Gasoline engines as range extenders critical to enabling road trips & longer drives than any other widely produced & widely available BEV or battery powered automobile can achieve. This is why the Rav4 Hybrid or Rav4 Prime (PHEV) from Toyota sell extremely well.
I learned about Toyota Prius in 2003, the first-generation model was on the campus of WSU where I was a new college student. Ted & Ada, friends of mine in engineering pointed out the example, owned by a college professor that got over 40 MPG using regular gasoline, by combining electric motors for boost & energy recovery brake regen + idle stop to turn of the engine when the vehicle stopped while at a traffic light signal controlled intersection for example, or in traffic jams.
In city fuel economy idle stop can boost fuel economy 10-20% & nearly every kind of car, truck & SUV can be equipped with a basic idle stop system for a nominal increase in cost at the manufacturing level of only a few hundred dollars. Idle stop systems end up saving the owners of cars operated in cities thousands of dollars on fuel during the time that they own & operated these vehicles for 5-20 years after the idle stop equipped vehicle manufactured.
Every automobile featuring a dynamo, magneto or alternator also an electric power generator that uses energy created by combustion of fuel in the engine as rotational torque output to spin the power generating device & make electrical current flow. Though modern alternators on most cars & trucks & SUV generate AC power, a rectifier circuit makes DC power in 10-16v to charge the 12vdc automobile battery SLI PbA AGM, such that the large battery & power generating technology acts like a mild-hybrid to energize all the lamps, bulbs, computers, & electronics present on vehicles since the 1970's starting with ECU & fuel injection, and much further back with energy for electric head lights, tail lights, turn signals & brake lights for safety signaling & illumination.
Today as of 2023 modern cars have so many computer chips and wiring harnesses that they can be reasonably called a rolling data center. The CMOS sensor fusion on Tesla BEV's actually means that Tesla Model S, 3,X,Y been scanning real world roadway data making Tesla Motors a Big Data company with class leading autopilot solutions.
In 2005 I purchased a then brand-new Toyota Prius II with the technology package. It now belongs to Allan, my lovely wife Meg's genetic father. I sold it to him with ~159,000 miles ODO after driving it for 17 years, with the average mileage the whole time being 46.9 MPG absolute (miles driven / gallons of fuel added total) Allan now gets over 50 MPG going 50 MPH & using other hypermiling gentle acceleration & safety focused fuel saving driving techniques. He drives many more miles than I, and his Ford F150 was getting 12 MPG city & 18 MPG highway, so he can visit his grandchildren much more often while still saving money on fuel now :)
The Prius II has the most exceptional 1.5L 1NZ-FXE engine that powered the 04-09MY Prius, later replaced by the 2ZR-FXE in 2010-2022 MY Prius 3 & 4 models, while the dynamic force 2L engine in the 2023 Prius has even better thermal efficiency while also pumping out 196 HP. The 5th Gen Prius does 0-60 MPG in under 7.8 seconds, and the eAWD versin does it in less than 7.6 seconds, making the 5th Gen Prius the fastest Prius ever, while also the most fuel efficient.
I really wanted a 5th Gen Prius but ended up paying $30K for a 2022 Corolla Hybrid that gets 42 MPG when driven fast on the highway, 53-58 MPG when keeping up with traffic flow in light highway traffic, and if go in the middle of the night & use every hypermiling trick I know in ECO mode I can get the trip economy up to 74-78 MPG. 22
22 Corolla Hybrid has the HSD drivetrain & 2ZR-FXE engine of the Prius III & IIII, that has been in high volume production for more than 12 years. This 1.8L long strong VVTI Atkinson engine an absolute engineering masterpiece for its relatively diminutive performance. I am not sure I like all the activate ADAS features in Toyota Safety Sense 2.0 which was updated to 3.0 for the 2023 MY.
The LKA or electronic power steering gentle correction assist does not always work correctly where the lane markings cannot be detected clearly by the upper windscreen camera data system. The system does read road signs like speed limit signs most of the time & then displays them on the dashboard LCD the speed limit for the zone persists as easy to read at-a-glance driving information, very useful if I didn't see the speed limit sign in a zone where the sleep limit lower than before. Automatic High Beams or AHB also not exceedingly polished & I can only imagine how much these LED headlights cost to replace when the LED eventually burn out.
I really like automotive lighting systems with user replaceable bulbs like the D2R bulbs in the 2005 Prius HID headlights. Meg's 2010 Prius III got aftermarket headlights that I installed by removing the front bumper & put ultra bright LED bulbs into the new housings. I am a DIY enthusiast & Device Repair Law advocate & WISE Level 2 certified electronic repair technician.
Morality & ethics that protect consumers from unethical manufacturing practices are part of my general interest in high quality people, honesty, fairness & other virtues encouraged in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, based on the Teachings of my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth who performed many signs, wonders & healing miracles during his time as a human on Earth back then.
24kWh Nissan LEAF S in 2013
30kWh Nissan LEAF S in 2015
40kWh Nissan LEAF SV in 2022
I tried these Nissan LEAF's and absolutely loved each one for low distance in city flat route commuting but climbing highway 900 from Issaquah to Renton or doing any other fast freeway across I90 or up I405 caused battery capacity fading that made each one of these impossible to use for my real world needs of a vehicle performance.
It is my personal experience that a BEV needs more than 100kWh of battery, and batteries with that kind of capacity have a mass of 1500-2500 lbs., depending on cooling solutions & if the pack structural or not & other variables. This means that modern lithium-ion BEVs with 300+ miles of range are more than 5000 lbs.
The high mass of long-range BEV + the fun instant toque acceleration shreds off tire tread so fast that many EV drivers only getting 4000-10000 miles of use out of tires that last 45,000-90,000 miles on hybrid & plug-in hybrid & ICE vehicles respectively.
Tire tread erosion emits more microplastics into nature than any other source. That is a dark sinister fact about BEV's that you never hear government politician talking about with their radical insane push to make all new vehicles sold electric by 2035, which will never happen anyway because of supply chain issues about lithium, cobalt, copper, titanium, nickel, gold, platinum, silver, palladium, & other expensive, toxic, rare & limited supply metals needed to make BEV's.
Modern BEV's also have a higher manufacturing carbon footprint than the conventional fossil fueled vehicles they replace. Consider also what happens to all of those relatively new gasoline powered cars that still have a lot of useful life on them, that must be fueled with gasoline for many decades beyond 2035.
Consider also that BEV batteries are being revolutionized to remove cobalt, improve safety, improve energy density, so that EV's can charge at 800V at 1000 AMPS DC on Level 4 chargers faster so that it's more like a gas station fill-up of unleaded gasoline in terms of time spent refueling or charging.
I think Hydrogen a great option with fuel cells, but they are expensive, and hydrogen fuel cell cars like the Toyota Mirai are also battery electric with EV batteries & electric final drive motors. Be careful with hydrogen fuel costs, H2 prices similar to $18 per gallon or $5 per liter gasoline. Thats using brown H2 made by steam reforming natural gas, which is also not ecofriendly, but also the cheapest way to make H2 currently & for the foreseeable future. We need radically more efficient ways to make H2 from H20 since the Earth is covered in salt water & sea levels are rising because of climate change melting the polar ice caps of Earth.
We need 300kWh EV's batteries that weigh less than 900 lbs that can be recharged 55,000 times & last more than 30 years with only limiter degradation or loss of capacity. Many radical chemical innovations will be needed to improve EV batteries to this point, especially the affordable mass-produced kinds.
There will likely always be some radical energy density battery for aerospace satellites that lasts & lasts because it has to survive the temperature extremes while orbiting in low gravity orbits hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth. In direct sunlight the Satellite can get to 300 F & in the shadow of Earth or the Moon, the cold vacuum of space causes the satellite to go to -250 F.
Satellite batteries have to work flawlessly for 20 years while operating in conditions from baking in your oven to cryogenic cold, multiple times per day. This is why satellite batteries are so robust & so expensive. Not something Tesla going to put into a BEV for sale to the public. Luxury personal VTOL flying vehicles (Rich Men's Toys) will use the same kinds of ultra durable low mass aerospace batteries, and these Personal Luxury VTOL will cost as much as turbine powered helicopters.
Hydrocarbon liquid fossil fuels, biofuels & other fuels will end up energizing range extenders. When an engine used as a range extender it as actually a power generator. Automotive range extenders are exceptional when compared to commercially available gasoline generators. BMW i3 Rex APU features a 647cc twin engine (from BMW C650 GT Scooter) for example, only 330lbs as complete system but makes 24kW of electricity. Good luck finding another commercial power generator under 400lbs that makes 24kW of power. This illustrated how refined modern fuel burning gasoline engine technology is at generating mobile energy for vehicle propulsion.
This is why fossil fuels gasoline, diesel, & JET A energize 98% of all transportation methods worldwide. It's going to take an engineering marvel, societal change, more laws, more technology, radical innovation, and more industrialization to enable 8 billion people to have BEV's with similar range as traditional gasoline fueled vehicles, that charge quickly from many kinds of voltage power AC or DC locally available, from solar PV integrated into the roof of the vehicles or shell, that have low mass long life safe batteries.
We have a long way to go before BEV's are actually comparable analogs to conventional ICE or internal combustion engine vehicles. This is also why hybrid electric & plug-in hybrid makes the most sense. These HEV & PHEV leverage all the technological progress & energy density of fuels & engines, while still enabling advanced efficiency operation, with lower emissions & better fuel economy.
Petrol or Gasoline 44MJ/KG forty-four Mega Joules per Kilogram (Holy Fuel) or very energy dense
Thats more than 20X more energy dense that Tesla Motors BEV batteries with 256 watt-hours per kg
Toyota solid-state lithium-ion batteries have 650 watt-hours per kg.
State-of-the-art aerospace Li-Ion are 1200 watt-hours per kg.
Petrol or Gasoline 12,000 watt-hour per kg.
Refueling our 2022 Corolla Hybrid
I just drove to the closest fueling station to Dr. Olga's rental house where we spent the night last night.
To buy 4.692 US gallons at $4.899 using $0.10/gal grocery store alt # discount, for a total cost of $22.99 USD2023 to go about 249 miles or ~53 MPG that's about 4.5L/100km with unleaded 10% ethanol gasoline that sells for about $1.32 per liter or $5/ gal.
Energetically that's 206 Mega Joules of fuel energy for $23 USD 2023 (Why USD year, because of currency inflation) (meaning $23 this year worth less than $23 last year, so on)
If I hypermile I can get under 4L/100km, and if I drive faster than traffic, I get 5L/100km. Thats 42-77MPG US gallon or~ 55-89 miles per Great Brittan gallons that are larger than US gallons.
$23 to go 249 miles // in a 2,850lb or 1293kg 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid
Fuel cost of less than 10 cents per mile ^^
Our different Nissan LEAF models grid power at $0.14/kWh recharging cost about 4.9 cents per mile by comparison.
So $5/gal gasoline in 50MPG car similar to EV charging at $0.30/kWh // notice that electricity cost influences the operating cost of recharging an EV the way fuel cost influences the operating cost of a gasoline powered vehicle. But none of our LEAF EV models could go 80MPH for long distances, especially not while climbing mountain passes at 70MPH. When I add fuel to the Corolla Hybrid the dash computer estimates range at 620 mi before refueling.
Even in the 40kWh LEAF SV I was only able to get 140 miles of range while driving under 40 MPH on flatter surface streets. At highway speeds the LEAF SV 40kWh battery pack would deplete so rapidly that it made me nervous, with range anxiety. 170kW motor was a beast with V6 like acceleration but if you held the throttle down all the way, the battery % faded at 1% per second. Letting off the throttle the battery gauge % would climb back up to the actually nominal charge state, but the lack of sustained performance a real drag for highway use. In short bursts great, but no sustained higher speeds, especially not while climbing hills.
This is why BEV's need 100+ kWh battery packs, today that increases the vehicle mass to nearly 5000lbs or 2276kg. I can drive the Corolla Hybrid at 80 MPH all day long & still have 400+ miles of range before needed to refuel. This, in part, because of the higher thermal efficiency of the 2ZR-FXE Toyota Engine 1.8 Atkinson + HSD dual motor / generator setup. The tiny 0.75kWh li-ion battery pack of the Corolla Hybrid helps to capture & discharge energy from brake regen & for boost to help the engine. Thats how it gets over 50 MPG on regular gasoline.
Someday, long before the engine goes bad, that li-ion battery pack will need to be replaced, for a thousand dollars or so. If the dealer wants too much, I will get an aftermarket battery replacement & change it myself, since I am a DIY enthusiast.
It's not a hard or particularly heavy hybrid battery to change, weighing must less than the NiMH packs of other hybrid models made by Toyota. I think the li-ion battery in the Corolla Hybrid weights less than 80lbs, including the metal case, charge controllers, pack wiring, as a system part, vs 150lbs for the NiMH equivalent. I can lift 80lbs without special care, but 150lbs off angle sounds like a possible back injury. So, this means the li-ion battery easier & safer for me to change.
I bet the hybrid battery will last more than 10 years before needed to be replacement and will help to save more than its replacement cost in gasoline. I mean, I was aiming for the GR Corolla which has a rating of 21 city 28 highway MPG, so that would cost me at least & probably more than 2X more to fuel. I plan to keep the 2022 Corolla Hybrid until 2035 or longer if possible. By then BEV or battery electric vehicles will be way better. Let's hope that WWIII does not break out until long after that, though I have intel that suggest 2027.
Sadly, World War 3 will be a Bioweapons war, indiscriminately killing anyone affected. The pentagon estimates the global human popular will decline 95% as a result of the bioweapons deployed in World War Three or WWIII or World War 3. Blame the CCP in China for using the Bioweapons that kick of the next world war. Covid19 was just a test case for the CCP bio-weapons program.
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