youtube video, comparing an EV to the prius

Wow... years of research and development by toyota engineers, refuted instantly and definitively on youtube. Wow... they actually let these people breed? He hasn't even figured out that the Prius is a HYBRID. Jeesh.

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cf_coder

 

I don't really have a problem with what is stated on the video, but what else is out there that is a good commercially viable option that exceeds or surpasses the Prius today?

 

this guy really is not correct
quote: "it needs to run down the battery" ....so he want new battery's every 2 years

but i like that he wants the prius to be a EV only or plugin

 

ok I posted a small comment myself

 

Hi All,

The PRIUS is a Hybrid Car. It runs on its ENGINE. The Battery is there to keep the engine in the most efficient zone only.

 

I don't follow. We run down the Rav batteries all the time, and we're seeing over 10 years and 150,000 miles on the battery packs. The batteries are quite simply lasting the life of the cars.

But anyway - I know exactly who this is. I don't agree with all his points, and I'm not really sure just what the point is here. He's one of our Rav4EV drivers. And he wants EVs. It is probably as simple as that. But it more words.

I also have my issues with the Prius. But it can all be boiled down to this: It has a gasoline engine. If we stipulate that we're happy about it running on gasoline, then the Prius does it very well. Sucks that it gets all its energy from gasoline though.

 

He's an idiot with an opinion...

"Fundamentally this and fundamentally that...blah, blah..."

To each his own...:behindsofa:

 

well, as you have all said, the Prius is NOT an EV, and was never designed to be. The reason the Prius can only use the electric motor to 34MPH is because of its DESIGN, with the power combiner, designed to combine the electric motor and the ICS, it would over-rev the electric motor at faster than 34MPH, also, the entire design is to KEEP THE ICS at the ideal RPM for a gasoline engine.

Yes, you can put in more battery packs, and try to Frankenstien it into a pure EV, you will never succeed though, because of the fundamental design of the Gen II Prius.

I would suggest to this rocket scientist, that he waits for Gen III Prius, which is rumored to have a much larger battery pack (EV20?), and perhaps 2 battery packs from rumors, and also the power combiner is rumored to be redesigned to let the electric motor run up to 62MPH.

Stop your whining and suck it up, if you want an EV, buy an EV. The prius will get there, when the battery pricing is down low enough for the mass market to produce an EV cost effectivly.

mitch

 

Hi All,

The guy in this video is Doug Korthof, who I believe started Energy Efficiency Solar, a major solar panel installer in Southern California. I have met him, during the time I was having 19 200W Sharp solar panels installed on my roof last year. His son now runs EESolar.

He seems a nice enough guy, but somewhat blinkered in his opinions with respect to the Prius. I believe he owns and drives a Toyota RAV4 EV, which Toyota terminated production on in 2003. According to Wikipedia, this car had a top speed of 78 mph, a 0-60 time of 18 secs and a range, depending on the battery charge state, of 80 - 120 miles. It was powered by 24 12-volt 95Ahr NiMH batteries with a capacity of 27.4 kW-hrs of energy (equivalent to the potential energy in about 3/4 of gallon of gasoline). According to Wikipedia, Toyota wanted to continue production of the car, but the EV-95 battery was no longer available, as the production line for these large batteries was closed down after Chevron inherited control of the worldwide patent rights to the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco. Chevron won a $30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic in connection with this, and now apparently only allow smaller NiMH batteries to be used.
The Wikipedia write-up on the RAV4 EV gives a lot more detail.

If this is true, do you smell the stinking corpse of a rat here!!!!?

rah

 

Yes, its all true. Chevron bought patents to the EV-95 batteries, and was then absorbed by GM, who then promptlu SUED Toyota to stop using the batteries, this is why the RAV4 EV is no longer produced.

See this website, 2/3 of the way down, is the sad, sad story: Who Killed the Electric Car: GM and Chevron

I quote this site below:

Chevron owns the patent rights on the EV batteries!! What?? Why is this not a surprise?? Read or comment​

Toyota, working to meet the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, set up a production line in 1997 for the "large-format" EV-95 batteries needed for their Toyota RAV4-EV.

These EV-95 NiMH batteries, after years of research, were perfected for EVs:

• Deep Cycle, no memory effect;
• High energy output for acceleration;
• Long lifetime, longer than the life of the car -- even a Toyota car.

Toyota's EV-95 batteries are still running Toyota RAV4-EV cars more than 20,000 miles per year, and for over 100,000 miles so far. But no more EV-95 batteries can be made, after Chevron sued Toyota.

In 1994, Stan Ovshinsky, the inventor of the NiMH battery and principal of Energy Conversion Devices with the late Dr. Iris Ovshinsky, sold control of the NiMH batteries to a jont venture, GM Ovonic, between GM and his company, with the goal of manufacturing patented NiMH batteries for EVs. Ostensibly, GM was supposed to go into production, and thus, it seemed, perhaps, natural to allow them control of the battery they would, supposedly, be using. In the event, Honda and Toyota used NiMH 4 years prior to GM's final release of a NiMH version of the EV1.

But passing control of the batteries to GM proved a fatal mistake for the future of EVs.GM announced on Oct. 10, 2000 the sale of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH batteries to Texaco. Six days later, on Oct. 16, 2000, even before the sale was consumated,Texaco then merged with Chevron. The sale of the batteries was finally concluded on July 17, 2001, long after Texaco had become one with Chevron.Chevron/Texaco received "...GM's 60 percent stake in [NiMH] batteries, and a 20 percent stake in ECD itself...",giving Chevron effective control of NiMH.

On Mar. 6, 2002, just months after inheriting control of NiMH batteries, Chevron's subsidiary filed suit against Toyota, Panasonic, their PEVE joint venture, Sanyo et al.On December 12, 2001, Chevron's affiliates filed an arbitration demand...with the International Chamber of Commerce...In December 2002, an arbitration agreement...on Nov. 4-19, 2003, the hearing was held, and concluded on[FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Jan. 21, 2004.[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]On July 7, 2004,the settlement agreement ended in complete defeat for Toyota, Matsushita and their joint venture, PEVE. NiMH was only mentioned for "hybrids", those which cannot plug in, and Cobasys, Chevron's unit, became distributor of PEVE batteries, received $20 million licensing fee, in addition to $10 million paid to Energy Conversion Devices. "Cobasys will also receive royalties through December 31, 2013 on certain NiMH batteries sold by [Toyota] in North America."Chevron oil, the successor to Standard Oil of California, thus worked with GM to eliminate the batteries needed for plug-in EVs, similar to how America's small urban commuter railroads were bought up by the same surprising buyers. The railroads were dismantled, the right-of-way lost to the public domain, just as the NiMH batteries are now unavailable to run EVs or plug-in hybrids that can replace our oil addiction and address global warming concerns.Until we move to plug-in cars and electric trains, any talk of dealing with climate change, decreasing oil use, or getting free of our oil addiction anemia, is a sham.

Chevron's subsidiary sued Toyota, Panasonic and all other battery makers, forcing a settlement agreement and $30,000,000 payment from Toyota to Chevron's subsidiary.

• Most importantly, Toyota's NiMh EV-95 production line was closed down, and
• No more EV-95 batteries are available for any purchaser at any price.

Toyota closed down their production line, and the batteries which power the RAV4-EV or the 1999 EV1 are no longer available. Chevron's patent rights don't expire until 2014.


When auto makers, CARB regulators and oil companies claim "the batteries are not ready", they are asking you to ignore the hundreds of 2001, 2002 and 2003 Toyota RAV4-EV still running on EV-95 NiMH batteries, faultlessly performing to the specs needed for plug-in EVs and plug-in hybrids.

Don't let them get away with ignoring these real, working batteries, and oil-free cars!

It's not economical to ignore proven batteries in order to do endless "research" on battery technology that is no better than NiMH. They will lie, and say "Nickel is too expensive", but they have no documentation, no facts. Ask them how much of the battery is Nickel, and how much that recycles for. Nickel has not advanced in price much more than other metals, and it's non-toxic, recyclable, and only a small fraction of the cost of the battery.

 

but is the rav4 really depleting the battery's to 10% or lower OR when the battery fuel meter says empty it really is only @ 40%? or 30%?

OK
i can relate to the fact that he wants EV's
but the prius never build for being a prius
he is just frustrated that the prius is not a ev and the rav 4EV is and he can no longer buy one

this is all realy bad

maybe we can sue them for keeping something from the people for really now reason just for there own greater good?

 

Evan, I think "idiot" is perhaps a little harsh, but maybe not. He mentions in one of the videos on youtube that he paid $42,000 for the RAV4 EV he drives, as though it's a minor detail. Also the fact that re-filling the car batteries takes 5 hours, which you can do at NIGHT from your solar panels!! Really? Dark energy perhaps?

But the self-serving action by Chevron-Texaco mentioned here and in Wikipedia really upsets me. Surely that is a restraint-of-trade and a violation of the Taft-Hartley act. Or perhaps we just have to wait 'til 2014 when the patent runs out. Additional capacity in our Prius traction batteries would be a would be a big help.

ron.

 

during the day the solar panels collect energy that is stored in battery's at home
then @night you plugin your ev and it gets recharged by the energy inside the battery's that have bean recharged during the day!!

 

Correct, or if he has "net metering", then he is just getting power back that he "banked" to the Grid during daylight production... The meter spins both ways... so, in reality, you don't need batteries, the Grid is used as a large battery/capacitor. Thats what Grid Tied PV systems and Net metering is all about

mitch

 

He has abrasive opinions. He has blinders on. He is not an idiot.

He has "sucked it up" and put his money where his mouth is. He is an EV pioneer and has more EV miles under his belt, and has owned more EVs than most serious EV drivers.

Yes.

No. He works for EE solar (as I do) and the company is owned by his son.

Yes, though I'm just guessing at what "blinkered" means!

Yes, this is one of his EVs.

More info can be found on my site: Darell's Electric Vehicle Page (in my sig as well)

Complete BS, and it sounds like it is time for me to edit the Wiki article again....

All true.

Plenty of rats to smell here.

Yes. By all metrics, we take these batteries to depletion. Below 10V per module, which is well below 1V per cell. We don't just guess at this stuff with an analog gage. We have custom instrumentation. Here's one page of the reader we use. Note that we have max/min V for the modules in the pack, and total pack voltage.

Correct.

We don't have the traction to sue, but we do have the ability to humiliate them. We've done this for Ford, for GM and for Toyota. All of it is on my web site.

Here is the first Vigil for the EV1... we failed, but that was the last failure: EV1 Vigil

Here's the Ford Vigil that worked: Ford Ranger EV

The Toyota stuff is on-going. If you want to do some good, go into your local Toyota dealer and tell them that you aren't buying until you can buy a car that can plug in.

I suppose that we're all kind of idiots. Yes, it is true that he doesn't see the gray. One thing that you've got to grant him is that he does not waver from his cause! Ever.

A *little* obnoxious???? Gotta try harder.

I think that it IS a minor detail for a hand-built car made in the 100's. We can't talk price until a serious effort is made to mass produce the vehicles on the scale of, say, the Prius. This has NEVER been done in modern times.

Yes, he has Net meterings, the same as I do. We make power during the time when most power is needed. We take it back out to fill the car when it is most abundant and least needed.

The easiest course - and the one being persued - is to leap-frog NIMH and go straight to Li-based chemistries. Problem is, it delays EVERYTHING. Here we have a great, mature chemistry that would allow these cars on the road NOW (well, let's say 11 years ago so nobody thinks I'm being overly dramatic here). The Volt? Done.

 

running a 12 volt battery down to 10 volts is never a good thing
so why do it?

 

While I'm trying to get the formatting of my last reply to "take"...

Why do it? Because I can. If using all my range means that I can drive without gasoline, I'll do it. The other reason? Because these batteries take abuse like no other. We have all kinds of private owners with over five years and well over 100,000 miles now. No new batteries. Same range.

I don't abuse the batteries for fun, but I can and have done it. Doug does it all the time. He car has NEVER been in the shop and his batteries are astonishingly healthy.