Slashdot - Modded Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 MPG

[ccage]

From Slashdot today:

artemis67 writes "Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel. Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car."

I wonder if this is just another case of getting the energy from another source (as opposed to actually saving any. For example, I've never really seen the major advantage of full-electric cars as they still use the same energy, and often from less-efficient, still-exhaustable sources. So the electricity is made from a coal plant outside of town, then used to charge the batteries... Sounds like they just want to move the pollution out of the cities into the rural areas.

Still, with gas going as high as it is, maybe paying for the electricity is cheaper than the gas, pollution be damned.

Chuck

[POS Racing]

Title of the article is a bit misleading.... 250mpg?

The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.

How far is too far, sounds like maybe 20 miles??

[ccage]

Title of the article is a bit misleading.... 250mpg?
How far is too far, sounds like maybe 20 miles??

Exactly! Just making another electric car.

You wonder if he only drives 10 miles a day why he doesn't just ride his bicycle or buy a scooter or something.

Chuck

[Treibenschnell]

Perhaps that fat bastard just needs to walk from now on...

[POS Racing]

Perhaps that fat bastard just needs to walk from now on...

Well duh, he is an Engineer after all!

[Treibenschnell]

Well duh, he is an Engineer after all!

I was gonna call Altiain (the new Engineer around here) a little pudgy... but then I walked past a mirror...

[altiain]

I was gonna call Altiain (the new Engineer around here) a little pudgy... but then I walked past a mirror...

Watch it...

ccage hit the nail square on the head - although it's something the typical Greenpeace whale-lover will never understand. As far as they're concerned, the energy that comes from a battery or an electrical outlet comes with no consequences, since the coal-fired electricity plant typically isn't in their neighborhood, and they don't have to worry about what happens to the battery when they trade their Prius in on a Lexus RX400h in three years.

Hybrids, which convert typically wasted kinetic energy (the energy converted into waste heat by your brakes under deceleration) into reuseable chemical energy, have some interesting environmental issues. Batteries don't grow on trees, if you'll pardon the pun, and the materials that go into their construction are incredibly toxic. They also have a finite lifespan, which means - at some point int he future that the greenies refuse to talk about - they will have to be safely disposed of or recycled. That is going to be a monumental challenge if hybrid popularity continues to increase.