Sign this EV Petition
 

https://www.pluginpartners.org/whatYo...nePetition.cfm
;)

"Dear Automakers:

Plug-in hybrids are in our country’s national interest because they will reduce dependence on imported oil, decrease greenhouse gases and other pollutants, and lower fuel costs.

If I could buy a vehicle that was cheaper to operate, cleaner, ran on domestic electricity, and I could buy it from you for a few thousand dollars more, yes I would positively WANT to plug it in to a 120-volt outlet.

Please make plug-in hybrid vehicles soon. And, please manufacture them with flexible-fuel engines that get even better gas mileage and benefit American agriculture.

Your Customer"

Okay... so where does the energy for the 120 volt outlet come from?

If people actually took the time to compute the heat value from 20 million barrels of energy per day versus our current electrical generating capacity they'd be surprised to learn that we'd have to increase generating capacity a great deal to offset the energy of 20 million barrels of oil.

Given that many are dead set against nuclear power, that leaves either coal or natural gas. Wind isn't practical given that the capitalization takes years and that the wind doesn't always blow. Also harms Raptors and other birds.

Hydroelectric harms wildlife. Photovoltaic might be practical for low density uses like lighting homes and small appliances but charging a car is heavy duty work.

That all being said, we're seeing more and more hybrids as time goes on. They are growing more popular, especially for larger vehicles. Rather than signing a petition people are voting with their pocketbooks.

I appreciate your zeal but I think the petition needs rewording, especially the idea that electricity comes out of a 120 volt outlet.

Gene

I agree to a point that we don't have the electrical generation for every single person to have a plug in hybrid, but I've heard that the real reason we don't have plug in hybrids in the US was that one of the patents was held by a compeny that would only let it be used if it was not used as part of a plug in car, now I don't have the source of that information any more, but at the time it sounded solid and lodgical.
as for wind power, if you are in an area that has wind it's cheaper then building a coal plant, faster to build, and I don't know how many birds coal plants kill, but if you compar a wind turbine to a single window in your house, they both end up killing around one bird per year, so if you really love birds you would board up the windows in your house, the only case where they found any numbers of birds being killed was when someone did some poor planing and put a few wind turbines in a migritory path, and as I understand those turbines are still there, that flock of birds is still alive and the birds have learned to take another route.
I know a number of people with hybrids who also have solar panals, and if they had a plug in hybrid they would get more solar panals, simaler to what I plan to do with my electric car.

That is all they listen to.

Sounds like the story of the 100mpg carburetor. You've probably heard of it, the inventor builds a new variation of the 100mpg carb. Puts it on the market. "Someone" buys the patent and "burys" it because it would use too little gasoline. I get the willies when I come here seeing all of these "run your car on water" adds here, it's the same sort of "something for nothing" that is "suppressed" by "the powers that be" but you can buy it here!

I'm sure that such miracles have happened, but more often than not miracles that do happen are ignored rather than buried by entrenched interests.

First of all, I don't think that the batteries in a hybrid store all of that much energy. I haven't done the math but I don't see them taking you very far. I'd guess maybe a dozen or so miles? Someone who is in the know will have to fill in the details, but these things are not electric cars with a gasoline motor, they're a mix of gasoline and electric and designed accordingly.

Hybrids probably could use a plug in. They probably don't have them because the manufacturer doesn't want the hassle of a consumer damaging their batteries with external power.

Lithium ion batteries require a special charging routine, one that is often controlled with microprocessors. You can buy such gadgets for a song, but they require engineering. Engineers hate to complicate things by adding separate charging circuitry for the house power.

There is also an ethic amongst engineers who work in high volume industries that reducing parts count is a greater good. Saves "total costs" for a production run. This was part of the reason why the Ford Maverick had that cheap plastic tube for gasoline, one that sometimes sheared in accidents resulting in immolating passengers. These guys are constantly striving to reduce parts count and parts cost. I know, been there, done that.

That all being said, a plug in would be a nice option. At least we'd get a tiny bit of help from the power grid.

BTW, one place I do see a "conspiracy" is the funding for nuclear fusion. They're really stingy with this kind of research but they'll spend billions developing weapons systems that will probably never get used and if they're used will probably not perform according to specs and if they do perform according to specs some innocents will get caught in "collateral damage". Seems to me with a world hungry for energy that people ought to be spending more money on energy sources.

We have a lot of wind in the high mountain areas. There are windmills. Every one of the little darlings is subsidized to the hilt. More often than not they're not turning too much at all.

Yeah, they're cheap. They don't produce a lot of power. They're annoying, they make a sound which is hard to ignore and sometimes they grow ice which they then fling when they start to turn. I keep wondering when they're going to topple over, perhaps on my pointy head but I ought to be really worried about being beaned on the head with a chunk of ice.

Meanwhile we have an enormous concentration of coal fired plants hereabouts, including one in Bobtown, PA which might be one of the largest of its kind on Earth. They do not require subsidization, most are compliant to at least the Clear Air Act of 1970 and our electricity hereabouts is very inexpensive. Most of the SOx and NOx are scrubbed out and I don't buy mercury being a big deal. I bet I get more mercury from a can of tuna than I do from our local power plants.


You might get a mile here or there from the sun. I have this feeling you're going to be spending a lot of money and waiting a long while for the "free" energy of sunshine to pay for the solar cells, collection devices and your time.

I do not think that the hybrid batteries store a great deal of power either. Maybe not even enough to make the costs of those collectors worth the time for surface transport.

None the less, helping oneself is powerful medicine. I don't knock you for wanting to do something, though I feel that there are better alternatives out there than solar cells for surface transport.

Gene

Having used and worked with wind power and PVs for decades, I find some of the arguments here to be based on misunderstanding and lies. If you are going to post about wind or solar, make sure that you know what you are talking about.

Should they do something else? Certainly, the opportunity is there for another business to prove the other companies wrong.

Maybe you need to present the facts then, seeing as how you have such abundant experience with windmills and "PV"?

As I recall the figures, windmills required years to capitalize their costs in terms of energy generation. This is why they require subsidies. The same can be said for nuclear power, at least with regards to liability and waste disposal.

The noises that windmills make are self evident to anyone with hearing. While I've never seen ice flying it's not hard to imagine a blade of that size being coated with a light sheet of ice, given that trees, power lines and other structures can accumulate it. Others have told me about this flying ice and have reported seeing it.


Gene

The extra power drain won't be felt. There is a huge excess of energy at night due to the fact that once fossil fuel powered generators fire up for peak power at about 6pm it is more efficient to keep them running rather than cutting them and starting them again, EV charging provides a small consistent load that allows them to run efficiently. I have read reports saying that millions of cars can be supported by this night time excess without needing more plants or even much more fuel (I think it was submitted to appeal the CAFE EV regulation backslide and I have read it in several places but I can't remember). A plug in hybrid would probably use at most about 10kWh, which could be covered by about a 2kW peak array if you wanted a green option. Electric drive even with dodgy power plants is still twice as efficient as gasoline to mechanical energy. Plug in hybrids make a lot of sense

What do you do about California and other states that don't have enough power as it is? I'm assuming that would be one of the first markets to attack.

Milwaukee has brown outs during the summer, and it doesn't get that hot here. More power plants are needed, but zoning and environmental issues are gigantic issues also.

Personally, an electric car just wouldn't work for my application. Range is too short, period. It's a niche market.

The Tesla data is somewhat misleading - Tesla makes the assumption that their vehicles are propelled by electricity generated by natural gas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant

These guys - while I am skeptical of Wiki I tend to trust the factual stuff since it's often "refereed" by the public - claim that at best a natural gas peaking plant has demonstrated 60 percent conversion efficiency.

In contrast a coal fired plant demonstrates about forty percent conversion efficiency at best. Nukes are often on par with coal fired plants in terms of their heat to electricity efficiencies.

Tesla motors is assuming the best possible efficiency of electric power conversion from fossil fuel. In reality, given that the vast bulk of electricity in the US (and mostly everywhere else but France) is coal generated the Tesla's "efficiency" is probably close to about two thirds as good as claimed, or marginally better than a Toyota Prius.

Moreover, the "peaking" plants use natural gas. Putting an extra strain on natural gas supplies is not really a prudent idea. Many of us heat our homes with natural gas and do not appreciate anything that would make our lives and cost of living rise. Especially the elderly who often struggle to make ends meet. Peaking plants still generate "greenhouse gases" so their sacrifices are moot.

We could debate the conversion efficiency and probable mix of sources for any one consumer. Reality is that the battery capacity of a hybrid is not terribly great and 10kWhr is not a lot of energy.

10kWhr is a "drop in the bucket". My Yaris motor has an 80kW output at peak. Which means if I had an electric battery power units and demanded the same power I'd get less than a minute of peak power from 10kWhr of charged power.

The Toyota Prius motor, incidentally, has an output of 52kW. Which means if you charge the batteries you're providing the Prius with about a minute of peak power.

I'll reiterate - the purpose of batteries in a hybrid is to buffer vehicle energy, not to substitute for the gasoline motor.

In exchange for this very modest benefit of pre-charge you'd be putting strain on natural gas supplies.

That all being said, I have no personal objection to people putting plugs on their hybrids. I think the marginal savings would be minimal but if it makes you all feel better and gives you a sense of empowerment have at it.

Gene

Good post, Gene.

I just consulted here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

The battery capacity of Toyota Prius is about 1.7kWhr. This capacity reinforces my assertion that the purpose of the batteries in a hybrid is to buffer vehicle energy.

If someone wished to make a more electricity oriented hybrid they're free to do so. I cannot see the EPA giving you a hard time for "tampering" with an electric power system, as they might do if you were to tweak or modify the car's motor or emission control system.

Please keep in mind that your constraints would be power capacity of the battery packs versus having to haul them around. Another constraint is cost of the batteries. You will have to optimize with respect to weight, efficiency and total cost.

I am sure that Toyota Engineering, which is known to be thorough, "gamed" many scenarios for capacity before arriving at their 1.7kWhr figure. They probably did not release their scenarios and which one predominated their calculations. Perhaps your own personal needs do not agree with these scenarios?

It is possible that for some here a higher capacity would yield better results for you in terms of mileage and overall fuel efficiency. As we say at work sometimes the devil is in the details and the details are in the numbers.

Gene

Thanks, Dave.

Gene

Thanks also to Matt for quoting the Tesla site. I'm going over it. I work with motor controls myself and know a bit about what they're doing. They seem to be doing a fine job.

A 200kW motor comes to about 268Hp, which is pretty stout when you have a light weight car. Tesla Motors was ruthless in reducing weight and making the vehicle as simple as possible.

A hybrid, by contrast, has both the best and the worst of both worlds and one must carefully constrain each technology to get a best compromise. Toyota did a really impressive job.

I regret that the US lacks the power generating capacity to allow every one of us to use Tesla Motors's technology. I think that electric vehicles will be a key form of transportation in the future, though we will need to grow the "grid" a great deal to accommodate their energy consumption.

I also wish that Tesla Motors was a bit more honest in their presentation of efficiencies. They do not do themselves any service by assuming natural gas inputs, not when most of the US and elsewhere uses coal to generate electricity.

Gene