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2016 Toyota Prius unveil expected soon - Lentz Speaks

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by ggood, Jun 17, 2015.

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  1. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    I've been meaning to read more about that. I've only heard it from them which makes me suspicious that it is marketing hokum. I'm not sure how energy efficient it is or what the practical cost of the resulting fuel would be.
     
  2. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Considering new diesels are better at quick starts than the much older ones, they should be fine. There are a couple diesel hybrids out there.
    The plan is that it runs while there is excess wind power on the grid.
    There is a thread here, somewhere on it, but lunch calls.:)
     
  3. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    I hear H2 renewable generation has similar plans.... It's not clear to me that there will be enough such excess wind power to scale up a significant amount of H2 or Audi Blue Crude. I'm interested in reading any reports that show how this will scale up to meaningful levels in future grids that will have load balancing stationary batteries for a variety of other reasons.
     
  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Its not marketing hokum, but its not as cheap as oil based fuels today. Audi is part of VW group, based in Germany which has strong incentives to produce "green" fuels. WTI oil is back up to $46 which is still way to low to go this route without subsidies. Sansol was going to make diesel from natural gas, which is cheaper than biomas or electricity water and CO2, and thought its diesel would wholesale for about $4/gallon or 40% more than diesel costs now from oil.

    The good news is this green fuel and methane to diesel means there is a cap to how high diesel and gasoline prices can go even if opec does blackmail again.

    That means buying a gen IV prius is not risky at all to oil price spikes. Even with $150 oil I don't expect gasoline to cost more than $6/gallon unless taxes go up.
     
  5. mikefocke

    mikefocke Prius v Three 2012, Avalon 2011

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    Yesterday the TV news was showing a shot of the $1.999 gas pump with diesel at $2.699. That is 35% more. At that premium, diesel cars won't sell in volume in the US.
     
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  6. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    The price difference is regional. Here it's 40 cents more than regular, but lower than premium. In California, it's around the same as regular.
     
  7. telmo744

    telmo744 HSD fanatic

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    Yes and no. Peak BSFC for their new engine is really low, meaning a more efficient engine at a certain point (rpm, bmep), called sweet spot. The engines are not in the same power band, nor the cylinder displacement. Nevertheless, and regarding scaling, it is possible that the operating area with a step transmission can't always follow a efficient path like the Prius has done in the 3 generations so far. In fact i believe most of the time Prius operates more efficiently than the Hilux will.
     
    #47 telmo744, Sep 2, 2015
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2015
  8. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Gonna close this thread since we have other 2016 Prius threads :)
     
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