Was given at a conference about 10 years ago by Delphi.  Wish I still had it but it was at the end of a day full of presentations from a lot of HEV/EV/FCEV wonks, all of us joyfully talking about how great these would be from an environmental perspective and how big the engineering challenges would be, etc.

The Delphi guy stood up and said "all cars will be HEVs by 20XX (I forget the year).  all cars will be EVs by 20XX.  And it has nothing to do with anything anyone here is talking about."

He then put a slide up showing the average on-board electric load for all vehicles sold in the US, starting with Henry Ford and going to the present.  It started at zero (in the days of handcrank starters and acetylene headlamps) and gradually ramped over the ensuring century with a fairly steady slope.  He then layered on the various demands for on-board electricity that had driven those increases through the years.  Headlamps.  Radios.  Air Conditioning.  Power Steering.  Then he layered on top of that the ways that autos had evolved to serve those loads: Batteries.  Higher voltage batteries.  Alternators.  Starter/alternators.  Finally, he layered on the things that the marketing department was saying had to be in next-generation cars: GPS.  Heated rear seats.  Satellite Radio.  

You get the point.  The interesting thing was that he then layered on the technical limits of our current electric technologies on cars and showed that we were about 5 - 10 years away from hitting the limits of on-board electric power supplies, assuming that trend continued.  And by extrapolation, you could then see the point at which HEVs and EVs became inevitable.  

All very interesting.  And maybe that's what Toyota's really up to...

with a "prius" brand of cars. the "hybrid synergy drive" moniker was a failure, time for "the lexus of green." in the line-up seems like the smaller one and maybe also -- finally, hello -- a wagon or microvan SUV killer.

but it's too late. the market for "premium" new cars will keep shrinking this year and maybe next year as the "bullish" oil prices wipe out the people on the brink from the credit crash.

i think the family car will need to be something more like UCS's "vanguard" vehicle. off-the-shelf, cheap, light, normally aspirated. something people can afford.

in the meantime the auto industry needs to stop building proprietary electric powerplants and batteries. modularity and a much larger coordinated research, development, deployment, and subcontracting program is the only way to get costs for electric down where people need them to be in a short time.

particularly important is building cars around a physical battery standard -- a market -- no more fighting for contracts by form factor. build a better battery in the standard size and someone big will snap it up for some of their run of some vehicle. buyers may even select cars by the brand of battery, tune the battery system, etc.

in the short term though opening it up will get it out the door faster and cheaper.

This is interesting bio-d, use only a couple of extra plugin bateries (cheap heavy ones would be ok) to boost your mileage maybe 20 mpg?  By only having the extra plugin batteries power the electric part of the car, including restart (that eliminates the 30 second payback rule) and move it at low speed without restart.

Why use gasoline to recharge the starting battery or power any accesories?  use grid power in the extra batteries.  Put the alternator on the "off" position even when your engine is running too, because the extra batteries would tell the charge circuit the battery doesn't need charging, no switches needed.

Depending on how much time one spends stuck in traffic creeping at under 10 mph, this could get you 20 more miles per gallon.  A compression release for the gas engine would be good too (not sure how difficult that would be), and maybe an electric oil pump to maintain oil bearing pressure in the engine when you creep forward at low speed on electric power through the starter.

Also realize that much more powerful 24 volt starters are available after market.  They are used to crank high compression hot rodded engines.  Some sort of cooling for the starter might be good, fan forced or liquid heat pipe. That'as a pumpless liquid cooling system, it pumps the fluid with the waste heat to a radiator.

You won't need a trailer this way.  If you could get even 20 mpg more with a few extra batteries, an electric oil pump, and an aftermarket starter added to your engine switch, that would be a coup!

Go for the easy cheap, low hanging plugin fruit, so to speak.  Sure plugins will go 60 miles at full speed on a charge someday, but the batteries to do it are held closely by corporations now and far too expensive.

Great sequel to your bike.  We're right behind you, go for it!

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If 30% of the trip was either at below 10 mph or downhill, allowing the starter power alone either to creep along in traffic (all accesories powered by plugin) or to nudge the car to the right speed, mileage could go up from 35 mpg to 55?  Does this make sense?

Upgrading batteries as they become available and affordable, and installing a higher voltage, higher power starter would eventually up the top plugin speed and mileage.  This design could get over 100 mpg eventually, in slower city traffic commuting especially.

A kit would be pretty easy to install, the firefly Oasis batteries might be right for this.  Also carbon fiber replacement parts for the car, aftermarket available (?) would lighten the car to make up for battery weight.

A great hobby.

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I can see why you don't want to use the standard starter and flywheel and wreck them.  Or drive the engine with the starter when cruising on plugin power.

An extra electric motor on the transmission side of the clutch/flywheel assembley would be complicated.  I still like the idea of a parallel plugin drive on the back wheels.  Even one back wheel powered for low speed would be ok.

But the notion of powering all the electrical load in the car with plugin would be cheap and possible. I wonder how much fuel would it save?

Could a heavier starter motor handle traffic creep speeds without damaging the flywheel?  It's possible.  Toyota makes better parts that mesh better than the old flywheel/starter combination us do-it-yourselfers are used to from fixing big three planned obsolesent engineering.

Especially post 60s Fords, new Ford trucks from the past few years are rumored to take multiple transmission replacements in normal service, over only the first few years!  My F-250 would start and run in gear with the clutch inoperable without harming the starter or flywheel, that was a different time in the US auto industry.

The thing is that a "faux" hybrid with starter electric power could  get real hybrid mileage gains with extra plugin batteries powering all the electrics.   It would be a cheap way to convert to plugin.

A Prius conversion or full lithium electric (as featured in the video) will continue to be very expensive due to battery scarcity.  Until mass production takes hold, if ever?

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The reward for schlepping batteries around all the time comes from having a kinetic energy reclamation system.

The advantage from plugins is mainly from substituting electricity for gasoline.  Regenerative breaking is not necessary to drastically cut GHG, especially if renewable power, such as solar PV on your roof is used to charge.

Lugging batteries is worthwhile to reclaim breaking energy, but not worth the trouble for an economy conversion to plugin hybrid.  The plugin feature saves many times the GHG.

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parked itself. when they sent the car to europe they sold self-parking as an option and it was very popular. here i think toyota offered it on a lexus, first. probably thought people would say a small car that could do fancy tricks was for stuck up sissies.

...that the continuously-variable transmission (CVT) available in the Japanese Vitz improves fuel economy over an automatic transmission (AT), though the driver operates both in essentially the same way; that is, you don't have to shift gears manually with a CVT or automatic. I think a vehicle equipped with a manual transmission (MT) will typically still achieve a bit higher MPGs than one with a CVT, though that's not always the case. Even without a CVT, though, Toyota managed to nearly match the MPG rating of the MT-equipped Yaris with the 4-speed AT-equipped Yaris.

Nissan has been the most aggressive automaker in switching from ATs to CVTs to improve fuel economy.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

...that the continuously-variable transmission (CVT) available in the Japanese Vitz improves fuel economy over an automatic transmission (AT), though the driver operates both in essentially the same way; that is, you don't have to shift gears manually with a CVT or AT. I think a vehicle equipped with a manual transmission (MT) will typically still achieve a bit higher MPGs than one with a CVT, though that's not always the case (the Nissan Sentra is one contradictory example). Even without a CVT, though, Toyota managed to nearly match the MPG rating of the MT-equipped Yaris with the 4-speed AT-equipped Yaris.

Nissan has been the most aggressive automaker in switching from ATs to CVTs to improve fuel economy.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

Great mileage increase from coasting.  I am still wondering how much it would increase by substituting plugin power for the entire vehicle electrical load.

It might allow another 5 mpg?  

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How much energy in terms of percentage of total engine output does the electrical load consume?  Not sure if those figures are available bio-d.

How much does air conditioning consume?  I suppose it depends on local climate, weather, and traffic jams.

Idling in traffic for half the time of the commute in southwestern heat, for instance.  That amount of wasted gas (maybe half the trip's worth?) would surely be worth replacing with plugin battery power.  The air conditioning would need an electric motor of course.

Commuting in the northwest without traffic jams wouldn't save as much gas.

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This brings up an obvious question.  Are there any mileage meters that retrofit on a vehicle available?  Measuring fuel consumption and comparing it to distance traveled on a cumulative basis?

Available at an affordable price?  This would seem to be a good after market product area to exploit.

And drive-it-yourself credit card low-speed electric plugin taxis?  the card machine on the vehicle, connected wirelessly.  Good idea buddy, thanks. Golf cart type plugin vehicles are being legalized for limited road use everywhere people retire!   Hehey.

This is a vehicle ready made for transportation coops.  Local non-governmental socialism rules!  Power to the people.

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Nucbuddy makes a valid point in that, in general, those who drive little generally create a very small benefit either for themselves or the environment when they invest in a high-mpg vehicle: the Functional Return On Resources Invested, from either perspective, is likely to be quite low and opportunity cost considerations have to come into play.

On the other hand, BioD is an engineer and a tinkerer, both honorable avocations, and I believe we can expect something particularly valuable to come out of this exploration. BioD, we wait with bated breath!

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

I endorse your earlier point that anyone who drives as little as Biod's post suggests should consider not buying a car at all. However Biod's purpose with his particular purchase goes beyond that of its use as a personal vehicle and though his is a small-scale project it could possibly have benefits for us all. The investment - of time, expertise and money - is his own. He has been most generous with sharing his electric bike development experience and I believe we can expect more of the same from the current project. I suggest it is your mean-spirited commentary, not Biod's project, that deserves no place on Gristmill.

to Bill H:

Huh?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

My guess is the recent bad nuclear financial outlook has him feeling a bit grumpy.

Nuclear power has been dropped like a bad transmission.

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