Who killed the electric car?

"Hachiroku ????" ...

Minor correction, the electric is recharged mainly off of energy that would normally be lost on regular cars. This includes the engine when it is running anyway, using the power that is not used by the wheels anyway, and recaptured energy that is normally lost in braking and slowing down (conserved momentum).

Yep, the original power comes from gas. The electric only partially so.

It's called EV mode:

Not long ago we did a piece on how hybrids while great did not actually save you money - mostly because of their cost compared to a basic Honda Civic. But the Prius has become more than just a way to save money, for many techies and celebrities, it?s ?the? cool car because it?s small and understated and high tech. Yeah, yeah. But to those who own a hybrid, here?s way to hack it so it works mostly in battery (EV) mode, thus boosting your mileage even further. Did you Know: In the US this EV mode is disabled where it ships standard in Europe and Asia. Wonder why ?

Every Toyota Prius that rolls off of the assembly line has the programming built into the computer to enable ?EV? (?electric vehicle?) Mode. EV Mode tells the computer controlling the Prius to turn off the gas engine and use only its batteries until one of the following things happens:

• the batteries get too discharged (down to 2 bars on the Prius? Energy display) * the vehicle speed hits 35mph * the driver asks for a lot of power (climbing a steep hill or getting onto the highway) * the drive disengages EV Mode

All you have to do is look at the whole ethanol fandangle for reference.

Tomes,

Look at the subject line. The subject of this thread is NOT hybrid cars, its ELECTRIC cars. We have been talking about total electric cars, not hybrid gas/electric cars.

Well, I would say from the direction of this thread, and the concensus of the Great Unwashed Masses, the Prius is conceived as an electric car.

If there were a market, someone would build one.

Of course, for $80,000 you can have one, too:

I remember now that part. I think they had a part in the movie about plugin prius hybrids. Some companies are getting close, Google's modified hybrids are now at

Hahaha, I sat in a handicapped seat in the NY subway and a little girl asked her mom if I was handicapped. I went down on the next stop and walked with a limp... just kidding

If I had an electric car (if I can afford one) which can do my regular day to day driving and save me tons of money, I would be more than happy to just get a rental car for my extra long trips, which I do about 5 times in a year. Not so bad. Even with my current camry, during long trips my family would sometimes rent a minivan for space and mileage reasons.

Yep, I know about this. I also understand that one cannot really do the hack here in the USA because it will void the warranty. Bummer that. Tomes

Yep, often discussions in threads take a turn here and there. This is what this is VIP. No problem. Tomes

In practice (I live in the UK and own one) the EV mode is hardly worth having. Because of all the (correctly stated) reasons that override it, it only really works at cold start and allows a silent pull away from your drive by preventing the gas engine from doing its usual start up to rapid warm the catalytic converter. It can also give you a silent slow speed arrival late at night! Under all other circumstances it gets overridden by the Prius engine and battery management systems as necessary. I (and many others over here) believe that the EV mode switch is activated in Europe because it makes it a true "alternative fuel" vehicle (by using the battery exclusively, even if only momentarily) and therefore qualifying it for various tax concessions.

Chas

The 1900 electric cars didn't have the technology we enjoy today in material science, battery technology, energy management (regenerative breaking), computer control just to name a few things. We have experiential light weight cars running from solar panels without any electrical grid support. It is not unreasonable to see electric cars with a range of 400 miles and a recharge time cycle under one hour in the near future - we may already have it in the lab stage. The diesel or gasoline combustion engine is at a dead end when the fuel cost of getting to work becomes prohibitive, or even worst, when dino oil no longer available.

One thing I would like to see here would be some manner of switch or rheostat that would allow a bit more dependence upon the electric than it is set up for now. I never run the battery low and could use that electric power moreso than I do. Tomes

Actually you never have any real choice about how much (or little) you use stored battery energy. The EV mode makes very little difference to this. It would probably be bad news if you could! Just an early death for the battery................... It's frustrating to think that there might be a deal of stored energy that you don't get to use but I reckon it's better to let the Prius look after itself and just drive it.

Cheers

Chas

Absolutely. But how long is the warranty?

This is cool. Look at the Headlight Flash EV mod:

I have to admit, the Scion tC would be a decent car to make a hybrid...

And yet the range hasn't really improved much, has it?

We have experiential light

I haven't done the math on this so I can't give you exact figures but the "new technology" you talk about can't change basic physics. It takes energy to accelerate mass and overcome friction. The amount of power needed to move a car 400 miles would be 1000's of kilowatts. If you try to get even 1/10th of that amount out of your wall outlet in an hour, you'd be talking about pulling over 400 amps at 240 volts.

Okay, maybe that would be reasonable for one person. You could get a really heavy duty, 3 phase AC service run into your house, if you're willing to pay for it. But multiply that by several million cars. Where is the electricity going to come from?

Try to use regenerative braking to supply the power and you have two main problems. You can, at best, recover around 10% of your total energy output using regenerative braking. 100% of the total energy expended is used to accelerate the car from a stop and to overcome rolling and wind resistance. You can only recover energy during the braking period, what you have expended before that is gone. But if you don't stop, you can't recover ANYTHING.

Back in the 1960's and 1970's, engineering schools used to hold competitions to see who could get the best mileage out of a gallon of gas. If I remember right, they all could get around 100 to 125 mpg without any trouble. I don't remember what the record was for sure but I think it was over 200 mpg. They were using special built cars that were extremely light. Very small engines and chain or V-belt transmissions. They used solid tires and driving techniques that would get you arrested or killed in normal city traffic.

When is the last time you saw a car that would get 100 mpg? So special-built cars like those ultra-high mileage gas powered cars and the solar powered cars you mentioned only prove what is possible, not what is practical.

Jack

Nice.

Are they different kinds of batteries, or the same car with just a plug in adapter?

This is something I wish for often. On my commute home I have a long, steep downgrade followed by a steep upgrade, then another steep downgrade. After the first downgrade I almost always have all bars lit. When I hit the upgrade, I try my best to draw down the HV by using a sorta pulse & glide, where I give it enough throttle on the glide to kick-in them EM. But by the top of the second downgrade I've only lost

I would love to be able to tell the car "use the battery more... there's a big regen coming soon." I've also wondered what could be done if they tied the NAV system in, so the Prius could predict the type speeds and terrain coming-up, and work accordingly. Yeah, kinda far fetched, I know.