Earth & Environment - Posted by Jared Sagoff-Chicago on Thursday, January 7, 2010 16:43 - 8 Comments 
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(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Pulling the plug on hybrid myths
A pair of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are tested at Argonne’s Transportation Technology R&D Center. The lab’s wheeled Mobile Advanced Technology Testbed (pictured below) is outfitted with scalable motor components, extensive instrumentation, and a rapid prototyping control system to allow testing of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle systems.
U. CHICAGO—What’s the real deal with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles? Vehicle systems engineer Forrest Jehlik from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory would like to dispel some commonly held myths.
Myth #1: A significant number of plug-in hybrids are currently for sale.
Although several major auto manufacturers—including General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, and Volvo—have plug-in vehicles currently in the development pipeline, the first wave of these cars is still at least a year away from officially hitting the market, Jehlik says. The first plug-in hybrid for sale will likely be the Chevrolet Volt, which General Motors claims can travel up to 40 miles on a single charge. The Toyota Prius and other hybrids currently on the roads are not plug-ins—their batteries are charged by kinetic energy transferred from the brakes and wheels.
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According to Jehlik, the nation’s current electric grid has the capacity to accommodate the imminent rollout of plug-in hybrids onto the country’s roads. “If everyone were somehow able to buy a plug-in hybrid tomorrow, that would probably present a problem as far as the supply of electricity is concerned,” says Forrest Jehlik, “but given the pace that they are likely to enter the market, we won’t face a system-wide failure.”
Myth #2: Researchers can measure the fuel economy for a plug-in hybrid just as easily as they can for gasoline-powered cars.
Establishing fuel economy standards—how many miles a plug-in hybrid vehicle can travel per gallon of gasoline burned—is a complicated question. The answer, Jehlik says, depends entirely on the driving and charging habits of the vehicle’s owner. If a particular plug-in hybrid gets 40 miles on a single charge, then a driver who has a 15-mile commute each way to work and does 10 miles of additional driving each day before charging the battery overnight would, theoretically, use no gasoline at all. If the same driver had a five-mile-longer commute, she’d probably burn just over a gallon of gasoline per week, despite driving 250 miles.
Myth #3: Prices for plug-in hybrid vehicles are currently so high because manufacturers are trying to make a killing on them.
“The truth of the matter is that the components required to build a viable plug-in hybrid are still quite expensive,” Jehlik explains. In many cases, the battery for a plug-in vehicle by itself costs nearly $10,000. Because the price of petroleum remains relatively low, consumers may not yet be willing to invest the extra money in a plug-in vehicle—even with sizable government rebates.
Myth #4: The batteries in plug-in hybrid vehicles are unreliable, possibly unsafe, and require frequent replacement.
Most plug-in hybrids currently under development use lithium-ion batteries in their battery packs. Although complex chemical processes produce energy within the battery, vehicle system engineers have built in advanced control systems to prevent fires or other safety issues.
“Researchers have devoted just as much time and effort to developing inner-pack safety systems as they have to the batteries themselves,” Jehlik says. “Consumers don’t need to worry about battery malfunction.”
Jehlik and his colleagues in the lab’s Center for Transportation Research have also tested the current generation of lithium-ion batteries in what are known as “lifecycle vehicle tests,” which take the car through its paces for more than 150,000 miles. Even at the end of the car’s life, the vast majority of batteries still function quite well, Jehlik says. “When these cars become available for sale, the batteries are going to last as long as any part of them will,” he adds.
Myth #5: Scientists have identified lithium-ion batteries as the only battery technology that could work in plug-in hybrid cars.
Although lithium-ion technology came to replace nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries as the preeminent focus of electric vehicle development efforts, scientists at Argonne and around the world are currently investigating several different approaches for energy storage that could help to bring down the cost of plug-in hybrids.
“Manufacturers are looking at these possible solutions not as silver bullets but as silver shotgun pellets,” says Jehlik. “The organizations that hedge their bets among a number of different technologies will likely be the ones that bring vehicles to market the earliest and the most successfully.”
Myth #6: America’s electric grid can’t handle the increased load caused by the charging of millions of electric vehicles.
According to Jehlik, the nation’s current electric grid has the capacity to accommodate the imminent rollout of plug-in hybrids onto the country’s roads. “If everyone were somehow able to buy a plug-in hybrid tomorrow, that would probably present a problem as far as the supply of electricity is concerned,” Jehlik adds, “but given the pace that they are likely to enter the market, we won’t face a system-wide failure.”
However, Jehlik notes that the country’s electric infrastructure would need to change eventually—not only to keep up with added demand, but to ensure the smarter transmission, distribution and consumption of electricity.
University of Chicago/Argonne news: www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/
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8 Comments
dave
Dave, we’ve updated the post. Apologies for the display problem. Thanks for commenting.
Chris
Myth #5: Electric Vehicles Will Be Responsibile for Zero Emissions
Almost all electric vehicles (in the short term, anyway) will depend on centrally-generated utility power. This means the emissions resulting from their fuel consumption, while considerably less than those from internal combustion engines, will occur at the power generation site, not at the tailpipe. Electric vehicles fueled by utilities that use low- or non-emitting sources of electricity generation (hydropower, wind, nuclear) will indeed be responsible for little or no emissions. However, electric vehicles fueled by utilities using carbon-based fuel (coal being the lion’s share of US generation) will be responsibile for incremental emissions at those generating sites. All the more reason to push just as hard at reducing dependence on fossil generating fuels as on adopting electric vehicles.
emc2
Sounds like Argonne National Lab, or somebody, is on a media campaign about battery technology. Two stories with very introductory information. I’m just speculating. Was this written before news about Nissan Leaf, which raises many more questions about battery technology. As for non-plugin hybrids, I’ve always thought that a major myth was that they get better mileage in stop and go traffic. They seem like regular cars, doing better on the highway, suggesting that their battery power is the least significant part of the technology.
VanadiumJoe
Vanadium adds 5 times the power and range to today’s lithium ion batteries for cars. Watch for vanadium batteries soon: http://bit.ly/OMPL5
Jill Bedford
Two of the concerns that I have about all of this new technology based on battery power is : a) the length of the battery’s life and b) plans in the works for the ultimate disposal of the batteries. This also must be factored in to the ultimate cost of each item.
evjuice
Just to add more debunking to Myth number 5.
There has yet to be a official study that calculates how much electricity it takes to make a gallon of gasoline. Apparently it is a lot.
For example, In Los Angeles the second largest user of electricity is the Valero oil refinery. CA power usage is similar.
By some estimates an electric car could run 15 miles just on the electricity it takes to make one gallon of gas.
If all our cars were electric then some of those plants could be shut down taking strain off the grid. A win-win for our lungs and getting us off oil.
Jill Bedford asks about the disposal of the battery when it’s no longer useful for powering the car. All internal combustion vehicles in the world have a lead acid starter battery (PbA). The intrinsic value of the lead is a few dollars. Laws against disposal in a dump ensure that most of these batteries are recycled. When you bring your car to Sears for a new battery, they will give you about $5 for your old one, stick it on a pallet, and when the pallet is full, a recycling truck comes and takes it to be recycled. According to the latest statistics, about 98% of the PbA batteries in the U.S. are recycled.
The new lithium ion (LiIon) battery packs are much larger than a starter battery. For the Nissan Leaf, for instance, their 24 kWh pack probably weighs close to 400 lbs. The intrinsic value of the lithium is much higher than for Pb, so a 400 lb pack will have a scrap value of several hundred dollars. But before that, the pack will have a second life as energy storage as the utilities will be buying these used packs from the dealers who replace them with new packs. The used ones will be wired into large arrays and charged with low cost, off-peak energy at night (presumedly wind energy) to be used the following day to off set the peak energy generated by natural gas plants. Eventually, the need for many of these peaker plants will be negated completely.
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myth #2: there is a myth #2.