100 California households to test super-high-mileage hybrid cars (plug-ins)

[jpak]

http://www.sfgate.com/flat/archive/2007/10/30/chronicle/archive/2007/10/30/BAUIT3FBN.html

One hundred Northern California households will be given the use of experimental, plug-in hybrid cars next year in the first widespread consumer testing of the super-high-mileage vehicles in the nation, under a program announced Tuesday by UC Davis transit planners and an auto club.

The households, to be chosen from the ranks of more than 4 million members of AAA of Northern California, will each have an eight-week loan of a Toyota Prius converted to run on batteries that are twice as powerful as those originally installed by the automaker.

The cars can easily get 100 miles per gallon on their combined power from electric motors and gasoline engines. They also spew out far fewer environment-harming emissions than even conventional hybrid cars.

"This is the first large consumer study of plug-in hybrids," said Tom Turrentine, director of the Plug-In Hybrid Center at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. "We're the advance guard of putting a lot of these (cars) in households." The program is scheduled to start in the spring of 2008.

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[poverlay]

1. I have a very mixed reaction to this. Part of me says: "Hooray!", "I want one!" The other part of

me has seen "Who Killed the Electric Car' and doesn't buy it...

[kestrel91316]

2. What exactly is it you don't "buy"???

Pluggable hybrids are a vast improvement over what we have NOW.

[poverlay]

7. I agree. It is. I don't buy that we will actually, someday be able to purchase such wonderful,

enviromentally friendly cars. When they offer them for purchase with full warranty support I'll rejoice.

[TheWraith]

4. Don't believe everything you see in that movie.

They ignore some of the facts in order to push the conspiracy angle. The reality is that the EV-1s were never profitable or even close to it, and when the California law that required zero-emissions vehicles was modified, it became much cheaper for the company simply to scrap the things than to try and continue them or even just provide warranty support for the ones that were already built.

[poverlay]

8. It explains right in the movie how they could have been profitable and nothing is ever

profitable when it is done in such a tentative fashion. GM knew that before they even put pen to paper on the the EV1. Had they done a full court press like they do with so many other things it would have been a runaway money maker for them.

[TheWraith]

9. Really? How so?

Because the cars themselves cost $80k each to make, and most people who were initially interested in them turned them down when they learned about the limitations. An expensive niche product is not a runaway money maker. They certainly could have done electric vehicles better, but the reality is that the "big oil auto conspiracy" angle is pretty heavily fabricated. The technology, most specifically battery technology, was not well developed in the early 90s.

[poverlay]

13. The simple answer: Volume. The cars only approached $80k when you factor in r&d, and various

other things that would be substantially defrayed by simply selling more than a paltry thousand or so. The batteries issue really was no issue at all. By '97 there were some available which, given an increased production rate, and the proper will, could have easily been marketed to a far greater number of customers than those typically considered "niche".

[tinrobot]

11. If it was profitable...

...wouldn't GM have chosen to continue making profits?

[poverlay]

12. Not if they realized that this had the potential to cost them far more in the future than it could

possibly make them.
That is what they realized and why the EV1 no longer exists...

[Javaman]

3. I need one question before I buy into hydrogen, how is the fuel manufactured?

coal?

[greenman3610]

5. these cars use no hydrogen

[TheWraith]

6. There are a bunch of ways.

You can do it chemically, based on hydrocarbons, typically natural gas. That's the most effective way right now. It can also be done via electricity (electrolysis) or via superheating water until it cracks into hydrogen and oxygen.

Really, though, production isn't the biggest problem with hydrogen, storage is. They haven't found a really practical way to store liquid hydrogen in the context of a vehicle without a certain amount of constant system loss, which adds up. Pure electric solutions are, in my opinion, a lot more practical long-term.

[losthills]

10. Hybrids are a great transitional step.

As they sell more hybrids, the price will come down. As the price comes down they will sell more. As they manufacture more of them, the electric component will improve and people will start wanting all-electrics.

Win, win, win...