# Is a Hybrid Car Price 'War' Looming?



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

Honda's plan to sell 100,000 units of its new dedicated hybrid for less than the Prius raises the prospect of a price war with Toyota.

More...


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## Cornelius (Sep 15, 2007)

It looks like GM, Ford, and Chrysler, with their lack of any real hybrid passenger cars are going to get caught in the crossfire between Honda and Toyota. GM has it's so-called "mild" hybrids, but they stretch the meaning of hybrid pretty thin since they offer only minimal improvements in fuel efficiency.


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## TX_Dj (Jul 25, 2008)

No kidding Cornelius.

I had a friend who wanted to trade their new (less than 10k miles) mini-suv for a Ford (i think) hybrid of the same model (escape i think?) I had to ask them... do you reach the EPA mileage for the version you already have? No. Why do you think you'd gain the extra 3-4 mpg rating shown on the hybrid (or something equally miserable, it was a miniscule difference for a $6000+ price uplift).

They looked at me puzzled and I explained just cuz it has an electric assist does not mean you're going to get the EPA mileage on the same car if you're not getting the EPA mileage on the existing otherwise identical car. I told them basically that with gas around $2.80/gal (which it was at the time, or thereabout) they'd save about $1100 in gas over 100,000 miles... for a $6000 price increase, figuring that the hybrid only increased their averages by 1.5 mpg instead of the extra 3 mpg the EPA rating stated.

Pitiful.

And then there's GM with their hype about "FlexFuel"... How many FFVs do you think are on the road that have ever run anything other than gasoline or ethanol blends that other cars can run too? FFV was a marketing hype, and many people fell for it, just so they could feel better about driving a big wasteful vehicle.

Some folks need a big vehicle, but most folks who have one (myself included, though the Tacoma isn't a "big vehicle" really) don't... they just like the image, or "feel safer" in a vehicle that will utterly obliterate anything it comes in contact with.

Safety thru physics... yer doin' it wrong!


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## xrotaryguy (Jul 26, 2007)

I certainly do hope that hybrids are about to the point where a real price war can take place. That's how all the other models on the road get sold. Hybrids need to stop being a novelty and start competing for a place in the average motorist's driveway.

I hope that GM does not get into the game too late. The current Saturn VUE hybrid is a major disappointment with its 30 ish mpg rating. My wife's Hyundai Santa Fe would get nearly 30 mpg and it was a V6. Hopefully the plug-in version of the VUE will be more impressive.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

GM is banking on the volt to save their bacon. But considering how easily the prius can be upgraded to plug in duty, GM will still be playing catch up even if their volt can deliver on the hype.

Anyone want to buy the hummer brand? Probably going to sell for a song if it even sells at all. LOL

Flex fuel is a joke. Ethanol has gone from the poster child of alternative energy to the cause of high energy and food prices. That is an oversimplification, but biofuel has taken a huge PR hit just like the big SUVs of the last decade. I hope they didn't spend too much on that flex fuel scheme.

Nothing wrong with using biofuel, but its not sustainable if it comes from farmland that should be feeding people instead of cars. Algae could solve that problem, but its been slow to gain recognition because the concept involves thinking outside of the box. Something that lawmakers don't do very well.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

david85 said:


> Flex fuel is a joke. Ethanol has gone from the poster child of alternative energy to the cause of high energy and food prices. That is an oversimplification, but biofuel has taken a huge PR hit just like the big SUVs of the last decade. I hope they didn't spend too much on that flex fuel scheme.


FlexiFuel is ethanol done wrong. To begin with, since they have to be flexi (ie, run on gas as well), the compression is too low for ethanol which means you have that 30% higher consumption on ethanol which results in that everyone's running on gas anyway since they otherwise have to go to the gas station more often. Since the prices in Sweden is at a level that makes it about equally expensive to drive on either, lazyness wins and the consumtion of E85 is at a level that if all FlexiFuel were riding on E85 it'd mean that all FlexiFuel owners were only using their cars going to the church on sundays, or something like that.

Ethanol done RIGHT is an entire different matter. There's DIY'ers that has done it right, which includes raising the compression in the ICE to at least 15:1, and when you do THAT you get about the same MPG on E85 as on ordinary fuel. That's when Ethanol actually starts to save you some money, but that also means that the car can only run on ethanol and that ordinary gas won't work anymore. Appearently that's too daring for our conservative car manufacturers and it is the DIY'ers that's in the lead in this field as well. Not too surprising I'd say...


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

15:1 CR!! whats the octane (or equivalent) rating on ethanol? I thought propane was good with 12.5:1 CCR. Octane said to be in the 100-110 range.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

david85 said:


> 15:1 CR!! whats the octane (or equivalent) rating on ethanol? I thought propane was good with 12.5:1 CCR. Octane said to be in the 100-110 range.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating#Measurement_methods



> Racing fuels, AvGas, LPG, and alcohol fuels such as methanol or ethanol can have octane ratings of 110 or significantly higher - ethanol's RON is 129 (MON 102, AKI 116).


In racing situations (especially MC-racing) my former boss (an MC-nut that kept racing despite already limping due to an accident where one of his legs were totally smashed, total maniac...) told me that it's apparently not uncommon running bikes on 100% ethanol and compression up to 20:1. It demands extremely well built engines and strong bearings to handle the stress, but if performance's your main issue it might be worth the pain. Neither 100% ethanol nor that high compression is suitable for ordinary cars due to various reasons, but you definitely want to go above the compressions you use for gas when you're using ethanol, yes.

One advantage with ethanol that makes a huge difference is that ethanol contains only one molecule (well, OK, in reality you can't get higher than 96% purity, but still) where gasoline is a cocktail of coal-hydrogen-chains with various behaviors. It's simply not possible to optimize an engine fully for gasoline since the mix will vary depending on where you pump it up, how it's refined and how long the gas has stayed in the tank. If you don't use your car for a while the lighter stuff will evaporate while the heavy molecules will stay, which is the reason (or at least one of them) why cars can be very hard to get running again if they've been unused for some months or a year or so.

Ethanol's a better fuel, simple as that.


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## manic_monkey (Jun 24, 2008)

Qer said:


> FlexiFuel is ethanol done wrong. To begin with, since they have to be flexi (ie, run on gas as well), the compression is too low for ethanol which means you have that 30% higher consumption on ethanol which results in that everyone's running on gas anyway since they otherwise have to go to the gas station more often. Since the prices in Sweden is at a level that makes it about equally expensive to drive on either, lazyness wins and the consumtion of E85 is at a level that if all FlexiFuel were riding on E85 it'd mean that all FlexiFuel owners were only using their cars going to the church on sundays, or something like that.
> 
> Ethanol done RIGHT is an entire different matter. There's DIY'ers that has done it right, which includes raising the compression in the ICE to at least 15:1, and when you do THAT you get about the same MPG on E85 as on ordinary fuel. That's when Ethanol actually starts to save you some money, but that also means that the car can only run on ethanol and that ordinary gas won't work anymore. Appearently that's too daring for our conservative car manufacturers and it is the DIY'ers that's in the lead in this field as well. Not too surprising I'd say...


Is there really any point in flex fuel at all? what can it offer that diesel/biodiesel cant give? most of europe has gone diesel crazy (and who wouldnt, with these cars reaching 70mpg now ) so is flex fuel just a US thing, for large gasoline engine?


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

manic_monkey said:


> Is there really any point in flex fuel at all? what can it offer that diesel/biodiesel cant give? most of europe has gone diesel crazy (and who wouldnt, with these cars reaching 70mpg now ) so is flex fuel just a US thing, for large gasoline engine?


Dunno about the rest of Europe, but Sweden has gone a bit FlexiFanatic as well, but Sweden has traditionally been a gas-country rather than a diesel-country (like many countries on the main continent are). I think Ethanol has a place in the future simply because the road to getting rid of fossil fuels is probably a sum of solutions rather than ONE solution. In that future I see two possible roles for Ethanol:



Converting old cars to Ethanol to keep them running since it's a very simple, and pretty cheap, conversion (we can't really replace all old cars just over the night).
Long trip cars that simply can't run all the way on an electric charge.
There's actually a lot of research being done on ethanol in Sweden and one thing that looks rather promising is to be able to turn wood into ethanol. Traditionally what you get from wood is methanol (which isn't as easy to use in existing cars) but apparently it's possible to hook on another coal and some hydrogen to get ethanol. The wood can be taken from what is left after you harvest forests, things like twigs, bark and roots.

The roots-part is also interesting, another Swedish company has constructed a machine that rips out the rood from the ground, harvesting about 60% of it. The two benefits from it is that it can be used as fuel and also that when lots of roots rots in the ground they're actually poisoning the ground and releasing lots of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. So in a way it can be considered free energy (well, almost at least) since the carbon dioxide is going to be released either way.

So I think ethanol has it's place, if nothing else so to soften the blow from oil redrawal.


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