Despite some silly rhetoric from certain European
manufacturers that neglected to develop them, hybrids are definitely going mainstream. Not only have hybrids been breaking sales figures most months (about 23,000 sold in August), but also car manufacturers are gearing up for huge demand increases. Ford announced that it would be able to produce 250,000 by 2010. Toyota foresees all of its cars being hybrids according to
Bloomberg.com:
"Toyota Motor Corp., the world's second-largest automaker, said all of its vehicles may eventually be run by hybrid gasoline-electric motors, as record fuel prices curb demand for conventional automobiles.
Toyota, the world's first and largest maker of so-called hybrid cars, said it's aiming to increase hybrid production by 60 percent in 2006 and will cut costs and prices to make them more affordable.
``In the future, the cars you see from Toyota will be 100 percent hybrid,'' Toyota Executive Vice President Kazuo Okamoto said in Frankfurt, declining to give a time for achieving the target. ``We believe that in 10 years the world will be filled with hybrids.''"
One of our favorite Senators, Joe Lieberman, recently gave details of a bill he plans to introduce. Hybrids figure prominently. I know many of you are loathe to give Lieberman any credit, but this bill makes sense. It's almost enough to convince you that he's a Democrat: You must really read the whole speech, but here are some highlights:
...legislation that I will soon introduce that can enable us to cut consumption by 5 million barrels a day in the next 10 years and 10 million barrels a day within 20 years.
First, we need to rethink and then remake our fuel supplies. Gasoline is not the only portable source of stored energy. Tons of agricultural waste and millions of acres of idle grassland can be used to create new fuels.
And then we must remake our automobile engines as well. Vehicles that get 500 miles per gallon - or that use NO refined crude oil - are within our grasp. I know that sounds unbelievable but a little later in this lecture I am going to tell you how we can do it.
The bill I plan to introduce soon -with bipartisan support - begins with two goals and two mandates: that the United States save 5 million barrels of oil a day within 10 years, and 10 million barrels a day within 20 years.
It also requires that within two years 10 percent of our new cars sold in the U.S. be hybrid, hybrid electric plug-in or alternative fuel vehicles and that within 7 years 50 percent of the news cars sold in the U.S. be made up of those combinations...
Hybrids that use a use both a gasoline engine and electric motor for power are already getting 50 miles per gallon. Making them flexible fuel cars, as I've already said, can save us more than 2 million barrels of gasoline a day.
But we can do even better - dramatically better - with the plug-in hybrid that is just now on the threshold of commercialization. Like the present hybrids, it would use both a gasoline and electric motor. But the plug-in hybrid would be able to use the battery exclusively for the first 30 miles of a trip.
Think of that for a minute. Although Americans drive about 2.2 million miles a year, according the Census, the vast majority of those trips are less than 15 miles.
That means a plug-in hybrid would use zero - ZERO - gallons of gas or any combustible fuel for the vast majority of its trips. And experts tell me it could effectively get the 500 miles per gallon on longer trips.
Plugging in your car during off peak hours -when power is in surplus and cheaper - would soon just become part of the modern daily routine, like plugging in your cell phone or PDA before you go to bed.
And off-peak electricity can be the equivalent of 50 cent a gallon gasoline.
The new redesigned 2006 Honda Civic hybrid is probably the biggest news in hybrids today. It costs $23,350, or only about $2500 more than the non-hybrid version. Autobytel has a review and Green Car Congress has extensive technical information. The 2006 Civic is slightly larger, more powerful, and more efficient than its predecessor. It's good to see a new hybrid platform rolled out that leans more toward the efficiency end of the scale rather than the performance hybrids of late.
There are a growing number of high-performance hybrids that will soon come on the market. Lexus says its GS 450 hybrid will go on sale in the United States in March or April of 2006. The hybrid luxury sport sedan features a 3.5 liter gasoline-powered V6 and an electric motor, giving the vehicle 340 horsepower and a 0-62 mph time of less than six seconds. This is what I would call a bad hybrid. The technology is used primarily to increase performance rather than save fuel. Now I know someone will say that it gets better mileage than it would with a gas engine of the same power. True, but the era of high-powered cars is, or should be, over.
Not all hybrids are small. Many delivery, utility, and local trucking firms are looking into hybrids. Mack recently displayed one of their new hybrid vehicles. Just the thing for when your Ford Execution starts feeling too wimpy. Here's the press release from Mack
Actually there are lots of big hybrid vehicles, especially buses, and many cities are buying them. LA ordered 200, Washington DC is getting 50, San Francisco has 50 coming. but according to Green Car Congress the biggest purchaser to date is New York City.
New York City transport services have ordered 500 more Orion VII series-hybrid-electric buses from DaimlerChrysler Commercial Buses North America. New York City Transit has ordered 216 units, and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA Bus) 284.
This represents the largest order for hybrid buses to date, and is the third order in New York City, complementing the prior orders of 200 units and 125 units respectively.
Orion, DaimlerChrysler's North American city bus brand, will begin deliveries in the second quarter of 2006.
The Orion VII buses with the BAE HybriDrive combine a 5.9-liter, 260 hp (194 kW) Cummins ULSD (Ultra Low-Sulfur Diesel) engine with a 120 kW traction generator. The traction motor delivers 250 hp (186 kW) and 2,700 lb-ft (3,657 Nm) of low-end torque.
And hybrids don't have to run on roads. One place where they have the potential to save fuel and reduce pollution is in the rail industry. Here's good paper (pdf file) on the
subject. I've read about these units being used even in tug boats.
But back to cars, Mazda showed this prototype rotary-engine hybrid. Here are some details on this and some other cool Mazda hybrids from Autoweek. Mazda is even working on a rotary hydrogen hybrid. Of course there are dozens of new prototypes out there, but something about this one just struck my fancy.
"Designed as a sports car for mature drivers, it features oversized "flying wing" doors that slide to the rear. The plastic body panels are painted to pass for metal. Solar cells are embedded in the rear half of the roof.
The concept was conceived to be powered by a hybrid system based on a direct-injection rotary engine. The transmission is a twin-clutch seven-speed.
Inside, the 2-seater can convert into a 2+2 layout. A spokeless steering wheel encircles analog gauges on top and a touch screen below. The screen includes the sound system and other controls, or can turn into a keyboard when the car is parked. Three screens lined up across the instrument panel show exterior views from five cameras. A Night Drive Aid function is incorporated into the front view. A Lane Drive Aid system helps the driver avoid wandering into the next lane."
How about a hybrid Military Humvee replacement that gets 50 miles per gallon, compared to the Humvee's current 11 mpg? From Wired.com:
Cutting fuel costs and reducing maintenance were the driving forces behind the decision to create hybrid vehicles, according to Hal Almand, the Army's light tactical forms team leader.
The vehicle is powered by a small, three-cylinder diesel engine and two hybrid motors. It would cost about $20,000 to manufacture and could replace a $65,000 Humvee, Almand said. The vehicles are expected to get about 50 miles per gallon, compared to the Humvee's current 11 mpg. "The more money we can save the better," Almand said.
Like the Toyota Prius, the prototype vehicle minimizes fuel use by running exclusively on the electric motors at low speeds or when idling. The Army designed the vehicle for easy repair by providing unobstructed access to the engine, electric motor and drive train. The batteries are located in the center of the chassis beneath the vehicle for easy access.
If you have a PHEV you need the right house to go with it. Not to worry, Toyota has just the thing, a prototype residence. Toyota Dream Home includes a plug-in Prius in addition to the other gadgets in this energy saving home. Also included was a small battery powered NEV or neighborhood electric vehicle:
Toyota Dream House PAPI was designed to interface with other Toyota technologies. One of the most important of those other technologies is Toyota Motor Corporation's Prius hybrid sedan, which can also be used to supply electricity to the intelligent house for 36 hours in an emergency, such as an earthquake that cuts off normal electrical supplies
Cal Cars is on the forefront of developing PHEVs. Their site offers all the details, but the focus of their work so far has been developing a battery pack and battery controller for hybrid cars, particularly the Toyota Prius. Here are a list of benefits from their site:
· Recharging is not required, but if you do so often, chances are you'll need to go to a gas station less than once a month.
· Lifetime service costs will be lower for a vehicle that is mainly electric.
· Fleets are interested in a vehicle with stored energy that saves them thousands of dollars for towed generators to use where grid power is unavailable.
· Blackout-wary Californians welcome ready access to a car that could be hooked up via an extension cord to provide emergency backup power for a few home appliances.
· We expect PHEVs will be allowed to drive solo in the fast lanes during rush hour on a national basis. Following Federal approval, conventional hybrids will be allowed in California's HOV (car-pool) lanes when they have one occupant -- a controversial policy we see as providing little social benefit. Unlike current hybrids, plug-ins use no gasoline for most commuting, and more appropriately deserve the exemption.
EDrive is on the verge of marketing PHEV a conversion kit for current Prius owners that will give milage of 100mpg or higher for many drivers. Their site has a good FAQ.
Then there's the pimped solar Prius. It's a project by Canadian engineer Steve Lapp who modified his 2001 Prius by installing solar panels on the roof. It is admitted that the car is still a rough prototype, but so far the fuel economy improvement is 10%. Here's the link to his site.
And not to leave the scooter folks out, Honda has developed a 50cc hybrid scooter prototype that offers reduced emissions, exceptional fuel economy, and ample storage space. Employing both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor, the new prototype takes Honda one-step closer to a mass-market hybrid scooter.
Yamaha has one too:
One of the things I'd hoped to include in this diary is information about diesel hybrids. This is important because they would get better mileage then gas hybrids and could burn bio-diesel. It seems that there aren't any such engines around that are suitable for cars, though plenty of trucks and buses have them. Jean-Martin Folz, chairman of PSA Peugeot Citroën, (Western Europe's second-largest carmaker, with a marketshare of 14.5%) recently gives us some hope and insight:
"Each time a gasoline engine is replaced by a diesel engine, consumption at equivalent performance is reduced by 20%." ...
I feel we should be clear that hybridization is interesting from a technological perspective, but it is and will remain very expensive, so its environmental benefits need to be studied closely.
If hybridization involves combining a gasoline and an electric engine, the benefits are comparable to those provided by substituting diesel engines for gasoline engines, except that one of these solutions is much less costly than the other. That's why I believe there is no real advantage in developing hybrid gasoline engines in those parts of the world where diesel engines are well established. Only a hybrid diesel engine is attractive because it offers both benefits."
Finally there is a place to find out the real mileage of hybrids. GreenHybrid.com has statistics from over 1000 different cars in the database. The site also has discussions, articles, and info on all the hybrids you can buy today.
Hybrids have the potential of considerably extending Earth's oil supply. Since they require oil, the GOP deems them acceptable. And they are available today, with many more models coming on the market in the next couple of years. The danger is that too many new hybrids use the technology to increase performance rather than gas mileage. There is also a concern that consumers will think it's okay to drive big SUVs so long as they're hybrids.
Overall hybrids do sounds great, so why do I still think that hybrids will eventually give way to EVs? One reason is their complexity; they must carry an internal combustion engine and drive train, and big batteries, plus an electric motor. So there are a lot more components, maintenance, and cost. And as petroleum becomes more and more expensive we'll realize even the smaller amounts used by hybrids could be more efficiently used in other ways. When battery technology and cost permits, EVs will be the logical choice. But for now hybrids are the best bet for folks who drive a lot or take long trips. My wife and I will be shopping for one when her car wears out.
As with EVs, there is far more going on in hybrid vehicle development that can be included in one, or even three, diaries. All that I did here was point out some things that caught my eye. I'll try to do some follow-up diaries if you guys are interested.
UPDATE:
Here's an interesting fact that I just found:
An analysis by Salary.com, a provider of compensation-related data, applications, and services, found that the increase in gas prices will effectively wipe out the expected average salary increase (3.7%) for the average worker in the US in 2005.
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