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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrids - News, Reviews and Views in the Press
567 messages, Last post on Oct 30, 2009 at 9:21 PM
You are in the Hybrid Vehicles Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Feb 04, 2009 10:35 am) I'll eat the front seat of my TCH over a 5-day period, with gravy, if a hybrid car ever explodes because of an explosive failure of a hybrid component. That's just a highly, highly unlikely scenario. I see freeway Car-B-Ques all the time in the Big City, but none of them have ever been a hybrid, to my knowledge. |
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Feb 04, 2009 10:35 am)
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Feb 04, 2009 10:54 am) Back on news items... Ford Motor (F) says it will have plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in showrooms in 2012, promising 30 miles on battery power before the gasoline engine kicks in. Ford plans to underscore that promise with an announcement here today that it has contracted for lithium-ion battery cells with Johnson Controls-Saft, a U.S.-French joint venture that manufactures the batteries in France. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-02-02-ford-plug-in-hybrid_N.htm
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Replying to: pf_flyer (Feb 04, 2009 11:14 am) In brief discussions with Toyota personell at the Prius preview to the DC Auto show they noted that PHEVs will be part of the mix in the future but at the moment there just isn't that much money to be made from them. IOW they don't see much urgency to rush any PHEV vehicle to market because the vast vast vast majority of the US population is not ready technologically nor from a usage pov. The technology must progress and the public must get a taste for what these vehicles can do but how many will actually be sold? Not many. 'Not many' means not much money to be made. |
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They don't say if this is a diesel hybrid, and turns out it's not, but it SHOULD BE DARNIT !!! VW Touareg Hybrid
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Replying to: larsb (Mar 12, 2009 7:07 am) |
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Hybrid car sales go from 60 to 0 at breakneck speed By Ken Bensinger March 17, 2009 The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel-efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multibillion-dollar bailout. Unfortunately for the automakers, hybrids are a tough sell these days. In July, U.S. Toyota dealers didn't have enough Prius models in stock to last two days, and many were charging thousands of dollars above sticker price for the few they had. Today there are about 80 days' worth on hand, and dealers are working much harder -- even with the help of $500 factory rebates -- to move the egg-shaped gas-savers off lots from Santa Monica to Miami. This month, Honda is offering $2,000 in cash, financing and leasing incentives to buyers of the formerly sold-out Civic hybrid, while a dealer in northern Michigan is dangling $6,000 cash back to those willing to buy a hulking Chevy Tahoe hybrid. The hybrid flood marks a lasting commitment to a powertrain technology that currently represents only about 2% of U.S. vehicle sales and, by most accounts, is deeply unprofitable. Toyota said last year that it was finally making money on the Prius after nearly a decade producing it, but executives at other automakers acknowledge that they lose money on every hybrid sold. "If we were making money on the Civic hybrid, we weren't making a lot," Honda spokesman Chris Martin said. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hybrid17-2009mar17,0,6682265.story
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Of course the car makers were losing money on hybrids at first. They had to re-coup the cost of researching the new engines. Honda and Toyota are making money off their hybrid cars now, and Ford is about to with the release of their two new hybrids. As for hybrid sales dropping off, run a comparison of how bad sales are overall, then compare them to the dropoff in hybrid sales. Hybrids are actually increasing their market share even as sales drop because the rest of the market is so bad. As for talking about the GM hybrids and equating them to Toyota or Honda's.... Chrysler had to stop making the two-mode SUV hybrid because of bad sales. We'll have to see if GM ends up doing the same. If GM built a fuel efficient hybrid car, they'd probably see the sales figures Toyota is seeing.
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Replying to: michaeldoherty (Mar 17, 2009 5:17 am) Not according to the LA Times article I just posted. The hybrids are sitting 80 days on the lots. It is not good for the high priced battery to sit for long periods of time. They will deteriorate if not kept charged. I doubt Toyota is sending charging units to the overflow lots with thousands of cars to charge those batteries. It will not be a problem for the buyers other than premature failure of the battery and the hassle of waiting for a replacement. A complete discharge of a cell until it goes into polarity reversal can cause permanent damage to the cell NiMH cells historically had a somewhat higher self-discharge rate (equivalent to internal leakage) The rate is strongly affected by the temperature at which the batteries are stored with cooler storage temperatures leading to slower discharge rate and longer battery life. The highest capacity cells on the market (> 8000mAh) are reported to have the highest self-discharge rates. wiki
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 17, 2009 5:30 am)
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