Hybrid Fleet Vehicles 191
howman writes "This article in the Toronto Star tells of a Canadian company called Azure Dynamics Corp. which has a novel approach to cutting fuel costs and harmful emissions in fleet vehicles. The novelty is not so much in their technology but in the fact that they are hitting the fleet vehicle users market. While Azure doesn't manufacture any of the components, it 'works with the companies that make all the parts for Canada Post's trucks or Purolator's vans - the engines, the chassis, and so on - to convert those vehicles into HEVs.' With an existing and potential client list that includes Purolator, Canada Post, the United States Postal Service and Renault and London Taxi International, it may not be long before you see one of their branded vehicles on a street near you."
You can buy one from Toyota. (Score:2, Informative)
The electricity still comes from fossil fuels! (Score:2, Informative)
On top of this, energy companies try to mislead their customers into thinking the energy is clean. I live in Ontario. I buy my electricity from 'HydroOttawa'. A lot of people think that it is hydro-electricity they are buying, when really, it is more like 15% hydro. 85% or the power really comes from burning fuels. (Don't tell anyone though; this horrible 'environmentalism' trend is hurting profits at great companies like Enron.
Re:Critical Mass (Score:5, Informative)
As for propane, here in NY my company just finished a job converting a school bus garage to be "explosion proof" as they were getting new busses that run off of compressed natural gas. The district is buying 20 busses a year until their entire fleet is replaced with the new CNG busses.
The advantage of HEVs, though, is that they still burn gasoline, and as such the fuel supply infastructure is already widely established. Going with CNG or Propane requires a whole new infastructure.
=Smidge=
Good idea indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Here in the UK electric vehicles have long been a feature of the townscape - Doorstep milk deliveries were always carried out by the huge (10,000+ at peak IIRC) fleet of 'milk floats' operated by the major dairies (this service is now in decline, killed by supermarkets). EVs just makes so much sense for such start/stop urban use, and for early in the morning - they're near-silent.
Fortunately, the advantages are recognised - many local councils are experimenting with newer EVs and hybrids for the obvious reasons in town centres. Here in Bristol there is a fair percentage of council-operated natural-gas powered vans, and experimental conversions of diesel city buses.
The Civic GX seems pretty good for this (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't mind having one myself. You can get this little appliance called a phill ( http://www.fuelmaker.com/phill/ [fuelmaker.com]) that will recharge the car's tank at home. It's slow, but convenient - plug it in at home overnight. Or you can charge it fast at a commercial station (there's one five minutes from home, for me). This would be a pretty good commuter car.
dual fuel quite possible (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a Google link for dual fuel, propane [google.com]
As for finding propane for a fill up, it's not that hard, most yellow pages will direct you to your local outlet for bulk filling. Not near as many as for a normal gas station, but every community in the US probably has some place you get get propane. I've had to find the places a lot, my van and my RV both have propane tanks (just for the camping accessories right now), and I've never had a hard time finding propane. And for that matter, it might not be that hard to have a big bulk tank put in in your back yard, have the truck top it off occassionally, and do your own "fill up" right at home with the appropriate extra gear installed. A nice way to buy when it's cheap and have a good reserve handy.
Re:depends on it's use... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Emissions (Score:3, Informative)
In broadest (and simplest) terms, emissions run as 30%industrial, 30%commercial fleet, 30%private vehicles, 10% other.
Re:Critical Mass (Score:3, Informative)
Liquid gasoline has some properties that modern engines rely on, lubrication and cooling mainly. it doesn't provide much, but what it does provide makes the difference between 200k+ miles or 50k.
Re:Makes Perfect Sense (Score:4, Informative)
Hybrids seem to be a really good option here.
Not just Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Makes Perfect Sense (Score:4, Informative)
If you buy a new car and plan to trade it in after three years, you can't justify the ROI. Also, any conversion will likely void the warranty, and you may find it difficult to sell a "non-standard" car later.
If you buy an older used car and convert it, it may not last long enough to give you a decent ROI.HEV conversion will likely be popular only for fleets and for die-hard hobbyists. Let's hope that this will eventually work its way into a factory installed (and supported) option on mainstream vehicles.
Re:You can buy one from Toyota. (Score:2, Informative)
Also, my neighbor is a poohbah at a local Toyota dealership and he tells me there is a two-year waiting list to get one.
Re:Critical Mass (Score:3, Informative)
You burn propane combined with air (1 C3H8 + 10 O2) and ideally you get 4 H2O + 3 CO2. Air, however, contains nitrogen, about 70% by volume. N2 in the presence of combustion can oxidise, yielding oxides of nitrogen.
Dodge Intepid ESX (Score:3, Informative)
That is but one story on a car using a design you suggest. A few of us bring up the D-E arrangement at various times.
Unfortunately there are too many people who think trains/ships and get this whole concept out of scale.
Re:aluminium batteries (Score:1, Informative)
The article compared traditional vehicles with electric vehicles (adding in what was necessary to recharge them). The findings were pretty awakening.
Re:Wot! No electric cars! (Score:3, Informative)
GM eventually admitted it cost them a whole lot more to make an EV1 than they did/could sell them for. GM's pencil pushers couldn't get the price down. The EV1 battery design had some serious range issues and didn't work well if the weather was cold (yes you read that right) which is why they only tried selling them in Nevada and California. They realized they had to go back to the drawing board; and, decided to cut their losses.
Ford's electric Rangers were also an expensive experiment. It worked as promised but was based on heavy lead-acid batteries (slung under the bed of the truck). Ford has been seriously concerned about the long term maintenance requirements on these vehicles; and, has been trying to recall all of them (some owners don't want to return them and are suing for ownership provided for under the terms of their lease agreement). You have to keep in mind that, as long as these vehicles are on the road, the manufacturer has to provide spare parts and service on them for 10 years under U.S. law. Ford realized this was going to be costly and is trying to get all of the Rangers off the road so they won't have to support them.
Toyota brought out the electric RAV4 for testing in the fleet market; and, obviously it hasn't done well enough for them to release it to the general public. Instead, Toyota has decided to pursue Hybrid drivetrains and is expecting to release several SUV's (including the RAV4 or it's decendant) this year as HEV's.
You forgot about Chrysler. The Caravan was (is?) available as an electric vehicle to fleet buyers. Like the Ranger, it used a big pallet of lead-acid batteries slung under the chassis. It will probably never be released for regular consumer sale.
article details (Score:3, Informative)
Yup. Pages 68-73 of the May 2004 issue. The excerpt/teaser for the article is on their website here [sciamdigital.com]. It is actually an article on hydrogen cars, but electricity is mentioned. It doesn't discuss battery-electric cars, but does discuss hydrogen fuel cells powered by hydrogen from electrolysis. One illustration in the article compares the component and total efficiencies for 11 different possible drivetrain/fuel combos. This chart shows gasoline internal comustion engine efficiency as[*]:
Fuel Chain Efficiency = 80%
Vehicle Efficiency = 18%
Total Efficiency = 14.4%
If hydrogen comes from grid electricity[**], This same chart shows hydrogen fuel cell efficiency as:
Fuel Chain Efficiency = 22%
Vehicle Efficiency = 38%
Total Efficiency = 8.4%%
It also has a chart for emmissions. That chart says that total emmissions (fuel chain + vehical) greenouse gas emmissions for a gasoline ICE are around 380 grams/mile[+]. It says total emmissions of greenhouse gasses for a grid electric -> hydrogen fuel cell car are 430 grams/mile.
The electrolysis process should not produce greenhouse gasses, so those figures should be a reasonable reflection of electric power generation for electric vehicles, too.
Of course, electric powerplants operate below peak capacity most of the time. Electric vehical advocates point to the negligible amount of energy required by the addition of a couple hundred battery chargers to the grid of a major city.
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* - this chart has efficiency on the Y axis, with 100% at the top, and 0% at the bottom. The only marks on the Y axis are for 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%. That makes exact numbers difficult to obtain; i.e. these are best guesses based on the a bar graph without nicely marked units. There is no question that the graph shows gasoline ICEs as being more efficient than grid electric->hydrogen fuel cells
** - This assumes the hydrogen source is electricity from a local grid. Most local grids in the USA are powered by fossil fuel.
+ - don't blame me. I'm not the moron who chose to mix metric and english units of measurment.