Hybrid cars

But you can put in enough wind farms to supply the US's electrical
needs.

That is true for any kind of fuel. Even fossil fuels, if you add in the
total
energy that it took to grow the plants what you get out of it is much
less.

What matters with vehicles is having mobile fuel. Liquid, gas, and
chemical storage (ie: electric) is are all mobile and are what you got
to work with. Solid fuel (coal, etc.) isn't mobile unless your running
a reaction engine which is horribly inefficient, or your on rails. Solar
isn't feasible, since you need to drive your car in the dark at night.

Since just about all energy on Earth comes from the Sun, it must
be converted into either a liquid, a gas, or a chemical storage to be
used, that conversion is ALWAYS going to take more solar energy
input into the system than energy you get out by burning the fuel.
If you can let nature do some of that conversion it helps, of course.

Ted

 

But that is only now since most Priuses are still under the battery
warranty.
And those battery packs have a very short shelf life if they are not kept
charged up, like any battery. 2 years after the wreck unless the wrecker
has
been keeping the battery on a trickle charger, it's going to be shot just by
sitting there doing nothing, due to natural self-discharge.

10 years from now I think the used battery situation will be quite
different.
And there is another thing you and all the Prius owners should worry
about. Toyota does not seem at all interested in addressing the points
that the Prius critics keep bringing up about service and repair of the
Prius post-warranty expiration. It is constantly pointed out how expensive
a new replacement traction battery is. Toyota's response seems to
be that the traction battery never fails so why worry. Toyota should
be instead adressing these concerns and working with the aftermarket
to bring out alternatives that are cheaper, as well as every year reducing
the battery cost, as increasing volume production and economies of scale
reduce the cost of those batteries to Toyota. It is also pointed out that
the car is more expensive to repair since you can't take it to any other
place than special Toyota dealerships that have special hybrid techs
available. Toyota seems to be responding that the car never breaks
down and so never needs repair. Instead they should be offering
very low cost training to any independent mechanic that is interested
in working on these cars in his own shop.

It is like Toyota's whole attitude about the Prius is that there's this
big long warranty on it and the day after the car passes the end
of the warranty period, it should be scrapped. I'm surprised
that all you Prius owners aren't hammeing Toyota about reducing
the list cost on the traction battery.

There is a reason for this. The Prius hasn't been out that long. And
sophisticated
computerized chargers that continually probe battery condition and set
the charging optimally will add years to the life of any battery. But
batteries
are all time-dependent, they will fail You might get 10 years out of them,
15 tops., but that's it. And it has nothing to do with mileage.

Ted

 

Ummmm.....yes they do.

 

Don't care aboqut the power windows and power locks failing on me on the
highway.

On the other hand, the computer is MUCH more integral to the simple
starting and driving away of the parallel hybrid (Toyota system) than I
like.

 

Heh... You might hafta provide a little incentive. Just follow the
guv'ment's lead!

<G>

JT

 

I'm sure they did. After all, they want to sell those very expensive
cars to you, now don't they? However, since the IRS has yet to
determine exactly what tax credit is supposed to apply to which hybrid
car, and haven't even determined yet what the word "hybrid" actually
means, I wouldn't exactly rush out and go buy one right yet.

Wow. Perhaps you should look up what companies our current VP has
major stockholdings in, and which environmental laws they've
deliberately relaxed and which business they most affect.

BTW, the hybrids don't get the gas efficiency the dealers put on the
windows. Those mileages are determined in a lab under controlled
conditions; in actual driving conditions they can be much, much lower,
resulting in the buyer never making back his initial (expensive)
investment in the vehicle.

John Lansford, PE

 

I bought a Honda Civic Hybrid March, 2005 and my experience with its mileage
is mixed. Once I reached the 10,000 mile mark, the mileage did improve, but
I only get 38 mpg in local driving, and I contribute the low mileage to the
fact I must negotiate a lot of hills which must reduce mileage, since I got
51 mpg driving to Florida from home in the Hudson Valley of NY. I really
don't think that the increased mileage will pay for the increased cost, but
I will get a $2,000 tax rebate back in my tax refund check which I
understand will be going up this year. I obtained breakdown warranty
insurance, which I advise all new owners obtain for hybrids.

At the time the only Hybrid that I could get was one with a standard
remission and I would now counsel against obtaining one, as one must push
the clutch all the way down with the car in gear for the engine to start up
after it has stopped in traffic, which I have found is a real pain to
drive,especially when making left turns across heavy traffic, I would
recommend only obtaining one with an automatic transmission.

I am considering trading my hybrid with standard transmission in 2 years
for one with an automatic transmission.

 

That may be true for some. I am not sure of the percentage- I doubt if
anyone really is.

Hey, I am a gearhead from away back. When I was a teen, anyone who
couldn't work on his own car was the nerd, though we didn't use that
term then.

I love performance cars- I have one in my garage, fortunately it burns
alcohol and runs on a race track.

But, as a retired, fixed income guy I am concerned with the cost of
gasoline. There is no conspiracy involved other than the law of supply
and demand. The ONLY way we are going to put a brake on prices is to
put a brake on demand. Anything we can do to reduce gasoline
consumption will reduce the rate of increase of prices. So looking at
the economics of buying any high milage car today should be considering
the future cost of gasoline.

I will seriously consider replacing my present Neon R/T with a hybrid.
It has 100,000 miles on it and is in good shape, but it will not last
forever. Much as I love twin cams and four valves per cylinder, I
realize that practically speaking it is much better to get my
performance kicks at the race track than on the highway. BTW, my I sold
my last big V8 the year of the first oil embargo, the early seventies.
Still love cars and racing engines, but I don't have to have the
biggest, most powerful engine in town (and use only a small percent of
its capability in normal driving).

 

We have to make sure we don't solve on serious problem by worsening
another. I am concerned that biofuels, ESPECIALLY alcohol, is far worse
for global warming than gasoline. There has to be a better solution. I
am all for alternate fuels, but we need to look at the greenhouse
emissions of using, and more importantly, producing them.

 

In a sense it is still a horsepower problem. The problem with a large
horsepower engine, especially in a smaller, lighter car is that
ordinarily a small fraction of the horsepower capability of the engine
is being used. Light throttle openings are not efficient- in fact, they
are very inefficient. If it were not for power enrichening, max
efficiency is at wide open throttle. Because of such enrichening, max
efficiency in a normal auto engine is at about two-thirds throttle. A
larger engine than a vehicle needs results in very much reduced throttle
opening with a reduction in efficiency.

 

I think the key to that is in the study's assumptions. There are a lot
of criteria involved in land that "can be" dedicated. I suspect the
study basically looked at current agricultural land. We have been
reducing our farmland for years as farming gets more efficient.

Secondly, I think ethanol is NOT the most efficient biofuel. They
should have looked at other fuels as well as ethanol.

 

One reason manual transmissions CAN get better gas milage is that one
can decide on shift points. Economy driving requires lower rpm and
wider throttle openings. Automatics COULD be set up for more fuel
economy, but that is not the way they are currently adjusted. Such
adjustments reduce performance to a degree, so settings are a
compromise. With manual shift you can change the "settings" any time
you want. When gas is high, you can short shift, but you can wind it up
any time you need a little more oomph.

 

Most vehicles don't get the mileage on the window sticker especially in
city driving. One thing that is unrealistic is that the EPA driving
cycle starts with a warmed-up engine.

A friend of mine who bought a Prius when they first came out thinks that
he didn't get the advertised city mileage because the engine starts and
runs until it is warmed up. So on a short trip in the winter the engine
runs the whole time and mileage is no better than any other car. He
traded the Prius in on a hybrid Civic and figures he got the extra money
back on the trade-in. If you are the kind of person who buys new cars
and trades them after 2 or 3 years you may get your money back.

John Mara

 

If the tractor burned alcohol or bio diesel and the fields were
fertilized with manure and the distillation plant also burned bio fuel
we might be getting somewhere. This would mean putting even more land
into fuel production to get the fuel to make fuel.

John Mara

 

ABCNews ran an article on those mileage numbers on the stickers;
basically no vehicle gets those numbers, and some such as SUV's get
nowhere near them.

The ones that really make no sense are the SUV's with hybrid
propulsion systems.

ISTM that the people who get rid of the vehicle after just a few years
are the ones that never make back the initial cost on gas savings even
for a hybrid. The news article I mentioned above spoke with several
hybrid owners who were tried that strategy and it didn't work for
them.

John Lansford, PE

 

The tractor burning alcohol doesn't reduce the energy demand in making the
fuel, since the alcohol has to come from the production process in the
first place. It does not increase the supply of fuel. Alcohol is simply a
transporter of energy, not a new energy source.

 

That fits me. I have to remind myself there are people who take their cars
to garages for service.

I first heard about the hybrid car concept about 20 years ago, and the
elegance of the concept floored me. There are not yet any serial hybrids - a
car where the propulsion is entirely electric and the engine is used to
drive a generator to feed the batteries - in production but they are
certainly coming. I don't remember how long ago I became disenchanted with
the notion of dragging a passenger car around with a 200 hp engine, but I do
recall it never made any sense. Hybridization separates acceleration
performance from engine power, so the engine can be downsized and even shut
down when the power isn't needed without losing responsiveness. Now that
makes sense!

Public education of the purpose and of the technical aspects of
hybridization is way behind. Many people assume hybrids must be underpowered
because they use less fuel than conventional cars. Far from it. Although
today's designs emphasize economy the benefits extend into performance.
Check out the concept cars Honda
http://world.honda.com/Tokyo2001/auto/DUALNOTE/ and Toyota
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/volta.html are toying with. Both offer
400 hp combined power; Toyota claims more than 30 mpg (your guess is as good
as mine what sort of driving that is) and Honda "calculates" 40 mpg. Concept
cars don't often contribute a lot to actual production models, but consider:
the original Prius is very similar to the G21 concept car Toyota displayed
at the 1995 Tokyo Motor Show.

"All it requires is the *will* to do so." - Dr. Strangelove

 

Perhaps the current electrical needs. I wonder what will happen as
fossil fuels become more expensive and scarcer. I suspect that there
will be a shift toward electricity as a replacement for things like home
heating and industrial applications. The demand for electricity will
climb as a result, likely outstripping the supply that could be
generated by wind power alone. However, wind generated power would
reduce the need for alternatives such as nuclear, and would be provided
where it made economic sense.

Yes, but the energy is already there in fossil fuels. The only current
cost is the cost of mining or pumping, production and transportation.
The alcohol doesn't exist, nor does the energy contained in it. If the
energy cost of making alcohol is greater than the amount of energy
obtained, as some contend, then it is not a replacement for fossil
fuels. I'm not talking about the solar energy to grow the plants, but
the energy needed to run the farms, make the tractors, and build and
operate the processing plants. The energy for those things alone,
exclusive of the solar energy, is greater than the energy you get from
the alcohol.

In short, you still need about the same amount of fossil fuel to make
the alcohol as you would by using the fossil fuels directly in
transportation vehicles.

Converting coal into liquid fuels is certainly an alternative. Whether
or not it is done on a large scale will depend on the economics.

 

What's the -fun- part of driving it?
Knowing you're being frugal with gas?
Or that it replaced a 20+ yr old car?

 

That's not my personal experience. Our 2002 Prius gets very close to the
estimated mileage in mild weather, even though our driving is mostly in town
and it sees most of its duty in my wife's commute on the hilly terrain to
her job seven miles away. Cold weather takes the expected bite out of the
efficiency, but I've never had a car that got closer to the EPA estimates
than the Prius is doing.

I'm reminded of the classic "mass hysteria" event on the US West Coast in
the days of atmospheric nuclear testing. People were reporting their
windshields pitted as a fallout cloud moved southward... until somebody
pointed out the pitting was also present ahead of the cloud and only
affected older cars. People had just noticed what was there all along. If
the public would remember the EPA estimates are only a benchmark for
regulatory and comparison purposes and take the disclaimer "your mileage may
vary" to heart they would be happier.

Mike