New cars, or in this case... not.

ikendu

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Our cars are choking the life out of our country.

Sounds dramatic, doesn't it?

But honestly, we import 65% of our petroleum and our cars are destroying our balance of trade, our economy, our air, our national security and our climate. You may have seen the report recently that polar bears may be added to the endangered species list because planet warming is destroying the arctic ice on which they depend for habitat while hunting. Polar bears are being found drowned because they have to swim so far now to find ice.

What's this got to do with new cars?

If we had either Electric Vehicles (EVs) or Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) with an all-electric range of 30 miles or so (and liquid fuel for the rest), we could reduce our petroleum consumption by half; almost overnight. The Department of Energy (DOE) just concluded a study that shows if EVERY vehicle were a PHEV, our existing generating capacity could charge 84% of them at night with no new facilities at all. Electricity for charging a PHEV is about 65 cents per gallon equivalent cost and pollution from power plants would be less than millions of vehicles spewing out exhaust.

But... you can't buy a PHEV from any automaker.

So, here's my thought. As more and more of us become convinced that we want either EVs or PHEVs, we should go to our local car dealers and ask "Do you have any vehicles I can charge up at home from my electric socket?". When they say "No", then we should say "Here's my home phone number, I won't be buying any new cars until you've got some that can be charged at home."

If you need a different vehicle, shop around, tell the dealers this, then simply get a good used vehicle (there are plenty). If you really want to drive the dealers crazy, also refuse to buy used vehicles from anyone except a private party.

Maybe we could generate some "grass roots" support for EVs and PHEVs at the dealer level. It looks like it might be about the only way to get this to switch.
 

Eugene

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The other issue with EV's is our current power grid is overburdened. We constantly have brownouts and blackouts in the evening and night when all those EV's would be charging. The power system will need to catch up.
 

tebore

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EVs and PHEVs are not the answer as one group might lead you to beleive. Think about it, power has to come from somewhere. To get more power you burn more coal and run more reactors. Or you can get more "Green" power by destroying more habitates by building more hydro stations.

The future is in Hybrids. Now you just gotta give me a $60k for a nice Lexus because frankly those other hybrids are boring, well not counting the trucks. With the Lexus you get the clean powertrain with non of the boredom.
 

ikendu

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tebore said:
EVs and PHEVs are not the answer as one group might lead you to beleive. Think about it, power has to come from somewhere. To get more power you burn more coal and run more reactors. Or you can get more "Green" power by destroying more habitates by building more hydro stations.

The future is in Hybrids. Now you just gotta give me a $60k for a nice Lexus because frankly those other hybrids are boring, well not counting the trucks. With the Lexus you get the clean powertrain with non of the boredom.

We already see that petroleum supplies are on the decline. We are using way more each year than we are finding. How can the future be all about cars that are powered by petroleum?

If we got half our miles from electricity, our petroleum will last a lot longer plus more and more of that electricity could come from wind, solar, wave or geothermal sources (all of which are virtually inexhaustable). The liquid fuels that we do need could start coming from biomass. There is a study from the University of Minnesota about diverse plantings of prairie grass that create more biomass from marginal lands while building the soil.
 

ikendu

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Eugene said:
The other issue with EV's is our current power grid is overburdened. We constantly have brownouts and blackouts in the evening and night when all those EV's would be charging. The power system will need to catch up.

Where are you located?
 

drizzle

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Ikendu,
I haven't been following this the way you have but I am right now interested in buying a PHEV. With Hybrids out there already it seems like such a small step to add a plug-in receptacle. What's the hold up on it? My guess would be that people associate a car that you plug in with the Electric only cars of the 70's that were complete dogs with terrible range.
 

tebore

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ikendu said:
Where are you located?

I'm pretty sure he's living somewhere on the Eastcoast. Which is (last time I
HTML:
checked) is pretty taxed.

On a side note (and since we're all Flashaholics and are interested in batteries of any sort) is that we can't store power or at least very much of it on a big enough scale during the night. If we could do that then we wouldn't have to tax the generation systems so hard during the day. Remember those reactors and generators don't just get flicked off at night they are run at a lower state and even then generate more than enough power for those street lights.

I like the thought of greenpower don't get me wrong, heck I'm investing in windpower because I beleive in it. However the government is really slow to take to it. Not to mention that Wind/solar uses a huge amount of something we don't have a lot of ... land. All the locations that would do well for those sources is where us humans like to live. Geothermal's problem is it's in locations like the Tundra which don't do us any good. Biomass has the same problem of burning Fossil fuels -> greenhouse gases.

I wish we could invent cold fussion or get microwave transmission up to snuff then we can have an orbital solar panel beam power back down to us.
 
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ikendu

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drizzle said:
Ikendu,
I haven't been following this the way you have but I am right now interested in buying a PHEV. With Hybrids out there already it seems like such a small step to add a plug-in receptacle. What's the hold up on it? My guess would be that people associate a car that you plug in with the Electric only cars of the 70's that were complete dogs with terrible range.

Yup. If fact, Toyota spend a fair amount of advertising touting that "you don't need to plug it in" for their Prius. I've seen a hybrid proudly displaying a "no plug" decal on the hood.

People do remember the limited range of older electric cars and don't like the idea of being "stranded". PHEVs tackle this nicely because with liquid fuel "back up" you still get the fast refuel of a gasoline type car but most of your daily miles can come from a modest sized battery pack that is easily recharged at night. Heck, if you can get Time Of Use (TOU) metering you can even charge up on ultra cheap, off-peak electricity.
 

ikendu

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tebore said:
...we can't store power or at least very much of it on a big enough scale during the night. If we could do that then we wouldn't have to tax the generation systems so hard during the day. Remember those reactors and generators don't just get flicked off at night they are run at a lower state and even then generate more than enough power for those street lights.

Yup. It is so hard to throttle back those main generation stations that we even waste electricity at night (no load). When I was a kid on a farm in Ohio, the electric company gave away night time outdoor lights in a desparate attempt to find a market for those night time kilowatts.

PHEVs help with this storage problem with Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G) technology. This idea is to charge up your PHEV at night and then allow it to put back some during the day either at home or by plugging in at your parking lot. You'd be paid for the electricity you put back at the higher peak $ rate.
 

tebore

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ikendu said:
Yup. It is so hard to throttle back those main generation stations that we even waste electricity at night (no load). When I was a kid on a farm in Ohio, the electric company gave away night time outdoor lights in a desparate attempt to find a market for those night time kilowatts.

PHEVs help with this storage problem with Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G) technology. This idea is to charge up your PHEV at night and then allow it to put back some during the day either at home or by plugging in at your parking lot. You'd be paid for the electricity you put back at the higher peak $ rate.

I really wish people would be responsible like that, but you know that when people get into work the first thing they will do is plug in their car to bad they didn't plug it in the night before. I live in Toronto and our powergrid is running at 100-110%(no kidding we have to import power) during the summer and it's pretty much the same for most of the east coast. Which is why I said hybrids would work out better. I'm sure most remember the huge Blackout 3(4) years ago, it was a wake up call that our powergrid is taxed hard and getting old.

I think with the advent of Nanotubes supercaps would be a viability in the storage of power on a grand scale. For now the only means of energy storage are those huge water towers. For those who don't know how they work, they pump water up there at night and during peak hours they reverse the pumps and let gravity generate power through the pumps.

With all the new inventions that use electricity you'd think someone would go and invent a new way to get power. We really take electricity for granted.
 

gadget_lover

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The huge water towers are not used for power. They provide a way to supplement the capacity of the water pipelines during peak usage. It's cheaper to pump water into the tank than it is to bury a larger pipe and upgrade the pumps, etc.

It takes an awfully large amount of water to gnerate significant amounts of electricity. There are examples where they have used dams (look up the Helms dam project) to store water at night that is released during peak demand to generate electricity.

As for the statement about the "boring" hybrids... Many of us really like what we have. Very efficient, very comfortable and much more drivable than an SUV, Pickup, etc. I would not trade my Prius for anything short of a Jaguar.

Someone mentioned the grid would not support a nation of EVs. As mentioned in the EV thread, the power grid will not be charging every EV battrey 100% every day. I drove 2 miles yesterday, so topping off an EV battery would have been only a few KWh. Even if you drive 20 miles, that's less than 1/5th of the battery capacity that needs to be replaced from the grid.


The other point to address.... Why is there a delay producing a commercial PHEV? My take is that the current hybrids are designed to really baby the batteries. That's how you get 10 years from a NiMH battery pack. Using them as a PHEV would use them means that you can't baby them as much. You have to discharge them deeper. This could result in shorter life and replacement under warranty.

I'm not saying that a PHEV can't be done with current etchnology. I'm just saying that the manufaturers have to be very cautious.

Daniel
 

ikendu

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tebore said:
...the first thing they will do is plug in their car to bad they didn't plug it in the night before.

I definitely agree that people don't always do the most sensible thing.
However, if we had V2G technology in place, you could buy night time electricity at 5 cents at night and sell it back at 16 cents during the day, that might get people to pay attention to pluging their PHEV in at night when they get home.

BTW... you can also store electricity with compressed air. Here is a small article I found with a quick Google search.

http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2001/025.html
 

icecube

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ikendu said:
I definitely agree that people don't always do the most sensible thing.
However, if we had V2G technology in place, you could buy night time electricity at 5 cents at night and sell it back at 16 cents during the day, that might get people to pay attention to pluging their PHEV in at night when they get home.

BTW... you can also store electricity with compressed air. Here is a small article I found with a quick Google search.

http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2001/025.html

Interesting article to note.

A lot of ideas of floating around now, but remember there's money involved.

Another thing—I would like a touch of performance in my PHEV vehicle—think 210bhp minimum. And it has to be RWD, and I would prefer a coupe with a stick.

I have driven the Honda hybrids: the new ones. Accord Hybrid 4cyl and 6cyl, Civic Hybrid (with and without the IMA enabled) and the Insight. Not the newer one—if it exists. Never seen one—the older one.

The Civic Hybrid (CH) is alright. Some things I like about the newer Civics, alot of other things I dispair. Mashing the throttle drags out little response to acceleration. The Accord four banger hybrids are little better. The V6s can haul the car around reasonably—but they don't have sticks. And I haven't seen a Hybrid coupe. Only saw one newer Accord with a V6 and a six-speed—not on the lot though.

According to the EPA/DOE sticker MPG on the window, the Accord V6 Hybrid gets just as good gas mileage as the 4cyl non-hybrid. 247hp on tap—out of a 3.0L.

First they'd have to beat the price stumbling block—a 2007 Accord Hybrid with the V6 and Navi checks in at...38k. The Civic Hybrid clocks in at 29k, if my memory serves me right. Students and younger folks, and poorer folks, can't get those. Those are the fellows with the older vehicles, some in great condition, others not.

I'm not dishing for a Hybrid unless it's full-time RWD, has a 6 cylinder platform, a stick, a coupe, stuff like heated seats, maplights, fogs, etc and reasonable options like an on-board computer (like the Prius 2nd Gen, a BMW E28, E24, E30, E36, E39, etc slightly aged models have some nice OBCs with Check Control) and is simple to maintain MYSELF.

As far as I have seen, no Honda Hybrid is RWD—or stick. We have a way to go...
 
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Datasaurusrex

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I do my part:
amc_v8.jpg


HAHAHAhahahaha ;)
 

drizzle

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gadget_lover said:
I would not trade my Prius for anything short of a Jaguar.
I've heard of brand loyalty but c'mon, nothing short of a Jaguar? I can think of a dozen or more vehicles short of a Jaguar that I would own over a Prius...and I like the Prius, a friend of mine owns one.

gadget_lover said:
The other point to address.... Why is there a delay producing a commercial PHEV? My take is that the current hybrids are designed to really baby the batteries. That's how you get 10 years from a NiMH battery pack. Using them as a PHEV would use them means that you can't baby them as much. You have to discharge them deeper. This could result in shorter life and replacement under warranty.
This sounds very reasonable to me. I imagine under normal use with a hybrid the battery stays at near full charge. In my scenario for my imagined PHEV it would use little or no gas for my normal daily commuting and around town use. This would be a sizable discharge on the battery to be recharged overnight. The gas (or other fuel) would be for the freedom of going longer distances and for dealing with freeway speeds and hills.
 

Biker Bear

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tebore said:
Not to mention that Wind/solar uses a huge amount of something we don't have a lot of ... land. All the locations that would do well for those sources is where us humans like to live.
That's why we nuke any laws that allow anyone to complain about solar arrays on anyone's roof, and start putting 'em up there. I don't understand why it's not already a building code requirement in the sunbelt that any new construction or major renovation at least include a solar water heater!
tebore said:
Biomass has the same problem of burning Fossil fuels -> greenhouse gases.
Uh, no. The point of biomass is that the carbon you're putting into the air had been previously pulled OUT of the air by the plant in question - so any kind of biomass based energy, including ethanol, butanol or biodiesel - is carbon-neutral.
tebore said:
I wish we could invent cold fussion or get microwave transmission up to snuff then we can have an orbital solar panel beam power back down to us.
The problem with that sort of technology is that while it doesn't put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - it does "import heat" that wouldn't make it into our environment otherwise. Think about it - the power from a solar energy satellite is solar energy that otherwise would not get into our atmosphere.
 

tebore

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gadget_lover said:
The huge water towers are not used for power. They provide a way to supplement the capacity of the water pipelines during peak usage. It's cheaper to pump water into the tank than it is to bury a larger pipe and upgrade the pumps, etc.

Daniel

That's their primary usage. They recently started to use them in the way I described earlier.

As for the issue of Biomass, you re-release what once was pulled out of the air it's not perfect.
 

gadget_lover

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Drizzle said:
I've heard of brand loyalty but c'mon, nothing short of a Jaguar? I can think of a dozen or more vehicles short of a Jaguar that I would own over a Prius...and I like the Prius, a friend of mine owns one.

I really mean it. It's not brand loyalty as much as it is customer satisfaction. I love the classic styling of the Jaguar but I have found myself disastified with the cars I've rented in the last 5 years. I like smaller cars, so the Prius is about the right size for me. I drive in varied terrain (mountains, lowlands, desert and SF bay area commute) and find my car does admirably in all these conditions.

I've rented fancier cars with more ammenities or more horsepower, but in each case found myself happy to be back in my Prius after the vacation. It's hard to explain. I prefer the smooth, predictable power of the Prius. Downsifting to accelerate sucks (IMHO).

Daniel
 

gadget_lover

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icecube said:
Another thing—I would like a touch of performance in my PHEV vehicle—think 210bhp minimum. And it has to be RWD, and I would prefer a coupe with a stick.


That's an interesting laundry list. You need to rephrase it for hybrids. As I understand it, BHP is not really useful when applied to electric motors.

"Brake horsepower. A measurement standard used by manufacturers to help consumers compare engines. NOTE: BHP is measured at the maximum operating RPM of the engine, which may not be the RPM level at which your engine will provide maximum life and consistent performance."

The HP and torque are radically different in an electric drivetrain, and is used differently too.

As an example, my 115 HP prius will accelerate easily up a 5% grade, even starting at freeway speeds. The extra 258 ftlbs of torque make the difference. It's no problem if I have to slow to 35 for a truck that blocks the way on a long uphill stretch. I'm back to 65 MPH in seconds. That can be a problem with many other smaller cars. It's the torque and how it's applied that counts.

But cars are a matter of personal taste. Most of the current hybrids are tuned for power instead of ecology or economy in an attempt to overcome the "too little HP" preception. In real, everyday driving, the excess power is just not needed. Well, not in my opinion.

Daniel
 

ikendu

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tebore said:
Biomass has the same problem of burning Fossil fuels -> greenhouse gases.

Actually, the latest studies (University of Minnesota) show that diverse prairie plantings not only produce biomass that doesn't add to CO2 to the atmosphere but the plants themselves sequester as much carbon BELOW the surface in roots as they do in biomass ABOVE the surface. So... using biofuels produced in this manner is actually "carbon negative"; meaning they actually reduce overall CO2 in the atmoshpere even after we've burned them for fuel.

Just imagine, driving your liquid fueled vehicle down the road and since the fuel was based on carbon negative plant/fuel cycles, your driving actually reverses global warming.
 
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