PHEV 40 is good to hear! I wonder what the top speed is in EV mode?

I agree that a plug in only range of 40 m. is pretty good, but only if it is assuming an electric only top speed of at least 35 mph. If I buy a PHEV Escape or such, I want to drive it to work and back at a decent speed, say 35 mph, and not use much more than a drop of gas til I hit the highway on the weekend. Otherwise the high cost of a hybrid just doesn't come close to making sense.

UC Davis is using a 30kW electric motor. This would be more than enough for highway speeds in a nice light aerodynamic car, like a ford focus (which I personally think is just about the largest passenger car the needs to exist, but which is neither here nor there).

In a giant american truck with the aerodynamics of a brick, a modified weight over two tons, and basically the same functionality as a ford focus wagon, they should be able to get up to 35 mph. It'll just take it's time getting there and consume more energy than necessary to serve the same load.

Plus, you can buy the ford focus with a PZEV engine.

I know UC davis didn't choose the vehicle and I understand that GM sponsored the challenge so they will obviously focus the efforts on a truck, since that is the only thing the GM north america makes any money on. Even so, I felt the obvious should be pointed out.

Note: I didn't suggest using a Prius b/c it has very little cargo space compared to an SUV or focus wagon. Besides, Priuses get talked about way too much here already. For $10k less (according to www.carsdirect.com for the Seattle area, including the premiums and rebates) you can buy a top of the line focus wagon. In some states, it can be bought with the 2.3 liter PZEV engine that nearly eliminates the Prius ecological advantage (in terms of all pollutants except CO2). You can spend the $5k you save (assuming the other $5k gets spent on extra gas) on solar panels or invest in a wind farm or butanol or something, if you really feel the need.

Focus Wagon ZXW SE Equinox
Standard Seating 5 5
Optional Seating No data No data
Front Headroom (in.) 39.10 40.90
Rear Headroom (in.) 39.80 40.10
Front Legroom (in.) 40.70 41.20
Rear Legroom (in.) 37.60 40.20
Front Shoulder Room (in 53.50 55.70
Rear Shoulder Room (in 53.60 55.90
Front Hip Room (in.) 49.40 51.10
Rear Hip Room (in.) 50.70 51.30
Payload & Towing
Focus Wagon ZXW SE Equinox
Passenger Volume (cu. ft.) 95.70 No data
Cargo Volume (cu. ft.) 35.60 35.20

Well, had they used a small DIESEL engine, burning BIODIESEL, then indeed the vehicle would have to use not a drop of oil, even at highway speeds. But I digress. So plug-in technology is such a blatantly obvious and easy method to achieve HUGE mileage increases. We all know this. So let's all place bets on how long the auto manufacturers will drag their feet on this one.

Maybe some people need larger vehicles, but most of the people in large vehcicles don't need them, especially those single commuters. Besides, I'm not sure that SUVs are the most efficient way to move around large numbers of people.

The well to wheel efficiency of an EV is way lower than a hybrid. Does this mean that a PHEV is also less efficient than a hybrid?

I think PHEVs make sense up to the point that we are recharging within the existing base load. After that, I'm not so sure. But I'd love to hear good arguments that it is the holy grail. I'd love to have a holy grail that cuts our need for energy and cuts cargon emissions.

The American people continue to vote for the image they want for themselves, and as an extension the President. In that image is our desired energy policy. And what we want are big cars, roaring machines and cheap fuel.
Our love for stuff that feeds our machines will not stop even when some Americans would rather be found dead from the effects of poor syphining technique(stealing gas) than be forced to drive a wimpy electric car.

Any "softness" detected in a candidate will be use to politicial advantage.
What more, can I say, except that this will always lead to

War

I choose the focus wagon and listed the stats b/c it is EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE as the equinox. claims for need-based purchases of SUVs are just plain ignorant.

unless, of course, the person classifies their desire for a particular image and a tendency towards low performance and instability as a need.

theroetically, a person could claim that AWD is a need not met by the focus wagon. for such people, subaru provides the forester (the legacy and impreza are too small to meet my personal space needs)

I own a Kia Sephia and a Plymouth Grand Voyager. I put over 1300 miles and burned over 100 gallons in the past week bringing my daughter home from college. It took every cubic centimeter of cargo space squeezing her belongings into the Voyager. We've decided to move to the small Iowa town where she attends college.

The age of plenitude still awaits in spite of the anti-science and anti-technology crowd. Guys like Mao Tsetung and Amory Lovins can be banished to the dusty pages of history along with their simplistic "small is beautiful" nonsense.

You can do pretty much anything if you have plenty of clean energy. That's coming. lots of ways. solar PV, fro small local uses and Fusion for all others. Fusion is no longer a question of scientific possibility, but now entering the much simpler and assured engineering & design phase. In a few decades electricity will become more abundant than today, opening all kinds of possibilities

If there are climactic problems arising from anthropomorphic C02 releases, these are barely detectable over background. In spite of some who must worry, it won't have major climactic effects except on the order of 300-500 years or even more likely 3000-5000 years.

Please remmber that the most extreme climate change models predict only a .4-.6 degree change in a hundred years. It takes 300 years to get a degree and a half rise, if any rise will even happen! Other models, and thats what all these are is models, that don't even account for atmospheric disturbances called storms and clouds predict none to a rise of .1 degrees per century or 1000 years to rise but a single degree.

These modesl all assume to have this barely detectable effect, we will consume fossil fuels at exponential increasing rates, and with no cleanup efforts at all.

Use your own senses, we can't continue to use fossil for millenia in ever increasing amounts. You own efforts insure that todays goods are much cleaner and more efficient than yesterday's products, irrespective whether we are discussing an auto, airplane or household appliance.

In but a few decades the C02 will stabilize as fossil fuel for transportation uses gradually ceases. Not because of exhortation but simple scarcity and rising costs, versus lower costs for electric replacements.

Plants and the Oceans will rapidly scrub levels back down to the bare traces we have left in this geological epoch, and stunt enough plant growth to stop its falling further.

If Mr. Gore had his way we would have added 100,000 bureaucrats and ex-politicians and lawyers to the government, and gotten $10,000,000 prototypes like the cars of the government's last experiments. These were doomed to be unfordable, never built in quantity and, just "feel good" nonsense.

The enemy of the "good" is the "best" and government would have been driven to gold plating everything.It always does,since the people placed in charge are usually the least knowlwedgeable but the firmest true beleivers and msot politically releiable. Deleivering the 5th precint in Milwaukee, for their party is hardly credemntials to lead any big project, but that is indeed how governments functionand how the leaders are chosen. Do $800 dollar toilet seats sound familiar?

For example the governments last program created cars with bodies of carbon films, much like used in the $20 billion dollar B2 bombers. it save oh 100 pounds or soat a cost of a couple million per auto body.

Even today we can't recycle simple rubber auto tires, and there is no known way to recycle these proposed auto bodies, except burning them and making lots of dioxin, PCBs and of course CO2! Heaven stop us from using a iron carbon alloy we call "steel", which is almost wholly recycled.