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Hybrids v. Electrics... am I the only one who sees a major drawback?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by Mr. Nelsby, Aug 11, 2009.

  1. Sneezy

    Sneezy Member

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    Considering I drive about 10 miles a day, and EV would fit my daily driving habits quite well.

    So it's safe to say I'm very interested in an EV.

    I would still keep my "toy" car(s) though.......
     
  2. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Hybrids have already had a long rollout, and EVs are very likely to have a similarly long rollout. With a grid already capable of handling 50-100 million EVs (a quarter to half the total auto market), and a total new car market of only 10 million vehicles per year, it will take a long time before there are enough EVs to overload the existing grid. Your claim that a smart grid must be implemented first, is unnecessary. They can grow in parallel.

    Like cellphones, EVs do not need to work over an entire state. There is still a huge market, several tens of millions, that will be satisfied with the short-range products that we expect in the very short term.
     
  3. TKY

    TKY Member

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    The news report I heard is you only get the 230 MPG if you use the Volt 20 miles a day, or less, and initial projected MSPR is over $60,000. Maybe, by the time the wheels are about to fall of my Prius, a hydrogen or useful EV will be on the market at a reasonable price. --TK
     
  4. darelldd

    darelldd Prius is our Gas Guzzler

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    To find this, you'll want to use the EV rates, not your current E1 rates (as others have pointed out). When I was actually paying for and using grid electricity, it cost me about 2c per mile vs the 6c per mile that my Prius was costing me. But really, is this only about the cost of fuel? Do we not account for pollution? Or sending money completely out of our economy to buy oil?


    New technology? EVery production EV from the 90's had built in charge timers. Most of the cars even have pre-AC as well, so you can step into a pre-cooled or heated car to head off to work, or to come home. VERY slick, and we use ours all the time.

    There were no gas stations when gasoline cars were introduced. We figured it out.

    Except that every serious study that has been done on this proves otherwise.

    Why would we even talk about the switch happening "right now?" It can't and it won't. Just like we haven't all switched to hybrids "right now." It'll take an ungodly number of years for market penetration. I think all the charging infrastructure and grid issues will have plenty of time to keep up.

    For your statement to stand, you've got to actually state it first. You said nothing about the economics, of course. And it DOES make economic(al) sense to mass produce EVs... once we account for the pollution and destruction of our economy to buy our energy from beyond our borders. If we ignore what's good for us, then EVs are just fun, torquey, convenient, zero-maintenance curiousities.
     
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  5. cpatch

    cpatch New Member

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    That's only one way to do it...the light at the end of the tunnel in this article is the energy infrastructure behind the cars and in particular the capability to swap out a discharged battery for a fully charged one. The batteries could just as easily be standardized across auto manufacturers and become the energy infrastructure become the equivalent of today's gasoline distribution system.
     
  6. JamesBurke

    JamesBurke Senior Member

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    Posted on another site last week. In responce to a GM interview.

    "adding the best in class Volt drivetrain would make the statement that GM is back"
    Best in class? It doesn't even exist yet. How can it be "Best" in any class?
    And what drivetrain? It's just an oversized cordless drill connected to a genset.

    Anybody else looked at their statements about the "charge sustaining mode" and seen a power to weight similar to a 69 VW Bug? They say 40 mile range but that's Max in flat terrain. I'll bet it's closer to 20 in the hills where I live. After that? The Bug got good MPG if you didn't mind the 25mph uphills. You going to pay $40,000 for this? The Bug, $2,000 new. Like the Bug I think the Volt will barley make the grade.

    Add: Point of no return? Do you have enough battery to get your EV home? If not then what?
     
  7. darelldd

    darelldd Prius is our Gas Guzzler

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    I'm not sure I understand the question. When the battery is depleted, the gas engine provides the electricity to the e-motor. You can drive as long as you can find gas stations.
     
  8. JamesBurke

    JamesBurke Senior Member

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    For an EV only like the Nissan Leaf and other Plug ins.

    As for the Volt, 40 miles(not) with a dead weight ICE then you drive with a dead weight Battery. No recharge? Are you kidding me? I just can't take this design seriously. It's not an improvement on the TSD, it's what TSD improved upon starting back in 95-96.
    Honda and GM need to get off their ego trip and do what Ford has done. Scarp their failing designs and adopt one that works. Toyota didn't invent this stuff and their patent troubles prove it. They just made it work.
     
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  9. Airbalancer

    Airbalancer Active Member

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    Stop on a trip to re charge a car MMM
    We just finished a trip to the East coast to Halifax in our BMW ragtop
    1667 km(about 1000 miles), traveling time 15.5 hours, total stopping time 27 mins, ( and I had to take more pee then the wife :D)

    How more hours would the trip taken if you had to wait to charge batteries?
    On weekends we all have seen the the long line ups at gas station on the hiways of people waiting to get gas,
    Could the battery changing stations carry enough batteries for a weekend? WOuld you trust the guy on the hiway to change a battery?

    How car will be driving with cords hanging out as people forget to unplug the car :D
     
  10. rpatterman

    rpatterman Thinking Progressive

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    Airbalancer,

    Is the BMW ragtop the only vehicle that your family owns?
    A oil burning convertable sounds like the perfect vehicle for a 1,000 mile road trip to the coast on a warm summer day! But is it the perfect vehicle for your daily commute?

    No one is claiming that an EV is a perfect car for 100% of everyones driving needs, but for those of us who own more than one vehicle and know in advance the length of our daily commute, it can work VERY well as a second car.
     
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  11. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    This is exactly right. And what's really needed is a change in our view of things.
    90%+ of most people's driving is done WELL within the 30-40 miles of our homes. When does the thinking start moving in the direction of "Why am I burning gas just to drive a few miles to work every day? Why don't we have a car that doesn't pollute and burn gas and support middle eastern nations and huge oil conglomerates?"

    We can no more make a 100% switch to EVs today than we could make a 100% switch to hybrids in 1997. Even today Hybrids account for what...3% of all cars after 12 years on the market?

    There is electricity almost everywhere. The smart grid, charging infrastructure (and the commerce and potential for profiting from pay charging stations), battery technology, and expanded car designs will all evolve with time. EVs are, again, in their infancy and no EV supporter will claim that EVs are perfect for everyone and every need right now. But the fact of the matter is that the technology is so flexible, has such a huge upside potential and is so ideal for a large number of people today that it deserves support so that the necessary growth can occur.

    It's the same thought process I had when I bought a Prius 6 years ago, and look where hybrids are today. Those of us willing and able to do so should spend the money to support, encourage and fund the growth.

    Now, where the heck is my Model S???
    [​IMG]
     
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  12. DanCar

    DanCar New Member

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    delete me
     
  13. spiderman

    spiderman wretched

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    You are talking to the hand Pal.

    With that said there is not much more that would make me happier then to see EVs used where ever they made “sense†as well as hybrids where they made “senseâ€. I believe this world would be a better place and I am doing my part. Over and out.
     
  14. HolyPotato

    HolyPotato Junior Member

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    A quick comment on the issue of the grid:

    EVs would actually help the grid. Right now Ontario is looking to shelve plans to build new nuclear reactors in part because the combination of the cool summer and recession have put the off-peak electrical demand so low that we've had to pay businesses and neighbouring states to use our off-peak power, otherwise we'd have to shutdown a reactor. A more stable baseline power usage (with EVs charging overnight) would benefit the grid and the planning of future powerplants.
     
  15. Texas911

    Texas911 Member

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    Some of you EV detractors sound exactly like Prius detractors, with lots of misinformation and misconceptions being bandied about like facts.
     
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  16. darelldd

    darelldd Prius is our Gas Guzzler

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    Ah. I was confused since the rest of your post was about the Volt, then you asked about battery depletion at the end.

    I'm not sure why you would want to use the gas engine to recharge the batteries. What benefit is that above using the gas engine just to propel the car until you can again plug it in? I'm not the biggest Volt supporter - preferring instead to use an all-electric with real range. Though what you describe in your fear of getting home is "range anxiety" and this is specifically why GM thinks people will like the Volt. As long as you have gas, you know you can make it home. Those of us who've been driving EVs for 100's of 1000's of miles have managed to get over this anxiety, and then don't have to drag around the gas engine for the VERY few times it would come in handy.
     
  17. Texas911

    Texas911 Member

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    Locomotives work the same way, it uses diesel to power a generator which powers electric motors. Maybe its more efficient that way?
     
  18. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    It is. The Prius does it in a more flexible and, IMO, elegant way by utilizing the battery as an energy buffer while allowing the ICE to run within a generally efficient RPM range while creating lower emissions b/c of the Atkinson cycle.

    The Volt chooses a series hybrid setup where the ICE will run within an even more tightly controlled RPM range aiming for peak efficiency. This is close to what locomotives do I believe.
     
  19. justlurkin

    justlurkin Señor Member

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    The series hybrid arrangement is exactly what was used in diesel-electric locomotives, yep..

    The irony? It was GM that started it all! Back in the 1930s, GM came out with the first practical and widely-adopted diesel-electric road locomotive, the FT. [​IMG]

    The FT was the diesel-electric locomotive that killed the steam engine.

    Pity it took GM almost 80 years to put that technology into an automobile. :p
     
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  20. tzor

    tzor Junior Member

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    The type of car you need depends a lot on the way you drive. This is institutively obvious to even a casual observer but the implications of this are not so obvious. Many of the problems of regular and hybrid cars, especially the problem of many short trips are solved with pure electric cars because there is no initial warm-up of the ICE.

    If I lived, for example, in Key West Florida (as I did in the 1990’s) where by biggest trip was abut 10 miles one way to my Barbershop Chorus rehearsal, most electric cars built today would be perfect. But currently my one way commute is 35 miles and I ride to other places in the course of my day, so the pure electric cars are not yet for an average Long Islander. So I have and love my Prius.

    There is no perfect solution, but several solutions depending on your driving needs. In some retirement communities in Florida they have been using electric cars for decades; they are called “golf carts.â€