Rosso,

I think you miss the point though. In my opinion, I think that Honda, Toyota, and GM are producing some quantities of Hybrid vehicles as an introduction to the buying public the Hybrid solution. This is probably just a stepping stone. In the long term, I think that they will start offering products that use viable re-generative energy powered cars...not hybrids.

Even VW has taken on partnerships to start exploring/exploiting this segment.

Diesel and gasoline engines may very well go the way of the dinosaur my lifetime ('cause you know I'm younger than alot of you old fogies )

I think the hope of what comes from companies like AC Propulsion will help us realize this dream/effort very soon. (http://www.acpropulsion.com) I'm pretty sure there are another handful of companies and/or organizations working on projects like this here in the U.S. alone.

The obstacle of these type of cars isn't really the technology or lack of engineering, it's the lack of overall public acceptance and in turn marketability/profitablility. Once the joe schmoes of the world willfully start buying "only" 100-200 mile range electric cars for commuting purposes, manufacturers will start mass producing them.

 

Luder94,

There is no such thing as a "viable regenerative energy powered car." Sorry to burst your bubble, but physics will eventually have to come downstairs and yell at you to be quiet. Hybrids will be the de facto standard for probably 100 years or more, until the next big wave of technology usurps them. I expect to see hybrid vehicles enjoy much the same technological life that internal combustion vehicles have seen. The term hybrid, of course, does not refer to only gasoline parallel hybrids -- it refers to PEM fuel cell hybrids, direct-methanol fuel cell hybrids, deisel hybrids, CNG, LNG, you name it.

Electrical energy is quite simply too hard to store chemically. The most advanced batteries in the world today still don't have the energy-to-weight ratio needed to make them viable as a sole source of energy for passenger vehicles. The most promising new batteries are -- fuel cells.

Here's what I expect to happen:

------------------------------------------

2010 - gasoline parallel hybrids have become somewhat popular, and probably will take 10-20% of the US market. At about the same time, direct-methanol fuel-cell batteries will reach the consumer, and we'll all enjoy running our PalmPilots and cameras for a year or more with one set of AA form-factor units. People will begin to understand the technology.

2020 - LNG reformed hydrogen-fueled PEM fuel cell vehicles will finally hit the market. Much of the world's petroleum production will be moving to producing lower carbon ratio fuels such as LNG already, so the technology will be easily embraced by the fuel infrastructure. Industry and mass transit systems (buses, light rail, and taxi-rail systems) will begin universally using pure hydrogen in cryogenic liquid or solid-hydride forms.

2030 - cryogenic liquid or solid-hydride hydrogen storage technologies will become safe enough for personal use, and the fuel infrastructure will begin providing some phase of hydrogen at the pump by reforming a low carbon-ratio fuel at the station. The pollution will finally be pushed up the pipe from cars to filling stations.

2060 - the fuel infrastructure will be centered around a hydrogen economy. All hydrogen production will occur at properly designed clean plants, probably by electrolyzing water. The energy will hopefully be coming from hot fusion technology by this time.

2100 - Virtually all of the world's energy will be produced through clean hot fusion technology, and will be distributed as electrolyzed water. The world's water supply will essentially be used as a non-consumed vehicle for delivering energy.

----------------------------------

Many people feel these things will happen much more quickly. I feel those people are incorrect. I am not a pessimistic futurist (is there such a thing?), but I may be one of the few people that realize that environmental progress is driven by money, not by environmentalists -- much to the environmentalists' chagrin. In Henry Ford's day, the money opposed the environment, and his new invention, the "automobile," did a lot of damage. In our day, the money just happens to favor the environment. Consider this:

"Ford Motor Company has just introduced the new 2020 Blah GXVSTTRM3 (heh). The Blah is reported to attain an astounding 180 mile per gallon rating on the highway. With gasoline prices now soaring into the realms of $15 a gallon, this vehicle promises to save the average household $15,000 yearly, compared with competing vehicles attaining a paltry 60 mpg. Unfortunately, the vehicle produces pollution roughly equivalent to the gas-hogs of the early 2000's."

As long as it's street-legal, people will buy it like no tomorrow -- balls to the environment. Sure, the environmentalists have managed to restrict emissions over the years, but they've only seen a few percent of their proposals become law, and few of them are happy with their modest success. So we're in a lucky situation right now -- the automotive companies, in their quest to make vehicles with lower operating costs, are also making them cleaner -- but only as a side-effect. The environmentalists, of course, think they did it all, and that they've won.

- Warren

 

Oh, and Luder94 --

Well, you're tying to tout pure-electrics as the new vehicles, which is so purely wrong it's not worth arguing -- but I do hear a lot of people say things like "well, the companies could make cars that can do _____, but they don't sell them yet, because people would be afraid of the new technology."

Well.....

No, no, no! The biggest obstacles ABSOLUTELY ARE the technological and engineering challenges! Companies are improving PEM fuel cells so rapidly right now that there's no economic sense in tooling a factory to make them -- by the time the factory's ramped up, your product is obsolete four times over. It'll be another 10 years before we've reached the green light on mass-produced PEM fuel cells. And then, reformer technology will be needed to support the fuel cells before a hydrogen economy is in place. Currently, those reformers are about the size of a semi trailer! Then there's that whole issue of converting the fuel infrastructure to eliminate those expensive and unreliable reformers...

When the first company is ready to unveil its first 200kWe (~268hp), gasoline-reformed PEM fuel-cell series hybrid (probably by 2020), that goes from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, has no transmission, achieves 75% fuel efficiency (something like 90 mpg with normal road load), carries four people or two people and two bicycles, has only one moving part, and costs only $25,000 -- you'll be beating up your momma to get one. When these cars are ready for the market, you can bet your lilly-white ass the market will be WHOLLY ready for them. Americans would love nothing more than to give a good collective nose-thumbing to OPEC.

- Warren

 

Now that is a wonderful thought.
I'll be sure not to stop behind one in traffic because based upon my GM experience there is a good chance that it will not start when the light turns green.

 

They're actually pretty slow and handle, well, not like the S2k. Hey, they look like little turtles, c'mon.

 

Nevertheless, they're in the same class!

When you look at the window sticker on an S2000, you'll see gas mileage ratings for cars in the same class (i.e., two-seaters). They range from 6 city, 13 highway to 63 city, 68 highway (as I recall). The 6-13 is, of course, a Ferrari 550 Maranello; the 63-68 is the Insight.

Another example of your government hard at work to make your life easier: if you cannot decide whether you should but an Insight, an S2000, or a Maranello, you can't do it by color (they all come in red), you can't do it by the seating capacity (2 apiece), so clearly the deciding factor must be fuel economy!

 

Interesting thread - maybe some of you physics/engineering guys can help me out on a nagging suspicion. Don't get me wrong: my S2000 is the fifth Honda product we've happily owned, but I try to call 'em as I see 'em, so tell me where this is wrong...

I drove an Insight the other day and it was both fun and impressive. But here's what bugs me.

It's got a 1 liter engine, right? And Honda can get at least 120hp per liter in a road car, right? So let's pretend we could take an Insight, remove the IMA, and replace the 67hp 1 liter with an imaginary Honda 1 liter 120hp motor (which, by the way, would give it a 39% better power-to-weight ratio, only 22% off the S2000).

Ignoring that it would be a faster car, what would the gas mileage be? Given the light weight and slippery aero, I imagine it would be pretty good, though obviously not as good as the standard 1 liter engine, with or without IMA. But they chose NOT to put a 120hp engine in the car, or even a 100hp one, but a measly, Daihatsu-Charade-level 67hp one. Why?

Now let's imagine we could run the standard 1 liter engine, without the IMA installed. What would the gas mileage be? Here's my suspicion: not that much lower than with IMA. Heck, an 1800lb car with a miserly 67-hp engine, hard tires and a cd of .25 - it ought to get great gas mileage. Maybe as good as an Insight with IMA?

Maybe the IMA isn't there for gas mileage at all, but for two other reasons.

First, IMA's torque probably adds a little boost to off-the-line performance, which is always good for customer satisfaction. But I would love to see what one of those performance simulation software packages would indicate for an Insight without IMA - I bet it's acceleration at all speeds is very close to one with IMA. Perhaps by boosting off-the-line performance, there's some particularly effective gain in gas mileage to be had during initial acceleration, I don't know.

Second, IMA for sure enhances Honda's already strong image as one of the "greener" car companies. Honda engages in all sorts of well-publicized "green" efforts, from solar-electrics exotic R&D vehicles to high mileage versions of all their main line cars, and has constantly striven to be the first to tout LEV, ULEV and SULEV technology. Without a doubt the Insight has cemented Honda's position as the cutting edge environmentalist among major car companies. (On Google, for example, "Honda Insight" yields 25,800 exact matches, to 17,700 for "Toyota Prius", 46% more hits.)

I'm ecstatic and enthralled that Honda pushes as many engineering envelopes as it does, and I look forward to driving a Honda sports car that gets 100 or 200 miles per gallon. But my nagging suspicion is that the charming little Insight is more "hype" than "hybrid" when it comes to how it's amazing mileage is obtained.

Help me out here, folks!

Paul