article: Plug-in Hybrid

Tweaked hybrid gets 80 miles per gallon


By Tim Molloy Associated Press


CORTE MADERA, Calif. -- Politicians and automakers say a car that can both
reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil
is years or even decades away.

Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.

It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80
miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-size batteries that boosts
the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even
less fuel.

Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent
several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.

Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small
amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra
batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet
at his home in this San Francisco suburb -- all for about a quarter.

He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet
cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have
gotten up to 250 mpg.

They have support not only from environmentalists but also from
conservative foreign-policy hawks who insist Americans fuel terrorism
through their gas guzzling.

And while the technology has existed for three decades, automakers are
beginning to take notice, too.

So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to
building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans
for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned
on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.

"They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up
their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome
and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot
rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what
they can do about increasing fuel economy."

The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas
and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries
and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel
efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a
day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.

"The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline
usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for
people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During
that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference."

Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their
cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but
they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They
also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.

Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San
Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could
mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price.

But Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost,
convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids -- and note that consumers
haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of
recharging them like giant cell phones.

Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids
don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message.

Nonetheless, plug-in hybrids are starting to get the backing of prominent
hawks like former CIA Director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President
Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a
group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on
plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign
oil dependence.

Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy,
said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from
him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern
governments that support terrorism.

"The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent
on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling
those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said.

DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said plug-in hybrids are ideal for
companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central
location at night. He declined to name the companies buying the vehicles
and said he did not know the vehicles' mileage or cost, or when they would
be available. On the Net:

CalCars Initiative: calcars.org

 

that's one of the dumbest articles i've ever seen. where do these
idiots thing the "plug in" energy comes from? just pull out the gas
motor & replace entirely with batteries! then it's an infinite mpg
vehicle. thanks for the laugh.

 

What's dumb is your failure to consider the actual costs here.

It appears he spends 25 cents to fully charge his car's batteries. Then he
gets 20 miles of driving using the battery-gasoline combo, achieving
presumably "80 miles per gallon of gasoline." So 20/80 = 1/4 gallon of
gasoline was used to drive 20 miles. At $2.40 per gallon, he paid 60 cents
for that 1/4 gallon. Overall cost to travel 20 miles with this car: 85
cents.

By contrast, with my 40 mpg conventional Honda Civic, I pay $1.20 . He's
paying only 85/120 = ~ 70% of what I pay. Those who drive cars and "trucks"
getting only 27.5 MPG (the CAFE standard for passenger cars?) pay $1.75 for
the 20 mile trip. Mr. Hybrid Engineer (in the article) pays less than half
this.

 

what's dumb is contending you have an 80mpg vehicle when you don't. may
as well just go for the big kahuna and eliminate the gas entirely.

 

The problem with electric (only) vehicles was that people and companies
worried that the electric vehicles would run out of power and would have
to be towed home or to a place were the drivers could plug them in. With a
"Plug-in" hybrid car--the people and companies that own them would NEVER
have to worry about these issues.

 

Read the article.

 

Have any of these hackers crash tested their vehicles?

I wonder what a rear end collision into a rear end filled with wet cell
lead-acid batteries would do?

Also, where exactly is the electricity for these things supposed to come
from? My home electric bill in the summer here in Northern California
already is getting close to $500/month when the heat waves hit, and that
is with solar energy taking care of all of our domestic hot water.

I really do not want to buy expensive electricity from PG&E for my
automobiles as well!

John

 

The guy in the article only used LA cells for initial tests;he then
switched to NiMH. Others are using Li-ion cells.

Safe,clean nuclear power plants. Time to build more of them.

It would be a lot cheaper than buying gasoline.

 

Safe,clean nuclear power plants. Time to build more of them.

Ever heard of the nuclear waste problem?

 

John,
You do NOT have to ever buy a hybrid vehicle. You did NOT mention how far
you drive each day or how much you pay for gas each month. If you live
close to where you work, I don't think that anyone would advise you to buy
a hybrid vehicle since they cost much more then a non-hybrid vehicle. I
don't do much driving so I will never buy a hybrid vehicle due to the
cost. However, if I lived 50 miles from where I worked, I would buy a
hybrid vehicle and plug it in
every night since the price of gas is going higher and higher and higher.
Jason

 

And where is the "safe and clean" nuclear waste supposed to go, please?
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/physics/sobel/Nucphys/waste.html - "But
one has to plan storage and protection for the public on a time-scale of
thousands of years."

 

ok, crash test someone using lithium batteries. I'll personally take
hydrogen over that.

 

Yes, well, waste, yes, problem, not so much. there's Sellafield for
one. Someone was also proposing some experiments a year or two ago
with a deveice called a 'proton transmutation accelerator' or similar.
Couldn't get fnding though to develop it into a working technology.

 

Yes,one more part that has been stifled and progress halted by the anti-
nuke idiots.

 

Why?
Please explain exactly what Lithium-ion batteries will do in a crash.

 

As has been well documented with Rc aircraft and especialy boats...

When puntured, they have a tendency to catch fire, or explode. reason
is simple - LITHIUM.
Lithium + water --> lithium hydroxide + hydrogen + ENERGY

Admitedly, if you put a piece of lithium in water, it just melts and
fizzes, but its also at or below room temp - a battery isn't. Also,
unlike potassium, and sometimes sodium, it doesn't get hot enough ina
nd of itself to make the hydrogen produced light. HOWEVER batterys do
get warm, there's lots of electrical sparts, and metal on metal. At
least a hydrogen tank is design to rupture safe, and, being a gas,
will dissipate the longer it goes without a spark. no so with lithium
- it constantly generates more hydrogen (moisture in the air,
donchaknow).

Anyway, thats just what i've read in the dangers of the battery type
in crash impacts. YMMV

 

Safe,clean nuclear power plants. Time to build more of them.

Would you like a nuclear waste dump in your town?

Would you recommend living near a nuclear waste dump
to your child, nephew, pregant relative?

If you answer yes to these then more power to you but
you'll be the first person I've met that does.

 

If the stuff is properly immobilized and shielded, why not?

 

The irony is that there are many nuclear waste dumps across the nation right
now because of this attitude. Rather than sensibly storing the waste where
it will be less likely to be a problem, we have it distributed all over the
country. The fear of nuclear waste baffles me. You can easily detect it
and deal with it. The effects are known and understood. Many of the same
people who are so afraid of nuclear energy and waste don't realize that they
have much more hazardous products nearby that they will never even know
about. I grew up in the midst of chemical plants in Louisiana and would
trade a nuclear plant or storage facility for that in a second. You can
detect radiation easily. Do you know what you are breathing as a result of
the nearby plants and even the chemicals in use in your home? The relative
environmental impact of nuclear energy compared to even the cleanest of
fossil fuel generation or petro-chemical production is so small that I have
to wonder about the intelligence of those who are so petrified by it. Geez,
even many of the products that are produced and used everyday in the
chemical industry are more dangerous and impact more people than nuclear
waste.

Leonard

 

How does that compare to a thin steel can full of 20 gallons of gasoline?