Jeep Diesel Hybrid and 110 mpg

litton · **Posted:** Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:17 pm

Eat your heart out VW.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/14/detr ... e-concept/

Threeweight · **Joined:** Mon May 14, 2007 5:57 pm **Posts:** 679

Bet you $100 bucks the VW hybrid enters production before that thing. The Big 3 are famous for rolling out vehicles like that as a publicity stunt (Chevy Volt, anyone?)

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:18 am

Threeweight wrote:

Bet you $100 bucks the VW hybrid enters production before that thing. The Big 3 are famous for rolling out vehicles like that as a publicity stunt (Chevy Volt, anyone?)

All gutluss wonders,I like my 10mpg beast!

My gas hog beat up your hybrid :lol:

!

chrispitude · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:26 am

It also uses batteries for stored power - note "that gives it the equivalent of 110 mpg when combined with the electric motors". This makes it unclear what the real cost per mile is. Technically a battery-powered vehicle has infinity miles per gallon because - Neo - there are no gallons.

- Chris

Threeweight · **Joined:** Mon May 14, 2007 5:57 pm **Posts:** 679

tjkj2002 wrote:

My gas hog beat up your hybrid :lol:

!

When regular unleaded hits $4.00 a gallon, and diesel $4.50, I'll be laughing all the way to the bank with my 28 mpg CRD and 45 mpg Jetta TDI

retmil46 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:26 pm

Even at $3.50/gallon for diesel, with the MB knocking down 30 mpg, it's costing me $25/week for 7 gallons to commute 200 miles to work. Actually, $24.70 last week for 7 gallons at 3.49.

Word I'm getting is that the estimated MSRP for the Chevy Volt keeps going up - around $35K now. Unless it's outfitted and marketed as a luxury vehicle, it'll be DOA when you can get a Prius for 10 grand less.

At that, now that diesel prices are so elevated above RUG, used TDI prices in this area are coming back down to something resembling sanity. At least they're not asking 80% or more of original MSRP for a vehicle with more than 100K miles on it now.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 5:05 pm

Let's see - 10 gallon fuel tank, 400 mile range - uhhh, that doesn't sound like 110 MPG to me. More like 40 mpg at best. And if 40 miles of that is on the batteries, 360 miles running on diesel - that's more like 36 mpg at best.

Roughly a 3000 lb vehicle and a 260 HP electric motor on EACH axle for over 500 hp total, compared to the performance numbers they quote - something doesn't jive. With the right gearing and fed adequate voltage and current, that thing would make the space shuttle look anemic when it comes to acceleration and they would be measuring it in G forces instead of 0 to 60 times!

Sounds like they didn't really crunch the engineering numbers when it came to integratring all the components of the drive system.

Reflex · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:48 pm **Posts:** 567

Despite all their PR about the Volt, its a non-starter in its current configuration. LiON is simply not workable for safety reasons, and NiMH is no better than what you'd get in a plug in Prius. This thing is either vaporware or DOA.

The real hope would be if there is a breakthrough in super capacitors, that would make this car very attractive. But I don't see that happening either(I wish though).

nursecosmo · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:09 pm

Threeweight wrote:

tjkj2002 wrote:

My gas hog beat up your hybrid :lol:

!

When regular unleaded hits $4.00 a gallon, and diesel $4.50, I'll be laughing all the way to the bank with my 28 mpg CRD and 45 mpg Jetta TDI

I'm already laughing. even though the price gap between RUG and diesel keeps growing, the percentage of difference remains the same. Roughly 10% price difference for 30-40% better MPG makes us all laugh.

Pablo · **Joined:** Thu Feb 02, 2006 10:06 pm **Posts:** 1201

Well the fuel for the electric vehicles comes from somewhere... the owner is just storing it in the battery. I was reading some electric car propaganda the other day and it mentioned that the equivalent MPG was 111.

I had to wonder where they got that figure and how accurate it was. The electric lines to most peoples houses can be over 1000's of miles from the power station that generated the power. I wonder if they factored in a large portion of the power produced by the power plant is lost in transmission lines? I bet not.

UFO · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:33 pm

Pablo wrote:

Well the fuel for the electric vehicles comes from somewhere... the owner is just storing it in the battery. I was reading some electric car propaganda the other day and it mentioned that the equivalent MPG was 111.

I had to wonder where they got that figure and how accurate it was. The electric lines to most peoples houses can be over 1000's of miles from the power station that generated the power. I wonder if they factored in a large portion of the power produced by the power plant is lost in transmission lines? I bet not.

The efficiency of transmisssion lines is very very good, on the order of 90+ %. It's one piece of infrastructure we should not ignore but embrace, as emissions can be better controlled at the source rather than thousands of tailpipes.

Reflex · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:48 pm **Posts:** 567

Of course we'd have to build thousands of power plants, we don't have nearly the electric infrastructure needed. Furthermore, batteries are highly polluting.

And btw, why do you think its difficult to control thousands of tailpipes? We have done that repeatedly, its called emissions standards. Even now there is talk of CO2 capture systems for cars, that would go a long long ways towards eliminating that argument....

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:35 pm

..... Why don't they go after those who plug in and get out of paying road tax?
Diesels, Gassers, and even Hybrids like this Jeep concept pay for the use of the road :!:

Why not plug ins :?:

Where are all our Tax and Tax again elected officials on this one :?:

Steve

UFO · **Posted:** Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:36 pm

Reflex wrote:

Of course we'd have to build thousands of power plants, we don't have nearly the electric infrastructure needed. Furthermore, batteries are highly polluting.

And btw, why do you think its difficult to control thousands of tailpipes? We have done that repeatedly, its called emissions standards. Even now there is talk of CO2 capture systems for cars, that would go a long long ways towards eliminating that argument....

It's more cost effective per unit energy and results in less total emissions. Power plants are far more efficient at energy conversion than individual vehicles, even factoring in transmission and storage loss. And new power plants can be wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, all renewable and clean.

Reflex · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:48 pm **Posts:** 567

UFO wrote:

Reflex wrote:

Of course we'd have to build thousands of power plants, we don't have nearly the electric infrastructure needed. Furthermore, batteries are highly polluting.

And btw, why do you think its difficult to control thousands of tailpipes? We have done that repeatedly, its called emissions standards. Even now there is talk of CO2 capture systems for cars, that would go a long long ways towards eliminating that argument....

It's more cost effective per unit energy and results in less total emissions. Power plants are far more efficient at energy conversion than individual vehicles, even factoring in transmission and storage loss. And new power plants can be wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, all renewable and clean.

I often post this, but once again to remind everyone the scale of what is proposed when people talk electric cars:

Not that I think its impossible or anything, but its certainly a long term goal. A typical nuclear power plant takes 16 years to come online from the approval stage, and unless your arguing for more coal, there really isn't anything else thats truly reasonable in a realistic time frame(especially when you consider that we already have to keep expanding due to ever increasing energy needs).

By comparison, while I oppose crop based solutions, biofuels in general could largly solve the issue without the need for a massive energy infrastructure upgrade.

UFO · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:14 am

One good thing about coal - the CO2 can be used to grow algae for biofuel, and sequestration technology is still being explored. But after the adventures in Kansas, I'm not holding my breath.

Threeweight · **Joined:** Mon May 14, 2007 5:57 pm **Posts:** 679

A bit of a goofy comparison. That chart shows the total annual oil consumption of the entire planet for every energy use, not of the United States auto fleet.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4820

Second, using their formula, the estimated worldwide oil reserves at the beginning of 2002 were 35 cubic miles. We'd better get busy thinking up alternatives.

Finally, perhaps what that chart shows is we ought to think about alternatives to auto transportation, especially for urban areas.

Threeweight · **Joined:** Mon May 14, 2007 5:57 pm **Posts:** 679

UFO wrote:

One good thing about coal - the CO2 can be used to grow algae for biofuel, and sequestration technology is still being explored. But after the adventures in Kansas, I'm not holding my breath.

Even with algae absorbing the stuff and using it to make biofuels, you are still adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (taking carbon that was stored under ground and turning it into atmosphere CO2).

I always get a laugh when I read about the US government spending billions to research carbon sequestration technologies. Last time I checked, they were called trees.

Reflex · **Joined:** Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:48 pm **Posts:** 567

Threeweight makes a perfect point about algae capture from coal, it is in fact still putting it in the atmosphere in the end, after all that was CO2 that was previously underground, your just running it through an additional step before it goes into the atmosphere.

As for the rest, I will point out that the US uses around 25% of that oil which is still a huge figure(cut those numbers by 1/4, its still not attainable reasonably). Furthermore, any solution we come up with actually does have to be thought of as a global solution, after all they aren't going to build special cars for just the US, economies of scale would not work out very well. This is also a major reason why electric is going to be a while off, even if you could solve the generation issues, other nations don't have the infrastructure in place, especially once you leave the first world. And whether we like it or not, China and India will be driving the transportation market in the not too distant future.

I agree about mass transit, although I'll state that part of the problem is geography and the spread out nature of US cities. Lower population density simply kills the usability of mass transit here...

UFO · **Posted:** Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:02 pm

Threeweight wrote:

UFO wrote:

One good thing about coal - the CO2 can be used to grow algae for biofuel, and sequestration technology is still being explored. But after the adventures in Kansas, I'm not holding my breath.

Even with algae absorbing the stuff and using it to make biofuels, you are still adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (taking carbon that was stored under ground and turning it into atmosphere CO2).

I always get a laugh when I read about the US government spending billions to research carbon sequestration technologies. Last time I checked, they were called trees.

A very good point. It's better than nothing, but still not a great option.

Jeep Diesel Hybrid and 110 mpg

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