Wired Magazine - Rise of the Green Machine 

good post. It's nice to see Priuschat mentioned

But.. a few things:

One:... The tiny two-seat Insight is even more fuel efficient than the Prius, averaging 66 miles per gallon on the highway, thanks to the car's aluminum chassis and funkier, more aerodynamic teardrop shape. But Honda sold only 583 Insights in the US last year; Toyota sold 55,390 Priuses.

... isn't the prius more aerodynamic than the insight? i thought the prius was 1 point more arrow dynamic... *shrug* i need to look this info up again.. i'm getting old. lol


LOL.. this article is funny:

GM seems enthusiastic about hybrids, trumpeting a system it's developing with DaimlerChrysler that can beat Toyota on highway mileage. But GM doesn't exactly have a stellar track record in this arena. The company convinced King County, Washington, that its GM Allison New Flyer buses could increase fuel efficiency up to 40 percent over conventional diesels. The county purchased 235 buses at $645,000 each, a $200,000 premium per vehicle over their existing fleet, only to realize that the New Flyers don't get better mileage.

lol. very brutal. i like it.

 

I am sure it's common knowledge about shutting off the air conditioning and heating. I gain a good 3 to 5 miles a gallon with my heavy foot!

 

Not a bad article; I'd refer new Prius enthusiasts to it, as it combines a lot of information I've seen scattered amongst numerous other Prius articles.

The interesting news to me was the steep rise in difficulty for Toyota (or anyone else) to improve hybrid MPG performance for future models. No easy roads to getting major improvements in fuel efficiency in a hybrid package. (Diesel hybrids?)

Also facinating to read about how one of the toughest challenges -- and Toyota's crown jewels of hybrid technology -- is the algorithm for determining when/how much mix between the ICE and the electric motor, under various conditions.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"74815)</div>

Far be it from me to defend GM, but there were some significant mitigating circumstances re: the Seattle Hybrid bus situation. A lot of it came down to how the busses were used, and what Metro's goals for the busses were in the first place.

It's described pretty well in this PriusChat thread. If anyone's interested, I'll see if I can track down the Seattle Post-Intelligence article it was based on.

 

once again thanks Jeff for posting that.

 

Question:
I think the author, and a lot of others believe that if they could drive exclusively under battery power, that they would be maximizing the mpg. But it's more complex than that, isn't it? Or am I the one with the misconception?

After all, all the energy the Prius uses comes from the ICE. Maximum mpg comes from minimum energy usage, within the parameters of safe driving and getting somewhere within a reasonable time. Does this happen to coincide with minimizing ICE usage?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(V8Cobrakid\";p=\"74815)</div>

Nope, the Insight has a better Cd - 0.25, compared to the Prius's 0.26. And of course the Prius is a real lard-butt compared to the Insight, so drag is going to be significantly higher because of the increased frontal area. (Total drag is proportional to frontal area × Cd).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(K6YXH\";p=\"75034)</div>

You're right. All energy ultimately comes from the ICE (even that you get when regenerating), so maximum efficiency comes from running the ICE in the most efficient fashion, not accelerating or going faster than necessary, and braking as smoothly as possible to maximise regeneration. Trying to maximise battery usage doesn't necessarily increase efficiency (although it can be part of it).

In particular, trying to pull away from stops slowly to avoid the ICE kicking in is probably a bad idea in general. The battery is going to need recharging at some point, so that acceleration from a stop is a good time for it to get some charge in, while balancing the load to keep the ICE in the optimal rev range.

 

i thought it was an excellent article and by far the most positive i have seen about the Prius in a long long time.

also about the Seattle buses issue, i dont recall them being a failure on the scale that was mentioned. there was an issue when they first arrived that they were not properly tuned for the geography and environment in the Pac northwest and were upgraded at no cost to the city which was supposed to give the buses near to the performance promised.

the buses just by their nature will never get good mileage. seattle is a city of hills. Frisco maybe famous for them, but the terrains of both cities are very much the same. so you have to look at a projected 40% increase in mileage in normal circumstances is now a 15% increase and that is about what the buses got. the reduction in emmissions was not mentioned in the article, but that was also a big reason why seattle bought the buses.

 

This might be a surprise, but the New Flyer buses mentioned in that article are made right here in Winnipeg:

http://www.newflyer.com/index/facilities_winnipeg

http://www.newflyer.com/index/hybrid_de30_35_40_60

http://www.newflyer.com/index/news-app/story.19

 

Thanks for the correction KMO

Off the subject a little.. here are two parts o the text that make me want to kinda re state the point about the national prius meet. Off subject.. but this post did point fingers to major prius sales in the bay area. It mentions Palo Alto too... i'll have to find that national post again...


"So Toyota diverted a larger percentage of cars to the San Francisco Bay Area. "If we had used a conventional distribution system, we would have had consumers waiting in Northern California, and dealers with cars sitting on lots in Jacksonville," says Bastien. Bay Area early adopters were willing to sacrifice performance for psychological rewards."

"The long investment cycle makes some auto companies skittish about adopting new approaches. Selling 120,000 cars in Palo Alto and Hollywood is one thing - but what do middle-class families in Houston want?"

 

The writer said the gas engine idles at a stop llight. I'm a newbie, but doesn't it usually stop entirely, unless needed for charging the battery or for air conditioning?

 

the car can idle at a stop if cold, battery needs charging, that kind of stuff, but you will find that in most cases, if you have done any amount of coasting up to the stop light that the engine is already off.

 

Re: Wired Magazine - Rise of the Green Machine

I'm new to the forum and looking forward to learning more about my next car!

I liked this Wired article, but I was shocked at the companion piece comparing different brands. After several pages of talking about MPG, environment, etc. the Hed2hed article gives the highest marks to the cars with the worst mileage! :roll: Then I saw that the writer was from Detroit; they really just don't get it do they?

 

rafaelaustin: welcome to the forum, if you want to learn about the Prius, you have come to the right place.

as far as detroit writers go, you can only blame them a little. that is their hometown they are trying to protect, so ya, they will lean towards american no matter what.

i lived in mi, my dad was from there and for years i rooted for the detroit lions. why? because they were the local team. well i cant remember when they have really done well in more than a few games a season because they simply have never put together a decent season... not once... in my lifetime anyways. but i rooted for them anyway. that was because they were the local team and that is what people do.

that is what the writers are doing. they know the local team sucks, constantly trades away good draft picks and settles for the over-the-hill vet that simply cant do the trick anymore.

one can only hope that they will learn and change before its too late. because in the grand scheme of things, no one really wants to see them leave. even the biggest GM antagonists here really doesnt want to see GM go under and although we publicly dont admit it, we are subconsciously rooting for GM to pull out of it ala chrysler in the 80's.

chrysler did it mostly from a lot of trimming but also because they found a good product the mini-van and made it better and it was a product that people wanted. now we have the super economical hybrids that is emerging from the niche market into the mainstream.

change is always resisted, but its also necessary because large inefficient companies like GM hurt us in more ways than we can begin to understand. if they dont change they should be eliminated...

 

I think you're right. ALL of the power in the Prius comes from gasoline. Running the car more on electric power necessitates operating the gasoline engine more to charge up the battery. You may save some gas at one end of the "speed spectrum":, i.e. city driving, but the engine will run anyway to recharge the battery. There's no free lunch, as the saying goes.
The only solution is to have an optional plug so that the Prius could be charged overnight from the city power grid (when electrical demand is lower). Introducing a second source of power besides gasoline, will increase the mileage per gallon.
Even in areas where electricity is generated by fossil fuels, it is more efficient and less polluting to use a centralized source of power generation (the power plant) to charge cars than it is to have thousands of little fossil fuel burners running loose in the city.
Bob

 

Bob-
In reference to your statement about centralized power distribution efficiency; I'm not sure that is correct. The Well to wheel efficiency of the Toyota Prius is 32%.

Compare that to the average power plant with a thermal efficiency of 39%. The newest co-generation plants achieve around 50% and up to 55% at full capacity. Now figure in line losses in the neighborhood of 10%. That brings you to between 35% for the average and up to 50% for the best power plants. Next you must deduct 12% for charging losses. This leaves you with an average efficiency of 31.5% and a best case of 43%. Finally the Electric motor can be up to 90% efficient for a final result of 28.4% on average and a best case result of under 39%. Since we are on a national grid you will need to stick with the 28.4 % well to wheels efficiency of a current technology electric car.

The pollution issue also comes up short as the average power plant is much dirtier than the Toyota Prius due to old design and the high percentage of coal fired power plants.

All of these numbers are changing as new technologies come into play but this is my read for 2005. Since the Prius is already so efficient, the only reason I can see for grid charging one is to take advantage of cheap subsidized electricity. The Capex for this system is non-recoverable and the additional resources used are a net loss environmentally. There are also a dozen other arguments for using EVs such as off-peak charging and a few against but I'll leave it here for now.

I always enjoy reading your posts and hope you don't mind the counter-point.

 

Ray has the facts. Plug-recharge hybrids help reduce petroleum use (since most power plants don't burn oil), but they won't help reduce pollution generally and certainly not greenhouse gas emissions until we replace large numbers of coal-fired power plants with renewables and nuclear.

 

Re: Wired Magazine - China as new lab for alt fuel

Same issue of Wired: Great article about China trying to bypass the petro complex altogether. They are not burdened by the huge infrastructure investement that we have to work around, and some leaders in China think that might work to China's advantage in pushing for cleaner energy.
By 2010, 15% of China's GDP will be spent on dealing with pollution: illness, lost productivity and damaged eco resources.
China is working with General Motors to use Shanghai as a test bed for GM concept alternative fuel cars. This is a win win because it gives GM a way to develop and test practical efficient cars, not necessarily hydrogen fuel cell cars, and it helps China pick and choose from a number of potential technologies to find the right mix to enable China to deal with the huge growth in demand for vehicles.
Because China is a one party system, it would be easier for the government, were it so inclined, to turn green and support green technologies without fighting (and being stymied by) the vested interests of inefficent energy producers as happens so often here.
Bob

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ray Moore\";p=\"77516)</div>

Thanks, Ray. I certainly don't mind the counterpoint, and I think yours is well taken. I live in the Northwest where much of our energy is hydro generated and cleaner than east coast sources. Most of us tend to think only in terms of our local generating technology and forget that we are tied nationally to lots of more polluting energy producers.
That said, I still think the plug in hybrid is a good idea because, even though they pollute, electrical generating plants still have to run at night when the demand is way down, and can't be easily "throttled back". If there were a way to translate that idle, relatively unused power into something that would burn clean and pollution free during rush hour commute, i.e. by charging the batteries of plug in hybrids overnight, then I think it would be a good idea overall.

I think your numbers about energy loss are probably right; I'm not in a position to know. Also, it would be easier to clean up a single power plant and contain the emissions it produces, than to try and capture and contain emissions from thousands of spot sources running around town.

I see nighttime electrical capacity as untapped water running over a dam. If we can maximize the use of that capacity, while cleaning up the pollution it produces, we are ahead.