Plug In Prius - Seattle Times Article

What the heck was the comparison to for them to draw such a negative opinion?

No control vehicle is asking for trouble. How do you measure the improvement the plug provided?

They just assumed 100 MPG was some kind of guarantee... kind of like the EPA estimate.
.

 

Plug-In Prius Reality Check?

From Sunday's Seattle Times:

"You may have seen the city's cars around town, painted with an eye-catching claim on the rear bumper: "This plug-in hybrid gets 100+mpg." Also, a greener boast: "150+City MPG!"

Not exactly, it turns out. Not even close.

Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.

{snip}

That is the reason I'm writing this column. We are in the grips of green mania."

 

We have been discussing this topic on some other EV forums. Those city of Seattle vehicles have the Hymotion plug-in system.

The problem is that they are not being plugged in at night to recharge the batteries. The fleet drivers are driving around all day with a regular Prius that has extra weight (the empty Hymotion battery) in the trunk.

If they are not going to plug-in on a regular basis, there is no point in monitoring their results.

Here are the real Hymotion Plug-In battery results.


728 miles at 99.9+ MPG

 

So here's the response I received to a letter I wrote about the article, which is posted just below.

Does anyone have any further information about the full story here so I can include it in a response, or do you think his claim looks to be legitimate?

So far, I immediately notice that the .pdf he links to says:

 

Where are you getting this information?
also did you check out the google link? Are they making the same mistake?

 

My comments.

 

Fairfax, VA has one conversion and they got crappy mileage for that exact reason -- cars not being recharged and drivers turning off the Hymotion system via the dash switch.

We got converted late last summer. We averaged high-80-mpgs from the start with the Hymotion system. Now that we no longer have to run our son all over Northern Virginia for various rehearsals, our last two tanks have been 99.9 mpg.

Yes, we drive it to maximize electrical miles over gas miles, and the use of the EV switch means that our around-town miles are all EV.

But as far as I'm concerned the Hymotion system works as advertised. Period. No question about it.

It has some drawbacks because it's a retrofit, and nobody would claim it's cost-effective. And if you drive with a lead foot, you minimize the benefits. But it clearly does displace gas miles with electrical miles. Tough to argue with 99.9 at the end of the tank.

The way we drive ours, it also pretty clearly reduces C02 emissions, at least for the Northern VA grid mix. Based on the National Labs tests of the Hymotion system, the PHEV Prius ought to get about 4 miles per KWH on average. So, at 46 MPG for a non-PHEV Prius, a gallon of gas can be offset by 11.5 KWH. A gallon of gas produces about 19 lbs C02. Using the US EPA estimate for my ZIP code, 11.5 KWH would produce about 12.6 lbs C02.

How clean is the electricity I use? - Power Profiler | Clean Energy | US EPA

So, I think the gizmo does what it's supposed to do. Not perfect and not cheap but it is effective.

 

Leave it to a government program(s) and a "quick trigger journalist looking for big game" to spread misinformation.

Headline: Reality check on gym memberships

 

A few interesting notes from the linked PDF Report:

- In CD mode (basically when the pack is working) they are getting 59mpg. In CS mode (when the pack is dead) they are getting a pretty pitiful 40mpg. While its not 100mpg, 59 mpg is still nearly 50% better than 40mpg.

- CS mode and mixed CS/CD mode account for about 1/2 of the miles traveled, so they are routinely depleting the pack.

- Average trip length in CD mode is only 4.7 miles, so the warmup cycle of the ICE is probably taking a big chunk out of their CD mileage.

- Average trip length in CS mode is still only 6.6 miles, so it would appear that each car is getting used for a lot of short trip every day, and the pack runs out at some point during the day. Short trips in CS mode will also tank CS mileage.

- Total number of charging events is 797. This is much less than the total number of trips, 2975. Charging after every trip would probably improve results, at least in the % of trips run in CD mode.

- In both CS and CD modes, city mileage is lower than highway. For CS its 37/46, for CD its 55/67. This should not be the case in either mode, but definitely not in CD mode. This is a strong indicator that trip length (warm up cycle) and/or driving aggressiveness is keeping the PHEV kit from doing its job most of the time.

 

The first thing that jumps to my mind is how differently most people drive cars they do not own (and abuse) vs. their own vehicle. I've known more than a couple of people who made it a game to try and be abusive as possible to a rental car. This is easy to figure out.

 

I'm on the list to get the A123 hymotion conversion. As soon as they offer it in Az. I think it will be great. I can't wit to see and report the results. The location will be in Mesa AZ.

 

Finally, a new article on the homepage of Priuschat.
It's been a few weeks (or so it seems).

If I was a taxpaying citizen of Seattle, I would be outraged. And, having those batteries drained for a prolonged period of time can cause permanent damage to the batteries (an additional reason to be upset).

 

So they've bought plug-in vehicles but they didn't plug them in.

In other news, this mysterious UFO was spotted circling over Seattle.

.......................__ ............
......<ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL>.
........................| |...........
................... __\||/____......
.\\...............|'-|--| .\\....\.....
..\ \_...........|--|---|..\\ ....\....
../ L \____,/-------\___\___\
.|LOL|-------------O----- ----,\..
..\ L /______,---''-----------, /...
../ /.............\_________ ,/....
.//.............____//___ __\\__/.

 

I emailed the reporter and asked about the claim that the city doesn't plug in their plug in priuses. Below is the whole exchange:



>>>>Me:
I read some commentary on your article at Prius chat:

Is the Plug-In Prius over-hyped? | PriusChat

They claim that you don't report that the City doesn't even plug in
their "plug-in" priuses at night. If that nugget is true, it is a
serious knock on the entire thesis of your article. The whole point of
the plug-in hybrid is that you plug the thing in pretty often, at
least nightly.

It is like saying that a corvette can't do the claimed 0-60 in under 5
seconds because the operators forgot to put gas in the car.

If, on the other hand the City is charging them nightly, and they are
still only getting 51 mpg, then I think your article stands up.
Curious the hear.

Thanks,
Cedar



>>>>Danny Westneat (reporter)
It isn't true. Why would someone post this without asking the city? It's
easy enough to do ...


>>>> Me
People post lots of things on the internet that aren't true. And I
don't think it would even occur to a non-reporter to call the city and
just ask. Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me...

 

Hmm. I'm hoping there was more in that exchange. So he acknowledges it would not be right to ask the City. Is it too much, then, to assume he not only asked the City, but the City said: "Yes, we plugged the cars in each and every night." Did he then ask to see their records?

I saw an earlier post suggesting the records themselves showed no evidence of plug in for many of the cars. Perhaps that was just after day-trips and not at the end of the day?

I am not suggesting the reporter didn't act fairly and ask the reasonable questions. The response just received, though, leaves a bit of "wiggle" room. I doubt the reporter would allow a politician to get away with such a response.

Pol: "Well, of course that's wrong. Why would I, as President, ever say such a thing?"
Rep: "Did you, Mr. President?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you say that?"
"Now, why would I say that? Wouldn't that be the wrong thing to do?"
"Yes, Mr. President, that's why I'm asking."
"And I thank you, kind reporter, for asking such difficult questions. Why just yesterday . . ."

 

well, it does mention a control in that the normal Pri's only spend $200 more in gas. funny how they whine about mileage in one sense, but do not mention the mileage on the control car... only the cost savings....

another BS article that obviously has a lot to hide