Hi to everybody, I red a post on an italian forum where a man showed his concerns about the damages caused by electromagnetic fields to human health coming from the electric motor and cables inside Prius and hybrid cars. I know the AC motors develop electromagnetic field but I don't know when it become dangerous. What's your opinion about it?
Alberto, You can start your search HERE , HERE, and HERE. There are lengthly discussions on the subject.
Ok, sounds like another anti-hybrid rumor First of all, the DC cables are underneath the car. There is the metal body structure between you and the cables. The NiMH battery in back, is in a metal case. I suppose if one became curious and used a very precise gauss meter, the kind used for compliance testing, there would be higher readings at the back seat. The inverter/converter under the hood will take the approx 200 vdc, and turn it into polyphase for MG 1 and MG 2. The inverter/converter case appears well insulated, and there is the metal firewall between the passenger cabin and the MG's If this person is so concerned about exposure to EMF, I would ask this: "Do you walk under polyphase power lines, especially >200 kvac?" "Do you use a cellular telephone?" "Do you use one of those trendy Bluetooth headsets?" "Do you use WiFi in your home?" "Are there electrical wires in your house?" "Do you sleep in a room with electrical wires?" "Are you anywhere in northern lattitudes during periods of intense solar or extrasolar radiation?" That usually shuts them up
What types of EM fields are the major concern? Magnetic, Electrostatic, Low Frequency, Power Line, Cell Phone, etc.? True story - Some time ago a person with the same concerns got an EM meter to determine how much EM exposure they were getting from the Prius. What they found out was the EM fields in there house was much higher....and they spent vastly more time there. The measurements of the Prius were not any different than their other car.
Hi All, A quick rundown on the Prius. The Motors are inside the transmission. The transmission is on the other side of the steel firewall from the driver. Steel is a magnetic material, and will block the magnetic fields from the motors. Additionally, so are the power cables from the battery on the other side of the steel from the passenger compartment, except in one small area near the left rear door. The cables are closely spaced, so the amount of field away from the cables is small too. The cables have electrostatic shield built in, too.
Exactly. Much like how a young teenager will be at the mall, handing out flyers - on recycled paper of course! - claiming how bad pollution is for the earth So I ask this naive spoiled brat the following Is that a cellphone? Did you get those new clothes at a thrift store, or right here in the mall to be trendy? Is that a Nintendo DS? Is that an iPod? I thought the girlie was going to start crying on me, by the time I got done with her
I wish I had a chance to jump on this one earlier. I love bashing these ridiculous urban myths. As it is, you guys beat me to it, and left nothing for me to add. Tom
Look, I'm getting tired of all this secrecy about our microwave Prius! Like everyone else, the taste of a beef brisket, cooked in the microwave safe dish on the motor generator has been of the greatest, untold features of our Prius. But the 2010 Prius brings this to a new level: I never realized how taste squab is until I juiced my 2010 Prius under the pigeon infested overpass. Not to mention, how 'juicing' the accelerator scrambles police radar detectors: Now I've been doing some experiments and it looks like if you crack the hood, the new 2010 Prius has enough EMI to burn out Hummer electronics. It was quite amusing to pull out from a light and see the Hummers and SUVs sitting there with their electronics burnt out and the driver cell phones not working. It also fixes the traffic lights. Warning, don't drive through a parking lot with the lights off as they will glow as you drive past. Notice the six Prius in the background as the Jetta TDI tries to escape: One last amusement is the coronal glows in foggy conditions. The high EMI, a mobile Tesla coil, is beautiful. Indeed, there is no need for head lights at low speed thanks to the arcing discharge: I especially like the effect on pedestrians who saunder across the street as if they can't see us. Just juice the accelerator and they get the message: Seriously, it is long past time that we keep these shocking, electrical features secret and explain why every Prius comes with salt, pepper, and paper plates: Piccione italiano arrostito Bob Wilson
Thanks to all of you for your answers, experiences and measurements. I am not an electrical technician, the only thing I know is that DC field is not a problem for health because it's static (it hasn't a frequency), so the danger could come only from thye AC motor. But if it's correctly shielded there are NO problems. Anyway I don't think the japanese are so stupid not to think about it. God saves America... and "CIAO" from Italy
A friend of mine used to serve on a nuclear submarine. Every individual who works near the radiation equipment wears a film badge that indicates how much radiation they've been exposed to. There was an incident where one person's badge showed a significant exposure. It was a really big deal until they tracked down the source of his exposure. He had worn the detector while on a transcontinental airplane flight. So the radiation exposure was from the airplane flight, not anything on the sub. The message my friend tried to tell me was that the sub was safer than an airplane flight. The message that I got was that airplane flights expose you to enough radiation that it scares someone who works on a nuclear submarine. The fact that we are regularly exposed to some hazard doesn't diminish the hazard. I think we know far too little about the effect of EMF on the body. I find very little comfort in the lack of study of the issue. As another example of how disjointed scientific knowledge can be, consider mercury. It is generally acknowledged as dangerous everywhere in the environment. Except when used as dental fillings in your mouth or in vaccines. When a dentist removes those perfectly safe mercury fillings, a magical transformation occurs and he has to dispose of them as hazardous waste. Yet any dentist who offers to remove those mercury fillings as a safety measure is liable to lose his professional license for malpractice. On the other hand, I just got back from the Maker Faire where one of the displays was a pair of 15 foot high Tesla coils. Really fun watching the 10 foot arcs between them. They probably would have burned out any EMF meter within a 100 feet of the coils.
