Toyota Prius Hybrid car gives 250 mpg
Toyota Prius Hybrid car gives 250 mpg. Surprised! Yes, it is true, thanks to the efforts of green-minded enthusiasts at California. These people have turned popular hybrid cars into plug in cars, which could be recharged using off peak electricity from the mains. Lets see how..
Hybrid cars such as Prius, Escape and Honda Civic have petrol and battery power source which is computer integrated. With these configurations, hybrid cars are able to have a fuel mileage of 60-70 mpg as compared to 20-40 in conventional cars.
You could call them inventors or Hackers but these people are reprogramming computer and getting extra batteries that in turn guzzles less fuel and gives higher electric kick to the cars. One such person in San Francisco customized his hybrid car by fitting 18 electric bicycle batteries to store extra power. These batteries get charged from solar panels or domestic sockets at night. He successfully achieved 96 mpg for his hybrid car. Now that is quiet impressive.
The electronic tweaks he executed trick the hybrid arrangement into thinking that the battery is completely charged so it uses battery power at all speeds, rather than just through deceleration.
One other innovator at Californian outfit, Energy CS, in Monrovia has converted 2 Prius models to get nearly 276 mpg with the help of extra lithium ion batteries. Now lets see how these hybrid car manufacturers respond to this.
posted by amit @ 11:28 AM
17 Comments:
The idea that these modifications are making these cars more efficient is a LIE! Here are the reasons why:
1. The electrical energy stored in the batteries comes from somewhere - there isn't enough nuclear (or other non-fossil fuel) power to cover demand, so the power used to run these cars is still being generated from fosil fuels. In order to get 250 mpg, these have basically become electrical cars which have backup gasoline engines (to use as infrequently as possible).
2. Every transformation of energy, from fossil fuel to electricial, from electrical to chemical (in the battery), from chemical back to electrical, and from electrical to mechanical (turn the tires), etc, has a certain efficiency. All of the above mentioned conversions are under 50% efficiency. As you can imagine, each excess transistion wastes a lot of energy. Gasoline powered cars have less transistions, and therefore at the current state of technology, I'd wager these modded prius' result in burning significantly more fosil fuels than a fuel efficient gasoline car does.
3. Carrying around the extra weight of the batteries means that in order to travel the same number of miles, more Work must be done. This requires even more energy, not less.
The modding is cool, but please don't represent it as saving the world from dependence on fossil fuels, or even significantly increasing the efficiency of the vehicle.
I'm yet to see one in the uk yet. I run a Car Parts store in the UK.
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This stuff about hybrids being worse on gas because of inefficient transformations between gas and electricity sounds scientific, but it's incorrect. I drive an unmodified 2005 Prius. It doesn't plug in to anything, and it gets between 40 and 50 mpg depending on the weather and the kind of driving I'm doing. That's way better than any pure gasoline car of the same size and weight.
40 to 50 MPG from a hybrid does not impress me at all! 37 years ago
a British made Triumph Spitfire was rated as getting 48 MPG when equiped with an overdrive transmission. How did this marvel occur? Take a very light 2 seat car and put in a small 67 HP motor and then drive carefully! No power brakes, no power windows, no boom box stereos, and not much safety equipt...oh yes, and a large amount of FUN getting from point A to B!!
SEK is right on. If he were wrong, like henry says, then why wouldn't Honda and Toyota's engineers do what these mod-hacks are doing. There is no perpetual motion machine.
If we recharge the batteries with wind or solar and you have a week to wait between drives then cool. Otherwise, oil combined with a factory Prius is king for now.
I want to see a hybrid diesel!
I disagree with sek and rob. It's my understanding that a portion electricity in this country is created by wind or solar. There is no need for oil in this transformation of energy. And I read once that if we went to a plug in car that was fueled by elictricy/coal that even tho we would be burning more coal, we would see a decrease in polutants compared to all the exhaust from those cars.
My 94 Geo prism gets 39 mpg and that's with 216000 miles. The older (99') diesel jettas could get 60mpg. If you added batteries to these models could you maybe get even better mileage?? Our engineers are being held back and it is sick and wrong.
All the BS aside, lets do the math.
$3/gal for gas = $3 to go 250 miles
$3/gal for gas = $3 to go 40 miles
I wonder which one is cheaper?
What about electric cars? I hear they get about a penny to the mile?
i was checking some out and Zap seems to be on top of their game, check them out at www.zapworld.com
The Zap cars are definitely cool but come with a big price tag. 25K to reserve and the car costs 60K. I am not sure if the initial 25K is included in the purchase price of the car. All in all they look great and are super efficient. You want cool though, check out the TESLA roadster... I cant wait for all of us to be driving these..
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when you plug the car in, there is an additional cost. What is it?
Honestly, I think SEK needs to do a little bit of research. Electricity is 235% more efficient in terms of production and abundance over fossil fuels. You are talking about a 50% efficiency engine, when fuel based engines run at 15%?
What about not using fuel at all, such as Tesla motors? No oil changes, no transmission, just one straight servo motor that is ran off of a lightweight, high powered lithium ion motor. you forget that when you move to an electric car, you cut down on the weight of an actual engine, which is where at least half of the cars bulk weight comes from.
go check out tesla motors. you want to talk about saving the world from fossil fuels, you will find the future of the auto industry.
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To me, the future seems a bit right around the corner :) What I mean is the vision is having automobiles transition into an electric powered motor on most of the cars on planet seems quite plausible and really feasible in the near future. But, then again we have So many cars on the road as it already is these days, what will we do with every other Gas powered vehicle? Dispose of it? Use its parts? What is there to do with it? Also, my personal question that I've been asking myself is don't we want this movement to take place a.s.a.p. since it will sincerely help our environment or is it simply a matter of Gas companies paying for the electric powered motor to delay its expansion to the automotive industry since the electric alternative is by far greater than our expensive non-eco friendly gasoline.
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I found all points raised interesting.
Indeed there needs to be an investment of time and energy for pure battery powered cars to become viable. If we mass produce green cars, they will certainly
become cheaper.
We also need to take into account the fact that the gas companies, the car companies and consumer can be inconsistent.
Gas companies: They want to sell gas at the highest possible margin, but they can't arbitrarily set the price too high because it might affect demand.
Car companies: Want to sell as many cars as possible for as much as possible, but electric cars as mentioned in an earlier entry require less "standard"
maintance. It is a little like diesel cars, which are more efficient and use simple mechanics. However, they require so little maintenance (motor) that
you'll pay an arm and a leg for a mechanic able to fix them. Car companies make cash on service too (50-75$/hr) so they'd be shooting themselves in the foot
by selling you a low maintenace car. But if you sell them a high maintenance car, they'll also shop next door.
Consumer: Want an affordable, fuel-efficient, good looking, comfortable, reliable, safe car that can take turns well. However, when it comes time to pay
the bill, affordability because a big limiting factor. We all want a fuel-efficient car and a sense of indepedence (e.g. from "foreign oil"). But it is not
realistic to think we can have all of this, in the near future, without losing somewhere. Automatic transmissions, power-windows, power-steering, air-
conditioning, sound-proofing, bumpers are just a few examples of comfort and safety features that way down a car. We would be well served increasing the
number of plastic components in a car to reduce overall weight. But then we have a vehicle that "feels cheap" and that might not protect us as well in an
accident.
I'm a firm believer that cars can be recycled because they contain plastics and vast amounts of metal that can simply be chopped-up, melted down and reused.
I'm not quite sure how straightforward it is to recycle all these "high-end" battery.
In the end, we need inventors and rebels who challenge authority and want to demonstrate how simple changes can help save the world. There is no single
change that will save us all from destructions. Making smaller cars, more fuel-efficient cars, not using our car, buying a horse, not going to work, etc are
all ways of contributing to pollution. But as individuals we can take our existing vehicle and driver more sensably, modify the exhaut system, use a higher
efficiency air filter, use synthetic oil, accelerate slowly, keep the windows closed, drive outside peak hours, avoid busy areas and suddenly our 29mpg car
can offer 39mpg.
As much as the product offerings (cars) need to be improved, so does our ability to reduce overall consumption.
We can sell "novelty" high performance electric cars to rich people. This can be used to fund research and in the end the technological breakthroughs will
show up here and there.
We're definitely on the right track by being aware of the issue and understanding there are pros and cons to everything. We also need to keep in mind that
our lifestyles are part of the equation when it comes to fuel consumption and pollution.
Rarely does new technology start by being viable. Normally you have technology developed by the military paid for by the government that eventually turns
into things we use every day.
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