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September 2008 Posts
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OFF TOPIC
Does anyone think this Hymotion upgrade package is a good deal? We are talking about $10,000 for a 5 KWH battery pack. Since the Prius is a parallel hybrid, it cannot have an electric only mode, but if it did, I wonder how long it would be. The Volt is supposed to get 40 miles on its 16 KWH battery, so let's estimate the fictional Prius electronic-only range.
40 miles * 5KWH/16KWH = 12.5 miles.
So $10,000 to add the equivalent of 12.5 miles electric only range to your Prius. If we did that every day that would be 4,563 miles of electric per year. The Prius easily gets 45MPG, so this might save the equivalent of 101 gallons of gasoline per year. At $4 per gallon that is $405 per year in the gallon saved.
It would take 24 years for the system to pay for itself assuming that the electricity was free!!! Why would anyone do this?
quote comment add new comment
Follow up to Off-topic assessment of Prius addon:
John:
I agree with your assessment. My comment can lead to an evcast topic. One problem my Prius has is getting up a long steep gravel driveway. Yes the wheels slip and then stop. The over torque protection kicks in. To counter the problem I back up my driveway. The wheels slip less because of the weight distribution. Quess what...it primary backs up in electric mode. By the time I have backed up my 50 yard driveway the batteries are depleted.
So obviously the prius gets long battery life by barerly taxing the batteries.
EV Cast Kicks A!!!!
Re: OFF TOPIC
John - Thanks for your rough estimates. I've been playing around with similar figures, trying to rationalize going this route to get myself into a plug-in Prius (and I don't currently own a Prius). Alas, even if I were to find a used Prius for what I would consider to be a reasonable price (~$18K), spending the additional $10K for the conversion doesn't seem worth it.
As Bo pointed out on the Sept. 2 EVcast, I thinks it's fair to also put a value on doing the right thing and reducing my carbon output. So I wouldn't really mind that much if the payback period on the conversion were, say 10-12 years or so, but 24+ years seems like too much of a premium to pay. Guess I'll have to sit tight a while longer.
Some of this environmental stuff just becomes rediculous.
Personally, I purchased solar panels for my house for $26,000 ($19,000 after rebates). My best estimates are that they will pay for themselves in 14 years!!! That is a long time, so is it crazy?
Once nice thing about the solar panels is that they have a life expectancy of 25 years. So perhaps after 14 years, I will be getting "free" electricity. So this may still be a reasonable deal. Ask me again in 14 years.
But a car probably has a life expectance of 8 to 15 years. So long-term paybacks seem like a bad idea.
Perhaps "doing the right thing" makes more sense with solar panels than with hybrid conversions. For that matter, "doing the right thing" might be buying an energy efficient refrigerator or unplugging the second refrigerator.
Now for people that have the money, I have no problem with things like a $10,000 hymotion system. They didn't really need the second home theatre system anyway. But for those of us not in that income class, we need to proceed more slowly.
Ramdom thoughts today...
Cell phones and fuel tanks a danger? I think not! See the Mythbusters episode on this;-)
Tesla is a Lotus Elise GREATLY modified
Florida is indeed the "The Sunshine State" - California is "The Golden State" - and this is Paul, from the "Lone Star State;-)"
BS's take on recycling was BS. I am watching a project outside of my office window, they are digging the trash out of a closed landfill. The property is so valuable that they will spend the millions to cleanup an old landfill.
What's the point? Many folks including P and T have the false assumption that trash goes into a landfill and then disappears. It does not. It is waiting for future generations to deal with it again, especially the hazardous waste. It is better to recycle the waste in the first place.
Another EV Forum really hammers the point that the RAV-EV batteries get 120 miles per charge, so why ten years later can't we expect toyota or GM to use the same NiMH batteries and then get 100 miles on a charge with a pluggin Prius or Volt?
What is your answer to the question?
Rod, No doubt recycling makes environmental (and often financial) sense.
Regarding the RAV-4 EV, it is clearly a good reference point for what is possible. Firstly, the official EPA range is listed at 125 miles city and 100 miles highway. So the claims of 120 miles seem reasonable.
The physics have not changed since 2003, so clearly they can clearly build them today (except for the fact that Panasonic decided not to build the batteries anymore).
It leads me to wonder about the cost of these battery packs. It would be nice to get a good estimate of the cost of the pack. The pack in the RAV4 weighs 1014 pounds. Currently Nickel is $8/pound for the raw material. This would be $8112 for the raw material. I know the battery isn't 100% Nickel, but it is possible that the other material are of similar cost per pound. Let's just guess that the raw materials are $10,000.
I would estimate that the price of the battery would be about double the raw materials cost. So Toyota's cost for the battery would be about $20,000. But Toyota needs to make a profit, so let's add 30% on top of that price. So we have $26,000 that Toyota could sell the battery for.
Now a complete gas powered RAV-4 is priced at about $21,000. To convert that to an EV, you get rid of a gas engine (savings) but have to put in an electric motor, electric AC, electric steering, etc. So let's call that a wash. So we still have to spend $21,000 for the RAV-4 EV without the battery.
That puts the grand total at $47,000 for the RAV-4 EV. Given what we have seen about EVs, this price seems to be about right. So as long as Toyota can find about 40,000 people per year willing to speed $47,000 for the RAV-4 EV, then Toyota could have a business on their hands.
Anyone willing to guess if there are that many people willing to spend so much to get a car with 100 to 125 mile range?
