Why don’t auto manufacturers add plugs to their hybrid vehicles? Some have claimed it’s because they are afraid it would confuse consumers. How dumb do they think we are?
We’re told they are on the way. They’ll give us 100+mpg. See this article in Technology Review. We’re told that they aren’t yet competitive because of the high cost of more advanced batteries. As in this article in RewableEnergyAccess.com. But why wait five or ten years? Why not put plugs on all new hybrids? Are they really going to tell us that plugging in a current hybrid won’t work? It might not give us enough to make our entire commute, but does that mean it’s not worth doing at all?
There’s a group at the Electric Auto Association – Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle, or www.eaa-phev.org, where they have instructions on how to convert a Prius into a plug-enabled hybrid. (NOTE: This is something that should be undertaken only be people who are familiar with the technology.) These folks claim they can convert a hybrid for Prius for about $4000 and give it the 100+mpg (plug electricity) that is promised in five or ten years by the big auto manufacturers.
There are some downsides to making such a conversion. Right now, the conversion uses lead-acid batteries, which are heavy, adding 300lbs to the weight of the Prius. That will affect handling. The batteries will need replacing in only a couple years, since lead-acid can only handle 300-400 deep recharge cycles. Also, the lead-acid batteries don’t do so well when it’s cold outside, making this kind of conversion a better plan for someone in Florida than in Massachusetts.
There are other problems, too. It’s likely this will void your warranty.
Right now, this kind of conversion will extend your electric-only range by ten miles at a cost of about .22 – .24 cents per electric mile.
So making your own changes is expensive and not something to be undertaken by the faint-of-heart or mechanically challenged.
Here’s my question: Is there no advantage to simply being able to plug in your hybrid each night when you park it? True, it might not be a huge breakthrough, but if it gave everyone driving a hybrid a few extra miles on a tank of gas, the savings would add up. We need the savings today.
As I see it, adding a plug to a hybrid, if you don’t upgrade the battery pack, should be pretty cheap. You’re looking at the cost of the plug and cord, a step-down transformer, a rectifier, some control electronics – including a circuit that keeps you from driving away with the plug in the wall – and that’s about it. Probably less than a hundred dollars.
I could go on and on, and have, about the problems caused by our addition to oil. Briefly, they are: green-house gases contributing to global warming, our support of dictatorships in the Middle-East, over 3,000 dead and 30,000 wounded American soldiers, who knows how many Iraqi families left without a loved one, pollution that fouls our air, and an economy that is constantly rocked by the unstable politics of oil.Hydrogen isn’t a reasonable alternative, but it’s one the oil companies love, because they’d make sure they owned the distribution channel. They hate the idea of plug-in electric vehicles, PEVs, because it would eliminate the sector of the economy oil companies dominate. But, right now, we don’t have a good way to safely store hydrogen, which is a very flammable gas. That makes it difficult and expensive to transport and store. (This also insures that any conversion to hydrogen is still a long way in the future.)
Biofuels sound good, but making them from corn is barely break-even. If we go with alcohol made from corn, all we’re doing is creating a great welfare system for huge companies that farm corn. While there are some other biofuels that look intriguing, they will still have some of the problems we face with oil. We’ll have to have filling stations, which means we’ll still have a situation in which our fuel supply is controlled by mega-corporations. Finally, we’re still a long way from converting to those fuels. Electricity is available right now.
Write to your representatives. Write to car companies. Demand plug-in hybrids. If you go to a car dealer and look at a hybrid, grill the salesperson on why it doesn’t have a plug. Make sure the auto companies know that you want that option.
Now it’s possible, maybe even likely, that there are problems I’m not aware of. If so, leave a comment and let me know where I’ve goofed.
Lead Acid batteries should be replaced with a new type of battery that weigh less :’:
lead acid batteries are not good for your health since it can lead to lead poisoning-`;
Most batteries used in current automobiles are lead-acid because that’s an inexpensive battery design. Most electric and hybrid vehicles use more advanced types of batteries like lithium-ion or lithium-polymer. Like many batteries, these have to be disposed of properly in order to avoid contamination problems, but that’s true of the lead-acid batteries, too. There are some interesting new battery technologies in the labs, like carbon-sulfur and many that use carbon nano-tubes. These are more environmentally friendly, but aren’t yet ready for production use. I think our best strategy is to incorporate end-of-life processing into any product that requires special handling, so that those costs are built-in. Of course, that would mean we’d have to add in the projected costs of climate change to fossil fuels, which seems unlikely right now.
Most electric and hybrid autos already use advanced battery technologies. The big problem is that none of the battery technologies in production has the high energy density we get from gasoline. Gas just packs more energy per kilogram. On the other hand, a lot of that energy is wasted as heat. If you are going to burn gas, it still makes more sense to do it as a generator for the electric motors, since then you can run the engine at it’s most efficient speed. That’s one of the reasons electric is better, even when the electricity is generated by burning oil, the generators are run much more efficiently than an engine in a car can be.