Hybrid Hype

[TheInterloafer]

dub_scratch: Absolutely right. Great point.

Hybrids won't save us from peak oil. Only driving less will do that.

[gnm]

Problem is after a little while of gas rationing, shipping your replacement batteries is gonna be REAAALLLL $pendy! Or your could buy a scooter (100mpg now) and install a greenhouse and solar/thermal/PV system with the money you save on that Prius. In short I think they are overpriced feel-good greenie toyz..

Too true - less driving will be the save.... And to think around here they are spending hundreds of millions on upgrading the freeway system... And not even a mention of light rail or any such thing...

-G

[FatherOfTwo]

Devil,
There are many new people joining all of the time. Unfortunately 99.9% of them don't search the forums, just read what is latest.

[DriveElectric]

Too true - less driving will be the save.... And to think around here they are spending hundreds of millions on upgrading the freeway system... And not even a mention of light rail or any such thing...

-G

Exactly the opposite here. My city of residence is building a massive light rail system. A few years ago we passed a 1 cent sales tax that funds the light rail in this city. 1st leg (suburbs to downtown) is scheduled for completion in late 2006. A stop is within 3 miles of my home and bike racks are included in the system. Gotta love it.

[mgibbons19]

In short I think they are overpriced feel-good greenie toyz..

That's my vibe. Better off keeping the corolla running for as long as possible and keep riding bike. That money not spent on a prius is more valuable to me.

[Aaron]

As site administrator you darn well know this has been discussed several times before now. You are perpetrating an administrative sin.

And I thought sin was right up your alley Devil...

There was a particular point in this article I had hoped to bring out, but nobody has mentioned that part yet. I was hoping somebody might google up some hard subsidy numbers for hybrids. I rather suspect that without these subsidies, hybrids are a nonstarter, as the author alludes to in the piece I quoted.

And yeah... I know there is a hybrids thread or 2 out there already.

Hopefully our Moderators will spank me, and merge them for me...

Or perhaps you can point to an appropriate thread.

I've been a little busy hunting buffalo and fixing our hacked server, which I'm still not done with.

<pant>

So you have a point... but I'm running hard & doing my best.

I'm getting fed up with you guys with nothing new to say and others believing that the size of their posts makes what they say more likely.

I sure hope that was not directed at me...

Can we please have more facts and less bullshit, please?

IBID

[smiley]

Volkswagen has designed the Beetle which gets the same mileage as a modern hybrid. And they did that 65 years ago. With 21 million sold the VW Beetle is also a bit more of an sales success as the Prius.

It is not an achievement to built a vehicle which gets the mileage of a Prius.

It is an achievement to waste so much resources and technology in doing so.

[FoxV]

well my hope is that out of the hybrid adventure there will be some good technilogical improvements that will either make hybrids much more fuel efficient to be worth their expense (+200 mpg)

or get electric cars going properly (not that fiasco they tried in CA). Already the battery technology is available for cheap (and powerful) electrics, all it realy needs is the manufacturing to ramp things up (and for people to get over being burned by the last electric effort)

[gnm]

Followed the battery link - Those are interesting in that they are fairly light weight but thier life cycle rating is lower than many available AGM and flooded batteries that exist currently. And I am betting that they are VERY expensive. I just bought a couple of 200Ah AGM's for $700.00 ($100.00 shipping) and that is nearly 1.5 times what I could have got the flooded equivalent for (I hate battery maintenence). I think its a safe bet that these would run you about twice what the AGM's go for per Ah (Amp/hour).

So yeah the batteries are here (if you are independently wealthy!)

-G

[dub_scratch]

well my hope is that out of the hybrid adventure there will be some good technilogical improvements that will either make hybrids much more fuel efficient to be worth their expense (+200 mpg)

or get electric cars going properly (not that fiasco they tried in CA). Already the battery technology is available for cheap (and powerful) electrics, all it realy needs is the manufacturing to ramp things up (and for people to get over being burned by the last electric effort)

FoxyV, when are you and other well informed peakers ever going to get it? Improvements of MPG in cars will only waste more energy and create more environmental degradation. We need to get off the car treadmill if we are ever to get a grip on oil depletion. It's not any fun anyway. Just ask people if they would like to drive more or drive less. A 200 mpg car will mean that we will have to dump even more resources into cars, freeways, parking ramps, sprawl, tires, dealerships, etc. And those very resources will not be available for things like renewable energy systems, relocalization and sustainable agriculture. If a 200 mpg car is developed and people use them they way they have in the past, then civilization is toast.

And as far as electric cars, well electricity has to come from somewhere. If people were to plug in their cars tomorrow then blackouts would be common or coal smoke would have to darken the sky.

Electric cars/ hybrid cars are a non solution but the problem. Cities where people can drive less are the best way to deal with personal transport on low energy.

[The_Toecutter]

First of all, that extra price premium is due to the NiMH battery. In the volume the battery is built for these cars, it could go for $150/kWh capacity. But Chevron Texaco owns the patent, and charges thousands per kWh capacity. The pack in the Prius, for instance, is 1.5 kWh. Chevron Texaco has sued companies who copied the battery and made them pay even more in royalties for the patent infringment, driving the price up even more.

Second of all, 200+ mpg cars aren't likely unless they are pure electric. The ICE is not efficient enough to let cars as we know them today achieve that kind of mileage. 120+ mpg for a midsize hybrid that seats five comfortably can be done with extreme reductions in aerodynamic drag. Plug-in hybrids that get 300 mpg or some such nonsense might get that on gasoline not counting in the other energy consumed. But you have to account for the other energy consumed, and that 300 mpg plug in hybrid looks to be more like 90-100 mpg on a 'tank' to wheels basis, both gas tank and battery pack being the point where energy consumption will be measured from. 33.8 kWh of energy in one gallon of gasoline. A pure electric car made from the size of a Prius could do 200 wh/mile or so at 60-70 mph 'tank' to wheels(In this case, the fuel tank being the battery). That's 170 mpg. Factor in all of the energy losses associated with producing and delivering the electricity, that 170 mpg is more like 70 mpg coal to wheels, slightly better than the Prius was as a pure gas car. Improve the power plant efficiency and reduce transmission losses and efficiency goes up accordingly. However, the fuel for that gas Prius, the gasoline, is not a fair comparison t\with the electric vehicle if you do 'tank' to wheels on the gas car for efficiency and 'powerplant' to wheels on the electric. It takes energy to get that oil and turn it into gasoline, ship that oil, ect. That electric car is going to be much more efficient overall than that hybrid can ever hope to be.

Third, most electric cars would charge during offpeak hours to meet 95% of their needs. Knowing this, we can supply 100 million pure EVs with our current grid, perhaps even up to 150 million. Taken from another post of mine: A midsize EV with an aerodynamic body like a Prius converted to pure electric(not plug in hybrid, but gas engine and shit removed) will have an energy efficiency of about 200 wh/mile at 60 mph. 12 kW. The average American drives about 32 miles per day, 12,000 miles per year. So, using a fully electrified Prius as the average(aerodynamic and smaller sports cars and compacts will do better, SUVs and trucks worse), with a 12 kW power demand on average(Half of the driving is done 30 mph in the city, not 70 mph on the highway), were looking at an average of 200 wh/mile, 2400 kWh consumed per year per car average 'battery pack' to wheels. Count in charging losses of 92% and battery losses of 95% and overall consumption from plug in your garage is 230 wh/mile. To count in the occasional long trip using quick chargers which aren't as efficient, we'll make that 250 wh/mile from the plug. So that's now 3000 kWh per car per year. 200 million cars would mean 600,000,000,000 kWh of electricity consumed. According to the CIA world fact book, America as a whole consumes 3.7 trillion kWh per year from the plug(ie. after all transmission and power plant inefficiency losses are accounted for, power consumed). Guess what? 600 billion divided by 3.7 trillion is an increase in electricity demand of only 16.2%. Most of this will be consumed during off peak rates where the grid is only making use of 50% of its capacity or so. So unless all those cars are charging during on peak, we won't need such a drastic increase in generating capacity.

Fourth, Jevon's paradox is not a rule, but a special case that just so happens to be extremely prominent with our current economic system. People are encouraged to consume instead of save. As we are now, most who have spare money simply spend it instead of save it. That doesn't mean they will always spend. Those who grew up in the great depression are likrewise another extreme that saves instead of spends. The corrollary to Jevon's paradox provides an example based exactly on our current economic system of continuing growth. The reality, as us peak oilers understand, is that we don't have the resources for continuing and unlimited growth. Change the economic system and eliminate the need for growth, and you've made some headway with the problem of both PO and Jevon's paradox. The technology is ready, but is humanity?

[dub_scratch]

Fourth, Jevon's paradox is not a rule, but a special case that just so happens to be extremely prominent with our current economic system. People are encouraged to consume instead of save. As we are now, most who have spare money simply spend it instead of save it. That doesn't mean they will always spend. Those who grew up in the great depression are likrewise another extreme that saves instead of spends. The corrollary to Jevon's paradox provides an example based exactly on our current economic system of continuing growth. The reality, as us peak oilers understand, is that we don't have the resources for continuing and unlimited growth. Change the economic system and eliminate the need for growth, and you've made some headway with the problem of both PO and Jevon's paradox. The technology is ready, but is humanity?

The People who "encouraged to consume" are encouraged to drive cars. They are one in the same. If we continue driving cars, even energy efficient ones, it will mean resources & energy will get sucked away in the process (aka Jevon's Paradox). In our society today cars are not a means to an end but an end in itself. By that I mean cars exist for the purpose for us to devour commodities. There is no reason to expect anything different after PO. Once oil decline sets in the very idea that we should continue driving would be extremely stupid. If we our successful at maintaining traffic jams & car crashes, it would not likely be for long. And then when we are really compelled to dump cars, there will be no chance for us to do anything. Every car built is a wind turbine NOT built. Every freeway built is a hydro site NOT built. Think about it.

We would be far better off getting rid of cars so we can devote our time and resources to more important things.

[The_Toecutter]

The People who "encouraged to consume" are encouraged to drive cars. They are one in the same. If we continue driving cars, even energy efficient ones, it will mean resources & energy will get sucked away in the process (aka Jevon's Paradox). In our society today cars are not a means to an end but an end in itself. By that I mean cars exist for the purpose for us to devour commodities. There is no reason to expect anything different after PO. Once oil decline sets in the very idea that we should continue driving would be extremely stupid. If we our successful at maintaining traffic jams & car crashes, it would not likely be for long. And then when we are really compelled to dump cars, there will be no chance for us to do anything. Every car built is a wind turbine NOT built. Every freeway built is a hydro site NOT built. Think about it.

We would be far better off getting rid of cars so we can devote our time and resources to more important things.

As much as I agree with you on cars being a means to keep consumption high in the present, it doesn't necessarily need to be such in the future. If there are traffic jams given the amount of roads we have today, that is a telling sign alone that there are far too many cars on the roads. Cutting car use to 1/3 of its current levels would really help things a lot, espeically if bicycles and public transit became the main source of transportation replacing cars. An electric car consumes no where near the resources a gasoline car does. Similar up front costs to a gas car in mass production(electric car costing slightly less up front), but lasts over 500,000 miles and never needs expensive engine repairs or maintenance. Plus by killing car use by 2/3, cars would then pretty much be sustainable if they also lasted in excess of 30 years.

We just might be better off getting rid of cars altogether, but in the case of a soft landing, it's not bloody likely to happen, especially since they can be sustainable. Cars have to be built with efficiency, longevity, and liesure use in mind, and not with high consumption, constant replacement of costly parts coupled with short life, and primary mode of transport in mind.

When I think of sustainable auto use, I think of Cuba, only using renewable energy to power them and with much greater efficiency, and far lower consumption associated with the vehicle.

[DriveElectric]

FoxyV, when are you and other well informed peakers ever going to get it? Improvements of MPG in cars will only waste more energy and create more environmental degradation.

Not really. Read a few more threads here in the Energy Technology forum and you will learn a lot about what is going on. There are numerous solutions that are feasible.

We need to get off the car treadmill if we are ever to get a grip on oil depletion.

Google the following words: PHEV, Vectrix, biodiesel, cellulose ethanol.

It's not any fun anyway. Just ask people if they would like to drive more or drive less.

Personally, I don't think it is fun to be crammed into a city with 7 million people, high crime, etc. The higher the population density is, the higher the crime rate. That lifestyle just sucks.

I'd rather have my Vectrix electric scooter and live in the suburbs.

A 200 mpg car will mean that we will have to dump even more resources into cars, freeways, parking ramps, sprawl, tires, dealerships, etc. And those very resources will not be available for things like renewable energy systems, relocalization and sustainable agriculture.

Really? Prove it.

If a 200 mpg car is developed and people use them they way they have in the past, then civilization is toast.

If a 200 mpg car is developed, then biofuels easily meet our fuel demands. It has been estimated by that biofuels can meet only about 1/3 of our current fuel demand. That is often cited as the reason why biofuels are not a silver bullet. But with 200 mpg, that is an increase of approx 8x. Oops. I guess biofuels can get the job done.

And as far as electric cars, well electricity has to come from somewhere. If people were to plug in their cars tomorrow then blackouts would be common or coal smoke would have to darken the sky.

Why?

Electric cars/ hybrid cars are a non solution but the problem. Cities where people can drive less are the best way to deal with personal transport on low energy.

Move to Los Angles and enjoy your new urbanism lifestyle. Try Compton. I hear the schools are good there and great neighbors.

[dub_scratch]

Not really. Read a few more threads here in the Energy Technology forum and you will learn a lot about what is going on. There are numerous solutions that are feasible.

Oh yea. We've been on the verge of some new breakthrough with energy & cars for about 60 years. Empty promises for techno futurism gets doled out over and over again. And yet when shit like nuclear fission "too cheap to meter" or corn ethanol that is suppose to break foreign oil dependence, or supersonic jet travel for the masses, or flying cars, or nuclear fusion, or whatever the hype of the day ends up like farts in the wind, those very promises end up forgotten. FORGOTTEN! Just go thru a stack of old Popular Mechanics to see it for yourself. Oh but the DriveElectric guy wants us to trust that his techno hype will come for real this time. He's got the research in a lab somewhere to prove it!

Its interesting that today we are no longer promised flying cars. Now it's teeney-weeney electric cars that will keep the same game going (if we are lucky). Looks like we've passed some peaks along time ago. What's next Mr DriveElectric? Electric motorscooters?

Google the following words: PHEV, Vectrix, biodiesel, cellulose ethanol.

Google these following words DriveElectric: Pemintel, EROIE, "Agricultural oil dependence", Soil degradation, water scarcity

Personally, I don't think it is fun to be crammed into a city with 7 million people, high crime, etc. The higher the population density is, the higher the crime rate. That lifestyle just sucks.

I'd rather have my Vectrix electric scooter and live in the suburbs.

What? No electric pogo sticks?

If a 200 mpg car is developed, then biofuels easily meet our fuel demands. It has been estimated by that biofuels can meet only about 1/3 of our current fuel demand. That is often cited as the reason why biofuels are not a silver bullet. But with 200 mpg, that is an increase of approx 8x. Oops. I guess biofuels can get the job done.

And as far as electric cars, well electricity has to come from somewhere. If people were to plug in their cars tomorrow then blackouts would be common or coal smoke would have to darken the sky.

Move to Los Angles and enjoy your new urbanism lifestyle. Try Compton. I hear the schools are good there and great neighbors.

Your one of those Randal O'toole shills disguised as a environmentalist? How is that dickhead O'toole, anyway. Too bad I embarrassed him on his preservingtheamericandream list when I caught him in a lie. He stopped replying to me and then they kicked me off that list.

I hate the suburban lifestyle with a passion. It's full of fat, ugly, angry and boring people who hate their lives but are too stupid to know why.

Speaking of Suburbia and LA, I left shitty-ass suburban Detroit and now live an awesome urban car-free life in Santa Monica Caly. The women here are gorgeous unlike those fat dogs in Detroit. Not problem with crime though and no time stuck in traffic.

Now, DriveElectric, I will end this post so you can go back to your exciting evening of Fox News TV watching and internet porn masturbation. I know that is the past time of boring, ugly, filthy, rotten suburbia.

[The_Toecutter]

Dub, it may be to your benefit to stop with the insults. Those are in violation of the forum rules.

Just go thru a stack of old Popular Mechanics to see it for yourself. Oh but the DriveElectric guy wants us to trust that his techno hype will come for real this time. He's got the research in a lab somewhere to prove it!

It isn't just research. There exist thousands of on-road examples nation-wide that function and operate, that weren't built in factories or laboratories. There also exist examples of projects that are in progress, one of them being my own. Take a look at a few of them.

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/

Google these following words DriveElectric: Pemintel, EROIE, "Agricultural oil dependence", Soil degradation, water scarcity

EROI is excellent for industrial hemp. It may not yield as much per acre as palm, but it can be grown on desert land unsuitable for other plants, needs no fertilizers, needs no pesticides, and yields a much higher EROI than any plant out there. Hemp also would help prevent further soil erosion, and is not water intensive like soy or canola would be. Water scarcity can be drastically reduced by lowering environmental pollution which renders unfit for consumption fresh water, and by eating less meat, which livestock is a much heavier consumer of water than food derived from plants. Cutting industrial processes by increasing efficiency also cuts water used in industrial processes.

[dub_scratch]

EROI is excellent for industrial hemp. It may not yield as much per acre as palm, but it can be grown on desert land unsuitable for other plants, needs no fertilizers, needs no pesticides, and yields a much higher EROI than any plant out there. Hemp also would help prevent further soil erosion, and is not water intensive like soy or canola would be. Water scarcity can be drastically reduced by lowering environmental pollution which renders unfit for consumption fresh water, and by eating less meat, which livestock is a much heavier consumer of water than food derived from plants. Cutting industrial processes by increasing efficiency also cuts water used in industrial processes.

Hmmm. . . . . . OK everybody, lets switch to a vegiterian diet in order to keep having so much fun being stuck in traffic jams. What a deal! And while we are at it, we'll keep pouring our national wealth on all the good stuff we love, freeway ramps, parking lots, parking garages, collision shops, emergency rooms, lawyer offices. Oh, and forget that solar PV collector too. You just won't be able to afford it after forking over the few bucks you have for one of these sustainable bio-hybrid-hyper-ethanol-diesels. You'll just have to sit in the dark between driving times.

Somehow Mr Toecutter, I think your promises for bio-fuel happy motoring will fall short-- way short-- of what you are expecting. I guess it's just that damn past 50 years of failed techno-visions that have made me so skeptical. I've heard it all before. And when it fails what then? Will we all have to become starvitarians so we can keep our beloved solo driving habbits?

[mgibbons19]

This thread has suddenly become quite troubling. Mostly because both sides are making good points while being fairly onoxious toward the other. Could cars be made better? yes, certainly. and toejam's electric cars are a really cool example. But what's implied here that is negative about cars is twofold. First, their true costs are not realized. The parking, paving, EMTs, freeways, and so on are all publicly funded so the average citizen has no idea what his/her car is costing. Esp since they try very hard not to add up in their heads the lease/loan costs, gas costs, toll costs, maintenance costs, and insurance costs. These costs add up to so much that they must be depressing to the average American. Better just pay it and don't think about it too much. After all, a car here is a necessity.

Secondly, cars set up a market for space that is also not realized by the general public. Freeways in town = less good town. Parking all over town = negative urban space. Cars require so much space in cities that their accomodation destroys cities. But the average citizen experiences this only as "they need more parking here" and "this neighborhood is really friggin scary" without ever seeing that the two are connected.

Implied in this second point is that cities don't have to suck. They can be beautiful. They can be comfortable. They can be scaled intimately but not cramped. The suburbs may be a great solution to 1898 Manhattan, but why are we building in reaction to 1898 Manhattan? Simply because the average American (myself included) has a knee-jerk reaction to cities as evil.

This is the point that is missed with the name-calling and vitriol. Money spent on more freeways more parking lots more strip malls more bestbuys more walmarts represents money not spent on grassroots retail, on responsible individual homeownership, on pleasant neighborhoods with pleasant parks and so on. Money spent on widescale mileage incentives is not money spent on light and heavy rail.

Ppl will always travel 20 mins to work. The tail end of the curve will always travel 60+. It doesn't matter if it's on foot for 1-4 miles of walking or its in helicopters for 20-200 miles away. This is why we cannot solve the problems with technology. Because the market equilibrium is a balance of time and space - not technology.

And this is why, even though I am a biker, toejam's point is essentially correct. Cars as recreation, for the well to do, or mechanically inclined, are not a problem. Cars as the entireity of our transportation and urban infrastructure is the problem.

Sorry for the long post, but this is one of my pet issues, and both sides deserve a fair and respectful argument.

[dub_scratch]

Sorry for the long post, but this is one of my pet issues, and both sides deserve a fair and respectful argument.

Don't be sorry, mgibbons19. That was a beautifully well put observation. Thanks for giving me hope that there are people who can see the forest beyond the trees.

I like to think it all in fun, but perhaps my vitriol reflects a bit of frustration with many Americans, especially intelligent well intentioned ones I run into. I cannot figure out how so many of these folks can go to Europe, to the amazing towns like Barcelona or Prague and see that urban life is so much better there and then come back here and insist on keeping this unproductive system of car dependence. Do they not see the negative effects beyond motor fuel consumption or tailpipe emissions? Do they not know why wealthy Western Europeans use half of the petroleum on a per capita basis? Do they not know that Europeans work less because they spend so much less on motoring than we do?

But we have this mess of a system and I guess we'll keep tinkering with it until the whole thing collapse and we have to start over. What folks like Toecutter do not realize that everything he is working for in regards to tinkering with fuel economy and fuel substitutes is in service of a collapse., albeit a slow one. I just wish that we as a society would realize this and decided instead to skip this last dreadful step, step back, take a good look, see that we don't need this, and get rid of it. I did and I absolutely have no need for anything like a biofuel car.

[JohnDenver]

I just wish that we as a society would realize this and decided instead to skip this last dreadful step, step back, take a good look, see that we don't need this, and get rid of it. I did and I absolutely have no need for anything like a biofuel car.

I'm with you dub, keep up the fight. We gotta keep punching the car proponents until they go down. Cars are a virus.