Originally posted by Nygdan
He's fundamentally changed the type of car it is.
hacked his Prius by replacing the battery with a lithium-ion version and adding a system that plugs into an ordinary 110-volt socket.
After charging in the garage overnight, the souped-up Prius gets about 100 miles per gallon
People wouldn't buy a car that gets a 100 miles a gallon if they had to "plug it into a socket". Its not toyota's fault, its the public's
fault.
[edit on 14-7-2006 by Nygdan]
Whom are theses people that will not buy it? I would buy it. At 100 MPG the payback period doesn't seem so bad now. The price and volatility of the
LiIon batteries needs to be dealt with. The hotter they get, the more prone they are to ... well ... erm ... explode.
What's so hard about plugging you car in overnight anyway? The only people who would bitch at that are lazy people.
BTW Both Toyota AND Honda are coming out with Plug-In hybrids(potentially with Flexi-fuel motors) by 2009-2010.
Here is a semi-related thread(about Biodiesel)
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Maybe it requires a lot of electricity to 'charge' the car thus you won't really be saving money or off setting your emissions. Also, if one of
these PHEV kits costs around $10,000 dollars (assuming a profit markup of 20% thus making the total cost $12,000 dollars) they would have to tack that
onto the price tag. The Prius is aimed toward the average joe wanting to save on fuel costs - not people who can afford $10,000 dollar options.
The reason why it costs so much atm is:
1. Car sized LiIon batteries are not being mass-produced yet and are thusly very expensive to manufacture atm. The price should come down within 5
years.
2. These are kits. Kits are usually more expensive then buying a car that was mass produced with a plug-in kit pre-installed.
So basically, the main issue with this technology is twofold: The explodability of LiIon batteries and lack of production capacity which inflates
prices.
[edit on 14-7-2006 by sardion2000]
