This has caused me to be puzzled ever since I first heard the term "Plug-in/Pluggable hybrid cars."
I have two questions that should be utterly simple to answer, but those answers do not pop up on the numerous websites I've surfed. I've *not* made it into a career research project, but it seems like the answers to both of these would be on the *first* page I viewed, let alone the 100th...
1) Obviously the current hybrid cars have rechargeable batteries. They are recharged constantly by the gasoline-powered engine and by the braking system. The question is: Why is a $10,000 "conversion kit" needed to make a standard Prius or Civic Hybrid pluggable? Why can't a simple adapter/recharger be used to "top off" the batteries when it is parked in the garage at night?
2) Assuming a flat battery on a pluggable hybrid, and assuming a fairly typical retail cost of electricity in the neighborhood of 10 cents ($0.10) per KWh (kilowatt hour) and that the load is just one passenger and the route is on level ground (that is, nothing special)...
2a) How much would it cost to fully charge that battery and...
2b) How many miles would it deliver? ...and...
2c) Convert that to Miles per Dollar (MPD).
As a point of comparison for (2c), my old reliable 1999 Toyota Corolla gets 30 miles per gallon. Gas costs about $4.00 per gallon. If I put in 10 gallons, I pay $40.00 and expect to travel 300 miles. Thus I am paying 300/40.00= 30/4= 7.50 MPD.
The reciprocal (dollars per mile) is $0.13; that's in the neighborhood of the cost of one KWh per mile -- if I did the math right :-)
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There are a number of related issues that might be interesting to discuss.
* The problem of every commuter charging his pluggable during the day would probably put huge stress on the electrical grid during hot summer months, worsening brown-outs and so forth.
* Where hyro-electricity is a main source, one uses up the water in the damn faster under pluggable-vehicle scenarios. That could be a problem during drought conditions (which are likely to become more severe, according to some climate models). I know that during the drought a few years ago, a hydro-electric power plant outside of LA actually reversed the turbines and pumped water back up the hill at night! The enormous cost of the electricity (and wear-and-tear) to do so must have been less than the value of having a ready supply of water for daytime electricity production.
* Using electricity rather than gasoline does not prevent pollution or CO2 emissions; it just pushes them out of town to where the coal-burning power plants are located. But isn't even *that* worth something? Pollution causes the most health damage when it is concentrated in a small area (such as downtown LA and along transportation corridors). Wouldn't spreading it around to a larger area (putting more square miles of less-dense population at risk, but each person at a small fraction of the danger) be a good thing?
* Bring up your own interesting thought on these issues. I'll award points not only for the answers to my question, but for interesting discussion about related issues.
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