What about gasoline powered alternatives?

[PaoCivil]

What do you guys (auto experts) think about Hybrid or electric cars? How far are we from making that a daily reality? and What would be the benefits for our country if we implement that technology??
Thanks

 

[ivymike]

12/00: Volkswagen plans to create a prototype of a diesel-powered, two-seat car that garners 282.5 miles per gallon before the end of 2002

you can see a pic of the vehicle @

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/highefficiencyvehicles/

They made it.

 

[EdDanzer]

Greg,
Was only a total of 1.77 hp sent to the ground by the batteries during the 31 minute drive? That seems like nothing for assistance.
Would the data missing include amps and volts sent to the motor during use? That would be interesting information.

Thanks for the education,
Ed

 

[GregLocock]

That's the average contribution from the electric motor during the whole test. However, that is NOT how these systems work - what they do is supply and absorb a lot more power for short bursts. I found the stats surprising - the batteries are very small, and as the first experiment indicated, they only use a small percentage of the batteries capacity. The reason for this is to extend the life of the battery - which is why when we talk about energy densities you have to be very careful - if you are only using 1/3 of the capacity of the battery, then its effective energy density is only 1/3 of the nominal figure. Flywheel systems run into a similar problem - by the time you are down to 50% rated speed it is very hard to extract the rest of the energy, although since that is only 25% of the nominal capacity it is not such a big deal.

Incidentally my spreadsheet predicts 55 mpg for the Prius - which just goes to show that with enough fudge factors you can prove anything. I need to sort out the driver model, then I'll post it up.





Cheers

Greg Locock