It's sad that an engiener came up with this

[IHateMyJob2004]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1035443

OK, here's the parts of the story that make me want ot go bitch slap the guy who made this...

Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.
He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids ....

My anger:
If you plug your car into the wall, it is using electricity produced by a power plant. Some are oil burning, others coal, etc... An engineer who claims to be an environmentalist should know that using electricity that comes from a wall outlet is not "green".

ARgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... I see dumb people. ... they're everywhere.

EDIT: spelling errors does not impy that one is dumb.

 

[sandmanwake]

Maybe he's planning on building a solar/wind/hydro power plant next. Did you ever think about that?

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Originally posted by: sandmanwake
Maybe he's planning on building a solar/wind/hydro power plant next. Did you ever think about that?

Bwa hahahahahahaaha ... possibly. I see a problem thoguh. His hydro plant would go like this:

headline:
1 GALLON HYDRO PLANT CHARGES CAR!

An electrical engiener and commited environmentalist today announced that he can use 1 gallon of water to create a hydro plant capable of charging his modified Toyota Hybrid. How's it work? Water falls from 10 feet high and spin a turbine where a water pump then pumps the water back up to 10 feet in height. The recirculation pump is plugged into a 120 volt electrical outlet in his home.

 

[Safeway]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Originally posted by: sandmanwake
Maybe he's planning on building a solar/wind/hydro power plant next. Did you ever think about that?

Bwa hahahahahahaaha ... possibly. I see a problem thoguh. His hydro plant would go like this:

headline:
1 GALLON HYDRO PLANT CHARGES CAR!

An electrical engiener and commited environmentalist today announced that he can use 1 gallon of water to create a hydro plant capable of charging his modified Toyota Hybrid. How's it work? Water falls from 10 feet high and spin a turbine where a water pump then pumps the water back up to 10 feet in height. The recirculation pump is plugged into a 120 volt electrical outlet in his home.

I already did that.

 

What if his power is provided by nuclear plants? Either way you look at it, this project shows that hybrid cars are the gateway to greatly increased efficiency and less fossil fuel usage.

 

[cjgallen]

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
My anger:
If you plug your car into the wall, it is using electricity produced by a power plant. Some are oil burning, others coal, etc... An engineer who claims to be an environmentalist should know that using electricity that comes from a wall outlet is not "green".

Buying a new car isn't green to begin with. More pollution is put into the air manufacturing the car than the car will put out its exhaust pipe in its entire lifetime.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: jumpr
What if his power is provided by nuclear plants? Either way you look at it, this project shows that hybrid cars are the gateway to greatly increased efficiency and less fossil fuel usage.

Yeah, I mean I would much rather have people plugging in their cars and getting juiced up by nuclear powerplants than burning oil.

 

[bjc112]

it would be so nice to get 100mpg..

 

[rsd]

The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb all for about a quarter.

If they are saying that it costs $0.25 of electricity to charge, then OP = owned.

 

[eigen]

Originally posted by: cjgallen

Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
My anger:
If you plug your car into the wall, it is using electricity produced by a power plant. Some are oil burning, others coal, etc... An engineer who claims to be an environmentalist should know that using electricity that comes from a wall outlet is not "green".

Buying a new car isn't green to begin with. More pollution is put into the air manufacturing the car than the car will put out its exhaust pipe in its entire lifetime.

Cool.Once we get the cars to be green then we can work on the manufacturing process.Thanks for the forward thinking.

 

[Amused]

Think how often you need to replace your cell phone and laptop batteries.

Now think just how expensive the batteries are in a hybrid. Now think how expensive they are in a hybrid plug-in car.

Let's face it, batteries are NOT cost effective and never will be.

 

Originally posted by: Amused
Think how often you need to replace your cell phone and laptop batteries.

Now think just how expensive the batteries are in a hybrid. Now think how expensive they are in a hybrid plug-in car.

Let's face it, batteries are NOT cost effective and never will be.

I've never needed to replace my cell phone batteries, and I'm sure I've charged mine well over 1000 times.

If the batteries are recyclable, I think it's a good alternative to a straight internal-combustion solution.

I'd rather pay $500 to recycle some batteries and buy only 1 gallon of gas every 250 miles, than pay $30 a week to fill up my gas tank.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: Amused
Think how often you need to replace your cell phone and laptop batteries.

Now think just how expensive the batteries are in a hybrid. Now think how expensive they are in a hybrid plug-in car.

Let's face it, batteries are NOT cost effective and never will be.

I've never needed to replace my cell phone batteries, and I'm sure I've charged mine well over 1000 times.

If the batteries are recyclable, I think it's a good alternative to a straight internal-combustion solution.

I'd rather pay $500 to recycle some batteries and buy only 1 gallon of gas every 250 miles, than pay $30 a week to fill up my gas tank.

Funny, ALL my cell phone batteries and laptop batteries were less than 75% effective at 1 year, and barely held a charge at 2 years.

$500??? Try $5000 or more.

Note the guy in the story got 80MPG, not the fabled 250 (why didn't they profile that guy???) Also note it had an extrmemly limited range at that mileage.

Folks, Hybrids and plug-in cars aren't taking the market be storm for a reason. They are NOT cost effective and cost the consumer far MORE in the long run.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Amused
Funny, ALL my cell phone batteries and laptop batteries were less than 75% effective at 1 year, and barely held a charge at 2 years..

You suck at batteries.

Folks, Hybrids and plug-in cars aren't taking the market be storm for a reason. They are NOT cost effective and cost the consumer far MORE in the long run.

Actually, in another thread I proved that they work out to cost just about exactly the same, with a $150 advantage at the 100,000 mile mark (but scheduled maint is at 105000, which is not covered by warranty, so the advantage swings to the petrol engine)

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: Amused
Funny, ALL my cell phone batteries and laptop batteries were less than 75% effective at 1 year, and barely held a charge at 2 years..

You suck at batteries.

No, I actually use them on a daily basis.

Look up the average lifespan of a Li battery. IIRC, it's 2-3 years.

 

[Amused]

"Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused. (6% at 0 °C, 20% at 25 °C, 35% at 40 °C. When stored at 40% charge level, these figures are reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively.) Every (deep) discharge cycle decreases their capacity. The degradation is sloped such that 100 cycles leave the battery with about 75% to 85% of the original. When used in notebook computers or cellular phones, this rate of deterioration means that after three to five years the battery will have capacities too low to be still usable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

For me, after 2 years I find them unusable because the charge capacity at 50% does not fill my needs anymore.

 

Originally posted by: Amused
"Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused. (6% at 0 °C, 20% at 25 °C, 35% at 40 °C. When stored at 40% charge level, these figures are reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively.) Every (deep) discharge cycle decreases their capacity. The degradation is sloped such that 100 cycles leave the battery with about 75% to 85% of the original. When used in notebook computers or cellular phones, this rate of deterioration means that after three to five years the battery will have capacities too low to be still usable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

For me, after 2 years I find them unusable because the charge capacity at 50% does not fill my needs anymore.

What type of batteries are in hybrid vehicles? If Li batteries have such a high rate of deterioration, I'm sure they're not used in hybrids.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: Amused
"Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused. (6% at 0 °C, 20% at 25 °C, 35% at 40 °C. When stored at 40% charge level, these figures are reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively.) Every (deep) discharge cycle decreases their capacity. The degradation is sloped such that 100 cycles leave the battery with about 75% to 85% of the original. When used in notebook computers or cellular phones, this rate of deterioration means that after three to five years the battery will have capacities too low to be still usable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

For me, after 2 years I find them unusable because the charge capacity at 50% does not fill my needs anymore.

What type of batteries are in hybrid vehicles? If Li batteries have such a high rate of deterioration, I'm sure they're not used in hybrids.

Did you read the article???

 

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: Amused
"Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused. (6% at 0 °C, 20% at 25 °C, 35% at 40 °C. When stored at 40% charge level, these figures are reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively.) Every (deep) discharge cycle decreases their capacity. The degradation is sloped such that 100 cycles leave the battery with about 75% to 85% of the original. When used in notebook computers or cellular phones, this rate of deterioration means that after three to five years the battery will have capacities too low to be still usable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

For me, after 2 years I find them unusable because the charge capacity at 50% does not fill my needs anymore.

What type of batteries are in hybrid vehicles? If Li batteries have such a high rate of deterioration, I'm sure they're not used in hybrids.

Did you read the article???

Toyota uses NiMh batteries because of their projected 100,000 cycle lifetimes.

EDIT: Li batteries are advantageous (according to Wiki) because they lose less charge while not used. But with a car, that advantage is irrelevant, because it's likely to get charged and discharged every day.

 

It's also sad that the OP can't even spell "engineer" correctly.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: jumpr

Originally posted by: Amused
"Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused. (6% at 0 °C, 20% at 25 °C, 35% at 40 °C. When stored at 40% charge level, these figures are reduced to 2%, 4%, 15% at 0, 25 and 40 degrees Celsius respectively.) Every (deep) discharge cycle decreases their capacity. The degradation is sloped such that 100 cycles leave the battery with about 75% to 85% of the original. When used in notebook computers or cellular phones, this rate of deterioration means that after three to five years the battery will have capacities too low to be still usable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery

For me, after 2 years I find them unusable because the charge capacity at 50% does not fill my needs anymore.

What type of batteries are in hybrid vehicles? If Li batteries have such a high rate of deterioration, I'm sure they're not used in hybrids.

Did you read the article???

Toyota uses NiMh batteries because of their projected 100,000 cycle lifetimes.

EDIT: Li batteries are advantageous (according to Wiki) because they lose less charge while not used. But with a car, that advantage is irrelevant, because it's likely to get charged and discharged every day.

"Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230 mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for about $12,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen said. "

 

[venk]

Who was supposed to come up with this? A dentist?

 

[Amused]

At any rate, it doesn't matter WHAT battery technology they use. ALL battery technology deteriorates over a period of time. Even if a company boasts a "100,000 cycle lifetime" they are NOT telling you what performance degradation you see after that 100,000 cycles. It could very well be that they find 50% or less capacity acceptable.

 

[TheTony]

Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.

 

Originally posted by: Amused
At any rate, it doesn't matter WHAT battery technology they use. ALL battery technology deteriorates over a period of time. Even if a company boasts a "100,000 cycle lifetime" they are NOT telling you what performance degradation you see after that 100,000 cycles. It could very well be that they find 50% or less capacity acceptable.

I fail to see how that makes hybrids a bad choice for car buyers who are interested in the latest and greatest technology. It's not like internal combustion engines run forever while batteries have a lifespan of 10 years or so; all machinery eventually breaks down.