« VW Debuts Fuel Cell Tiguan in the US | Main | BrightSource Energy / Luz II Dedicate Solar Energy Development Center »
First Aussie Plug-in Hybrid Debuts
13 June 2008
 |
| The new PHEV in front of Szencorp offices, where it will charge. |
Australia’s first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) was unveiled in Melbourne by the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and green development company Szencorp. The Szencorp/UTS PHEV is based on a 2005 Toyota Prius, fitted with an extra NiMH battery pack from Nilar for greater storage and a power socket to enable it to be charged directly from the power grid.
The conversion was commissioned by Szencorp and undertaken by the University’s Institute for Sustainable Futures (ITS) and Faculty of Engineering with assistance from Sydney technology entrepreneur Stan Baker, according to Chris Dunstan, Project Director from the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures.
The addition of the 4.7 kWh Nilar pack gives the vehicle an electric-mode vehicle range of more than 30 km (19 miles)—the average daily commute of Australian motorists.
The Nilar NiMH pack interfaces seamlessly with the Toyota Hybrid System and the OEM battery. Although initially the UTS team had been considering a lithium iron phosphate battery for the PHEV, they opted for the NiMH solution for this project because the battery management system was more developed and therefore easier to integrate into their system, according to Josh Usher, Research Consultant at the ITS.
The PHEV offers fuel consumption of 2L/100km (118 mpg US) or less in city driving (depending on conditions and driving style), according to the team at UTS. This gives an equivalent cost per liter of gasoline of less than A$0.40 (US$0.38).
Charging takes between 30 min and 6 hours, and uses a standard 240V on-board battery charger. The PHEVs inverter is capable of delivering 1 kW of power.
Cost for the conversion is about A$15,000 (US$14,000.)
Plug in hybrid cars have the potential to revolutionize not only how we drive but how we generate and use electricity in our homes and workplaces. This car heralds a not-too-distant future where householders will charge up their cars from solar panels on their roof and then pump surplus power from their car back into the grid on days of high peak power demand.
—Chris Dunstan
June 13, 2008 in Australia, Plug-ins | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBack (0)
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/22062/30121084
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference First Aussie Plug-in Hybrid Debuts:
Comments
A variety of groups have noticed the Prius can be turned into a PHEV by improving the battery pack. Toyota noticed this too, but didn't originally offer it as an option. Now they are setting up a joint venture with Matsushita Electric to make batteries. They will begin offering the Prius as a PHEV, because they already have it in production, but they think the PHEV idea is already obsolete. Toyota will begin offering a fully Electric vehicle as soon as their battery production can support it.
Honda also sees no future for plug-in hybrid vehicles. They aren't going to make improvements in them, invest in them or market them.
Instead they will be making a better product, battery electric vehicles.
Now that the Japanese have noticed the PHEV idea obsolete, we see western technology all ready to develop it.
Posted by: John Taylor | Jun 13, 2008 5:00:14 AM
Nothing wrong with a PHEV, it is just that the battery cost is excessive.. hopefully it will come down. There is always the aftermarket solution. I suspect a lot of used Priuses will get updated in the coming years.. soon as you start seeing the 15kwh packs for $999 in the back pages of magazine ads.
I tought Honda was going full tilt?, they are introducing 3 new hybrids soon..
Posted by: Herm | Jun 13, 2008 5:32:31 AM
The Australian government just offered a $35m subsidy to Toyota to build Camry hybrids starting 2010 I believe, but not a plugin version. Many commentators think that since Australia still has good natural gas reserves it would be simpler and cheaper to build or just import cars like the Honda Civic NGV.
Posted by: Aussie | Jun 13, 2008 6:43:03 AM
@ Herm "I thought Honda was going full tilt?, they are introducing 3 new hybrids soon."
Honda will be introducing the hybrids they have in production, but not develop the idea further, and not bother making them plug in capable.
Toyota and Honda are forward looking companies that plan ahead. They have noticed that the world supply of oil based fuels is simply not going increase. We have hit peak oil, and production will now decline. The world car fleet simply cannot expand while relying on oil. There is no future in making cars that have no fuel to run on.
The alternate fuels are limited, but one is an obvious choice. World wind energy potential is several orders of magnitude beyond our total energy usage now. Electricity can now be made from wind at cheaper rates than it can by using coal, gas, oil, or nuclear. Thinking of wind power as an energy source for cars leads to battery storage technology.
New battery designs and chemistry are improving quickly, and have reached the point where they are now viable as a transportation medium. With the new Li packs going into production, the range is 300 km to 400 km, and recharge time is about half an hour. For most daily driving, a range of under 200 km is adequate, and on long trips, a stop tends to involve having a pee break and eating, so the recharge time factor is not an overly objectionable issue.
Israel and Denmark are going to make their countries “electric-car” as soon as possible, and the rest of the world will no doubt follow.
With the price of oil rising at over 20% per year, the motivation to buy a car with affordable fuel is going to increase. Also, the BEV has a huge advantage in pure acceleration as well as stability, so any oil fueled car is obsolete, and not worth further development.
In 2012, we should see an overwhelming switch to new battery electric transportation.
Posted by: John Taylor | Jun 13, 2008 7:05:53 AM
Aussie, I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that many/most Australian vehicles were factory built or converted to run on NG. Is this true, or does that only apply to antique gas hogs (V8 Holdens and such)? Gasonline prices have been 'high' (over A$5) for many years, haven't they?
Posted by: Bob Bastard | Jun 13, 2008 7:13:28 AM
John
To think of wind power as an infinite resource could be wrong given the worlds hunger for power. Imagine if we had the mix wrong and used wind the primary source of power. What are the implications of taking all that energy out of the world weather systems. At the moment we use wind energy very close to the ground. When will we build wind generators as high Toronto's CN tower?
Posted by: Mike W. | Jun 13, 2008 7:37:20 AM
Why not use the oemtek.com conversion using lithium phosphate batteries. IT is 9KW of power for $12,000.
Posted by: paul | Jun 13, 2008 7:43:12 AM
John:
I agree with you that pure BEV make sense in smaller countries like Israel, Denmark, Belgium, etc where a 300 Km to 400Km range would satisfy the majority.
However, in very large countries like USA, Canada, Russia etc, where peopel travel much longer distances, PHEVs may be a better solution in many cases.
Why not have the chocie between the two technologies. We take long trips very often and a PHEV would be a better choice for us. Driving down from Canada to Florida would required too many recharge stops with current BEV. Secondly, our highways have very frequent extended traffic jams that would be too demanding on the batteries in winter time.
Eventually, when BEV's range reach 500+ Km and highways are equipped with many road side recharge stations, pure EVs with be the best choice.
Posted by: HarveyD | Jun 13, 2008 8:37:20 AM
Call me old fashion, but an all electric car could be a problem if you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. Last time I checked, you can't carry volts in a bucket. I suppose you could have a backup battery pack to make it to the next charging station, but I would feel much better with a small ICE generator and a few gallons of petro-ethanol, whatever.
Of course there's always AAA, but they would have to have a charging station on board, which would probably be an ICE generator.
Posted by: shigley | Jun 13, 2008 8:47:31 AM
John Taylor
Honnesty I don't think we are anything close to EV becoming the main stream anytine soon, Battery are and will stay the problem and for a long time to come. Battery has always been one of the slower industry to make progress, despite huge investments. Even the best Chemistry give at best 300Whrs/Kg as a promise. And that is not enough for Ev to become the solution. Sorry. The PHEV has the real advantage of being totally multifuel, whch is important in a world where source of energy will be diversified.
Progress is made of trade-off not absolute believ like : tomorrow will be all H2 or all electric.
Honda has a poor record of strategic choices lately, there were the fisrt to introduce Hybrid and lost the partie against Toyota, they bet on clean diesel when it becomes clear that it won't be the solution, and they don't believe in PHEV when the flexibility of this approach is more and more compelling.
Posted by: Treehugger | Jun 13, 2008 8:50:52 AM
John
You should also look at the evolution of the price of commodities like, Ni, Li, Co, Ti, Mn these 5 past years and imagine where it could skyrocket if we switch the car industry to all electric, that would ruin the all thing right away.
Posted by: Treehugger | Jun 13, 2008 8:55:19 AM
Bob, when I left Australia (7 years ago) quite a small minority of cars ran on NG. The cost of conversions was around AUD $1000. I suspect the number has increased since then but I don't know by how much.
Posted by: marcus | Jun 13, 2008 8:55:38 AM
While I think this is an important step, I think the Australian Government has its head in the sand as far as oil prices go. Sure, Australia has plenty of NG (approx 30-40 yrs worth according to a recent Oil Drum post) but we cannot take this for granted. We should be trying to convince GM to build some of the Volts in Australia (right hand drive) and perhaps look into partnering with Project Better Place for the cities. Other steps would include getting green crude on line ASAP and perhaps even giving a tax rebate on electric bicycles or something like this.
Posted by: marcus | Jun 13, 2008 9:10:45 AM
Drivel for analysis.
Toyota has no intention of building BEVs as a sole replacement for its HEVs in the forseeable future, until say 2020.
BEV battery costs are twice or probably three times that needed for a PHEV version of the Prius, with an already tripily expanded battery capacity over the HEV Prius.
That is because the batteries must be twice or three times the KWH size to power in an even smaller vehicle. Consider: If a PHEV Prius version were able to do 40 miles without recharge, (turning on it's motor generator), a almost-reasonble BEV would need to size its batteries to do at least 120 miles per charge.
Technology may be advancing, but not that fast.
Except for NEVs, or glorified golf carts, some pregnant roller skates clasified as BEVs, such vehicles are at least two decades away without a major storage breakthrough.
It is indeed true that Toyota is vertically integrating, as is Nissan w NEC, but that is not fundamentaly different from GM building auto parts, inhouse, in its Delphi former autoparts empire. Or Ford doing the same in its former Visteon (Auotlite) parts empire.
The UAW contracts have destroyed the viabilty of in-house autopart manufacture, for the US firms; so they are spinning them off as quickly as possible. Where upon they immediately go bankrupt to break th high UAW labort rates,and obtain rats similar ot other parts producers.
New anti-Trust precedents by the Democrats insure that these the concept of vertical integration of any type, with auto parts empires as an example, cannot be recreated in the US. Another example of Democrats "helping" American producers, compete worldwide and bring jobs to America.
If anything Toyota has been slow to replace or upgrade its Japanese government MITI-paid-for, HSD first generation hybrid system. From an engineering perspective, there obviously needs to be some attention addressed to the highway mileage issues, and some form of improved transmission technology. Although there are many avenues, the most likely are probably somewhat similar to GM/BMW/Daimler/Chrysler advanced two-mode drive system.
Posted by: | Jun 13, 2008 9:27:40 AM
Re: Drivel for analysis.
Stan Peterson I know that this post is from you. I have been seeing the same misconceptions repeated for the last have dozen of your posts either signed or unsigned. Your ideas are your signature. I don’t think you cut and paste but it's close. I will take this opportunity to begin my rebuttal of your misconceptions. First, as follows:
“New anti-Trust precedents by the Democrats insure that these the concept of vertical integration of any type, with auto parts empires as an example, cannot be recreated in the US. Another example of Democrats "helping" American producers, compete worldwide and bring jobs to America.”
The anti trust laws were designed to restrict anti-competitive practices. Unlike Microsoft, your usual straw man, there is no car company that has the majority of the auto market let alone has a corner on it vertical integration not withstanding.
QED wrong.
Drivel for analysis.
At least other GCC members have original ideas that are open to cordial debate and change. They don’t suppose to set on a higher intellectual plane to falsely criticize without just cause. This affront to the general discourse done in an anonymous manner is the reason that I am coming down on you so harshly.
I will address your other misconceptions that you list in your post at a latter time because like the sunrise they will return in the same identical words over and over and over again.
One last bit of Bushiest trollism must be addressed.
As for democrats, wasn’t “the Trust Buster” a Republican?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust-busting
Read up on it to perfect your thinking. I will be watching.
Posted by: Axil | Jun 13, 2008 11:01:50 AM
Bob B
In Australia Ford has a factory fitted option for dual fuel (LPG/petrol) on some makes. The recently deposed Howard government offered a $A2000 subsidy for retrofitting any make and quite a few V8 vehicles were done, mainly those used for towing heavy trailers. I think Autogas (LPG, propane) is currently around 80c a litre or $3 per US gallon and petrol is double that.
Posted by: Aussie | Jun 13, 2008 2:59:03 PM
Thanks, Axil,
for the spot-on rebuttal to what sounded like
"Stan the man with an opposing sense"--to mainstream CCG.
If I can recall history lessons correctly, wasn't it the Dem who brought America out of the Great Depression, after a massive American victory WWII on both European and Pacific fronts. The WWII was won by the charisma of FDR who massively mobilize American work forces and who instituted rationing of all strategic materials and self-sacrifice in the home front.
Now, we have the wars on terror and on global warming, and yet the GOP-run government kept dishing out huge tax break for the rich and fighting unnecessary Iraq war while running huge budget deficts that will put huge burden on the future generations, while advocating no conservation measures to curb consumption of strategic materials such as oil...and told America to keep on shopping and spending lavishly as usual...while American workforce laying idle as well-paid manufacturing jobs are being exported overseas.
We need another FDR desperately...who can instill a real sense of American patriotism!
Posted by: Roger Pham | Jun 13, 2008 3:36:40 PM
The only NG technology in Aus is Govt fleet Daimler Benz buses in Sydney and possibly some other.
The Westport fuel systems and Cummins now have 3? versions Factory ready engines available.
The technoly is from Western Australia. The buses are retrofit in the depot. Thats about it at present.
LPG offered by various local manufactures and importers with full factory warranty includes factory fitted or approved conversions.
The Govt's more focused on both real and available technologies ie Camry hybrid and keeping the feild within view to maintain a skills base.
Than picking winners.
I think the total subsidy is $72mill. Half federal ' state govts.
Posted by: arnold . | Jun 14, 2008 2:31:20 PM
Australias known reserves of NG as I understood till recently is certainly in those 40 + years but the reserves of Coal seam gas (same dog different leg action) . puts Aus in the top reserves globally. And the unknown reserves are seen as the jewel. Simply by releasing the pressure in a seam, gas flows from every 'exploritary hole'. Simply drill down , pump out the water and put a flapper valve on oulet and - thats it. Pressure released, gas boils out of the seam some flow straight to a generator others to containment.
My guess and hope is that the seam gas is likely MUCH more valuale than the coal it sits in especially if carbon taxes are properly adjusted.
Drillers report that there is "NO such thing as miss" every test produces. Holes drilled up to every 100 Meters and horizontal drilling off the vertical works jus fine too.
Posted by: arnold . | Jun 14, 2008 3:10:57 PM
"The Govt's more focused on both real and available technologies ie Camry hybrid"
Normally I would agree with this but to keep up with oil prices and avoid severe economic consequences I think we need a more forward thinking approach. We are undergoing a major and rapid crisis in transport energy availability. In three years time no one is going to want anything besides a full EV, PHEV or electric bicycle. Perhaps in Australia we can get away with using our own LPG but only at the expense of NG exports. By the time the first Australian made Camry Hybrids roll off the production line they will be dead on arrival.
Posted by: | Jun 15, 2008 9:58:47 AM
As a perfect example of the Australian Government having their heads in the sand here is a great quote from Australian finance minister Lindsay Tanner.
From the Age:
Quizzed on what the Government's plan would be if petrol hit $2 a litre (it is now around $1.50), Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said yesterday: "We haven't made specific plans for particular price levels, because even if, hypothetically, the petrol price did hit that level, nobody can tell whether that would just be a momentary event."
C'mon guys, wake up!! Its going to go a lot higher than that!
Posted by: Marcus | Jun 15, 2008 11:19:57 AM
PHEVs VS BEVs:
I still believe that PHEV-40Km, 60Km, 80Km and 100Km are neccessary steps towards BEVs.
An average PHEV can operate with a ($10K) 15 KWh battery pack but a practical BEV will require up to 5 times more (about 75 KWh @ about $50K) to get 300+ miles between charges.
BEVs will be the going thing when bateries energy density is closer to 500 Wh/Kg and the price is down below $300/KWh. That may do be for another 5 to 7 years unless a new break-through baterry technology appears.
Posted by: HarveyD | Jun 17, 2008 5:23:32 PM
PHEVs VS BEVs: (corrected)
I still believe that PHEV-40Km, 60Km, 80Km and 100Km are neccessary steps towards practical BEVs.
An average PHEV can operate with a ($10K) 15 KWh baterry pack but a practical BEV will require up to 5 times more (about 75 KWh @ about $50K) to get 300+ miles between charges.
BEVs will be the going thing when baterry energy density is closer to 500 Wh/Kg and the price is down below $300/KWh. That may not be for another 5 to 7 years unless a new break-through baterry technology appears.
Posted by: HarveyD | Jun 17, 2008 5:27:03 PM
To add to previous comments about the situation here in Oz, there is a large government subsidy to convert petrol cars to dual fuel/LPG. The trouble is that if the car is not orginally designed for LPG you have to run petrol through it fairly regularly. LPG is dry and the petrol is needed to maintain lubrication.
Ford produces an LPG only Falcon (Large V6) and Mistubishi did too until recently. The Fords are universally used by taxi companies. LPG costs around 65 cents a litre here in Melbourne but LPG will go up in price from 2012 (I think) as government tax breaks are removed.
We do have plenty of natural gas but we are selling it off on a long term contract to the Chinese at 1 cent per litre. This was trumpeted as a breakthrough deal by the previous government.
EV's would be a better option, especially if we can wean ourselves off black and brown coal.
Posted by: critta | Jun 17, 2008 8:40:21 PM
A$15,000!!!!!! Nathan Bolton of Convert Ur Car of Sydney is quoting under A$10,000 to convert a modern Toyota Prius to a plug in EV ... methinks UTS is blowing smoke USA by charging that much. Or szomeone is making a little green on the deal themselves. Ask Nathan yourself ... nakey_welds@bigpond.com. Tell him Randall sent you. I get nothing.
Posted by: Randall | Jun 24, 2008 10:01:52 PM
