Prius electrical

Charging a battery through household electricity is easy. Having a battery pack with enough capacity to travel a practical distance is not so easy. The biggest hurdle is developing a battery with enough capacity.

GM has a similar system on their electric car. While such a system would look cool, it would be impractical for anyone who wants to recharge the car at a location other than home.

I like this idea as well, but solar panels are fairly expensive and may not have the capacity to recharge the batteries sufficiently to make them worth the cost.

I think the engineers who can design a workable hybrid car will remember to add one :-)

Tesla beat you too it.

Almost pointless. Most people park their cars in garages at home... or at work... The offset may not even be worth the cost of paying for the solar jacket on the car.

Also, plugging in the car is still using co2 burning energy...

Ironically cars are not even the real issue. Its homes that use fossil fuels more than anything else that a person owns.

have you ever overcharged a NIMH battery? i have.

At this time, Toyota is not offering extra battery capacity on the Toyota Prius. Quoting from:

"Does Toyota support the modification of my Prius to be a plug-inHybrid and run on electric mode only with a switch?Any such alterations, modifications or tampering with the vehiclevoids the warranty and is likely to be counterproductive for airquality and Prius' durability and safety." There are a few hobbiests and aftermarket groups that are working on adding battery capacity and converting a Prius to be a Plug-In/ Griddable hybrid. But the startup costs and pricing of the added battery packs and additional battery management software are probably not worth the cost at the moment for most consumers (mainly good for fleet use). for one hobbiest and more about plug-in Prius and lists aftermarket companies thatare doing the conversions. Remember that the key to the stock Prius' long hybrid battery life is good management - never fully charged or discharged.

Check with local regulation for type of charging unit/paddles.

and also

or, you can get a meter and have your local utility pay you back for the stored electricity.

you may also want to see:

God I LOVE Tesla stuff! :)

Batteries with enough capacity to travel 200 miles per charge have been around ever since the lead-acid battery was invented. The problem with them is cost, same holds true today with Nickle-Metal Hi. It would be real easy to pack enough cells into a car to travel 200+ miles.

But who could afford to buy it and how do you recharge it? You would need 480vac 3 phase service in your garage in order to be able to recharge it over night. Well, maybe not quite that much but it would take a lot of AC power capacity recharge in a short time.

And, if you take into consideration the costs associated with rebuild the commercial power grids to handle the loads needed if even half the cars on the road now were electric, it would be cheaper to build steam cars and burn coal.

You might think that you're saving the world by using your electric car but think about all the extra coal needed, the new atomic plants, the 10s of thousands windmills, etc needed to supply you with the electricity you cars use. Also, you think your hybrid is a supper efficient way to travel around? You look at the great gas mileage they get but you forget something. Where does the energy need to move the car come from? It all comes from that little gasoline engine. Folks, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch!

The same engine management used to get the great mileage of hybrids could be applied to conventional cars and the mileage would be just as good. Shut off the engine when you take your foot off the gas. Don't restart it until you call for power to move away from a stop.

It really doesn't make any difference what fancy chemistry you use in your battery, you will never get the power density of 20 gallons of gasoline. Nor will you be able to get the speed of recharging that today's gas station gives you.

There is a small need for cars used for short trips only. Go to any retirement community in the warmer areas of the country and look at all the electric golf carts. Until the engineers come up with a workable atomic battery or a fusion power generator smaller than the sun, that's where the market for electric cars with stay.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but you folks really need to investigate these pie-in-the-sky claims being made by these shysters.

Jack

But when the hybrid gets 50 miles out of each gallon of gas, when other cars are getting 18-22 miles out of that same gallon of gas, that's efficiency right there.

Using the battery system as a holding tank for energy that would have otherwise been wasted, plus other design efficiencies that they battery system allows for, is good. Free lunch? No free lunches here. But why would you pack $5 worth of lunch and then throw away $3 of it every day? Use the hybrid system and recover that $3 worth--and then pack only $2 worth of lunch every day and throw none of it away.

That's part of it.

Then there's the idea of a super-efficient engine that SUCKS at getting you going--no torque at all. Well, the electric motor supplants that. So now the hybrid uses an engine that a conventional car COULD NOT use, an engine that frankly gets 50mpg on the highway with no or very little help from the electric motor.

When they design a conventional car, they have to allow for the engine to work well in traffic under all conditions. When they design a hybrid, they don't. So there's an efficiency that a conventional car CANNOT have, no matter what.

And how fast are you going to wear out the little starter motor, plus the key switch, on a conventional car as you stop and start that car in traffic?

Then there are the other little design features. Electric driven AC, for example. How much gasoline is wasted driving the AC compressor while sitting in rush hour? Hey, the hybrid has this big-ass battery; let's drive it electrically instead and shut off the motor. Conventional car? Uh-huh. Gotta run the engine and waste a bunch of gas while you're sitting there in traffic trying to stay cool.

You need to un-cranky yourself and look closely at the system (yes, SYSTEM) that Toyota came up with. They did much, much more than just create an engine that stops and starts automatically.

Are you man enough to look closely at the facts of their system, or do you just want to sit here and spout nonsense based on your lack of knowledge of their system?

Me too. He was one of those out of the box thinkers.

Elmo, read the specs. The car won't get 50 mpg on the highway unless your traveling less than 40 mph. In fact, the car will only get that supper mileage under very narrow driving conditions. The vast majority of owners will tell you, if they're honest, that they don't come anywhere near the mileage promised.

I'll make you a challenge. Let's take your hybrid and my Corolla, fill them up at the same gas station. Then we get on the freeway and drive at 65 mph until one of us need to refill the gas tank. If your hybrid gets more than 3 mpg better than my Corolla, I'll buy you the biggest steak you can find. Oh, by the way, my Corolla gets about 38 mpg at 65.

Think about what you're saying. You talk about storing energy, but where does that energy come from? Hint ICE.

If you're talking about regenerative braking, you're recovering AT THE MOST 5% of what you've used. And that only comes into play with a lot of stop and go driving. It will have no effect with highway driving. (where you don't stop for long periods of time)

You talk about spending $5 for lunch and then throwing away $3 of it. That's what you do with a hybrid. You burn gas to produce mechanical energy (about 15 to 20% efficient), you use that mechanical energy to turn an alternator to produce electricity (about 75% efficient), you use that electricity to recharge a battery which you then discharge to power an electric traction motor (about 60% efficient, most of the losses are mechanical and chemical). If you get better than 10% conversion efficiency, I'll be greatly surprised.

I meant what I said, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." and that's what car manufacturers are promising you, a free lunch with every hybrid.

But I won't change your mind with facts. You've bought into the hybrid myth.

Jack

But your hybrid DOES run on that engine over 90% of the time. The electric motor and batteries are used to power the car while the conventional engine is starting and powering up. Also, while sitting still at a traffic light.

Yes, it's called a broad power band. Something that your hybrid needs also.

I don't know, how fast do hybrids wear out their starter motors?

Where does the electricity come from that is used to run the A/C compressor? Where does the electricity come from that is used to recharge this "big-ass" battery of your's. Why waste energy hauling around that "big-ass" battery, alternator, control circuitry, transmission and electric motor needed to make a hybrid work?

My "nonsense" is based on physics and chemistry and a working knowledge of how hybrid systems operate. Would you buy a perpetual motion car, one that never needs to be refueled? If so, I'll make one for you. I'll also include a "free lunch" with the sale.

Jack

And to supplant the engine power when the car needs it. The software figures out what the driver is asking for, based on a wide range of parameters, and gives it to him in the most efficient manner possible.

The Power Split Device is the heart of the system, allowing the engine to operate at a very efficient range that it could not otherwise do if it were connected directly to the wheels in any way. Decoupling the engine from the direct needs of the driver allows the engine to operate very efficiently MUCH more of the time, and the battery/motor system can supplement immediate torque needs quite easily.

It's a SYSTEM. Very carefully crafted, with lots and lots of little well-thought out bits that go WAY beyond just starting and stopping the gasoline engine.

So the engine is running 90% of the time--at its most efficient. What does your Ford Crown Victoria do? Is it at its most efficient most of the time, or is it forced to operate in a compromise environment?

Because it has to do many things off its output shaft, is it designed so it can it get incredible gas mileage on the highway? Or does the compromise of doing many things off the crankshaft mean the Crown Vic can't have an engine that gets great gas mileage when it's running?

Which is what the electric motor provides, ON DEMAND, without using gasoline.

The Prius doesn't have a starter motor. You need to get off your crankyness and look into actual FACTS before spouting off about things you don't know.

Some of it is regenerated by braking power (the system applies the generator instead of the brakes to slow down; that means the energy of braking is recaptured into the battery instead of being thrown out in the way of heat). Some of it is generated by the gasoline engine--which does so while operating at its most efficient, which it can do because of the Power Split Device which decouples it from the wheels in a way that allows such efficient operation.

Which you would know if you actually looked into how the Prius system works.

It's not just stopping and starting the engine, you cranky old fart who thinks you know everything.

You have proven that you have absolutely zero knowledge of how the Prius system works, yet you insist on spouting your ignorance to the world while simultaneously proclaiming your ignorance to be "knowledge".

You refuse to acknowledge the efficiencies involved; you insist on merely talking about "but you're using gasoline!" while ignoring how that gasoline is used in the various systems out there and how far a gallon goes for each type of system.

You're a nutcase. I know your type. You sit down there at the hardware store like a know-it-all, spouting your ignorance, wearing it like a badge of honor, visibly daring anyone to hold an opinion contrary to yours.

How is that a fair comparison? Your Corolla may hold more or less usable gas than mine.

Maybe if you outfitted each car with an identical gas tank in the trunk and filled those tanks with identical amounts of gasoline from the identical in-ground holding tank, and then drained each factory-supplied gas tank completely dry.

Oh--and let's do the comparison not just with the drivers, but with a set amount of people and cargo. How's this: I will set that up, based on what my Prius will hold. You have to put the same amount of people and stuff in your Corolla.

Yup. An ICE that's running more efficiently at any speed, thanks to the Power Split Device, compared to your Corolla.

Nope. Never did. Where do you come up with that? I was discussing an engine that is tuned for efficiency, is relieved of the jack-of-all-trades duties of handling both low speed/off the line as well as constant freeway speeds, and which is allowed to run at all times at an efficiency that your Corolla engine cannot thanks to the Power Split Device (a system of which you know nothing, apparently).

Maybe idling down the street in your Corolla. Not the Prius. You just don't understand the Prius system.

Can you dispute that my Prius with 4 people in it gets 53mpg on the highway on a long trip? What does your Corolla get under the same conditions?

I don't really expect an answer to that, because you won't want to answer it (truthfully, anyway).

I never said there was. But there are more efficient ways to do things, which you refuse to acknowledge.

I agree with Elmo on this one. Retired V.I.P. may have a working knowledge of how other hybrid systems operate (such as the GM faux hybrids) but he is dead wrong about the Prius system. In another post he said that the regenerative braking was 5% efficient when Toyota claims closer to 30%, that the engine was 15-20% when it is actually closer to 35%, and that the "Alternator" which is really MG1 was 75% when it is actually above 90%. I am not sure about the battery charge/discharge efficiency but he did majorly underestimate the numbers.

Hmmmm... a colleague bought a Prius a couple of years ago. First time they drove it on the Thruway (drove ~180 miles) at speed limit (65), they got 55 mpg. They didn't *expect* to get that much, but did.

Cathy

In fact, the car will only get that

Please tell us where to find those "specs".

Fact: I got 53mpg on a 6 hour drive a few weeks ago. And I wasn't driving particularly slowly, staying in the 70-75mph range except for construction areas. And I had the AC on.

In fact, I don't drive particularly carefully overall, at least not with respect to gas mileage, and I insist on making myself comfortable--so I use quite a bit of energy keeping the AC going (no free lunch, as you say).

Still, I get 42 miles out of every gallon. I get to where I want to go by driving at a pace that's comfortable to me (which is generally a decent clip faster than most people drive) and at a temperature that's comfortable to me.

In other words, I'm not a hypermiler weirdo who plays the "how many miles can I squeeze out of a gallon" game every time I get behind the wheel.

Again, where are these mysterious "specs" you're referring to? This should be a very simple question to answer, no? So answer it. Show us your "specs".

Polls generally show that people get around 45mpg in the car, which is WAY off the 60mpg the old sticker showed. However, that's about what I get, depending on weather and the number of short short trips. I get down to 42 or so mpg, up to 53mpg.

But a couple of weeks ago I was out of town in upstate NY, driving through the countryside 30-40 mph, in VERY nice weather, and was getting

55-56mpg during that hour or so. So yeah, if people want to drive like that, they could probably achieve 60mpg. But nobody wants to drive like that, at least no sane person. Sane people will drive such that they get 45mpg or so, and polls bear that out.

Please show us those "specs" you're referring to.

Or, if you can't show us those "specs," just shut up.

Put up or shut up.

I give up, you're right and I'm wrong. The magic of hybrid technology trumps all of know science. You win, I'm just an old fart who bores everyone at the hardware store/gas station with my stories of "back-in-the-day".

Enjoy

Jack

Don't feel bad Jack, the current gens are easy marks for marketing hype.