[Closed] Are electric cars really greener

Not greener in 2010. But once you have all these new wind and tidal generators built then electrio cars for part of an energy ecosystem. With smart energy meters, the cars will become part of the national grid. The cars will sell their battery energy to the grid at peak times (after corrie!) and will charge up overnight while we are all in bed using zero leccy, but the turbines are still producing.

I am really excited about this!

Nope, they aren't greener. Mainly due to the manufacture I would say rather than where the fuel comes from.

I still think fuel cells will be where we end up, simply as refuelling battery cars is a problem. You can't top up on the go, and they rely on availability of power up options. What happens if you live in a flat/terrace/other house without drive way/garage? You need to be able to pull into a fuel station and fill up in the 5 minutes or so that it currently takes to be properly viable.

Or people could start living where they work and not travelling... but that isn't going to happen!

oh...so in summary. Yes I would have one tomorrow. Someone has to be the early adopter of the tech of the future. This is the next big thing (since the internet, satnav, mobile phones and MP3).

Look to Hydrogen cars.....

Rob S is right, I think 50% plus cars will still have "fuel" of some type to give instant range, but many people could live full time with a 150mile battery range, that could be filled back up within 4 hours ( not quite there on the tech for that yet, but like LED's its changing fast).

oh hang on...this thread is the original, please post on this and delete the dublicate.

copied from other thread:
Power stations are significantly more efficient than an internal combustion engines and distribution losses of electricity through the grid is very efficient. In terms of fuel usage electric cars are far more efficient than their fossil fuelled equivalent. Whether that makes them greener is another question as the energy/pollution of manufacture must also be accounted for and that is a much more difficult question to answer.

One big power station will always be more efficient than lots of small IC engines. So yes electric cars are less polluting.

Hydrogen fuel cells even more so. Even allowing for hydrogen production (very energy intensive) it will still be more efficient overall than extracting oil, refining it to fuel and burning it in an engine.

distribution losses of electricity through the grid is very efficient.

Deal lord I have clearly had too much to drink. That should read "distribution losses through the grid are very low" but then I'm sure everyone figured that out.

"If electric power is going to replace internal combustion, then where is the electricity going to come from to power my six metre plasma screen from, or my electric newspaper page turner, or my electric power arse-scratcher?
I mean, the enviroment is all very well, but you cant expect people to do without the essentials."
Sorry, this was an ironic post, maybe we should all find ways to cut back a bit (including car use) before we have to have power stations taking up valuable real estate that we could use to build airports, motorways or shopping malls.

But cycling uses Oxygen and produces CO2. China is regarded as one of the states with the largest "carbon footprint" and there are more than 10 million bicycles in Beijing (increased since the song was penned)
Recent news talks of power stations being built everywhere.
This is attributed to their recent growth in manufacturing and use of fossil fuels to facilitate this industry.
But levels of CO2 emanating from China have not been measured so stringently before.
What if the CO2 levels they produce are only proved to be 5% from heavy industry and the rest from 20million people breathing out heavily while cycling to work?
It could be real bad for us "real cyclists"

An Electric Motor is not as efficient as an I/C engine under constant load, in terms of energy required per KW of power produced.

Where Electric Motors are more efficient than I/C engine is under acceleration and deceleration. I/C engines require a lot of extra energy to accelerate in comparison, but Electric motors also have the added bonus of being able to be used as a generator, thus giving energy back to the battery, under deceleration. Hence in a hybrid car, the electric motor is not used at all under constant load, but under light acceleration it is used solely (heavy acceleration both engines/motors will be used for extra power) and under deceleration the I/C engine will be switched off and the electric motor used as a generator to charge the battery.

So no... Electric cars are not the answer to the future... Though we are increasingly driving in more and more traffic, most of our driving as at near steady speeds on open roads and motorways. Where the electric vehicle makes more sense is in the inner city, where short journeys only are taken through lots of stop start traffic.

The answer is indeed of course the Hydrogen Fuel Cell... When of course Hydrogen becomes cheap and easy to produce as a fuel ie. when scientists finally perfect the art of Nuclear fusion, so some way off yet methinks (along with the cure for cancer!)...

The answer also lies with not changing our cars every 3 years (or however long) with them being designed for a 10 year shelf life. It is far less environmentally damaging to keep a 10 year old car running that perhaps does 30mpg than it is to go out and buy a new equivalent that does 45mpg! Mainly because the amount of energy required to make a car in the first place is estimated to equal the equivalent amount of fuel a car will burn in an average 7 years on the road milage!

Anyway... I'm off to worry about something I'm MUCH more likely to be able to have some influence in deciding the outcome of... 😉

No

its a greenwas.

Unfortunatly a lot of the driving force for less polluting cars comes from the california but there they are only interested in pollution at5 the point of use - not total pollution - so you get stupid thingsd like the Prius and electric battery cars.

A battery car will cost more polution to build than a conventional one as the batteries are very polluting to make and dispose and there inneffeciencies of conversion to and from electic add to pollution - basically you export pollution from where the car is used to the power station.

Hydrogen clee is no better as you still need massive amounts of electricity to produce the huydrogen.

the only answer is to drive less, use smaller morte fuel efficent vehicles.

Electic / huybrid is an expensive, useless and counterproductive greenwash.

TJ, that must be the worst post you have ever made.....did you type it with mittens on 😉

😳

5 am towards the end of a night shift on a puter with no spellcheck

Electric car in use is around 7 times more efficient than an internal combustion engine (not sure if that's petrol or diesel from memory); however there is also the efficiency of creating and transporting the electricity to the car charger and then charging the car. Even using coal fired plant a fag packet calculation still suggests the electric car is less carbon intensive - better still id it's wind energy charging the car. Unfortunately you need to make the electric car (which is OK) and the battery (which isn't). At the moment this is where they fall down.

However they are still well ahead of the hydrogen fuel cell car which is increasingly looking like a non-starter in the mass production stakes - you'd be better off in a decent diesel.

The Prius thingy is about as efficient as a good diesel and a lot worse to make. The next generation will be better.

Work at the moment is heading towards a common battery standard. Your car might carry 2, 4 or 6 say, and on the motorway you swap batteries (like soda stream bottles for those who remember) rather than charging them. You might have a 6 battery car, but only carry 2 batteries Monday to Friday so you don't have to carry the weight on the 10 mile commute. And the batteries might provide storage for the national electricity system which would reduce the need for spinning reserve (the power stations which are kept running but not outputting any power just in case one of the power stations which is running falls over). This would also help with intermittent generation such as wind power, giving some decent smoothing of output.

The down side? You ain't going to be able to lift one of those batteries so there will be a need for lifting equipment to swap batteries or to put the other four batteries in at the week end to go to Glentress.

I'm slightly surprized this topic keeps coming up and yet even more surprized that there is no mention of methanol.

I agree that the electric is not the answer and I'm worried by the UK governments apparent willingness to fund, subsidize, whatever, electric car development. As already mentioned, batteries aint nice things to make or to handle once they are spent. Unplugging a hot battery pack at a motorway battery replcement station isn't going to be a nice job either, and then theres the street parked cars getting a power cable to them, etc, etc. There are many arguements against the battery powered E-C, but it gets media attention because the car companies get money for electric cars.
This is after incorrectly advised politicians believe that E-Cs are the answer to scoring green points.
The green lobby need to get realistic and work with the concept of a world with cars in it, rather than aiming for a world without cars.

Hydrogen fuel cell has some good attributes, as James May pointed out in his review of the Honda sold in California.
However, the investment required to change-out the entire global fuel handling infrastructure to handle hydrogen. Makes this option prohibitably expensive.

Mr May makes a good point when he highlights the fact that the Honda could be the car of the future, because its like the cars we already drive as far as once the tank is empty, you just refill and continue on your journey. I do not believe that battery powered cars offer that kind of useability.

GM bacteria, conusming recycled waste to produce methanol would seem a likely answer, but one that right now, isn't fashionable enough for the media.
Methanol, like hydrogen, can be handled in liquid form, hence being able to keep the format we already have of a refillable fuel tank, taking a few minutes to refill at a fuel station.
However, unlike Hydrogen, Methanol requires only minimal investment to be spent on the global fuel handling infrastructure to move from handling petrol, to handling methanol. So methanol beats hydrogen on this point.

I've worked in the car industry for many years now, been to many different Companies and sat in on a few [i]internal[/i] presentations.
Car companies are very focused on pre-empting the "fuel of the future" so that they can have product in place for it. Problem is the politicians, few of whom appear to want to "grasp the nettle" and fail to get down to the facts and plant a stake in the ground.
Arnold tried it in California, a state in the world's largest economy, rolling out a Hydrogen fuel handling infrastructure. But few other countries could afford such an experiment.

I'm just pointing out that battery powered E-Cs aren't the answer, and as tempting as Hydrogen is, its just a bit to expensive to roll out across the globe. So, perhaps Methanol has some mileage in it. When, if, people allowed to discover it...

🙂

Solo.

Lgm, the Tesla Model S uses that way of thinking, it carries a small amount of batteries day to day but if your going to travel further you can rent a larger battery pack from the company for temporary use. As far as battery swapping perhaps something like the project better place battery swapper could be employed? [url= http://green.autoblog.com/2009/05/13/video-better-place-battery-swapper-demonstrated/ ]Clicky[/url]

[i]Electric / hybrid is an expensive, useless and counterproductive greenwash[/i]

All technology improves with use & development!
Not so long ago solar cells were "expensive, useless" now they're being used on new builds.

ECs may not be the 'final answer' but they will certainly develop technology that will be eventaully used - if it were up to the TJs we'd never get anywhere unless the first step were also the last..........

I kind of agree that methanol could be a solution - either in a fuel cell system or an IC engine. I still think that hydrogen could be the fuel of the future though, the reason:

If you have a whole load of lovely wind turbines cranking away there is no way to balance their output with grid need at that time. If we put new developments along the coast/off shore then the excess power generated could be used to crack hydrogen from sea water. This could either be done to provide fuel for power stations - essentially using hydrogen as a battery for want of a better word - or for transportation.

The same goes for tidal power and wave power.

Looking at the global picture: Hot arrid climates are potentially very good for hydrogen production. There was a suggestion a while back in one of the journals that floating solar platforms could be positioned off the coast of places like Africa/Spain/Australia etc to crack hydrogen.

Using such techniques you would be creating your energy source using renewables, which is all good. There still needs to be a decent solution to transportation and storage, but that is almost certainly being worked on at the moment.

To be honest the solution that is going to take off is going to be whatever the large global powers decide they are going to get behind. Fuelcell/Battery/IC with an alternative energy source... it's going to be a mix of the US and Chinese Governments backing something, and everyone else will follow suit, as without Government investment into a power infrastructure to suit we are going to be stuffed.

The only other way it is going to be resolved is to leave it to market pressures. Fuel is going to get increasingly expensive (I do a LOT of miles for work, the cost scares!) and people will start looking for alternatives. Although it is hard to buy into an alternative unless someone makes refuelling/charging issues simple.

[b]Electric car [/b]
Economy: (efective, when looking at CO2 per km) 150mpg
Performance: Crap
Range: Crap

[b]Prototype Volvo estate [/b]
Economy: 155mpg
Performance: mehhhh, its a volvo estate not a porche, but average
Range: you'd run out of road before it runs out of fuel!

The idea of electric cars is dead in the water untill we come up with green electricity that actualy works! Diesle/petrol-electric hybrids is where it's at!

As for the short-medium future of fuel, my money's on bio-fuels, there's vast area's of desert that can be converted into alge farms, which yes could be used for food, but currently isn't. The infrasttructure is already in place, there's no need to change cars, etc etc etc.

untill we come up with green electricity that actualy works!

Successful bids for nine new offshore wind farm zone licences within UK waters have been announced.

A consortium including Npower and Norway's Statkraft won the licence for the biggest zone, in Dogger Bank, which could produce nine gigawatts of energy.

Turbines in the nine zones could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power, a quarter of the UK's electricity needs.

Now that's a lot of green electricity 🙂

Turbines in the nine zones could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power, a quarter of the UK's electricity needs.

personally, i dread the day i can no longer drive my V8... 😥

nothing will replace that, just for the sheer joy of the sound of it 😀

Power stations are significantly more efficient than an internal combustion engines and distribution losses of electricity through the grid is very efficient.

I'd like a cheap to run electric powered vehicle but the combustion engine is very hard to beat in terms of efficiency.

Turbines in the nine zones could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power, a quarter of the UK's electricity needs.

Now that's a lot of green electricity

An utterly pointless waste of money.

Oh no.....you're right...when the wind drops they don't work!
Quick, you better let them know before they build the things. What an obvious oversight.

MaverickBoy... care to expand on your claim that electric motors are less efficient under load than an IC engine?

I wasn't aware that IC engines were capable of operating at efficiencies over 90%, which is where an electric motor would operate.

It's quite a simple thing really, if electric motors were less efficient than IC engines, why aren't the motors running water cooling systems to remove all of that waste energy?

On the wider topic, electric cars will be the future, but quite when that becomes a viable one is anyones guess. Before they can be mainstream we need to sort out the energy supply and the batteries, both of which have been highlighted above.

For the energy supply, well, as it's electricity, we have a number of different possible generating sources for this, so to some extents it's less about efficiency here, and more to do with the stability and abundance of supply. With petrol/diesel prices ever rising and constant news about peak oil, the point at which it becomes sensible to use electricity is approaching... and when fusion kicks off, which it has to as without fusion we can't meet the current growth in energy demand, let alone adding electric cars into the mix, then the energy becomes cheap and plentiful.

As for batteries... unsuprisingly there is rather a lot of work going into these at the moment, such as near instant charging batteries, and batteries made of paper among other things. So, at some point the batteries will become less polluting and cheaper.

Windmills & the like, another government white elephant. We need nuclear powerstaions asap before this country falls even further behind the rest of the world.

Not so long ago solar cells were "expensive, useless" now they're being used on new builds.

Turbines in the nine zones could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power

I'm quite intrigued to see what Renault come up with regarding their zero emission cars. The marketing certainly makes it sound like a very bold step and whether they succeed or fail, it can only be a good thing to add to the debate and development of fossil fuel replacement.

The problem with Hydrogen cars is the Hydrogen is extremely difficult to transport and we dont have an infrastructure for transporting it. So it would have to be built.

Never mind the problem of producing the hydrogen to begin with.

We already have a system for producing and transporting electricity. So I expect electric cars to catch on quite quickly for driving in cities.

Once this has happened if we can somehow produce large quantities of renewable electricity ie wind,nuclear,fusion. I would then expect electric cars to go mainstream for long journeys too as all the infrastructure would be there.

Once this has happened if we can somehow produce large quantities of renewable electricity ie wind,nuclear,fusion. I would then expect electric cars to go mainstream for long journeys too as all the infrastructure would be there.

Looking at the problem pragmaticly, were f*******

China has coal for the next 80years+

Coal is cheeper than anything else for elctricity generation

Unless one of the folowing happens..........

Boycot China and the developing world (see if they care, China is exporting its manufacturing to Africa in the same way we exported it to China). Leaving the western world as a very expensive and largely pointless place to do business.

Find a cheeper way of making electricity than coal. The only reason there's bidders for the offshore wind farms is becasue those same bidders aren't allowed to buyid any more coal plants. Which is a shame, considdering how much of a revolution kings north would have been if greenpeace could have taken a more long sighted view than the end of their noses.

By then most cars will let you swap out the batteries, I reckon.
Unless you bought Apple's iCar, which has no removable battery as it would spoil the aesthetics, meaning they're never seen further than the M25 🙂

[img] [/img]

This is probably as aerodynamic as a car could get
[img] [/img]

http://www.aptera.com/index.php

Turbines in the nine zones could generate up to 32 gigawatts of power, a quarter of the UK's electricity needs.

Now that's a lot of green electricity

Sadly wind turbines are always quoted in the media with their theoretical maximum output. The UKs onshore wind load factor is usually taken as 0.3 (might be slightly higher for offshore but not much) which isn't quite so good. The other thing to think about is that the ONLY reason they are getting built is due to the massive subsidees from the government. Offshore wind energy is currently far more expensive than the traditional methods of generation.

I'm all for building the odd farm to help develop the technology until it is more viable but at the moment these are all political developments that we will end up paying for.

One final thing, there has been some research done in Germany where they have had feed in tariffs for a while which has led to a large amounts of investment in green energy generation. They found that the country's CO2 generation hadn't reduced partly due the solar panels etc. not producing as much electricity as was claimed but mainly due the energy companies using there newly gained 'green credits' to buy cheap, dirty electricity from places like Poland rather than from Germany's expensive, clean power stations!

With hydrogen cars there is an intermediate step that can be used until more refuelling infrastructure is in place, you simply buy an add on kit with an hydrogen tank and keep all the petrol stuff as well. When you run out of hydrogen you simply switch over to petrol and carry on and if that runs out before you can top up with hydrogen you go to a petrol station.

However i think the main problem with all these technologies is that the energy density is far less than petrol. We already have cars that are as fast, are more efficient etc. but we are a long, long way off getting similar distances on a 'tank' of fuel and people in general are just too lazy to have to keep refuelling their car.

Hilldodger - wrong on both counts. Folk like me hate the greenwash of such things as the prius but I am interested in alternative tech - but IMO elect cars are not the way forward in any way as all they do is put the pollution elsewhere.

Photovoltaics remain expensive and inefficient and very polluting to manufacture.

The main problem is that the sensible steps reduce car companies profits. ie make a 250 kg car that does 100+mpg and lasts for 50 yrs.

[i]With hydrogen cars there is an intermediate step that can be used until more refuelling infrastructure is in place, you simply buy an add on kit with an hydrogen tank and keep all the petrol stuff as well. When you run out of hydrogen you simply switch over to petrol and carry on and if that runs out before you can top up with hydrogen you go to a petrol station. [/i]

Yeasch !

That car has two entirely different fuel systems fitted, not just two tanks, but two everything. Don't think its really feasible to make that engine either.

Possible with Methanol, but better just to switch the entire vehicle over to one fuel.

As already mentioned. Politicians and who they choose to listen to are holding things up at the moment. They're being told E-Cs are the way ahead, in this country GB has even spoken about investing in E-Cs.
With advise like that being used to hand out the tax-payers hard-earned, its little wonder the car companies are making what they can claim assistance for, rather than what would [i]really[/i] work.

Solo.

Cars are, and always will be, a social and environmental dead end for humanity. Destroy the car!

Yeasch !

That car has two entirely different fuel systems fitted, not just two tanks, but two everything. Don't think its really feasible to make that engine either.

Eeerm, there's a blue ford focus running round sheffield at the moment with this fitted. It's a standard two litre petrol engine with a very simple conversion kit that is fitted into the fuel system on top of the engine and there's an additional pipe run to the boot where the tank is. The engine hasn't been removed and everything else is standard, i pretty sure the engine management system wasn't touched either. The only problems are that the boot is now completely filled with a pressurised Helium tank and the range is fairly limited on the hydrogen. I guess it's fairly similar to an LPG conversion.

The big problem with hydrogen is not simply that the infrastructure isn't there. It's that hydrogen is a tiny tiny atom. It diffuses though steel storage tanks. And you have to liquefy it and keep it cool to have a workable rang. And then some of that boils off which you have to deal with. And so on.

MaverickBoy... care to expand on your claim that electric motors are less efficient under load than an IC engine?

I wasn't aware that IC engines were capable of operating at efficiencies over 90%, which is where an electric motor would operate.

Fair comment

I meant "cradle to grave" in terms of sourcing/creating the power supply in the first place. Most of the time that electricity has been created by burning a fossil fuel in the first place. An electric motor may be 90% efficient at turning the electricity it uses into forward motion, but how efficient were the methods created to make that electricity? If you're going to burn a fossil fuel to make a car move, why not just burn it in the car, rather than burn it at a power station to create the electricity to make it move?

OK, sorry, I'm being a bit simplistic. As time moves on perhaps we might be able to make the vast majority of our Electricity in greener/cheaper/more efficient ways (though not in my lifetime I'd warrant), but currently all using electricity to power a car is doing is adding a step into the process of turning a fossil fuel into forward motion in a car! And as anybody who knows anything about Lean Manufacturing will tell you, adding anything unnecessary is not good!

Nice try... but you actually said this...

An Electric Motor is not as efficient as an I/C engine under constant load, in terms of energy required per KW of power produced.

Where Electric Motors are more efficient than I/C engine is under acceleration and deceleration. I/C engines require a lot of extra energy to accelerate in comparison, but Electric motors also have the added bonus of being able to be used as a generator, thus giving energy back to the battery, under deceleration.

If what you say now is true, then no matter whether the electric motor was accelerating or deccelerating, the IC engine would be more efficient...

:oD

As I recall ( and it's been a while)

A decent coal plant is up to 41% efficient more with some of the entertaining things you can do with ionised exhaust gases, and steam.

CCGT up to 50% efficient.

So electric motor at 90%, 40% at the power station and say 10% losses for grid and distribution - about 33% efficient. Allow a bit for the charger and you still beat the 25% that the car does.

And that's before your energy comes from a big old windmill (the power station had the most effect if you noted).

The car battery through an inverter can help with variability on the grid so a good system all round.

Note that I say system, because it is how our energy system works all round that matters. Electric cars can be part of it, as can some hybrids, hydrogen less so. By the way the idea of getting a corgi fitter for a hydrogen system scares me silly.

Check out some of Goran Strabac's stuff - he is one of the countries experts on energy systems and someone it has been my pleasure to share a platform with at IET events.

right:

1. drive less, e.g. homework 2/5 days a week
2. crack seawater adjacent to the nuclear/renewable plant, very efficient, no transmission loss.
3. put hydrogen in standardised canisters
4. drive canisters to supermarkets in trucks also powered by canisters
5. consumer buys canisters with grocery shopping
6. consumers run high performance, zero-exhaust hydrogen cars
7. scrap entire petrol infrastructure: rigs, pipes, storage, depos, tankers, stations, the lot.

Bingo [except for how to make the canisters into re-usable, safe effective fuel cells - whoops!]

SOrted!
Just remind the consumers that
In a parked car, an entire tank of liquid hydrogen fuel will completely evaporate in just 3 weeks. 😮

Battery tech has got to come a hell of a long way before it makes electric cars viable. I'm not sure how true it actually is, but theres that oft quoted thing about the Toyota Prius being more environmentally damaging than a V8 Range Rover (in terms of from 'cradle to grave'). As I understand it, the major reason is the battery, mercury mined in canada, treated in africa, assembled into batteries in China, before going into the car in Japan. Its no wonder a replacement battery is so horrifically expensive. A friend of mine used to work in a Toyota dealership and one customer had a grey import Prius, and the pack gave up, I believe the quote for a replacement was around the £14,000 mark! Its also why I'm led to believe that buying a new Prius is subsidized by the Government, as the real price of one means its just not realistic.
I know this is going slightly off a tangent, but I'm trying to say/show that electric cars for now, just aren't realistic and are one of those aforementioned 'big white elephants'.
Unless of course there's a massive leap in battery technology.

I wasn't aware that IC engines were capable of operating at efficiencies over 90%, which is where an electric motor would operate

I do believe batteries are lossy too. You don't get out as much energy as you put in.

The biggest problem imo with hydrogen is energy density. A tanker full of H2 is going to drive some cars some miles.. but a tankerload of crude oil is going to drive more cars further, and also make plastics, paints, fabrics, chemicals etc etc etc etc. So it's way more cost effective.

As for electric cars, well I reckon they're great for city cars. After you drive one for a while and then you go back to a normal car it seems horribly wasteful to sit there in a traffic jam burning fuel for absolutely no reason.

As for hybrids being greenwash, I am not sure I agree with that. A Prius contains less metal than a normal car and the battery's only a carry-on bag sized bit of nickel. The so-called studies that alleged Priuses were less green than Hummers was total rubbish. New Prius is rated at 89g/km CO2, that's quite hard to beat with any car, never mind a decent sized family car.

ooOOoo - Member

SOrted!
Just remind the consumers that
In a parked car, an entire tank of liquid hydrogen fuel will completely evaporate in just 3 weeks.

Pardon my french, but WTF are you on about?

A friend of mine used to work in a Toyota dealership and one customer had a grey import Prius, and the pack gave up, I believe the quote for a replacement was around the £14,000 mark!

Pete, you are wildly misinformed. Think about it mate - if the battery cost £14,000, how could the entire car only cost £17,000? Why on earth would the government throw tons of money at it without even telling anyone about it? The batteries by the way are about £1800 I believe for a whole one, but they are modular so you can replace the cells that are faulty. They are NiMH batteries, which are nowadays mecury free, and they are carefully managed (ie always kept between 40-80% charge unlike the ones in your bike lights) so that they last for many years. They are built to California emissions equippment standard which requires them to be guaranteed for 10 years, so clearly Toyota have confidence. There's a taxi in Canada that last time I read about it had done 300k miles and only needed the same things that normal cars need.

Toyota are a well respected car manufacturer. Why would they put years of R&D into making something that made no sense and try and flog it? Remeber Bush scrapped the US Govt electric car programme when he came in...

In a parked car, an entire tank of liquid hydrogen fuel will completely evaporate in just 3 weeks

Hmm, I wonder how the people that supply hydrogen to labs and stuff get around that? 🙂

[i]Eeerm, there's a blue ford focus running round sheffield at the moment with this fitted. It's a standard two litre petrol engine with a very simple conversion kit that is fitted into the fuel system on top of the engine and there's an additional pipe run to the boot where the tank is. The engine hasn't been removed and everything else is standard, i pretty sure the engine management system wasn't touched either[/i]

I think you have the wrong end of the stick. We're not going to BURN hydrogen !.

The Honda uses hydrogen to produce electricity to run its electric motor, employing an onbaord fuel cell to do this. 🙄

An incredible achievement in itself, to have an onboard fuel cell.

I'm gonna try sticking to posting what I know. As I've pointed out, I've worked in the industry and been in the same room as some very clever men who have half the alphabet after their name, men who have sat down and looked at all serious altenatives, at the request of the car company "big-shots". For the reasons I have pointed out, hydrogen isn't a starter, imo.

Solo.

Cellulosic Ethanol is the way forward. Or at least one of them. Solar powered H2 in sunny areas...

molgrips - Member
but a tankerload of crude oil is going to drive more cars further, and also make plastics, paints, fabrics, chemicals etc etc etc etc. So it's way more cost effective.

As for electric cars, well I reckon they're great for city cars. After you drive one for a while and then you go back to a normal car it seems horribly wasteful to sit there in a traffic jam burning fuel for absolutely no reason.

As for hybrids being greenwash, I am not sure I agree with that. A Prius contains less metal than a normal car and the battery's only a carry-on bag sized bit of nickel. The so-called studies that alleged Priuses were less green than Hummers was total rubbish. New Prius is rated at 89g/km CO2, that's quite hard to beat with any car, never mind a decent sized family car.

Yep, it was a dust to dust study, and I think it was the Jeep Wrangler that came out as the vehicle with the lowest carbon footprint. Being a US study that was the V8 petrol version, naturally.

I don't know what the solution is going to be - possibly not the "best" one... but it will be whatever most manufacturers get behind, and almost certainly with government support (possibly whatever fuel source the US government decide they are going to use for their military vehicles... or China... or someone else influential on the global stage).

It's a shame money wasn't thrown at things like this, renewable energy production and solving climate change rather than to fund a few bankers lifestyles for the forseeable future. Hey ho... it's all about money at the end of the day.

Oh and its pretty much the whole base of the rear seat, the battery is massive!

It's not mate, I'll take some pics of mine if you like. It goes between the shock pillars in the boot and takes up about half the floor - at least, the space for it does; the battery has air surrounding it. From what I can gather from the net it weighs 38kg ish and its volume is about 22l, which is round about the size of a carry on bag 🙂 [url= http://www.toyotapriusbattery.com/ ]- from this site[/url]

I would bet that the engine, motors and battery in a Prius weigh less than the larger engine and gearbox in a normal car.

Quick google moment, Toyota is 'encouraged' to produce environmentally friendly vehicles, the price you pay is subsidized by Toyota, it all goes round in green/carbon credits and that rubbish. So each Prius Toyota sells is at a loss. I've just been reading another [url= http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4288 ]site[/url] suggesting that Toyota is/was loosing $17,000 on each one!
More google gen, I said that Prius I mentioned was a grey import. http://www.toyotapriusbattery.com/ I'll let you read that.

Yep, it was a dust to dust study, and I think it was the Jeep Wrangler that came out as the vehicle with the lowest carbon footprint. Being a US study that was the V8 petrol version, naturally.

The study I read was garbage. It claimed that the total energy cost of a Prius was about half a million dollars. That would be an amazing feat for Toyota in a $20k car. I am not a paranoid conspiracy theorist but I know that those evil bastards known as "lobbyists" in the States pay for crap science like this on a regular basis.

The reason the prius is a greenwash is you can get much much better total lifetime emmisions using conventional technology. Its MPG is not remarkable in any way and that battery is polluting to make.

A small light simple car designed to have long life and high mpg is a much better bet. Of course a small light simple hybrid would be good - but that is not what a prius is. Its a big heavy luxury car. All that weigh involved environmental penalties. It takes energy to accelerate it and it consumes raw materials.

I would bet that the engine, motors and battery in a Prius weigh less than the larger engine and gearbox in a normal car.

Pete mate did you really read that link you posted, on Cato?

a) Did you see the tag line on the site was "Individual Liberty, Free Markets and Peace"? That means that it's a right wing talking shop and will be biased as hell against anything eco.

b) That article was published in 2001 which, particularly in the US was a million years ago in terms of eco-awareness. It also refers to the MkI Prius which was pretty crap.

c) It talks about a potential government subsidy to BUY a new car, not manufacture one. The subsidy went ahead, and you got like $2,000 off the list price of the car in the US for a limited number of cars I believe. The list price was still something like $25-$35k in the US even without the subsidy.

d) It says not many Priuses had been sold which was surely true of the MkI but the newer model (the one you see here) sold like hot cakes. The milion car mark was passed what, two or three years ago?

There are two electric motor/generators in a Prius, both of which are pretty small, you'd hold them in your hand. There are a few more cogs and that's it - no gearbox. The engine is also a small 1.5l one based on the Yaris. So weighed against a typical 1.8l petrol engine and gearbox I bet it comes out on top. Against a competing diesel engine there'd be no contest.

I do seem to know a lot more about Priuses than you do mate, choose your arguments more carefully 😉

Molgripos - one 1.5 l petrol engine and drivetrain will weigh much what another does. The prius has an additional weight of the elecrtic motors, batteries and all the associated wiring and gubbins - I bet its 50 kg more.

Mate, there's no gearbox in a Prius. Gearboxes are very heavy.

I'm not sure how it being 'right wing' will make it automatically biased against anything eco, but the Prius is not eco friendly. For obvious reasons.
So a Prius in the US was 25-35k? So approx 50% LOSS on EACH car? Way to go, as they say in the States.
Oh and there was a huge surge in sales of European/small/economical cars in the States when the price of crude oil went through the roof, it dropped back and they went back to buying V8 trucks. Swings and Roundabouts.
Comment above about a smaller lighter car with modern technology will blow the Prius MPG figures is spot on. I can't wait to see how far solenoid controlled valves will take a diesel engine. Fiat's Multi-Air petrol engine is a good step to prove if its reliable in the real world. If one of my colleagues can extract 80+mpg from a old (L reg) VW Passat 1.9Tdi with some careful driving, what could you do with modern tech?

I think you have the wrong end of the stick. We're not going to BURN hydrogen !.

Nope, right end of stick, obviously not got enough letters after my name though to explain myself clearly so wont try again.

Anyway the answer is clearly the [url=I think you have the wrong end of the stick. We're not going to BURN hydrogen !.]fuel cell push bike[/url]

Surely it does have a gearbox - just not a conventional one. There must be some sort of gearing to get the power from the petrol engine to the wheels

Here is a pic from wiki - looks no smaller and ligher than a conventional gearbox and starter motor.

molgrips - Member
Mate, there's no gearbox in a Prius. Gearboxes are very heavy.

[url= http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2009/04/the_prius_insig.html ]This[/url]

So approx 50% LOSS on EACH car?

Er no. I'm saying the info in that article is WRONG. Toyota made a loss at first because they spent a decade on R&D and sales of the MkI were slow. However, SINCE THAT ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN they have sold well over a million cars. So they are profitable now. [url= http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2009/04/the_prius_insig.html ]This[/url] article suggests that Honda make 15% profit on new insights, and Toyota somewhat less on Priuses. That's still in the black tho.

It would be possible to get more MPG from a very small car but the point is that the Prius is a big car that's as economical as a very small one. FWIW averaged over a whole tank of fuel I get 57-62mpg in the summer and 52-54mpg n the winter, driving at the speed limit all the time and including plenty of town driving. The car came out in 2003 and those figures are only just being equalled now for comparable sized cars. Of course the new Prius is even better. Last time I checked I couldn't find any car with better emissions than a new Prius, never mind anything of a similar size.

Your mate did not get 80mpg from an old Passat driving sensibly over a long period. That must've been one particularly good trip.

If what you say now is true, then no matter whether the electric motor was accelerating or deccelerating, the IC engine would be more efficient...

But under deceleration an I/C engine is still burning fuel (even if only a small amount) to keep the engine running... An Electric Motor is not only NOT using any electricity under deceleration, but is actually charging up the battery instead! Ergo different power sources are more effective/more efficient under different circumstances.

Why bother building a hybrid car in the first place otherwise?

If you want to know how the thing works, check this out:

http://eahart.com/prius/psd/

It's bloody genius. I think it was invented by some Japanese bloke and then bought by Toyota up front.

But under deceleration an I/C engine is still burning fuel (even if only a small amount) to keep the engine running...

That's not true with fuel injected cars, and it's never been true of diesels.

TJ - nice pic find, that gearbox has got to weigh a ton! 😛 😉
Interesting to see it in cutaway, so we've got a clutch pack, generator run on the first input shaft and differential type connection on the other end of the input shaft allowing the electric motor to run at different revs to the engine. Would be nice to see where the chain drive goes to and how it transmits power to the road wheels.

Surely it does have a gearbox - just not a conventional one. There must be some sort of gearing to get the power from the petrol engine to the wheels

CVT Gearbox in a Prius isn't it? Not been in one, but my old boss used to have one of those Lexus 4x4 Hybrids (bit of a marketing exercise there if ever there was one!) which the petrol engine powered the wheels through a CVT box I'm sure. Or at least that's what it felt like the couple of times I drove it.

It would be possible to get more MPG from a very small car but the point is that the Prius is a big car that's as economical as a very small one. FWIW averaged over a whole tank of fuel I get 57-62mpg in the summer and 52-54mpg n the winter

My old company car, a 2007 BMW 320D, was arguably a bigger, heavier, more luxurious car than a Prius no? It used to better those MPG figures easily! OK, not if I had my foot the the floor, but driving at the speed limit everywhere would see it into the 60's MPG wise.

Your mate did not get 80mpg from an old Passat driving sensibly over a long period

Agreed. Some creative maths here methinks. I've now got an N plate Golf (no company car when you're on the dole! 😉 ) with the same 1.9TDi engine. It's a great engine for what it is, remarkable in fact when you consider at the time it came out all other diesels were crap underpowered junk with nowhere near the economy. But in my Golf, a lighter car than the Passat, the absolute best I've achieved when driving very sensibly is about 56mpg out of a tankful. More normally I achieve between 48 and 52mpg depending on whether or not that's more town or open road driving.

No clutch in a Prius. Check the link I posted.

The HSD does indeed feel exactly like a CVT but it is NOT a mechanical CVT variable pulley system like in normal CVT gearboxes. All the gears are permanently connected to each other in fixed ratios. Road and engine speed are managed by varying the power to or from both motor/generators.

If you can get 60mpg from a tankful of diesel in a BMW with 50% time spent driving in traffic I'll eat my Prius owners manual. Government rating is 58mpg combined tho, so maybe if you were lucky. 128g/km CO2 though which is more than my 104g/km and a whopping 40% more than the 89g/km of the current Prius. Remember that petrol is much cleaner than diesel gallon for gallon, and when we had our worst fuel prices it was a lot more expensive too. I'd say that a BMW 3 series is not bigger than a Prius.. they are quite spacious inside.