Sens4Miles

I've been doing a lot of research on this lately and I wanted to post this information on here for those of you who are interested in hybrids & EVs and may be unaware of some things.

As you may or may not know, from 1997-2002, Toyota had a full electric-powered vehicle in their lineup, the RAV4 EV. It was only available for lease with the exception of 8 months in 2002 where they were made available for sale in very limited quantities. These RAV4 EVs had a range of 120 miles and a top speed of 78mph. They were powered by NiMH EV-95 batteries produced by GM Ovonics which allowed them to achieve their high range of 120 miles per charge.

However, in October of 2000, Chevron-Texaco purchased the patents from GM Ovonics for these NiMH EV-95 batteries and have prevented Toyota (and every other car company) from using this technology for their hybrids or Plug-ins ever since.

Now Toyota says they will be offering a PHEV Prius by 2010 with a range of only 7 miles, using NiMH batteries. 7 miles? that's it? Well, the reason it only has a 7 mile range is because Chevron-Texaco owns the patents to the NiMH EV-95 batteries which ten years ago, were able to achieve a range of 120 miles.

So basically, the reason why hybrid/PHEV advancement is at a stand-still right now is because an oil company (Chevron) is sitting on the patent for these extended range batteries.


Take a look at these links for more information:

http://www.ev1.org/chevron.htm

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...companies.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...s/4227944.html

UberNoob

i thought about getting a job with Chevron for a mere second after hearing them lying to me about how forward thinking they are in becoming more environmentally friendly

but of course i soon realized it was BS that they were feeding me after looking into things a bit more
this is a good fact to know

an obvious case of an oil company c*ckblocking the environmental movements just to make gazillion more dollars

Sens4Miles

I'm surprised with all the push out there to go green that this little known fact about Chevron-Texaco is being ignored by the media and automobile enthusiasts alike. It's almost a crime in my opinion.

Here's a few other little bits of info regarding the EVs that were available several years ago:

There were 5 companies that offered electric vehicles between 1997-2003:

GM
Toyota
Ford
Nissan
Honda

GM had the Saturn EV1 & Chevrolet S-10 EV
Toyota had the Rav4 EV
Ford had the Ranger EV
Nissan had the Altra
Honda had the EV Plus

EV1: 150-mile range per charge
S-10 EV: 60-mile range per charge
Rav4 EV: 120-mile range per charge
Ranger EV: 65-mile range per charge
Altra: 120-mile range per charge
EV Plus: 120-mile range per charge

Toyota was the only company of the 5 to offer their EVs for sale. The rest took them back at the end of the lease term.

bagwell

....and this is the only one that is publicly known.

I can only imagine what other patents the motherf'in oil companies have bought with their 100's of billions of dollars.

This is a huge problem because the oil companies have so much money they can buy anything to prevent new technology from being used as in the above example -- hell if I invented a NiMh battery and Exxon or Chevron offered me $$$$$ I would rape them and ask for $900 billion cash.

-J-P-L-

Yeah, most people are unaware of crap like this. Companies that make 10's of billions of pure profit each year are companies with extreme influence. Much of which is negative.

Stuff like this has been going on for years by the oil companies and no one does anything about it. Makes me sick.

There's no reason why gas efficiency in today's average cars are only marginally better than cars made decades ago. Oil companies have been paying off companies in one way or another for a long time.

LexFather

Oil companies c-blocking ftl!

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

Don't think so. Ever consider that every single component of the entire electric would be impossible to produce without oil? From mining the raw materials, to smelting the Nickel, lead, lithium or whatever metal is popular this week for batteries, we're going to burn a LOT of oil.

Our electric infrastructure is not nearly capable of supporting plug in EVs. We had rolling blackouts in California just a few years ago. We're not ready, and we won't be ready any time soon. What are the new power plants in California burning anyway? Natural gas. So where's the net savings? I'm not seeing it.

Just because it doesn't come out of your tailpipe doesn't mean there's no pollution. It takes energy to move. You put it in at the beginning, and you add to it all the way through the process.

BTW, have you ever looked at how much energy it takes to make semiconductors or solar panels? Remember, they're fundamentally glass, so there's a LOT of heat required.

In the end, we're just shifting sources. There is no net energy gain until we get in much lighter vehicles. Those vehicles surely won't be electric. Electric and light do not go in the same sentence if you assume you still need to meet current crashworthiness standards - note - the EV-1 was not something you want to wreck in, nor is the Honda Insight. There is a price tag on all this stuff.

bagwell

RE SOLAR......don't you think the huge initial cost would be worth it int he long run!!??!?!?!?!?!

(I posted this in the 75mpg by 2030 thread)

ok, yep you're right it won't 100% replace anything so let's just give up on the technology.


or we can try to make the technology BETTER.....



The US Department of Energy announced on Tuesday that a project it funded had set a new world's record for solar cell efficiency. According to DOE's press release,

...with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. This breakthrough may lead to systems with an installation cost of only $3 per watt, producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour, making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix.

Let's give this some context:

According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Power Technologies Energy Data Book, Fourth Edition, concentrator solar technologies "...produce electricity at solar-to-electric efficiencies for the system of up to 30%." In the best case scenario for cells used with this technology, the Data Book reports efficiencies of 27-39%, with pre-commercial models averaging 15-24%.
A post at Slashdot points to a German site that shows where to best place solar sites for matching the world's energy consumption (2003 figures) based on an 8% efficiency rate. The Slashdot writer notes "At 40% efficiency, it looks like a square 265 miles on a side in the American southwest would do it.
While we're still a ways off from commercially-available technology with that kind of punch, this is promising news. Vinod Khosla likely feels vindicated... ::US Department of Energy via Slashdot

IS350jet

This would make a great 60 Minutes story!

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

No, I don't think the initial cost with this level of performance is worth it. At 40% efficiency, they have an EROI between 1.5 and 2.0. This means we're putting in two parts of energy for three or four parts out. Not very spectacular compared to a barrel of oil. Is it really worth deploying these things on a large scale? Not yet. When they're 80% efficient, or they take 50% of the current amount of energy it takes to produce them, then we'll be on to something.

Like any good extremist, you've latched on to the idea I said forget it, it's a dry hole. I said nothing of the sort. However, it has a long way to go before being a potential significant contributor to the energy mix. We're WAY short now with alternate technologies. My personal opinion is, this kind of solar is very unlikely to achieve the kind of EROI necessary to be worth deploying in large numbers. Even if we doubled the output and halved the energy need to make them - both noble and maybe achievable goals - they still won't hold a candle to burning petroleum hydrocarbons or even straight carbon (coal) in terms of Energy Return On Investment.

No, it wouldn't because it's from the mouths of conspiracy theorists. This story has been around the 'net for years, and still there is no one who can refute why the EV-1s were crushed with real data. Loads of speculation, just like the people who will tell you the oil companies bought up the patents on the 100 mpg carburetor and the 200 mpg carburetor, and the technology to run your car on water, etc, etc, etc, - I have an innate distrust of my government, and I am confident I don't know the whole story on a lot of things, but this one is pretty much a non-event. Remember, at the end of the day, manufacturers do not make what is good for society. They make what people will buy. If people believe the product is good for society, and there is sufficient social stigma attached to making a choice that is not, then the manufacturers will produce socially "responsible" products.

McDonalds is a perfect example. They still sell more burgers than anything, but now they offer salads and other "healthy" alternatives because they want to improve their image as being more health conscious. The truth is, the salads are a loss leader, and the sales volume barely supports keeping them on the menu. People like burgers. People don't go to McDonalds for "healthy" food.

CAFE is the same house with a different coat of paint. When the government mandated more efficient vehicles in the 70's people bought them because the cost of fuel relative to income was painful. As oil prices dropped relative to income, people didn't care about the cost of fuel and bought SUVs that suck up fuel like its free because SUVs were outside the scope of CAFE and Americans like big cars. All the efficient little cars the manufacturers needed to sell to meet CAFE sat on showroom floors and collected dust. They had to practically give them away. Guess what? With gasoline rapidly approaching $4 a gallon, guess what people are wanting again? Fuel efficient cars. Imagine that!

bagwell

as I stated, I lifted my solar info from another thread and was not pointed at you.

(I posted this in the 75mpg by 2030 thread)

ok, yep you're right it won't 100% replace anything so let's just give up on the technology.

Sens4Miles

Here are some pictures of the Toyota RAV4 EV:







Battery Pack:




Under Hood:

Sens4Miles

Here are some pics of the Nissan Altra:









Here's a link to an article from 1997 about the Altra when it came out:

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/p...ess008845.html

Sens4Miles

Here's the Honda EVPlus:






Here's a link to information on the EVPlus on Honda's site:

http://www.honda.com/ev-plus/

lobuxracer

iTrader: (2)

How many barrels of oil went into building those batteries?

How many more barrels of oil will be burned to deal with the highly toxic waste from the batteries?

How many tons of sulfur dioxide, lead, and mercury will be released from our primarily coal burning electric utilities when our transportation system gets plugged into the wall?

What is the fully amortized cost of the batteries - cradle to grave - compared to direct energy conversion at 37% to 52% (gasoline and diesel efficiencies)?

The answers to these questions are what kill electric cars. They end up polluting more and costing more over their lifespan. You can't just factor the operating cost into this. It is a simple task to responsibly junk an old car. It is far from a simple task to responsibly junk an electric car because you have a very large and very toxic battery that requires specialized skills to disassemble and recycle the metals with a hazardous waste stream from the reagent used in these batteries.

It is far from cheap to responsibly dispose of batteries, and we're only now realizing the dangers of our thoughtless disposal methods of the 20th century from the chemicals leeching out of landfills and into ground water when we just tossed used batteries into the earth without any regard for what was going to happen next.

I really don't buy the whole - "electric cars are better for the planet" argument. Too many holes, too many toxic materials, and too short sighted a view of the ENTIRE cost of these vehicles, especially if deployed on a large scale.