Hybrids - Toyota vs Honda

Hey, they gotta be good for something! :-) I have a brother who used to work for American Wind Power in California, but I don't think they are in business any more.

Seriously, uses that don't care much about the unpredictable nature of wind power are a lot more attractive than going live on the public grids. Even pumping water for gravity storage makes sense where the water and land are suitable. Land that has the required characteristics for real-time wind power is amazingly scarce and can become expensive if demand increases. Land that has a usable amount of wind enough of the time for production enterprises is far more common.

Whether hydrogen generation is going to have enough demand for wind or solar powered cracking to be practical remains to be seen, but I don't rule it out.

Mike

Thanks for that straightdope line. I knew power was work/time, just misspoke.

That's the best explanation I've heard.

At the risk of repeating what others and have said and what you know already...

Torque is, basically, a rotational (ie, twisting) force.

HP (horsepower) is a rate of doing work, so can also be expressed in units such as watts (the modern preference, 1 HP == 746 watts) and BTU (if one must).

An easy way to remember the equivalence between Force, Distance (over which the Force is used) and Work (another way of saying Energy) is to recall that Work = Force * Distance

So Power, the Rate Of Doing Work, is Work / Time

Therefore the Work done by Torque is, in effect, the Force acting at a certain Leverage distance, tracing a circular path around a point, over a certain Time.

One final relationship: Torque = Force * Leverage where Leverage is the distance between the line-of-action of the Force and the pivot point, about which the Torque is calculated.

A 15 kilo Force pushing on a lever 2 metres long exerts a Torque at the pivot point of 15*2 kilo-force-metres (not to be confused with kilometres). Most engineers use Newtons, not kilos-force: Newton = Kilo * 9.81 (approx)

So that Torque would actually be (about) 294.3 Newton-metres.

Back to the original question...

Work done in 1 revolution = 2 * pi * Leverage * Force = 2 * pi * Torque

So rate of doing work (ie, Power) = 2 * pi * Torque / Time_for_1_rev = 2 * pi * Torque * Revs_per_second = watts

Use Newton-metres here and it is a doddle to compute Power. If you absolutely must know the HP, divide Watts by 746.

(FWIW, AFAIK: 1 Pound-force-foot == 1.355818 Newton-metres. And for pi you can get by with 3.14159, though it goes on to many more significant digits than that.)

Grief, I hope I got that lot right. If anyone knows better, do let me know soon.

Having exactly what to do with your repeated unsupported allegation that Toyotas are underpowered?

Still, with every pickup, you get highway mileage in the teens! Yippee! And, in spite of its voracious appetite for gas, Edmunds had this to say about the F150:

"Feels sluggish even with larger V8." Gee, thirsty AND slow. Who would have expected THAT from a Ford?

Get some facts and a clue and get back to us.

Considering the same vehicle weight and gearing, the vehicle with the higher HP will go faster. Considering the same vehicle weight and HP the vehicle that develops its torque at lower RPMs will be more powerful. Torque is what enables a vehicle to get going from a stop more quickly and keeps it going under load.

mike hunt

Thank you very much for your informative reply.

Sorry, they're for light aircraft in the UK too.

Documents and reports should be available at your local HSE office, go n and ask nicely. They should be able to find you the mountains of reports on it.

Torque X rotational speed = Power. To get the units right in various systems, a conversion factor is used.

A very good discussion is available on the web at:

Power is the ability to do work. Work is needed to move a mass from one place to another, to increase elevation, to increase velocity (acceleration) and to overcome frictional losses like air resistance, tire rolling resitance, etc.

Thus, for example, 200 ft. lbs. of torque at 4,000 RPM can accomplish twice as much work as can 200 ft. lbs. of torque at 2,000 RPM. Put another way, 400 ft. lbs. at 1,000 RPM can do the same work as does 200 ft. lbs at 2,000 RPM. For the units used in the US:

Power (HP) = [Engine Speed (RPM) x Engine Torque (ft.lbs.)] / 5252

It is really that simple.

John

2006 is certain to take away a lot of the thunder from Mr. Hunter's argument. Large truck and SUV sales are dropping like a rock while sedan and small crossover SUV sales are increasing.

Somewhere in the next couple of years Toyota is going to pass GM in worldwide sales volume and will never look back. If the Delphi bankructcy results in supply distruptions to GM, which is highly likely, then 2006 will be the year of the changing of leadership for sure.

Years ago GM unseated Ford and has never looked back. GM did it with a better product range and agressive salesmanship. Unfortunately Detroit has had it's eye off the ball for too many years now.

John

An excellent point you make sir! Wind power to add to energy storage, be that storage hydrogen or some form of battery, makes lots of sense. It is much harder to make wind generators put out the constant voltage, constant phase output the grid wants to see.

John

Indeed. Before electric power and motors became ubiquitous, windmills were commonly used to pump water out of wells for farms and ranches. Their unpredictability and relatively high maintenance and repair requirements compared to electric pumps all but eliminated wind power from it's historic water pumping roll.

John

How did you arrive at that conclusion? The ONLY vehicle in the top five to drop in sales was the Camry, all the others have gone up. Trucks and SUVs still account for half of all sales combined and there are a lot more car models than light truck models on the market. Perhaps you meant to say in my opinion? ;)

mike hunt

Once again you are confused. The sales figures are for the F150 & F250, the Silverado and the Ram trucks for sizes up to 8,500 GVWR. IF all light trucks were include, the total figures would be even higher.

Trucks over 8,500 like the F250HD and the F350 are not counted in the individual sales figures. Light trucks like the current leaders has nothing to do with discounts, light trucks have been outselling cars since 1975 when the majority of car went to FWD. The Ford F150 is by far the best selling vehicle had has been for nearly thirty years. When SUVs are included light truck sales have exceed car sales for several years.

Perhaps you might want to do some research before commenting further on a subject of which you apparently have little or no knowledge, or at least say in my opinion.

mike hunt

Now this isn't to dismiss you totally - I'm sure there are some stupid or poor eyesight species of birds where the airplane visibility balls are a help, especially where the wires pass several hundred meters over a valley where they would expect to find clear air. But they were placed there primarily for airplanes.

But if the birds are there at that altitude too, that raises the problems of bird strikes on airplanes...

And when a Raptor (hawks, falcons, etc.) is following a pigeon and has his mind solely on Dinner!, he's going to follow the prey bird till one of them loses the chase. And a smart prey bird is gong to try to lose the predator however they can - and leading him right into the blades of a wind turbine, or the side of a building, or a cliff, is a great way to lose your pursuer. Permanently if possible, so they don't have to go through this whole chase scene all over again tomorrow.

Raptors like to light on top of power poles and zap themselves between the lines, too. Which led to them putting a bare crossarm at the top of certain favorite poles with no wires, solely to act as a perch. The transmission lines are on the next crossarm down.

But it's not done for the birds, it's for practical reasons - a bird gets zapped, and the flash-over trips the circuit breaker for that transmission line and shuts that line off for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

Reminds me of a story my grandfather told me, of the early days of coal mines in the north of England.

It seems one mine used to generate 10,000 volts to run its gear, but did so several miles from the pit, which involved setting up power lines across open countryside... Okay, you've guessed the punchline; but ride with me for the scenery.

Now and then power would fail at the pit. A man would be sent to walk the lines. He never seemed to find a cause. When breakers were closed again, the system would run fine -- until next time.

One day someone was out on the moors (or whatever) and noticed a group of rooks (or similar gregarious, prone-to-squabbling birds) had roosted on the lines. As he watched he saw a rook, on one line, lean across to peck at a neighbour, on the other line--

The explanation for the failures came, as it were, in a flash.

(Okay, stupid line layout. Early days of HT power transmission.)

snip

...and, now that you know what a rook is...ever hear about one rook asking another... "Hey, bred any good rooks lately?" :)

*retch* :-) (I see we're not sharing this with those Hondans.)