150 MPG Hybrid SUV Company Claims it is Being Muzzled

[bananas]

Joe Romm reviewed this car earlier this year: link

http://gas2.org/2008/11/09/150-mpg-hybrid-suv-company-claims-it-is-being-muzzled/

“150 MPG” Hybrid SUV Company Claims it is Being “Muzzled”
Written by Nick Chambers
Published on November 9th, 2008 15 Commentsin Fuel economy, Plug-in hybrid EVs

Just weeks before the 2008 LA Auto Show, hybrid car and powertrain maker AFS Trinity is pulling out after saying that show management “muzzled” them by disallowing claims that their highly modified Saturn Vue plug-in hybrids can achieve 150 mpg.

In a statement, AFS Trinity said that “carmakers continue to seek tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, ostensibly to develop fuel-efficient vehicle technologies, but their conduct is evidence they are reluctant to embrace solutions they didn’t invent.”

<snip>

EPA has been struggling with how to rate the fuel economy of plug-in hybrids — the most recent being a spat between EPA and GM about how to rate the upcoming Chevy Volt. So, for the LA Auto Show management to claim that AFS Trinity is not using approved EPA methods to estimate fuel economy, they’re kind of off base, because even the EPA doesn’t really know how to rate fuel economy with some of the new alternative powered vehicles.

AFS Trinity says they will be exhibiting their extreme hybrids elsewhere in downtown LA during the auto show. I’ll be sure to go check their cars out while I’m down there to see what all the hoopla’s about.

[LiberalFighter]

1. Why not include how much electricity would be needed to recharge the battery per day.

The current annual cost for using the electricity based on city and hwy miles. And how much gas would be expended daily, monthly and annually?

[geckosfeet]

3. Fairly simple to calculate yearly cost to operate given a fixed cost

per gallon, kilo watt and yearly mileage.

Point being that they could easily standardize. Lot of smart engineers and scientists working for car manufacturers. But my guess is that big oil is putting the kibosh on them.

[madrchsod]

2. one has to have the income to purchase a suv like this

since gasoline/ethanol or diesel engines are far cheaper to produce they will be with us for years to come.

the mileage standards are really a guideline and it depends on how the vehicle is maintained and driven. the government reluctance on this issue is stupid....

[Festivito]

4. Not buying it. One can get 200mpg given certain silly conditions.

Having worked at an auto company and being good friends with engineers at various levels up to today I do not believe they can make a car do 150mpg yet. There'd be a lot of lying and a conspiracy too big even for me.

If they only check the mileage while going downhill and then say it may not represent normal driving, well, ahem, yes they can.

Or, if they charge its batteries each night and don't count the cost charging saying that mileage calculations are not yet standardized and they only test it for a 40 mile day, well, yes they can.

But, telling people they are being squelched, is at times priceless advertising.

Between the conspiracy of oil companies wanting us to expend too much oil buying the best ideas and keeping them secret, and the conspiracy of inventors hoping to garner investors or ultra-high prices on their ideas, the truth? We may never know.

[DCKit]

5. I'd believe the conspiracy theories less if Chevy wasn't having the same issues with the Volt.

The (Bush) EPA is arguing hard against any claims of higher mileage. Not offering a solution or a new standard method, of course, just arguing.

[Festivito]

7. And, it might not be higher mileage.

When you consider the electrical cost, it will be close to a Hybrid, and it might be even less than the Hybrid since it incorporates more long term electrical storage.

But, HOW do you calculate mileage when the system is no longer self contained? Then there are other questions. Will everybody recharge overnight? No. What percentage? Should consideration be made for areas with coal, oil, or nuclear generation?

The Hybrid has extra weight because of the recovery system. There can be smaller diesel engines doing a better job at real mileage. If we went from semaphores to roundabouts we might not need the Hybrid recovery system as much and a plain, light engine, light body would out perform a Hybrid.

[kristopher]

6. DCKit is right

And it is worth expanding. This is especially important for series drive hybrids like the Volt, not so much for the parallel drive hybrids like the Prius.

The average person drives about 30 miles a day. Let's say you do all of that driving plus a little more entirely on home provided battery electric, then use the back up gasoline powered generator for your driving over that average daily amount. If you total the miles driven over the course of a year and divide that by the amount of gasoline used, you'll probably be somewhere between 100-150mpg.

Of course that isn't a complete accounting of the money spent on fuel since it doesn't count the cost of electricity you get from the grid, which would probably run about $1 per day in this scenario.

[Festivito]

8. That's what I was saying. /nt

[kristopher]

9. No it isn't "what you were saying"; not at all.

The mileage claim of 100-150 mpg is legitimate and it doesn't require "silly circumstances". The improvement is an actual efficiency gain achieved by the move to electric drive. Comparisons are best made using a standard metric (which looks like it will eventually be miles per kilowatt-hour) but the basis for such calculations are meaningless to consumers and therefore presently of less use than an MPG measurement such as I described.
Gasoline usage can be converted to miles/kwh fairly easily, and of course kwh is the standard way to quantify electricity consumption.

[phantom power]

10. If consumers prefer mpg, there are a couple other conversions...

For instance, you could convert the electricity portion of the energy to gallons-of-gasoline equivalent. Then all the energy, electricity plus fuel, is in the familiar mpg units.

Another conversion of interest is dollars-per-mile. That's more volatile, since it depends on changing prices of fuel and/or electricity.

[Massacure]

12. Why not just use megajoules per mile?

Actually the joule is metric. Perhaps calories would be better? :shrug:

[phantom power]

13. No reason, except familiarity...

kind of like how CFLs are labeled with "incandescent watt equivalents" instead of just lumens.

[Festivito]

11. Charge with home power, the cost of gallons/KWhr is not clear.

We don't use gas, generally, for large scale generation.

My prior point was that this car gets additional energy from home charging. The subsequent calculation of mpg without including that is silly.

The cost of a kWhr in gas, oil product, or oil barrel would make it comparable to mpg stated on most cars.

Miles per barrel would be an interesting calculation to make taking 25-75% efficiency of gas combustion engines, I don't know efficiency of producing gas and other products from a barrel of oil, and then comparing miles per barrel for a hybrid to miles per barrel for a 90% efficient electric motor driven car after reducing efficiencies from generation and transporting the kWs.

That would compare apples to apples, and one could then put a mpg sticker equivalent on the electric car.

[kristopher]

15. I think you are mixing two things up

1. What the experts know and 2. what the public wants to know.

It is good you ask these questions, BTW. The more people who understand what is going on, the better.

Take the time to look up a document by ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE
3420 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304-1338 ▪ PO Box 10412, Palo Alto, California 94303-0813 ▪ USA
800.313.3774 ▪ 650.855.2121 ▪ [e-mail] ▪ www.epri.com

Title:
Regional Economic Benefits from Electric Transportation:
Case Study of the Cleveland, Ohio
Metropolitan Statistical Area
1012466
Technical Update, December 2006



EPRI Project Manager
R. Graham


ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the economic impacts due to electric drive vehicle (EDVs) market
penetration in the Cleveland metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Specifically, the study
examines the economic impacts due to petroleum displacement and decreased pollution control
compliance costs for local industry. The study applies a regional input-out put analysis to
develop regional economic impact multipliers (REIMs) appropriate for EDV evaluation. These
REIMs are integrated into a spreadsheet based Cleveland EDV Economic Impact Model
(CEEIM). This study also provides an illustrative example using CEEIM, which demonstrates
that significant regional economic benefits can be gained by through large-scale EDV use in
urban areas.

I'm afraid I don't have a link, just a copy I downloaded a while back from Epri.


The reason I suggest this is to give you an idea of the complexity of a full economic analysis. The alternatives offered in the past few posts have been submitted with an idea that the consumer needs an easy way go make comparative decisions on which vehicle will suit their driving needs best. They weren't intended to be a complete comparison of the economics of the switch to EV. That seems to be more in the line of what you are interested in.

This document is one of many that are out there; some incline more towards the specific energy per mile variations in drivetrains and systems. You can find those if you look. The point is, we are well beyond the point of speculation, there is considerable hard data to guide your choices if you care to look.

BTW, the typical efficiency of an internal combustion engine car on the road today is around 12%, not 25-75%; not even close.
You are also mixing the boundaries of your questions, you seem to want to include the coal plant in the EV, but not the location, extraction, transportation and distillation of the petroleum.

Good luck, this is way beyond the scope of what I considered the point of the thread, but you'll learn a great deal.

[Nihil]

16. I agree with you.

> Charge with home power, the cost of gallons/KWhr is not clear.

I found it much easier to assess my own home energy use when our gas
company started printing the kWh equivalent of the gas used rather than
just the volume. Yes, the information was technically available to me
before (as in the calorific value of the gas, the volume used and the
conversion rates) but having it provided made life a lot easier.

The MPG rating of plug-in hybrid and pure-electric cars should be provided
using an energy equivalence to standard unleaded petrol otherwise you are
just taking a manufacturer's hand-wave for a comparative figure (or rather
their marketing department's assessment of how gullible the target buyer is).

:hi:

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CRF450]

17. Why not just go with an average mpg estimate when and ONLY when the engine is running?

That'd make more sense to me, that number will go up higher exponentially when not driving enough to use the engine much.