks really don't grasp how much energy it takes to shove a car down the road.

Certainly it takes a bunch of those little green cars to help significantly!

 

Calling this PHEV a GM innovation has a bit of amusing irony to it. The company is a hollow carcass, and that is what the UCD team wanted in a car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ May 19 2006, 11:17 PM) [snapback]258447[/snapback]</div>

That's nothing. My house does not move an *inch*, and it is an energy pig, compared to my car.