One of the advantages of the electric motor is the ability to put out high power at low r.p.m., unlike the ICE.

In the end, it is a race between different technologies: if somebody comes up with a good deep cycle battery, PHEV gets its nose in front. But I agree, ICE is by now means as dead as the MSM (and some environmentalists) would have us believe…

I suspect the current incarnation of the “skateboard” is built substantially around the presence of long, rocket-shaped H2 tanks. I’m not sure they could easily be swapped out for wet cells, ultracapacitors or whatever.

The hydrogen fuel cell car is essentially nothing but an electric car that is using hydrogen as its storage mechanism versus batteries or super capacitors. The real technology breakthrough here is also the skateboard approach to building these vehicles. By using the skateboard approach they do not care what the next advanced form of electricity storage is. They design the passenger portion of the vehicle totally independent of the powertrain portion with a predetermined interconnection that is standard regardless of power source. This will allow the stylist and passenger compartment engineers to not have to worry about what the powertrain or frame designers are doing. As a designer you know what your inputs and outputs connection are. Everything else is your area and no worries about more legroom or storage space affecting where the engine or drivetrain parts will invade.

On the power/drive “skateboard” portion of the vehicle they know the electricity/power input to the drive motors this is required to attain the predefined performance specifications. If you change from Hydrogen fuel cells to another source of electrical storage whether it be wet cell, lithium batteries or super capacitors does not impact the other 95 percent of the vehicle. All the other drive motor engineers care about is receiving the required voltage at the required rate for a predetermined period.

Finally it allows for a single frame and motor design to cross multiple performance spectrums with no major engineering changes. Today if you want to muscle up a car you accomplish this through larger engines or boosting the existing engines or transmission. You change the engine or transmission design you have impacts on every area of the vehicle resulting in major engineering changes. Now if you want to go farther or have greater performance all you need is more exotic electricity storage device in your “Skateboard”. This will be a tinkers dream

This is the kind of “out of the box” thinking that GM needs to do in order to remake itself and not be chasing the other manufacturers. Remember the first “automobile” was steam powered went 2.5 miles an hour and took 4 people to run. This was replacing a 4 thousand year old technology that ate grass and drank water. Imagine where we would be if everyone said, “How do you improve on that”.

Stedwoo

As for the performance of hybrids, I don’t think we disagree.

But the whole notion that you’ve prejudged “new fangled technologies” and plan to reject them … LOL.

Let’s talk about the Prius, and why Toyota decided not to go the PHEV route with this vehicle.

Prius batteries are replaced (because of car wrecks) at a retail cost of around $3,000. Obviously, the battery life has to be substantial, otherwise these frequent replacement costs would negate any gains in fuel efficiency, and would kill any future sales in hybrids.

The biggest single problem with a PHEV is that it would deep cycle the batteries. This deep cycling of batteries would drastically reduce the lifespan of the batteries.

The current Prius works on the basis of maintaining a total battery charge of around 40-80%. In other words, a substantial amount of energy must be maintained as a minimum (40%) and a substantial amount must be withheld from a fully charged state (20%). This reduction in deep cycle ability are needed to get the battery life to what Toyota claims to be an “acceptable level.” (Whatever this “acceptable level” is we will find out soon enough with the existing fleet of Prius’ on the road today.)

Toyota or any other car company would build a PHEV if long lasting deep cycle batteries can be built. Thus far, this has been an elusive battery technology fantasy for car companies, laptop computer makers, and cell phone companies.

The other thing about a PHEV is that its performance would never compete with that of a pure ICE. Even a “fuel efficient” hybrid (like the Prius, unlike the Accord hybrid) could never compete with a pure gasoline or diesel ICE in terms of performance. So we are stuck with the pure gas or diesel ICE for a long, long time; as most consumers will want the performance that we are so accustomed to.

The fact that we are stuck with the pure ICE for many years to come is not a bad thing in itself. The ICE of forty years ago was way better than the ICE of twenty years ago in terms of refinement and fuel efficiency, and the ICE of today is way better than the ICE of twenty years ago. ICEs will, with time, get to be even better.

I myself am looking forward to the engine advances of the future, and more specifically, the engines from BMW and Honda since these two car companies are now and historically have always been engine companies first, and car companeis second.

There will be new fangled technologies introduced from time to time, but as for me I will keep driving pure ICEd cars while I watch these technology fads work through their cycles of hype and bust.

The pure-electric mode, OTOH, assumes the ability to use pretty much 0% to 100% of the charge. If you look at Felix Kramer & Co., they all seems to add *new and different* battery packs to their Priuses to accomodate deep discharge to get those 30- to 50-mile pure electric runs.

I’m not saying the problem’s insoluable. But, it requires different characteristics from the battery pack(s): One is for immediate power, one is for durable energy storage. May be different chemistry. And obviously TWO battery packs imposes a major complexity, cost and weight penalty.

With one exception: I think plug-in hybrids (so-called PHEVs) have big potential. I agree that in general people have a non-rational facination with hybrids. One could even argue that hybrids, in their current form, make a rather insignificant difference, considering all the technology and complexity.

OTOH, when driving a Prius, I am always amazed at how seamless it switches between the different types of propulsion, or between using and recharging the batteries. Just getting that right must have required a lot of innovation i.t.o. control systems. Now invented, those control systems are bound to find other applications.

As for PHEV, I think these things are probably the most significant technology that can be used right now to significantly reduce the US oil imports. The electric grid is mostly idle overnight, hence the low rates at these hours. In other words, there is a lot of power available for charging batteries overnight. Doing so would replace imported oil with local electricity, i.e. coal for the most part. And as far as the environment is concerned, overnight a lot of coal is burned just to keep power plants running, so we already get the pollution.

Furthermore, unlike a “true” EV, PHEV offers you the option to drive as far as you like on any given day (without the X hours recharge), by switching to gasoline power. Can’t get much more convenient than that.

On the high end, their prices are in the market.

R&B

They will probably focus sales efforts on the West Coast (CA, OR, WA) and the Northeast initially, but that’s just a guess.

They have already announced that they intend to design a sports sedan (a la 5-series or A4) that will sell for $50K and be manufactured in five-figure volumes. That’s somewhat in the future, though. First they have to get the Roadster through US type approvals, manufacture them reliably and sell several thousand.

It is, however, wicked fast. They have achieved 0-60 in 3.7 seconds–identical to the new Ferrari GTB Fiorano 599, which takes a 650hp V12 to do the same acceleration!

R&B

Right now they’re doing their crash-testing in the UK.

Bet it costs less than the Sequel…

R&B

We are stuck with the 100% gasoline or diesel ICE, whether we like it or not. The fact is that Ethanol requires huge investments in infrastructure, hydrogen would require even larger investments, and hybrids are not refined enough.

My dislike for hybrids requires some explanation.

How many times have I read bloggers write about how they where getting very dissapointing mileage out of the Prius, only to blog some time later that they have “learned” how to drive these cars? I believe that the gains in mileage are a) never attained as advertised, and b) the result of a drastically underpowered vehicle for drivers with infinately huge patience who drive them like their grandmothers would. I do not know about you, but I would hate getting caught in a rainstorm at highway speeds with a Prius and their laughable thin “low friction” rubber band tires. This is not a practical car in any sense of the word, at least not to me it isn’t. It is woefully unsafe on account of its thin tires and lack of acceleration.

All of this hybrid technology is expensive to deploy into a finished product and, once built, expensive to repair. What would be the cost in parts and labor of replacing a hybrid’s electric motor, or any of its other large components? I would guess that it would be huge. Ok, so let’s say that Toyota and Honda hybrids are just as reliable as any other Toyota or Honda, and these components never break down. (I am just saying.) Batteries have a lifespan, and eventualy they will need to be replaced. What would be the cost of replacement? I have read that Prius owners are in for a rude awakening when they limp into the Toyota dealer with dead batteries: the answer is in the thousands of dollars.

Now lets talk about the Accord hybrid. This V6 cylindered hybrid is engineered more for an electrical boost in performance, not so much for an electrical boost in mileage. All of this talk about the Accord Hybrid delivering V6 power with 4 Cylinder fuel economy is all hype, nobody is getting this mileage. So if performance is the paramount prerogative and the mileage gains are next to nothing then what is wrong with using the time tested turbocharger? Or a bigger V6?

The number of Accord hybrid sales reveal that this is a failed product. In August of ‘06 Honda sold 34,005 regular Accords and 499 hybrid Accords. That is 68 regular Accords for every hybrid Accord, and this is during a period of time when people are supposed to be buying more fuel efficient cars. Maybe the internet has clued people into how this thing jerks the transmission when the electric motor kicks in, or how the cost of gas has to be something like 4 bucks a gallon to even break even with the higher Accord hybrid purchase price in 100,000 miles of driving. (And these numbers are based on the EPA’s hyped numbers on mileage that nobody is getting. Gas may have to be more than 6 or 7 bucks a gallon to break even.)

About the only cost effective way of getting more efficiency is going to be diesel. Diesel makes alot of sense: The infrastructure is predominantly already in place, diesels tend to be very reliable, the cost of repairs and maintenance is comparable to gasoline engines, and they can be just as clean as gasoline engines. The Europeans have figured this out, they buy lots of diesels.

Maybe the whole world will start licensing or buying super clean-running diesels from Honda, maybe it wont. But in future years the manufacturers will eventuall come to their senses and there will be diesel sales in the USA, one way or another.

GM listen up! Get your diesel program in gear. In the early 1980’s your company built some of the most stupid diesel crap that was based on existing gasoline engine blocks. (This is what happens when a manufacturer of incredibly complex machines is run amok with bean counters.) Diesels are high compression engines, and they need heavier engine blocks that can sustain these higher compression ratios. Take a small portion of your hydrogen and hybrid budget and put that into designing solid diesel ICEs.

If we as a nation want to import less barrels of oil then the only other thing we can do is to migrate to smaller vehicles. But whatever happens, be it diesel engines or smaller vehicles or both, it will be precipitated by the price mechanism of fuel. There is no other way, pure and simple.

Let me point out that there are many influential people who have their doubts about hydrogen. One of the more interesting is Ulf Bossel, the founder of the European Fuel Cell Forum. (Could you be pro-Fuel Cell and anti-hydrogen?)

The first point is that hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source. Hence hydrogen cannot replace an energy source like oil. To make hydrogen (like any other carrier) you need an energy source. As a carrier, hydrogen must compete with other carriers, like diesel, gasoline, ethanol and electricity. The main advantage hydrogen has, compared to the other carriers, is a high energy to mass ratio. Hence hydrogen is sometimes used as a fuel for space travel. Note that the fiercely competitive air travel industry is yet to use hydrogen on a meaningful scale. If hydrogen cannot penetrate air travel, where its advantage means something, why would it be the fuel of choice for surface travel where fuel mass is of little concern?

Hydrogen has several disadvantages compared to other carriers. Liquids are easier to store and transport than gasses – a thermodynamic reality that no amount (or $ billions) in research will change. Electricity is easier to transport, but storage is still a bit of a challenge. Recent progress (such as cell phone technology) suggests that this is something that can be solved with research. Hydrogen is also highly flammable, over a wide range of concentrations (4 – 75% in air!). You think Osama will be interested in having a hydrogen target sitting in thousands of locations all over the country?

Consider the hydrogen cycle: Water vapor (+ heat lost to surroundings) => Liquid water (+ energy) => Hydrogen gas (+ energy) => Hydrogen gas delivered to consumer (+ oxygen)=> Water vapor (+ energy). You loose energy every step of the way. Hydrogen proponents, who keep enthusing about how efficiently (and cleanly) the energy in the hydrogen can be recovered, are like someone telling you to build your house on the highest mountain in your area. They tell you (rightly) that you can free wheel to any destination in the area: clean and efficient travel personified.

The problem is, of course, not going anywhere, it is getting back home. All the energy you saved on your way to work and then some would be expanded as you go back home. Note that finding a different route home does not change the underlying fundamentals: you still need a lot of energy to get to the top of the mountain. Sure, some routes are better than others, but even the best requires that you spend more energy than you saved going down in the morning. Research into hydrogen may find all sorts of good and efficient ways to make hydrogen. But it remains a high mountain to climb. The coming down is never going to pay for the going up. Again, no amount of research can change that reality.

The challenge for any fuel of the future is this: you want to get from energy source to energy user while losing as little of it along the way. It would seem logical that going over the highest mountain in the area is not the route to go.

I am all for looking at various alternatives. At the same time, it seems that some alternatives can be eliminated out of hand. Why spend $ billions if the concept does not even make sense on paper? There are many better alternatives to pursue.

More to the point, why switch? Ethanol has problems. If you have the ability to convert biomass to diesel and gasoline, that would work much better.

“Market selected”? Huh? The market can practically select when alternatives are somewhat widely available. And markets take more than a few years to build. Let ethanol be widely available, in at least some regions, for 10 years, then decide.

I think the auto-fuel picture will become more complex. Local and regional tax incentives could make ethanol blends acceptable to consumers in some midwestern states.

But my real question about your assertion is, Over what time horizon?

As a carrier, ethanol has important draw-backs, like its tendency to absorb moisture, corrossion, etc. Which is why I expect us to stay with the market selected carriers-of-choice, currently diesel and gasoline…

No doubt someone’s calculated the various acreages necessary for ethanol to have a meaningful impact.

The entire flex-fuels thing started years ago as a low-cost way for manufacturers to get CAFE offsets. By spending a few hundred dollars per car, the CAFE rules credited the car with almost double its actual mileage–never mind that most of them would likely never, ever run on anything except gasoline.

Most owners had no earthly idea they were driving a flex-fuel vehicle until GM began putting bright yellow fuel-filler caps on them last year. Which tells you about how “real” the whole flex-fuel thing was intended to be until high gas prices hit.

In the future? Who knows. Depends largely on the price of gasoline. SOME of those companies and private investors who’ve dug into their pockets to fund ethanol refineries seem likely to lose their shirts. But we shall see.

So, to me, the whole E85 thing reeks of PC BS.

Why does Exxon know that Chevron, Shell and BP don’t? Those three did not see GM’s efforts as a waste of $$$. Exxon’s view doesn’t mean that the others don’t see potential in H2 test projects to ascertain if there’s a business there, and what it might cost.

Like it or not, fossil fuels are currently the cheapest source of hydrogen. So if hydrogen were to take off tomorrow …

Yep. You betcha. Note “currently”. And H2 is NOT going to take off tomorrow. Most optimistic guesses are that fuel-cell vehicles won’t be offered to the general public til 2012 to 2015. That said, two H2IC vehicles are now fleet testing: BMW 7 Series and Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen. Baby steps, for sure, but they didn’t exist two years ago.

…your deeply passionate, beliefs-before-facts faith…

This is what confuses me. You’ve never contradicted either FACT in my original post, but instead I get all these odd accusations of being a true believer and whatnot.

Let’s get one thing straight, since obviously you saw something quite different in my posts. I’m NOT saying H2 is a panacea. Nor that a century of gasoline distribution infrastructure isn’t a powerful counterweight to deploying H2.

And I’m deeply aware that the energy source for H2 generation swings the carbon equation one way or the other (a point always lost in uninformed, non-technical discussions of “zero pollution cars” in the general press).

And currently petrochemicals ARE the easiest, cheapest way to fuel personal transport.

But the very first commenter, some 90 responses ago, got it right IMHO. Farago can’t have it both ways: It’s internally inconsistent to criticize GM for not innovating AND criticize them for fundamental R&D into things like H2. And GM is also developing hybrids … alt-fuels like E85 … a lot of diesel knowledge … so they’re covering many bases.

Some of those technologies will prove transitory. Others may appear in the next 20 years. I’m just perplexed by why the notion that H2 might be worthy of research (because it poses an interesting solution to a complex set of problems) seems so threatening to a small minority of commenters.

In my experience, engineers do lots of developmental work. Some things are dead ends; some things pan out; advances come from unexpected places. But, evolving only your known technologies puts you out of business sooner or later. Ask the makers of buggy whips, radio tubes, etc.

Like it or not, fossil fuels are currently the cheapest source of hydrogen. So if hydrogen were to take off tomorrow, we’d be buying most of it from the oil companies, including ExxonMobil.

I’m mildly startled by the depths of passion, character assassination, and general beliefs-before-facts approach in this thread.
Depth of passion? Beliefs-before-facts? You must be confused: those are characteristics of the pro-hydrogen crowd;) Character assassination? LOL!

My fault, perhaps, for not paying as close attention to Farago & Co as the true acolytes?
You are kidding, right? Farago & Co are certainly opinionated. Generally they are also able to defend those opinions in a rational way. Acolytes? Those would be the type of auto journalist that repeat the press releases verbatim, without question or criticism…

And, yes, I have now read *every single one* of those 80-odd posts.
Good! Consider yourself educated.

Sadly, doing so expanded the dialogue rather less than I’d hoped.
Careful there, your deeply passionate, beliefs-before-facts faith is shining through again!

Getting 45-55 mpg, generally 45-50 mpg in 2-lane 17 mile commute from country to town. That’s real world MPG, not “dream on” / lying through the teeth MPG. In winter, with full Yokohama Blizzak snow tires, less efficient “winter” fuels and colder temps (at which all cars suffer a certain percentage of MPG reduction) I’m seeing 42-47 mpg on the commutes, some of which are as low as -20 degrees F.

You can go on a waiting list, pay list price, still get $1650 tax reduction on Federal taxes (don’t forget to look for a state tax break too – there were none in Michigan for me alas). Prius has sold over 60,000 units so the $3100 federal tax relief is cut in half, but don’t sneeze at $1650! List price on a Prius runs from $22,500 or so, not a lot more than you are thinking for a smaller B or C class car, which won’t crack 40 MPG, and will squeeze your family more than a Prius will.

If you have 2 teens and 2 adults, or at least 1 pre teen and 2 teens, you’ll do fine in the Prius for passenger room.

Yep, you are absolutely right about the 2.5, they probably are thus not going to actually survive the next gas price spike, whenever that happens.

To think that the big 3 spent tons of money (some of it our taxes from “grants”) on developing “80 mpg supercars” during the Clinton administration (never actually getting close to 80 mpg, but at least experimenting with hybrids) and then did nothing with any of it and now Toyota “owns” 78% of the hybrid market in the US, apparently.

Kudos to Toyota. That is how business successes happen. Concentrate on the long term benefits, do the job right, keep the customers happy. My 2005 Prius is my first Toyota, but not my last, and no longer will I buy non-hybrids. Why should I?