Only 7 Miles???

[Hydrotopia]

The new announcement by Toyota of installing plug-in batteries in hybrids at the factory was huge - except for the fact that they say the supplemental power supply will only give 7 miles of electric-powered distance! I don't get this? I thought some plug-in batteries were giving 40 miles and over on electric power?

What is the deal here? Is Toyota undermining the technology? Why so few miles?

The supplemental batteries will take 4 hours to charge.

[jcoffman]

Can you provide the article? I haven't seen this article. Is it for gas/hybrid vehicles or something else? It does sound kinda low, but I could run to the store and back 3 times before they were discharged.. Maybe thats what its for, an add on for existing gas hybrid cars??

[Hydrotopia]

The article was from the New York Times several days ago. It is definitely an addition to the gas-powered hybrid. The gas nozzle will be on the car's left side and the electric on the right.

The article said most people don't want to be bothered with charging the car. My response to that is it is time to stop responding to idiots. - Or is that what they say we are thinking?

I thought it was a typo - but, yes, it said 7 miles!

[jcoffman]

interesting.. Yeah, I agree. We need to stop responding to that. Provide the option to charge. If they dont do it, then they pay for more fuel... its a simple solution. Eventually people will just plug it in. I would like to have it. I have to move my wifes car now and then out of the garage, and starting it just to back it out and then turn it off is such a waste!

Plus, if after the batteries were charged, they could use the plug in to keep the hybrid power battery warm. My car would switch to battery MUCH faster if the battery was warm and didn't have to heat up first.

[lh_newbie]

I thought I read somewhere that one car, that had a battery that could hold the equivalent of 16KwH, could power a car for 20 miles. I guess the question is what's the size of the existing battery in the Prius?

[Hydrotopia]

Surely they can do better than 7 miles! I read that the supplemental batteries techies were putting in post market were getting huge mileage in California. It brought the Prius over 75mpg.

Something's not right here.

[lh_newbie]

Ok, I just looked up some info on pages for plugin conversions of Prius. Apparently, the stock battery only has 1.3Kw capacity and since it's Nickel Metal-hydride, it can only be discharged to 50%. According to what I read, that means it can only run at 33mph or less for up to 2 miles. So the big issue with the stock batts are storage capacity and discharge depth.

The companies that are doing plug in conversions install lithium based batts, which can discharge 90% of the way, and have a capacity of 8-9.5Kw, depending on which batt they go with. They're getting 40 miles per charge at that level of capacity. The problem with these conversions, IMO, is that they are still limited to 33mph for batt-only mode. I don't drive the highway to work, but I do drive 45-50mph, so I'd really get very minimal benefit.

If they can defeat that 33mph limit and crank it up to 50-60mph on elec only, then we may have some sort of viable option for more people. I've read that 77% of the US population drives less than 40 miles per day. I haven't seen what their average high speed is, but I'd have to assume if you're driving 20 miles as a commute, you're getting on a highway, so a min of 60MPH is really needed in elec-only mode.

If they can develop a vehicle that gets 40 miles elec only, has an on-board way to charge the batts to extend that range (i.e. like the Chevy Volt concept), allow elec-only speeds up to 70-75mph and can be plugged in to charge, I think we'd have a vehicle that would be viewed as a viable option by the general public. IMO, until we can deliver something with this sort of mass-market appeal, these vehicles will continue to be niche-market (and it needs to be a 4-person vehicle, not these 3-wheel hippie trikes that are death traps).

[Hydrotopia]

I still don't get it. Tesla and others are making vehicles that get 200 miles on batteries and do all the usual zero to 60 stuff performance wise. So, it must have something to do with stripping out the ICE components to free up space and weight for electric only. I saw an engineer on TV say that once you get serious with batteries the ICE stuff is just extra weight and cost and should be dumped for all electric as far as design at that point.

This would cost Toyota money, but it is time their engineers redid the Prius frame to make it adapt more batteries. They should also throw in some solar cells on top. This would make the design stock and mainstream from a main manufacturer instead of exotic from small outfits.

In 'Who Killed The Electric Car' they said the average driver does something like 27 miles a day. If you made the Prius go 14 miles on electric only you would have drivers getting 50% of their mileage from batteries. Hypothesize total useage of this technology and you just doubled the national fuel mileage average.

Hey, that "hippie" Aptera trike is a good concept and I'm sure it is safe. I could drive one without worry. I wish I had one. They should make it bigger.

[lh_newbie]

I still don't get it. Tesla and others are making vehicles that get 200 miles on batteries and do all the usual zero to 60 stuff performance wise. So, it must have something to do with stripping out the ICE components to free up space and weight for electric only. I saw an engineer on TV say that once you get serious with batteries the ICE stuff is just extra weight and cost and should be dumped for all electric as far as design at that point.

This would cost Toyota money, but it is time their engineers redid the Prius frame to make it adapt more batteries. They should also throw in some solar cells on top. This would make the design stock and mainstream from a main manufacturer instead of exotic from small outfits.

In 'Who Killed The Electric Car' they said the average driver does something like 27 miles a day. If you made the Prius go 14 miles on electric only you would have drivers getting 50% of their mileage from batteries. Hypothesize total useage of this technology and you just doubled the national fuel mileage average.

Hey, that "hippie" Aptera trike is a good concept and I'm sure it is safe. I could drive one without worry. I wish I had one. They should make it bigger.

Just looked up the Tesla battery specs - it's being said it has a 53KwH battery pack. Now that's a huge battery! Guess pulling out the ICE, they just fill up the space/weight with batts, since it weighs 450Kg. Tesla may or may not deliver a vehicle - only time will tell (they fired a lot of engineers lately). They've proven that elec cars can get good perf and range. That's cool, but we still need to overcome the charging time issue. It a 9KwH batt takes 6 hrs to charge @ 110V... that would put a 53KwH batt up at 35hrs (ie can't be done overnight on 110V), which also means a vehicle with this sort of battery is currently not ready for mass markets. Key word: YET. We still have some technical issues to address. Can we get there? I have no doubt, but I feel we're going to be niche market until we have a quick-charge (i.e. 2-3 minutes) option, just like we do with a gas tank. This is why I think the small ICE + battery and all elec drive is the way to go currently as a bridge while the technologies develop more.

The Aptera, like many trikes, are a trike so they don't have to conform to safety standards. They talk about this "cage" around them, but I have to believe they get in a small fender-bender and the vehicle is tossed into the garbage dump. It's also not a functional vehicle - 2 passengers? Yeah, that's mainstream. Cool concept, but still niche market.

Brian

[lh_newbie]

While we're discussing this, a question:

If we could cut the battery back in half, to 26.5KwH, meaning 100 miles per charge and savings of 225 Kg, couldn't we free up the weight for a small electrical generator? I just looked up one - it can generate a constant 5,500 watts and can run on gasoline (1 gal/hour, or 1 gal per 5.5KwH) or natural gas. It only weighs 212lbs (96Kg). Toss in a 5-gal gas tank with associated brackets and fuel lines, we're talking another 20Kg on the high side, so we'd cut 100Kg off the weight and have 26.5KwH batt power, plus 27.5KwH elec equivalent of gasoline/generator PER TANK. We'd be able to run on elec for 90% of our daily commuting, plug in at night and get almost a full charge... and have unlimited range. I'd have to believe a generator + tank + mounting hardware would cost WAY less than half the battery... and have all the above mentioned benefits. Saving over 200 pounds of weight in the process should extend the efficiency also... so vehicle should get 200-250 miles on the batt + one tank of fuel... and 100-125 miles per tank after that if someone wants to take it across country (which isn't possible with the all-elec version).

Thoughts?

Brian

[Hydrotopia]

Ah, I think the Tesla charges in 6 hours like everything else. I'm not technically knowledgeable, but they probably split the charging units up so they divert separate channels of charge at 110v to seperate units of batteries in order to speed the process.

The Aptera would be good for a second car where driving a Hummer to pick up a quart of milk isn't very efficient. You are looking at it backwards.

I think we are looking at a simple case of Toyota not putting enough batteries in. The Tesla is a pretty small car and look at what it packs! (Lithium Ion). The problem here is 7 miles isn't enough.

[inkabinkaboo182]

I like the Aptera because it's an extreme. It says, "This is where cars would be if they were as efficient as possible. Now follow my lead, even if only slightly." It's a car that demonstrates that it's viable to put efficiency first.

[majortom1981]

I think toyotas main concern is safety. Look at all the notebook batteries that have been exploding. Toyta feels that lion batteries arent safe and that in the event of a crash the lion batteries arent as safe as the ones they use now.
Toyota stated that when they find a battery tech that is safe and can hold more they will switch over.

I am sure you will see better batteries in prius's. Toyota is still working on the tech. They are adding this system to more cars and still doing cool research. So its not like they dropped it.

Remember a lot of people hate toyota and will sue them at the drop of a hat so toyota has to look out for that too.

[Hydrotopia]

Good point. We'll have to keep an eye on the Lithium Ion cars to see if they start burning up.


But we can still get more than 7 miles with the Prius even with the Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. They need to tweak the design and enlarge it for more battery capacity. Do that and average mileage will climb.

[inkabinkaboo182]

I think Toyota's main concern is profit. Whether that's good or bad, we won't know until it's too late...