On the currently available Chevy Tahoe Hybrid and GMC Yukon Hybrid, the HVAC (Heat, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) unit is purely electrical. Expect to see that on most hybrids offered by GM and other companies going forward.
Peace,
James
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Hybrid Technology - Discussion
- Thread starter AmazingGracePlayer
- Start date
On the currently available Chevy Tahoe Hybrid and GMC Yukon Hybrid, the HVAC (Heat, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) unit is purely electrical. Expect to see that on most hybrids offered by GM and other companies going forward.
Peace,
James
Assuming you have enough battery capacity. The more you put your foot in it, the faster you exhaust your battery state of charge. Nothing like being 80 miles from home with 55 miles worth of charge left cause you were slammin' it.
Peace,
James
or a vespa
too bad i cant transport my 4x12 rig, 2 instrument cases, and a huge pedalboard almost the size of a guitar case, on a motorcycle...and the occasional transporting of the ole upright bass..
X
X Wolf
Guest
Thank you for pointing that out. I was quoting the description of the Chevy Volt as a PHEV from many websites such as "Hybrid Vehicles" If PHEV is a technical misnomer for the Volt then I stand corrected. The Chevy site does of course describe it as an "Extended Range Electric Vehicle".
George
Cool. I wasn't trying to make this a "gotcha" moment. Hope i didn't come off that way. A lot of people do try to characterize it as a hybrid, so I'm no surprised if you read somewhere that it is referred to as one. It is very much an electric vehicle.
Look at it this way...The EV-1 was a pure electric vehicle. The single biggest problem with it (other than cost) was the range. If you drove conservatively you could get about 200 miles. Which meant you couldn't go more than 100 miles away from home unless you KNEW of somewhere that you could get a recharge. The EV-1 had to use a very special induction charger with a special plug in device.
The Volt has a more traditional plug-in arrangement and doesn't need a special charger. And then there's the on-board generator, or "Range Extender". The gasoline or diesel engine in the vehicle is there for the sole purpose of charging the battery, to make certain you never have issues with figuring out how far you can go before you find your next charge.
Peace,
James
My 2c:
Until the cost of hybrids come down, or gas gets WAY more expensive (like $10/gal), it's simply cheaper to get a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Nissan Versa, or even a Chevy Aveo. Even though they get worse gas mileage than a Prius or Civic hybrid, they are all at least $7,000 cheaper to purchase. If you do the math, you will have to drive the hybrid 15,000/yr for 7-10 years before you make up the price difference.
Now, if you drive >30,000/yr, it might be worthwhile to get the hybrid. But then you also have to consider the expense of maintenance on the hybrid systems, which are significantly more complicated and expensive than a standard drivetrain.
Until the cost of hybrids come down, or gas gets WAY more expensive (like $10/gal), it's simply cheaper to get a Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Nissan Versa, or even a Chevy Aveo. Even though they get worse gas mileage than a Prius or Civic hybrid, they are all at least $7,000 cheaper to purchase. If you do the math, you will have to drive the hybrid 15,000/yr for 7-10 years before you make up the price difference.
Now, if you drive >30,000/yr, it might be worthwhile to get the hybrid. But then you also have to consider the expense of maintenance on the hybrid systems, which are significantly more complicated and expensive than a standard drivetrain.
Actually the hybrid may make more sense if you drive less, not more miles, due to the fact that current hybrids shine most in stop-and-go city traffic, where even the most fuel efficient ICE-only cars struggle.
The type of vehicle you want depends on the type of driving you do. Small plug in electric cars are an excellent choice for city commutes while hybrids make a lot of sense for larger vehicles. Hydrogen requires a lot of on-board space to store so isn't practical for small vehicles but can be a great idea for trucks or buses.
My own personal taste is for large displacement internal combustion engines directly driving the rear wheels so I hope that I'll always be able to drive a traditional car. I do like alcohol as a fuel, though, and it would be nice if the technology to create ethanol from cellulose would progress a little faster.
My own personal taste is for large displacement internal combustion engines directly driving the rear wheels so I hope that I'll always be able to drive a traditional car. I do like alcohol as a fuel, though, and it would be nice if the technology to create ethanol from cellulose would progress a little faster.
Honda seems to not agree with the part of your statement outlined in BLUE. They have discontinued their Accord Hybrid, and anything larger than a Civic will probably get a diesel, provided they can maintain cerification with increasingly difficult emissions regulations. Diesels make the most sense for significant amounts of highway driving, or for moving lareger masses, whether it's a big car or a truck that's towing or hauling stuff.
I think cellulosic ethanol is getting very close. There are a couple companies working on making ethanol from everything from corn husks (as opposed to the edible parts) to discarded tires. The cool thing about ethanol is you don't pay any more for a vehicle to have ethanol capability. If you buy a FlexFuel capable vehicle, you can fill it with everyday gas, or you can fill it with E85 (85% ethanol). So you can make your decisions from tank to tank, depending on the price of E85 vs regular gas. No $3 - 7,000 hybrid system. No $2 - 5,000 diesel engine option (that can only use diesel orr in some cases bio diesel).
And since E85 is only 15% gasoline, it is less subject to wild pric swings based on the cost of a barrel of oil.
On the flip side, since E85 is not yet widely available, gas station owners can pretty much charge what they want for it. Also, you get about 20 - 25% less mpg on a gallon of E85 compared to a gallon of gas. Of course if the cost of E85 is 30% less than the cost of regular gas, you're still money ahead.
Peace,
James
It's widely available in cities and there's several stations that carry it within a few miles of my house.
Flexible fuel vehicles are OK for the convenience, but to be truly efficient at burning alcohol, they should be optimized by raising the compression ratio in the combustion chamber over what gasoline can take (if gasoline is around 9:1 alcohol can tolerate about 13:1 CR). This will help offset the lower fuel economy inherent in alcohol.
I converted my '78 Mercedes to run on alcohol with a programmable electronic fuel injection and learned a lot about engine management in the process.
My next car will be a 4 cylinder Chevrolet. You won't see me buying something electric or hybrid in the next five years or more.
It won't, because the $/mile of the hybrid will be significantly higher. The only way to make the hybrid worth the $7,000 price difference is to drive it for WAY more miles, or to drive it for a LONG time.
Here's the data from Fueleconomy.gov
Prius Yaris
MSRP $21500 $11,500
mpg cty 48 29
mpg hwy 45 36
composite 46 32
monthly $405 $217
monthly gas $110.67 $159.67
Total: $515.67 $376.67
"Based on 45% highway driving, 55% city driving, 15000 miles/year and Reg.: $4.08 per gallon"
EDIT: sorry for the messed up table, but you can get the point. The Prius costs WAY more to operate every month. Even at 100% city driving, it will still cost significantly more, just for fuel. Then you add in extra $$$ for insuring a car worth $10,000 more, not to mention what happens when that warranty runs out!
When adjusted for 100% city driving, only 5000mi/year, it's:
$35/58 gas per month
Meaning the Prius will still cost $440/mo and the Yaris will only cost $275/mo
i have been looking at the yaris and mazda 3's.. but this isn't until i pay off my Xterra, which i rarely use anyway..
I'm going to guess that you live in Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisonsin, or one of the Dakotas. Those are the states that have wholeheartedly embraced E85. There are currently only 1,200 stations in the US that offer E85, compared to tens of thousands of gas stations. And then they tend to have only one or two pumps delivering E85.
Agreed, but that is the point of FlexFuel vehicles. They have fuel quality sensors that calculate the % ethanol in your tank and then adjust the spark delivery and compression ratio to optimize your burn rate. For example, if you fill up on regular gas, then drive down to about half a tank, then fill up with E85, your sensor will detect that your tank is basically E47.5 or something near that (in most places "regular" is E10) and adjust the burn conditions to deal with that. They are not as efficient as vehicles calibrated to burn only alcohol, but they are pretty close and can adjust to mixtures all the way from 0% ethanol to 85% ethanol. If you convert your car for most efficient ethanol burn, then you are probably also making it very inefficient for burning gas. Might be fine if you're in a location that has E85 readily available, but cross country trips could be a bit stressful.
Does it run only on alcohol or does your conversion also allow it to run on gasoline and mixtures in between?
I saw an electric powered car run a 9 second 1/4 mile with a top speed of about 150mph on TV just the other day... so you can get some pretty impressive performance if you want it.
I live in Illinois and (without going into the politics of the situation
) I'm aware that E85 is tougher to get outside of the Midwest.The sensors allow the engine to recalibrate for the different air/fuel ratios between alcohol and gasoline (and any blend of the two) as well as altering spark timing but (as far as I know) the vehicle cannot adjust the mechanical compression ratio and this makes flex fuel vehicles inefficient at burning alcohol because the engine is limited by the lower compression ratio determined by gasoline relative to alcohol.
I use the MegasuirtII controller and it provides for programmable fuel and spark maps for any spark controlled internal combustion engine regardless of type of fuel- gasoline, ethanol, methanol, propane, hydrogen injection etc... Just not diesel.
However, since there is no fuel sensor, I need to make sure that I know exactly what's in the tank and would need to use a laptop computer to interface with the controller in the dashboard to load a new fuel and spark map every time I switched fuels. This only takes a minute (theoretically) but in reality, since the maps are worked out by the end user (me) by trial and error this naturally creates some potential problems such as inefficiencies or even engine damage. At any rate, it's certainly not a casual modification and needless to say it's not my daily driver and is more of a fun/learning project for me.
tuning software
Megasquirt EFI
http://www.megamanual.com/index.html
Actually, on the highway, hybrids and diesels get about the same mileage. I recently did a cross-country marathon drive with a Honda Civic hybrid, a Prius, and a euro-spec Honda Civic diesel. We had multiple drivers switching between the cars, from New York to San Francisco. All three achieved 55-60 mpg. The diesel falls down on price, though. It gets similar mileage, but with 20% higher fuel cost.
Hybrids that can run electric-only at low speeds, like the Prius can, will destroy anything else in city driving.
And this EPA mileage list doesn't seem to mention any diesels: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bestworst.shtml
I have nothing against diesels. I would love to own one. But they're not a magic bullet any more than hybrids are.
