[Toshi]

Note that the Prius is still the greenest non-midget (Smart) non-BEV (Leaf) non-not-very-practical-fuel (CNG Civic) option out there, besides being a much more practical day to day car. The Leaf is also a hatchback but is quite small, as I've found out lately when crunching rear-seat legroom data: try under 32 for the former vs. a roomy 36…

Oh, also note that this takes into account the NiMH battery environmental "costs." I hope that this stops that particular line of carping.

Note the third: Diesels are absent, no doubt due to their dirty tailpipe (non-CO2) emissions…

 

[IH8Rice]

Note the third: Diesels are absent, no doubt due to their dirty tailpipe (non-CO2) emissions…

youre still going on about that huh?

that test also shows two trucks with the same engines getting different ratings

 

[Toshi]

From the very thing I quoted:

Diesels continued to fall just short of the top dozen list; their exceptional fuel economy has been unable to overcome the impact of emissions which, while cleaner than ever, still contain more harmful pollutants than gasoline emissions.

It's not rocket science and I'm not making it up.

 

[CBJ]

I think the new larger Prius looks perfect. I really like the option to move back the rear seats to make more room for rear facing child seats. Wish my Volvo would have that option with tons of trunk space that I rarely need. No doubt its the car I would get if I had to buy a new used car. Well that is the other problem it will take some time to before you can get them used a a decent price I am sure.

Toshi you are anyway looking at it the wrong way. You need to do what I have done and live in where there is good public transportation and the need for a cars is limited. That is the real alternative transportation scenario. You are still thinking way to much like an American

 

[Toshi]

Oh, if I can swing a job in Portland proper and can have a bike commute then that'd be ideal. I'm not getting my heart set on anything, though--2014 is still a ways off and who knows where there'll be a job opening at that point.

Relevant to this thread: Consumer Reports tests a Prius with 200,000 miles on it and finds it performs the same as one that was tested when nearly new. Same HSD battery, engine, transmission, shocks.

Their conclusion:

Based on data from over 36,000 Toyota Prius hybrids in our annual survey, we find that the Prius has outstanding reliability and low ownership costs. …


If the battery ever did need to be replaced, it would run between $2,200 and $2,600 from a Toyota dealer, but it’s doubtful that anyone would purchase a new battery for such an old car. Most will probably choose to buy a low-mileage unit from a salvage yard, just as they would with an engine or transmission. We found many units available for around $500.

So is an old Prius a still a good value? We think so.

 

[jimmydean]

that test also shows two trucks with the same engines getting different ratings

Where am I not seeing that?

They lump the GMC/Chevy van together, the Yukon XL/Suburban together and Navigator/Expodition together. The only "trucks" listed are the K2500, Mega cab, and 2 F series (150/250). I am guessing that GVW comes into play.

 

[CBJ]

Will that changed my mind I am not getting a Veyron.

 

[IH8Rice]

Where am I not seeing that?

the Suburan/Yukon XL K2500 and the Sierra K2500 both use the same engine since they are both the 3/4ton variants.
granted the Suburban/Yukon isnt a "truck" per se but they use the same 6.0L engine

 

[Toshi]

The govt is keeping diesel-hybrid technology secret from us!

No, really, they are: http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/cerv-a-new-kind-of-army-green/?src=mv

$14 BILLION to develop this program. To think that we're cutting teachers and beat cops over a desire to show fiscal restraint while we pay for crap like this in order to kill brown people just a little more efficiently…

The CERV’s diesel-hybrid power train was jointly designed with Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies, a company in California that also works with Fisker Motors. The three-person vehicle has a cruising speed of 80 miles an hour and can climb a 60-percent grade. It is also light enough to be airlifted by the V22 Osprey aircraft.

But with a trait not commonly associated with the armed forces, it is also one of the most fuel-efficient vehicles of its kind, offering roughly 25 percent better mileage over dual-use vehicles with conventional power plants. It runs on jet propellant 8, the standard Pentagon fuel for jet aircraft, tanks and vehicles like the CERV.

 

[IH8Rice]

thats been making the car show rounds for over a year and a half now. nothing really new.
the purported 5000lb-ft of torque is the most amazing thing about it, though there has been conflicting figures

 

[jimmydean]

the Suburan/Yukon XL K2500 and the Sierra K2500 both use the same engine since they are both the 3/4ton variants.
granted the Suburban/Yukon isnt a "truck" per se but they use the same 6.0L engine

But I am guessing the Burb has a higher gvw and likely gets worse mileage because of it.

But not as bad as this:

 

[Sonic Reducer]

Hybrids do work. Whowouldathoughtit. I'd be surprised if I got above 30 mpg in similar driving in a diesel.

I get 37-40 with lots of stop and go in my diesel.

 

[Toshi]

I get 37-40 with lots of stop and go in my diesel.

NYC metro stop and go > Seattle metro stop and go . I could be wrong, though--like I said a few posts back I'll give recent VWs a chance.

 

[IH8Rice]

But I am guessing the Burb has a higher gvw and likely gets worse mileage because of it.

that could be the case.

but if i had a engine like that i could care less

 

[jimmydean]

Suck it!

The 10 Best Cities for Public Transportation
1. Portland, Oregon

Portland is widely considered one of the nation’s leaders in public transit. Its system features the Free Rail Zone--a region of downtown Portland within which light rail and streetcar rides are free all day, every day.

Fareless square FTW. I still haven't ridden WES (westside express service), but it looks very cool and covers a lot of distance with minimal stops.

http://trimet.org/wes

 

[Toshi]

Cool. I didn't realize SLC or even Denver was up there. The existence of the WES is also heartening--maybe there's hope for a low-car-diet life even outside Portland proper.

 

[buildyourown]

Suck it!

The 10 Best Cities for Public Transportation
1. Portland, Oregon


Fareless square FTW. I still haven't ridden WES (westside express service), but it looks very cool and covers a lot of distance with minimal stops.

http://trimet.org/wes

How come Seattle didn't even make the list?

Oh that's right. Anybody with a job drives their car here...

 

[SkaredShtles]

Cool. I didn't realize SLC

Not only that - if you're in SLC you can make the Civic GX work. They have the infrastructure to make it feasible. I have a mate that lives up by Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon and his commuter is the GX.

 

[Toshi]

How come Seattle didn't even make the list?

Oh that's right. Anybody with a job drives their car here...

Parts of Seattle are very friendly to non-car commuting, but if you have to cross town on a bike (ie, perpendicular to the Burke-Gilman) or cross downtown on a bus all bets are off. Things might be more interesting once the light rail links the U District and the East side… until then, no thanks.

 

[jimmydean]

Cool. I didn't realize SLC or even Denver was up there. The existence of the WES is also heartening--maybe there's hope for a low-car-diet life even outside Portland proper.

WES is pretty sweet from the pictures and reports. There is a stop about 1.5 miles from my place in Beaverton but if I take it south, then next stop is about 4 miles farther than I need to go. So it's MUCH easier to just ride my bike the 7 miles door to door than to go 4 miles out of the way plus the wait time. If there was a stop closer to 217/5 interchange, I would ride it daily.

But the lack of stops is what makes the whole idea work. From Willsonvile to Beaverton TC to downtown in 40 minutes, that's slick.

 

[Toshi]

Not only that - if you're in SLC you can make the Civic GX work. They have the infrastructure to make it feasible. I have a mate that lives up by Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon and his commuter is the GX.

Interesting. Does he fill up at home? I remember reading about how Honda killed the Phill product that allowed people to fill up at home. Doing so seemed like a boneheaded move given that they're the only OEM NGV out there.

After poking around a bit it seems as if the company behind the Phill has changed hands a few times since 2009 (with its bankruptcy again due to Honda--very odd) but now it's an Italian outfit:

http://www.myphill.it/ing/rifornimentoVeicoli.asp

I'll look a bit more into CNG later tonight, specifically how it fares compared to BEVs in terms of emissions. Although not many public CNG stations exist they're far more prevalent (afaik) than high-voltage Level 3 DC BEV recharging stations. The DOE has a locator, and here are the public ones within 25 miles of me, for instance:

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/locator/stations/

 

[SkaredShtles]

I think he fills at a station...

 

[Toshi]

A little poking around Google Scholar revealed this nice article on lifecycle energy use of gasoline, diesel, ethanol (from corn or biomass, all covered) and CNG-powered ICE vehicles.

http://www.imamu.edu.sa/topics/IT/IT 6/A Life-Cycle Comparison of Alternative Automobile Fuels.pdf

The takeaway points:

1) CNG vehicles would have roughly a 10-20% lower life cycle CO2 output than baseline gasoline vehicles.
2) Smog forming emissions are a little bit better and definitely no worse for CNG vs. gasoline: lower sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter for CNG; lower nitrogen oxides for gasoline.
3) The price of CNG before taxes is about half that of gasoline comparing energy equivalents.

Given that natural gas is an abundant resource in the US proper it's not a bad idea to power vehicles using it, similarly to how Brazil is all high on cane-ethanol-powered cars due to their local production of the same. On the other hand, CNG shares many of the packaging constraints as do electric vehicles: one has a large, 3000 or 3600 psi tank to work around, the other a large lithium ion battery pack. The Civic GX has a 6 cubic foot trunk, for instance, which is quite pitiful.

In terms of the actual vehicles you're stuck with the Civic GX if you want new (with a new-gen one just announced today along with the rest of the Civic line, in fact). Legal conversions are few and far between and focus on Ford and GM V8s, plus cost over $10,000, so basically that's a non-starter.

The Civic GX itself isn't cheap at $25,000, so is actually $1,000 more dear than the better-equipped Civic Hybrid. The non-hybrid Civic LX sedan is the closest equivalent equipment-wise, and the LX runs $18,000. On the other hand, there are Federal and state-level incentives:

Federal:

- Federal tax credit of 30% cost of refueling equipment, limited to a $1,000 credit for residential installations
- A now-expired (and unlikely to be renewed by a slash and burn Tea Party House) $4,000 Federal tax credit on the purchase of the vehicle itself

California:

- Access to California HOV lanes as a solo driver
- $1,000 towards a Phill home refueling device if one lives near LA, in the South Coast Air Quality Management District
- 10% auto insurance premium reduction from Farmer's Insurance
- Special home-refueling rates for natural gas from multiple California gas and electric utilities

Oregon:

- 25%/$750 max Oregon tax credit towards a Civic GX or a Phill

Washington:

- Civic GXs are exempt from WA state sales tax, so that's something like 9%, not bad
- Cheap yearly license fees in lieu of fuel excise taxes, which work out to just over $54/year for a Civic GX

All in all I think that the Civic GX is a hard sell now that the Federal $4k tax credit is gone. It'd be a pain in the ass to resell one, and without the credit it's quite a bit more than either the Hybrid or, especially, the comparable non-hybrid gasoline version. The draw of cheap fuel prices is certainly nice as is the domestic origin of the same, but I just don't see the GX breaking out of its fleet-use niche (+/- random oddballs like S.S.'s friend).

 

[IH8Rice]

hydraulics arent just good for lowriders.
Eaton apparently has a design for garbage and delivery trucks

Ford is working with the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power and Folsom Technologies to develop a prototype F-150 light-duty pickup truck propelled by a hydraulic hybrid powertrain.....
Instead of using batteries and electric motors, a hydraulic hybrid uses components called a reservoir and accumulator. The reservoir stores fluid that’s pressurized in the accumulator, which acts as a secondary energy source in tandem with the F-150’s internal combustion engine (a 4.6-liter V-8). The pressure is converted into energy that is sent to the rear wheels via what Li calls a “power split hydraulic hybrid architecture.”
The power split system variably combines power from the F-150’s V-8 with power from the accumulator inside a special hydraulic continuously variable transmission supplied by Folsom. The CVT adds two hydraulic pump-motors connected via a set of planetary gears, similar to the Chevy Silverado’s Two-Mode hybrid architecture which houses two electric motors inside the transmission to provide gasoline-free power as needed for efficiency.

“The combined fuel economy of the [stock] F-150 is around 16 to 18 mpg,” Li said. “By adding the CVT, we believe it will be above 20 mpg. When we add the hydraulic hybrid system, there’s the potential to reach 40 mpg or higher in urban driving. The gain is not as much on the highway, but it’s significantly better.”

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2011/02/ford-f-150-used-to-develop-40-mpg-hydraulic-hybrid-powertrain.html

 

[syadasti]

hydraulics arent just good for lowriders.
Eaton apparently has a design for garbage and delivery trucks

Yeah the EPA and UPS made a big deal about this technology 5 years ago:

http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2186467

EPA and the United Parcel Service (UPS) have developed a hydraulic hybrid delivery vehicle to explore and demonstrate the environmental benefits of the hydraulic hybrid for urban pick-up and delivery fleets. The demonstration vehicle is a 24,000 pound UPS package car, fitted with an EPA-patented full-series hydraulic hybrid drive integrated into the rear axle. The vehicle competed in the Michelin Challenge Bibendum in China with other advanced technology vehicles and received the top overall ranking among all commercial hybrid vehicles (delivery vehicles and urban buses).

Along with EPA (which worked for over 10 years with a wide variety of private and public sector organizations) and UPS, several other organizations contributed to the development of the hydraulic hybrid vehicle, including Eaton Corporation, International Truck and Engine Corporation, the U.S. Army, Morgan-Olson, the Ford Motor Company, Parker-Hannifin Corporation, Ricardo Inc., Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin.

...

When commercialized in high volume, EPA estimates that the additional cost of hydraulic hybrid technology has the potential to be about $7,000 for the UPS package car. In today’s dollars, the net lifetime savings of this technology in a typical UPS truck, which is used for 20 years, would be over $50,000. If fuel prices continue to increase faster than inflation, the lifetime savings would be even greater. The current data demonstrates that hydraulic hybrid vehicles have great potential not only for large commercial urban vehicles but also for personal vehicles, especially larger personal vehicles such as large SUVs, pickups, and vans.

http://www.epa.gov/region9/air/hydraulic-hybrid/

 

[jimmydean]

But can it hop?

 

[DaveW]

But can it hop?

Dunno about Hop, but as it's a ford I'm pretty sure it can suck.

 

[Toshi]

I didn't mention it earlier since the renderings frankly sucked, but here are in-the-flesh photos of the Nissan Esflow concept:

http://www.allcarselectric.com/pictures/1055539_2011-geneva-motor-show-nissan-esflow-concept-live-photos_gallery-1#100340896

Technical details:

* Rear-wheel drive two-seater
* Two electric motors, each driving a rear wheel (with torque vectoring!)
* Laminated lithium-ion batteries mounted low for best weight distribution
* Dramatic styling with wraparound windscreen for unobstructed visibility
* 0-100km/h in under 5 seconds
* Over 240kms on one charge

Here's an interesting idea, fixed seats with movable controls instead:

By far the heaviest components in modern cars' interiors are the steel framed, thickly upholstered and increasingly motorized seats. In ESFLOW the seats are sculpted into the rear bulkhead of the car, negating the need for a heavy frame. This of course means that they are immobile, but this is of no consequence as the fly-by-wire steering and pedals adjust electrically to the best spot to suit each individual driver's size and preferred driving position.

Finally, Nissan's description of their projected driver is amusing:

The Driver

Daniel, an ESFLOW owner, works in tech, but lives for the weekend. On Friday night after work, he gets behind the wheels of his ESFLOW which instantly links with his pocket PDA and determines the fastest route to his girlfriend's home. Finding street side parking is a synch[sic] as the ESFLOW's compact dimensions allow it to slip in to the narrowest of spaces. On Saturday he drives to a popular club to exhibit his DJ skills and his friends are impressed by his cool EV sports car.

On Sunday he drives through the mountains for leisure. ESFLOW's superb weight distribution and unobstructed view ahead enables him to effortlessly nail every apex, every time. His descent from the mountains is more relaxed and he allows the ESFLOW to overrun on the long sweeping curves, turning the potential energy he and the car gained climbing up the gradients back in to electrical energy he can use once he hits the roads around Barcelona.

As his ESFLOW sips energy in its garage Daniel prepares himself for the week ahead, batteries fully recharged.

 

[Toshi]

Note the Enertias… wow.

Also bizarre:

 

[Toshi]

Finally someone stepping up to the plate to take a swing against VW's Golf/Jetta TDI lineup:

Chevy Cruze to be offered with 2.0 VCDi diesel for 2013 model year

In Australia the 2.0 liter diesel is rated at 148 hp and 236 ft-lbs of torque, so expect similar. As with all things eco I'll believe it when I see it in the showroom with an EPA mileage sticker on it, but if the rumors are true then this can only be a good thing.

 

[Toshi]

Here's a weird-ass one for the files:

Wind Explorer

“The Wind Explorer is a vehicle that seems to come from the future. But it is already reality," said Gion. The special feature of the Wind Explorer is that it is an electric vehicle with its own mobile power supply. When the battery is empty, the pilots can recharge them via a portable wind turbine, if wind conditions allow, or via the conventional power network. It takes half an hour to erect the turbine and six-meter high telescopic mast made of bamboo. In addition to wind power, the Wind Explorer can be driven by kites. In this way, the lightweight vehicle reached speeds of around 80 kph as it crossed the states of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

The pilots left Perth on January 21, 2011. Having carried out various tests during the first 500 km, the real trip started in Albany on January 26, 2011. For the first 800km to Nullarbor Plain the Wind Explorer was driven entirely by electric power. Strong winds then enabled the pilots to use the kites. Finally, on January 31, 2011, the Wind Explorer achieved its best daily performance, covering 493 km. "It's great to see how lightweight construction and lithium-ion technology can provide a response to the problem of global warming," said Simmerer.

200 kg weight. 8 kWh of lithium, a pole with a wind turbine for use overnight… and a kite. Yeah.

These things could find acceptance when Mad Max roams the earth but not before then. While fossil fuels are still available to buy--for any price--rather than to scavenge from crashed vehicles littered across the post-apocalyptic landscape then people will not be traveling around like this, mark my words. I may be traveling around Portland city streets in something like this, mind you, but not the average bear.

 

[Toshi]

In the category of "cars-significantly-more-likely-to-see-a-showroom-floor-than-the-VW-XL1-or-Race-Tiguan":

Volvo V60 diesel PHEV

I would consider this, even with Geely now running the show.

Nothing really new afoot about this car besides the diagram and the video to warrant a new round of press releases that Volvo has been sending out in advance of the Geneva Auto Show, but the basics that were revealed a month ago are still sound: 215 hp diesel powering the front wheels, 70 hp electric motor backed up by 12 kWh of lithium powering the back, with at least a depiction of 16 amp charging capability (3 hours!) and a requisite iPhone app to track progress. 50 km electric-only range, and claimed 50 gm CO2/km emissions. 0-100 km/h in 6.9 seconds.

Note the mention of emissions-free zones and the EV mode in the video above. That reveals the target market: Europe and Asia with the CO2-based congestion pricing. I highly doubt we'll see either congestion pricing or this fabled Volvo diesel-PHEV in the United States…

Update: not coming to the States: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2011/02/2011-geneva-motor-show-volvo-to-debut-v60-diesel-plug-in-hybrid-.html

What we may see here is a new spate of non-VW diesels, however. There's that Cruze diesel I mentioned a few posts up and now there's word that Mazda will be bringing over a new cute-ute Mazda 3-based SUV called the CX-5 with a 2.2 liter diesel.

Source: http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2011/02/2012-mazda-3-gets-158-hp-sky-g-engine-on-sale-this-fall.html , with the illustration from the Mazda Minagi concept:

Driving impressions from a Mazda 6 mule with the diesel but not the mention of the CX-5 being bound for our shores:

Driving Sky-D

Mazda handed us keys to yet more Mazda 6 development mules, these ones sporting the Sky-D diesel engine. And believe us when we say that this 2.2-liter diesel is poised to make a splash when it shows up here in the U.S. in the brandy-new 2013 CX-5 cute-ute (basically a tall Mazda 3 hatchback).

Mazda benchmarked Europe's best diesels in the development of Sky-D and reckons they've got the establishment beat all around.

Torque is the calling card of a diesel, and the Sky-D delivers. In U.S.-spec guise it will churn out 310 lb-ft of torque at approximately 1,800 rpm and generate a peak of 167 horsepower at 4,500 rpm. It'll rev all the way to 5,200 rpm, which is pretty darned high for a diesel, permitting gearing that doesn't necessarily have to be super tall.

Sky-D said to return 43 mpg on the U.S. highway cycle in these cars. Mazda hasn't confirmed the existence of the CX-5, so take your best guess on its fuel economy.

Our driving route in Berlin included an unrestricted portion of the autobahn. Here, the Sky-D pulled with authority. Its powerband is broad and immediate and there was really no need to downshift to get back up to speed after a bit of light traffic materialized ahead. We could just leave it in 6th and give it wood. With little effort, we were cruising at just shy of 140 mph.

Around town the Sky-D similarly impressive. There's precious little waiting around for boost to arrive. Sure, you can force it below its boost threshold by laying into the throttle at 1,500 rpm in 4th, but even then the engine doesn't exactly go flat. In actual practice, a meaningful swell of thrust is always just a toe-dip away.

This engine doesn't feel like a boat anchor in the nose of the car since the block is aluminum. It's quite smooth, too, thanks to a counter-rotating balance shaft. You can, however, tell this is a diesel by the way it sounds. Not because it is clattery -- it isn't. Thrummy is a better description. In the diesel-averse United States, Mazda would do well to spend some more time on the Sky-D's aural signature. This diesel's got the kind of power delivery and response that will win over skeptics, so why not make it a trifecta of win?

Sounds like win, if it happens…

 

[Toshi]

One might ask why I keep updating this thread post-braindump, and the answers would be a) inertia/force of habit, and b) I think the tech in and of itself is pretty sweet.

Such an example of tech-sweetness: 2012 Fisker Karma driven: http://green.autoblog.com/2011/02/21/2012-fisker-karma-first-drive-review-road-test/

$100k, will not solve any of the world's problems , but as a technological showcase is amazing.

 

[woodsguy]

http://www.insideline.com/fisker/karma/2012/2012-fisker-karma-first-drive.html

 

[Toshi]

 

[Westy]

If they just connected the wind turbine to a electric motor it could run forever on its own wind power.

 

[IH8Rice]

alt. fuel i can get behind

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens tried to convince the world CNG was the fuel of the future, but the possibility of a Civic-heavy future excited no one. He should have started the conversation with this — the Speedriven 800-hp CNG-powered V12 Mercedes roadster.

Like Pickens, Bernie Towns is a believer in natural gas energy. He's an engineer at a natural gas company in Houston, Texas called HighMount and one day had the idea to turn his 2007 Mercedes SL600 into a drivable test-case for the fuel.

With a year's worth of tuning help from Chicago's Speedriven tuning shop, the car's now developing over 800 hp and 1,000 lb-tf of torque from the twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V12. Of course, it helps them to have a natural gas engineer to call for help.

 

[C.P.]

Click & Clack talk electric cars

A Million Electric Cars: A Big Load, but Manageable

President Obama has thrown down a gauntlet—he wants to see a million plug-in cars on the road by 2015. That, as Bill Cosby once said about his memorably large neighbor Albert, is a big load. Is the entire electric infrastructure of the United States, commonly known as the grid, going to blow to smithereens if all these new battery vehicles plug in at once?

Nah.

For one thing, they’re not going to plug in at once. I queried the Electric Power Research Institute on this, and they came back with an analogy – do you know the tall tale about the New York City sewer system flooding during the first Super Bowl commercial? The reason that never actually happened is because of a phenomenon known as “load diversity.” Everyone didn’t flush at once, and people won’t plug in at once.

But it’s still interesting to figure out the size of the load if everybody did flip the switch simultaneously. The Nissan Leaf is a 3.3-kilowatt load, so it’s simple enough to multiply that by a million and get 3.3 gigawatts, which sounds scary but is actually only 0.3 percent of the world’s installed electric capacity.

There’s a surprisingly small amount of research on this question. The 2010 “Assessment of Plug-in Electric Vehicle Integration” by a coalition of U.S. and Canadian companies, predicts that the load might be 3.7 gigawatts, or the output of three or four large power plants.

We can handle this, especially since it’s all but certain the cars will be charged not during peak times but at night, when utilities lower their rates and the grid is loaded with excess capacity. In fact, there’s a beautiful synergy with renewables, because wind power is strongest at night and right now many turbines are pumping energy into the grid that the system can’t use.

If we spread our three-gigawatt load over an eight-hour period, the load at any one time would be reduced to 819 megawatts. Stagger it over 12 hours, and only 546 new megawatts need to be found. As the eco-journalism web site Treehugger points out, “That’s nothing!” Well, it’s not nothing, but it isn’t something that will be frying the world’s transformers left and right. Utilities say they aren’t worried.

Fast charging the Mitsubishi at 480 volts. (Jim Motavalli photo)

The bigger threat, actually, is clustering. Nissan says that a huge number of its early Leaf battery electric customers are moving over from a Toyota Prius (it’s the next step up, isn’t it?). And Priuses cluster in certain states (California, Washington, Oregon, New York) and, even more in certain zip codes. Those neighborhoods are at risk of transformer burnout, especially since we lack a smart grid.

Believe it or not, those smart-looking guys in the utility control rooms really have no idea of the load beyond the local transformer level—they don’t know if you or your neighbor is plugging in a car until they send out a meter reader. That’s 1940s technology at work.

Utilities, including PG&E, are preparing for this (or at least trying to) by getting its customers to write in and identify themselves as likely EV buyers. And they’re studying the GPS coordinates of Prius owners, all in an effort to identify cluster locales and beef up the system at those choke points. It has aspects of a military campaign, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, smart meter distribution proceeds, but not quickly enough. It doesn’t help that some fringe folks are convinced that smart meters are zapping them with electromagnetic rays.

Electric cars do have challenges. They’ll be expensive to buy, at least initially, and range anxiety is a real thing, especially in the cold weather. But don’t worry about the load to the grid—we’ll be able to handle that one.

 

[IH8Rice]

the Prius+ (Prius V for NA) w/ the same ugliness

There's seating for seven occupants inside, but the multi-purpose vehicle shares a clear design language with Toyota's standard-bearing Prius. What's more, it manages a low 0.29 drag coefficient thanks to its extended roofline and carefully designed front fascia.

Equally as notable is the battery. This is the first lithium-ion battery pack to be incorporated within a non-plug-in Toyota full hybrid. Toyota has found enough room underneath the center console between the driver and the front passenger to fit the battery, which helps maximize interior space for occupants and their cargo.

As you would expect from a Prius, there are three drive modes: A zero-emission EV mode that relies on electric motor power alone, an ECO mode that maximizes efficiency and fuel economy and finally a somewhat ambitiously named POWER mode that is said to boost overall performance.

Toyota is saying that the Prius+ will be on sale in Europe in the first half of 2012, but it's coming to the U.S. around the same time in the form of the Prius V, which we previously saw at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.

 

[Toshi]

My wife actually wants a Prius v, and I think it wouldn't be a bad vehicle for her at all if she chose to go down that route: We like how Toyota HSD hybrids drive in general, more rear seat legroom and a non-split rear window are both nice things (although the normal Prius has 36" of rear legroom already), it'll have the requisite tech gadgets available and then some (LED headlamps are particularly cool), and it's proven to be reliable.