YACT: Modded Toyota Prius with SONY LithiumFire Uber Battery runs 55KM on a single charge

[Qianglong]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten...l_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851

"What Angemeer drove away with was a "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicle that can travel 55 kilometres on a single battery charge while using only a trickle of gasoline for acceleration. Such a trip might need just 60 cents worth of electricity ? about the cost of a full five-hour battery charge ? and $1.40 worth of gas, based on mileage of about 2.4 litres per 100 kilometres."

"What Angemeer drove away with was a "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicle that can travel 55 kilometres on a single battery charge while using only a trickle of gasoline for acceleration. Such a trip might need just 60 cents worth of electricity ? about the cost of a full five-hour battery charge ? and $1.40 worth of gas, based on mileage of about 2.4 litres per 100 kilometres."

 

[crystal]

Did I see double?

 

[Ulfhednar]

Will your car also explode like laptops powered with Sony batteries?

 

[mercanucaribe]

What happens when the Sony batteries explode?

 

[ch33zw1z]

LOL, I was gonna post what you two did...55KM THEN UR DEAD!

 

[vi edit]

A $14,500 battery system.

 

[Lonyo]

55KM won't really get me very far, especially if I then need to spend 5 hours waiting for a recharge.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
What happens when the Sony batteries explode?

There will be a recall

 

[Xyo II]

Oh yey, 34 miles for a 5 hour charge? That makes it worth the cost

 

[harrkev]

So, this guy paid $14,000 dollars for this.

Let's assume that the car will last for 12 years, which will mean an additional $4,000 battery replacement. This means that he paid $4.10 per day for the honor of plugging it in. If you assume that the car can get 30 miles-per-gallon unmodified, and that gas is $2.50 per gallon, that means that he could ride almost 50 miles per day for the same amount of money as he spent on the modification. Not to mention the additional (although small) cost of the electricity used to plug it in.

Now, if he, like most people, gets rid of the car after five years or so, then things look much worse.

Still, this does give you warm fuzzies for being "green." But those warm fuzzies had better be worth a lot to you.

 

[Zenmervolt]

OK, so $14,500 to save 1.40 in 55 km...

So if he drives 20,000km/year and always stays under 55km per trip he'll save $560. He'll make that money back in only 25.9 years neglecting the time value of money. (He'll need 569,643 km to break even as well, or 356,026 miles.)

ZV

 

[Vic]

Not to mention 5kW is only 6.7 hp, so I'd say that he had to burn gasoline every time he accelerated.

 

[ElFenix]

wtf that car gets 100 mpg?!?

55 Km = 34 miles

at $2 a gallon, that's using $0.68 cents worth of gas if the car is getting 100 mpg.

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
A $14,500 battery system.

Ok.. let's see. If you are driving the full 55km to and from work every day, and gas gets up to $5.00 / gallon....

Plugin per day = ~$1.20
Regular per day = ~$10.00

$14,500 / $8.80 = 1648 days

1648 / 240 = 6.9 years

7 years to make back the investment on that car in the absolute worst case. How long do you think that battery is going to last?

I know it's not a financial decision by any means, but still...

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
What happens when the Sony batteries explode?

Turbo boost.

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: AbsolutDealage

Originally posted by: vi_edit
A $14,500 battery system.

Ok.. let's see. If you are driving the full 55km to and from work every day, and gas gets up to $5.00 / gallon....

Plugin per day = ~$1.20
Regular per day = ~$10.00

$14,500 / $8.80 = 1648 days

1648 / 240 = 6.9 years

7 years to make back the investment on that car in the absolute worst case. How long do you think that battery is going to last?

I know it's not a financial decision by any means, but still...

That would seem like the best case... anyway, deep discharging of batteries is not good for their life expectancy... On another side, using that kind of power, say goodbye to air conditioning (unless you run your gasoline engine)

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: AbsolutDealage

Originally posted by: vi_edit
A $14,500 battery system.

Ok.. let's see. If you are driving the full 55km to and from work every day, and gas gets up to $5.00 / gallon....

Plugin per day = ~$1.20
Regular per day = ~$10.00

$14,500 / $8.80 = 1648 days

1648 / 240 = 6.9 years

7 years to make back the investment on that car in the absolute worst case. How long do you think that battery is going to last?

I know it's not a financial decision by any means, but still...

My only rebuttal is that a Civic that gets me 40MPG on the highway with regular gas turns that 6.9 years into over 15 again.

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: Calin
That would seem like the best case...

Well, depends on how you are looking at it. It is the best case if you happened to have just dropped 15 large on a battery. For the rest of us, that would be the worst case (you drive 70 miles a day and the gas goes up to $5 a gallon, and you are only getting 35 mpg out of your prius).

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
My only rebuttal is that a Civic that gets me 40MPG on the highway with regular gas turns that 6.9 years into over 15 again.

Believe me, I'm not arguing that. I was just saying that even with the lowest documented mpg for the prius (Consumer Reports road test), you still aren't going to make that system worth the money for 7 years, even if gas rises to rediculous heights. I was also assuming constant prices for electricity, which is not necessarily the case either. I was also assuming that the plug-in will consume no gas (which is also not the case).

Anyways, I wouldn't buy a Prius, so this doesn't really matter anyways.

 

[vi edit]

Don't get me wrong. I would *LOVE* to see an economically viable, safe, and functionall fully electric car make available on a mass consumer level. And I applaud what these guys do for the sake of innovation.

I think that for your average person who has a 15 mile or less (one way) commute to work and back each day it's an incredible option and would greatly cut down on gas at the pump consumption and emissions.

But with the costs of hardware and the recent announcement of a 55% electricity hike this year from my local energy company it's hard to get really worked up by the idea.

Regenerative braking for electricity production in current hybrids seems to be a good compromise for a lot of stop & goers.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Don't get me wrong. I would *LOVE* to see an economically viable, safe, and functionall fully electric car make available on a mass consumer level. And I applaud what these guys do for the sake of innovation.

I think this is a key point that many people here seem to forget. Everytime there is a thread about a hybrid the discussion always leads into people breaking down the cost. Sure, the technology needs to become cost effective at some point, but we have to go through these steps to get there. If we dropped every new technology because it was expensive at the start then we would rarely have any new technology.

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
What happens when the Sony batteries explode?

Turbo boost.

afterburners /ON

 

[AbsolutDealage]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Don't get me wrong. I would *LOVE* to see an economically viable, safe, and functionall fully electric car make available on a mass consumer level. And I applaud what these guys do for the sake of innovation.

I think this is a key point that many people here seem to forget. Everytime there is a thread about a hybrid the discussion always leads into people breaking down the cost. Sure, the technology needs to become cost effective at some point, but we have to go through these steps to get there. If we dropped every new technology because it was expensive at the start then we would rarely have any new technology.

I fully realize that it does not come down to a financial consideration for the early adopters (hence my comment on the first post). Anyways, it breaks down to a cost consideration because the hybrid folks always talk about the increase in mileage (or in this case, how cheap it is to recharge your car). The second you start to talk about how much money the car is saving, you have to analyze that from both ends.

I too would love to see an econimically feasible plug-in, but I don't think it's gonna happen for quite some time.

 

[sswingle]

Why can't I find the word Sony anywhere in that article?

 

[cjchaps]

We are all you concerned with the 15K price tag. It's a brand new invention and of course it's going to cost a lot. It said in a year the price could drop to $6500. In a few years it will probably be really cheap.