Hybrid vs electric - Who is on which side?
An article published in the Wall Street Journal summarizes the positions each big automaker is taking to replace gasoline in our cars. The debate, which is being held during the Tokyo Auto Show is whether we should replace cars with hybrids or electrics.
On one side are Toyota and GM, which have tossed away their electric car projects to develop hybrids. However, they aren't following a common path on how and when. On the other side are Renault-Nissan and Honda. They affirm that electrics make more sense (environmentally, politically and economically) but don't rush to get your chequebooks: Lithium-ion technology needs to advance first in so that cost and overheating issues can be taken care of.
Even as the debate continues, none of the big automakers are going to stop making ICEs (Internal Combustion Engines) any time soon. They are, however, being pushed away from business-as-usual by EU and USA legislators who decrease their countries' oil bills. Then we have the initiatives in cities like Paris and London, where electric cars are exempt from hard taxes. Ghosn, the big boss at Nissan-Renault, forecast electric cars for 2012 and his counterpart Takeo Fukui at Honda expressed his skepticism about plug-in hybrids.
So, on which side are you?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tim 9:03AM (10/25/2007)
GM's got it right with E-Flex and the fact they are not putting all their eggs in one basket. The others are just too scared to risk loosing face and they apparently don't have the Nano based L-Ion Battery tech which does NOT overheat or short out when pierced. A213, EnerDel and Shaft all claim that their batteries are READY and they all will be delivering packs to GM’s specifications for testing at GM before within the next 60 days. The biggest problem right now is COST. Can scale solve this problem? We'll see....
What about the existing fleet? It will take YEARS to replace them all. What if you could DOUBLE or even TRIPLE the fuel mileage of ANY standard existing car by simply modifying the automatic transmission so that it would capture and reuse 97+% of the breaking energy and could accelerate from 0-60 in 4 seconds?
What if this modification only cost around $3,000.00 without using batteries or electric motors and also doubled the life of the car?
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Andrew Grin 9:22AM (10/25/2007)
I'm for Electric And GM's E-Flex Technology. With these two technologies (one proven to work and one in the process of development) we can break our addiction to Oil, Fossil Fuel, and the ICE. We don't have to be dependent on the Internal Combustion Engine anymore because we have solutions. (they just need to be implemented!!!!!!)
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Tony Belding 9:25AM (10/25/2007)
I can't get excited about this argument. Either a BEV or PHEV is going to move us toward using grid power instead of petroleum. From an environmentalist standpoint, or from an oil security or Peak Oil standpoint, either one is a huge win over what most of us are driving now.
If you need a car that can drive 500+ miles per day without multi-hour stops for recharging, then a PHEV is the way to go. BEV advocates will say most people don't actually need to take long cross-country trips regularly: but some do, or believe they do. So. . . Your PHEV can take the whole range problem off the table, while still allowing you to do your everyday around-town driving on grid power. Good deal.
By the same token, there probably really is a market for "city cars" with small size and limited performance and range. Americans may or may not be ready for them, but they apparently are selling in other parts of the world. A PHEV "range extender" is unnecessary for that kind of car. A pure BEV will be simpler and cheaper. Good deal.
So. . . A role for both BEVs and PHEVs, then. It would make sense to produce *both*, wouldn't it? Cars have never been a one-size-fits-all proposition.
As for battery technology. . . BEVs and PHEVs place different demands on batteries. A BEV demands as much energy density as you can get. A PHEV demands as much durability (cycle life) as you can get. This is something the engineers have to work out, it's not something bloggers are equipped to evaluate. In the long run it does seem likely the internal combustion engine will be displaced more and more, and BEVs will tend to take over.
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jeremie 7:32PM (10/25/2007)
This is not a question to ask... Electric car are the only way to go even before the gas engine.
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Throwback 10:01AM (10/25/2007)
The E-Flex is the way to go. The fact is many people who live in cities do not have a "secure" place to plug their cars in. As for people "not needing" to drive cross country, how about driving into the next state to visit friends and realtives? How about going to the beach for vacation? Or in my case how about driving 130 miles round trip each day for work? Not everyone lives within 5 miles of where they work. There is a vast country outside the major city limits. Perhaps more people need to get out of the city once in a while.
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MikeB 10:22AM (10/25/2007)
I think Hybrids are a necessary transition path to full electrics.
We can't quite do full electric for most users yet, since people still want to drive 200+ miles in a single day, even if only once every few months.
But building hybrids, especially Plug-ins, means that electric drive and battery technology keeps advancing and we get closer to having full-electrics that meet all our needs.
Personally, I'd like to see more attempts at pure electrics that pull a range-extending trailer. That way you can leave the liquid fuel & engine behind most of the time, but still make longer trips when needed.
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Domenick 10:28AM (10/25/2007)
I can deal with PHEVs being on the market as a necessary evil but BEVs with being launching before and after the Volt in different configurations. Energy storage will advance more and more. I'd be surprised if you can find an ICE only vehicle sold to the public by 2025.
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Domenick 10:29AM (10/25/2007)
Well, that post was a bit garbled....
....BEVs will be launching...
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greg woulf 11:17AM (10/25/2007)
For now, I like PHEV's because people will buy them, and because they save battery material.
Over 80% of commuters drive less than 40 miles a day. If we can get a large number of drivers going we can make an immediate impact.
A BEV, like the Tesla uses 800 lbs of Lithium. A PHEV around 200. So for the same material we have 4 times the PHEV's. Electric motors are relatively cheap, most of the cost is in the battery, so that's also 1/4 the upgrade from ICE cost pretty much.
We can make a bigger impact with PHEV's, so I'm for them.
On that same side, I think people will buy PHEV's for the convenience. The Volt has a 500+ mile range. Plug it in at night, or at work, and you might need to go to the gas station once a month. Long trips are no problem for the car, and it leaves room for new tech.
I think the next question is Serial or parallel. I'm for serial by the way, because it scales up.
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Brian M 11:24AM (10/25/2007)
The great thing about E-Flex is that it is a "hybrid" for now (not really, but for some reason people insist on calling it that), but in the future it can very easily be turned into a pure electric.
When batteries become cheaper and can hold more energy, GM can just swap out the engine and generator for a bigger battery pack and voila, EV.
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Tim 11:41AM (10/25/2007)
In time, ICEs will be relegated to long-range, heavy haul and specialty vehicles because we still don't have any fuel with the energy density and simple inexpensive storage that even comes close to liquid fuels.
In the meantime, we need to QUICKLY find ways to conserve as much as possible. This will take both advances technology and a mental paradigm shift. We MUST learn the difference between the things that we want and the things that we need and we need to regain control of our egos. BIGGER IS NOT BETTER!!
We ALL need to STOP squandering and start saving, not just energy but EVERYTHING! Our lifestyles are NOT sustainable. Stop being selfish and Stop point fingers at the other guy when you are doing the very same things.
How big is you house, how far do you go for vacation, how much do you eat, how far away is work, do you recycle, is you vehicle no more than you REALLY NEED. We are each responsible for our OWN actions or lack thereof.
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Tony Belding 11:36AM (10/25/2007)
Brian, I'm one of those people who "for some reason" insist on calling the E-Flex a hybrid. Why is that?
That's because you can put energy into it from an electrical outlet or from a gasoline pump. This is what ordinary people care about. The inner workings of the mechanisms are not what this is all about.
An "electric car" has historically been a BEV, not something you could fill up at a gas pump. Why are we trying to change and corrupt this term? Even in your post you allowed that E-Flex might be easily turned into a "pure electric". So what is it now, an impure electric? That's a hybrid!
The revolution we are looking for is the ability to power cars from grid electricity. In this context it makes sense to classify cars according to how much of their energy comes from grid power: none, some, or all. In the case of E-Flex, the answer is "some".
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Tim 11:44AM (10/25/2007)
Hey Tony
OK, I’ll try AGAIN to clear it one more time. I know you can get this…
A series-electric (like a train) has a generator that must ALWAYS be producing electricity to driving the wheels. It may even have a little battery storage to recapture some breaking energy, but power from the generator is required for normal operations.
A Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) ALWAYS gets the electricity from a battery whether that power is generated onboard via a back up generator, a fuel cell or imported via the grid is irrelevant. As long as the batteries are ALWAYS powering the motor(s) it’s a. E-Flex is a BEV-40 with a back up generator which ONLY recharges the battery and NEVER directly powers the wheels.
A hybrid car (like the Prius) USES more than one source of power to DIRECTLY drive the wheels depending on demands. ICE + Battery during acceleration = Hybrid. ICE + Battery during high speed cruise = Hybrid, ICE + hydraulic or pneumatic = Hybrid. ANY combination of the above to directly power the wheels at ANY time is a HYBRID. Personally, I don’t consider stop-start or cylinder deactivation schemes to be hybrids because they don’t meet this definition although they are both very good ideas.
A Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle is a hybrid as defined above with larger batteries so more of the motive power can come from off board sources, but it still meets the definition of a hybrid because more than ONE source of power DIRECTLY is required during normal operations.
The Prius is NOT an electric car and E-Flex is NOT a hybrid.
As is often the case, the experts including Tesla and GM are right and the armchair blogging geniuses are wrong. Are all types useful? Well, there is more than one tool in the box for a reason.
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Snowdog 12:19PM (10/25/2007)
A rose by any other name... I could care less if they call it Shirley.
I am not a fan of any plug in vehicles for me, because the batteries are still too short lived and expensive. Replacing 10KWh + battery packs is prohibitively expensive. I want the smallest battery pack possible and no plug for me.
I am a fan of plug in vehicles for whoever want to pay that premium to advance the technology, though. You go guys.
For something like the Volt. GM should have different battery sizes right down to a tiny one without a plugin. That would enable them to have a relatively inexpensive Volt so they can get greater economies of scale on the rest of the car.
Repost: Attempt #3. Useless blog comment system Argh!
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Tim 12:46PM (10/25/2007)
"I could care less if they call it Shirley"
Now THAT's funny! He He He.
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jk 1:09PM (10/25/2007)
@ Tim
What you are referring to as a series-electric is also called a series hybrid. The car still has two different powerplants and is still considered a hybrid. Its just NOT a parallel hybrid like the prius. It is just terminology. In fact toyota has tried the series hybrid configuration before going to parallel hybrid. This is because at highway cruising the gas engine is at max efficiency. In a series hybrid, the gas engine is running at max efficiency, but you actually lose efficiency through storage and transfer of the energy to the battery. Of course in a parallel hybrid the engine isn't at max efficiency all the time so you can argue which is more efficient. As for why "experts" from gm would call it an electric is that they want to separate the car from hybrids we see today (namely parallel) and make it seem like they created something truly new, in fact all they did was take a series hybrid and add in a plugin option. You can do the same with a parallel hybrid. It's all marketing. In the original sense, series hybrids and parallel hybrids were both considered hybrids. However due to the recent time the word "hybrid" has been defined(when did start you hearing the word hybrid for cars? Not very long ago) it is highly possible to redefine the term as gm is attempting to do now.
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scappy 3:02PM (10/25/2007)
More importantly than hybrids being a step for the psyche of the general public, they are a step along the path of battery development. Battery technology isn't quite where it needs to be and some form of assistance is needed, hence hybrids/ RangeExtended EVs.
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Mike Weston 2:11PM (10/25/2007)
I agree with Tony that both PHEVs and BEVs are valuable for different users, and in fact I would love for my wife and I to own one of each.
The key to me is for the PHEV to have enough battery range to handle at least most of the normal commute so that the ICE rarely runs on most days. And, yes, Snowdog, I am willing to pay a premium for that battery capacity. Not a huge, normal car value sized premium, but maybe $5K would be worth it to me to increase the battery range from single digits up to 30+ miles.
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Tim 3:27PM (10/25/2007)
Gentlemen. According to your logic, if an electric car runs off electrons that came from a nuclear power plant, then it's a nuclear-electric hybrid. If the electrons came from coal, it's a coal-hybrid. If the gasoline in your tank came from oil that was once a dinosaur, it's a dinosaur-hybrid powered by 100% recycled dinosaurs which got their power from eating grass which got their power from the Sun which gets its power from nuclear fusion so we're all driving fusion-hybrids right now! Now if the fusion gets its power from Zero-point gravitational energy then we are all driving FREE ENERGY MACHINES!
I GET IT! The energy crisis is over. Global warming is solved. Wow! That was easy.
Ain’t logic grand…
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Chris M 5:22PM (10/25/2007)
Tim: Your comments are sometimes amusing, but your logic is flawed. It isn't the ultimate source of power that matters, it is what is onboard the vehicle itself. If the motive power comes from electric batteries and a gas engine, then it is a "gas/electric hybrid". If all the mechanical power from the IC engine has to be converted to electric power before going to an electric motor that drives the wheel, it is a "series hybrid" (Sounds just like diesel/electric trains and the planned Volt, doesn't it?)
If all the mechanical power from the IC engine is transmitted mechanically to the wheels and the electric motor also assists in powering the wheels, it is a "parallel hybrid".
Hybrids from Toyota and Ford, and the GM "dual mode" hybrids, can transmit some of the mechanical power from the IC engine to the wheel by a mechanical link (like parallel hybrids) and some of the power by an electrical link (like serial hybrids). Having aspects of both parallel and serial hybrids, the "Split Path Hybrids" are different enough to deserve their own category, and should not be lumped in with "parallel only" hybrids.
Oh, and greg woulf? Split Path Hybrids also scale up nicely, and will also make excellent plug-in hybrids. Parallel hybrids like the Honda "Assist" hybrid design are not as well suited to plug-in use, and that explains why Honda is not enthused about plug-in hybrids.
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