Well guys, I'm afraid I am sold on electric plopulsion, and have been for a while, so sorry I tend to ramble on the subject. I'm not a tree hugger, but I do like the idea of an electric motor that can put out several hundred pounds of torque starting at zero RPM (with a linear Hp curve), and still light enough that you can picke it up by hand.

The nickel based batteries in the prius are obsolete (and for legal reasons, not viable), and I am at a loss as to where a company can get away with the ecological damage that has been stated. But safe battery recycling is a reality, and has been for decades. I'm not sure what news story you are reffering to, but the nickel hydride battery doesn't even have toxic components in it, unlike the older NiCad battery.

Batteries avalable today can propel pickups to 400 miles without using up all the extra space in the chassis, batteries in the experimental stage can double that rather easily, and based on the energy potential of lithium, more energy dencity than diesel fuel is possible. These batteries are getting better every year, and the results are proven. Cost is also being driven down to the point where its cost effective to replace lead-acid starting batteries with smaller, lighter lithium batteries (they last longer, and give more CCAs).

By retaining the diesel engine, you can still have your cake and eat it too; run electric for shorter trips, and use diesel whenever you have to for longer distances. The investment is still rather steep, but there is a long term cost savings, since its possible to minimize or ellinemate fuel consuption, depending on the distance of the drive (as I said, 400 mile battery range is possible).

 

With the Canadian Exchange rate at 1.07 $US/$CDN I paid $US 4.37 per US gallon on my last fill-up at in Richmond, B.C. Canada.

Luckily our dollar is worth something now so I really only paid 4.07 per US gallon.

The refinery I am working at went from making $Millons a month in profit to breaking even with crude at $96 per barrel so I would fully expect both Gasoline and Diesel prices to go up sharply if the crude price does not come down again soon.

We could be looking at Diesel at $CDN 1.20 by X-mas (That would be about $US 4.85 per US gallon at the current exchange rate.

Merry X-mas everybody, and to all a good night. HO-HO-HO

Seb...

 

This might be some good reading for you David http://greenmesh.com/2007/03/unravel...r_vs_prius.php

Not that I don't like the idea of battery powered vehicles, especially that peak torque you were refering to, but I think we have to be aware of the pros and cons of each type of propulsion that we may see in the future in order to make a well educated decision. If batteries can be made relatively safely.......then I'm all for diesel electric hybrids........I mean, what's not to love?

 

no energy is free all types of energy has tradeoffs some money some environmentalbut all has tradeoffs. people running hybrids are already complaining about cost to operate what started out as 18 month backorder didn't take long to get in classified sections around the country.

 

I'm not sure, but I think this is the original story:http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=188

For the record my personal opinion is that the pruis is an over rated, under performing P O S!!!!!!!!!!!

The claims of 60MPG are a joke (45 is reality), and most of the time the car simply runs like any other gasser(instead of on battery power), and its also a gutless bloody wonder!! If I had to buy a new comuter car, if would probably be an 06-07 VW diesel, which DOES get 60 MPG, only without the expencive "synergy drive" (toyota name for hybrid).

But the real problem stated in that story is the nickel mine itself, the batteries are recyclable, and this story does not name any sources for the info, and it written as an edditorial article, so I choose to take this with a grain of salt.

But seriously, I really hate the prius, smart, and any other small car that is built on political correctness, they do more harm than good when it comes to spreading the word about REAL WORLD alternatives by making them look like something for hippies, or other lazy activists.

Here's what I call "the other side" of the electric car:

This little yellow rocket is a modified general motors EV1, it has a one speed gear box, the steet version was governed to 80 MPH (thank goodness)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raLY9U-BaHE

The speed record that day was over 180MPH.

The EV1 has since been cancelled (very contraversial story), but the Tzero was clocked doing a 0-60 run in 3.2 seconds (never made it to full production), the tesla roadster can to 4 seconds and is governed to 130 MPH with a two speed tranny, but you can leave it in high gear for normal driving. The tesla will go into full production starting next year (pilot production sold out in a few months).

Not much in the way of fullsize trucks though, the one I mentioned earlier was a ranger. If I had the time I would build one myself

 

sreed over 70 doesn,t impress me range does. the ev1 wouldn,t get me to the store and back so no matter how fast or how much load capacity it has this car would be worthless to me living in town would be different.

 

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. Although the author does not site any sources I know from my own readings that several of his facts are correct.

For the record I'm not a Prius fan either and would take the VW diesel over it a heartbeat. That says something because I've sworn off VW after the problems I had with my last couple.

The Chevrolet Volt http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/ and Ford Reflex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Reflex are probably the most intriguing of the hybrids. I'm partial to the Ford a bit as it utilizes a diesel electric hybrid powertrain versus the Chevy's gas electric setup. They both look like they could be promising.

Like you said though, not much in the work for trucks right now. That's okay though, I'm pretty darn happy so far with my IDI

 

Had 2 guys walk up to my shop the other day they had bought a 2001 freightliner bus small 24 ft 5.9 cummins from a college in sc runs on natural gas cheap 98 cents per gallon the only placed that even charged them every where citys and colleges didnt even charge them great deal fuel cost from sc to nm 33 dollars bus cost 770 dollars on ebay.
heres the kicker 400 mile range last place had fuel was in okc hence walking 200 miles to next fuel. towing co wanted 1000 bucks to take them to albaquerque where the college has fuel wanted to know if i could haul them cheaper I told them 600 which is bottom dollar more than they had. now these guys live in grants said they bought the bus to drive because cheap gas this was going to be the wave of the future.
I asked if they were going to change over to propane noway natural gas was a lot cheeper to run. I said you can't buy natural gas in grants what you going to do they said drive to albq to fillup 80 miles 1 way this sounded like a sweet deal to me.

 

I have to agree, range is more important. The EV1 was good for urban traffic, but could have been upgraded to run on lithium. Range was 50 miles on crappy lead acid batteries, close to 120 with nickel.

There was another car loosly similar to the EV1 (solectria sunrise, dumb name, I know) that completed a test of 375 miles. It was completely composite (did very well in crash tests due to high strength and light weight), and powered by the now obsolete Nickel Hydride batteries. In realworld conditions it consistently delivered well over 200 miles of range, just by swapping to a battery of equall weight but in lithium would have more than doubled the range, but since lithium batteries are more compact, the range could have been pushed even further easily. The company was bought out, and only one one prototype survives, but it is still being driven (now 11 years old).

 

any idea how many miles it has on it.

 

Not very much unfortunatey, but it will never rust. I'm really not sure how long this guy has been driving this car, the car design itself is 11 years old, but the parent company was only bought out only a few years ago. Changes have since been made to this car, and it looks like the size of his battery was limited by his budget.

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/655

I have heard of the chevy volt before, and so far am not impressed. they claim a battery range of 40 miles, but will the powertrain actually be allowed to go full speed on battery power alone? 20 years ago the EV1 prototype was delivered in several variants, only one was a pure electric vehicle. The others were gas turbine, gas piston, and diesel - electric hybrids, all of which got close to 100 MPG, somethings wrong with this picture if the volt can't measure up to a 20 year old car. Haven't heard of the ford though........

The story of the plant in ontario could be true, and if so, it could certainly explain why that province is so interested in the kyoto protocall, I suspect trying to imbaress the federal government is a lot cheaper than cleaning up its own act, I feel the kyoto protocall is a scam at best.....

CNG looks like a good deal at a first glance, but on a closer look, you need a heavier tank due to higher pressures, and the BTUs per gallon are lower than propane. Propane on the other hand is a great fuel! My F150 has run on it for the 10 years its been in the family, and after recurving the Dizzy to take advantage of the higher octane, I can hold pace with a lot of newer trucks. Its the most responcive engine you will ever see. Power is very close to other 302s, but MPGs are slightly lower. But unlike CNG, the drop in BTUs is more than compensated by the fact that the fuel is so much cheaper (at least it is here).

 

propane was real popular fuel with farmers around here for years worked real well with fuel injected fords dont see it much anymore. it was possible to get in tax trouble with it made it not so cheap.

 

Yeah, I guess not. Why couldn't they just fuel up at the gas station? Is propane distribution still a problem in the states?

Ford offered porpane trucks from factory for a while, not sure if they still do, I remember seeing a city maintainence truck once that was afactory conversion (97-03 f150).

I even heard of propane injection, but frankly, the mixer (propane carb) I run now is so simple, I don't think I could ever go with anything else. Just two mixture screws, and the rest is ventury, no tune ups, no carb kits - ever (few moving parts ether), I never even had the thing apart, and I know its at least 10 years old by now.

 

i like propane carb setups. they sell them for alot of toyota pickups (22r) and jeep setups. ive even seen them on chevy 350's

 

I was talking about stock fuel injection on ford pu s