http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...car/article.do

 

if I wanted to buy this right now, how would I accomplish this?

or is this another Volt, perpetual concept.

 

In the article, it states "around 2010". Sounds like another Volt-like vehicle to me. I'm ready for one, when my HCH2 is about to be retired! I'm thinking that'll be around 2013 - which is probably after these have really been ON the market for a year or 2.

 

Like the Volt, it won't mean a thing unless it's actually brought to market.

 

....The only cars currently offering this hybrid feature, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid, need the petrol engine to charge their batteries and cannot run exclusively on electric power for any length of time.....


Hmmm....I can't be the only one perplexed at this statement. THat is true of the HCH but definitely not HSD as the Prius can indeed run exclusively on electric power. It just can't be charged from a wall socket. Actually, that's not true either if you count the various modified hybrids on the road today. The only PHEV in the hand of consumers today are the modified priuses!

 

at current conversion rates, that's about $1.87 in electricity per 60-mile trip. at .05$/kwh, it's about 37 KWh. pull that off your house in five hours every night and you've added a 7KW load to your mains every night of the month.

do the math. even with a 12-hour charge, it's like plugging in three 1000-watt heaters overnight, every time you need a charge.

i don't think we're there yet...

 

seems pretty funny everybody is rushing to get something out. in this case, it's just a picture... and not a very good one at that.

 

i went to the Home Show yesterday at the NC State Fairgrounds. the one of the local power companies had a converted '05 Prius on display with a NiMH battery in the space where the spare tire used to be.

he claimed that it would run about 75-100 mpg on average if you kept the battery charged up overnight.

i told him that my '04 seemed to start the engine so quickly that even a bigger battery might not make that much difference... and i'm not leadfooting it, either. it just never seems to get above about 5-10 mph before the engine is started [and i'm talking flat roads, etc.]

he claimed that Toyota might have a home-recharger NiMH-type of vehicle out by around 2010, though he admitted the disposal issues of NiMH are a ways down the road, too, so to speak...

maybe when i'm ready to trade in five or ten years...

 

Plusaf, 60 miles range is about 12 kWh, which is a draw of only 1 kW on an overnight full charge.

 

thanks for the calibration on that one!! i haven't seen any nice conversions from miles to kwh...

now, let's see... 12 kwh per day... 360 per month... [rough number, ok? ]

i've been tracking my home's kwh for a while... low of 22-25 kwh/day in november [gas heat] and high of about 70-80/day in july-august [two a/c units in the house in Raleigh... ]

so my winter bill will go up by about 33% and my summer bill by about 15% or so... my electric company has me on a yearly averaging system, and it's running about $150/month all year round. for the past year we've averaged about 50 kwh/month, so adding 12 is 24% more, or $36 a month...

now, i've been averaging 43 mpg around town. if i drive 60 miles per day, that's 1.39 gallons per day. prices are around $2.75 for regular, but let's say that over the next year they average $3. that's $4.20 a day, or $126 a month, rounding up a bit. Not bad, eh? Makes the electric approach sound better and better

now, check my math...

[by the way, i really average 4,000 miles a year... ]