Plug-In Hybrid Tantalizes Car Buffs (Recharge Your Toyota Prius In The Garage Alert)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 06/25/05 | John O'Dell

[goldstategop]

Toyota Motor Corp. boasts that its hot-selling Prius gasoline-electric hybrid doesn't have to be plugged in.

But a growing number of hybrid buffs interested in further boosting the car's fuel economy are asking, "Why not?"

By replacing the Prius' batteries with a more powerful array and recharging it using a standard electric outlet at home, engineers have enabled the hybrid to get more than 100 miles per gallon of gasoline....

But the plug-in Prius is the firm's principal claim to fame.

In May, Energy Control Systems entered its Prius in the Tour del Sol fuel economy rally in New York. The car won its class by averaging 102 mpg over the 150-mile course. Hanssen said it cost $1 to charge the batteries the night before the race and about $4 for the gas it consumed.

If hybrid makers added plug-in, Hanssen said, mass production could get the extra cost down to about $3,000 over that of a regular hybrid model.

[tacticalogic]

Self propelled generator bump.

[GBA]

Premium gas lovin', supercharged, 4wd fuel efficiency bump.

[RedWireNut]

Typical residential electrical service is 200 amps at 240 volts (actually often closer to 250 volts) yielding up to 50kw.

[RayChuang88]

Toshiba claims it has invented a revolutionary lithium-ion battery which can be charged in minutes, about as long as it takes to gas up a conventional car. It intends to market these batteries to the hybrid market. Significantly, they are much more compact and would presumably restore trunk space. More, they would require less plug in and therefore not just move the pollution problem upstream to the electricity generating plant.

My guess is that Toshiba may have quietly signed a big deal with the Honda Motor Company to exclusively use these batteries for the next few years. That could make possible to build Honda's Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) hybrid drive system with a relatively small battery pack, which drastically reduces the deadweight of the car. I can see the next-generation Civic Hybrid sedan using the Toshiba battery system, and this could also lead the way for Honda to put IMA into their larger vehicles such as the Pilot SUV and the Odyssey minivan.

[tm22721]

How can batteries ever be used in cars when they are not even reliable enough for golf carts to play 18 holes ?

Back to the drawing board you liberal wetdreamers.

BUMP

[dis.kevin]

Regenerative Braking - it recaptures the energy that is lost to braking. The motion is converted to energy instead of heat.

[biggerten]

I would also point out that a 200A service would be at 220V, not 110. I suppose one could get 3-phase, but that's a whole new ball game. Or run a 7.5kV line into an outlet in the garage!!

Of course, charging the batteries is not 100% efficient either, you'd do well to get 80%.

[nathanbedford]

Well, does this not beg the question about efficiency? If you have to use fossil fuel to power a plant thereby losing some efficiency, and transport along lines, again losing a percentage, and then lose efficiency in loading the battery, are you not better off if you simply put the fossil fuel in your car if your concern is to avoid pollution?

What if you use nuclear power to generate the electricity?

How much can you get from regenerative braking, it looks like it is not very efficient. Would that be much improved by the new Toshiba technology?

[Barry Goldwater]

Has anyone examined the health effects that the large magnetic fields of the current from/to the batteries has on the passengers? Charging during braking will cause a pulsating magnetic field, which may be even worse.

[johnandrhonda]

"Has anyone examined the health effects that the large magnetic fields..."

Just wear a tinfoil hat.

[Doohickey]

Hybrids are peppy enough. They don't do much for you though unless you're a city dweller though, because at highways speeds the engine is always running.

[psychoknk]

How do you recover energy from braking?

Any electric motor can be used as a generator. To recover energy, you just attach the motor to the wheels and watch the current flow the other way. It will take energy to power the generator, and this slows down the car.

Here is a link to a site explaining electric motors and generators.

[WOSG]

Karl, thanx for doing the math on this:

"1 gallon of gasoline = 1.3*10^8 Joules = 36.1 kilowatt hours."

foobeca: "Your math is flawed, the amount of raw energy (Joules) in gasoline is not the amount that is actually used to power the car. Gasoline engines are typically 20-30% efficient, so it's more like 7-8KWh per gallon of gasoline."

Okay, let rejigger the math ... by 90%/30% is 3X delta, so 36/3 is more like 12KWh per gallon equivalent in the battery recharge. You have to be careful that you dont double-count the savings

To deliver 3 gallon equiv of that, or 36KWh, which would take you about 100 miles (need to know the miles/KWh of the hybrid, I'd assume something like 12KWh/33 miles).

It cuts the original formula by a factor of ten:

To deliver 3 gallons of gasoline worth of electricity (36KWh) in 5 minutes would be 36 kWh / 0.083 hours = .43 megawatts of power.

A typical house main supply is 200 amps @ 110 volts = 22 kilowatts. So 430 kilowatts is still 22 times what a house load could handle. It wont happen. It suggests though that a 2 hour (120 minute) recharge time might be practical at the home. At that rate, your demand is 18 kilowatts, below what a good 220 volt circuit could draw.

A super-fast recharge rate would be useful for regenerative braking.

I am a bit suspicious of the math here because it tells us that at 10 cents a KWh, your gallon equivalent is only $1.20. Everything else tells me that electricity is still more expensive than gasoline.

In the end, this is the solution to energy independence:
Build 500 nuke plants; plug in and get 100 mpg, electricity supplies the rest;
cut oil use by 70% so we only need it from North America;
tell OPEC to screw off.

[gymbeau]

On the other hand, hybrids already carry a premium price over their gas-only stablemates. Here in Canuckistan, the Prius (loaded) lists for just under forty grand CDN. The Civic hybrid costs about twelve grand more than the gas version.

They're nice cars (I write about cars and have driven four of the hybrids so far), but they should be bought as nice cars, or gas savers, but not money savers (not that I'm implying that you said that!).

Cheers
Jim

[fuzzycat]

Just to add a little info about fast recharge rate read information on Altair Nanotechnologies ( Symbol ALTI ). They have been working on this for several years now and it's all soon to come to fruition. Recharge my battery drill in a couple of minutes. Wow.

[fuzzycat]

--This is not a matter of debate. Electric motors/generators are 80-96% efficient. http://www.psnh.com/Business/SmallBusiness/Motor.asp
It's been known for a long time (~200 years) that electric motors are more efficient. The problem is providing a power source for them. Battery efficiency (power density) needs to improve by at least 1 order of magnitude for electric cars to be practical.
Exactly. That's why diesel-electric locomotives won out over diesel.

[biggerten]

The fields would be there while you're discharging, too.

Of course, it's ironic that you're sitting in front of your computer filled with switch-mode power supplies and a monitor that uses magnetic fields to control the display not to mention the fields from the wiring in your house.

Actually, magnetic field strength drops off quickly with distance (move twice as far from the source and the strength drops by the cube, 1/8 as strong). Besides which, many materials are flux concentrators, so the magnetic lines of force pass through them and not the air.

In short, don't worry about it. If you do decide to take johnandrhonda's advice, make sure the hat is made from stainless steel, not aluminum or tin foil. Stainless steel underwear might help, too.

[nathanbedford]

Cuidado hombre!

I took a look at ALTI but backed off fast when I saw the character of the Chinese "factory" they had enlisted to build their new batteries. This company has red lights flashing everywhere as I recall.

However from this board's perspective, it is interesting that they have come out with similar claims but just before Toshiba. It seems that the age of the new battery has arrived under one auspice or another.

[biggerten]

Don't mean to argue, but the house supply is at 220V, not 110V - it's a significant difference.

[TXnMA]

To put it more simply, when decelerating, (using the electric motor as a brake) the electric motor acts as a generator -- and recharges the battery.