Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Coming In 2010

[Guest]

Tokyo (Japan) - Good news or bad news?

Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid Coming In 2010 : Read more

 

[sacre]

This is stupid. Plugging it in at your home means power being used by coal plants, nuclear plants, etc.

Just get Hydrogen already...

 

[gm0n3y]

@sacre,

The price difference for people is still vastly better and the efficiency of the electric vehicles is vastly better than standard vehicles. Even the Tesla Roadster attains the equivalent of 150MPG. Also, how do we get the hydrogen? (note: it takes electricity to make hydrogen)

 

[jhansonxi]

@sacre
The difference is that weight limits of vehicles force trade-offs in efficiency and emission controls. It's a lot easier engineering problem since the power plant doesn't have to move.

 

[danwat1234]

@sacre
It takes a lot more energy (electricity) to produce hydrogen, than to just run a vehicle off of electricity directly. Creating hydrogen is very inefficient, and if you buy a hydrogen powered car, then you have limited choices as to how that hydrogen was made (via coal fired plants, or solar panels, etc..) But if you bought an electric car, you could charge that vehicle up any way you wanted to. Get some solar panels on the roof of your house, and boom its almost free (during the summer) to charge your car. Or plug it into a parking lot's flood light stand, like where you work and charge it for free.
Or, if your Electric company has a green plan, sign up for that.
Duh.

 

[gm0n3y]

@danwat,

Yeah the only reason that hydrogen is good is that the range of hydrogen vehicles is currently a lot larger than electric vehicles. Because of this, I can see how they are going to have a viable future in some economic sectors. Depending on how battery technology progresses we may end up with hydrogen commuters eventually anyways.

 

[danwat1234]

Yea, Hydrogen vehicles have a longer range than electric vehicles like the Prius or Chevy Volt. It just takes time for the big auto companies to adopt Lithium Ion batteries, instead of NiMH.