Auto gas mileage

[annunaki]

It's not stored

The sites mentioned, speak of keeping in its safely compressed natural form known as water, then using it as it is separated on demand and burned in the engine.

[jonmulzer]

They use the cars alternator supposedly to convert water to Hydrogen gas and then burn it. What they are proposing is a perpetual motion machine. You still need to expend more energy to convert water to H2 than you would get out of the burn because of inefficiency. For this to work it would require over 100% efficiency.

It is snake oil.

[MilDoc]

They use the cars alternator supposedly to convert water to Hydrogen gas and then burn it. What they are proposing is a perpetual motion machine. You still need to expend more energy to convert water to H2 than you would get out of the burn because of inefficiency. For this to work it would require over 100% efficiency.

It is snake oil.

Yep. Plus, you'd be lucky to generate enough H2 to go anywhere. it's not a fast reaction.

[rnelson0]

My neighbor drives one. It's really *really* weird to see him driving by practically silently. The first time I heard it (rather didn't hear it), I had one of those "does not compute" moments.

My wife has almost driven over a number of people in parking lots - most of whom look at her with a "How dare you!" look - and also me. I make sure to call her if I plan to be in the shop after 5, or I could get mowed down while working at the saw



The basic idea is that below 40mph on a flat or downward slope, your battery runs everything. Above 40mph or on an incline, you get a combination of gas an electric motors. Above 50 or 60 you're probably running 95% gas or more.

However, anytime you brake or even just let off the gas, the battery starts recharging. This not only recharges the battery passively instead of from the gas engine, but it saves on brake pads as the energy is disipated by the battery recharge, not heating up the metal on your pads.

You won't see quite the gas savings on the highway in normal modes as you would in the city, but you could always run yourself out of gas and force it to use the battery. I wouldn't suggest this if you're on the highway for more than 30 minutes though, doubt the battery will much more than that

[LCHIEN]

...
You won't see quite the gas savings on the highway in normal modes as you would in the city, but you could always run yourself out of gas and force it to use the battery. I wouldn't suggest this if you're on the highway for more than 30 minutes though, doubt the battery will much more than that

According to the IEEE Spectrum article I read recently, the battery in the Prius will basically take you 2-3 km on a charge. That will last you about 2 minutes at 50 mph.

To mkae its NiMH batteries have the longest life possible, the algorithm in the prius starts recharging the battery when its below 50% charge -- most of the batterys life is intended to be between 50 and 80% of full charge by the controllers algorithm.

The poeple who convert Priuses to plug in hybrids gut the battery pack and replace it with a Li-Ion pack with more capacity and lighter weight per KW-Hour storage which gets to about 12 km on a charge, A special circuit on the battery lies to the prius controller and tells it that the battery is nearly full to fool the prius controller into not starting the gas motor sooner but later.

The plug-in conversion includes the household and a portable charger. It costs $32,000 on top of the Prius (~$25K) which you provide.

They claim 100 mpg but of course, in my book the gallon of gas is supplemented greatly by electric charging current so it not really 100 mpg, its 100 miles per (gallon of gas plus supplemental external electric charge).

Probably seems really cheap since you don't directly meter the electricity you use to charge the car but if you did, the cost per mile will be lower (than an all gas car) because the utility co. produces power more efficiently than you do with a gasoline engine.

[jziegler]

Here's a link to the article that Loring mentioned (I think it's probably the same one):

http://spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6174

It's a nice upgread, but very pricy. But I suspect that it is the technology that will get us through high energy prices until something revolutionary becomes available.

Jim

According to the IEEE Spectrum article I read recently, the battery in the Prius will basically take you 2-3 km on a charge. That will last you about 2 minutes at 50 mph.

To mkae its NiMH batteries have the longest life possible, the algorithm in the prius starts recharging the battery when its below 50% charge -- most of the batterys life is intended to be between 50 and 80% of full charge by the controllers algorithm.

The poeple who convert Priuses to plug in hybrids gut the battery pack and replace it with a Li-Ion pack with more capacity and lighter weight per KW-Hour storage which gets to about 12 km on a charge, A special circuit on the battery lies to the prius controller and tells it that the battery is nearly full to fool the prius controller into not starting the gas motor sooner but later.

The plug-in conversion includes the household and a portable charger. It costs $32,000 on top of the Prius (~$25K) which you provide.

They claim 100 mpg but of course, in my book the gallon of gas is supplemented greatly by electric charging current so it not really 100 mpg, its 100 miles per (gallon of gas plus supplemental external electric charge).

Probably seems really cheap since you don't directly meter the electricity you use to charge the car but if you did, the cost per mile will be lower (than an all gas car) because the utility co. produces power more efficiently than you do with a gasoline engine.