Gas-Electric Hybrid Vehicles: Features you'd like to see.

rfruth

In Texas a single occupant hybrid is not permitted in HOV lanes, in Virginia they are thank goodness.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2002/052002/05262002/614880

daysailer

are motorcycles allowed in HOV lanes? I use to drive a bike to work with consistently better fuel economy than current hybrids promise (65-70mpg) even with occasional excursions on dirt trails. Bikes also cause less traffic and parking congestion and are unequaled in the performance/gallon measure as well.

rfruth

Don't think motorcycles are allowed in the HOV lanes, corse that might change when the powers that be realize its the 21 century.

http://web.wtez.net/c/g/cg63550/colin/hov.htm

catam

I lived in Houston for 4 years and they were definitely allowed. They are also allowed in Utah. I would think this is pretty universal.

rfruth

They were allowed ? Did you happen to work for city government or the highway department. But yes the web site I posted does show the restrictions as 2+ so I doubt the traffic police could or would hassle anyone in that case. SOV hybrids should also be allowed in my opinion, that would help encourage people to step up.

marcb

..transportation around. Don't get me wrong, I love motorcycles. Learned to drive one while in elementary and were my primary transportation up thru college.

But because they are not subject to the same legal controls as cars, they produce higher levels of toxic fumes.

They are no more fuel efficient than a small diesel car (in terms of per passenger mile), produces about 20 times as much poisonous carbon monoxide and 100 times the level of partially burnt hydrocarbons.

Thats why 4 stroke engines are being introduced for motorcycles (and snowmobiles) to overcome those shortcomings as the government is going to tighten on the legal requirements. With emission controls added on motorcycles, they probably are not going to be as cheap.

catam

Actually nearly all motorcycles built for on road use, have 4 stroke engines, and have been that way for 20 plus years. It is the bikes that are designed for off road use that use the 2 stroke engines. Their are a few crossover bikes that are designed for both on and off road, but last time I checked these bikes were also predominantly 4 stroke engines.

Heck my brother even owns 2 ATV's that are 10 years old and they both have 4 stroke engines.

daysailer

in the early '60s was a 4-stroke (I think all Hondas have been 4-stroke).

marcb

scooters only, guess that explains it. but are those street bikes required to have emission controls like auto's do? the 2 stroke ones i rode back then didn't have any.

rfruth

I had a 1980 something Kawasaki 400 street bike and it was a 2 stroke, polluted like mad I bet but was in my 20s at the time and didn't care, few years after that got a Kaw 650 it was a 4 stroke. HOVs, dug this up (in Texas the freeways (HOV lanes also?) are clearly signed peds & bicycles prohibited) - 23 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) notes that "motorcycles and bicycles shall not be considered single occupant vehicles." Also, 23 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) notes that "...a State may permit a vehicle with fewer than 2 occupants to operate in high occupancy vehicle lanes if the vehicle is properly labeled and certified as an Inherently Low-Emission Vehicle." Here are the details http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/operations/hovguide01.htm

robertsmx

I believe motorcycles are allowed on HOV in Texas. I remember reading once that 2+ rule applies to cars only, not motorcycles.

rfruth

Watts Up?

machiavelli

Question - the $2000 tax credit - Does anyone know, is that a one-time-only deal, or can you claim it every year you own the car? Is it enough to tip the economics in favor of buying a Prius or Hybrid instead of a lower priced conventional Corolla or Civic?

catam

But I do not know for sure.
Just remember either way, it is a deduction not a credit.
Thus if you are in the 27% tax bracket, you only end up with $540.

machiavelli

Even at $540, if you could claim it every year, would make the Hybrid very attractive to me. $540 alone, one-time, doesn't quite do it, economically.

catam

If it was every year it would be well worthwhile.
I am pretty sure it is not.
Also, the current law expires in I believe 2004. So, Congress will have to enact a new law to claim it beyond that point anyway.

rfruth

Called the Durango HEV and Dodge Ram HEV Contractor's Special

http://www.edmunds.com/news/innovations/articles/46970/article.html

christhatcher

Better brakes on the Prius

Better CD changer controls on the Prius

Better exterior color selection on all hybrids

Better acceleration on the Civic Hybrid

A mid-sized SUV hybrid import with real power

Batteries that can take not being driven for 30 days or longer

Hybrids designed for bad winter weather and off-road driving (more than just dirt roads)

dgallon

I'm trying to decide between buying a Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. Can anyone give me feedback on what they like and don't like about the cars? What could be done better on them? Thanks!

rfruth

I don't own either yet (but have a 2000 Civic hatchback my first Honda anything and its been a typical Honda, just what I was hoping for) anyway no folding back seat in either (discussed at length on the Yahoo toyota-prius board as you know) folding seats should at least be an option, fold down the seats in my HB and there is lots of room but I digress, okay they (Toyota & Honda) took different approaches, ones a serial hybrid the other parallel, Prius has stealth (battery only) mode, a nav system option, 3rd party add ons and have been on the road a few years in the US so you kinda know what to expect. Civic has CVT or a 5 speed, side airbags ABS and some other bells & whistles, I would go with the Civic but its a close call, is there a good dealer near by, do you like the feel/drive of one over the other, is the trunk big enough, are insurance co$ts about the same etc.

rfruth

1. fold-down rear seats (yes, I know, I'm sounding like a broken record -- whoops, dated myself -- make that a scratched CD)
2. rear disc brakes
3. factory sun-roof
4. interior trunk release

Sylvia

mirth

1. Better power (doesn't have to be class-leading but at least average)
2. Bigger sized vehicle
3. Lower price premium to buy one. Yeah, I know this would be like asking for a $150 DVD player back in 1996, but then I didn't buy a DVD player back then either. Basically, I think the mileage should be a selling point (as in, why would I buy this over an ICE vehicle) rather than a reason to pay extra.

daysailer

are no different than for a conventional car:

1 Better OVERALL performance, handling (particularly transient response), power, braking

2 less mass

3 Superior ergonomics

4 lower cost

nwng

and reduce the price by $1k or more

bottgers

Hybrids are a great start to APV's (alternative powered vehicles), (CNG and Hydrogen powered vehicles are a better choice IMO), but more models need to be made available. I'd have a hybrid right now (because I hate paying for gas) if there were more models to choose from. Unfortunately, a Civic or Prius won't meet the transportation needs of my family. Now if they had a hybrid minivan........

dhanley

I'll go out on a limb, and say: a plug.

The current administration is promoting hydrogen, but i just don't see it as being practical. Hydrogen is just a way to store energy, not create it, and we don't make enough energy as is. Hydrogen's advantage over pure current is that it can store energe in a dense fashion. But in general, that's terribly inefficient. We have to chill it to cryogenic temperaures to store it, and if we park for too long in out car, the extra hydrogen must be vented off.

Ideally, we'd use renewable resources ( solar, wind, wave, ocean thermal, etc ) to produce hydrogen to burn in our cars. Fusion could make plentiful and clean power but it's a glimmer in scientist's eyes right now. But any of these require generating power and electrolyzing the hydrogen out of water, which can only be so efficient ( 70% ) or less.

It's more efficient to generate the power and just charge cars with it. That gets us to electric cars, hence my statement that a plug makes sense.

But now quite as it's done now. What we want, i think, is a electric car that could, and would operate entirely on the electriv motor for short trips around town: shopping, going out to get videos, etc, those short trips that comprise many of our activities. Those might never depelete the batteries under 50% over the course of a month if we always plugged back in at home.

You'd want a small, simple, low power engine for longer trips. Something modular that would simply satisfy power requests from the rest of the vehicle when the batteries got low enough. Say, a super efficient diesel, turbine or storling cycle motor that could be snapped out and replaced or worked on as needed. Such a motor would only run wide-open throttle and at peak efficient RPM's because it would only be there to power the battery.

When would this motor be used by the car? It could be determined by the user! In-town you might set the motor to activate only when the batteries dropped to 30% capacity, as the average need for power in town is low, and even a small engine could keep up. But as before, a tank of fuel might last for a long, long time for the typical in-town driver, who can frequently be plugged in.

On the highway, on long trips, there would be no reason to let the batteries drop below, say, eighty percent, especially if hills might be involved, so the user would set the batteries to be kept nearly topped off.

So, i think a system like this, with a plug, makes a lot more sense than this "hydrogen economy" idea.

dave

daysailer

The present hybrid designs i.e., a hybrid wherin electric drive is employed for energy recovery and to optimize the operating cycle of the ICE, can produce a vehicle with operating characteristics that are essentially the same as a conventional vehicle, but with the benefit of improved fuel mileage. This "transparency" is key to wide market acceptance and accounts even for the success of the three examples presently available, even though they fall short of the ideal. This approach is not enhanced by "plug-in" capability. To the contrary, for plug-in to be beneficial, the battery must be operated deeper into discharge (present hybrids maintain charge above avbout 50%) and the ICE becomes an assist to the electric drive to offset the limitations of battery energy density and long recharge cycles. This requires a very different design including a larger battery, larger electric drive and different programming.

The extent of dependence on electric drive will depend upon the design objectives but the greater that dependence, the less transparent will be its operation as compared to conventional vehicles. At its simplest extreme, relying least on internal combustion, is the series hybrid that derives all motive force from electric drive with the ICE supplying only enough energy to extend range to acceptable levels. This is essentially an EV with on-board charger to overcome the energy density deficiency of batteries. But this entails the great mass and cost of a battery EV and adds to it an ICE, generator, fuel tank and ancilliaries. A plug-in hybrid could draw a different set of compromises by relying more heavily on IC power, but the mass and cost penalty will still be greater than a hybrid that relies only on energy from an ICE. Moreover a battery that operates deeper into discharge will have shorter life and will increase the specter of battery cost as a maintenance item, as it is for EVs.

The bottom line is still that there is no free lunch. There are those with a vested interest in EV related industries that have continued to quixotically promote EVs and now are attempting to highjack hybrid interest to their own purpose via the plug-in hybrid concept, but it is still a bad idea.

bhill2

The EV is promoted as a zero-emission vehicle because it produces no pollution at the point of use. Therefore, the move to hybrids has been decried as a 'cop-out', because they are just extremely low emission. Now, we all know that the 'zero-emission' label for EVs is inaccurate, since the production of the electricity that propels them produces pollution. In fact, electrical power plants in general produce a lot of pollution. My question is, does an electrical power plant emit more or less pollution in producing the power needed to drive an EV than a hybrid does in producing its power (assuming otherwise comparable vehicles, of course). I have a sneaking suspicion that, given the leading-edge pollution controls on the engine in a hybrid, and the fact that most electrical power plants are a) coal burning and b) old, that the hybrid may actually take the low-pollution medal. Does anyone know any figures on this?

robertsmx

...is for the vehicle, not the power plant.

That said, it can be debated whether it took more energy to recharge the batteries (from a plug) in Honda EV-Plus, or does it take more energy supplied to oil refineries to pump up the amount of gasoline that hybrid (or any gasoline) vehicle uses for the same distance traveled.

bhill2

i.e. how much energy it took to mine the coal (pump the crude), deliver the coal to the power plant (crude to the refinery) and so on. My question is, does the engine in the hybrid produce a given amount of electricity with less pollution than an electrical power plant does? I guess, to make the comparison more realistic we should include the losses in delivering the electricity from the power plant to the outlet, but that starts us down the slippery slope mentioned above.

A related question is whether the power plant consumes more fuel producing the electricity for an EV than a hybrid does producing the power to drive it. These two questions are related because power plants burning coal are using a widely and domestically available fuel source that is not generally considered useable for cars, but I'm here to tell you they produce MAJOR pollution. Alternative fuel sources, notably natural gas, produce much less pollution but put the power plant in potential direct competition with the cars themselves for fuel. Therefore, if hybrid cars can be run with less total pollution and the same or less total fuel than EVs, I think that the choice between the two is a slam dunk. If not, the situation is murkier. Of course, this doesn't even consider diesel, hydrogen, or hybrids using either as their power source. Maybe I should start a new discussion.

robertsmx

Electricity generated in a typical hybrid mostly comes from regenerative braking, the energy that would be lost otherwise as heat. It is basically recycling energy, so no additional gasoline is needed to do so. And, as in Civic Hybrid, the electric motor could function as a dynamo, generating electricity (if needed) to recharge the battery/ultra-capacitor pack. This would involve negligible amount of gasoline in the end, if any.

Between EV and Hybrid (or any gasoline/diesel) vehicle, net energy consumption boils down to understanding of,
Energy required for certain amount of electricity to charge battery/ultra-capacitor pack in an EV to drive X miles.
Energy required to extract, refine and deliver (including truck/rail delivery) oil to drive the gasoline/diesel/hybrid vehicle for X miles.

And that would be going into a little too much detail.

usbseawolf2000

I don't have a direct answer but consider hybrid efficiency comparison to Fuel cell zero emission. Efficiency should relate to emission.

.

Dennis

usbseawolf2000

"My question is, does the engine in the hybrid produce a given amount of electricity with less pollution than an electrical power plant does?"

Yes. Hybrid produces electricity mostly from regenerative braking. Others come from excess power at high efficient engine output. Prius Atkinson cycle engine is very low in emission by itself. Prius also convert combustion energy to electricity for more torque and higher drive ratio to get more thrust to the wheel.

Dennis

bhill2

The fact that a significant part of the electricity in a hybrid is produced by regenerative braking had escaped me. To relate back to the original question though, this would also be true of an EV. It is an important point in the discussion of hybrids vs. other power sources such as diesel, however.

misterme

In my experience only about 25% of recharge comes from braking and the rest is cruising-charging.

EV:
If battery technology were cheaper and could easily take me to work & back (90miles) going speed limits I'd be ALL OVER a EV in a "New York second".

Features I'd like to see is a bran new erodynamic design. Ever see the Tucker sketches from the 50's?
No not the production cars but his sketches.
Looks kind of like today's Viper.

This somehow morphed into a George Jetson style bubble roof would rule!
Thanks
Steve

rfruth

Why no AC power outlet in the Prius. The Vibe has this & the Vibe is less than half the price, it it cause low priority for AC outlet in Prius or not many people want to use a low current device like a crokpot or a real reading light ?

rfruth

I meant to say the Chevy (daewoo) Aveo is half the price of the Prius, not the Vibe.

larsb

All Hybrids should have the "EV mode" button to allow the driver to choose "all-electric" mode when they want.

( I guess the US drivers are too DENSE to use this option properly? )

daysailer

I can't imagine a condition where it would be "proper", much less desirable to operate in an EV only mode! In fact, the Prius' automatic use of such a mode under some conditions and which cannot be disabled by the driver is a principle disadvantage, IMO. Moreover, such a mode would be outright dangerous since the electric drive is not full rated and cannot deliver the full performance capability of the vehicle (which is rather meager in the present examples as it is).
The prospect of needing power in an emergency and not having it is not comforting. Even if there were an automatic override to bring the ICE on-line in such a circumstance, imagine the damage to bring a cold engine to full power immediately. such a sustem would, at a minimum, require a means to maintain a minimum engine temp and oil pressure, with consequent loss of efficiency.

Unless you only travel downhill, the ICE is the only source of power to the hybrids.

larsb

I just know that the non-US Priuses have the EV button and the US models do not, and I was just bemused as to whyever not?

I guess there is a valid reason for the button since it is in use on the car in non-US models.

falconone

The electric mode is used in circumstances to reposition the vehicle, driving in a garage etc. I drove a Prius and the transition from electric to gas is seamless. It is quite peppy to. I enjoyed the seat time I had while I rented it. Folks that haven't driven it and are relying on what they read, need to drive this car. It is really cool.

midnightcowboy

I drove a manual shift Chevy Aveo at the Auto show just to understand what the car was like. Whatever it sells for , $6995 is too much. Terible terrible car!

MidCow

rfruth

A hybrid can come in real handy sometimes - snip - Power after a hurricane can be steps away from your front door with GM's partial-hybrid Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/motorsports/10142739.- - htm

Sylvia

many thanks!

electrictroy

I'd like to see a 90 mpg VW Lupo married with a Civic Hybrid battery.

The stock 45 hp Lupo has ~15 second 0-60 acceleration, but with the electric assist it would get 10 second acceleration, and still get an amazing 90 miles per gallon of diesel.

Troy
Help fight cancer / Donate your computer:
[deleted by moderator]

xcel

Hi ElectricTroy:

___Maybe things have changed since the last time I looked but the VW Lupo and its 45 HP motor capable of 77 mpg (US gallons) trim was a 20 second 0 - 60 capable automobile. You could place a highlander pack on that POS and it wouldn’t go anywhere because it doesn’t have the ponies to drive the gen to recharge whatever pack would be in use … There is no point in bringing this automobile up because it would be to dangerous for US roads.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

electrictroy

First off, it's 60 hp. My mistake.

Second, I don't know why you say the Lupo "doesn’t have the ponies to drive the gen to recharge"??? A Lupo 3L @2000 rpm generates MORE power than the Insight @2000 rpm (30 vs. 23 hp). Plenty of power to keep a battery topped off.

.

Also, I just checked vw.de. It says 14.7 seconds 0-60.

Add in a 15 hp honda motor, and that acceleration time should drop. The Lupo is about the same weight as the Insight, and with the combined 60+15=75 hp, it would be about the same as the Insight = 10 seconds.

xcel

Hi ElectricTroy:

___Are you sure you aren’t looking at the Sport Lupo model as well as the fact that the std. Lupo has a 45 HP fuel economy mode. In order to achieve 77 mpg (US gallons), the Lupo using this fuel economy mode was rated at ~ 20 seconds to 60 let alone the extreme lag felt when taking off from a stop in one. You can read about 166’s experience in one (I think he posted some info about it given his Europe address) over at the Insight forum we visit on a daily basis. This is what I have read in the past anyway. I don’t know what the VW.DE says lately. Secondly, an Insight with its pack drained (no IMA Pack Assist) is worth ~ 12.5 seconds to 60. A 20 Second to 60 Lupo will not be a 10 second car with an IMA setup no matter how much you wish it to be.

___In regards to battery top off, if it is a 0 - 60 in 20 second automobile, it doesn’t have enough power to top off a pack big enough to propel it to 60 in 10 seconds. It is already far slower then the Insight so saying it has the power (it doesn’t even have the torque) and to achieve 77 mpg’s, it is closer to a death trap then a streetable automobile here in the states. The Lupo doesn’t sell that well in Europe so VW would sell exactly 1 in the US and you would be the only person to buy it.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

electrictroy

What was your source for Discharged Insight = 12.5 seconds? (just curious) Car&Driver says 13.3

.

Yes, I was looking at the 3 Liter/100km version: http://showrooms.volkswagen.de/lupo/
Click on Lupo 3L
Click on Zahlen & Fakten--->Techniche Daten

*.de = Deutschland = Germany

.

They list it at 15 seconds, and yes I think adding a +15 honda motor would shrink that time to about 10 seconds. Not that it matters. My POINT is that I would like to see one in the United States, so we Americans could reduce our oil consumption. The ~10 second Lupo Hybrid would be acceptable performance for American roads.