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THE Hybrid Transportation Thread pt 2(merged)

How to save energy through both societal and individual actions.

Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby coyote » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 01:35:19

Kingcoal wrote:What model do you own?

A 2005 Prius. It's a great car, for both the technogeek and the enviro-weenie in me. And while I am, truthfully, a little bummed about the monthly payments, I expect the car to be worth quite a bit more than I paid for it, in fairly short order...
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby rwwff » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 01:46:50

smallpoxgirl wrote:I have yet to see a decent life cycle analysis of a hybrid. This makes me very skeptical about the embodied energy and the true life-cycle energy use..


Could be that that is half the point of getting the Prius out there now. Some of us won't buy a car till we have a very strong understanding of its life cycle costs. Say in 5 more years, Toyota starts adding some "plug-in" capacity to the Prius model, cautious people will then be able to look at the previus history of the car and say, "OK, maintenance is no worse than my Camry or whatever, lets do it".
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby captain_planet » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 04:22:13

coyote wrote: I did nearly three hours of freeway driving yesterday, and my mpg guage is currently sitting at 46.0 mpg. That's better than most anything else on the road, some deisels and cycles aside.


Hybrids can save gasoline in stop and go city driving but does nothing in freeway driving. In fact it is making you get less MPG on the freeway because of the added weight of the hybrid system. The current toyota yaris is rated 40mpg highway but cost 10k less, that is alot of gasoline money. Hybrids are worthless on the highways.

The future I believe will be a combination of everything. Ethanol, hybrid, diesel will be more refined. Ethanol cars can be tuned to run only E85 maximizing efficiency. Hybrids can be combined with E85 only vehicles or ULSD diesel vehicles. We can also simply build more efficient low weight all aluminum, small displacement, and low aerodynamic drag like the discontinued Honda Insight. The Honda Insight is the most effiecient mass produce vehicle every produce. If a modern diesel engine was produced and put inside, this car would have reached 80+mpg with no hybrid system on the highway.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby coyote » Sun 23 Jul 2006, 13:23:05

captain_planet wrote:
coyote wrote: I did nearly three hours of freeway driving yesterday, and my mpg guage is currently sitting at 46.0 mpg. That's better than most anything else on the road, some deisels and cycles aside.


Hybrids can save gasoline in stop and go city driving but does nothing in freeway driving. In fact it is making you get less MPG on the freeway because of the added weight of the hybrid system. The current toyota yaris is rated 40mpg highway but cost 10k less, that is alot of gasoline money. Hybrids are worthless on the highways.

*sigh* This is the kind of stuff I read that just doesn't make any sense to me. For one thing, try actually getting in a hybrid and driving it around for a while before coming to conclusions. Watch the mpg guage. They are not worthless on highways. In fact I consistently get considerably better mileage highway than I do city. That's reality, as opposed to what it says in some report. City is better only on the EPA's perfect machine, or with *very* careful drivers who will piss off everyone else on the road. And probably miss every light.

Secondly, if the Yaris is 'rated' at 40 then it actually gets 10-15 percent less than that. Just like the Prius. Just like any other car. The EPA's measurements are unrealistic. Finally, the Yaris is a much smaller car than the Prius. The Prius is a mid-size. I'm waiting for Toyota to produce a hybrid in a truly small car. When they do, the results should be impressive. But I agree that the Yaris would be a good choice and a better value off the lot. If it had been available in 2005 I might have gone that way instead.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby matt21811 » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 04:03:16

coyote,

thanks for sharing your hybrid experience. It will take a while for most people to "get it". The motoring press in my country certainly dont. A review of the lexus 460h, a hybrid car with more power and much less fuel consumtion than the V8 model in the same body got an ordinary review. They seem more concerned about what kind of noises the engine makes. I'm not kidding. Thank goodness we have companies like Toyota taking the lead.

Most of my kilometers are city based so a Hybrid will do wonders for my fuel bill. I have a small family so I need a mid size car, not a Yaris. Most of my trips are less than 40kms so I'd be very suitable for a plug in. Sounds like I might be buying a Toyota in the next few years.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby captain_planet » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 05:22:42

matt21811 wrote:coyote,
It will take a while for most people to "get it".

Sounds like I might be buying a Toyota in the next few years.


I like hybrid cars, but I only see its advantages in stop-and-go city traffic. The regenerative braking generator is a good use of wasted energy, and the engine shut off when idle is also a good simple innovation.
The idle engine shut off feature is a cheap way that can be built into most cars. Another cheap feature is to enable cars to shut off some cyclinders to conserve energy. These two simple features alone can make our automobiles more effiecient.

I think the diesel car market is going to be the next big thing in America. http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/07/21/ ... cord-cr-v/ The Honda diesel engine has been out in Europe for a few years now is considered a very good diesel engine http://www.carpages.co.uk/honda/honda_d ... _05_04.asp This is a car that is "rated" 62.8mpg on the highway, 140PS@4000rpm, 340nm@2000rpm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULSD So I would hold off on that prius, the future will a combination of ULSD mixed with soy biodiesel on a hybrid powertrain.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby matt21811 » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 07:21:54

I'm a big fan of diesel. Most of the biofuels talk on this board is about (m)ethanol from corn. I dont know if thats a demostration of the power of the US farm lobby with its ability to get so much attention for a worthless product or an indication of how gullible the US population has become. There is very little analysis of Biodeisel. I may have to do more searching on this site.

Even though deisel cars will be lighter and cheaper as well as showing excellent economy, I may still go with a hybrid that has plugin capability. I have read that the Prius plugin conversion can give a range of 50 miles. That would cover about 90% of my driving. Given that in Australia there are signicant taxes on petrol and I cant see how they are going to levey a similar tax on electricity, there will be masive savings over even diesel vehicles. This will be significant in a time when petrol and diesel might cost $3 a litre.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby WisJim » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:34:23

I have to agree that what GM is pawining off as a "hybrid" is a joke--a full sized pickup or large SUV with a motor/battery to run the aircondioning when stopped in traffic?
http://www.gm.com/company/onlygm/energy_hybrids.html

They are out of touoch with reality, and have been since the 1970s. Remember how long it took them to come up with a good small car in response to things like VW Beetles and Rabbits? Remember the Vega and the Chevette?
Last edited by WisJim on Wed 26 Jul 2006, 09:53:46, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby strider3700 » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 12:57:16

WisJim wrote: Remember the Vega and the Chevelle?


I think you mean chevette. Chevelle was a muscle car from what I remember.

I think my parents actually had a vega when we where really little. It rusted away to nothing in short order. I see some chevelle's on the road still. They are far from spectacular vehicles though.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby mjpete » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 13:37:26

Hybrids do help on the highway, just not as much. Hybrids use the electric engine for acceleration. The ICE is used for maintaining speeds. It is one of the reasons they still have high milage ratings on the freeway. If you could magically drive at a constant speed all the time, then the hybrid would do nothing for you. That will happen about the same time as cold fusion become viable.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby strider3700 » Mon 24 Jul 2006, 15:21:36

mjpete wrote:Hybrids do help on the highway, just not as much. Hybrids use the electric engine for acceleration. The ICE is used for maintaining speeds. It is one of the reasons they still have high milage ratings on the freeway. If you could magically drive at a constant speed all the time, then the hybrid would do nothing for you. That will happen about the same time as cold fusion become viable.


You don't need to do a constant speed, you need the ICE to stay at it's optimal RPM. So you chuck the current half baked electic assisted ICE hybrid Idea and you go with an all electric drivetrain powered by an ICE generator. Then you drop in your diesel at the right size and keep it at it's exact RPM to generate enough power, some batteries so that you can undersize the generator and get plug in capability and away you go. The issues with my method is size and weight. I'm sure that can be overcome if you're willing to trade off life expectancy on the generator.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby captain_planet » Tue 25 Jul 2006, 02:46:49

A electric car powered by a constant RPM diesel electric generator is not efficient. 1 watts = 0.00134102209 horsepower, 100hp would take 74,569 watts.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby strider3700 » Tue 25 Jul 2006, 12:07:25

true

Now how many HP do you need to maintain cruising speed in an average car doing 55 mph?

If toecutter is kicking around he could tell us. It's something low like 15 or 20 hp depending on the weight and aerodynamics of the car. so that would be about 15kw. Use the exess power generated at other times to charge the batteries for hill climbing/accelerating and away you go.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby grillzilla » Tue 25 Jul 2006, 15:48:59

I drive a Honda Insight hybrid.

the mpg I am getting on my current tankfull is a little over 58mpg.
that's 2/3 city driving, the rest highway. 450 miles so far on this tank,I'll probably fill up in another 100 miles or so. About 9 gallons (U.S.).
I regularly get over 60mpg on my commute to and from work.

I recently drove from L.A. to Bakersfield, about 125 miles each way. My round trip milage was 62mpg. There is a mountain range between these two cities.

The hybrid works great on the highways, the electric assist gets the undersized ICE over the hills. Contrary to what has been said in previous posts, my mileage is better on flat roads. At 40 to 50 mph I get nearly 100mpg. Usual highway mileage between 60 and 70mph is in the mid-60's. And that is with the automatic, the stick shift version does even better.

Say what you like about hybrids, this one works very well. Some of what I have read above about hybrids destroys the credibility of those writers concerning other cars.

just my two cents.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby Frank » Tue 25 Jul 2006, 20:55:22

In no particular order:

Remember that a whole bunch of the energy that goes into production of cars (or anything) isn't from oil; that's the resource we're currently concerned about. Anything to prolong availability of oil/gasoline is good, even if it "costs" more to make. Don't get hung-up on EROEI.

ICE's are limited by the Carnot cycle and can never be as efficient as electric motors. No more than 15-17% typically of the energy in a fossil fuel gets converted to forward motion. EV's are 5 times that.

I just drove our '06 Prius to Vermont and back (~700 miles total) and averaged 56-57 mpg. This was mostly on 2-lane roads, 55-60 mph, but about 100 miles of this trip was freeway at 75 mph. Our average for the past 2500 miles or so is 60 mpg. The Prius offers small frontal area and low drag coefficient. The regen does work on the highway, just not as much.

Toyota has been selling hybrids (Prius style) for 10 years (1997 in Japan was when they started I believe). They work and they work well. Hybrids are game changers.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby matt21811 » Wed 26 Jul 2006, 07:40:00

Wow, a real world 100 MPG. But at 80 Kph. The drag at extra speed really takes a toll on fuel economy.
This makes me think we will see things like clipon rear wheel covers and perhaps an attachable (removable) carbon fibre teardrop shaping "ducks tail" for vehicles that are on long trips. I suspect these will even be retro- fitted to vehicles that are already built. On new cars, side mirrors will be replaced with cameras windscreen wipers will disappear into a covered compartment when not in use. Door handles will be flush fitting and panel gaps will shrink further.

The great thing is that most of these changes cost almost nothing and can nearly halve fuel consumption at speed.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby midnight-gamer » Wed 26 Jul 2006, 09:21:09

Most of my kilometers are city based so a Hybrid will do wonders for my fuel bill. I have a small family so I need a mid size car, not a Yaris. Most of my trips are less than 40kms so I'd be very suitable for a plug in. Sounds like I might be buying a Toyota in the next few years.

My yaris has a suprising amount of room, great car. I understand that the european version comes in diesel? Does anyone have some idea of the distance a diesel yaris can travel?
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby matt21811 » Wed 26 Jul 2006, 23:03:52

midnight-gamer wrote: My yaris has a suprising amount of room, great car. I understand that the european version comes in diesel? Does anyone have some idea of the distance a diesel yaris can travel?


4.5l per 100k
or
FUEL CONSUMPTION: [S/GS] (Urban) 55.4mpg / (extra urban) 76.3mpg / (combined) 67.3mpg

Tank Size. 11.1 gal


So up to 847 miles.
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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby smallpoxgirl » Thu 27 Jul 2006, 01:57:18

Frank wrote:Don't get hung-up on EROEI.


Hark! Is that the mating call of the wild cornucopian?

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Re: GM admits Hybrids are just a P.R. Stunt

Unread postby matt21811 » Thu 27 Jul 2006, 02:29:14

Thanks for that smallpoxgirl.
So much for keeping on topic or contributing something usefull.
You might do something helpful now and delete your worthless post. Thanks
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