Japan Certifies Toyota Plug-in Hybrid for Public-road Tests

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(usbseawolf2000 @ Jul 27 2007, 03:32 AM) [snapback]485584[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zenMachine @ Jul 28 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]486530[/snapback]</div>

You're right!
Japanese Navi option includes TV tuner as well as the famous IPA, intelligent parking assist.

Ken@Japan

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 24 2007, 09:12 PM) [snapback]484507[/snapback]</div>

Excellent report. However if you read it, you'll see that your statement is not quite correct.

Figure 5-1 shows the CO2e emissions per mile for a non-plug-in hybrid is noticeably less than the emissions for a plug-in hybrid using the dirtiest electricity we have. A hybrid, or not plugging in your plug-in hybrid, would be better if your electricity is coming from any sort of coal plant -- significantly better for current coal plants, a little better for "new coal", SCPC, or IGCC. (An exception is the mythical IGCC plant with carbon capture and sequestration -- carbon sequestration is a whole other story, but suffice it to say, no one knows where to put the stuff yet.)

Where I live (using Southern California Edison), very little of my electricity comes from coal, about 7% this year. About half of my electricity comes from natural gas, and 20% from nuclear. Figure 5-1 in the report shows a benefit for all natural gas sources, and of course a significant benefit for nuclear. So a plug-in hybrid would definitely be a net reduction in CO2e for me.

I'm sure that there are places that get almost all of their electricity from coal plants. If you live there, and your objective is to minimize CO2e, you shouldn't buy a plug-in, or at least you shouldn't plug it in. These plots are for plug-in hybrids, so the detriment is even more significant for a pure electric car (as is the benefit of an electric car for non-coal sources).

The figure is attached below. Actually this is the same figure from the executive summary, since the figure in the main report didn't copy well out of the PDF.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Jul 29 2007, 10:37 AM) [snapback]487111[/snapback]</div>

I'll grant you that holes can be shot in my emotional, sweeping statement. Especially if we only look at one pollutant. I'll also grant you that coal is very, very bad indeed, and we should do all we can to stop using it (just ask residents of West Virginia what they think about the country's use of coal). While I agree that there can be some instances where electricity production can be worse than gasoline production, a comparison of what we face right now shows the overall reality of the situation (of course, NOT what I said it my statement!) When the average grid pollution (what would happen if all cars switched from gasoline to electric right now) is compared to the average pollution that gasoline creates, The plug-in cars win. And as the grid gets cleaner every year (with growth in the renewable fields, and caps on the polluters) electric vehicles get cleaner along with it. Pollution from the production of gasoline, however, has not shown any significant improvement (while we CAN now burn it pretty cleanly in the Prius for example). When we burn gasoline, we ALWAYS (yes, another sweeping statement) create C02. In comparison, we can make and consume electricity without creating any C02 if we wish.

While this whole discussion is only centered around C02, C02 is not the only pollution that concerns us, of course.

I try to avoid making such huge sweeping statements like that above - for this very reason! It was an unfortunate knee-jerk reaction to the idea that electric cars are going to be as bad or worse for us than gasoline cars because they "use so much electricity." I appreciate your gentle correction and your concern for the subject and accuracy.

My personal P(no H)EV would look nice on that graph. Would look just like the PHEV - Renewables bar, but without the blue or red portion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Jul 29 2007, 01:37 PM) [snapback]487111[/snapback]</div>

Looking through the report, the best vehicle I saw used 280 wh/mile, although we know the Prius consumes about 200wh/mile in city driving.

That 30% difference skews your chart considerably in favor of PHEV over HEV in GHG emissions, even for a grid powered by dirty coal.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 30 2007, 09:44 AM) [snapback]487475[/snapback]</div>

An important item to note is that if driven at freeway speeds, the Prius would consume more than 200 Wh/mile. Obviously at low speed just about everything consumes less energy. All will depend on what speeds/coarses these comparisons are made. But we can't compare the freeway consumption of one model with the low-speed consumption of another.