Ted Bohn, a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in the Chicago suburbs, shows off a modified Saturn Vue with a lithium-ion battery in the rear (Photo by Gabriel Spitzer)
One of the great hopes for a green
car is the plug-in hybrid. It’s like a regular
gas-electric hybrid, only you can plug in at
night. That charge is supposed to let most
people make a typical commute without the gas engine. Carmakers and the government are throwing a lot of money at the technology – GM and Chrysler both hope to release models in the next few years. But the cars might not deliver what boosters promise. In the first part of our series on saving gas, Gabriel Spitzer
reports on what new research says about plug-in hybrids in the real world:
Transcript
One of the great hopes for a green
car is the plug-in hybrid. It’s like a regular
gas-electric hybrid, only you can plug in at
night. That charge is supposed to let most
people make a typical commute without the gas
engine. Carmakers and the government are
throwing a lot of money at the technology – GM
and Chrysler both hope to release models in the
next few years. But the cars might not deliver
what boosters promise. In the first part of
our series on saving gas, Gabriel Spitzer
reports on what new research says about plug-in
hybrids in the real world:
Ted Bohn is a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in the Chicago
suburbs and he’s showing off his ride.
“So this a prototype, plug-in hybrid vehicle. The rear half is a 10
kilowatt-hour battery.”
It’s a modified Saturn Vue, with a big old lithium-ion battery in the rear.
That battery is like what runs your iPod – only it weighs as much as a
linebacker.
Ted Bohn: “If you actually had to drive less than 40 miles on a typical
day, you could drive the whole day without starting the engine.”
Gabriel Spitzer: “Could you drive this very vehicle 40 miles round-trip
without starting the engine?”
Ted Bohn: “Close. If you drive slowly. To be honest, 25 to 30 is what
you’ll really do – driving on a nice day downhill with a tailwind is 40,
more realistically, 25 to 30.”
The thing is, you don’t hear those little caveats from some people, like, say,
General Motors.
“You plug it in. And they expect you’ll get up to 40 miles without a drop
of gas. Wow. The Chevy Volt. I’ve heard the future, and it hums.”
That 40-mile range is based on EPA tests.
Argonne scientist Aymeric Rousseau, with backing from the government,
compared those measures to how people drive in the real world.
Based on more than 100 drivers in Kansas City, he found that 40 mile range
shrinks to about 30.
Flip on your AC, and it’s more like 20.
“People now think about, you know, your mileage may vary. Now we
have to think about, your electrical distance may vary, depending on
how you drive, and what accessories you’re using.”
Rousseau says factors like aggressive driving sap the all-electric range.
And don’t forget – we’re talking Kansas City, here.
“When we talk to people from the EPA they actually say that people in
California drive more aggressively than people in Kansas City.”
General Motors concedes the point.
Rob Peterson is a spokesman for GM.
He says driver behavior can have some affect on the all-electric range.
Though …
“I wouldn’t go as low as 28 to 32.”
He says for a reasonable driver, the Volt can still get about 40.
And how about those pedal-to-the-metal Californians? Well, he says GM
studied exactly those people.
“For 64% of the people that we tested, they would be able to finish their
day with a petroleum-free and a tailpipe-emission-free commute.”
That’s not exactly what Argonne found.
Granted, the batteries they looked at were a little smaller than the Volt’s.
Size matters when it comes to batteries.
Said Al-Hallaj teaches at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
He says carmakers could build a battery that would boost up the all-electric
range – the problem is money.
“If you’re talking about a 25% increase, you know, from 30 to 40 miles,
that could mean thousands of dollars. So that could take it out of the
price range that will make it actually practical for the industry to make
it.”
Al-Hallaj says as the technology improves, so will drivers.
People are already getting better at squeezing fuel efficiency out of their
cars.
“For the first time I see people even worried about closing the window
versus opening the window because of drag. And we’re talking about
common people here, just trying to pay attention to, if your tires are not
properly inflated, the you have prob — so people start adapt and
probably get the best out of your battery.”
So it’s not that a plug-in hybrid can’t get 40, it’s just that you need to drive
like a grandmother to do it.
But if gas prices continue to climb, we may be seeing a lot more grannies
behind the wheel.
For The Environment Report, I’m Gabriel Spitzer.