Toyota Prius Doubles as Emergency Generator

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So what. You can run an inverter off any car just as easily. If any of you plan to try this, be sure to use a full sin wave inverter or you can kiss your fridge compressor good by.
 
<snicker>

I have viewed this forum via laptop and a a/c power converter with a k-car providing the 12v power during a blackout, old news brother!

On what? 5 gallons in an HOUR?! He did it for three days! :p
 
Honda? But you cite the Insight. :) The Civic hybrid gets 47mpg mixed driving ,real world, not even trying. I own one. Well, my wife does. But there you have it. The hybrid system is the same as that used in the Insight but the loss of the moon-buggy aero and addition actual usable capacity kills MPG. When it's function over form you get designs like the Prius and the new (and old) Insight. I prefer the Civic Hybrid because it doesn't scream "Hey! I'm a hybrid driving tool and will not hesitate to tell you how awesome I am for driving one!"

Now the Accord hybrid was a joke.
Hey the Civic hybrid is a damn fine car I'll agree, however when I mentioned Honda I was specifically speaking of the Accord that decided that people want "power" in which case a hybrid system added what, 2mpg over the non-hybrid model? I happen to own a Prius myself, and I got it when the 3rd gen came out (2nd gen in the US), I didn't like the previous gen because it looked like the Toyota Echo, however I did like this because of the hatchback, folding seats, and storage capacity. Not because "Hey I'm a hybrid driving tool" I don't have bumper stickers on my car that show how smug I am (except carpool ones, but that's because if I'm being allowed to drive in the carpool lane, I'm going to fucking take it" I wanted efficiency and I wanted the storage capacity without needing to move my whole in an instant SUV type argument (having had a Geo Prizm prior to this car, I recall how screwed the roof was due to homedepot trips).

Anyways the point of my quote was that you can't just throw a hybrid system into any car and expect it to get 50mpg or some extreme change in mileage overall. But sometimes people want cars that are a bit more fuel efficient because they want to use one less gallon of gas in a week or something that means that much less dependence on foreign energy sources, one less week we try to "liberate" a country, or what not, regardless of how low gas prices have gotten recently.
 
So what. You can run an inverter off any car just as easily. If any of you plan to try this, be sure to use a full sin wave inverter or you can kiss your fridge compressor good by.

I think the point is because the hybrid system can shut off the engine, you can leave the car on constantly but not have the engine just burning through gas, only coming on when batteries need to be recharged.
 
I think the point is because the hybrid system can shut off the engine, you can leave the car on constantly but not have the engine just burning through gas, only coming on when batteries need to be recharged.

You can run an inverter from a regular car battery without having the car needed to be run. If you are lucky and have a tow package on a truck, you most likely have two batteries that you can toy with.

Yes, the prius does have a ton of batteries, but the engine needs to run to charge them, so while you have a large pool, you still need to charge them and you have a smaller tank of gas.

I don't think people here have an issue with hybrids in general, just the fact that this whole article is written like a mac fanboi in that "it's the first" or something completely new. Inverters and generators have been long around before the prius.
 
You can run an inverter from a regular car battery without having the car needed to be run. If you are lucky and have a tow package on a truck, you most likely have two batteries that you can toy with.

Yes, the prius does have a ton of batteries, but the engine needs to run to charge them, so while you have a large pool, you still need to charge them and you have a smaller tank of gas.
Yes that's the point though, the engine "needs" to charge any car battery that runs low. And to add to the point the person ran for "several days" now granted I didn't read the article in depth just skimmed through it, but I'm guessing what he ran for several days would have drained most car batteries quite quickly without allowing them to recharge. The Prius in this case was basically a generator, a really expensive one, that only periodically kicked on to recharge batteries when it was low (so it didn't make noise constantly).

I don't think people here have an issue with hybrids in general, just the fact that this whole article is written like a mac fanboi in that "it's the first" or something completely new. Inverters and generators have been long around before the prius.
While that may be true, my responses to this thread where not so much because I'm a fanboi, but because it does irritate me when you have "die hard Americans" need to find ways to bash what's usually a good automobile with lies and false stories (e,g, Hummer cleaner than a Prius) just for no other reason that their "home town cars" might be inferior in some way.
 
It's the highest rated of all the hybrids and oftentimes gets 50 MPG. POS?

A diesel is a much better option unless you are sitting in traffic all the time. If you ever are out in the Western US where it's mountainous, a Prius can only maintain about 55-57 mph uphill in the passes. VW TDI, no problem maintaining freeway speed.
 
On what? 5 gallons in an HOUR?! He did it for three days! :p

the_spirit_9.jpg


See the red car? 224 hp stock, gets 35+ on the highway. Not bad for 1991.

Runs 13's in the quarter on street tires on the low boost setting and pump gas.

My daily driver when I'm not behind the wheel of my fuel swilling Dodge truck.
 
While that may be true, my responses to this thread where not so much because I'm a fanboi, but because it does irritate me when you have "die hard Americans" need to find ways to bash what's usually a good automobile with lies and false stories (e,g, Hummer cleaner than a Prius) just for no other reason that their "home town cars" might be inferior in some way.

I have no interest in a Prius- There are several vehicles that get as good if not better MPG and have a much sooner return on investment then the hybrid.

Buy one if it makes you feel better, don't look down your nose at my choice of vehicle. I don't suscribe to the global warming religion.

With low gas prices at the moment, return on investment is going to be a long, long time with a Prius..
 
As much as i would like to agree, and would love to see Hydrogen, it really comes down to a which came first, the chicken or the egg situation. Do you build out the fueling infrastructure with no cars to support, or build cars with no fueling infrastructure. I think it is going to take a near catastrophic collapse of gas supplies before we see something other than gas or electric as options.

The only real thing that i can really see chaning this prediction would be if what is happening in iceland really takes off. Other than that these hydrogen powered cars are really just a dog and pony show for the public.

That's just plain BS. Hydrogen can be made and literally piped in along with current gasoline infrastructure. Hydrogen is the only solution outside of gasoline as a true alternative fuel to gasoline. Hybrids are barely even a stop gap, if anything they are nothing more than a trendy-hey-look-at-me-I'm-a-green-world-citizen-that-spent-a-lot-of-money trinket. Everyone is looking for a net positive energy solution. That's just not going to happen, you can get a net-neutral or slightly less, but that's not what energy production is about. Want to power your house with solar, go ahead. That's a good and viable solution. Want to drop windmills in the middle of a windy hillside or desert, fine, go ahead. Have fun spending your money fighting enviro-kook groups over a fly or a bird about it though.

But if you want to power the engine of an economy, you will need an energy source that is viable, can be attained through it's abundancy or make it abundant. Because batteries won't be where it's at.
 
You jest.

Never read up on some of the problems NASA has/had with handling hydrogen have you?

Nor has he read up on how much natural gas/methane or coal is consumed to make a given amount of hydrogen. Your car would go further just running it off the natural gas than it would by getting hydrogen out of it and using it in fuel cells. Not to mention how easy it is to convert most vehicles over to natural gas.

Hydrogen is an even worse answer than lithium ion batteries. Awesome tech though.
 
I have no interest in a Prius- There are several vehicles that get as good if not better MPG and have a much sooner return on investment then the hybrid.
In certain instance and driving styles, yes I agree.

Buy one if it makes you feel better, don't look down your nose at my choice of vehicle. I don't suscribe to the global warming religion.
You don't have to subscribe to the global warming religion to prefer less air pollution

With low gas prices at the moment, return on investment is going to be a long, long time with a Prius..
I live in California, I got carpool exemption stickers on my car, the time I've not spent stuck in traffic as a result has already paid my vehicle off. Since when has *ANY* automobile been an investment anyways?
 
Nor has he read up on how much natural gas/methane or coal is consumed to make a given amount of hydrogen. Your car would go further just running it off the natural gas than it would by getting hydrogen out of it and using it in fuel cells. Not to mention how easy it is to convert most vehicles over to natural gas.

Hydrogen is an even worse answer than lithium ion batteries. Awesome tech though.

Burning methane hydrates alone would satisfy me just fine. I have no problem with running natural gas, propane, hydrogen, or any other flammable fuel source. Easy to convert to NGV where? Most EPA regulation don't allow you to convert to NGV on your own. You have to go to a certified retrofitter. On top of that, if you live in California, like I do, you will run afoul of the California Air Resources Board, one of the most draconian institutions in this state and if you do the conversion yourself and they find out about it, you are talking fines that will exceed the cost of the conversion. If the EPA finds out you've performed an uncertified CNG/NGV retrofit, they consider that a federal offense as tampering with a certified emissions control system. Most conversions cost anywhere between $15k to $25k. Think it's worth it now? You won't see that money for a while, not to mention that there are only 800 - 900 CNG filling stations in the country and not all of them are open to the public. Also, on top of that, there are only 3 or 4 certified CNG/NGV retrofitting systems available.

If you didn't know it already, when you extract oil from the ground, there is already a 99% chance that it will be accompanied by natural gas, the two go hand in hand. Find oil, you will find natural gas, find natural gas and you will most likely find oil. Like I said earlier, I'd love to run my car off of methane or methane hydrates. Regular methane requires roughly 3000 psi to store. There are some advances at the moment using carbon nanotubes as a storage platform that would bring the psi down to 300 psi, but that is still in the works and years off. There is roughly 15,000 - 20,000 years of methane hydrates supply on earth. The problem is that it's all nearly inaccessible since most of it lies at the bottom of ocean floors. Pick your poison. There was nothing wrong with gasoline then, there is nothing wrong with gasoline now, but since the leftist environut goon squads have declared war on the ICE you either have to fight back or find an alternative. For me the most viable is hydrogen. If you don't like it, then stick your head in the sand. Besides, you directly fell into the net-loser trap.
 
That's just plain BS. Hydrogen can be made and literally piped in along with current gasoline infrastructure. Hydrogen is the only solution outside of gasoline as a true alternative fuel to gasoline. Hybrids are barely even a stop gap, if anything they are nothing more than a trendy-hey-look-at-me-I'm-a-green-world-citizen-that-spent-a-lot-of-money trinket. Everyone is looking for a net positive energy solution. That's just not going to happen, you can get a net-neutral or slightly less, but that's not what energy production is about. Want to power your house with solar, go ahead. That's a good and viable solution. Want to drop windmills in the middle of a windy hillside or desert, fine, go ahead. Have fun spending your money fighting enviro-kook groups over a fly or a bird about it though.

But if you want to power the engine of an economy, you will need an energy source that is viable, can be attained through it's abundancy or make it abundant. Because batteries won't be where it's at.

Hydrogen is the big lie. It will never, I repeat never, be a mainstream fuel. It does not have enough energy per volume to power any sort of meaningful range. That's not to even mention the difficulty of getting it to the fueling stations. To get the same amount of energy from hydrogen as is contained in a tank of gas requires a far higher volume. How are they even going to transport it, roll tankers every day?? In the case of the Clarity FCX, the home pumping station creates hydrogen from natural gas. Well that's just trading one fossil fuel for another. May as well just use the GTL process to create more oil than making it into hydrogen.
 
If you didn't know it already, when you extract oil from the ground, there is already a 99% chance that it will be accompanied by natural gas, the two go hand in hand. Find oil, you will find natural gas, find natural gas and you will most likely find oil.

In the biggest recent find of natural gas in the last 10-15 years, the Barnett Shale in North Texas, there is little oil (although enough at this summer's high prices for limited production to be economically viable), but tons of gas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Shale
 
See the red car? 224 hp stock, gets 35+ on the highway. Not bad for 1991.

Runs 13's in the quarter on street tires on the low boost setting and pump gas.

My daily driver when I'm not behind the wheel of my fuel swilling Dodge truck.
Some people just don't get it....it's like the iPod hype, they hear they're the best things since sliced bread from someone who doesn't know any better and believe it. There are a lot of cars that get much better gas mileage than a Prius but for some stupid reason the Prius is always the benchmark. The Prius gets terrible gas mileage when you thrash it too which cracks me up every time I see a Prius tearing it up out of a light.
 
You don't have to subscribe to the global warming religion to prefer less air pollution


Let me tell you a story about cars and pollution my friend...

A Chrysler engineer is a good friend of mine and we were on the subject of California and emissions. One of the exasperating things he told me was the California mindset in regards to pollution and cars.

The cars we sell now are 98% cleaner than they were back in 1970 and yet the air pollution is just as bad now as it was back then. Perhaps California should review its it's outlook in regards to pollution control strategy?

The response from California was: Lets get that last 2%!!

Now with that in mind, read this-

"The California Air Resources Board has reported that a two-hour ride on a 100-horsepower jet ski emits the same amount of pollution as driving 139,000 miles in a 1998 passenger car"

If California was interested in really cleaning the air, then ban all 2-stroke powered chainsaws, weedwhackers, snowmobiles, jet-ski's, etc. NOW. Banning new sales doesn't cut it, hell I have a 15 year old chainsaw that shows no signs of wearing out.

There are millions of 2-stroke engines in use that throw off tons of pollution in California and you know why they won't be touched?

Votes baby, easier to whip up on the big bad car companies.
 
Let me tell you a story about cars and pollution my friend...

A Chrysler engineer is a good friend of mine and we were on the subject of California and emissions. One of the exasperating things he told me was the California mindset in regards to pollution and cars.

The cars we sell now are 98% cleaner than they were back in 1970 and yet the air pollution is just as bad now as it was back then. Perhaps California should review its it's outlook in regards to pollution control strategy?
California has also grown in population by nearly 5 million people each year thus seeing an increase in not only traffic but industry. This population growth has also caused a 127% increase in miles driven. According to the EPA since it's inception in 1970 emissions has decreased 29% (Maureen Bynko 2001 study). Keep in mind that trucks and SUV's do not conform to the same standards as lights cars and make up 50% of traffic while polluting 3-5 times more (ehso.com)

You're friend's 98% emissions reduction in vehicles also sounds bogus as GM themselves only report a 56% decrease in emissions between 1970 and 2000. I'd love to see some stats to back up your "friend's" claims because it sounds like your friend doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.


Now with that in mind, read this-

"The California Air Resources Board has reported that a two-hour ride on a 100-horsepower jet ski emits the same amount of pollution as driving 139,000 miles in a 1998 passenger car"
That data is a decade and since then emissions reductions were mandated in 2001 for 2 and 4 stroke engines. In September of this year the EPA enacted new laws requiring off road 2 stroke engines as well as water vehicles to be fitted with catalytic converters. Your "friend" needs to get some current information :rolleyes:
 
Burning methane hydrates alone would satisfy me just fine. I have no problem with running natural gas, propane, hydrogen, or any other flammable fuel source. Easy to convert to NGV where? Most EPA regulation don't allow you to convert to NGV on your own. You have to go to a certified retrofitter. On top of that, if you live in California, like I do, you will run afoul of the California Air Resources Board, one of the most draconian institutions in this state and if you do the conversion yourself and they find out about it, you are talking fines that will exceed the cost of the conversion. If the EPA finds out you've performed an uncertified CNG/NGV retrofit, they consider that a federal offense as tampering with a certified emissions control system. Most conversions cost anywhere between $15k to $25k. Think it's worth it now? You won't see that money for a while, not to mention that there are only 800 - 900 CNG filling stations in the country and not all of them are open to the public. Also, on top of that, there are only 3 or 4 certified CNG/NGV retrofitting systems available.

If you didn't know it already, when you extract oil from the ground, there is already a 99% chance that it will be accompanied by natural gas, the two go hand in hand. Find oil, you will find natural gas, find natural gas and you will most likely find oil. Like I said earlier, I'd love to run my car off of methane or methane hydrates. Regular methane requires roughly 3000 psi to store. There are some advances at the moment using carbon nanotubes as a storage platform that would bring the psi down to 300 psi, but that is still in the works and years off. There is roughly 15,000 - 20,000 years of methane hydrates supply on earth. The problem is that it's all nearly inaccessible since most of it lies at the bottom of ocean floors. Pick your poison. There was nothing wrong with gasoline then, there is nothing wrong with gasoline now, but since the leftist environut goon squads have declared war on the ICE you either have to fight back or find an alternative. For me the most viable is hydrogen. If you don't like it, then stick your head in the sand. Besides, you directly fell into the net-loser trap.

I live in Ok, we only need worry about the Feds when it comes to conversions. Conversions can be done on older vehicles(exempt) for as little as $5k. And they still keep the ability to burn pump gas as well. Granted, in Cali it might not make much sense to convert a car given the prices you just gave me.
The methane/ng/steam method of hydrogen production, ends up polluting nearly as much as simply buying or converting a vehicle to NG.
I don't know what you mean by net loss trap really. If you pollute just as much, use more natural resources, and get less power for a given process over another, common sense says you don't bother with it.
 
I'd love to see some stats to back up your "friend's" claims because it sounds like your friend doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.

My friend is a senior powertrain engineer with several patents & 25 years at Chrysler under his belt.. I'll take his word over yours.

The laws concerning 2 strokes only apply to new sales, I did research the matter before posting.

Nothing is being done in regards to the millions of 2 stroke engine already in use and will continue to be used for the next several dozen years.
 
I live in Ok, we only need worry about the Feds when it comes to conversions. Conversions can be done on older vehicles(exempt) for as little as $5k. And they still keep the ability to burn pump gas as well. Granted, in Cali it might not make much sense to convert a car given the prices you just gave me.
The methane/ng/steam method of hydrogen production, ends up polluting nearly as much as simply buying or converting a vehicle to NG.
I don't know what you mean by net loss trap really. If you pollute just as much, use more natural resources, and get less power for a given process over another, common sense says you don't bother with it.

The net trap loss is the argument that is made that some alternative fuel ends up being a net loss in terms of it's production. As I said earlier, there was never a problem with oil/gasoline until the environuts decided to declare war on the ICE and cars in general. Fossil fuels are fine as they are now, they could be made better with efficiencies cranked up, but you can only extract so much energy from a gallon of gasoline. I'd be all over CNG if had a proliferation, but it doesn't and with the way things are going right now, it's a sit and wait game.
 
My friend is a senior powertrain engineer with several patents & 25 years at Chrysler under his belt.. I'll take his word over yours.

The laws concerning 2 strokes only apply to new sales, I did research the matter before posting.

Nothing is being done in regards to the millions of 2 stroke engine already in use and will continue to be used for the next several dozen years.

And nothing will be done about 2 stroke engines either, short of buy back incentives.
 
the_spirit_9.jpg


See the red car? 224 hp stock, gets 35+ on the highway. Not bad for 1991.

Runs 13's in the quarter on street tires on the low boost setting and pump gas.

My daily driver when I'm not behind the wheel of my fuel swilling Dodge truck.

Yes I know what a K car is. I was referring to the amount of time it ran idling there to power your laptop not some random specs. You forgot that it handles like a caddy on wooden tires! :p
 
Let me tell you a story about cars and pollution my friend...

A Chrysler engineer is a good friend of mine and we were on the subject of California and emissions. One of the exasperating things he told me was the California mindset in regards to pollution and cars.

The cars we sell now are 98% cleaner than they were back in 1970 and yet the air pollution is just as bad now as it was back then. Perhaps California should review its it's outlook in regards to pollution control strategy?

The response from California was: Lets get that last 2%!!

Now with that in mind, read this-

"The California Air Resources Board has reported that a two-hour ride on a 100-horsepower jet ski emits the same amount of pollution as driving 139,000 miles in a 1998 passenger car"

If California was interested in really cleaning the air, then ban all 2-stroke powered chainsaws, weedwhackers, snowmobiles, jet-ski's, etc. NOW. Banning new sales doesn't cut it, hell I have a 15 year old chainsaw that shows no signs of wearing out.

There are millions of 2-stroke engines in use that throw off tons of pollution in California and you know why they won't be touched?

Votes baby, easier to whip up on the big bad car companies.

What's worse is that CARB has taken it upon itself to castrate the citizenry's ability to do a lot of things with their vehicles to make them either better or comply cheaper. You know how much it costs to just get a smog check in this state? Also, with the rash of catalytic convert thefts in California, you can't as a California citizen go out of state to buy a cheaper catalytic converter and put it on your car because out of state vendors won't even ship or sell to it to you. That creates an artificial premium on cats sold only in California which increases their cost by anywhere from 2 - 10 times their value based on model and size.

CARB needs to go in my opinion. Not to mention the multiple blends of fuel that have to be sold in this state alone that increases the cost of not only production due to blend conversions, but the cost passed onto the consumer because of it. It's not about safety, pollution control, clean air or water, it's about money, pure and simple. Remember when the environuts and CARB wanted MTBE to be put into gasoline to clean up the air? Little thing they forgot was that the residue of the falling particulates that are glommed onto that MTBE are and have poisoned ground water and are leeching into the aquifers. Interestingly, CARB and the environuts that screamed about putting MTBE in California gasoline are running silent about their little oopsie and yet no one is pursuing them legally. It's a joke in this state. Cars of today as you said are cleaner than ever. They are basically air purifiers on wheels.
 
That data is a decade and since then emissions reductions were mandated in 2001 for 2 and 4 stroke engines. In September of this year the EPA enacted new laws requiring off road 2 stroke engines as well as water vehicles to be fitted with catalytic converters.

1) You will have to explain to me how my 2 stroke chainsaw gets magically cleaner with a EPA mandate.

2) You will have to let us know who performs this service (retrofit of converters) since I can't find any info on it and last time I checked 2 stroke oil was very bad for cat converters.
 
1) You will have to explain to me how my 2 stroke chainsaw gets magically cleaner with a EPA mandate.

2) You will have to let us know who performs this service (retrofit of converters) since I can't find any info on it and last time I checked 2 stroke oil was very bad for cat converters.


its for NEW products, not old


no shit your chainsaw from 1970 wont get better. but the one u could have bought in 2005 IS much better.


you cant really be this dumb. are you just trolling?
 
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