"Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, the "father of the Prius" who helped put hybrids on the map, said he believes fuel-cell vehicles hold far more promise than battery electric cars.
"Because of its shortcomings ? driving range, cost and recharging time ? the electric vehicle is not a viable replacement for most conventional cars," said Uchiyamada. "We need something entirely new."
Nothing like stating the blindingly obvious and then representing it as if it's some sort of revelation.
Tom
Nothing like stating the blindingly obvious and then representing it as if it's some sort of revelation. ==================================================
The Q is: are fuel cells a (develop-able) answer? Dunno.
Keep in mind, the new Prius "c" (sposedly for "city") gets 68 mpg (according to lightfooted drivers). Which means Moi would proly get 80 mpg.... helium-foot. lol The "c" is the smallest in the prius line.
That's VERY significant, for high-mileage drivers. Low price, as well -- $18K, for the base, not that much more various trim levels. Don't know how battery cost/lifetime factors in, tho.
Electrics have indeed been disappointing, tho -- not much better than the Ranger EV's, from way back, which had 30-40 electric-only mile ranges, using lead-acid banks. Part of the "failure", I think, is the refusal to limit hp, and the incomprehensible *weight* to these effing cars. Whazzup wit dat? . VW beetles did fine with between 36 and 54 hp, under 2,000 lbs -- 54 being the hot-rod bug -- in 1974!!! Also their minivan/bus.
Also, part of the "failure" is of our own making, ie urban sprawl, where commutes are 30-100 miles, one way. The Leaf, et al, could reliably handle 50 mile commutes (one way), but you'd need charging stations at the yob.
The Tesla, tho, seems to have surmounted much of these limitations -- if it's not all hype. And then, who can afford them?
Urban planners, in general, condemn urban sprawl. PBS had an inneresting documentary on this, focusing on PA, and featuring Bri'ish "solutions to space". Manhattan, and the 5 boroughs, has a large-scale solution ito public trans, but now you gotta be a multi-millionaire to partake -- unless, of course, you are a drug dealer, living with his mom on Sectoin 8.. No good (city planning) deed goes unpunished, eh?
As an inneresting tangent to this, energy-wise, altho subways have "regenerative brakes", that regenerated electricity is NOT fet back to the grid, but goes up the proverbial chimbley, through resistor banks. If that energy was grid-bound, the NYC subways could power a city of approx
200,000 homes, as the energy from a braking train is fairly incredible.
My main ride for the last 5 months has been a Volt. Too many longer drives lately have made my EV portion less than 50%, which equates to about 60mpg. When my driving habits settle down it should be more like
90mpg. It will never be fully EV for me but it is for many other owners though.Take a Volt for a spin. It's no racecar but I love that silent electric torque launch and it still surprises me sometimes when passing at highway speeds. My last car was a V6 Camry which did have about 100 more hp which I thought I'd miss. But I don't because the smooth torquey nature of electric drive makes up for it. I've surprised a few asswipes at stop lights which pisses off my wife. My excuse is oh sorry I didn't mean to take off quite so fast, it's a sensitive pedal. That story is still working although I may be chalking up a higher number of eye rolls from her than usual.
The Volt is about 3500. About 400 of that is the battery. It's a nice car to drive and the weight is part of what prevents it feeling cheap. I love the electric smoothness and the low CG and flat cornering.
Apples and oranges. Bugs are absolute POS compared to a Volt or even a Prius. But if you want small and can do without features then take that bug logic all the way to its natural conclusion.
So what? When the Volt runs out of battery you just keep going and usually don't notice the changeover to ICE.
Pure electrics should be great for many as commuter vehicles or second vehicles.
The Volt will be a long payoff for me. But at least it has a payoff, unlike a boat or a quad or a million other things. Besides I already have lots of toys and I'm enjoying that for a change I did something about fuel costs other than whining. My next project is making my home (including the car) net-zero. Many of my friends could afford to do similar but the simple fact is that to a man they'd rather spend their money on truly useless crap. I don't eat out much but recently we had dinner with some friends who do. About $75 per couple which isn't hard to do these days. During dinner my friend says he can't justify buying LED light bulbs. Yeah a $20 entree makes perfect sense to him but a $20 lightbulb, forget it. Let's face it, the tech and the cost of electrics can already fill the bill for many people like me and most of my middle class friends. The real problem is that most of us prefer to use our disposable income on baubles while putting the cost of doing anything about the environment onto future generations. That's never going to change and tech can't fix it.
Well, definitely not the chair bound, that's for sure. Add electric cars to the endless list of things that the pimpletons, gunners, bonkers, etc will never be able to afford. But my qawd they will never run out of hours to bless the world with their tunnel vision about every stupid f****ng notion that comes into their heads. Maybe they're practising for the day when they'll get paid for every post. Which will be the day AFTER the great cull I guess.
For a guy with so much skin in the game [of building and servicing gasoline-powered cars] don't you think he's a bit, well, biased? Toyota can't afford to lose the image of the most ecologically conscious automaker, earned through Prius, so he'll say anything to prevent Nissan from taking over that position since Toyota does not have anything comparable to offer.
By the way, the previous "end" wasn't really "dead" either - some development has continued, new batteries, electrical motors, electronics etc. have been developed. There have always been *some* EVs out there, mostly various types of maintenance vehicles. For example, a vehicle that needs to run indoors would have been electric all these 100+ years. How 'bout golf carts, do they count?
Anyway, it was very bold of him to say: "We need something entirely new." knowing full well that there are no other types of energy available for cars (NG, LPG-powered cars catching on not better than EVs). I think it's safe to assume he did not advocate for public transportation either. So, yeah, I think he was just trying to diss Nissan - nothing more profound that that.
60 mpg is not shabby.
When my driving habits settle down it should be more like
On full ICE mode, no electric contribution whatsoever, what do you think your mpg's would be?
The point was, the insistence on triple-digit hp is not doing the "energy cause" any favors. Nor is the bloated poundage of vehicles.
Bleeve me, ahm not argering in favor of our species. I do wonder about the Tesla tho. That car seems to have broken thru some mileage barriers, but it's tough to separate hype from price from reality.
"passerby" wrote in message news:81dd9
All-electrics can't get much market share until there's a battery swap infrastructure. Lots of hurdles there. So that market is limited to second-car short commuters. I don't think the Leaf or Tesla will do well. Main reason is something I think they call "range fear." Probably similar to a caver who has "lantern fear." Which is, "If these batteries die, I'm f***ed." The Volt is a real elegant solution. Most of those who knock it don't know much about its practical or technical aspects. It's quite an American achievement. They just don't like GM, Obama. unions, government "handouts," etc. Fuck them. Nobody's forcing them to buy it, and for all the rest they can go vote to change the government, or put on their skirts and go protest like the Code Pinkers. Big problem is unsubsidized price. But with the gov rebate they only run about $32.5. Still too rich for me. But you can get a lot less new car for more money. Leasing isn't a bad way to put your toe in the water with the Volt, and GM is pushing that. From what I've seen from reading the Volt forum, buyers are what I'll just call yuppies. They have money and like technology. Throw in whatever percentage of them that don't like gasoline purveyors.
Ah, sure, I forgot about hydrogen-based economy. So, how's *that* going? It was a very intriguing idea. For a couple weeks back in 2004 ...
I wonder if Mr. Schwarzenegger had already converted his Hydrogen Hummer back to a more common fuel, you know, a one that actually occurs in nature.
An ass like him could eat tacos and run it on self generated methane.
I for one don't give a rat's ass about "the environment." I still use incandescent light bulbs and drive a vehicle that gets about 14 mpg on a good day. And loving it.
"passerby" wrote in message news:cac6b$5115b1d9
Hydrogen was the Korrect Thought right up to the minute when Bush declared his support for it and undermined its elitist contrarian value. Now it must be dismissed by those whose drug-addled brains conveniently forgot how much they supported it.
The best recent example of the left's faddish, volatile standards of right and wrong is the strident opposition to war that evaporated as soon as Obama was elected. Obama left Iraq exactly on Bush's schedule and we are still in Afghanistan, in fact Obama hasn't even ended Clinton's Balkan invasion.
Especially considering that it's NOT a flyweight gutless econobox. It's a really nice car and it's a pleasure to drive. But 60 is nothing for a Volt. Check out the site below to see people getting 5000 or better.
It's a shame that more of the people who can afford it, don't step up and support the tech.
It's about 40. Unless it's in "mountain mode", where it can be increasing battery state of charge while driving on ICE power. That's inefficient but I've used it a couple times on extended trips to ensure that the battery is sufficiently charged at the destination to allow friends to drive the car on battery alone.
Try the BMW Active E. I got to drive one briefly a while ago and it was a very, very fun car by any standard.
Range is too limited for folks out here in the sticks, and charging is still a problem, but that's what you get with a new technology competing with one that already has an extensive and active infrastructure.
I agree, but then I'm still driving a carbureted car to work every day, because it still keeps running fine and remains fun to drive. That's a little part of the adoption problem right there: people don't replace their cars as often as they used to.
--scott
Because nobody has a fuel cell that will work on road gasoline yet without being poisoned.
No, the fuel cell requires a flammable fuel. It oxidizes the fuel using oxygen from air, and develops current directly from that oxidation.
The fuel cell can be designed to work on a variety of fuels. If you want to create water as your only byproduct, you have to use hydrogen which is a flammable gas (and a pain to work with even by flammable gas standards).
You can build a fuel cell that will run off methanol or ethanol, or off of propane. Since these fuels have carbon in them, your exhaust is now full of carbon compounds (hopefully carbon dioxide if you did it right). In general these designs also have a limited lifespan because they become clogged up with combustion by-products.
The holy grail right now is to build a fuel cell that can operate off of gasoline without becoming hopelessly clogged up after a short running time. The fuel cell gives you more efficient use of the fuel than an internal combustion engine, especially when you are not requiring peak output.
You can't run a fuel cell on nitrogen.... nitrogen combines with itself and it doesn't like to let go or combine with other things. If you ever see a compound that contains nitrogen, like nitromethane or nitrocellulose or trinotrotoluene, it's a compound that took a lot of energy to make and is apt to want to release that energy fast.
This is true, and it would seem that retrofitting a commercial fuel cell into a current hybrid vehicle would not be a huge job. The hard part would mostly be software.
In spite of the fact that fuel cells have been with us since NASA developed them for the Gemini program, we still don't have any that will run off a convenient fuel that we can already distribute.
--scott
This was a wrong assumption, and so the rest of your post from this point on makes no sense, I'm sorry. You may be confusing it with nitrogen-doped catalysts used in fuel cells or with nitrogen-based fuels, such as hydrazine and ammonia for experimental fuel cells, which are pretty much just alternative ways to store and deliver hydrogen, which is still the source of the energy.
You do NOT want hydrazine (highly unstable rocket fuel since V2) in a car that can crash, just as you do not want highly toxic ammonia and, needless to say, gaseous hydrogen at high pressure.
I'm not trying to say that the fuel cell technology has no future (every technology still worked on has a future), I'm saying that there are at this point more attainable ways to store and release energy - batteries of different kind. The one thing that holds them back most is the charging time. But there may be ways to handle that, too. Back in early 1900s there were EV taxis in NYC that had replaceable battery packs. As the driver would run a pack down, he'd pull into a depot and get the pack replaced with a charged one in what was said to be a 10 minute operation. These were huge bulky lead acid batteries - I'm sure these days a replaceable pack can be made much smaller and replaced much easier. Perhaps won't work for everybody but it's one solution.
Also, it might have been unthinkable 20 years ago that people would seek out a charger as they arrive anywhere (home, work, mall parking lot) but this is the first thing that I watch my kids do when they get home these days - they almost instantly plug in lest their smart phones run out of juice. I'd say the younger generation has already been conditioned to keep a battery charge level on the back of their smart phone-assisted minds. Adding a car to this would not be such a huge step, just another electronic device. Anyhow, we're discussing cars here as if people that drive them would never, under any circumstances, adapt to any change, such as the need to plan a trip ahead with battery charge in mind, and that's just not true (for most people). We are where we are because we were the most adaptable creature around, so we'll figure this one out, too.
Cheers!
Having helped build some I have an interest in electric vehicles. So Thursday when I picked up an ordered part at the Honda dealer I checked their showroom.
Every car in there was gas-only.
I pretended to be interested in a hybrid and the salesman tried to talk me out of them based on the extremely long payback period and our relatively short stretches of stop-and-go traffic. The gasoline 2013 Civic is rated at 39MPG, the hybrid only 5 MPG better for another $6000.
I had a 1978 Accord that routinely gave me 36 - 38 MPG so I know they can do it. I logged every drop of gas and oil that went into that car as well as all the maintenance.
Do you really want to provoke the EPA into making generators meet car emission standards?
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