The Prius already has about a five year payback time compared to purchasing a Yaris or Fit, so to add another couple of years--just not worth it. Plus that power coming through the cord aint free folks. I'm sure that cost is not added into the mpg

Sounds promising; however, the movement towards more electric still raises concerns while the car is being plugged into (what is most likely in North America) a coal fire plant--still, though, better then burning straight oil.

It is interesting to note that, you need to "learn" to drive the car--I imagine this means being soft with the right foots on acceleration and drive slower overall.

Oh, and I'm with Mr. Cadam. Let's see higher gas prices. that will hopefully motivate our conservative governments more. :)

awesome, cause the elec. from your outlet isn't generated by Giant coal burning pollution factories

great cars can go 100 - 150 mpg but using electricity from the wall isnt the answer.. where do you think we get electricity from.. Magic? I dont think so..

The thing I don't understand is that all of these electric vehicle proponents don't seem to realize that in most places in the United States, coal is being burned to generate electricity. And, as many will no doubt say in this thread, there is no free lunch. If you're driving a vehicle around, you're expending energy. How efficient the bearings are, the electric motor, the gasoline motor even, how aerodynamic it is, how many passengers (weight) are in the car, all of these factor in to the amount of power required to move the vehicle.

It takes energy to move a car. And unless the energy provided by one of these devices comes from a green source, like solar rechargers, water or wind, then there's still something happening here. Even nuclear power, which might make it more economical, produces toxic waste which remains toxic for 10s of thousands of years.

In my opinion, solar technology is the way to go. We have an infinite supply of energy in our sun. We need to get solar panels up to 60% or higher efficiencies. If we can do that, then we can free ourselves completely from the need to burn "fossil fuels" to generate energy.

This looks like a move in the right direction, but there's no way it will ever save $9500 worth of gas, and dosen't include the amount your electric bill will increase. With a price tag this hefty why not include some solar pannels to at least make use of the free energy?

The technology sounds impressive but not as impressive as using water as fuel. It has been found out by a Filipino to be possible a decade ago though, I don't know where the knowledge has gone now. I just think of water as totally better than any fuel because 2H2 O2 = 2H2O (clean emission) and we'll be happy when it rains.

Glad to see the electric car slight of hand hasn't fooled too many people. Energy is energy... and using electricity is adding an additional conversion that reduces overall system efficiency (instead of chemical to kinetic it's chemical to electrical to kinetic).

Electric cars COULD be much cleaner than gas, because production facilities are concentrated in a few locations (power stations) instead of in each vehicle, the potential is there to control pollution by cleaning up a relative few facilities instead of the millions of cars. Alas however - cleaning up electricity production (coal and fossil fuel heavy) is a tall order, and while I have not seen a single study comparing gas engine/cat systems to centralized power stations regarding pollution, I suspect there's not much difference.

Solar, as in from solar panels, is not the answer for clean renewable energy. What many people don't realize is that they don't harness the solar energy, they simply use the solar energy to create a reaction in the panel to release the electrons from heavy compounds (Toxic) the more it is used, the less energy can be produced because those electrons are _gone_.

[There are silicon-based solar panels which achieve over 40% efficiency today. They are not toxic. I was recently told by a professor from Purdue University that the electrons being generated form across a band gap in the material. I don't believe it's consumed over the life of the device, but rather provides a mechanism for converting photons into electron movement. -Rick]

Over time, the panel becomes inert garbage that needs to be disposed of and/or replaced.

A good solution is thermal power, be it from the sun (solar), the earth (the commonly thought of source for thermal power) or maybe even a more friendly chemical reaction. From the sun, one thing they're playing with, though not as a mobile tech, is using the sun to heat a molten salt to store the heat energy and use the heat from that to drive steam turbines. Just like a nuclear power plant but run on solar power via heated salts instead of dangerous nuclear compounds.

Maybe when people get home rigs like described above, or "gas" stations, people could take canisters of the molten salt and a few gallons of water on a car trip to power a generator to recharge and power their electric cars.

I really need to find a think-tank to work for :)

No duh allot of electricity comes from coal. Burning coal at a power plant is way more efficient than burning fuel in your engine. Plus electric vehicles have regenetive braking making them even more efficient (the effect of regen braking will be greater with full electric vehicles because more batteries will accept more charge in less time). Allot of the country gets a portion of electricity from wind. Having both an electric vehicle and solar panels or a wind turbine will accelerate the return on investment with both! Lastly coal has the huge advantage of being a U.S. resource that we don't have to worry about running out of for about 150 years, unlike oil and all of the supply/economic/political baggage it comes with.

The bottom line is that battery electric vehicles ENABLE any source of electrical generation to power your car. It's not the whole answer but is a huge part of it. And for those who don't have access to renewable energy, battery electric vehicles are way more efficient (lower carbon footprint) than oil and also have a domestic source of fuel (coal).

Power plants even coal ones generate electricty with much higher efficiency than a gasoline or diesel engine so you still wind up with less pollutants than if the electricity is generated by the car. Its not perfect but it is better.

Take these numbers in a marketing perspective and 150MPG looks really good. But, you are burning all that electricity. What the industry needs is a mile/energy rating to take all those considerations into account. Only then will one be able to objectively compare plugin hybrids to non-plugin ones. FutureCar and FutureTruck (now named challenge X, unless they've changed again) have been doing this for a decade now!

Yes, currently, a good deal of our electricity comes from coal. That's already better than 100% of the car's power coming from gas. The electrical generation facilities and distribution network are also more efficient than a gasoline engine. You can also (in most places) sign up for green power at your home (I do, and it costs barely more than not).

As for cost, it's not even worth considering. They probably do take it into account when giving MPG ratings, actually (or they'd potentially be infinite), but the cost equivalent versus mileage equivalent often comes out to a few cents a gallon for a plug-in versus the cost of driving a gas-only vehicle.

Read up, and catch up, people. The world is changing. For the better.

Guys,

I am surprised about the negative comments towards this. While this is a step in the right direction towards being green (reducing dependencies on oil), this is not about being green just yet--this is about bypassing the excessive gas prices, the first of several steps towards being green.

Your average power bill reflects your power usage in Kilowatt/Hours. At 5 Kilowatt/6 hours, that's 30 Kilowatt/hours. In July of 2007, the U.S. average power plant rate was $.1106/Kwh. At that rate, it would only cost you about $3.31 on your power bill to "fill 'er up".

Can you honestly have bad things to say about paying $3 to travel 100-150 miles, as opposed to $45 to travel 200-250 miles (depending on gas tank & engine sizes)??

I totally agree with Rick! It seems our government and everybody is rushing to find alternate sources of electricity but not for the reason we really want. They are trying to find new sources only because of money.

Unfortunately solar electricity is pretty much a pay once and you are fed for the life of the solar panel. The Government and Corporations want to find something that will replace oil but you have to keep paying for it. I am not an economist, but I think if we truly found a way to get "free energy", I think it would have a bad effect on the economy somehow.

quote:The thing I don't understand is that all of these electric vehicle proponents don't seem to realize that in most places in the United States, coal is being burned to generate electricity.

Actually, I would venture a guess that most of us do understand the source of our energy. However, there are significant advantages to using fewer sources of energy creation.

1) Easier to reduce pollution from a single source
2) Electricity has already existing infrastructure
3) Converting to clean electricity power can be done without replacing the vehicle.

Currently, coal produces around half the US's electricity, total hydrocarbons around 70%:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html

A nanotech superbattery that is a practical substitute for petroleum in ground transportation would change everything on par with steam power or integrated circuts (and end the terror war for good measure).

In the beginning Mother Nature wrote a rule book. The first rule is, you can't break the rules. May be there is no superbattery solution because it's againt the rules. May be nanotech will come up with some new material that makes it work but is there anybody even hinting at the possibility?

correct me if I am wrong, but dont we mean 150 mpg highway/100mpg city?

[Nope, the idea here is that when you're doing city driving you're running more on battery than on gasoline. Lower speeds, less power, more sitting. Electric/hybrid vehicles get the opposite of traditional gasoline vehicles in mileage for highway/city. -Rick]

Mark,
That's an interesting example. As I read the article, that means one would be paying $3.31 for the first 40 (electric only) miles. The overall impact of those extra 40 miles on gas milage is that it goes up to 100 - 150 mpg. If I put an extra $3.31 worth of unaccounted for gas in my tank every night (instead of unaccounted for electricity), it would look like my gas mileage went way up also.

At $3.00 a gallon, at 36mpg car would get just as far on $3.31 worth of gas.

Just put a wind generator on the car so that when you are driving the little wind generator spinning at 3000rpm's keeps on adding some juice back to your batteries!!

funny how they dont give miles per dollar, or miles per carbon unit.
obviously the car uses just as much energy. 150mpg is total bs wish they would stfu with marketing claim. its mileage far from what they claim(whatever it really is for that engine) when its running on gas, and its mileage is N/A when its on elect. It like saying mileage is 100mpg-downhill. take that 150 figure and shove it up your tailpipe. elec car is great idea. distorted headlines is terrible idea. electicity isnt free. But I think its cheaper than gas for now.

what a twat, he has no concept of what a struggle life is for non yuppy americans. its ok for him to pay 8bucks a gallon, but pretending it would be good for everyone is just stupid.

All carbon calculations from carbonify.com.

So assuming a standard 15A 110VAC outlet is being used and the car actually uses the entire 15A, charging the car from empty (6 hours) ends up using 9.9 kilowatts. This translates into 0.007425 tons of CO2 emissions per charge assuming a coal burning plant. (0.037 trees per use to offset)

Combusting 1 gallon of gas emits approximately 0.0118 tons of CO2 emissions. (0.059 trees per gallon to offset)

Here in New Mexico, I participate in a program with my power company that ensures 90% of my power comes from the wind. Not that I would trade my Audi in for a Prius or anything though...
-Ad

And the batteries last how long? And they cost what to replace? Nobody talks about that or takes that into account. Too expensive by half.

Charlie, did you just imply the war on terror would end if we stopped using petroleum? I really hope no one is that stupid.

Lots of good comments from everyone else. I enjoyed reading them. Does anyone happen to know how "efficient" hydroelectric and weather-related methods are as opposed to solar?

This is a great step forward! but not the end of the path. As long as the Oil companys don't buy this company out, we will be ok.

What an idiot, so everyone is supposed to buy and drive a prius. How are you supposed to ship anything in one of those. You still need to have trucks, and if gas is $8 a gallon how much do you think your groceries would cost, or anything else for that matter? Gauranteed that all electricity prices would also go up if everyone switched.

Since the battery pack probably won't last more than 2-3 years (HEAT KILLS) the payoff isn't there.

As I read the comments, I can see that many folks are misinformed about electric vehicles (EVs).

EVs and electric power generation plants are SO efficient, that even if you use coal as the fuel, you use so much less of it that the pollution per mile is considerably less than burning fuel directly in the car. Here in Colorado, you can pay just a bit more on your bill and get all your electricity from wind power if you choose to do so. Thus, you can greatly reduce your pollution if you opt for wind power.

It costs about $0.02 per mile in electricity to drive an electric car.

EVs (and hybrids) all get better gas mileage around town than they do on the highway. All cars require less energy per mile to the wheels if they go slower, but EVs are MUCH more efficient in stop-and-go city traffic because: A) They have regenerative braking. B) The engine doesn't need to idle, the motor just stops. C) Electric motors are very efficient at all speeds while gasoline engines have TERRIBLE efficiency low speeds and part throttle.

The article above says the pack is "five kilovolt" incorrectly. The Prius uses about 200 volts, not 5 kilovolts. I strongly suspect that the battery pack is about "five kW-hrs" instead.

If you had a Manzanita Micro PFC-50 charger, like we use to charge the KillaCycle, you could charge the A123 Systems Nanophosphate battery pack to 90% full in less than 30 minutes, and not wait for hours.

I am really glad to see that no one thinks that EVs must be low-performance "slugs" anymore. :-) I guess we have finally managed to get that myth dispelled.

Bill Dube'

You need to "forget everything you thought you knew about batteries", now that the Nanophosphate cell technology (invented at MIT) has become available. The cycle life is about 4 times that of most other batteries. The rest of the car will wear out before the battery pack does. No joke.

No, no one is so stupid to believe that the "war on terror" will magically end if we stopped using petroleum, but I also don't think anyone is so stupid not to realize that if we were not so dependent on foreign oil, we would not have needed such a major presence in the Middle East, which is the primary cause of a lot of dangerous people being really mad at the US.

I don't know...call me an optimist.

Yes, it takes a lot of effort to make a solar panel. But how much?
Will be be worth it to have solar panels and windmills on everyones' roof? This can help power the cars and other batteries.
Agree batteries and eletricity isn't free, but getting the power ANY natural source (not corn), is a huge plus.
I would love to see terrorists try to fight over sun and wind energy. (I don't expect all terrorism to stop)

Thanks for the attempt to dispel the myths posted here. BTW - I saw the footage of the KillaCycle on Eco-Tech where the engine caught fire - not the battery pack. ;)

In addition to what you say, a recent report by the United States Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (http://www.pnl.gov) states that the current generating capacity of the US electric grid is enough to power 80 percent of all light use vehicles in the US. What the report does not emphasize is that all that energy is currently wasted. That energy is used for nothing and is dumped, meaning that we are burning gas and wasting the equivalent in electrical power. That kind of behavior is just plain stupid, and wasting such vast amounts of energy should be criminal - IMHO. Using the power for PHEVs like the one suggested by this article would be far more efficient than what currently happens in the US.

If anyone is interested in reading the report, go to the above link and use the search to search for PHEV.

As a middle-income Prius owner getting 55 MPG, the cost of this pack is beyond my reach. However, cars utilizing such technology are on the mass-production horizon, and when they are finally mass-marketed, I will be buying one.

using less oil would likely mean less money to terrorists and less involvement in their countries so less pissed off muslims joining the fight.

FYI - There are first gen US/Canada Prii out there that have in excess of 200,000 miles on the original battery pack.

Ben Franklin, no slouch when it comes to inventions, once said that little strokes fell great oaks. Not every development needs to be THE answer. At some point a scientific consensus will emerge and that technology will be adopted. It has to happen. Don't knock those willing to try and improve our present embedded system.

Thanks for the intelligent post Bill.

As for everyone bashing the concept, please show me a better alternative that I can buy today. (no city busses doesn't count) Politics aside, it is a step in the correct direction. Sure in 20 years, we may have the ideal "clan and cheap" energy source at 30% deployment, but untill then, deal with what can be reliably produced. It took the car 100 years to get where it is, the next step simply takes time. It doesn't help that the biggest supporters of cleaner vehicles are lashing out at a good concept.

That aside, I wonder how the the internal controller compensates for the ~20 fold increase in battery capacity without modification. I have worked on implementation of hybrid drivetrains and the controller is a highly optimized pice of software. In the case of the Prius, it is a charge sustaining system that attempts to keep the battery charge between roughly 60% and 90%. Adding huge reserves designed to be depleted simply isn't part of the routine. Additionally, the rather small electric motor isn't designed for 100% duty cycle, It would be interesting to see what kind of endurance testing was performed on the drivetrain.

How fast can it go in E mode?

Why not just have the engine keep the batteries charged, and run off the batteries 100% of the time? If it only takes about 30 minutes or so to charge something like that, then the engine could be doing that all the time.

But since they ommited charging time in the article, it probably takes a very long time to charge, and using any kind of onboard generator would be useless.

By the way, about 99% of the press are morons, and believe whatever "green" crap is thrown at them. Take for instance the Discovery Channel. They had a show on last year about energy effecient cars. They actually "ooo'd" and "ahhh'd" over a car running on compressed air. The designer stating his final design would compress the air as it drove, using the cars own motion to turn air pumps and recharge the air tanks.

I guess no one at the Discovery Channel has had even basic physics, or even grade school science for that matter!

Morons....

I was waiting for the car on the showroom floor to catch fire or someone to fly over the hood. Usually when I watch the videos by Humphrey Cheung, something blows up or someone gets hurt. LOL

First, the income from the horrendous taxation, the reason for $8 gas, would not go into research. Just like everything else, the money would go into the general fund and would be squandered elsewhere to buy votes. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are no technologies on the horizon that will replace oil in the next 25 years. The clown in the video wanting $8 gas is just looking for government grants to fund his pet project. If it is all it's cracked up to be, then why can't he find investors? Hmmm? Furthermore, the price of food and all other goods would skyrocket along with the price of gas. How do you think everything is delivered to the stores? By oil-burning trucks. The USA has plenty of oil in Alaska that can be extracted without damaging the enviroment. Face reality people before the socialist morons run the country into the ground.

truck trailers have huge flat surfaces ideal for solar and the battery system could fit under it.
Id be surprised if there isnt a freezer one out there already. sure as heck should be since it could help power the cooler.

While the cost of energy for a ZEV is definitely better (a 2-3 cents/mi vs. about 10 cents/mi), the major cost of ZEV ownership isn't the cost of energy... it's the cost of energy storage (batteries). Since the bettery has a limited lifespan, it's cost should be factored into the per mile cost of ownership.

If the battery packs lasted 100,000 miles (some do, most don't) and cost $10,000 to replace, that would (in my particular case) result in a 'battery cost' of $166 per month over the 5 years it'd take me to put 100k on the car. I'm currently spending about $200 per month on gas, so the battery alone would cost me almost as much as my current fuel charge (and my car only gets 25mpg).

Buy a fuel efficient vehicle (like a Jetta TDI Wagon) and my fuel cost drops to 50 bucks a month LESS than the cost of the battery alone on a ZEV.

The thing that makes me think this is a crappy deal is that while there's a lot of sites touting ZEV's, none of them actually lay out all the costs and benefits. They talk about how the ZEV is more efficient with regards to energy production and more environementally friendly... but they never factor in the cost of batteries and the environmental impact of tons of lead processing and wandering our roads.

Someday ZEV's will be viable... but I don't think that day is here yet.

Well I suppose
"Owners charge up their vehicles with a regular 110 or 220 volt extension cord and afterwards the car will drive dozens of miles solely on electrical power. From empty, the five kilovolt battery pack charges in about six hours with 110 volt and 3 hours with 220 volt electricity."
is too obvious to read and determine charging time for the battery pack. Before we judge everything about a new technology being terrible we should read, and then think. Like thinking this could be a stepping stone to something better, as products tend to naturally progress into better products.

my $.02

A lithium battery loses 25% capacity in one year in room temperature.

=/

You cannot count 0 for displaced energy generation.

I do like the technology but the problem is weight, this is why trains have been "Hybrid" for more than 50 years because weight is not an issue for a locamotive.

For you environmental people just understand that it is impossible for a Prius on current battery technology to not out pollute just about everybody on the road, it just happens miles away and before you buy the car instead of out the tailpipe. Now perhaps the new batteries used as an auxilary battery are different, and in that case they could be used to make the Prius acutally benificial. (The Prius is a start but lets not jump on the bandwaggon until something that is truely viable enters the market)

It seems that the goal is to reduce the gasoline usage as much as possible. If you're running the engine in order to charge the batteries in order to power the vehicle, you might as well just run the engine to power the vehicle.

If you're using power from your utility, that power will be from a coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, or other power plant (those 4 sources account for about 90% of power produced in the US). These are cleaner and more efficient than your car's internal combustion engine, and they do not depend on foreign oil.

If you want to use the brakes to recharge the battery, or find a way to harness some of the energy a gasoline engine wastes to charge it, fantastic. But to use the engine primarily to charge the battery would be a colossal waste.

Seriously. Do people even read these things?

Adding an all electric cycle to the car does NOTHING to improve the rate of fuel burn. It will get the same distance per mile of gasoline.

What it could say is that this improves the total joule capacity of the Prius, or maybe increases the joules available per mile. But not miles per gallon.

Mark
Your math needs a little correction. No 120V household plug can put out 5KW. A more typical full load on a 120V plug would be 1800 Watts. (like a hair dryer or heat gun)

Therefore 1.8Kw x 6 hours = 10.8Kwh
Multiply that by $0.11 / Kwh = $1.19 for the electric portion of the "fill-up" which will take you 40 miles. Not a bad price to pay for 40 miles.
It becomes especially good if your daily commute is 40 miles or less, then the majority of your 40 mile commutes will only cost $1.19.
This is a savings of about $1.61 over those 40 miles when compared to a standard Prius getting 50mpg @ $3.50/gal.

So, if you can save $1.61 every 40 miles, it would take about 5900 "electric fill-ups" to save $9500 worth of gas. That's 236,000 miles of driving.

The equation looks worse if you do longer commutes or road trips, as the batteries will have depleted and you are now back to driving a standard Prius.
An average driver may need to drive 300,000 miles to pay back the $9500.
(hopefully that very expensive battery pack will last for 300K, but I would suspect it wouldn't)

Food for thought.

Food for thought.

A battery pack will last 100k if you are lucky.
At $10k that is 10 cents per mile.
The unmodified prius gets 45 mpg.
So... the effect cost of ownership is $4.50 per effective gallon plus the cost to charge it.
Not impressive here in the states but they pay much more elsewhere in the world. (I just got back from Europe and there are no prius' in Germany. TDI diesel is common. Maybe it's because they are cheaper and just as efficient.)

The designer of the air car was probably talking about a regenerative braking system that re compresses air as the car is slowed, obviously quite feasible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
"A similar Danish study determined the payback ratio to be 80, which means that a wind turbine system pays back the energy invested within approximately 3 months"
In this case, the wind power is Pie in the Skye! It returns the investment in 3 months - thats a gold mine!

I really think wind power is so much better that solar power(which is so expensive)
There is some nice progress in the wind power installed lately, however I can't understand why there is no massive investmentss, if its so profitable. Where's the venture capitals? Aren't they looking for easy money?

That's nice to get 150mpg or whatever, but what/how much of a carbon foot print is used to build the batteries? Raw materials and all?

Ok, there are a lot of misconceptions out there.

1.Coal Power Plants are ~33% efficient, Cars, depends on model, and weight of passengers and cargo but try ~1%.
2.Someone mentioned this, but everything on the grid is NOT powered by coal and oil. There is a percentage of hydro and nuclear.
3.Lots of people are missing the point of the $8/gal remark. I doubt he looks forward to the forced economic hardships. That price would motivate everyone to go greener; think about it. Many of you got outraged at the suggestion of $8/gal. So outraged you would put some of that rage into supporting or funding greener initiatives? I hope so.
4.I prefer wind to solar big time. Sure the wind doesn’t always blow everywhere all the time, but solar requires lots of batteries, and batteries aren’t made of green/“nice” things.
5.Our best option for getting away from CO2 right now might be Nuclear *gasp.* Sure it has bad by-products but the plants, especially new designs are very safe, even fail safe in some examples, and with reprocessing you can DRAMATICALLY reduce that waste.

In the end, I would prefer to stay away for battery technologies as much as possible. Battery components, for example Lithium, are hard to dispose or recycle. I do applaud the fact that these people are working on a solution, so long as their intentions are good. How many of us can say we are doing the same?

I hope this helps.

It was scientifically debunked.

Using your wall outlet to charge your car isn't a bad start towards our independence on fossil fuel.
And I know, many of you are thinking "but electricity not environmental friendly". Well it isn’t, but it is. Just charge the car during the night and your impact on the environment would be pretty much nonexistent.
'Cause, believe it or not, there is no way to store the electricity generated by the plants during the night. It all goes to waste. So wouldn't it be better to use that wasted electricity to charge a couple of million cars?

i have personally owned a vehicle that get 3 digit mpg, and i wouldnt have cared if gas went to 10 a gallon. besides, if gas is not economically viable, we would come up with alternatives QUICK.

The Nickle in those batteries comes from extremly enviromentaly damaging mine in Canada, then its shippd to China to be refined, then its off to Korea to be turned into a battery and the to japan to be put in the car, then shipped all the way to North Ameriaca. I doubt thats less enviromentaly damaging than a new diesel or maybe even gas.

As I said earlier, "Forget everything you thought you knew about batteries."

These A123 Systems Nanophosphate cells lose only about 5% capacity per year, but it is hard to tell what they will lose per year long term. The rate seems to get less every year, but they have only been on the market for a couple of years, so you will have to just extrapolate for now.

There are no heavy metals in these cells (in contrast to many other types of cells) so disposal and/or recycling is not a problem.

The cost of a turbo diesel engine with high pressure rails is significantly higher than a gasoline engine. About $2k more than a comparably sized gasoline engine. But the efficiency is incredibly higher and worth the cost. Add into that the need for a urea injection system that has to be refilled and maintained, and it's even more expensive in the US. Maybe in Europe where emission standards are lower, it's different though.

Teldar

Electricity is easy to make. There's wind, solar, geo, tidal, hydro, nuclear, and coal. To make fuel, you either grow it, or mine it.

Now the thing with this electric car is it needs a beefier electric engine. I can barely get any acceleration or uphill travel on the electric alone. Unless I accelerate from 0-40 in 80 seconds. As for that Filipino guy, He's a fake. He was using a concept made by feessable electrolysis which u apply electricity to water to create hydrogen and then combusting the hydrogen. His car would never create enough hydrogen to combust in a short time to keep an engine running. It's just not possible. Perhaps a hydrogen fuel cell battery maybe, but never a direct water to hydrogen engine. Because if that were the case, the car would run forever through creating hydrogen combusting, recirculating the water, remaking into hydrogen again.

While I can't speak for the longevity of the A123 batteries, I know for a fact that as of 18 months ago, not a single Prius battery pack has needed warranty replacement for reduced capacity. I was also under the strong impression that there had not been a single battery pack sold to a dealer to be used in an out of warranty replacement. Trust me, they aren't easy to get a hold of and it is a small community of researchers that works with them.

That said, the Prius batteries are a much older and less powerful design. Toyota know they couldn't screw up public opinion and opted to preserve battery performance by not pushing the batteries to the limit. The stack is capable of high burst currents and moderate discharge levels, but the controller keeps the power consumption well below the limits and does not deep cycle the batteries to avoid degredation. The battery dyno results I saw showed virtually no degredation when the batteries were treated properly.

To all of the alternative energy people, both solar and wind have paybacks on the order of 20 years, do the research. At 100% efficiency, it can be ~5 years, but those calculations are largely irrelevant. You also have to consider that transmission is half the cost of energy, the $.10/kWhr end user cost can't be used to calculate payback. A 2-3 million dollar 2.5 Megawatt turbine generates only $125/hr at peak performance, you get the idea.

It's easy to build a legitimate 150 mpg car at less than the $9500 premium on these fraudulent "150 mpg" conversions. Just make a car out of lighter materials such as fiberglass or aluminum/magnesium alloy, and i'm not talking about just the skin (like a Corvette). Get rid of the steel frames and the 8-speaker stereos and power windows and all that crap, and you could build a car that weighs maybe 200 kilos with a smaller engine that goes just as fast but with amazing gas mileage. They're called cyclecars, with a motorcycle engine but a lightweight enclosed body. Many motorcycles of this weight get more than 100 mpg, provided that they're not grossly overpowered. The only reason to have 2000 kilo cars on the road today is to protect you from collisions with the other 2000 kilo battering rams on the same road. Delivery trucks are a different matter.

I have seen a test, where one of the Electric Plane guys are testing a single A123 Cell. He is charging at 10A and discharging at aprox 60A.
Currerntly he has cycled the battery aprox 1500 times, and it stil has a remarkable capacity.
test can be found at http://www.rcgroups.com

Well... $9500 with the € @ $1.4, 1 liter gas @ 1.35€, regular car @ 30 mpg city... break-even is around 40,000 miles (not including electricity costs)

Anyway it's starting to be viable as the tendency for gas cost is up and battery cost is down

Modern diesels are popular in Europe (50% of new cars) because cost per mile and CO2 emissions are some 30% lower than gas, just if they make a diesel-electric Prius...

I read an article about Iceland having abundant hydroelectric resources. One of the problems with generating Hydrogen fuel is that it takes energy to create hydrogen, but with hydroelectric power, it's renewable and clean.

The point of that statement is how some of the concerns posted here is the use of fossil fuels going from oil to coal, or to nuclear. With hydroelectric energy making hydrogen to "store" the energy, then we have clean fuel from clean fuel.

The next step is to do as an earlier posting person said which is to use the (now hydrogen) engine to rechanrge the batteries. In fact, it may not be necessary, unless hydrogen prices skyrocket.

I know there may be flaws in my statement, but the general idea is what I'm expressing.

Ultimately, when it becomes too expensive to obtain fossil fuels, we'll see something take the place of it.

$8.00 per gallon foolish? Well, here in Europe regular gas is right now €1.35 per liter... that's $7.15 per US gallon... and rising!

I admit my expertise is not in solar, but I do know a thing or two about wind. I suppose it depends on what class of wind we are considering, but 20 year payback periods are a thing of the past. They are growing lower and lower, and with government benefits and required renewable portfolios wind power use will continue to rise, and the technology isn’t getting any worse.

Sorry guys, wrong calculation. At current exchange rate ($1.4 per €) gasoline in Europe is $3.65 per gallon. Not quite $7.15. Yet.

I think alot of the coal fired and nuclear power plants will be replaced once they perfected fusion power. This will clean alot of this up and it scares OPEC to death. So let them do alot of R&D on this type of technology because by then fusion will be available to the general public.

Why people keep pushing hybrids is beyond me. The battery is not eco-friendly and they require replacement after 4-5 years and these batteries are not cheap (especially lithium-ion). If you bought a cheap fuel efficient car/desiel it would last at least 10 years if not more. All it takes is a faulty cell and you have a rolling fireball, how many of those sony batteries were recalled again???

Why not use BOTH regenerative braking AND a wind turbine installed in the hood, or located in an optimum airflow section of the car, such as at the point of pressure convergence. Then when you are in motion it is regenerating, and when you are stopping or slowing regenerative braking is charging. This could significantly increase the charge levels of the batteries. Or at very least use a "super-capacitor" rigged to the wind turbine that links directly into the power inputs for the engine, so "the faster you go", or the more wind resistance that is placed on the wind generator, the more energy can be directed into the engine.

I think this idea is a VERY viable option as in either method of use it will be contributing to the overall powering of the vehicle and possibly lowering the cost per mile (electrically generated only) by yet a few more cents, thereby recouping the initial cost of the turbine (a few hundred dollars possibly $500-1000 for the "super-capacitor")

Or at very least the wind turbine could power other devices within the vehicle, such as a heater or a/c, onboard computer/navigation, or anything for that matter. Imagine adding a wind turbine to an ambulance for the use of powering the lights and devices, thereby decreasing the strain on the alternator and battery substantially, or at least in motion, and they are in motion quite often.

I think that wind power will be developed much faster than solar, unless the "solar panel paint" idea comes to be at a MUCH cheaper price. I whole-heartedly support "green" in all its forms, but haven't the money to DO or USE anything green, I don't even own a car, have a job (disabled), or have any income other than welfare (denied disability, which is TOTAL BS!) Thankfully I have a child or else I would have nothing other than food stamps coming into the home (get "TANF" cash assistance, and have to put towards bills)

This is to anyone who knocks people for not immediately going as green as possible immediately...
There are SO many people in America in my EXACT situation, and it is just sad. The deregulation of power and gas, was a good thing for those that have a steady and sustainable income, but those that live so far below poverty level (anything under 25k a year, and I am under 12k a year) are screwed by the cruel/harsh/ignorant business practices, even those run by the city governments themselves. Perhaps if things were regulated again, then profits from the companies would be LOADS less, there would be a higher deficit, but ALL of America could then afford the "green approach"

In europe gas is priced by the liter.

So I've read all the comments here, and it's great stuff about power plants and such. But I'm wondering why no one is thinking of this as a car? Whether or not it saves me tons on my gas bill is irrelevant if the car breaks down. And you CAN'T argue that it never will. All cars break down, and the fancier they are they more expensive they are to fix. Even if they don't break down, what happens when a simple rear-end collision ends up as a $10,000 fiasco? Is there some sort of insurance for that? I would think it would be really hard to "repair" a battery. You can't just take it apart and replace the broken pieces.

I don't know a whole lot about any of this stuff, i was just trying to think more practically. feel free to point out any misconceptions :)

Let me get this right, he wants the U.S. gubmint to tax the CRAP out of gas so that congress can send him free money. Then he plans on taking that money, and spending it on inventing things he can sell to us?

Man, where the heck do I sign up for that program..
Not the paying 8 bucks a gallon one, the getting free money to invent cool stuff that you chumps can buy for overly inflated prices for program!

$8/gal. gas won't make alternatives come on line any faster. Gas tax money has never gone to where the states claim it does. Even if you could somehow guarntee the money would go to alternative fuel research, throwing money at a problem never solved anything anyway. You greenies are living in a socialist fantasy world where you think that taxing and spending someone elses money can solve everything.

flat tire. lol

A hatchback-size car that light would probably get blown off the road by a stiff breeze. I'm guessing it would also have serious center of gravity (and therefore traction and stability issues)?

the thing about a car with an electric motor is that it doesn't waste energy while standing still (no 'idling'). This is extremely important in city driving (say, in nyc) where the majority of one's travel time is spent at a standstill in traffic or at red lights. for city drivers, at least, this version of the prius is incomparably superior.

Its very easy to cut the cost down of the system; just cut your paycheck by half, by charging customers less money and using the rest of the money on research.

Yes, electricity does not come free, but there are plenty good reason to prefer an electric engine to internal combustion ones:

1) power plants, compared to a car engines, are built meant to be bigger, more efficient, more reliable; that means you waste less energy for each hp you produce in a power plant.

2) power plants have more controllable and verifiable emission; it means it costs (a lot) less to check, and update when needed, thousands of plants rather than hundreds of millions of engines.

3) power plants can be placed to mimimize emission risks for people, while car's emissions are logically emitted where the biggests the poplulation density is.

4) you can produce electricity from various energy source but you will still only need the same electric engine to use it, you don't have to spend years of r&d for creating a different internal combustion engine suitable to be fit on a car... and you can use power even coming from non thermoelectic powered plants (wind, sun, hidroelectic etc), which will be just a power sorce not available for a non-electric car.

5) electricity distribution is simple and the needed structure is jet existing; for distributing any new fuel type you will need to invest consistently to create a distribution network.

As average Joe, I will be buying the car that is the cheapest, AND the cheapest to maintain, taking into account reliability of car. A badge like Toyota doesn’t give them the right of reliability. I’m all for green, but like most hypocrites/fence sitters out there, the cheapest product with the most availability/support will win in the end.



Compare this statement with any other product out there.



We need another “Ford Manufacturer” that can massively produce a cheap car and relatively reliable for the masses. Petroleum “Gas” cars, won in the end because petroleum was a by product and was considered worth nothing. Thus the internal combustion engine won over the first few electric cars, mainly because of pricing. It was lighter meaning less baggage (framework) to carry around, thus making it cheaper. It wasn’t a fashion statement like today’s cars. Fashion just creates a falls market value for a product. Ford even went as far as making cut backs in the paint that they used on the cars.



If I had to choose between “greener” technology and food on the table for my family, I would choose the food, since it is in our survival instincts to at least have fuel for our selves. That is the harsh reality that nobody wants to admit. So for going green and you have spare cash lying around, then why not. It will always be a niche class and will always be frowned upon the lower class income. The point is everybody is focused on fashion statements. Being Green has become a fashion statement, instead of what it’s really supposed to be doing. The battery is a nice addition, but someone like me can’t afford it. Today’s cars don’t last longer than 2 years per owner in the niche market, because everybody wants the latest “fashion” model car. The car makers are happy because they get to sell more cars, but those 2nd cars ends up with the lower income group, which forces them to still buy diesel/gas powered vehicles.



I can’t see my self buying an electric car in the near future, mainly because of the price. Leasing a car is not going to happen, since it is more a slap in your face to your hard earned money. I don’t care how ugly the car is.

Might burn and crash....

Calculated using an average 50MPG of the current prius, average 125MPG of the modified prius, gas cost $3/gal, 12000mi/year it would take over 21 years to pay back the $9500 spent on the modification. Not to mention the extra strain on the electric motor components which is not designed to run that often to begin with.

Nice try but try again.

Like most 'upgrades'; any change to Prius will void warranty.

It seems that most people here don't understand how Electric cars are better than gasoline or diesel. Dog covered just about everything that I was going to cover.

Other points to add is that in general electric engines and components are far more efficient than gasoline powered ones so with the given input power you can go farther. Also electricity is simply cheaper than gas due to many of the reasons stated by dog above.

Overall I am glad this is being offered because it represents progress and progress is good, but obviously this is not the end-game. It will be taken further. I am still waiting for some incorporation of solar power as well for some solutions for city drivers who can't put their cars into garages all the time.

Way too many pseudo scientists here. Of course electricity needs to be generated. The point is that switching to electrically powered cars is a first step. Once you have electric cars on the road you start to have the option to generate electricity from other sources.

Our current cars can only use oil products. Which won't give us an option at all. And please don't suggest the stupid ethanol solution because that will destroy the world food economy. corn products are already way more expensive in Mexico just because fat Americans wish to drive "Green"

Electric cars don't emit polluting gasses. Coal power stations do but can and probably are equipped with top quality filter installations to reduce pollution. The white smoke belching cooling towers don't pollute by the way. That is pure water vapour.

Electric cars merely change the format of energy carried. For the first time there will be a choice how this energy is created. If you want to go green here is your change! Have two power packs and a solar panel on your garage. Charge one pack while you drive on the other.

Electric cars are a first step towards a solution. And that is better than keeping your butt in a gas guzzling SUV. Of course taking the bike or walk once in a while won't harm you either.

In eastern Canada more than 90% of electricy is generated by hydroplant in the north... and big wind turbine will be install very soon like in Holland. By reading most of the opinion made on this blog American dont see the purpose of spending more money to help environment. New study show that Canada like Europe buy more small car like Toyota Echo/Yaris than big Ford SUV. When you wont be able to breath air... it will be too late

Where the hell does the electricity from? Your house. Where does the power for that come from? A power plant. What powers the power plant? Fossil fuels.

D'oh, you can fuck the environment in a different way. Congrats.

If there was a mandate that all NEW vehicles meet strict fuel economy standards and run on ONLY domestic sources of fuel, the Greenback wouldn't be used for toilet paper anymore. Jobs could be created, whole industries would come alive. The main problem is we use FUEL sources as a source of TAX revenue... that would have to be made up somewhere.. guess where it will come from next?
FEDERAL SALES TAX! So, we can't win... if anything we can break even. Why not make this system standard on the Prius? The vehicle is ALREADY $17k base package. Add another $10k ?? So we're really gonna save $10,000 in gasoline costs based upon the increased fuel economy? I'm no accountant, but that sounds like fuzzy math to me..

Do the hydrogen from water engine and charge $30k. Not having a significant charge for the fuel is where the savings is AT.. not this oh, we've made fuel economy so great, forgetting the price of gasoline is skyrocketing, and using the fear tactics of high prices to encourage "greener" vehicles makes no sense. I don't see why OIL companies should keep going to the bank on such HUGE profit margins. Water is an abundant and virtually FREE source of energy. Either make the system cost $500-1500, or do a hydrogen engine/car that doesn't waste energy in the conversion process (separate electrolysis process).

Why not go back to ride horses? For trucks we can add wagons. The only carbon would be from the horse dung and that's natural. We can use that for fertilizer or burn it for energy.

Bicycle for inner city and horses if your going out of town.

Problem solved!

Ok if the 1 lb lithium-ion I-Pod nano can erupt into a huge fireball in 0.05 seconds, what would a happen if you're in a crash and the 150 lb batteries are damaged ?

Some power plant use fossil fuels to generate electricity, but if you'd been paying attention, you would know that those plants are cleaner and more efficient than internal combustion engines running on gasoline. It also gives the option to use renewable resources and other non-fossil fuels.

But if you want to live in your ignorance and spew misinformation, that's cool. Keep it up.

that is really cool but expensive. and i bet they drive a truck or something that is not good on gas.

As I have said before, "Forget everything you thought you knew about batteries."

The A123 Systems Nanophosphate technology is inherently much, much safer than than the "road flare" laptop Li-Ion cells you are familiar with. You can read about it here:
http://www.a123systems.com/newsite/index.php#/technology/safety/

In a nutshell, when these cells get hot, the chemicals inside do not release oxygen like the old fashion Li-Ion cells do. Thus, they are stable and do not thermally "run away".

On the KillaCycle, we pre-heat the battery pack to 75 Celsius (167 F) to get maximum power output. (This is not recommended, by the way.)Ordinary Laptop cells would have flames coming out of the ends at this temperature. It just causes the Nanophosphate cells to age at a greatly accelerated rate (like 10X.)

In Venezuela, a gallon of gas is around $0.10 ~ $0.20 using the official (and unrealistic) exchange rate, or less than half of that if you use the "real" not-official exchange. Of course nobody there is really concerned about gas consumption and the impact on the environment.

40 mile commute there and back. In minus 5 degree or plus 100 degree weather with no heat or air conditioning. Sign me up.

Up here in Vancouver Canada there is a push to get people into condos / cityhomes which use a shared parking garage so there are no power points to use(strata WONT LIKE paying MY elec bill!)
owners of rental homes wont want to pay for there tenants fuel costs

Solar panels do not work by liberating electrons from material. You need to look up the photo electric effect. The very idea of removing electrons en masse from a material is silly, you'd develop one hell of a charge on that panel. You're right though, certain types of solar panels do degrade relatively quickly (10 years or so), but so do a lot of things that you stick out in the sun.

So say the batteries are different and won't explode. One thing is for certain, in a bad bad wreck in a small car, you can become trapped. The batteries do not disconnect themselves.

That means, that if you get into a terrible wreck in this tiny car full of batteries, which now may be running lethal current through the frame, your local fireman will not use the jaws of life on the vehicle.

At the department I used to volunteer for before moving out of states, the Chief would not let us use the jaws of life on any hybrid car that has been in a smash, because the chance the lethal current in the vehicle will kill the fireman is too high.

Drive Hybrid = No jaws of life. Call your local fire department and see if it holds for your area.

Just run biodiesel in my opinion. At least then if you get smashed up, you aren't going to potentially kill the people who try to rescue you.

Sure, generating electricity is still ecologically unsound in the majority of locations, but there's still an abundance of coal and we don't have to "stabilize" anyone else's "region" to ensure we have enough of it. This isn't the all-in-one solution, but it is a step in the right direction.
If you want it to be truly green, install your own solar panels. Waiting for the government to make everything clean and cheap for you is like expecting taxes to go away. Personally, I drive a truck, but I still understand the difference between what is good for us and what is cheap for us. You think it'll just be hard on drivers when petroleum starts running critically low? Just look around you at every single piece of plastic, and guess what it's made from....

Plugin Hybrids make sense if you plugin the car at night when energy demand is low. There is generally excess energy on the grid because nuclear and coal plants run 24hrs a day in the same range. At night utilities like PG&E run massive pumps in their hydro facilities to put water back up the hill to prevent overgeneration on the grid. The efficiency is around 70-80% when they run the water back down. Look up the Helms pump storage facility for more info.

As has been proven about 700 times, it requires less net energy and reduces net carbon emissions to power cars from the grid. Christ you idiots. No one said it was ZERO energy. By the way, fuel from the grid comes from AMERICA not SAUDI ARABIA. Get it?

Thanks for clearing things up with the power consumption. Too many people out there jump to conclusions without knowing or even bothering to try and learn about the issues. I am currently working on converting gas vehicles to electric vehicles which will cost around $0.01 per mile to run on just electricity. Not only are the carbon emissions removed from the car, but it allows for charging by renewable energies, such as solar and wind power, alleviating need for grid power, and thus making the car a "zero carbon" car. The Prius is a great step in the right direction and with more interest and research it will become an easier technology for more people to invest in.

Atomez calculated a gas prize of $3.65 per gallon but by my calculation gas costs 7$ per gallon in Finland ATM. diesel costs 5.4$ per gallon, but diesel cars are heavily taxed on yearly basis.

Were is everybody going? Why not stay home be self reliant for food and be done with it, how many mpg does a horse get? I am thinking about converting to Amish

its nuclear! haha i live right near indian point

Car makers must concentrate on making cars way lighter than they are today. All that unnessecary weight is what eats up gas.

Cars are exponentially more wasteful than almost any power plant as far as fuel per unit of usable energy yielded. Obviously a power plant will individually produce more emissions than a single car, power plants are relatively efficient because they produce large ammounts of power at the same time. Efficiency runs from about 60-80%. A car, while generating only a relatively small ammount of emmisions runs at an efficiency of about 30% (who knows how low it can go for those huge SUV's). An electric car, powered by the power you get at home, would be far more efficient. It's nice to be able to use gas, but I believe that the car of the future will be mainly electric, with the ability to be used on long trips with gasoline when neccessary. If charging technology improves and a car can be rechaged in short amounts of time, we can rid the auto industry of combustion almost entirely. Nuclear, solar, wind, wave, geothermal, and possibly fusion power will replace the expensive, dirty, and wasteful energy sources we use today.

electric cars are the future
BUT
the way electric cars are used today is not to diminish overall pollution but to diminish pollution in the centers of major cities, instead of having 1 million cars sputing gas from combustion chambers you have nothing from an electric car, BUT the overall pollution determined by coal powerplants and even nuclear ones still remains

electric cars will really make a difference in overall pollution only if the guverment decides to invest in nuclear fusion, and stop wasting money on wars which will provide more oil for gasoline cars, etc etc etc
the technology for making nuclear fusion is there
all it is needed is a little political willpower
I guess thats a little hard when all the top level guys ruling USA, and their friends have oil businesses.

you Americans make me laugh, you use 25% of the worlds resources and dont pay enough for any of it. My diesel mondeo does 48mpg and we drive way faster than you yanks. Build some decent cars and stop whining about the price of Gas. If you want to save the planet dont by a prius by a diesel golf.

I hear people constantly talk about the fact that many hybrids are not cost effective because they don't save enough gas. That's BS and here's why:

1) It's about being good to the environment!
2) It's about taking power away from countries that don't deserve it!
3) It's about sending a message to industry with your purchasing power that green is something that the public wants!
4) It's about being able to sleep at night because you know that you are about more than money, you are willing to pay more to be a good person!

OK, here we go:

Germany 1 liter gasoline = 1.35€
1 US gallon = 3.78 liter = 1.35 * 3.78 = 5.103€
1€ = 1.41$, so 5.103€ * 1.41 = 7.20$ per US gallon.

"High score" was even higher (I think last year...), almost 8$ per gallon!

Believe me, nobody is happy about fuel prices over here, but it certainly gets you to start thinking about fuel economy. I guess the same would happen everywhere. (Oh, and economy is working in Europe in spite of high fuel prices...)

One more comment: I cannot see why the gas engine is not used for charging the battery. This way, you could run the engine in the most efficient RPM range, and you would still be better off as soon as you drive in the city. It's mainly stop-and-go that ruins the efficiency with a gas engine.

/rant on
All the arguments that new technologies are too expensive, while correct sometimes, are not exactly to the point: new inventions are always expensive, and you have to pay a stiff premium to get them. Think of anti skid system, airbags, safety belts, navigation systems, electronic fuel injection, turbo chargers etc etc. First they appear in formula 1 cars or S class Mercs, a few years later every car has it. Same will hopefully happen with technologies like hybrid/electro/diesel-->fuel efficient cars in general and on the other side with green energy production and improved efficiency for "old" tech as an interim solution.

What is needed is open-mindedness for new approaches, even if they are at first more expensive, less powerful, or not so convenient. This will change if there are early adopters willing (and able) to pay more, and if the public is interested in and outright demanding better and cleaner cars.
/rant off :-)

"You don't give up any space" ? What about the spare tire ?

Electricity IS NOT FREE...... Good idea but be factually truthful

if you guys actually do some googling, you can find that the Prius batteries do NOT cost anywhere close to $10k.. they're closer to $3-4k.
Also toyota warrant their batteries for 100k miles, but the actual life of the battery is expected to be over 200k.. according to Toyota, not one battery was replaced due to wear of the battery itself, and tests has shown that the decreased capacity of the battery does not significantly affect the fuel mileage of the Prius.

I will drive my prius with pride knowing I did my part to be green. I will park it in the climate controlled garage of my giant house and sleep well at night, knowing I did my part. I will have green markings on the car to remind the less fortunate that I did my part.

Just kidding, knowing I did my part.

ride the bus get a pass the busses will run regardless

This is for all the people that seem to think they environmentalists and that using electricity vs a burning fuel is a bad idea......

What if we currently had vehicles that all ran on electricity today? And this article was about some company that has developed a vehicle that runs on a burning fuel called gasoline. And now you would have to go to these places called 'Gas Stations' to fill up at an approximate cost of 20$ per 2 weeks....yeah... nice....I'll take the damn battery...

I find this very amusing.

This guys have been saying "we're almost there" for years now, and they keep doing promises, and people still believe...

Now what I found amazing is that they now claim one can have payback on only 2 years... woha!!! 2 years??? What a joke!!!

Let's do some math here...

1) At European high gasoline prices, and particularly Portugal, top gasoline price is around 1.5 EUR per litre;
2) The estimated cost for the after market Hymotion kit is around 10.000 USD, or about 10.000 EUR (God nows why since 1 EUR = 1.45 USD) here;
3) The best consumption I get dayly is 4 l/100km = 25 km/l = 6 EUR / 100 km the worst is 5 l/100km = 20 km/l = 7.5 EUR / 100km;
4) Even at the worst consumption, and even considering doing ONLY EV mode (which is pratically impossible), it would take 133.333 km to have payback;
5) Doing 133.333 km in 2 years means an average 183 km per day;
6) If the range in EV mode is 40 miles (which I don't believe), that's 64 kms, which means at least 3 full charges per day to be able to do 183 km!
7) I'm not taking into consideration the electricity bill, which would of course increase the payback time and/or kms needed.

So how on earth do they come to this numbers???
Are these guys dumb enough to think no-one would check the numbers they're claiming?


João Prates


http://prius-pt.com
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Driving up the cost of gas even more simply to fund R&D for more is possibly the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
Say on average the US consumes 400Million gallons of fuel each day, and we're adding somewhere in the neighborhood of $3/gal tax, that's equivalent to $1.2 BILLION tax dollars EVERY DAY. Just for clarity, the yearly tax revenue from that tax hike would be $438,000,000,000. ($438 Billion)
Instead of this new tax money going to R&D, I would think better use would be to help supplement the incomes of those who are now in poverty because of this new tax.
By the way, taxing the masses and redistributing the wealth is essentially communism, whether we call it socialism or whatever.

That's right - and that's at $4 / gallon, with 15,000 miles per year.
Yes - perhaps there will be a tax benefit of some sort -- but this is the financial reality of the numbers we currently have.
Great technology - but need the price to be significantly reduced.

I could not agree more with Rob Fisher

You guys form USA stop complaining about oil prices an average car here in Europe uses way less gasoline than any of your trucks.And we still have to travel from a to b.

Seriously, this isn't a commercially viable mass market product at this point.

It's a proof of concept for the bleeding-edgers who can afford it. So all the piddly little complaints about battery life and sources for electrical energy and politics (Communism what?) are missing the point.

Battery powered cars are still a VERY novel technology. Only a fraction of the cars on the road right now are hybrid. Aftermarket mods for hybrid vehicles even more so. That's not because anything is wrong with them, it's because they are new.

By building a viable after-market battery source for the Prius, this company is extending the market and driving innovation. Cost is a function of both the technology and demand, and if you use the comparison of most other bleeding edge technologies, if the concept works price will likely drop by at least 1/3rd to 1/2 after the initial R&D dollars are recovered.

A $4-$6k battery pack in 5 years would be a lot different proposition, this current one is just a transitional step. And if it works well, Toyota is just as likely to buy the company or license the technology and incorporate it into the new generation of Priuses.

And it seems to be an American company that's doing this, as an aftermarket to a Japanese car company's product. Interesting reversal of the usual roles don't you think?

Joao Prates, you are such a moroon
this isnt about your wallet
its about the enviroment

read my other post

" electric cars are the future BUT the way electric c....."

From personal experience with batteries of this type, if it's damaged in an accident it will explode. I'm not talking about a mild slow burn, when litium based batteries ignite they turn into instant fire balls. Check youtube for lipo or li-ion battery explosions. Most are of small (a few pounds)batteries... I'd hate to see what would happen when a 170 lb. version goes off.

The reason for him wanting 8$ gasoline is that it would actually make the product he is selling a financially sound decision. He won't sell any of these until it does reach 8$ a gallon and the bank will have to repo his private jet. He might have to hitch a ride with Al Gore until then.

I'm sorry, but I've seen the video of the bike. It sure didn't sell me on their company. I'd be afraid the thing would take off at top speed until it crashed into a minivan. I know, I know, top speed's only about what, 45-50 mph in the Pious (I mean Prius), but still.

and discovered that it IS cheaper to get the power from the wall in your house and put it in the car to cut your gas consumption.

the math showed that if i drove 60 miles a day, the extra electricity would cost about half or 1/3 as much as the gasoline to move the car the same distance.

assumptions are for current electricity prices around the country and not the ridiculous NYC prices or CA, and that the extra electrics would move the car for most of the first 60 miles.

if you drive less miles, you use less petrol, but you still use about 1/3 the cost of it for the electricity.

safety and all the other red herrings you're all throwing around will be solved, as they have been in the past. solar is a wonderful future, and from some of the stuff i've read recently [recent Fortune Magazine, for example], cell efficiencies are rising, costs are dropping, and within maybe five years, [although some subsidies and tax breaks may still be needed], solar will cross the cost curves for power plant electricity.

the next BIG challenge is to get solar power to be networked across ALL countries' power grids around the world.... why? because the sun is shining SOMEWHERE on earth all the time. we need to get the juice to "the dark side" too, to make it really work well.

A small town in Norway is running it's vehicles on poop from the sewage treatment plant.In the good old USA we pump ours into the rivers and oceans. Combine that with use of the hydristor transmission, and we have solved our pollution and high oil price problems.We will however, never see the day.

You could not help to be rude could you?
Is it in your education to call other people bad names? You should be ashamed of yourself.

I probably do more for the environment in one day that you do in a year, so please don't try to preach about the environment to me.

I'm not saying this is about my wallet, I NEVER said that, you go back to your English lessons please. English is not my native language, and still you could learn a thing or two from me I guess.

What I'm saying here is that these PR people are saying rubbish, they are promising something they can't deliver, and that is bad for everyone.

That's because of these unfulfilled promises that people start to thing bad about eco solutions. It was the same about the EPA MPG rates in the U.S.

Having the payback time in 2 years is a pure lie.

I have presented the math to prove it, what have you done to disprove me Antaeus?

P.S. - It's easy to say "it's not about your wallet" when you have deep pockets isn't it?

for Joao Prates

first of all my pockets are quite empty
I am not talking here from the point of view of a rich guy

second, this is not about my english either, but than again, when youre pockets are empty is hard to find a good english teacher

third, I told you are a moron because this article is not how to get an inexpensive car to run, but its about an environmental friendly car

but you entire argumentation was about money money money
for me a guy which sees everything throw the money point of view is nothing more and nothing less than a moron, so its not personal
you know its much more at stake here than money, its about the future, its about what we leave behind, to our children
IF I had the fucking money I would gladly pay much more for a car like this Prius, even if I will never get the money back from low mileage, but at least I would help the environment

again I advise you to read my first post, which I believe its more relevant than yours

my first post:
"electric cars are the future BUT the way electric c...."


P.S> "You should be ashamed of yourself." Please, stop talking about yourself, I am not interested in knowing you.

One question for all of you payback demanders. What is the payback on your car's GPS, 6 CD changer, 20" chrome wheels, or SRT 8 Hemi options?

In the UK we pay $7 a US gallon at the pumps. Most of this is tax. It is still not the greatest part of motoring costs. My car is off the road currently because I don't have the massive annual fix costs to hand (road tax, insurance, testing fees) which exist mainly to keep the road free from underpeople like myself.

In the US, you pay much less at the pumps, but there is a hidden cost associated with paying for Foreign Policy through general taxation. This costs around $100 a barrel which means that the non-motorists are heavily subsidising the motorists.

How 'bout $11 gal?
Congrats to Rogard for putting the math in his reply... Has anyone looked at the current exchange rate? Now $2.1 U.S. to 1 British Pound. That translates closer to $11/gal U.S...
Mark

No one has said anything about the amount of weight theese electric cars can carry or pull????
Anyone know anything?? I deliver newspapers and I have a V6 3.0 Litre anything smaller and I run it into the ground in under a year and it takes longer than that to pay for it. Carolyn

I do have some minor qualms about installing a massive lithium ion battery in my car. I'm not saying the "massive lithium battery in the trunk" idea is completely bad, I just don’t want to Beta test or even ...

Pingback: http://dataland.wordpress.com/...ota-prius/

Average car on the road's age: 8.5 years
Extrapolation to expected life of vehicle: 17 years
A123 Systems batteries ' lifespan: 95% capacity at 1000 cycles
Estimated cycles per year: 200

Assuming that there's no sharp dropoff in performance after the 95%, I'd expect around 85% capacity by the time the vehicle is scrapped. So, no problems there; the batteries will last until the end.

Let's say you install this in a new Prius. We have capital costs of $9500. Let's assume 40 miles per day average driving, 17 years of lifespan. That's 250,000 miles. Let's say we're talking about a switch from 45mpg to 150mpg electricity. That's 1666 gallons electricity instead of 5555 gallons, so you're saving 3889 gallons gas. Gasoline in the Prius is probably burned at ~25% system efficiency (assuming an efficient ICE), so the car uses the energy in a gallon of gasoline (131MJ) * 0.25 * 3889 = 127,365 MJ for propulsion.

For the plug-in hybrid version, you have the efficiency of the AC-DC adapter (~85%), the batteries (~99.9%), and the electric motor (~85%), so the required 127,365MJ of energy for propulsion equates to using 176,459MJ of electricity from your wall. That's 49,016 kilowatt hours. Let's assume electricity prices of $0.06/kWh, since they discount it if you charge at night, and gasoline prices of $3/gal. This means saving $11,667 in gasoline and spending $2,940 in electricity. Let's assume that at the end of the car's lifespan, the batteries generate an additional $1000 in value due to the recycling of the lithium. Let's say that the plug-in hybrid version reduces maintenance by $300 a year, since electrical systems wear out much slower than ICEs due to the small number of moving parts. Times the lifespan, that's $5,100.

I'm not going to put a price on the convenience of charging at home, the benefits to the environment, the quieter operation, or anything of that nature. I also won't subtract from it the penalty of not having a spare tire well.

So, to sum up, we're spending: $9,500
Minus the end of use cost of: $1,000
Minus the maintenance costs of: $5,100
So that we can replace: $11,667 in gasoline
With: $2,940 in electricity

Grand total: You save $5,327 over the lifespan of the vehicle.

Now, this isn't a *full* economics calculation. You either have to borrow the money if you don't have it or not invest it in something that would pay a return if you already had it. The proper solution is to calculate a mortgage length or internal rate of return, and I'm too lazy to do all that work. In general, a loan on $9,500 over 17 years would probably be expected to cost you about the same as you end up saving. So, the real results of buying the kit are:

You lose a spare tire
The car becomes quieter
Can charge from home
The environment benefits a great deal

I'd take that. Of course, this assumes a *New* Prius. If your Prius isn't new, you'll need to adjust the calulation and make a judgement call. A better economic decision if you don't have a Prius to begin with, a decision that will certainly pay off, is to simply get a car that's designed from the beginning to be a plug-in hybrid, like a Volt or Aptera. But if you already have a Prius...

Did you know that every year, each American spends 19 billion dollars on subsidizing farmers to produce corn that the world does not use? The actual market price of corn per bushel is $0.60 and it costs $1.49 to produce.

And all that 19 billion dollars of your tax dollars are going to corn.

Why don't we just take a sliver of this money and then invest it on companies that use it to develop these technologies? Do you think that these guys are apart of the Automotive industries? Are they receiving research grants to develop these technologies? This is a step in the right direction. Of course it will start with local transportation. The first cars every produced did not have the capability to haul groceries across the country.

Just give these guys time and more respect.

Very cool but very pricey right now, with probably lots of warranty issues. As for payback, I have averaged 48.85 mpg and 34 miles per day over the last 2 years and spent $1414.43 on gas. Let's be generous and say my mileage does triple, so I buy no gas at all from now on, which makes the future price of gas irrelevant. Ignoring issues of fuel in the tank oxidizing and crudding up the fuel system, and assuming I can get some free electricity somewhere, and assuming the cost of money is zero, and assuming my insurance doesn't go sky-high because it would be such an attractive target for thieves, it will take 13.43 years to recover the $9500 cost of the thing. They're better engineers than economists, I think. All that said, I like the idea a lot. The 2010-12 Prius is shooting for 100mpg according to some rumours, with a plug-in capability according to others. Probably a better deal.

People who own Priuses aren't the type to work on their own cars. Just another chance to screw them out of a few extra hundred on installation costs.

I also hope gas goes to $8 or more per gallon. In a collision with another car that isn't a huge truck or SUV, it might be that much more survivable.

Saving the environment is well and good, but that is the secondary objective to using alternative energy sources. The primary goal is to free the civilized world from being at the whim of and enriching oil holding countries such as venezuela, and various middle eastern countries. Once the western world pulls out of the middle east we will see how they like dealing with china. With their attention drawn elsewhere and income cut off their civilization will fall apart. Just watch what happens when they attack a chinese city.
In the long term the value of clean energy will be a perk, but for the time being we are better off relying on coal burning than making enemies and empowering them.

As long as you charge it up with clean nuclear electricity it makes sense. Burning coal and oil to make power, combined with the resources going into the batteries themselves makes the whole thing look as envirinmentally fraudulent as an Al Gore offset.

The cost of the car plus $9500 for this mod is insane. And it probably voids the warranty.

You would be much better off just spending the $9500 (or less) on a used Corolla and get 40mpg anyway. (not to mention a car that isnt ass-ugly like the Prius.)

As for the plug-in power...here in the Pacific Northwest we have lots of hydroelectric power, but the enviros want to tear them out because they "hurt fish." And they are balking at wind power because its "ugly" and hurt migratory birds. Our governor here in Oregon even made it law you cannot put wind power off the Oregon coast. You cant win.

Hydrogen is a fraud. The reason the oil industry loves it is because the KNOW IT WILL NEVER BE CHEAP. Fuel cell cars cost $1,000,000 each, and they pretty much always will. What a great way to hold off the inevitability of electric cars by making a futuristic-sounding yet not viable technology such as hydrogen.
BTW hydrogen cars are electric too, its just that batteries are infinitely cheaper than fuel cells.

Even if you drove in PHEV mode for 40 miles a day, and even if gas was 5 dollars a gallon, it would still take 6 years to pay off. If gas was $10 a gallon, this would take 3 years to pay off, not counting the cost of electricity.

And of course if the cost of gas was $10, it's a good bet that electricity would be 35 to 50 cents a kwh.

Electricity at 35 cents a kwh would cost over $1.50 per charge, or over $500 a year. So at $10 a gallon for gasoline, it would take about 4 years for this goddawful ploy to pay for itself. And by then you'd likely not be able to afford anything because the economy would have trainwrecked.

I'm going to say first off, most of you have no idea what you're talking about. Do some research, then post, instead of trying to pass off as an expert.

Instead, let me quote some statistics:
Household travel distance, Daily Avg. - >40 mi (recent National Travel survey)
A123 Hymotion Prius Watt-hour per Mile, Avg. (electric drive only) - 122
Average U.S. cost per kiloWatt-hour - 8.33 cents
Calculated cost per mile a123 Hymotion Prius (electric drive only), Avg. U.S. - 1.22 cents

What does this mean? On the average household daily use in the US of 35 miles of driving, you pay about 40 cents. Less than two quarters a day. You know why? Because at the end of the day, you plug in the car and the next day, you start anew from a freshly charged battery, in which the first 40 miles are electric only. That's why they designed it that way.

Worst case scenario, you live in California (average cost recently was 16 cents per kWhr) and you have a commute that is more than 40 miles (in which case you start to burn gasoline on the A123 Hymotion). In which case, you pay almost about 80 cents for those first 40 miles... as opposed to $3.65 gasoline for a 50 mpg vehicle in fuel cost, for the same distance. Common sense? $0.80 < $3.65 .

And to all the people that whine about the pollution of electricity, understand that even if ALL our power was coming from coal and nuclear, the amount of energy we get is, by aggregate numbers, much better for the environment than the energy we get by burning gasoline on individual units, such as in vehicles -- even considering all the variables as transportation, storage, and distribution. In layman terms: pollution of electricity < pollution of internal combustion gasoline engines. This is not putting into account that there are portions of everyone's electricity coming from renewable sources, that electricity is being produced regardless 24hrs/day and the wasted amount not used during evenings and nights (the time when you'd charge the Prius) would just be lost anyways.

It's not to say that this is perfect, but aside from the initial cost of this investment (which in California would be recovered in less than a year), there is almost no downside.

Only one person has (sort of) mentioned this, but the solution is not in a better car engine, it's in mass transit systems that gain widespread use. Not only is it a more efficient way to carry more people, but development based on transit lines leads to more people being able to get where they need to go by taking transit -- since it's built around it. This is a tried and true formula in many of our older cities, and many European and other cities, but Americans are dead set on finding a way to continuing their car-centric lifestyles. Ultimately, the solution is not in an engine, but in density and transit.

None of the calculations for cost per kilowatt are correct. It sounds very cheap per kilowatt. I live in southern Californa and cost per kilowatt is about $0.11, but you guys need to include all those misc. charges and tax. It turns out to be $0.18 per kilowatt.

Hydrogen is the future just look at Iceland.

remember the gas lines in 1974, the first oil embargo? .. you could be driving past the people in line with your quietly humming Prius.. who cares about payback :)

It is not really economically practical but if you can afford who cares.. and the price will come down eventually.

For all the fireball people.. understand this.. A123 cells do not burst into fire or explode, even if you shoot them, drive nails thru them or short them out.. and their life is estimated at 10-15 years. They really are different from regular li-polymer cells.

Too bad the gas engine does not re-charge the battery pack. That way you really lower greenhouse gasses.