Future Tech - Quia



Future Tech

Hybrid cars are electric efficient, gasoline convenient, and the biggest auto innovation in a century

By Brad Lemley

DISCOVER Vol. 21 No. 04 | April 2000

My heart pounds. my knuckles go white as I squeeze the Honda Insight's steering wheel. I'm at the start of one of the short, accelerate-or-die on-ramps of Connecticut's Merritt Parkway, and if I can't hit freeway speeds in a hurry, I'll become a grille ornament on some Manhattan-bound SUV. The Merritt's 25-foot ramps spook me even in my own car, a peppy six-cylinder Camry. Here I am attempting the same daredevil entrance in a featherweight two-seater whose three-cylinder gasoline-electric engine has been engineered to squeeze 70 miles out of a gallon of gas.

But when I stomp on the throttle, both the gasoline and electric motors kick in at maximum power, and I easily slide into a gap in the speeding traffic. Ten minutes later, after two more successful test-merges, I'm persuaded: This Japanese hybrid auto is ready for America's Darwinian roads.

 

The Best of Both Worlds

Honda's Insight combines the advantages of battery and gas power. It accelerates briskly yet achieves 61 miles per gallon in the city and 70 mpg on the highway, according to the EPA.

|[pic] |

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|Nickel-metal hydride batteries provide 144 volts for the |A power-control unit |A three-cylinder |Instruments monitor |

|electric motor as needed. |directs the flow of |gasoline engine |battery status, |

| |electricity to and |provides power most of|charging rates, |

| |from the battery pack.|the time but gets a |real-time gas mileage,|

| | |boost from the |and lifetime gas |

| | |electric motor when |mileage. |

| | |needed. | |

|Courtesy: American Honda Motor Co. |

 

The Insight, which hit the U.S. market three months ago, is the first of a dizzying array of alternative-power vehicles headed for new-car lots in the next decade. At the dawn of the automobile age 100 years ago, a variety of power plant technologies jostled for dominance before the internal combustion engine trounced the competition with its combination of price, power, and convenience. Today engineering breakthroughs, environmental mandates, and--virtually everywhere except in the United States--lofty gas prices that can top $4 per gallon have once again thrown open the question: What's the best way to propel a car?

For a moment in the mid-1990s, California's ambitious emissions regulations sparked interest in all-electric vehicles. But dismal sales short-circuited several automakers' plans. Dealers sold just 561 Ford Ranger electric pickup trucks in the United States in the 1999 model year, and even that low figure made it the national electric-vehicle sales leader. No wonder: Battery-powered cars run out of juice quickly, take a long time to recharge, and their energy packs--which don't last long enough--are expensive, says Amory Lovins, research director of Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes innovative technologies.

Hybrid vehicles, which never have to be plugged into anything, are emerging as a more sensible way to get out of the internal-combustion rut. Along with Honda's mostly aluminum Insight, Toyota will begin U.S. sales of its steel-bodied, four-door Prius this summer. Both vehicles retail for about $20,000. The Ford Prodigy and the gm Precept, midsize hybrid prototypes shown at the Detroit auto show in January, preview technologies the companies plan to incorporate into future production cars. "Prodigy goes a long way toward meeting our goal of an extremely fuel-efficient family vehicle," says Neil Ressler, Ford's chief technical officer.

Hybrids crack a fundamental automotive conundrum. A conventional car's engine runs inefficiently most of the time because it is oversized to cope with the occasional need to accelerate rapidly or easily climb steep hills. A typical hybrid's engine consists of a small gasoline engine linked to a compact, direct-current electric motor. A computer directs their interaction. During hard driving, both of them send power to the wheels. At cruising speeds, the gas engine goes it alone. While slowing or rolling downhill, the electric motor becomes a dynamo that sends electricity back to the batteries. And hybrids are always ready to go because the gas engine assists with the recharging duties.

Other engineering flourishes can further boost hybrids' stellar fuel efficiency. The Insight's slippery shape minimizes aerodynamic drag, and its all-aluminum body and frame weigh 47 percent less than a comparable steel body. The Prius, sold since 1997 in Japan, also uses lightweight construction and features extra body-cavity insulation to reduce the load on the air conditioner. This combination of low mass and skinny, low-resistance tires probably accounted for the sole problem I encountered in my Connecticut outing: Once, when I popped the clutch on a wet patch of road, the Insight's wheels slipped. On an icy day, I'd take the Camry.

Ford's Prodigy and GM's Precept raise the mileage stakes by replacing the gasoline power plant with a small diesel engine, which is even more efficient. Although the cars are still concepts, real diesel hybrids should be on sale within three years. Auto-design consultant Robert Q. Riley predicts that a perfected hybrid vehicle could be three times more efficient than today's cars, and far more environmentally benign.

As they introduce their first hybrids, manufacturers are already preparing to leap to the next technology--fuel cells. The first fuel-cell systems will probably extract hydrogen from any hydrocarbon fuel, including natural gas, methanol, or gasoline. When oxygen passes over one electrode and hydrogen over the other, the two combine to generate electricity, water, and heat. Because the fuel cell does not rely on combustion, emissions are minuscule. Fuel cells are heavy and expensive, but they're improving. At the Detroit show, Honda stole some thunder from the Insight by unveiling the fcx, a sleek sedan powered by a fuel cell. Hiroyuki Yoshino, Honda's president and ceo, said the company should have a commercial version ready by 2003. Several other automakers have announced similar goals.

Ultimately, Lovins predicts, fuel-cell cars will run on pure hydrogen, reducing auto pollution to water vapor steaming out the tailpipe. That would require building a nationwide hydrogen-fueling infrastructure and finding ways to make the gas cheaply and store it safely. Lovins thinks it could happen: "You don't need to spend $100 billion to put a hydrogen filling station on every corner before you can sell your first hydrogen car. It will start with natural-gas-powered fuel cells that make electricity for buildings. Those will produce surplus hydrogen for cars parked nearby. Only when that creates a big market for fuel-cell cars do you run pipelines to filling stations."

Lovins's vision of the future is full of fuel-cell-powered "Hypercars"--ultraclean vehicles weighing perhaps a third as much as conventional steel cars. But Americans worry that small, light cars are unsafe and increasingly trade them in for hefty pickups and sport-utility vehicles. Lovins thinks improved designs could overcome such fears: "Carbon fiber is stiffer and stronger than steel but has one quarter the density. You are at a mass disadvantage when you hit a heavy steel car, but you more than make up for that in design and material strength." Also, there's no reason that alternative-power vehicles need to be tiny. Hybrids and fuel cells could add a dose of social responsibility to the gas-guzzling brontomobiles currently in vogue. Last year, Daimler-Chrysler showcased its fuel-cell technology in a macho SUV.

For now, efficiency remains a marketing stigma more than a virtue. In the throes of the 1980 oil crisis, Americans ranked fuel economy as their number two car-buying priority. In 1998, it ranked fifteenth, behind interior styling. Unless opec backs off from its new production quotas, however, gasoline prices will jump again, and it might cost more than $65 to fill up a Chevy Suburban this summer.

Both Honda and Toyota are selling their hybrids at a loss in order to establish a market. "You have to appreciate the technology. It's for people who want to make a statement about the environment," says American Honda marketing spokesman Andy Boyd. Hi9s employer aims to roll out just 4,000 Insights in the United States this year--compared with roughly 17 million passenger vehicles sold annually.

As I pilot the Insight through New York's tony suburbs, I think of a selling point that could break the eco-car logjam. While it would be both unscientific (too small a sample) and politically incorrect to term the Insight a babe magnet, wherever I parked a nimbus of attractive women suddenly materialized. Their consensus observation--"It's so cute!"--coupled with praise for its environmental nobility, struck me as an ad campaign waiting to happen.

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