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Lee Iacocca, former CEO of Chrysler, and a past president of Ford, advises American auto makers to go aggressively after the hybrid market, “...because you can't let Toyota rule the roost here continually." Ford Motor Co is taking that advice and recently announced plans to offer gas-electric hybrid versions of half its models by 2010. Ford now offers just two SUVs as hybrids - the Mercury Mariner and Ford Escape. Their goal is to produce about 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010, up from 24,000 now. In contrast, Toyota plans to roll out up to 400,000 in 2006 and offer hybrid versions of all its models in the future. Toyota’s hybrids currently get anywhere from 45 mpg to 60 mpg while Ford’s Suv hybrids get What about 250 miles per gallon? While many automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is still years or even decades away, Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel. Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car. Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in a California suburb -- all for about a quarter. He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg. The technology has existed for three decades. DaimlerChrysler AG has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. Toyota’s representatives initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them. Plugged or unplugged? "The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference." Gremban promotes the CalCars Initiative, a volunteer effort encouraging automakers to make plug-in hybrids. Though the electricity to charge these cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, that process still produces far less pollution than oil. And, that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power. Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price. Car companies say they are worried about the convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids. They say that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones. Automakers say they have spent millions of dollars advertising that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message. In spite of what the automakers say, plug-in hybrids are starting to get promoted by people like former CIA director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign oil dependence. Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, says gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism, and that Americans who understand this would want to buy an electric car, if they could. "The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said. Pug-in hybrids are ideal for companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central location at night, says DaimlerChrysler spokesperson Nick Cappa. He did not know the vehicles' cost, or when they would be available. Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230 mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for about $10,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen said. Engineering professor Andy Frank of the University of Davis in California converted seven cars into hybrids from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban. One of them gets up to 250 mpg. Although he spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs per car, he says automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle's price tag. Why A Hydrogen Economy Requires Renewables In Place First The hydrogen economy is offered as a universal solution and the attractiveness is easily explained. Hydrogen is the planet’s most abundant element and fuel cells using hydrogen emit only water. Hydrogen gas is odorless, tasteless and non-poisonous. There are no harmful tailpipe or smokestack emissions. A future powered by hydrogen extracted from water using electricity generated from renewable fuels like wind or geothermal power is an appealing vision. However, in the short and medium term a crash program to build a hydrogen infrastructure can have undesirable consequences - especially for the transportation sector. Here are some facts: The question is, are we putting the cart before the horse? The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) cautions that a premature push toward a hydrogen economy could have a serious environmental downside. Christian Kjaer, EWEA’s policy director notes, “It is a backwards argument that hydrogen opens access to new and renewable energy sources. It is the other way around. Large-scale renewable energy production, such as offshore wind power, is an essential precondition for the deployment of sustainable hydrogen economy.” Wind power is the world’s fastest growing energy resource. The growth and increased use of photovoltaics is also impressive. This is the time to make a major effort to move solar energy from the margins of energy production to its center rather than to shift the nation’s scientific and capital resources toward constructing the infrastructure demanded for a hydrogen economy and end up 25 years from now where we are, in essence today: having 2% of the hydrogen market and hoping to increase that fraction. The successful commercialization of the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) joins two power plants. One auto maker’s description of the process is, “A large electric motor gets the vehicle rolling and even can power it up a hill. A gasoline or diesel engine kicks in for top acceleration and takes over when the vehicle is at cruising speed. When the vehicle stops, the engine shuts off, conserving fuel. A computer turns over cabin heating or cooling to the electric motor which is supplied by powerful batteries recharged by braking.” The HEV has a much more powerful motor and a much smaller engine than its counterparts. Reduced gasoline consumption comes primarily from avoiding energy use during idling and from using the electric motor for stop-and-go driving. HEVs are more advantageous in the city than on the highway. The 2004 Prius for example was rated at 51 miles per gallon on the highway and 60 miles per gallon in the city. HEVs currently are not manufactured to be charged from the electrical grid system and have limited ability to operate solely on battery- power. The industry designates this generation of hybrids HEV0, the zero indicating the number of miles the car can travel on batteries alone. (The 2004-06 Prius actually can travel a modest distance under light load and low speed conditions.) Hybrids can be configured to use electricity for the majority of their propulsion needs. These vehicles have larger battery capacity. They are called plug-ins (PHEV) because they can plug into an external electricity system for charging. These PHEVs are identified by numbers that indicate a higher stand-alone electric driving range: HEV20, HEV60. As long as the battery has sufficient charge, plug-in HEVs operate like a 100% battery electric vehicle. When the battery is low or more power is needed, HEVs use the gas engine to assist. The displacement of gasoline by external electricity depends on the amount of battery capacity the vehicle has and the owner’s daily driving habits. 50% of all cars on the road travel a total of 20 miles or less each day. This is especially the case with urban vehicles. Thus a vehicle with battery capacity sufficient to travel 20 miles (HEV20) before recharging can substantially reduce the amount of gasoline consumed. The electricity is used to displace the gasoline for those parts of a trip that are the most polluting: stop-and-go driving, continuous acceleration or deceleration, cold engine starts, and idling. HEVs have smaller engines and larger motors than conventional vehicles. They have similar acceleration because the power of the engine and the motor can be combined. The plug-in HEVs have more electrical storage capacity. The greater the battery capacity the higher the percentage of time the vehicle will rely on the battery rather than the engine. If a car were driven 20 miles per day and an HEV20’s batteries were fully charged daily there would be a drastic reduction in liquid fuel consumption. A hybrid that can travel 60 miles on its battery would allow for more daily driving or fewer recharging cycles and could reduce 85% of the fuel the automobile consumes. Unlike the hydrogen-fueling infrastructure, the electricity-fueling infrastructure is already in place. Andy Franks, professor of engineering at the University of California- Davis, one of the country’s leading advocates for PHEVs, estimates that 95% of homes and 70% of multi-family dwellings have relatively easy access to a120V outlet. Plug-in HEVs, says Bob Graham, area manager of the Electric Power Research Institute’s (EPRI) transportation program, are “the logical next member of the family Some argue that hybrid developments alone will improve batteries and that since fuel cells are expensive, automobile manufacturers will still have an incentive to increase the amount of work the batteries (and motor) can do. R&D for HEV0 cars focuses on improving the power output of the batteries rather than their energy storage capacity. The technological improvements needed for both purposes do overlap but there are major differences. One is intended to supplement the engine. The other is intended to replace the engine. Increases in power often lead to reductions in energy density, a prime objective for those who want to minimize battery weight while expanding the amount of driving done with batteries. As Bob Graham observes, “Produced in volume, hybrid EVs such as the Toyota Prius will help drive down the cost of motors and controllers that could be used in all types of electric-drive cars. But the commercialization of the plug-in hybrid EV, with its large market appeal, is the key to the one remaining barrier to zero emission vehicles-the cost of the ’energy’ battery.” By January 2003 all major car companies had eliminated their all-battery electric vehicle sale and leasing programs: Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. A report done for the California Air Resources Board concluded that, “direct efforts to develop EV batteries have generally declined over the last 3 years.” However, recent evidence suggests that the report’s conclusions were premature. It takes a long time between invention and commercialization. Beta R&D, a company that has developed the sodium nickel chloride battery called ZEBRA took 17 years to develop a battery technology that in 2002 went into commercial production in a facility owned by MES-DEA. Avestor, a Canadian company, introduced a lithium metal polymer battery it claims has been in development for over 20 years. Recently the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) issued a report that found “important and steady improvements in battery technology, over the past few years. Researchers specifically found that advanced batteries used in electric drive vehicles are far exceeding previous projections for cycle life and durability, a key consideration in marketability.” EPRI found, for example, that advances in Nickel Metal Hydride batteries (NiMH) meant that only one battery pack rather than the two anticipated in an earlier study would be needed for the life of the vehicle. “It is highly probable that NiMH batteries can be designed, using current technologies, to meet the vehicle lifetime requirements of full function battery EVs, plug-in HEVs with 40 to 60 miles of EV range....” EPRI and others estimate that anHEV60, in the near term, would cost about $10,000 more than a conventional HEV. Some believe the technological advances in batteries are coming even more quickly, spurred by increasing demands for more power for portable electronic equipment like laptop computers and cell phones. Here consumers are willing to pay several times the price per kilowatt-hour for energy than are electric vehicle owners. The portable electronics market is an incubator for storage technologies that can later be scaled up for use in electric vehicles. Sony Corp first commercialized lithium batteries for laptop computers in 1991. Current lithium ion batteries have energy capacities four times those of lead acid batteries and almost twice that of nickel metal hydride batteries. Recently scientists reported that it is possible to construct a lithium ion battery that could store 400 Wh per kg, ten times that stored in a typical lead acid battery. Battery advances lowered the cost of those already commercialized and mass produced for the premium electronics market more than batteries that are still produced in small batches for the electric vehicle market. In 2003 San Dimas-based AC Propulsion Inc. replaced the electric batteries in its EV with lithim-ion batteries. The substitution saved 500 pounds and increased by a factor of three the amount of energy that could be stored. Alan Cocconi, AC Propulsion founder and chief engineer noticed the rapid progress that had occurred in the use of small cells in laptops and power tools. “Manufacturers produce these cells by the tens of millions, so they compete intensely based on performance and costs. The result is commercial, off-the-shelf battery technology with fantastic specs. We decided to use it in electric cars.” Their new battery, called the tzero LiIon is assembled from 6800 standard cells. Tom Gage, President of AC Propulsion notes, “The market for big cells is small so they cost too much. The small cells for the tzero cost less, in total, than the nickel-metal hydride battery in the Toyota RAV4EV and they hold twice the energy. We got a quote from one battery company for a Li Ion pack made from 100 much larger cells. Their price was 10 times higher and neither the energy or the power were as good as we get from the small cells.” It is instructive that California, which was optimistic about battery development when it launched its Zero Emission Vehicle program in 1991 is now even more optimistic about fuel cell developments. The California Air Resources Board predicts that the additional cost per fuel cell powered vehicle will drop to $300,000 in the 2006-8 model years, to $120,000 in 2009-2011 and to $10,000 in 2012-14. Few other researchers are as optimistic as California in the reduction in the cost of fuel cell cars. In June 2002 Toyota’s fuel cell engineer Norihiko Nakamura announced, “If a certain level of mass production can be achieved the costs should be dropped drastically. But a great amount of effort is needed to bring the cost to even two to three times that of a standard vehicle.” If California’s projection does come true, 10 years from now we will be able to buy a $30,000 conventional automobile for $40,000 if powered by a fuel cell. That cost increase is about what the increased cost right now is for an HEV60. The fuel cell car, however, will achieve fuel efficiencies comparable only to those of the 2003 model HEV0 while the HEV60 will achieve efficiencies 50% greater or more. This cost comparison doesn’t include the infrastructure investments required for hydrogen fueled vehicles. The infrastructure for battery-driven vehicles is already in place. In parts of California solar cell canopies over parking lots recharge electric vehicles parked during the workday and plugged into outlets at meters. A recent study found that most cars have sufficient surface area to generate 20% of their transportation fuel needs from solar cells on the vehicle’s body. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids offer the potential for remarkable improvement in energy efficiency with no reduction in performance or vehicle room. This is true for all types of vehicles, including and especially SUVs. If all vehicles were equipped with this technology, annual national gasoline consumption could decrease from about 140 billion gallons to about 40 billion. Such an improvement in efficiency in and of itself would virtually eliminate our reliance on imported oil. High efficiency hybrids would also allow us to take a closer look at using biofuels as a primary fuel rather than an additive. Let’s allow the country to reduce its reliance on imported oil while strengthening economies and reducing energy-related pollutants. We can promote hydrogen while promoting more efficient vehicles and renewable fuels. ------------------------- ------------------------ Azure Dynamics Corporation, a Canadian developer of hybrid electric powertrains for commercial and military vehicles announced the sale of four 20-passenger hybrid electric shuttle buses to UPROSE (the United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park) of Brooklyn, NY, made possible with a grant from the New York Power Authority (NYPA). The hybrid electric “Citibus” employs the same chassis and hybrid electric drive system currently used in delivery vans supplied to other Azure customers. Their Citibus product improves fuel economy by as much as 40% and reduces emissions by up to 90% when compared to a conventional shuttle bus, according to Mark Federle, Azure’s Vice-President, Sales. Azure Dynamics is currently working internationally with various partners and customers including Purolator Courier Ltd., Canada Post, US Dept of Defense, US Postal Service, and London Taxis International. ------------------------- Here's the physics lesson: driving slower means less "drag," and thus less effort by the engine. Drag is aerodynamic resistance, basically. Physicists have an equation used to calculate drag on a moving object: D = Cd x r x V2/2 x A. The D is Drag, and V is velocity. You see how V is squared? The other letters stay constant as your speed increases, but the V rises. Because it is squared, it has a large impact on D -- i.e., twice as fast is four times as much drag. The faster you drive, the harder your engine has to work to maintain its speed, and the less efficiently it performs. (from Ask Umbra at www.gristmagazineaaaa.com)
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