High oil prices make for the strangest bedfellows

A coalition plugs (ha ha) for plug-in hybrids

Posted by biodiversivist (Guest Contributor) at 3:24 PM on 30 Jan 2006

How did everybody miss this?

Declaring the country's economy, environmental health and national security at risk, a grassroots coalition of cities including Austin, Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle as well as electric utilities and national policy organizations today kicked off a nationwide campaign to urge automakers to accelerate development of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Click on the webcast if you want to see a bunch of stuffed shirts give speeches. Even Senator Hatch (the ultra conservative Republican from Utah) shows up late to throw in his two cents. The only real expert on the panel was Dr. Andrew Frank, the mechanical engineering professor at UC-Davis who has been studying this concept for decades.

The goal is to convince automakers to build plug-in hybrid electric cars by promising to subsidize purchases of such cars. The usual excuses are given as to why it is OK for government to subsidize, namely, because everybody else does it! Sometimes government drives me crazy. The tax credit for buying hybrid cars is completely unnecessary. I trip over a Prius every time I go out my door. Note in this link that an all-electric car would get a tax credit of $4,000. This would knock about $1,200 off the purchase price of one of these $14,000 high-end golf carts (if you are in the 33% tax bracket).

One press release I saw mentioned that GM and Toyota were "watching with interest" the development of new battery technology that would make such a car feasible. Both manufacturers are understandably gun shy, having marketed the financially disastrous EV1 and RAV EV respectively.

Who would guess that a two seat, 100-mile range car, selling for $40,000, would not be a hit? Especially when you realize that two or three years after you buy it, you will have to replace all of your batteries? They were only able to lease 800 of the 1100 they produced, and after investing over a billion dollars, called it quits and destroyed the remaining cars to keep the lawyers from feeding on them for the next decade.

At least Toyota had the courtesy to put up a website that explains exactly why their RAV4 EV was a commercial failure. GM needs to do the same thing to mollify the conspiracy theorists.

Toyota remains committed to developing an "Eco Vehicle," one that will have a minimal impact on the environment. Toyota believes that in order to have a positive environmental impact, a large number of consumers must embrace the technology. In order for this to happen, the vehicle must meet the lifestyle needs of, and be affordable to, the mass market. Although a significant marketing effort was undertaken for the RAV4-EV, we only sold about 300 vehicles a year.

In addition to overall customer acceptance, technical issues tied to electric vehicles remain a major hurdle. The California Air Resources Board published a guidance statement regarding EV battery life. The guideline stated that when the battery capacity decreases to less than 80% of the original capacity, the battery needs to be replaced. A battery's capacity is the amount of charge that it holds, and is commonly measured by the range of the vehicle. It is cost-prohibitive to replace an EV battery. The cost to replace the battery is more than the value of the vehicle.

There are some people here in Seattle who actually make a living converting cars to electric. I talked to one yesterday. He is real busy. I have fired up my three-dimensional solid modeling/drafting software to flush out some ideas that have been floating around in my head. There is an electric hybrid concept no one has touched yet and I am curious to know why. We may not need new battery technology to get this ball rolling. I am motivated by the hope that a viable design might save some rainforests. I'll keep you posted.

For story: High oil prices make for the strangest bedfellows
8 Comments | Post a Comment

We miss nothing!

http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2006/01/26/5/index.html

grist.org

by David Roberts at 3:36 PM on 30 Jan 2006

Print must have been too small

I see it now.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 3:58 PM on 30 Jan 2006

Here they are.

"Member city Austin, Texas, led the way on Tuesday by vowing to buy 600 of the next-gen green vehicles as soon as they come to market."

Adding an extra battery pack, prohibitively expensive? Hmmm.

Here's the 150 mpg plugin Prius.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2005/12/17/1453310.html

Toyota's excuse to diss this idea to the Prius Owners group members who are doing it themselves was that extra battery packs would void the warranty.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 9:49 PM on 30 Jan 2006

Prius owners plugin

http://www.calcars.org/priusplus.html

Whoops forgot the link to the Prius owners efforts at plugin hybrids.

And here's the whole run down on the lithium ion design. It includes a charger, a 9 kwh battery pack, and a different controller.

http://www.edrivesystems.com/faq.html

What would the cost be if cities and states got together and ordered 60,000 units instead of 600?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 10:11 PM on 30 Jan 2006

Keeping my fingers crossed

I still suspect that modifying the Prius is a blind alley because of cost. Getting cost down is what it is all about at this point.

For short trips in all electric mode (no gas) you can get an equivalent gas mileage of about 120 mpg with the right car design. So, even with coal fired electricity, you are getting three times the mileage, or two thirds as much CO2 released as a 40 mpg car. That is about the same as biodiesel. With a gas fired plant, you are better than biodiesel and with hydro, wind, or solar, you really are carbon neutral. Electric plug-ins could kill biodiesel for passenger cars, limiting it to truck use until they get the algae thing going.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 10:38 PM on 30 Jan 2006

I agree

Starting from scratch, especially with the new nano-phosphate lithium-ion batteries (manufactured in the US), and designing from the ground up could beat the plugin Prius.

I would prefer that also. And I really like the conversion of used vehicles at least for the transition. Gas powered front wheels and electric rear wheel conversion is a great first phase transition plugin hybrid vehicle.

It would also be a great selling point of this plan to give US auto manufactureres the job to supply city, state, and federal vehicle fleet replacements.

A good plan for these fleet vehicles would be a plugin design that mainly uses electricity with a small removable backup generator that is only used when charging is impossible. In cases where operation on long trips or in remote areas prevent recharge.

Mass production of batteries, controllers, chargers, generators, and motors as well as lighter, stronfer, safer body/frames would bring the cost in line with regular fas powered vehicles.

How big an order would be needed over the long term to insure the economies of nass production? Maybe a 100,000 vehicle per year order from local, state, and federal government..that would gradually encourage the public to buy even more as the price dropped and practicallity was demonstrated.

Over a 10 year period it could transform energy use, a shift from oil to electricity.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 11:18 PM on 30 Jan 2006
[ Parent ]

Why Not?

"The tax credit for buying hybrid cars is completely unnecessary." Driving is completely unnecessary, but at least giving discounts for buying a car that consumes less fuel and pollutes less is good for the environment. Opposing good subsidies like this is a highly anti-environmental position and shows the great deficiencies of libertarianism.

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 12:17 AM on 31 Jan 2006

Funny New Flash Cartoon About Exxon's Greed

Check out this funny new flash cartoon: http://www.ExxposeExxon.com/movie

Today Exxon announced that it made a net profit of $36.1 BILLION DOLLARS in 2005!!
<http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/30/news/companies/exxon_earns>

While Americans were suffering through hurricanes Katrina and Rita and sky-high spikes in oil prices last year, ExxonMobil was busy pulling down the largest profit in the history of corporate America!!

The flash cartoon was put out by the Exxpose Exxon coalition to try to pressure Exxon to stop sabotaging efforts to fight global warming, quit lobbying to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and get the company to use some of their huge profits to invest in renewable energy like wind and solar.

ExxonMobil is such a huge company. I think we should all post this (http://www.ExxposeExxon.com/movie) on our own blogs and websites to show our support for the fight!

by Ginny at 12:01 PM on 31 Jan 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

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