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It's not 34 mph on the Prius it is about 42 mph that the engine automatically kicks on.
quote comment
Perhaps there are other Prius conversion kits, but the one that I was referring to was the one by A123 Hymotion. According to the technical specialists (verified with two), over 34mph is when the gas part kicks in.
Hey... You're both right!
Above 34 mph the ICE must spin. That's a physical constraint of the HSD. If the ICE were not spinning and you were going faster... when you add spark you'd FEEL that thing trying to get up to speed, and there would be an unacceptable delay in power delivery. But anyway... spinning the gas motor and actually sparking the gas motor are two different things. It has to be spun above 34, but it does not need spark.
You can easily drive the thing at 65mph without the ICE "running." You just go down a hilll with your foot off the gas. The ICE spins, but there is no spark.
Anyway... for all intents and purposes, we assume that above 34 mph, that the ICE is at least part of the motoring process.
Too much complication. Get an EV. ;)
Drive the car off a cliff and you can achieve 9.8 meters/second without the ICE or the battery! :)
Good use for a gas car. ;)
Did anyone catch the name of the canadian battery company Bricklin spoke of in the #13 podcast? He says he's using their batteries because for less than half the weight one gets the same watt/hours. It's about 12 mins into the podcast and the audio quality is bad and it sounds something like "Electro Via" but I can't find such a company that makes batteries in Canada.
thanks for the help
Ah, I actually heard the podcast now...
The Prius is a gas car first and foremost. Yes, it can go short distances on battery power, but normally the gas engine kicks in WAY before 34 mph.... doesn't NEED to spin before that. After that it does need to spin, but still doesn't need to "run" with gas and spark. If you add more battery you can operate the car normally at much higher speeds without burning gas. The ICE will spin, but it does not need to run. Yeah, it can be confusing, but there you go. You MUST spin the ICE above 34mph. But you don't need to burn any gas if you have enough battery to keep pushing the whole thing.
The car is NOT designed to be an EV though!
EV1 -
"GM lost a billion dollars, and there was no demand for it."
How could they NOT lose money without marketing the dang thing? How much did GM lose on the SST? Did they recall all those truck/car things and crush them? Tell the world that nobody wanted to buy the cars? Nope, they dropped the price and could barely give them away. They lost a huge amount on those cars that sat on the lot for MONTHS... YEARS. The EV1, on the other hand, was NEVER available for even a test drive. There were none on the lot. GM's official claim (to prove that nobody wanted the EV1) is that they could "only sell 800 of them." Missing in this fact is that they only made 800 of them available! Does that sound like they were being honest about the situation?
They may have lost less if they fulfilled the waiting list (I'm still on it, BTW, along with countless thousands of others). And they may have MADE money if they truly wanted to make the cars, and made a go of it into mass production. And one final question: How much have they "lost" on Fuel Cells already without really putting ANY of them in private hands? Has this program been called a disaster? This program that they say they WANT to do? Their demonstration FCV's are still costing them a million bucks each to build. And that doesn't count the R&D. At least the failed EV1 could be driven by mere mortals. Could be fueled anywhere. And gosh, the drivers - every damn one of them - loved the cars.
Do you have any idea how hard the EV1 was to lease? How many people (me, for example) were turned away? Yea, we offered a million dollars to buy the used cars back. Instead, poor money-losing GM decided to pay several thousand dollars to dismantle and crush (almost) every one of them. A million might not seem like much, but isn't it better than yet another negative amount on the books? I'm not so good at math, so maybe you guys can worry that one out for me.
I get a bit passionate about this stuff, and am trying to stay out of the politics. Tough to listen to you guys give GM a get out of jail free card because the poor guys "lost" a billion dollars by throwing the program away themselves. They spent money to STOP the program that they were leading! They sued the state of CA to end the ZEV mandate - at the same time they pretended to be "selling" the cars. How exactly do you determine the market for a car you are desperately trying to keep off the road? The whole thing looks a lot different when you experienced it first hand. I can't count the number of times that GM lied to me about the EV1 program. And I was their customer.
Ahhh, the old "Who killed the EV" mystery. I actually said, "apparently the demand was not there". In my business, we may have a handful of customers that scream for a new software feature, but because of the work and costs involved, it is just not enough demand to implement. That was the kind of demand I was referring to.
I am actually working on an entire blog about proving/debunking these accusations about the EV-1 (and other EVs of the time). I am not sure I will be any more successful at discovering facts and truth than others before me, but it will be a fun side project. For now, let's just say I agree with producers of the film in that there is enough blame to go around.
"cogito" asked about the name of the Canadian battery company Bricklin mentioned. Answer: http://www.electrovaya.com
Bo/Ryan, I enjoy listening to you Podcast over the internet. Mr. Bricklin does have a fantastic idea relative to supplying sub-systems like low power air conditioning systems etc. I do hope he is successful. If he can get the Aptera and the Phoenix and his own cars in the system it would be great. His comments on the Canadian Battery was very interesting. But my bet is on the GM VOLT. I intend to purchase an VOLT as soon as I can.
I think GM has taken a lot of heat form “Who Killed the Electric Car” at the time the world was not thinking of global warming and we had not fought a war over oil and have oil got above $4 per gallon. Hind sight is always 20/20.
I think GM is doing great. I just hope they keep the battery pack sub-system open form new technology as it evolves.
Tony O’Neil
Retired NASA Mission Manager
thanks Ryan.
> Ahhh, the old "Who killed the EV" mystery.
No, I'm not really addressing that. There IS plenty of blame to go around. In fact, if I were asked for my take, I give public apathy a pretty big pile. I was just pointing out GM's role, and some of their untruths about this matter.... and pointing out how the scary-sounding $1 billion may not be as big a deal as it sounds.
> I actually said, "apparently the demand was not there".
Yes, I did paraphrase. And I do understand your take on demand of any product - that a few enthusiastic customers does not a market make. You still can make no determination of "demand" or "market" for a vehicle that was never marketed, however. At the time, very few people knew that they *should* be demanding this product - so it was quite easy to show a lack of demand, if that was your goal. Look at ads for SUVs from five years ago. THAT is marketing... It is good for your manhood. You can drive to unsolied areas with an attentive beautiful woman. Convince people who have absolutely NO need for an SUV that they're sissies if they instead choose a sedan or minivan. The EV1 was marketed as a toaster oven that barely survived a nuclear winter. Have you seen the few ads that existed? They didn't even tell potential customers where to buy the cars. And calling the phone number listed in the ad was answered by people who also could not tell you where to buy the cars. I know this not because I'm trying to make GM look bad - I know this because I lived it. GM doesn't need my help.
Much of my comment was on the "billion dollars" that you mentioned several times... with no small amount of emphasis. A BILLION dollars! You may be interested to know that you are behind the times on that figure. It started as $800,000 just before the plug was pulled. Then a few months after the EV1 program was killed, I guess they decided to round up to $1billion. Easier to say and write. Then, in the past two years, the official word from GM (from Lutz et al) is that the EV1 program cost them $2billion. This thing is getting more expensive the further we get from it. It sounds like it is STILL costing them money! And as the price keeps going up, I have yet to see mentioned how much of that technology - that the EV1 introduced - was amortized over MANY models of subsequent gasoline cars - representing millions of cars sold. But apparently the EV1 program is saddled with that big loss, and it is just free R&D for the models that used the tech later (I'm speaking of electric brakes, electric HVAC, drive-by-wire, etc). The EV1 program provided GM with many patents that are still in use on today's gasoline cars.
And you are aware that a "simple" face-lift of an existing car model often costs car companies more than a billion dollars, right? An entire electric car program starting from scratch for the same (or less?)... with 1000 cars produced!? Freaking bargain.
> I am actually working on an entire blog about proving/debunking these accusations about the EV-1 (and other EVs of the time). I am not sure I will be any more successful at discovering facts and truth than others before me.
I do wonder what your research will involve. Will any of it consist of speaking with the people (many interviewed in the film, and one typing right here) who lived through the experience? I'm wondering why anybody is having trouble discovering the truths and facts in this matter. I'm often concerned about people who look for "facts and truth" from third-parties... or "interested parties" - while seeming to ignore the first-hand accounts of the people involved. I can't even count the number of times that I have been told that my account of the situation is wrong - by people who have heard or read something that differs from my direct experience. I know what GM said. I know what they're saying now. I also know what actually happened. And there is NO question that they lost money. Nobody can make money on a handful of new-tech cars that never makes it to mass production.
"Drive the car off a cliff and you can achieve 9.8 meters/second without the ICE or the battery! :)"
Bo,
If you drive the car off a cliff, you will accelerate at 9.8 meter/second/second. Your velocity will vary over time.
John C. Briggs
GM loses a billion and some jerk thinks its not important. A BILLION dollars. Question. Does Warren Buffett ever lose a Billion dollars? If he did. What do you think his shareholders would do to him? After they raked him over the coals that is? Such sanctimonious drivel from so many people sitting in high places. So the solution was to continue losing billions? How long do you think investors put up with such nonsense? Frankly, I can care less about defending GM. They've made huge mistakes. All the car companies have in the past. But to blow off a Billion dollars like it is meaningless to Investors that make decisions is to be absolutely delusional or uninformed about how the Free Market system works, how shareholders and investors rights must be protected and adhered to. This is not just about GM. It is as much about their investors as well at that time. The biggest mistake they made was to drop the program altogether. This time around, they should have immediately seen the writing on the wall come 9/11 with war on the horizon. They should have been pursuing EV at least in research for quite sometime and could have been at the forefront with Toyota. But that is the great thing about having Japan, South Korea and Europe all competing. We now live in a world today with more free trade. GM, Ford will fail like they should if they cannot keep up with the competition. So now they've lost more billions due to lack of vision and preperation. I put their poor performance up to lack of good managment and leadership. Frankly anyone still standing as leaders of that company thru this disaster should be fired. New leadership hired for any holdovers from both failures. It will still be many years before we have $12,000 cars that are all EV and dependable in the market place. For now, hybrids are the way to go until battery prices come down. How much does a Prius cost? How many can afford it? The energy market forces will determine how fast EV wins over the market in transportation. And what everyone seems to forget is that oil can plummet again. If it does, watch out. People will go for the cheapest alternatives and they have every single right to do so in a free society. Fortunately, this time around I think enough progress is being made to compete on the horizon against oil when it does drop. Other than that, blame GM all you like. But it was not some conspiracy. It was just failed leadership then and now and the investors wanted to stop the bleeding.
So his device will use energy from the engine to split water into hydrogen and oxygen then inject the hydrogen back into the engine for a net energy gain?Oh I am worried with my Mercedes! Will it affect my mercedes parts?
