Hack your hybrid and get 300 MPG!

[LTR]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/16/wcar16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/16/ixworld.html

Owners of hybrid cars claim to be stealing a march on their makers by customising them to go even further for less fuel, in one case doing up to 300 miles per gallon.

Green-minded enthusiasts in California are turning the popular vehicles into "plug-in cars" that can be recharged using off-peak electricity from the mains.

(snip)

Now a small but growing number of "hackers" are souping up models by reprogramming their computer and packing them with extra batteries that provide more electrical kick and burn even less fuel.

(more)

[ashling]

1. I bet THAT voids the warranty!

just a thought

[LTR]

2. My thoughts exactly!

Sounds like it would.

[ashling]

3. with the price of gas

I'm sure they could save enough to take care of otherwise warranted repairs.

:)

[Coastie for Truth]

13. It does void the warranty.

I checked with my dealer. :(

[mopinko]

4. depending where the electricity comes from

this may not be all that green. if they are plugging into nuke generated electricity, is that green?

[LTR]

5. One of the people in the article...

...plugged into a solar panel.

Now THAT'S about as green as one can get!

Almost offsets the high sticker price and dealer markup on a Prius.

[mopinko]

6. yup

that's what we all ought to be able to do. and all we got to do is bring back the tax credit.

[northzax]

7. greener than an independant internal combustion engine, yes

it is almost always more efficient to generate power in large quantities than in small ones. Even an oil fired plant is more efficient, per kilowatt/hour than the cleanest internal combustion engine. Yes, there is still pollution, no doubt, but as far as fossil fuel generation is concerned, modern Macro-plants are more efficient than microgeneration. Now if they were plugging their car into a home generator, not so much.

plus, nuke power is a small fraction of the generation grid in the US.

[phantom power]

9. A lot greener than burning more fossil fuels.

[Coastie for Truth]

14. Not going to go down that road--- but

1) having been born and raised in "Coal Country" (South western Pennsylvania),
2) with Dad's family from ,
3) lived near Shippingport,
4) worked as a student and grad student at both the DOE Coal Lab (Bruceton PA) and Bettis National Lab (West Mifflin, PA),
5) did my PhD research under the "coal to synthetic oil GO TO GUY", and
6) volunteered in Ivan Itkin's campaigns and District Constituent Service Office (he was the PhD nuke engineer, liberal Dem, in the PA General Assembly),

I have seen both coal and nuke -- and I'll take nuke.

[Filius Nullius]

8. Sticker Shock on Hybrids; Reversible Fuel Cells

Hopefully, hybrids will come down radically in price as sales increase over the next few years so that more people can afford to buy them.

Right now, we don't have the infrastructure in place for hydrogen cars. Perhaps for the time being we can bridge the gap with hybrids. It has been said that hydrogen isn't so much a form of energy as it is a method of storing and transporting energy, and the term "hydricity" has been coined to refer to this process. The hybrid manufacturers should develop a reversible fuel cell (RFC) that has the ability to use electricity to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen and then combine the hydrogen and oxygen back into water and electricity. I haven't checked, so I don't know whether such devices already exist. It would be really slick if the same gear could be used to run both ways in a manner similar to how electric motors and generators function more or less as mirror images of one another. The same device can be employed either to use mechanical energy to generate electricity or to use electricity to create motion.

The car manufacturers could package their hybrid cars with these RFCs and a solar retrofit for existing houses. The retrofit would put PV panels on the roofs with the necessary cabling to run to the RFCs and from the RFCs to the cars. The RFCs would store the energy produced on the roof during the day by using the electricity generated by the PV cells to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. At night the process would be reversed by flipping a switch, and the fuel cell would recombine the hydrogen and oxygen to produce water and electricity that would charge the car batteries. An even better arrangement would be for them to develop a docking station for their hybrids so that owners could drive into their garages and connect without having to manually attach any cables.

[skids]

10. Electrolyte exchange...

If equipped with vanadium redox batteries, owners could charge up new electrolyte during the day and exchange the electorlyte when they get back for a full charge. There could also be charged electrolyte made available at service stations. The energy density for vanadium redox batteries is not great (but has been improved with a concentrated vanadium bromide solution, with a theoretical maximum around 50Wh/kg) but with regenerative breaking, weight isn't as important as it used to be.

This type of battery uses the PEM fuel cell technology and can be deep cycled without any damage, so when comparing the energy density of this cell to, say, Lithium cells at theoretical max 200Wh/kg, you have to factor in the fact that the Lithium cells really cannot be deep cycled or they get damaged.

[Filius Nullius]

11. "Electrolyte Exchange"

Interesting. Can "charged electrolyte" be handled safely by consumers? What happens if it spashes onto the skin or one's clothing. If an accident were to occur, would there be an elevated risk of explosion in hybrid vehicles that carry tanks of combustible fuels?

[skids]

12. There are two "charged electrolytes."

The electrolyte is stored in two separate tanks. Same chemical, but one tank is reduced and the other oxidized. Vanadium itself is no big threat compared to a lot of the other stuff we regularly handle, but basic acid/base safety rules apply here -- you wouldn't want the fluid from the two tanks to come into direct contact, I imagine, as such would probably generate a good deal of heat. I don't know the realistic rate at which this reaction could occur or the temperatures generated, however.

Vanadium Bromide was taken off the EPA's "high priority" list for investigation last year... for overall environmental purposes cleanup of large spills to prevent animal poisoning is probably desirable, but release of it into the environment is not a concern (vanadium is everywhere already.)

Consumer handling would likely be through a keyed outlet with leakage control.

I'm no expert, though, so best to consult the literature.

[Coastie for Truth]

15. From a purely theoretical thermodynamic point of view

you could argue that is what a Ni-Metal Hydride battery is.

Oxidizing and reducing hydrogen -- that's really all a fuel cell does (at an undergrad Physical Chemistry 101 or undergrad Chemical Engineering Thermo 101 level). That's also all that a Ni - Metal Hydride battery does. (The metal hydride is just a hydrogen storage container).