Toyota Unveils Plug-in Hybrid Prius

phlack writes "Toyota has announced a plug-in hybrid vehicle, based on their popular Prius. So far, it will only have a range of 8 miles on the battery (13km). They are going to test this vehicle on the public roads, apparently a first for the industry. From the article: 'Unlike earlier gasoline-electric hybrids, which run on a parallel system twinning battery power and a combustion engine, plug-in cars are designed to enable short trips powered entirely by the electric motor, using a battery that can be charged through an electric socket at home. Many environmental advocates see them as the best available technology to reduce gasoline consumption and global-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but engineers say battery technology is still insufficient to store enough energy for long-distance travel.'"

Sinclair C5 anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 [wikipedia.org]

The real question is...

How much electricity is needed to charge the sucker?

Re:The real question is...

Or how long does it take to charge?

Re:The real question is...

Any by extension, what is the cost/mile on electricity vs. the cost/mile on gasoline?

Re:The real question is...

And what is the environmental impact of generating the electricity? This matters unless we're proposing exclusively renewable sources of electricity generation. It's not only what you actually do yourself after all.

Here you go...

How Much CO2 Do Electric Cars Produce?
 
...Given the same assumptions about electric vehicles as in the American analysis above, electric cars in Canada could expect on average to cause CO2 emissions of 0.2*1.1*236 = 52 g/km to 0..3*1.1*236 = 78 g/km, compared to ICE emissions of 167 to 224 g/km.

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Electric%20Cars%20and%2 0CO2.html [paulchefurka.ca]

Re:The real question is...

Any by extension, what is the cost/mile on electricity vs. the cost/mile on gasoline?

That depends on the cost per foot of your extension cord.

8 miles?

8 miles? under ideal conditions, flat road, no a/c ... very disappointing. Toyota's engineering is very good. If this is all such great engineers can manage, it shows that batteries have a long way to go.

Re:8 miles?

"...engineers say battery technology is still insufficient to store enough energy for long-distance travel."

This is wrong. Sort of. Lithium-ion batteries can power a car for 200 to 250 miles, but they're expensive.

I think what they really meant is that "battery technology is still insufficiently cheap for long-distance travel."

The technology is insufficently advanced.

Any technology that is distinguisable from magic is insufficently advanced

Re:8 miles?

This is wrong. Sort of. Lithium-ion batteries can power a car for 200 to 250 miles, but they're expensive.

They do that by cheating. The Tesla, for example, carries half a tonne of batteries, and the car itself is built to be as light as possible (the batteries probably outweigh everything else put together, without passengers in it). Lithium batteries also tend to have lifetime issues; numbers I've heard quoted off-the-cuff for lithium batteries are losing 50% of their capacity within a year or two, and only being good for 100ish charge cycles, though this will vary with the specific battery model. This is tolerable for a cell phone or notebook, as you tend to upgrade these frequently and new batteries cost much less than a new unit, but a car will have serious problems under these conditions.

For a battery-powered car to be really competitive, we'd need a battery technology with at least 5 times the storage density per unit mass, that was good for a decade of daily use before needing replacement. This may or may not be possible; time will tell (unless the engineering difficulties with fuel cells are solved first). On one hand, we aren't anywhere near the theoretical limits to the energy density of batteries, but on the other hand, people have been working on the problem for centuries.

Re:Battery Life

There are two kinds of battery life that needs work. One is related to range.. The 8 mile or 250 mile debate. Often overlooked is the battery life in charge discharge cycles. The only reason the Prius doesn't have a dead battery every 1-2 years like a laptop battery or cell phone or business 2 way radio is because they don't deep cycle them in normal use. A Prius seldom has a battery under 50% or over 80% charged.

Heat, deep discharges, cell reversal, and overcharging is hard on batteries. The long range drivers do the worst.. Top the batteries off to get maximum range, run them till they go no more and repeat. Plan on buying new batteries every few years just like you do for your digital camera, MP3 player, cell phone, laptop, and other devices that get deep cycles often.

I think the Toyota 8 mile range is to extend the battery life to 10+ years. It is not for maximum driving range at a high cost.

Re:8 miles?

Yes, the Tesla is also 98k+. Toyota is not interested in making a car that only Jay Leno can afford.

So far Toyota has made the most marketable hybrids to date and is actively trying to reduce costs. I'd say their engineering is spot on, given their goals.

Re:8 miles?

No, I'm sorry, but an 8-mile range without AC on flat ground isn't "spot on" for any car.

You ARE aware that (1) the Prius has a gasoline motor, too, and (2) there are some people whose daily commute is less than 8 miles.

If I could wave a magic wand and have an 8-mile range electric-only option for MY car, I'd do it in a heart-beat. 3 miles to work, 3 miles back, and I can spend a month on a single tank of gas.

Common Sense plus shortsightedness = blindness.

You remind me of the people who said cars would never be practical, explaining that there were no gas stations, and that you didn't have to crank a horse to start it.

The Tesla is a carefully crafted, rare, high-tech, high performance ride, very early into the market, and it is priced accordingly. A corvette is an assembly line commodity produced in comparatively huge volume after literally decades of absorbing engineering costs and marketing costs. When the automakers get around to putting a comparable electric car into mass production, the niche the Tesla occupies will close (and the cachet of having a high performance, non-polluting car will go away because they will no longer be rare.) If you think the Tesla's price represents an accurate measure of the price in a competitive market, you're not paying enough attention to how industry works.

My point was that electric cars don't need to be either slow, or have an 8 mile range. The price is what, maybe 5x that of a Prius? That's not so far off, frankly. This is the beginning of the curve. Some of us see that clearly and are all about waiting a little; but others... are still looking at Corvettes.

Re:8 miles?

The Tesla Roadster also only has two seats, a trunk barely big enough for one set of golf clubs or a wheeled carry-on bag (check out the FAQS) [teslamotors.com] with the remainder of space holding the big battery pack.

The Prius has a full rear seat and cargo area, which limits the amount of space that can hold the battery pack. In addition, as has been pointed out, the Tesla also costs nearly 4x a Prius.

Now, you show me a Tesla four-door hatchback that can carry more that a set of golf clubs, and still match the performance specs of the Roadster, then you might be able to say that Toyota "needs a little schooling."

120 miles?

Toyota's engineering is very good. Meet the 78MPH-top-speed, 120-miles-per-charge 1997-2003 Toyota RAV4 EV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV [wikipedia.org]. I was passed by one this morning on the freeway, I felt so inferior in my comparatively gas guzzling Prius.

The batteries don't have a long way to go, they've just been forced out of the picture.

Before it is asked...

The current 07 Prius will go about 2.5 miles on a full charge with the air conditioner off and level land...

-SenatorPerry

Re:Hybrid is a misnomer

And where do the batteries get the electricity to go those 2.5 miles?

Oh yeah, you put gas in the tank, and the engine will charge the battery, or you could put gas in the tank and drive it up a hill and brake all the way down. Either way it is powered by gasoline.

That electricity may have come from regenerative braking or that just-completed long downhill run.

In the end, you are correct in that all the energy ultimately comes from burning gasoline, but it's more efficient in the use of that energy. Consider a straight gas-powered car. It burns fuel to go up the hill, and you burn fuel coming down. You dissipate energy coming to a stop by turning motion into heat by the brakes. You burn fuel accelerating, cruising, stopping, or sitting idle. None of that energy is recovered

A hybrid will burn fuel going up hill, but then can recover some of that energy going back downhill for later use. The battery helps get the car up to speed when accelerating, periodically when cruising (sometimes taking over completely and allowing the engine to completely stop turning) and stores some of the recovered energy when stopping. Sitting idle at a stoplight or in traffic, and the engine shuts doen entirely.

Works for me

My round trip to work is 7.5 KM. A little too far to walk or bike (and not be too fragrant for my cow-irkers), but perfect for this little beastie. In fact, even though I live in one of the worlds sprawliest cities, it's still enough to get me one-way somewhere, and I can plug in there for the trip home. I'm sure this would be great for most people and their little jaunts to the grocery store, or to get a movie, or insert the blank here. The majority of driving is short little trips, and this fills the bill.
Of course, I'll still keep my bigger, gas fueled beast for when I have further to go, but this should be a real option for many people.

Who killed the electric car?

Only 8 miles??? http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricca r/ [sonyclassics.com]

Promising technology

This is out of my home town's paper:

http://www.t-g.com/story/1218203.html [t-g.com]
http://www.t-g.com/story/1232246.html [t-g.com]

Basically it is a car with no fuel and a self recharging battery and runs on a hydraulic pump system. They are getting a patent for it now, so they are trying to keep the details to a minimum. But they say from the fly wheel back the car is unchanged.

8 miles...

That's far enough for me. I'm already thinking I can snake a line out of my office. How long does it take to charge, that's the question for me, because that determines how long after I get home from the office I can go back out.

7.9 miles, at least it's light enuf to push

8 miles? Licking the battery leads will jolt you 9.
         

Tesla Roadster

Get your $50k cash ready for the downpayment:

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php [teslamotors.com]

100% Electric
0-60 in ~4 seconds
135 mpg equiv
Over 200 miles per charge
Less than 2 cents per mile

Now if they could get the price of this down to a reasonable level like a Honda Civic I'd buy it...and a buncha other people would too I'm sure. This would be an IDEAL car for me :)

Why the Prius??

Someone please explain to me why the Toyota chose the Prius to be its hybird? The prius is the ugliest car they make. It looks like a damn turtle with those tiny little wheels (you know, just like the wheels on a turtle).

Toyota makes Scion and the Scion Tc is a nice looking car in the same size range as the Prius. Why aren't they sticking batteries in that sucker??

Re:Why the Prius??

Considering there used to be a waiting list to buy a Prius (All models are hybrid, 50MPG), and used cars were selling for the same price as new, but you could walk to your local Honda dealership and buy a Civic Hybrid (48MPG) off the lot, they made the right decision. It is about the type of people who want a Hybrid, they want it to be clear they are driving a Hybrid, the Prius does that while the Civic does not.

Re:Why the Prius??

Someone please explain to me why the Toyota chose the Prius to be its hybird? The prius is the ugliest car they make. It looks like a damn turtle with those tiny little wheels (you know, just like the wheels on a turtle).

One of the reasons the Prius looks the way it does (and has the tiny wheels it has) is because the engineers designing the Prius wanted to maximize fuel efficiency. To do that, they gave it an aerodynamic shape and low-rolling-resistance tires, etc etc. You may think it's ugly, but it looks like it does for a reason. (Personally, I think it looks pretty cool).

does no one know?

don't any of you know about the tesla roadster?

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php

its faster, quicker, prettier, has a better range, and doesn't have a gasoline or diesel engine at all!

why wasn't the original plug in?

Most comments so far have dismissed the short battery-only range as mediocre; this article was even tagged "toy". The Toyota Plug-in HV isn't an electric only car. It's a hybrid. It can still go hundreds of miles a day like a regular car. Most of the miles on American's cars are from short day to day trips, not vacations. A plug in hybrid would mean that all those trips wouldn't require drivers to burn any gas (but would still allow them to take the occasional interstate drive).

Even if your daily commute is too significant to be made in electric-only mode (mine totals 40 miles and my employer won't let me recharge an EV at work), cutting some portion of the gas burning miles is still a major breakthrough. Running few power plants is more efficient than running millions of small engines to generate the same amount of energy. They physics of scale makes ICE cars look insanely wasteful. Electric cars aren't tied to any single fuel source--energy can come from coal, solar, wind, nuclear, etc. This makes EVs a great way to transition from a fossil fuel economy to any future power source. An all-electric car with lithium ion batteries and a several hundred mile range (at working class prices) would blow my mind. But I'm not going to complain if I can't have one yet. Plug-in hybrids may not be ideal, but they're a step in the right direction.

Re:some data on that please?

If you're burning fossil fuels to make the electricity, which do you think is more efficient: a car which turns chemical energy directly into kinetic energy, or a car which starts by converting that same fuel first to electricty at the power plant, then transmitting it many miles, then converting it to chemical energy in the battery, then converting that back to electricity, and then using that electricity to produce kinetic energy?

It's amazing that gasoline engines are so ridiculously inefficient, but the powerplant to EV "well to wheel" path is more efficient than the ICE vehicle (don't forget the distribution costs of gasoline, which are higher than for power plants). The "power plant to EV" path also substantially reduces carbon and nitrogen emissions (though usually increases the sulfur emissions when coal is in the mix).

Here's a well-cited "paper" [electroauto.com] on the subject. Even if you don't trust the author to be objective (since his business is selling electric car kits), the references are unimpeachable and the numbers impressive.

I'm all for reducing pollution, but if electric cars are running off the power grid, aren't they _worse_ than gas cars?

No. They seem to be much better.

Regards,
Ross

Re:some data on that please?

I doubt it, unless the power plant is nuclear or solar etc. If you're burning fossil fuels to make the electricity, which do you think is more efficient: a car which turns chemical energy directly into kinetic energy, or a car which starts by converting that same fuel first to electricty at the power plant, then transmitting it many miles, then converting it to chemical energy in the battery, then converting that back to electricity, and then using that electricity to produce kinetic energy? Don't forget to factor in the increased weight you have to lug around, and all the energy consumed in manufacturing the car itself.

Consider that regular hybrids already convert chemical energy into mechanical energy, and then into electrical energy, chemical (battery) energy, and then back into electrical and finally mechanical energy. Obviously, this complicated series of thermodynamic conversions must make them less efficient than conventional gasoline cars, right?

No, because there are all sorts of mitigating factors. For hybrids, this comes from the fact that they use regenerative braking. There are other factors at work in power plants.

The specifics of thermodynamics are best worked out in practice, not theory.

nicad?

The article says that they are using older style nicad batteries instead of standard lithium ion batteries... all tests of the plugin hybrid vehicles have been using the standard lithium ion batteries. why would they go with the older style batteries which are technically inferior to the current batteries?

Crusing Range

"It's difficult to say when plug-in hybrids could be commercialized, since it would depend largely on advances in battery technology," said Executive Vice President Masatami Takimoto, in charge of Toyota's powertrain technology, told a news conference.

That's it in a nutshell. Maximum range will have to increase for me. How about if you go out at night, and then consider waiting at stop lights, etc?

Batteries pose their own environmental problems...

Not as much as gasoline, but we need to keep pushing the envelope forward.

It isn't enough to get rid of the gasoline engine. Batteries that have reached their EOL are a disposal problem.

Sweet! A COAL powered Toyota!

Considering about 50% of US power comes from burning coal, I don't see how this is all that great...

Convenient for people in the Canadian Prairies

In the Canadian prairies, many parking lots have plugs for each spot, which would mean you can charge up while at work, regardless of the time of year (if they don't switch'em off to stop the summer moochers :-)). We're mostly coal-fired electricity though, so it'd be purely an economic play...

wow, 8 miles...

They've had over 100 years to produce a battery that will go a lot further then 8 miles. We've had electric cars even before gasoline engines, and this is the best they can offer in 100 years? 8 miles? 8 miles won't do anything to lessen our dependence on oil. 200 miles on a charge will, 8 miles..what a joke...

Zap did it better... ALREADY

What about the Zap Car [zapworld.com]

The Xebra and Zap Truck get 25 Miles per charge

but since batteries aren't there yet I'd say the best choice is their "Trybrid" Obvio [zapworld.com] runs off of electric AND Ethanol (E-100), Gasoline, or Natural Gas. and gets over 40mpg.

BUT if the Zap X CrossOver [zapworld.com] ever gets produced (although very expensive) it's suppsed to get 350 miles per charge although I'll admit it doesn't sound realistic.. but they do have Lotus working with them on it.

Who Killed the Electric Car

This story is total corporate BS!!! As anyone who has seen the film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" can attest. http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectricca r/ [sonyclassics.com]

Also doesn't matter if...

...your local power company gets all of your energy from inefficient, weakly regulated coal power plants. I considered an electric lawnmower for my yard, but then discovered that it would cost me pretty much the same and pollute the environment to an equal extent. So why bother?

I'm as liberal as they come, but I'm also a cynical bastard. Hard to get excited about a car that goes 8 miles and ultimately pollutes as much as my car when it goes 8 miles. 'Cept it can go much further. On only one gallon of $4/gallon gas.

From the source...

Here is an article about it on Toyota's own website [toyota.com].

2 stages

This is another step in the right direction, but I can see two possible great long-term solutions:

1) The jump to electric power is a must, it's cleaner, easier to transport over long distances, and it can be produced many different ways. What we don't have yet, is a great way to store electricity in medium-sized quantities efficiently. Batteries just simply won't take us there, chemical storage is not the best solution. While Fuel cells may provide some relief, I'm not sure they will be optimal long-term.

Electric power is best stored as electric power, and that means that we need to continue to develop ultra-capacitors. While the density is not yet on par with the other two technologies, there is a lot of promising research being done to increase the density. In time it will become competitive with battery densities, but there are much greater advantages to using caps over batteries:

*Caps can be charged very quickly, and as the technology matures, we're becoming more efficient at discharging caps at variable rates while retaining high efficiency.

*Caps can be charged and discharged millions of times with little to no performance loss.

*Caps are very safe for the environment, and also safe to put on board a vehicle and hand-held electronics. No hazardous waste, no explosions, and most likely no chemical leaks, etc....

2) The gap from cars and planes needs to be made back to trains. Japan and Europe have a huge advantage over the US, and we need to invest some money in making smarter decisions. The bullet trains in Japan get groups of people from one place to another at very impressive rates, almost rivaling airfare speeds. When you think about the time it takes to go through security, board a plane, load it with cargo, take-off, get up to cruising speed, land, get off the plane, go through security and get back on the road, there is a lot of overhead.

Bullet trains can offer speeds up to 200 mph, and typically have much faster boarding and unloading times. A trip from San Antonio to Dallas could take an hour and a half, but Google maps tells me that it takes over 4 and a half hours via automobile. I think it would be tough to beat an hour and a half total time from the time you stepped foot in the airport in SA until the time you left DFW. Similarly, you could easily make it from Boston to DC in under 3 hours.

While I understand that planes can make these times currently, they do it on fossil fuels, and they are not efficient. Trains can use a lot less power to move people a lot more efficiently, and they can do it on electric power. Trains with caps on board could pick up charge at various stations, while the passengers load and unload, and then travel on cap power to the next station. Wind and solar power could be set up at these various stations to keep a steady supply of power waiting for the next train to arrive.

Trains also offer safety over both cars and planes. There are much fewer accidents, as there are fewer drivers and more passengers. This is also an advantage in places like Europe where passengers can make their long trips while sleeping in a cabin at night. Imagine boarding a train in Denver at 10 PM and waking up the next morning in New York City with enough time to make an 8 AM meeting. Imagine paying prices similarly to taking a bus to get there.

I know that was a long comment, but I really think this could be promising if the government would tax gasoline more and start funding the construction of a better train transportation system. It would have to start out small, Boston to New York, DC to Philadelphia, Dallas to San Antonio, Atlanta to Miami, Chicago to Detroit. Eventually it could expand. For inner city travel we could use subway systems and buses.

Trains are affordable, efficient, clean, fast, safe, and versatile.

Electric Vehicle

An acquaintance of mine converted his own vehicle into an electric only vehicle... He drives it to work every day.

For anyone interested, he has a site describing how he did his conversion here:

http://www.evhelp.com/ [evhelp.com]

-Nate

Batteries ARE the big problem

Actually the rechargeable battery market is having a huge problems, no new research is being done on rechargeable batteries. The solar market faces the same problem with batteries (being that they are the same sort).

NPR had a Science Friday interview on it a month or two ago.

Why not roll your own?

This is probably naive, but just for the sake of discussion, what if I do this?

1. Walk on down to my local Tesla dealership and buy myself a nice new electric roadster [teslamotors.com]
2. Drive my new electric roadster down to Home Depot, and buy myself a beefy new portable Honda generator [hondapowerequipment.com] and a couple of rolls of duct tape
3. Now I have the best of both worlds.... if I'm going on a trip of less than 200 miles, I leave the generator at home and just drive the car. If I need to go more than 200 miles, I duct tape the generator to the back of the car (or put the generator on a trailer and tow it, if you don't like duct tape), and plug the generator into the car's recharge port. Presto! A home-brewed hybrid that doesn't even (usually) have to pay the weight penalty of carrying two energy sources around.

And the real question is.... why doesn't some car company do essentially the above, except properly?

Don't Forget the car that Runs on Air!

It's a new technology that looks promising.

http://www.theaircar.com/ [theaircar.com]

Bring back the EV1

Well if they are going to start doing this why not bring back electric cars like the EV1 but the car and oil industries may not like that ohnoes

13km, are you fucking kidding me?

13km?!?!?!

how useless is this thing. i could do a 13km ride on my push bike for nothing, and the bike costs a 20th that this stupid car costs. in traffic i bet i could beat the fucking car to.

solve the storage problem with electric cars, then come back to me. and if anyone cry's about lithium ion batteries being the answer, i'll slap them, because they still suck.

The ultimate plugin hybrid for short journeys

Here is a plugin hybrid [google.com] that uses electricity and/or food to power it.

Hybrid vehicle?

It's only a hybrid if it's both gas and battery powered. If it only has a battery, then surely it's not a hybrid?

www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com

This movie is a must-see for anyone interested in this.

Check out the Reva

The Reva from India boasts of 50 Miles range with top speed of 50 MPH and cost per Mile of 2 Cents. It can carry two folks only though. I guess if they can just improve the battery to get to 100 Miles and top speed to 100 as well, I think it will become very viable to own one. Of course, the car is very small and flimsy but I guess those things can be improved over time.

http://www.revaindia.com/worldwidegallery.htm [revaindia.com]

What about flywheel cars?

I read something a few years ago about spinning up a whole bunch of crazy composite ceramic flywheels under the hood and then tapping their kinetic energy. Of course, a 300lb flywheel spinning at 150,000rpm could do some damage in an accident.

Googled a bit, found this: http://www.allpar.com/model/patriot.html [allpar.com]

And I need this car for what?

I just got through walking 7+ miles (mainly for exercise) and the last time I looked I didn't have to plug myself in. What does this car provide me with that my feet do not? (Other than increased opportunities to damage my body at high velocities and hundreds of dollars a month in payments for an automobile loan and car insurance).

If you want to go someplace faster buy a bike.

Just contacted GM Canada

I just contacted GM Canada to let them know they have lost a future customer. Pointed out the following links to them: Who Killed the Electric Car: GM and Chevron [ev1.org], Sony Pictures [sonyclassics.com].

Hmm...

OK, first off: why is a purely electric vehicle being described as a hybrid?

Second: Why are we still hyping the hybrid cars?

I have had a Prius for a little over two years, and driven over 40k miles. The fuel economy is considerably less than that of a comparable diesel (Audi A3 estate). Yes, the car is safe, and fairly economical for a petrol car, but it's not fantastic. It is exempt from congestion charging as the government are trying to encourage fuel efficiency, but I rarely drive into London. The annual car tax is minimal. However, all in all, it would have been far cheaper to buy a diesel car, whose manufacture would have had less environmental impact, and whose fuel efficiency would be better.

Electricity is not the answer!

Most of the electricity in the US is generated by burning coal. Its worse than burning gas in a car!

Why are they calling this a hybrid?

I thought "hybrids" referred to cars that use mixed energy sources, such as gas/electric, or diesel/electric. This car seems to run on electricity only, so why is it called a hybrid?

NIMBY syndrome

In regards to people saying that there could be alternative fuel sources such as wind, solar, etc. as alternatives to fossil fuels, people have been saying that for years, but there's always one problem (at least in the U.S.), and that's that wherever the government or some corporation tries to build the facilities for clean power generation, someone makes up a lame excuse like it's "unsightly" (see for example this page [sfgate.com] , which describes the difficulty Cape Cod is having in building a wind farm). Even environmental groups such as the Audobon society [heartland.org] have opposed plans to build them in some cases, though admittedly the Audobon society had given its support to the Cape Wind project. I do hope, though, that eventually the higher gas prices and other energy prices (for example, in Connecticut, UI is planning on raising their rates by this year), not to mention the security threats posed by dependence on foreign oil, will force people to reconsider. [ccm-ct.org]

Controlling stationary vs mobile sources

Using our large, centrally located power producing units to power vehicles is indeed a step in the right direction. Really no matter what state you are in, the regulated energy community (and before you get cute, that's everyone) has the belt on in terms of certain types of emissions. In the US, CO2 equivalents aren't one of them yet, but eventually we know they will be. Mobile sources? Fat chance. States and the federal EPA will do a LOT more before they start to really approach regulating mobile sources, and really, we don't even do such a good job of quantifying their impact even now. Regulators and other stakeholders regard it as a lose-lose situation, and I'm guessing most people, not just the lobbyist funded out of Detroit, would fight it even more than just upping the CAFE standards. I'm of the opinion that it's grossly unfair in some ways, partly because it allows individual consumers to continue to consume and pollute at levels at which they are not forced to pay attention. Very few people consider the individual impact they have from one day of work commuting. One week? One year? Vacations included? What does your whole metro area contribute--really? Because right now the quantifying that can really just be a lot of handwaving, and so far, we as citizen consumers have been fine with that.

Please explain

what is the environmental advantage of electricity for cars ? It's mostly made with fossil fuels. I've never understood this. Am I missing something ?

Re:Please explain

Well I guess it would be a great idea if we got all of our energy from non fossil sources. Solar, wind, fission, fusion. So in a sense I agree, but one day they could be useful.

But there's really no reason to rule out a giant rubber band.

Re:Please explain

It isn't all about the environmental gain. Oil is in short supply, at least oil that can be acquired as cheaply as the oil we are burning now is. Coal on the other hand we have plenty of and wouldn't involve any foreign dependence.

From an environmental standpoint, no this isn't a one stop solution. But it does centralize the problems. First, with electric cars many will have the choice to live fossil fuel free because there are already solutions available to live off the grid on renewable energy sources. Second, this eliminates oil as an enemy and allows everyone to consolidate their efforts on energy generation from renewable sources.

Re:Please explain

Burning fossil fuels at a power plant, charging your car batteries, and running all electric is from 25-100% more efficient [teslamotors.com]. This directly reduces green-house gases. Also, with the added flexibility to choose what kind of fuel we use, we could pretty much eliminate foreign oil imports. Toyota is spreading FUD. 8 miles? What a crock. All Toyota has to do is offer this product. [hymotion.com] Plug-in hybrids are a great technology that can save money, reduce oil imports, and reduce green-house gases. [calcars.org]

BTW, every time I point out these simple sites and concepts that any dolt can easily understand, I get mod-ed down by a strange group that seems to read articles late. I have two theories on this: there are paid /.-ers who are paid to bury this kind of info; angry anti-environment /.-ers read articles late.

Re:Please explain

Since electricity is produced in stationary plants, it's easier to make it more efficient, pollute less, etc. That's awfully difficult to do when you have tons and tons of little gasoline engines all over the place.

Re:Please explain

Big fossil fuel generating plants are more efficient, and that's one factor, but also, a considerable amount of energy is produced by sources like hydro, nuclear and to a lesser extent, solar, wind and so forth. All of these are non-polluting. Further, we have the ability (if not the collective intelligence) to build more nuclear plants. Solar is becoming more efficient. As the grid moves from fossil fuels to non-polluting sources, these types of vehicles will continue to be close to zero impact (they'll still need lubricants and so on, but they won't expel them into the atmosphere.) In addition, electricity transport doesn't require tankers and is non-polluting itself.

One thing about the summary, though — in the end, it won't be batteries, it'll be ultracaps [ideaspike.com] running these things. Batteries - frankly - haven't got a lot to recommend them. They are extreme polluters, hugely difficult to dispose of, expensive and complicated to recycle, charge slowly, can't deliver much power at once, and perform worse and worse as they get older (and not a lot older, for that matter.) I look forward with great anticipation to the day I can say "no more batteries." I'd say that day is about ten years off at most based on the rate that ultracaps have been advancing the last three years.

Re:Please explain

The amount of energy stored per unit weight is considerably lower than that of an electrochemical battery (3-5 Wh/kg for an ultracapacitor compared to 30-40 Wh/kg for a battery). It is also only about 1/10,000th the volumetric energy density of gasoline.

Re:Please explain

The amount of energy stored per unit weight is considerably lower than that of an electrochemical battery (3-5 Wh/kg for an ultracapacitor compared to 30-40 Wh/kg for a battery).

Exactly. So it may take quite a bit less than the ten years I specified; I was just being conservative. Thanks for pointing out that ultracaps are only one order of magnitude back now; a little while ago, it was two. And there are numerous technologies on the bench that show a lot of promise. We just have a tedious wait between lab pokery and commercialization.

The gasoline energy density is irrelevant, of course; gasoline is used up and is non-renewable. Ultracaps aren't used up and are reusable millions of times (consequently, your car will wear out before they do.) Gasoline is energy, in a sense; ultracaps aren't - they're gas tanks. So you have to watch out for those kind of misleading comparisons.

When you say that gasoline carries 10,000 times the volumetric energy of an ultracap, the reader may be misled into thinking that ultracaps can't deliver power. Not so. Designing an 1000 HP drive system that uses ultracaps is a matter of plugging a 250 HP motor onto each wheel, adding a controller and pressing the accelerator. Now you have a 1000 HP, non-polluting, sporty machine. Designing an 1000 HP drive system that uses gasoline means you are going to need your own mechanic, you're going to be producing one heck of a lot of pollution, and the cost will make the electric vehicle look positively thrifty.

The best way to think of ultracaps today is that they are like gas tanks; they hold energy electric motors can use, just like batteries do. They're too small of a "tank" (today) to compete with batteries. A decent metaphor is the walls of the tank are too thick and the volume where the energy is stored is too small. And because they're made in small quantities, they are expensive. But they are improving rapidly and they don't use particularly exotic materials, so there is every reason to think they'll be good enough and inexpensive enough to replace batteries very shortly.

Re:Please explain

It's the assumption of a "reasonable dielectric" that knocked you off your horse. That's where ultracaps have left the building. They're using altogether unreasonable dielectrics, and there is stuff on lab benches that is approaching battery levels right now.

The energy storage medium of the future will be fuel cells (either hydrogen-based with relatively low capacity, or reforming cells and fuel synthesizers that use methane or methanol as a storage medium for much greater storage density at the cost of added complexity).

Making hydrogen results in a significant net loss of energy. After you've made it, transporting it is a huge problem because hydrogen likes to leak right through most "solid" materials. It has a very low energy density at one aatmosphere, so it has to be compressed to insane degrees to get any decent portability out of it. Both in tankers and/or pipelines and in the target vehicle. That also means fueling presents some serious issues.

Ethanol has already caused corn prices to tweak all kinds of ways; not a good thing. At least at this point, that's a really bad side effect. Corn is a mega-important food crop. Ethanol is like gasoline, in that it must be delivered via tanker, at a hidden energy and pollution cost. It is carbon neutral, in that the carbon in the plant came from the atmosphere, and goes back to the atmosphere as exhaust. Better than gasoline, which takes carbon from the ground and sends it to the atmosphere. However, electrical vehicles can be 100% carbon negative, as a hydro plant, nuke plant, wind plant, tidal plant, geothermal plant, solar plant... none of them produce carbon at all. Better yet. And then corn prices will come back down, too. And we won't need tankers.

The last thing - but not the least - is that to get the most power to the ground, at the least cost, electric wins hands down. Electric motors today are easily manufactured to be lighter and provide better torque and power curves than any internal combustion engine ever made in even a slightly comparable size class. That's why railroads use electric engines everywhere. When torque and power are the issue, electric is the answer. The really cool thing is you can have torque, power, and braking/recovery and efficiency.

Re:Please explain - dielectrics

If you're claiming much more than 1 MJ/kg, provide citations, or it's vapour.

Vapor? Perhaps. But I think we're about to find out. EEStor, a company backed by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, claims a specific energy of about 280 watt hours per kilogram, compared with around 120 watt hours per kilogram for lithium-ion and 32 watt hours per kilogram for lead-acid gel batteries. They say this is in a UC with dielectric strengths from 1000 to 3500 volts; the underlying technology has something to do with barium-titanate powders, and yes, I am hand-waving, that's all I know about it. Jim Miller, vice president of advanced transportation technologies at Maxwell Technologies (a competing maker of ultracaps) and an ultracap expert who spent 18 years doing engineering work at Ford Motors, said "I have no doubt you can develop that kind of material, and the mechanism that gives you the energy storage is clear" which I doubt you would catch him saying if the technology were not as described. He also says a number of doubtful things about the physical stability of ceramics in automotive applications, worries about the low temperature range (which is just FUD... my darned BATTERY needs a heater where I live - temperature low problems are solved off the shelf.) Anyway, when a competitor says "yeah, this is real technology", I'm inclined to go, ok, it's real, then. EEStor has said this tech will be shipping this year - 2007 - as an energy supply system for an electric vehicle. This isn't my claim; this is theirs. So we'll both wait and see.

Re:Please explain - fuels

and equivalent series resistance of supercapacitors, especially, is quite high.

No. Ultracaps can discharge and charge at hundreds of times the rate of batteries without heating at all; if they had a high series resistance, they'd heat up or outright explode. They have a relatively high leakage rate, or at least, some of the technologies do - you must have confused that with the series resistance, which is essentially non-existent.

With ethanol production or synthesized methane or methanol, you grow extra plants that would otherwise not be grown.

That isn't what appears to be happening. Existing production is being diverted, and prices are going up. Just check corn futures; it's as plain as day. But your presumption is wrong anyway; because you are assuming that "extra" plants are grown; Where, and what do they replace? Arid spots with no plants? Buildings or roads? Not likely. They'll be grown in fields, most likely replacing other, less profitable crops (that is what we're seeing right now, BTW.) If weeds can't grow, neither can corn. So of course, they replace other plants. Even if they are just replacing weeds, which is the best case because it doesn't screw up other food crop balances, still, they are other plants that would not have been converted into atmospheric carbon dioxide, but which were already involved in scrubbing it from the atmosphere. So in the end, you are taking in carbon and the releasing it; you would have just been taking it in if you had used the plants for food or just left the lot to weeds. Electric systems produce no CO2, and therefore they clearly win on this basis. You're right that technically, this is an actual carbon neutral system; but if you want to go there, then corn can't be, it is carbon positive as soon as you burn it because if you had not burned it, there would be less CO2 in the air.

you don't have to worry about battery lifetime and disposal issues (the catalysts in fuel cells are much less nasty than the materials in most batteries

Hmm. Interesting. I don't know a whole lot about this. What is the lifetime of a fuel cell before it needs service, replacement, etc.? An ultracap typically allows for many millions of full charge / discharge cycles. So if you fully charged and discharged a system each day (call it 300 miles a day of driving) and lowballed to one million cycles, you'd get a million days of lifetime out of the cell, or about two thousand, seven hundred years of lifetime without any kind of service on the ultracaps whatsoever. Basically, they're install and forget until the car is junked, and then they can be moved to your next vehicle. How do fuel cells stack up to that?

Re:Please explain

Sorry, it just doesn't make sense.

Do you buy a household generator for your electricity generating needs?

Exact same reasoning applies, both pro and con. The determents to an all-electric car are battery weight and battery cost, not electricity generation.

Re:Please explain

Switching to grid electricity is good for national security. We need to distinguish between the energy requirements of the transportation sector from all other sectors. USA and Europe are self sufficient in non-transportation energy sector. There is enough coal, natural gas, tar sands, nuclear and renewables to keep the grid juiced up. But transportation ...

Gasoline for cars, diesel for trucks, furnace oil for ships and kerosene for the jets all come mainly from imported crude oil. The shortfall between domestic crude production and the demand has widened very rapidly in the last decade. To keep sending more and more money to the Middle East to import oil is madness. Sooner we kick the imported oil addiction better it is for the West. Plug in hybrids would reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Re:Please explain

what is the environmental advantage of electricity for cars ? It's mostly made with fossil fuels. I've never understood this. Am I missing something ?

The efficiency of the little motor in your car is much less than the efficiency of, say, a nuclear power plant, or a gas-fired turbine, or even (iirc) a coal fired plant. And it's certainly dirtier than hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, or tidal. Additionally, gas and coal plants can (don't, but can) clean their emissions a lot better than your tailpipe. And finally, it cuts down on in-city pollution and smog.

Additionally, having an electric car means that when the electric company upgrades their plant, you're automatically greener. With a gas car, you're still polluting the same amount.

That's just off the top of my head, mind you.

Re:Please explain

It comes down to how we transition off fossil fuels.

With internal-combustion-only cars, there is no migration path. Whatever method of energy generation you use, it all has to end up as gasoline (or similar fuel). This is, currently, enormously wasteful for energy sources that aren't fossil-fuel based.

With electric engines, you're right that *today*, we mostly use fossil fuels to generate it, and so it isn't a great solution.

But *soon*, we will be using more wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, you-name-it energy sources, and as that happens, we start to eliminate the need for fossile fuels.

My father in law lives in L.A., and has enough spare energy from solar to power a car, but there's no option on the market that will let him do this. Right now, he just sells it back to the grid. But with this type of hybrid vehicle, he could be almost completely self sufficient.

Electricity is fungible - you can turn anything into it, and turn it into just about anything. Fossil fuels are only good for burning.

Re:Please explain

Just one more thing the electric car fanboys ignore: our existing electric grid can barely support its current peak loads. Good luck with even 2% of the populace adopting plug-ins. All those cars charging in Silicon Valley when the State Operator declares an emergency, I can see it now!

You missed somethings.

1) Not all places are stressed at peak loads. California is one, but they are pretty much in the minority.
2) The prime charging time for these vehicles will be AT NIGHT, when the loads are at their least.

Re:Please explain

Others have answered fairly well, but it boils down to a few major things:

1) It allows us to use locally-produced fossil fuels rather than foreign fossil fuels.
2) Power plants are set up so they run at very high efficiency. Cars run at whatever efficiency they happen to be running at for the task they're doing.
3) Probably most importantly, when cars stop using fossil fuel and start using electricity, they're able to use any sort of power source out there as long as it can be converted to electricity. As our central generators become greener, so do our cars. Automatically. Think of it like software: Why duplicate the "convert resources into usable energy" functionality when you can put it in a centralized place that can be upgraded without disturbing the rest of the system? Electric cars are the reusable code of the automotive world. Whatever your infrastructure, they can tap in to it as long as you can give them the electricity they need.

Re:More Smug to come

Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and damming rivers.

Isn't the electricity generated from fossil-fueled power plants much more efficient than the internal combustion engine? As for nuclear, well there aren't any pollutants released into the air from it. And a river dam? Kills some fish, but does that really hurt anything in the long run?

Re:More Smug to come

And, BTW, those tanker trucks, which are Diesels, can burn biofuels.

Bio-Diesel makes a lot more environmental sense, not least because the WORST carbon footprint it can have is 0, than electric anything.

Re:More Smug to come

Even the dirtiest coal-fired power plant is far more efficient (read: cheaper, less polluting) a power source than your car engine is. Plus, using grid energy has the added benefit that, as grid power becomes more efficient/less polluting, your car is automatically "upgraded" along with it. While car engines will always be inefficient - grid power need not be.

As for hybrids - I agree that they are not the long term solution, but they can be a positive force. I get 60mpg in mine, and have since 2000. Tripling the national average isn't too shabby...

South Park is pretty funny, but probably not a very good database of information for this type of subject.

Re:More Smug to come

You know, not everyone is as much of a tool as you think. It doesn't sound like you've thought much about the relative merits of various energy sources or transport systems if you're just lumping them all together like that. There are many motivations for using different approaches; political, environmental, economical, and yes, even fashion. Everyone buys cars for an assortment of logical and illogical reasons, too. Even you.

I can't reduce my environmental impact or foreign fuel usage to zero, but I try to lessen it, and I buy products like the Prius to vote with my dollars for technology that can lead in that direction. I don't expect anyone else to follow suit unless they want to.

Could it be that some people just like to insult other people's actions without understanding them?

I saw the South Park episode, by the way, and it's great. It even recognizes, unlike you, that hybrids can be a good thing if people aren't assholes about it. The show wasn't about hybrids, it was about people thinking their better than others without cause, kind of like you're doing with your post here.

Cheers.

Not the point, It's not middle eastern fossil fuel

We can reduce funding for our enemies by switching from oil to coal.

Are you done being smug?

"So, what is the real benefit of the hybrid/electric car?"

Gas is (currently) $3 a gallon. The equivalent amount of electricity to go the same distance on battery power alone costs $1. Plus, that power could come from solar, wind, hydro, tidal, or some other renewable source, and during off-peak hours from a nuclear, coal or gas-fired plant. As could the power needed to manufacture said car and battery (don't assume worse case on that side).

Not to mention that every gallon of gasoline not burned in some car's engine is oil that didn't have to be pumped up out of the ground in an unstable country thousands of miles away, shipped halfway across the globe, refined, and re-transported to our local gas station. Kind of makes "line losses" seem insignificant, doesn't it?

Finally, if enough people use 'em and in the process cut our petroleum needs significantly, it could mean that in the future your son or your daughter may not have to die for an oil well.

Are you done being smug?

"battery, is a highly toxic item that adds so much weight to the vehicle"

Couldn't let this one go. The current battery weight in a Prius is 45kg or... 100 lbs. Vehicle weight is 2,921 lbs. And BTW, a 16 gallon gas tank in a conventional vehicle adds 100 lbs of weight when full as well, so a Prius 12 gallon tank effectively drops 24 lbs out of the battery weight, while giving the Prius a range of about 600 miles vs. a more conventional vehicle's 300 mile range.

"There's a great "South Park" episode about this."

Which undoubtedly explains where your facts came from...

Mod me down, I know I'm right

Sorry for being rude here on /.,
but I'd just like to say a big F**K YOU to those trying to find a pseudo-technical solution in order not to change any of their filthy habits.

You want to be able to look at your children without being ashamed of the environment you left them?
Forget about algae-powered airplanes, electric/hybrid cars, economic light bulbs or black background Google, they wont help you lowering your greenhouse gases emissions, at least not significantly, and could sometimes create other environmental hazard (just like dams or nuclear power plants...).

Instead, consider not using your car at all, take a walk, ride your bike, take the train/bus or share a car with your neighbor. Stop taking a 1-hour flight to go shopping, stop eating fruits/vegetables coming from Togo/NZ/Chile, get your house isolated, turn your 3 testing servers with 3 different linux/BSD flavors off, and think twice before buying a technical gadget described as "A+++ Environmentally friendly" that you won't even use in 6 months.

Any other "technical solution" is just a crapload of lame excuses and will only enable rich people to think they did everything right for the atmosphere, while Britons/Chinese/Indians are under flood, and South Europa/Africa/ Latin America are dying from droughts.

Please mod me down, it won't stop me from lowering my carbon footprint by applying what I proposed in the 3rd paragraph : I can assure you it feels damn good, and I won't be ashamed to tell my children that, at least, I tried to do my best not to leave them a cradle of filth.

Re:1997 Called ...

Oh wait, my bad. The EV-1 went 100-150 miles on a single charge.

EV-1 was a strictly electric car. This is a hybrid that can be charged from the grid AS WELL as using gasoline. Big difference in the space you have for batteries. Also, this is a sedan, not a 2-seater liek the Volt. Still, I think that a more reasonable range would be 20 miles or so...

-b.

Re:Pry it from my cold dead hands...

You can have my internal combustion engine when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

I like the fact that an electric motor can produce 100% of its torque from a standstill. If you can get the energy storage down, electrics actually have performance advantages over gas engines.

To give an example, people liked the noises and smoke made by steam engines and romanticized them. But diesel and electric locomotives ended up being just more practical in the end.

-b.