Father of Plug-ins: Professor Andrew Frank holds up the plug that charges his ninth and most recent experimental hybrid. (Mark Clayton)
Can plug-in hybrids ride to America’s rescue?
The engineer behind many electric-car advances says oil’s days may be numbered.
By Mark Clayton | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ July 18, 2008 edition
Davis, Calif.
If the United States breaks its oil addiction, a measure of thanks will no doubt be due to Andy Frank, who some have dubbed the “father of the plug-in hybrid” car.
Laboring in near anonymity in his garage-style laboratory on a leafy byway of the University of California at Davis campus, Dr. Frank has for three decades focused on developing plug-in-hybrid technology. With his students, he has built nine plug-in vehicles since the 1990s, winning several vehicle contests sponsored by the Department of Energy and automotive companies.
Even so, Detroit showed little interest in the idea of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) – until recently. With $4-a-gallon gasoline killing SUV sales, big automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Toyota have begun to talk about a future with plug-in hybrids – or even futuristic fuel-cell cars – instead of SUVs.
Plug-in hybrids go much farther on a single charge than an ordinary hybrid. Some converted Toyota Prius plug-ins get the energy equivalent of 100 miles (or more) per gallon and travel nearly 40 miles on electricity alone before a gasoline engine kicks in for longer trips. With their hefty battery packs, such hybrids can be plugged into a socket in the evening for a charge.
Since 78 percent of American commuters drive 40 miles or less each day, a plug-in driver might need only to fill up his tank with gasoline a half-dozen times a year. It’s a game-changing concept that’s won over many energy-security hawks and even environmentalists who had been married to futuristic fuel-cell vehicles, but now see plug-ins as a here-and-now way to fight global warming as well as freeing the US from imported oil.
One of the main complaints about plug-in technology is that you’re just trading one form of pollution for another – tailpipe emissions for power-plant smokestack emissions. But a recent “well to wheels” life-cycle analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that a shift by the US to plug-in vehicles would cut carbon emissions by as much as 500 million tons annually and 10 billion tons cumulatively by 2050. At the same time, other exhaust pollutants would decline.
They found that the US power grid could easily handle the load of three-quarters of Americans switching to plug-ins, which require only about 1 to 2 kilowatts – about the energy load of a dishwasher. The cost of that electricity for transportation would end up being about a 75-cents-per-gallon energy equivalent, according to the study.
“The heart of the matter is to begin to use electricity and to use it as quickly as possible to power a major share of our transportation and to break that 96-plus-percent monopoly oil has over our transportation systems,” former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey told a Washington gathering on plug-in hybrids last month.
But to Frank, the future is about far more than saving a few bucks at the pump – it’s about changing the world – or maybe saving it.
“We want to emphasize that this plug-in vehicle is not really about fuel economy,” he says, his hand gliding along a silver-sized Chevrolet Equinox whose gas-guzzling engine was ripped out by his students and replaced with high-mileage, plug-in innards that make it go 40 miles on electricity alone before using gasoline. “This idea is all about displacing gasoline. If we can dispense with maybe 80 to 90 percent of the gasoline a conventional car uses, then we can begin to get our nation off of using fossil fuels. Then we can save the planet from global warming.”
For a kid who liked to cobble together hot rod cars in the 1950s but didn’t have enough money for gasoline, it was natural for Frank to wonder if you couldn’t get both – hot performance and high fuel economy. That’s why when the oil crisis of the 1970s struck, Frank – then an assistant professor of engineering who had worked on the Apollo moon mission and other aerospace projects – told his students they were going to make a vehicle that could get high mileage and go “like a rocket,” too.
Frank now admits that he was too far ahead of his time.
“I tried to build a hybrid car in 1972 that ran on gas and electricity,” he says. “But I found out quickly that we were missing key technology. We didn’t have electric motors that were very good or batteries that were worth anything…. We didn’t have computers cheap and powerful enough to be useful in a car.”
Still, he kept at it in the mid-1990s and early part of this decade, building on the fundamental idea that a vehicle that could largely replace oil with electricity – but also have an unlimited range – could be built.
Others were following similar paths. Tom Gage, president of AC Power, which now converts regular cars to all-electric, says Frank’s work was “influential and ahead of its time.” Felix Kramer, founder of CalCars, a nonprofit plug-in promotion group says Frank laid the groundwork for technology that may be America’s best chance to break its oil dependency.
“Andy is the person who’s been thinking and most consistently exploring plug-in technology since the ’70s,” says Mr. Kramer. “Others have tried, but he’s focused his work on plug-ins and just doesn’t let up.”
General Motors says it will build a plug-in by 2010 and Toyota, Ford, and other manufacturers say they’ll soon be plug-in producers, too. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have cited plug-in hybrids as key to their plans for energy-security and curbing global warming.
Now some measure of recognition has finally arrived with Frank often asked to speak about plug-in technology or fielding calls from reporters. A few years ago, he testified before Congress. Yet most of his career has been spent working without much recognition and with only marginal funding. Now the grants are rolling in and the university has opened a new plug-in hybrid center.
Even though he and his student teams produced several plug-in hybrid prototypes in the 1990s and offered the technology to US automakers, there was little interest – except from Japanese car companies. Ironically, General Motors and Ford contributed the vehicles that most of Frank’s students have retrofitted.
“I made this demonstration to the US car companies year in and out, and gave them an opportunity for them to jump ahead of Toyota if they would invest – or wait and become a follower to Toyota,” he says.
When the US companies wouldn’t look at it, they took the plug-in to Toyota in 2003, he recalls. “I felt bad that our American companies didn’t take us up on it,” he says.
He has been trying with little success to interest US automakers in his mechanical version of a continuously variable transmission (CVT), which he says is critical to plug-in development because it is much more efficient than other CVT systems and could greatly boost mileage.
Despite that snub, he’s circumspect about the future while posing for a photo beside an ordinary hybrid car he drives daily. The license plate, which he was given as a gift reads: “PHEV DAD.”
“We could be completely energy independent in this country,” he says. “We have the technology to do it.”
Then he smiles. “Of course,” he says, “everything is more affordable as the cost of oil gets higher.”
( More stories )
Comments
2. Ed | 07.18.08
Hydrogen and Oxygen are produced when water comes in contact with an alloy of Gallium and Aluminum. Thus hydrogen can be made “on demand” using the process described at the two URLs below. The chemical equation is 2Al + 3H2O –> 3H2 + Al2O3 + heat
All information concerning this process can be found at http://hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu/
A detailed explanation can be found at http://hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu/2007.05.01-Woodall.pdf
3. David R Morse | 07.18.08
Excellent article. One of the most revealing articles written by the Christian Science Monitor during 2008. With reports such as these your circulation could increase exponentially, and you would be quoted worldwide by the media.
Signed,
Former college faculty member and Wall Street banker
4. cyril baumgartner | 07.18.08
Mr Clayton,
Have you checked out the air car from MDI, Tata and Cyril Negre?
It was supposed to be here by now. What’s the hold-up?
5. Tom Alton | 07.18.08
This is a timely article and, as Morse mentions above, puts the Monitor on my bookmarks and those of readers who enjoy good journalism. I vividly recall the oil crises of the 1970s and Frank’s development of the ‘plug in’ is finally seeing the proverbial light. This development, coupled with Al Gore’s recent comment on a ten-year plan to have solar and wind energy turn the generators of our power plants, could spell the end of our dependency on fossil fuels. I recall the slogan from a early 20th century advertisement for the Hartford Electric Light Company whose founder proclaimed electricity as a ‘great emancipator’. Thanks to forward-thinking people such as Frank and Gore, electricity could well again replay its role as an emancipator from our addiction to fossil fuels.
6. Donald Homen | 07.19.08
Nonsense! Only works if our power plants were to be run on clean nuclear power like in France. Most people do not realize that our natural gas-powered plants produce pollutants. This results in approximately four times the polluting emissions when you plug in your Hybrid car.
7. Joseph | 07.19.08
Prof Frank was straightforward about the challenges faced in producing a marketable plug-in hybrid. However if government and the auto industry were equally as visionary as Prof Frank, we may now have millions of the pure electric or GM Volt like cars on the road. Inadequate funding for battery research and development was perhaps the main reason for that not being a reality. I hope certainly Senator Obama or Senator McCain will offer meaningful tax incentives for electric car purchase, to help America become less oil dependent and greener as quickly as possible.
8. Wendy Johnson | 07.19.08
The reason the big four auto makers don’t want electric cars has nothing to do with markets and technology. The whole business model for the auto mfg’s doesn’t work with EV’s and that’s the deal. The technology doesn’t exsist ? What happened to the Toyota RavEV or the GM EV1 ? GM took the patent for the batteries that both GM and Toyota were using and sold it to Chevron. The free market will take care of this in the end, just look at automakers losses and it tells the whole story, if they don’t adapt, they’ll be gone. I give GM four years. Nice job Lutz.
9. Charles Spiegelman | 07.19.08
Wish it did work, but whoever said that most people only drive 40 miles is dreaming, going to and from shopping, work, play etc is a whole lot more than 40 more like 70 or 80. We are a car driving society econ be it gas power or electrical has a cost and both will be expensive i don’t think this is a solution maybe after gas reaches 8-10 per gallon but until then more people will want car with big engines. Have you driving on the expressway or I-85 lately please. Americans are speed freaks.
10. Steve | 07.19.08
One more reason why GM will go BK within 2 years. This and other advanced technologies exist all over America and American universities to save fuel. Unfortanateley GM/Ford management is so inept and focused on qtr to qtr short term results they do not have a clue. After the GM debacle with the electric car they deserve to go BK with no Govt bail out.
11. Brian Mahaney | 07.19.08
Negative thinking and talking trash is why America is in its situation right now. People are driving these cars and saving money and the environment right now. It is proven technology just not widely accepted because of the many naysayers in this country. Search Brazil on this website and you will find it has one of the fastest growing economies of the world,it also uses ethanol and CNG for most of it’s power consumption. Is this a coincidence?Another problem is not with battery technology but the fact that Exxon Mobile for example holds the patents for much of the battery technologies that are aimed at EV’s. Just why do you think they want that technology? Are they entering the EV manufacturing arena?
12. Dr. Raj | 07.19.08
I am Director of R&D at a large industrial control designer. I come across frequently ‘we knew it already, tried it long before and knew then and know now that it will not work’ type comments from people like Kerry Bradshaw, commentor above, all the time in our business. I suppose Toyoto Enginners had a better or or more open acceptance of technology ‘not invented here’. There is 1 year wait to get a new Prius, I am told.
Great article.
13. Dan | 07.19.08
Charging millions of vehicles from the electric grid is certainly a fantasy. The 40% efficient power plants don’t have the capacity, but even assuming they did would generate billions of tons of CO2 and other harmful pollutants. Nor does the U.S. power grid have any excess capacity. The lack of a national infrastructure (pipelines, fuel stations) for efficiently distributing H2 around the country, and lack of H2 production capacity, have been known for years, yet nothing is being done. Like so many other pressing national issues the real problem is the leadership vacuum at the top.
14. spoonido | 07.20.08
Great to read good news, but these awful comments must be from people with no children, nor with any concern for generations to follow. Isn’t that worth caring about? That’s the bottom line in environmentalism: it’s caring about people other than yourself.
15. Kurt Linsenmaier | 07.20.08
Peak Oil. Check it out. It’s been here since 2006 and the bell curve is going down. I work for big oil and I’ll tell you right now anyone reading this better be afraid. There is no answer, without crude we can only support 1 to 1 1/2 billion people on this planet. Depopulate is something this earth has never seen. It will happen, will not be nice, but the strong will survive. Get educated, you’ll need it to survive.
16. Kevin | 07.20.08
Donald Homan doesn’t know what he is talking about. The pollution created to generate the electricity to move a car X number of miles is far less then that produced using a gasoline engine. There is so much energy needed to refine and transport the oil used to make gasoline that the demand on the grid will be minimal as the amount of oil being refined will decrease as more hybrid/electric cars are being used.
17. Volt Guy | 07.20.08
I think the Chevy Volt is going to be awesome. A world changing kind of car. We just have to hope they can make them inexpensive enough so that they can sell several MILLION of them in the next 5-10 years.
I’m glad we have people like Professor Andy Frank to help America make the transition to plug-in hybrids like the Volt. I bet a bunch of colleges, including UC Davis, will be doing a LOT of research on batteries and PHEVs in the next 5-10 years. Let’s hope that Professor Frank builds a world class PHEV program at UC Davis. GM and the rest of the auto industry is going to need a LOT of scientists and engineers in the years to come.
We especially need to find as many world class battery research scientists as we can get. Battery scientists and fuel cell scientists. We may need to use fuel cells as the range extender on future Volts if the battery scientists cannot make some huge breakthroughs in battery technology.
The goal? A 300+ mile inexpensive, durable, safe, quick charging battery with enough power to anything todays V-6 IC engines can do. If we can’t do that, then we’ll need IC engine range extenders for our Volts that run on cellulosic ethanol (liquid fuels other than gasoline and diesel).
Eventually we might put small, inexpensive fuel cell range extenders into our Volts that run on hydrogen that you can get by using inexpensive solar or wind electricity and water (electrolysis) … maybe made in a lot of people’s garages. Maybe one day, they can put electrolyzers under the hood of cars and make “on demand” hydrogen from water or something. Fill up the tank with water? Who knows what might happen in the next 20 years?
18. Markus Unread | 07.21.08
“They found that the US power grid could easily handle the load of three-quarters of Americans switching to plug-ins, which require only about 1 to 2 kilowatts – about the energy load of a dishwasher.”
When was that study done? “easily handle the load”? In California in the summer? “The grid” might me able to handle it but many urban regions can’t.
Has it been so long that rolling outages has been forgotten?
When you add to the chances of electricity being unstable, you destabilize the entire economy. Not a good trade-off.
Until we get a significant amount of decentralized renewable (solar/wind/whatever) generation in place, the plug-in part of the hybrid will be 68% petrochemical/20% nuclear - like it is today.
19. Richard Nickelson | 07.21.08
I’ve had a hard time understading all the hype about hybrids and fuel cells. I have a 1998 VW Jetta TDI (turbo desiel injection) that gets 50 miles to the gallon - consistently at speeds up to 80 mph. Why has this long-existing medium-technology solution that hardly costs more than gasoline engines been so neglected and unmentioned? Even VW has made little effort to publicize it in this country and I had to enter a special order to get it. Performance is better than the gasoline engines found in most similar-sized cars. Recently, Audi announced a high-mileage, high-tech, high-performance TDI that will compete in Forumal I. For me, that’s not a valid reason to buy an engine, but I know it’s an effective way to market one. The solution to easily and economically cut our automobile fuel consumption by 30 to 50% has been around for years - why have our so-called leaders and automotive manufacturers kept the public in the dark about it? Diesel fuel is available everywhere.
20. Agnes de Gielgud | 07.21.08
Richard, you got it right.
My brother gave me his Jetta TDI when he bought a Prius, two years ago. Now, he regrets it. The Jetta TDI will never leave a pile of dead batteries that no one knows what to do with, and it maintains 48 mpg while easily cruising I85 at 80+ mph, while his Prius labors along at 30 to 40 mpg at that speed. Best of all, I can drive 600+ miles on a single fill-up, since the diesel Jetta TDI has the same capacity fuel tank as its gasoline-engine twin.
21. ABG | 07.21.08
For those who think that the grid can’t handle charging cars, remember that the cars will likely be charged at night, when there is very little electricity demand. The power grid can definitely handle that.
22. Stuart | 07.21.08
“Mr Clayton,
Have you checked out the air car from MDI, Tata and Cyril Negre?
It was supposed to be here by now. What’s the hold-up?”
The dog ate their independent test reports.
See forbes.com/forbes/2008/0505/058.html - esp. comments.
23. Joe Galliani | 07.22.08
I have two different friends who each drive RAV4 EV - electric cars that are several years old now. They drive their cars every single day and have since they bought them. The both charge their cars from the solar panels on their houses. These cars have NiMH batteries - not even Li - but the technology is solid and reliable and the batteries flat out just work.
At this point, with CO2 at 385 ppm, misinformed people who argue against Plug-In cars are nothing more than carbon collaborators who will hasten the climate change we need to reverse.
I’m here in San Jose attending the Plug-In 2008 conference and the people inventing your future are all here and showing off the cars you can drive today.
If you’re not smart enough to get on board the clue train when it pulls into the station then at least get out of the way so the rest of us can board and get on with the business of addressing climate change.
24. Stuart | 07.22.08
“Mr Clayton,
Have you checked out the air car from MDI, Tata and Cyril Negre?
It was supposed to be here by now. What’s the hold-up?”
The dog ate their independent test reports.
See forbes.com/forbes/2008/0505/058.html - esp. comments.
(Above link unreliable - go to forbes.com and search ‘Negre’ or ‘driving on air’)
25. Dave Hill | 07.22.08
Hydrogen from water? So, as the oil runs out we can start depleting our water supplies? Many parts of the USA and world alrady have critical water shortages.
26. Josh | 07.22.08
Have you ever heard off “off-peak” power? That’s how we can handle the load now. Plants still run at night, but we use a lot less power. The car is charged overnight. And about the 80 plus miles a day, you have a gas engine, so you won’t be stuck. If the battery lasts 40 miles and you drive 80 you basically double your mpg. What’s wrong with that?
27. Gary Graefen | 07.22.08
Why is it that someone takes the time to write a researched article about someone who is actually trying to DO SOMETHING. And knuckle heads all try to dispel the validity of the article with there own “facts” which cite no references or validation. And then go on to persuade us all that trying to achieve is a useless endeavor. I for one would love a plug in car and the issues about better mpg have been swept under the rug by auto makers since 1972-I started using a device then which improved my milage by 10 to 22%. It is called a water vapor tank-I had to make my own. No one sold it commercially. Long live the inventor-without them we would still be living in caves.
28. Jonathan Fernsler | 07.23.08
This is a great article about a proven technology (hybrid cars) to reduce our CO2 output and oil consumption, but there are a handful of people who have posted some very misleading or misinformed comments. The most common criticism of electric vehicles is that you trade one form of pollution for another. There are two simple reasons why these vehicles are significantly more effecient, even if they use electricity from our present power sources (e.g. natural gas and coal powerplants).
1) Economy of scale: large power plants are significantly more effecient than your individual gasoline engine. This is the reason we all are hooked up to the electric grid, instead of using our own generators. Furthermore, a power plant can be run at peak efficiency all the time, while a car engine efficiency depends greatly on operating conditions (e.g. zero efficiency when idling).
2) Electric motors have much greater efficiency than an internal combustion engine. Your gasoline-driven car is powered by a “heat engine” which has a theoretically maximum possible efficiency determined by the Carnot cycle (found in any intro physics text), and is practically about 30% for ideal operating conditions and much less for non-ideal conditions. An electric motor, on the other hand, has no theoretical limit to efficiency (it is not a heat engine) and practically operates at about 77% efficiency. This efficiency is almost constant for all operating conditions (e.g. an electric motor doesn’t need to run when the car is stopped).
As a result, even an electric car powered by electricity from a coal powerplant will still produce a little more than half the CO2 of a gasoline-powered car, with greater savings for natural gas and even more savings as we transition to more wind and solar energy. The PHEV technology appears to be our best option for reducing CO2 output and gasoline consumption in the near future.
A calculation comparing electric vs. gasoline efficiency is posted by a colleague of mine here:
http://www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org/Links/PDFs/PeteSchwartz_EnergySummit.pdf
29. WickedWaikoloaWanda | 07.24.08
Wow!!! What part about 100 mpg don’t you people understand? Well to wheel efficiency far surpassing ICE engines. Even assuming our currently dirty grid, significant reductions in pollution are seen using plug-ins. Making the grid greener makes the case for plug-ins even stronger. Yes there are cost issues with the plug-ins batteries but as volumes increase prices will plummet. We can continue to spew toxic waste into the air and poison earths inhabitants with the outdated internal combustion engine, continue to send $700 BILLION per year OUT of our economy for foreign oil or choose a new tech (battery based vehicles) that is three times more efficient, keeps money in the USA and doesn’t fund the TERRORRRISSSSTS (best W impression). Hey paid oil industry shills…your arguments are weak and useless.
30. Bob Willis | 07.25.08
If you are worried about using too much water to produce hydrogen, consider this:
It takes 2.2 gallons of water to produce 1 kilogram of hydrogen with electrolysis.
It takes over 18 gallons of water to refine petroleum into 1 gallon of gasoline.
Therefore, the more hydrogen displaces gasoline, the more water is saved.
Most internal combustion engines can be converted to run on pure hydrogen.
31. larry knox | 07.25.08
lots of complaints about “technology not being ready”. many are missing the point in much of the debate. WE ARE CURRENTLY DEPENDENT ON OUR ENEMIES FOR ABOUT 65% OF OUR FUEL NEEDS. if you can’t get the gas for a reasonable price, the efficiency ratios really don’t figure into the equation now do they. you may see the day where you can’t get the gas at all. given that choice, i would rather be able to drive electric for about 30miles than walk.IT IS BECOMMING A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY. want to defeat our enemies quickly? go electric and deprive them of petrol dollars. iran can do nothing without petrol dollars.
32. Elena | 07.25.08
Interestingly enough, many people do not take into account “carbon footprint” of ANY technology. It is a nice way to compare ways of deriving energy should it be electric-air-water-etc.
Another metric would be “environmental footprint” - what does it take to recycle vehicle or it’s spare parts at the end of its useful life.
Two metrics are easy to understand and to compare.
For instance: electric car. What does it take to produce energy to charge it up nightly? How much fossil fuel is going to be burnt? How much srubbing effort it will take to remove acid precursors from power plant effluent? etc, etc.
What do we do with the battery? Is it recyclable? What does it take to recycle it? How biodegradable is the waste that ends up in landfill?
These are the questions to be asked when considering one technology over another.
As to diesels…They are my personal favorites aside from Japanese water car. Diesel infrastructure already exists, it’s true. However, they emit soot in the atmosphere among other particulate matters. That’s why they will have to go at a certain point.
As to GM…you watch…our oil loving government will bail them out again to keep us oil dependent as long as they can…WAKE UP PEOPLE!
33. Hall Virgil | 07.27.08
Andy Frank and Jonathan Fernsler and WickedWaikoloaWanda and some of the other commentors above have most of the automobile power source figured out.
The electric storage battery has long been the electric car’s nemesis and Achilles heel. But no longer.
See http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0416/p13s01-sten.html?page=1, http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/eestore_ultra_c.php, http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/01/31/more-on-eestors-ultracapacitor-can-we-believe-the-hype/, http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=batteries&id=18086&a=, http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html, and http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=eestor&OS=eestor&RS=eestor.
The electric storage ultracapacitor has a high ability to charge and dis-charge at electric speed without overheating. This is a key enabling factor for the advancement of the next generation of vehicles. The ultracapacitor has a “specific energy” (electricity per unit of mass) more than twice that of a lithium-ion battery, and ultracapacitors recharge in five minutes. Another feature is the amount of power it can store. The ultracapacitor is expected to be considered fully ‘green’ and does not have disposal issues that chemical batteries have.
This “battery” will easily win John McCain’s proposed government-sponsored $3,000,000 prize for a battery that can make electric cars practical.
The electric energy source to recharge the ultracapacitor can be a common electrical outlet with an adapter. Electricity can be generated by any means available; so, as generation technology evolves to non-fossil energy sources, no changes in the ultracapacitor will be needed.
I can’t wait to buy a car powered from this made-in-USA ultracapacitor and stick it to OPEC!!
34. Hall Virgil | 07.28.08
Correction:
“The presumed Republican nominee on Monday [6-23-2008] proposed a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said at Fresno State University.
Quoted from John McCain’s website, John McCain.com
35. Robert Tatina | 07.29.08
While we wait for the auto industry to produce hybrid vehicles, we can save gasoline by driving more eficiently. Because drag increases with the cube of velocity, the faster we drive the more power (energy) it takes to propel the vehicle. According to http://www.fueleconomy.gov, most vehicles operate most efficiently between 55 and 65 mph. Above these speeds, fuel economy drops significantly. For example, at 75 mph (an interstate speed limit in many states west of the Mississippi River) fuel efficiency drops by 20%. That 20% increase iadds more pollutants to the atmosphere.
36. Dawson | 07.29.08
Mark,
I really enjoyed this article. Hopefully there are some batteries on the horizon that will make plug-in’s go further and cost less.
37. Jan-Paul Barnard | 08.26.08
Jan-Paul
Google Professor Vivian Alberts, Wits University(Johannesburg South Africa ) to find the story on the technology and cost breakthrough of solar electricity panels using a new technology which cost 80% less than silicon to manufacture.The most expensive component is the ordinary glass onto which the elements are fused onto at present.Imagine paying for your solar system in 18 months. This breakthrough is the result of a decade of research by three Universities in South Africa combining their talents. This invention has been licenced to the Germans - per capita the biggest users of solar electricity - as well as Chinese to switch to this method of making solar panels . Using five elements fused onto virtually anything , power is generated , extracting power even when it is overcast simply from light and doing it much more effeciently when it gets really hot than silicon based panels that has electron flow problems when the it gets too hot. The future will see us buy roofsheeting that is our energy source or stainless solar film as wallcladding treated with this technology.
Link this power to batteries and plug in overnight for a real cabon free fuel solution. I am amazed that the whole world is not clamouring for acres of these panels to see a real carbon free solution to a large percentage of our energy requirements. The future is here.
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1. kerry bradshaw | 07.18.08
Nothing like preposterous exaggerations. Until li ion batteries achieved
lifespans as they have only within the past year or so, plug-in hybrids made ZERO economic sense. Nor did the CVT transmissions that your article claims. Detroit had experimented with CVTs for years and spent enormous sums to develop 5 and 6 speed trannies that are just as economical as CVTs and a whole lot cheaper and more robust. CVTs were always developed for small cars
and some cars actually used them. The fact that the industry fond them wanting should give you some idea of their viability, which was practically nonexistent. And plug-in hybirds using battery technology just two years ago would have been big flops - Toyota tried to convert its Prius using the NiMH batteries and couldn’t get more than an 8 mile electric driving range, hardly worth the extra thousands of dollars. The fact that some yoyo
can stuff enough batteries in to go a greater distance probably means he
located them in places that would be taboo because of safety regs, of which I’m certain he is ignorant. The plug-in hybrid appeared first at GM over a year ago and before the big runup in crude prices, making your claims to the contrary transparent lies.