Anyone drive a hybrid?

[CannonFodder]

A friend of mine just bought a Toyota Prius and it averages around 50Mpg. Very economical.

Was wonderin if anyone else has any expereince of them?

This review is fo a newer model than his but the concetp is the same fo both

[Tigger]

CannonFodder wrote:
A friend of mine just bought a Toyota Prius and it averages around 50Mpg. Very economical.

Was wonderin if anyone else has any expereince of them?

Gas has to reach at least $7.50 a gallon, to be cost effective through the battery change in 4 years, which is the big issue at the moment.   I actually like the Honda better, we designed (and now manufacture at a different plant) the electric car chargers, one of the guys at work has his honda hybrid running off of batteries pretty much only so he gases up every couple of months and just plugs the car to the charger at night.  Once the battery replacement issue is solved, I'll be interested in one, but till then the cost of driving one for 4 years and two months is a little two expensive.
   -Tig

[Fats]

I just bought a Honda Civic Hybrid here in Belgium, I will need to wait till December for delivery though. It included 8 years of guarantee on the battery and the electric circuit. So if it has to be replaced after 4 years it will cost Honda money.

Staf.

[Karlos]

Talk about synchronicity, I recently had a lift in the exact same model. It was spookily quiet when the engine was not in use. Even empty milk floats make noise :-D

[odin]

Obligatory South Park linkage, don't get smug :-).

[recidivist]

Sometimes I wish that I had kept my Opel GT and done the Mother Earth hybrid conversion,(circa 1981?)!

Battery life is the issue.

Now how many here have any form of alternative energy source?

[Karlos]

Would riding a mule count?

[nadoom]

Do you own one? a mule that is

[cecilia]

Karlos wrote:
Talk about synchronicity, I recently had a lift in the exact same model. It was spookily quiet when the engine was not in use. Even empty milk floats make noise :-D

yes, i had the same spookie feeling when I drove somebodies electric car. feels like a "normal" car but makes NO noise. ooOOOooOoooOooOOo weird!

[Karlos]

nadoom wrote:
Do you own one? a mule that is

No, but it could be construed as driving a hybrid in some pastoral society :-D

[odin]

Don't you ride mules? =)

[Agafaster]

Don't you ride mules? =)

my wife has a pair...

[Agafaster]

Battery life is the issue.

Now how many here have any form of alternative energy source?

hydrogen fuel cells, or hydrogen internal combustion engines.
for storage, Sodium Borohydride looks promising:

NaBH4(s) + 2H20(l) -> NaBO2(s) + 4H2(g)

then feed the hydrogen into the fuel cell / cylinder.

[Karlos]

One likely problem with that reaction is that it isn't easy to reverse. You'd end up with a lot of sodium borate (jagshemash!) that would be difficult to reprocess back into sodium borohydride. Ideally you don't want by products from you fuel cell other than water. Anything else is dead weight you are carrying around.

Production of the borohydride in the first place requires a considerable amount of energy. Overall, it's cheaper to use liquified hydrogen. However, that's also extremely dangerous.

[nadoom]

No, but it could be construed as driving a hybrid in some pastoral society

They still emit green house gases though.

My question is this...

It takes energy to charge these fuel cells, which means a power station somewhere has to burn something, so do these hybrids really impact the cost to the environment?

If they can stick one of these hybrid engines into a Mitsubishi L200 ill be happy!