← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · JoseyWales
Thread ID: 19659 | Posts: 10 | Started: 2005-08-15
2005-08-15 16:54 | User Profile
yep, thats right 2 5 0 [url]http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050813/hybrid_tinkerers.html[/url]
2005-08-15 17:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=JoseyWales]yep, thats right 2 5 0 [url="http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050813/hybrid_tinkerers.html"]http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050813/hybrid_tinkerers.html[/url][/QUOTE]Interesting...
But don't you think that in the long term we may need hydrogen-powered cars, or cars that run solely on batteries?
2005-08-15 18:24 | User Profile
It is incorrect to say that any car is getting 250mpg. These are basically electric cars that use a gas engine to extend their range. Their extra batteries needed makes them less practical than current hybrids. And, if batteries improve enough to make these "plug-in hybrids" practical, it would probably be good to do away with gas engines in small cars, and go all plug-in electric.
2005-08-15 20:07 | User Profile
Is a car requiring a charge on the power grid really more efficient in the long run? Would that not increase the power plantââ¬â¢s load and therefore increase the need for more power plants, particularly the nuclear kind? Does the energy required to make hydrogen offset the benefits of being more eco friendly?
2005-08-15 23:20 | User Profile
You guys make good points. Sure, 250 mpg sounds great, but in the case of a plug-in hybrid it doesn't tell the whole story. Efficiency also has to be measured by the amount of electricity pumped in from outside. Otherwise, you could say that an all-electric car that uses no gas power at all gets infinitely many miles to the gallon! :)
Still, I have to give that guy credit for tinkering with his car like that and trying his ideas out. Some great inventions have been conceived that way. Maybe he'll find ways to squeeze even more efficiency out of his car.
2005-08-16 01:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]Otherwise, you could say that an all-electric car that uses no gas power at all gets infinitely many miles to the gallon! :)[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Plug-ins move the car in the direction of electric cars. If plug-ins are practical, wouldn't all-electric cars be practical?
Adding an electric motor to a car allows it to use breaking energy for power. And, it allows the gas motor to run in a more optimal range. But, once you've achieved these efficiences, is there any point in going further to the side of electric cars? If going futher electrical is practical, then it seems that the gas engine is holding it back, and should be done away with.
2005-08-16 07:38 | User Profile
[size=4][color=blue]Hybrid Car Makers Step Up The Acceleration Over Fuel Efficiency [/color][/size] By Matthew L. Weld (NY Times News Service)
Washington -- Mark Buford is happy with the Honda Accord hybrid that he bought six months ago, and he has already driven it 13,000 miles. He was determined to buy a hybrid electric car, he said, and this one is clean, "green", and accelerates faster than the nonhybrid version. He just cannot count on it to save much gasoline.
Many people concerned with oil consumption, including President Bush and members of Congress, are pointing to hybrids -- vehicles with electric motors as well as internal combustion engines -- as a way to reduce fuel use and dependence on imported oil.
The first ones to reach the market did that; the two-seat Honda Insight, introduced in December 1999, was rated at 70 miles per gallon, and was followed by the five-seat Toyota Prius, also buit for reduced fuel consumption. Those cars have no nonhybrid equivalents.
Then came the Civic hybrid, designed to perform almost as well as the original, only using a lot less gasoline.
But the pendulum has swung. The 2005 Honda Accord hybrid gets about the same miles per gallon as the basic four-cylinder model, according to a review by Consumer Reports, and it saves only about 2 mpg compared with the V-6 model on which it is based. Thanks to the hybrid technology, though, it accelerates better.
Hybrid technology, it seems, is being used in much the same way as other under-the-hood innovations that increased gasoline efficiency: to satisfy the American appetite for acceleration and bulk.
Despite the use of hybrids to achieve better performance with the same fuel economy, consumers who buy the cars continue to get a tax credit that the Internal Revenue Service allows under a "clean fuels" program that does not take fuel savings into account.
And the image of hybrids as fuel-stingy workhorses persists.
In a June 15 speech at an energy forum, Bush proposed a tax credit of up to $4000 to "encourage people to make right choices in the marketplace that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil and to help improve our environment."
But some hybrids save hardly any fuel, energy efficiency advocates say.
"The new ones are all being used for power," said Kateri Callahan, the president of the Alliance To Save Energy, a non-profit advocacy group based in Washington.
Hybrids should be encouraged, Callahan said, because their electric components some day could be useful in an all-electric car, perhaps running on a fuel cell.
But she added that the government should be careful about which hybrids it subsidizes through tax benefits. Now, she said, the car companies are "building to the high-end market. They think people want performance."
The companies may have sized up their customers well. Buford, for example, bought his Accord hybrid in January, a month after the model came out, replacing a 2001 Accord coupe.
2005-08-16 17:09 | User Profile
It would appear that the Electric powered vehicle situation hasn't improved by leaps and bounds in the last 100 years. We still use storage batteries that haven't improved that much in the last 100 years.
1904 The BAKER Electric Torpedo Kid attained 104 mph (167.336 km/h) [img]http://www.kartelec.com/f/mob/hist/1904.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.birthplaceofspeed2003.com/images43.jpg[/img] [size=1]The car featured on the cover of the book is called the Baker Electric "Torpedo Kid." [/size]
[size=1]
| [img]http://www.lindelifttruck.com/images/image02.jpg[/img] | 1893: | Walter C. Baker, a young student at the Case School of Applied Science, built the Electrobat Automobile for the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the first time an automobile had been publicly demonstrated. |
| 1898: | Walter Baker organized the Baker Motor Vehicle Company and displayed the first shaft-driven auto at the first automobile show in Madison Square Garden. Thomas A. Edison bought the first electric car from Walter Baker. Among other prominent owners were Diamond Jim Brady and the King of Siam. | |
| [img]http://www.lindelifttruck.com/images/image03.jpg[/img] | 1902: | Walter Baker, in his electric ââ¬ÅTorpedoââ¬Â, attained the speed of 104 M.P.H. at Ormond Beach, Florida. At that time, it was the fastest speed achieved by man. |
2005-08-16 17:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE]New hybrid car gets 250mpg![/QUOTE]
Really! Look for the inventor of this hybrid to be crash-test-dummied in a "mysterious accident", "causes unkown".
2005-08-17 02:17 | User Profile
There's nothing new here, pluggable cars require a much more expensive (and heavier) battery to be able to cover large enough distance without gas engine turning on. Batteries have too low energy density. That's the problem.