2005 GM/Opel, 59mpg diesel-hybrid, never produced!
General Motors Corp. will likely unveil a prototype plug-in hybrid at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January, a local paper reported on Friday.The advanced technology vehicle would have an extended driving range on battery power and would also have a diesel or gasoline engine that could power the car when the battery was low, the Detroit News said, citing unnamed GM officials.
Plug-in hybrids are gas-electric vehicles that can recharge their batteries with an extension cord and a normal wall outlet.
GM, which is trying to recover from a $10.6 billion loss in 2005 and stop a slide in U.S. market share, has been criticized for relying heavily on gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles. This year, it has also drawn sharp criticism for its decision to kill its EV1 electric car program.
The automaker eventually collected and destroyed almost all of the 1,000 EV1 cars, prompting the making of a documentary titled “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
In an interview with Motor Trend published in July, GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said killing the $1 billion EV1 program was his worst decision. He said it did not affect the automaker’s profitability, but did hurt its image.
Let’s hope GM ventures out into the marketplace, this time. They killed the EV1. They never went into production with the Astra pictured at the top of the page. GM is capable of building a competitive vehicle — if they have the courage and smarts to do so.
AB CD,
The way that EV’s can load balance is by utilizing the drive train created by AC Propulsions (who invented the drivetrain used by GM on the EV-1 platform, and is the most advanced currently available) which by design can act as a large ‘UPS’ to back feed power into the grid when not used for transportation. Most EV’s would be used (at least initially) as second vehicles and that would (presumably) leave a fully charged EV in the garage for a significant part of the day.
The ‘demand’ on the grid is NOT at night where there is EXCESS available. There is only excessive demand during the day, when EV’s (for the majority of cases) are never plugged in.
Having gas powered cars does nothing to increase or decrease grid usage, it just adds to polution, keeps us dependant on oil, keeps us lining the pockets of the oil industry (who, from their perspective aren’t experincing an ‘oil crisis’, just record profits – no incentive to change anything).
Additionally, most people using EV’s (call them early adopters) also utilize solar power so as to get completely independant from utilities. There have been recent developements in the solar industry that can make it possible to effectively use solar panels in areas that don’t have the sun exposure that California typically does. One of the founders of Google is currently building a factory to make these very efficient solar panels here in the US. They were invented in South Africa by one of the Universities there, and have arranged manufacturing contracts with several German companies.
Back in the 70s, I found a funky self-published book by a guy who makes his own alcohol using a solar distiller.
He uses this alcohol to run his car, then he sells the fermented mash to some cattle ranchers.
I used to live in California’s Central Valley where they throw away TONS AND TONS of fruit culls. They plow them back into the fields. I’m pretty sure a farmer would let you “borrow” the culls before they got plowed under. (especially, if you volunteered to do it.)
The Valley also have plenty of sun. It would have been perfect to try this out except that I lived in an apartment.
Don, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The energy efficiency of a gasoline engine in a car is terrible. It almost all goes to heat. The average efficiency of the electrical grid is 93%. A lot of the power on the other end of that grid comes from hydro and nuclear, most of the rest from natural gas or coal, both of which done in a way that is WAY more efficient and less polluting then a car. Stop making things up just so you can feel good about driving your Hummer around.
Read this:
http://teslamotors.com/display_data/21stCentElectricCar.pdf