Re: OT: Euro Gas prices

Go to YouTube and type in "171mpg." Doing this will bring up a
hobbyist/engineer's log outlining the mileage he gets in his PHEV-
converted Prius. "Dave" has a fair number of these logs recording his
experiences on YouTube, but he's not unique, and Toyota has been paying
close attention to
these people. The 2009 Toyota is rumored to be based on their designs: a
PHEV, perhaps advertising 100+ mpg when it appears.

I find that MPG is the wrong measurement though. A completely electric car
has an infinite MPG. A better measure would be cost/distance. Because
electricity is cheaper to produce than gas, the Plug-In is about a quarter
to a third the cost of gas/petrol over the same distance.

Even more than that, Toyota just announced today that it will also be
offering the next logical step: a solar-powered PHEV version of the Prius:
....
In a normal commute situation, where the car sits in a parking lot all
a trickle charge integrated over a day's charging likely means the commute
home could be free (no gasoline, no external electricity), depending on
size of the solar array placed on the car's upper surfaces.

In the articles I have found relating to this story, the solar panels are
not advertised for mileage but are meant to add to other features like air
conditioning, small fans, etc. That's not to say that it couldn't provide a
small boost to the range of a trip but that wasn't the impression I got from
the articles. Here's one example:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/07/BUFO11L7FO.DTL
....
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to stick solar panels on some models of its popular
Prius hybrid car, according to news reports Monday. The panels, made by
Kyocera, would help power the air conditioner.

Details are sketchy. The Nikkei financial newspaper of Japan and the Reuters
international news service reported the story, but both relied on
unidentified sources. Toyota refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying
the company doesn't talk about future product plans.

And some of the details seem implausible. Nikkei wrote that the panels would
produce 2 to 5 kilowatts of electricity, roughly the same as a rooftop solar
array on a typical house.

But some alternative energy experts find the idea intriguing. Today's solar
panels can't provide nearly enough power to run a passenger car by
themselves, and they could significantly inflate a car's cost. But they
could also make a car more efficient.

"It's not going to eliminate gasoline consumption in a Prius, and it
wouldn't be on my list of energy improvements I'd make to a car," said Mark
Duvall, program manager for electric transportation studies at the Electric
Power Research Institute. "But that doesn't mean it can't make a small but
significant improvement in the amount of gasoline you'd use."
....


Mark W.

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Euro Gas prices
    ... Efficiency of conversion to electricity and ease/expense of manufacturing the panels. ... a really secret company called eestor has supposedly created a revolutionary storage device and is scheduled to be out in a Zenn car in less than a year. ... Now with an effecient solar panel and something like the eestor storage device, you could have panels on everything and trickle charge the storage devices. ...
    (comp.sys.hp.mpe)
  • Re: Add more monorails
    ... panels, maybe the roof of the track way could be a complete solar panel. ... Also wind power, Electric power does not HAVE to be a pollution factor. ... Disney doesn't have a problem with the rising cost of electricity. ...
    (rec.arts.disney.parks)
  • Re: anti unclear power petition
    ... The other has photovoltaic cells that are usually made of Silicon that are connected by wires and make usually dc electricity and can charge a battery, power devices directly or be fed into the grid. ... These are solar *electric* panels. ... One reason is that at the light levels we get in this country and the relative efficiency of solar panels, covering the whole country with Photovoltaic cells would not generate enough electricity to power the whole country. ... You could get about 100-200kWh/m2/year of electrical energy out of solar electric panels and there are a lot of m2 of available roofs and fields around. ...
    (uk.rec.sheds)
  • Solar energy revolution brings green power closer
    ... Panels start solar power 'revolution' ... British scientists called "a revolution" in generating electricity. ... The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Who Killed the Electric Car? (PBS)
    ... The electric car was a worthless Idea. ... We don't produce enough electricity and have an underdeveloped system ... love it -- and I love my Prius. ... new thing called hybrid rage. ...
    (soc.retirement)