Any one else NOT sold on a plug - in?

Regarding fillup costs of EV vs Prius, the comparison could be something like this (assuming 50 mpg for the Prius and $3 per gallon and 5 miles per kWh for the EV/PHEV):

Gasoline cost 50 mpg - 6 cents per mile
Electricity 20c / kWh - 4 cents per mile
Electricity 15c / kWh - 3 cents per mile
Electricity 10c / kWh - 2 cents per mile
Electricity 5c / kWh - 1 cent per mile

The above shows that if you can get onto a cheap night-time electricity tarif you could do your entire year's motoring for just $10 per month.

 

As for going over the spillway, The water level behind most dams is extremely low. I have been to a few on the Garrison Diversion (Missouri river - down 40' in some places) and what doesn't get used for electric gets dumped for down stream barge use.

And I'll bet efficiency use is quite low. We should be holding a lot more back for drinking purposes. It's a catch 22, then farmers and ranchers want the water. But in times of need that wouldn't be so bad either.

 

Dams are a huge environmental issue and should not be considered Clean Power in my opinion and in the opinion of MANY state, federal, and non-governmental agencies. One must regulate flow to simulate natural conditions or risk losing the riparian habitat and the associated species that rely on natural flow levels (that wax and wane).

 

My opinion only and as usual not worth much. But I believe that while the emmissions issues encouraged the laws and regulations that lead to a plug-in Prius in Europe and Japan, and not North America, the greater average commuting differences here in the U.S. where more of a factor. I understand that every little bit helps, but I'd be more enthused if I could actually run my errands and make it back to the garage without needing the ICE to kick in on small trips, especially if A/C is needed. I think Toyota is being smart and waiting until they have a plug-in that can handle the greater average daily driving mileage in the U.S. The EV Mod is neat but I believe the most buyers, hear in the states, would be disappointed with it's small capacity. I think you have to be an enthusist to find it a positive, easy to use, feature. Just an opinion, of one possiblity, of why Europe & Japan and not NA. Not that anyone asked.

 

I agree 100% with this. Though some people may not see it this way, I give you lots of credit for realizing this. As I see it, dams are a huge environmental problem.

One thing that I have not seen addressed by the responses in this thread is this:

It is a known fact that you cannot just shut down a power plant. Put another way, they are always burning fuel all the time whether anyone uses the electricity they generate or not. So, what happens to the electricity that no-one uses? The answer is that power plants must find a way to dump it. Yes, you read that right, they dump it. In other words, the fuel that was burnt to generate the dumped electricity was completely wasted. Essentially, it went directly into pollution.

In another thread, I posted this reply. I attached a report to the reply that was published by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The report states that there is enough excess electrical generation capacity in the current US power grid to power 86% of all vehicles on the US roads today. I hope I emphasized excess enough, because the grid has the capacity to power everything it currently powers and 86% of all vehicles on the road today. Looking at this another way, 86% of all vehicles on the road today burn fuel they do not have to burn.

I will put that more bluntly and simply say that those vehicles, the 86% that could be powered with the current grid capacity, are, essentially, wasting all the fuel they burn. The power plants are already burning enough fuel to power those vehicles. So, the question becomes why waste the fuel for those vehicles?

Imagine the reduction in pollution that would result from having 86% of all vehicles on the road today burning either none of the fuel they currently burn, or significantly less fuel than what they burn today. Hopefully, this is enough of a stimulus for most people to demand a switch to PHEVs, or EVs.

 

Wel we both agree on the subject as a whole.

As for my dam response. If anyone disagrees and wants to know the scientific reasons for my opinion I'd be happy to field questions in another thread. There are many reasons and all of them are documented. Here is a sample of a great document (large book) detailing California's environmental (this effects humans) problems and an action plan to correct them. You can download the 623page California Wildlife Action Plan Report HERE. They are also of limited lifespan (100-200yrs) and difficult to recover once they have lived out that lifespan.

 

Most of these points have already been mentioned, but I might as well chime in since I like a good discussion as well as the next person

As far as immediate pollution, it's already shown that power plants pollute way less than cars for the energy that's made by each. Impact on batteries might be an issue to think about however. However I imagine, not any more dirty then all the smelting required to get metal to make large engines.

You transfer your money from the gas pump credit card bill to the electrical bill is all, hardly a "skyrocket". However I do have to disagree with some of the cost analysis done by people here, they assume roughly 10c per kWh, but here the power works on a tiered system the higher the usage in any given month the higher it costs per kWh after a set percentage, for instance at 200% over "baseline" it costs about 3x as much per kWh. But that being said, switching to a time of use system might be a no brainer... I say might because it depends upon your usage during the day. Besides I don't think you can get a separate ToU meter just for your car and stick with regular rates for your house.

This is true, in which case I'd say don't take an electric car on a long trip. But I often hear the same argument as to why people drive SUVs, because there's no way you can tow a boat, trailer, haul cargo, move a bed/couch/whole life with a fuel efficient car. My only response is rent one for those few times of the year you will be doing that stuff, it'll probably end up costing way less for rental fees than the gas it'll take to fill that up all the time. Going on vacation, rent a car, borrow one, have a second.

Of course your last statement really shows me you're a bit confused

You don't need to plug in in a plug-in hybrid if you're far from home, it still runs on gasoline just like a regular hybrid, you'll use more gas than electricity when away from home. But it's a trade off.

Ok now for the bad news, current systems for plug-ins IMO are WAY too expensive for what they give. I'm not going to fork over an additional $10k on a battery system just so I don't have to use gas for work.

 

Thanks guys. The number missing for me was miles per kWh and now the calculations make sense. I think this low a number should put the original poster well at ease in his concerns about a skyrocketing electric bill - that's not even a single tank of gas for my Prius at today's rates, or even yesterday's rates.

Chris, maybe I'll see your car on one of my frequent trips up to visit relatives in NH. I'll try to introduce myself first after flagging you down at a shop or along the road before launching into lots of questions.

The problem here is that your math is incorrect. if we use the .02/mile on electricity, we have to know how many of those 1,000 miles driven in a month are on the electric taken from the grid. I could take my PHEV on a trip from here to Florida and rack up those sorts of numbers but I'd be burning a lot more gas than electricity in that scenario. Similarly, on my daily commute, a lot of it would be on all electric but some of those 1,000 miles a month would still be on gasoline like any other car and that costs more than .02/mile. Thus the question in the first place. The posters above answered the question by completing the equation for me (and the OP) with the information on number of miles per kWh.

 

Further to hydro and other non-carbon power generation:

Many dams do vary production by demand without any water over the spillway, and there are "pumped storage" facilities where a reservoir is used with pump/generators for peak shaving.

Solar, wind, and tidal all have "troughs" in production, while electricity demands have daily and seasonal cycles, so means of smoothing supply and demand are needed. Flywheels, batteries, pumped storage and rewards (lower prices / tax credits) for modifying demand all have their places.

"Only two kinds of trees cause no problems: hat and shoe."

 

Catsbox, I'm curious where you got the erroneous info regarding increased electricity consumption. When the premise is wrong, you're bound to head for left field with the resulting assumptions. Your 1st question ought to have been, "won't plug ins increase electricity consumption?"

then you could be gently lead to the following:

http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-h...es-say-grid-can-handle-rechargeable-cars.html

Further, you'd find the cost of electricity is less than gas, if you do a little research. That's why EV drivers love their EV's.

 

Just FYI, the EV mode button has nothing to do with what we are talking about. EV mode uses battery, that later still has to be replaced by the ICE. Else where it is referred to as the ICE-start delay mode, or ICE warm-up delay. It was never intended to let you randomly drive around pretending you're in an EV, or try to improve gas mileage (which it generally won't). It was designed to let you move the car into the garage, or from one parking space to another without having to start the ICE. I think the most likely reason it was left off the NA cars is they knew people would misuse it That and I think the emissions guys had issues with it.

Rob

 

Using the $0.09/KWh is bogus. My residential rate is tiered in my utility district, $0.09 for tier 1 up to 500KWh/month, $0.15 from 500-1200KWh/month for tier 2, $0.18 for tier 3.

My average monthly usage is about 1100KWh, so adding the PHEV will bump me up to tier 3 at $0.18/KWh. The calculation should be using this rate rather than the low $0.09/KWh. Our utility company is averaging 5% rate increase per year.

 

I appologize for my ignorance. I assumed that the plug-in would recharge all of the batteries, including the one you used for that last mile or two to get home or to move the car into the garage, so that the ICE did not have to replace that energy. I did not realize that the plug-in did not recharge the battery pack. That's the only reason I mentioned the EV Mod. I thought you where talking about the Prius plug-in version in Europe and Japan, which includes an EV button. My mistake. Sorry!

 

I would like to point out one thing, as there seems to be some confusion. Even a current Prius converted to PHEV with its 34mph EV mode restriction intact will see a tremendous benefit at highway speeds. Most kits out there right now don't even use EV mode. They rely on the fact that when the HV controller thinks that the battery is at about 74% SOC, it will use a lot more electric drive under all conditions. This means it will spontaneously drop into stealth and warp stealth mode much more frequently, and on the highway instead of arrows flowing into the battery at 50-55mpg, you'll see arrows flowing out of the battery and 80-100mpg. Using the energy available from the PHEV battery, the phev controller can keep the perceived SOC in the magic range for an extended period of time, until the phev battery is depleted.

Traditionally when people talk about the range of a PHEV, they talk about its "EV mode" range. This is just a convenient way to compare the effective size of the battery, as the Prius draws a relatively predictable amount of Wh/mile in EV mode. All of these kits have a presumed "mixed mode" or high speed range of ~2X the EV mode range, during which you will average 80-100+ mpg. Hymotion decided to forgo the EV mode range convention and just define their range of 30-40 miles in terms of the expected mixed mode range. In many ways this makes sense, as most kits are not designed to spend a significant amount of time in true EV mode, and most of us don't drive around under 34mph that much.

As an example, here is a DOE test sheet of a Hymotion vehicle. Not sure if this is the final version of their L5 product or not. Its spec'd at 4.7kW total, ~3kW usable. The two test shown both include a warmup cycle. The UDDS is a city driving cycle, the HWFET is a highway cycle. This particular vehicle gets ~160mpg for the first 20 miles in the city, or ~95mpg for the first 30 miles on the highway. Again, both include that initial hit we all take for having to warm up the ICE.
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/pdfs/phev/2007_hymotionprius_phevamerica.pdf

Eventually this will be a non-issue, as purpose built PHEVs like the Volt and Prius PHEV will be designed to stay in EV mode over a much wider variety of speeds and circumstances.

Rob

 

Here in AZ we are 9c/kwh peak, 2c off peak for time of use. I believe in CA they will actually install a separate meter for you to charge an EV at a reduced rate. At least that was the case when they were pushing for EVs in the late 90s.

I also think you are over estimating the usage impact. Lets say you get a PHEV with a 30 mile EV range. If you completely drain it 30 days a month, you will use 225kWh charging it. That would be ~17% of your monthly usage. Even if it did bump you, your bill would go from $165/mnth for 1100kWh@15c, to $238.5/mnth for [email protected]. Thats an increase of $73.50 per month, or about 8c per mile. At the current California average of $4.55 per gallon, a 46mpg Prius costs about 9.9c/mile to operate. You could still buy wind power for the PHEV for an additional 1c/kwh, bringing your electric operating costs to 8.4c. Now while in electric mode your PHEV is carbon neutral, zero emissions, entirely domestically powered, and it still costs less than buying gasoline. Not sure what more you want.

If thats not compelling enough, you should look at solar. It looks like in CA you can get incentives of ~$2.20 per watt, plus the $2k federal tax credit. Since I'm not sure where you are, using numbers for Sacramento, you would need about 1.93kW array to drive 30 miles a day, 30 days a month, for an annual total of 10800 miles on electric. That system would cost ~$7300 upfront after incentives, but would generate the equivalent of $21,100 (20 years, gas flat at $4.50) to $51,900 (25 years, gas increases at 5% per year) worth of gas. That works out to an annualized ROI of 4.5% to 20.6% vs. buying gasoline, and an operating cost of 2.7c-3.4c per mile. Even if you financed the purchase and doubled the cost it would be cheaper than your current electric or gas costs, and it would be locked in for 20-25 years at a fixed cost. Plus carbon and emissions free, and on your roof is about as domestic as you can get. No fuel taxes either

Rob

 

I think we are still confused

The EV mode button offered in Europe and Japan has nothing to do with plug-ins. There is no plug-in Prius currently offered by Totoya anywhere in the world. The EV mode button lets you run on battery only, but the only way to charge the battery back up is by running the ICE. This makes the EV mode no more, and usually less efficient than normal operation.

The plug-in option we are discussing is one such as the conversion offered by hymotion, or the Toyota version expected out in a few years. This adds a much bigger battery, and the ability to charge that battery from a wall socket. This allows you to reduce the amount of gasoline required overall by offsetting it with electricity from the grid.

Rob

 

Thank you for setting me straight. Somewhere I had, in error, gotten the impression that the European and Japanese models not only had the EV button, but that they had a plug-in feature that would allow you to recharge the battery pack. I understood that the PHEV was different but thought there was a Prius version to recharge the Battery pack overnight. I didn't think that it sounded all that practical. That's why when I saw the title of the thread I thought I would express my option which I now understand was based of a misconception. Thank you for your patients.

 

Just FYI, those are the old rates. For SRP, it's 17.51c/5.77c for Summer (May, June, Sept., Oct.), 19.54c/5.81 Summer peak (July, Aug.). Winter rates are substantially less, and there's less of a peak advantage.

For APS, it's 15.81c/5.11c for their best peak rates.

 

I was going to say 9 cents peak rate for a place that NEEDS to hammer AC throughout the day!? That's just wrong. Here in San Francisco on normal tiered rates (not ToU rates) it starts at about $0.12 kWh up to 8.5-9kWh per day (depending upon time of year, so roughly 250-300 kWh per month) because we're not expected to use electricity for things like cooling, so we get screwed if we have other electrical needs.

So after about 500kWh per month every additional kWh would cost me I think it's on the order of 33 cents!

 

I think it's fair to say that once you've experienced a plug you never want to be without one

Seriously though, I'm sold on the plug in hybrid partly because I used to own a pure electric car and I like the idea of cheap transport using a low carbon footprint. But even if you charge from coal generated electricity the efficiency is much better than the most efficient of engines.

On a more personal note a plug in only really makes sense if your driving style and daily mileage are compatible with how a plug in prius works. If you're driving round town at limited speed and only do 30 miles a day it makes a lot of sense. Long distance trips across the country... not so much.