Why isn't Daimler Chrysler aggressively pursuing hybrid vehicles?

The Dodge Ram pickup is a good start for hybrid drivetrain
application, but more vehicles need to be hybrids. The Neon, PT
Cruiser, all minivans, and all Jeep products would benefit greatly
from hybrid tehnology

 

Would YOU buy one? Consider this:
Expect a Higher Price Tag
The hybrid cars currently on the market cost from $3500 to $6000 more
per car than comparable cars with conventional gas engines. This means
that the amount of money you save, or don't save, by buying a hybrid
is very much dependent on gasoline prices. If gas is priced at $1.80
per gallon, it could take the average driver (15,000 miles per year)
between 10 and 15 years to amortize the $3500 increase in the initial
price. However, the higher gas prices go, the less time it takes to
recoup the higher price tag.

This is taken directly from:
http://www.ineed2know.org/hybrid_cars.htm

 

On the Today Show this morning, Ford said their hybrid SUV would cost "a couple
thousand" more than its traditional counterpart.

 

Uh, maybe. The Toyota Prius is about as far out there as you can get in
terms of a hybrid right now with extremely aerodynamics. It gets 35 mpg city
and 50 mpg highway. (Consumer Reports says so.) That's certainly very good,
but there have been cars with much worse aerodynamics that got better
highway numbers (VW diesels come to mind and I think some Honda Civic
gas-only models did, too.) and the city number is not all that much better
than some straight gas models get.

You have to also remember that EVERYONE in the car business says that Toyota
is losing a couple grand on each Prius they sell.

--

- GRL

"It's good to want things."

Steve Barr (philosopher, poet, humorist, chemist,
Visual Basic programmer)

 

I'm suspicious of CU's figures, especially the low city rating. Given that
the Prius can be driven on electric power only in most city driving
situations (with the engine starting up as needed to recharge the battery
pack), city fuel efficiency should equal or exceed highway efficiency.

Prius partisans would likely tell you that VW diesels have dirtier
emmissions than the SULEV-rated Prius, and that the Civic ICE models aren't
that much more efficient. (The Civic Hybrid's numbers aren't that much
better than the Prius', for that matter, either.)

It's certainly better than my '98 Neon, which has been averaging 32 MPG --
in *highway* driving.

Source, please? I've read articles that indicate that Toyota has made a
profit on each Prius they've sold for the past year.

 

Ford says that their new hybrid gets better city fuel economy than highway. It
seems like that is a big advantage of hybrids.

 

Real-world testing puts the Prius at about 40mpg combined, the Civic
Hybrid at about 41-42mpg, and The VW TDI at about 42-43Mpg.

Everything else is in the low 30s - at least what's sold in the U.S.
The Polo in Europe has a smaller TDI engine and gets roughly 70mpg.

Honda sells a modified ~80HP Civic in Japan geared for extreme
economy as opposed to the U.S. "sporty" version. 75mpg. This
car was originally sold nearly ten years ago, btw. Not new
technology.

New Buick Lesabre:
21 city/28 highway(govt figures)
real tested mpg: 14 city 32 highway.

It seems as if the artificial testing is completely wrong. The
Prius obviously was purpose-built to do well on the city test
so as to "cheat" and get a 60mpg figure, which is nothing close
to the 40mpg reality.

 

| The Dodge Ram pickup is a good start for hybrid drivetrain
| application, but more vehicles need to be hybrids. The Neon, PT
| Cruiser, all minivans, and all Jeep products would benefit greatly
| from hybrid tehnology

I'm waiting to see how many thousands it will cost over the life of a ULEV
vehicle to replace the battery packs when they die...and how long they last
between replacements. No one is talking about that!! Hmmm... I bet they'll
need replacing every 3-5 years and if a cell phone replacement battery is $50+,
the replacement batteries for a ULEV vehicle is going to be hundreds, if not
thousands! No thanks!!!

 

Fair enough. EPA figures aren't intended to be representative of fuel
efficiency under "real world" conditions; as the saying goes, your mileage
may vary.

Perhaps, but you don't mention how well the Civic Hybrid and VW's TDIs did
in the "artifical testing":

Toyota Prius -- City 60 MPG / Hwy 51 MPG / Combined 55 MPG
Honda Civic Hybrid -- City 47 MPG / Hwy 48 MPG / Combined 47 MPG
Volkswagen Golf TDI -- City 32 MPG / Hwy 43 MPG / Combined 36 MPG
Volkswagen Jetta TDI -- City 32 MPG / Hwy 43 MPG / Combined 36 MPG

(These are the EPA's published figures. All of the above vehicles are 2004
models. I've listed two VWs here because VW offers more than one model with
the TDI engine technology.)

Given the combined EPA figures and the "real world" figures you mention
above, you seem to suggest that the TDIs perform *better* in "real world"
conditions than the hybrids, when there doesn't seem to be any clear
evidence, anectodal or otherwise, to support that claim, AFAICT.

I respectfully disagree. The basic technology behind the Prius' hybird
drivetrain has been in commercial production for the past seven years. To
suggest that the Prius was "purpose-built" to "cheat" on the EPA city test
is a rather provocative assertion. Care to back this claim up?

 

CivicVX , about 1990, 60-65MPG (canadian) on the highway with 430,000
KM on it. Belongs to a friend who drove back and forth from Toronto to
Kitchener every day for about 6 years with it.

 

The Hybrids are too high and the TDI is close to reality. I think
maybe the tests are being too generous with the hybrids and may
need to be altered a bit.

http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~johnf/rechtin.html

This explains why the test is garbage.

20mph average city speed in the test is ubsurd. Yet that's purely
electric mode. 20mph will get you run over today. Increase it to 30mph
like normal and the engine kicks in.

 

Almost certainly, whatever the lifespan that the automakers claim the
batteries
are going to last, you can halve it. And unless all the automakers get
together now
and standardize on a single battery style used in these things, battery
replacements
are going to remain Dealer Only parts.

Ted

 

That was the U.S. version. They made a version of the VX with
higher pressure tires, an underbody cover for aerodynamics, and
a few other modifications. The big deal, though, was the purpose-built
high mileage engine. Only sold in Australia and Japan.

Not importable to the U.S. due to very nigh NoX ratings - the engine
has very high compression values.(20:1!)

http://asia.vtec.net/article/EK3Vi/

Shame, really. Slick peice of technology that whomps on the Prius.

They made a version of this car with even more refinements to
maximize efficiency.

The VW Lupo gets between 78 and 90mpg.

The Smart gets 60mpg+ with the smaller engine.

A true hybrid using one of these designs would easily top 100mpg,
but there's little incentive to make one with gas so cheap.

 

You and I would try to figure out how to put Optimas in, eh Ted? 8^)

Bill Putney
(to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with "x")

 

Thanks for the reference. It explains why the Prius got so high a city
rating, given the methodology used in the city test. Now I'm inclined to
agree with you that the EPA city test has to be revised. I don't think it
should be changed so much as to accommodate hybrids as to more accurately
reflect real world conditions.

The real question is, what *would* constitute "real world conditions"? Not
everyone drives the same way, you know....

Very true. Even in city driving in Indianapolis, the speeds are more like
25 and 30mph. It's 35 out in the suburbs where I live.

For the Honda hybrids and the older Prius, perhaps, but not for the 2004
model, if what I've read of owner experiences are any indication. Toyota
has apparently re-engineered the '04 Prius so that it drops out of EV mode
if the speed exceeds 42mph (or if the drive battery's charge level drops
below 30% of maximum).

 

|
|
| Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
| >
| > | > >
| > > | > > | The Dodge Ram pickup is a good start for hybrid drivetrain
| > > | application, but more vehicles need to be hybrids. The Neon, PT
| > > | Cruiser, all minivans, and all Jeep products would benefit greatly
| > > | from hybrid tehnology
| > >
| > > I'm waiting to see how many thousands it will cost over the life of a
ULEV
| > > vehicle to replace the battery packs when they die...and how long they
| > last
| > > between replacements. No one is talking about that!! Hmmm... I bet
| > they'll
| > > need replacing every 3-5 years and if a cell phone replacement battery is
| > $50+,
| > > the replacement batteries for a ULEV vehicle is going to be hundreds, if
| > not
| > > thousands! No thanks!!!
| > >
| >
| > Almost certainly, whatever the lifespan that the automakers claim the
| > batteries
| > are going to last, you can halve it. And unless all the automakers get
| > together now
| > and standardize on a single battery style used in these things, battery
| > replacements
| > are going to remain Dealer Only parts.
| >
| > Ted
|
| You and I would try to figure out how to put Optimas in, eh Ted? 8^)
|

Has _anyone_ heard what one should expect to pay for battery replacement over
the life of the vehicle? I haven't. Seems to be BS (Big Secret).

 

Or not, since the batteries in most modern hybrids are engineered to last
the typical life of the vehicle. For example, the Toyota Prius' pack is
rated to last about 150,000 miles before it needs replacement.

 

They would be a darn sight safer than 20 gallons of sulfuric acid that
conventional
batteries would represent, methinks.

Unfortunately, they would undoubtedly be heavier and consume more space
than the originals. The charging circuit would certainly have to be
altered, I'm sure.

Ted

 

Hate to burst your bubble but the Toyota Prius uses Sealed Nickel-Metal
Hydride (Ni-MH) batteries, same batteries as used in most new cell
phones and laptops. And while these batteries have proven better than
the Ni-Cad batteries they replaced, (because they do not have a memory
the way NiCad batteries do) they still wear out.

In fact, rechargable NiMH batteries in the double & triple A, and C and
D form factors have recently appeared on supermarket shelves and other
locations that batteries are sold, along with the computer-controlled
battery
chargers that are required to properly recharge them. I'd urge anyone
thinking about getting a Hybrid car to buy a bunch of these batteries and
use them in their flashlights, kids toys, etc. for at least a couple years.
Your
going to find out that while they do last longer than NiCads, that they
are not miracle batteries.

Undoubtedly the wise guys at Toyota probably arrived at this figure by
estimating 20K miles a year, thus 7 1/2 years of time. A top of the
line lead acid car battery will last that in normal usage. A NiHM that
is under computer control of the discharge and recharge cycle will most
likely last that too. But there's going to be a fall-off of battery
capacity
just as in a lead-acid battery.

But a 15 year old Toyota Prius with 120,000 miles on it is almost
certainly going to have had it's battery(s) changed out.

Truth is that with the way that the Hybrids use power, from a reliability
standpoint they might have been better off with a bank of Leyden jars
or fat charge-capacitors. These devices store electrical energy directly
via opposing-charged plates, and are much more efficient at it than the
battery way of converting the electricity to chemical energy then back to
electricity when you need it. Of course, a crash could be quite exciting
if a conductor fell across the terminals as these devices can dump ALL
their energy across a conductor almost instantly, a 1 inch solid bar would
probably explode into molten steel. But these devices do not wear out
like a battery does.

Vehicle battery life is dependent on a lot of uncontrollable factors. For
starters,
vibration, and temperature changes and temperature amounts have the
biggest variable effect. If the charging circuit FUBARS and overcharges
the batteries then they are gonna be toasted. While a sealed Ni-HM isn't
as mechanically fragile as a lead-acid battery, it still has plates that
corrode
over time.

Ted

 

NiMH batteries suffer from memory effects over time as well. Not as
pronounced as the Ni-Cads, but it's still there. Toyota got around
this by making the abttery pack massively overbuilt so that normal
driving only depletes it maybe 20-30%.

If the pack is regularly dropped below 50% charge, you'll be lucky to
get 3-4 years out of it. If it's dropped to zero more than a couple
of dozen times, maybe a year after that.

Of course, the problem with Toyota's system is that they have 60-80%
of the battery as dead weight and insurance to give the long lifespan.
A proper designed hybrid would only need 2-4 batteries that you'd
sweap out every other year. It would be 300-500lbs lighter as well.

Me? I'd use capacitors and leave the engine running all the time,
but at a fixed speed. A turbo-diesel would be perfect for this
as they love to run at a constant speed. Variations in power
requirements would be handled by the capacitors and transmission.

Such a design in, say, a modified Echo would net upwards of 80mpg.

VW's Polo gets 65-70mpg average with a TDI engine, so 10-15mpg
more for a hybrid Polo or simmialr small car isn't unreasonable.