Not quite ready for prime time

[mdlbear]

From what little I've seen, Honda's hybrid cars aren't quite ready for prime time. Toyota's Prius is closer, but still not there. The fundamental problem is that they're basically gas cars with electric assist. They should be electric cars with onboard chargers.

An electric-assist hybrid needs a horrendous, complicated transmission to split the load between the two power sources, neither of which is adequate to keep the car going by itself. One thing I noticed test-driving the Civic is a distinct hesitation, when accelerating from a standstill, while it restarts the gas engine. I'd be worried on a hill. I believe the Prius is smoother, because more of the load is handled by the electric motor, but it's still not as good as it should be.

Get rid of the load-sharing, and things suddenly get much simpler: the only thing connected to the wheels is the electric motor (or maybe you have one on each wheel). The only thing connected to the generator is the gas engine, and it can darned well be a turbine (which is smaller, quieter, and more efficient). And you can run the generator by itself to power your house in an emergency (100HP = 75KW) And the transmission is simpler because electric motors can deliver full torque over a wider range of speeds.

Lighter, more efficient batteries would help, too -- that's another problem with today's hybrids.

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

There are three other problems that were apparent when I test-drove the Prius a few years ago:

• The system was designed for use without a/c. We were driving along in traffic at great Woohoo mpg, when I asked if I could turn on the a/c. Test-drive guy said, "Sure." According to the central dash display, Woohoo mpg plunged immediately to the low 30s (comparable to the 2003 Corolla, which is what we eventually bought).
  
• The Prius is basically an Echo with a $8,000 surcharge we call the hybrid system. I don't know about you, but I can buy a lot of gas for $8,000.
  
• Hybrid-electric or electric cars don't really solve the problem of "energy production" (I know, I know—not my oxymoron, okay?). You still have to transfer enough energy to a storage device to get the car to move. And that transfer process creates pollution, no matter where you do it. The same would be true of hydrogen fuel-cells, too. Bush's support of the "hydrogen economy" idea makes me very suspicious that petroleum and coal would still be major players in terms of providing the immediate source-point energy for splitting all those water molecules. In the meantime, when was the last time that CAFE standards went up? The technology exists to boost fuel-economy standards on all automobiles (including the light-truck category), and that would reduce both pollution and energy use tremendously.

I guess I'm an old-fashioned skeptic, here.

[mdlbear]

I think they put the price differential close to the expected gas saving on purpose.

Hydrogen or electric power is clean if it comes from a non-polluting source like solar or nuclear. But even methane- or methanol- powered fuel cells pollute significantly less than a similarly-powered internal-combustion engine because they're more efficient (hence less CO₂) and operate at a lower temperature (eliminating the NO_x). Even hybrids reduce the total pollution somewhat, because they're running the gas engine at its most efficient speed.

But I still went for gas.