Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

This discussion thread started in another topic. I copied it under this topic, so visitors could find and join the debate.

Brad Berman, Editor
Hybridcars.com

You know people need to forget about HYBRIDS CARS and THINK DIESEL!!!!You can get the passat TDI 2.0 More Power Cost A HELL less the the Honda,Last longer,Get WAY BETTER MPG and it take 60,000 for the car to break in..But People are soo backward because thay think DIESEL are slow,stink and not at all powerfull.Well if that was the case why is soo hard to find a TDI VW DIESEl ..Because thay work and get the MPG if not better!.I live In Cary NC and I had a few TDI Diesel and I run Biodiesel Diesel in them.I ca drive the car @ 100 miles per hr. and still get 40 mpg..show me a car that can do that and not a 2 seater like the insite..and I drive a 03 Bug and I am 6'2 fit in it just fine make a great car to travel in...People Think Diesel for get the HYBRID CRAP Does not work in the long run.!!!Wake Up and Burn the BEAN!!BIODIESEL I can get 740 mls per tank wost was 715 on a 15gal tank! I get 45 to 48 city .50 + on the high way ....

Got Diesel?
Jan. 09, 2005

Diesel doesn't make sense to everyone, as hybrids do not make sense for everyone either. To act as if either one is the best type of car for each and every person is ignorant. For example, so people don't like spewing out more (possibily carcinogenic) particulate emissions and nitrous oxide (that contributes to smog). Now perhaps biodiesel eliminates this emission issues, I don't know. I do know that biodiesel is not avialable in many areas of the country and that diesel is more expensive in some areas, at least partially eating up possible fuel efficiency benefits?


BTW, perhaps you have some proof that "hybrids don't work in the long run?"

Micheal
Jan. 09, 2005

The choice between diesel and gas-electric hybrid definitely depends on your commute. In city driving, hybrids are great, but OTR, I wouldn't have anything but a diesel. Oddly enough, I have a diesel and my daily commute is about 3.7mi of stop and go. Go figure. ;) I guess I do take my fair share of road trips though.

The question of particulate matter is not always as simple as A emits more than B. It is certainly carcinogenic, but the size of particulate matter is important also. Large particulate matter(diesel) usually falls to the ground quickly, or is caught by you body's natural defenses(mucus, hair, cough, etc). Small particulate matter(gasoline, also carcinogenic) is more likely to find its way into your lungs.

NOx is an issue for smog, but it depends on certain conditions. Some scientists now think they see an effect called "weekend smog." As I understand it, this is where smog is actually more prevalent on the weekends because there is less NOx in the air. More time and research will tell if this is real or not. Hey, you never know... they used to think the world was flat!

By saying "hybrids don't work," I think the earlier poster was looking at longevity(and costs). Right now, the inital cost premium of a hybrid is more than that of a diesel powertrain. Then you have the batteries. Eventually they will need replacement, and at what cost(replacement, disposal, and pollution)? It might be just the same as any other regular maintenance, but what happens if it comes out to be far more than that? You have yourself a throw-away car.

Or maybe he was just saying that for most people, they don't get the highly touted EPA numbers. Diesels on the other hand, are spot on, if not slightly better for most people.

I don't have a problem with hybrids, I'm just skeptical of their ability to live up to the hype(especially after seeing what most people are getting for mileage), and confused at why there is so much emphasis on them when diesels are proven technology and readily available.

I'll delay judgement on the Accord Hybrid until they are present in greater numbers, but there is one question I have for Honda: Why not use some of the technology from the this hybrid on your other cars?

I understand this car has advanced weight-saving techniques used, along with the ability to run on less than 6 cylinders while cruising. Why not do that on the normal V6? Or the 4cyl cars? I think the answer is because that's where a lot of the fuel savings is found, maybe moreso than the hybrid aspect.

Ok, I think that's enough. See ya at the pumps(from the other side ;)!

SnoopisTDI
Jan. 11, 2005

I've had diesels and now have a hybrid. One factor that hasn't been mentioned so far is the repair frequency and long-term reliability of cars made by Honda, VW and Toyota. After looking at Consumer's Reports, a hybrid semed like a better choice for me.

Scott
Jan. 11, 2005

Car and Driver also did a comparo with the following three vehicles a couple months ago:

Toyota Echo
VW Jetta Turbodiesel
Toyota Prius
Honda Civic Hybrid

The Jetta actually got worse gas mileage than both hybrids while being less responsive and less fun to drive than either of them. It was better than the Echo, but the Echo is a POS anyway. The other limitation is that the most powerful turbodiesels only have about 100 horsepower compared to the 255 that the Accord Hybrid has, and the Accord is far cleaner and doesn't smell bad like a diesel. Biodiesel is only available at about 0.03% of fueling stations compared to diesel which is available at around 30%.

Photosmith
Jan. 11, 2005

To compare the hybrid accord with its 255 h.p. with a VW TDI is nonsense. The VW Jetta gets between 44 city and up to 58 highway. The hybrid honda accord doesn't break even 40 mpg ever; 35 mpg highway is all it gets. My old acura legend use to get 32 and it was built in 89. The Honda civic hybrid has only 85 h.p. less than the VW TDI and only gets 46/51 mpg if that, since epa numbers seem to rflect ideal conditions. The civic hybrid is smaller, less powerful, and gets worse mileage overall than a VW TDI Jetta.

As for soot that diesels are known for? My Jetta has a catalytic converter and only smokes when you first start it and very little at that. When you see a diesel blowing alot of smoke on the road, what you are seeing is an engine suffering from low compression in need of a rebuild. Another consideration is that it takes much more energy to crack pertroleum to make gasoline. So if you want to compare gas to diesel you should include the hidden energy consumption that is embedded in the manufacture of the gasoline. Subtract 10% from gasoline mileage numbers to correct for the fact that it consumes so much energy to manufacture gasoline and does not for diesel.

Todays problem was always yesterdays bright idea.

I think a hybrid diesel would be fantastic, as soon as we get cleaner diesel fuel in North America. The high-sulfur stuff we have now is just too dirty.

Would a hybrid-diesel work? I heard that it isn't good to start and stop a diesel engine, and the Auto-stop feature on my honda civic hybrid does that quite a bit.

Since diesels sip fuel at idle it's not as big a deal to leave them idling. But you would save a lot of fuel not running them at full load.

You could still take advantage of "rightsizing" the diesel engine by having electric boost available.

there are some diesel-hybrids out there. I don't know if they are in production.

I think it is great that there is competition. A race to be fuel efficient and clean. In the end it looks like we, the consumers, are going to win out.

I'm not sure if everybody has noticed the redesign of this site, but if you go back to www.hybridcars.com, and look under "New Articles & Features," and go to "Diesel vs. Hybrid Markets," there is a fantastic, balanced, and informative write-up of the topic.

Loaded with good data, presented in a mature and reasonable manner. And happily free from the typical "Jane you ignorant slut" (apologies to SNL) tendencies of other forums.

Pragmatic reality forced my hand. I have cargo needs and was holding out for a Highlander. My in-town driving is better suited, in theory, to a hybrid than a diesel, but vehicular replacement couldn't wait.
I purchased a (bio)diesel Passat Wagon, which can accomodate the 1500 mm cargo that the Escape hybrid cannot.
After living with an older 300td wagon, the Passat is a veritable hot rod.
The Passat is a wonderful road car. Overall, I am getting 32mpg in mixed driving.
For the time being, wvo is plentiful, but I suspect this won't last forever. As far as conversion to biodiesel, it's like Peter Pan says: It's not work unless you'd rather be doing something else.
In them meantime, since the auto manufacurers have such a weak committment to hybrid technology, I think there's a really good niche for commited environmentalists to opt out of consuming fossil fuel for personal transport with bio-diesel.

I agree 100%. Bio-diesels are the most practical fuel efficient cars. Until hybrids get better mpg numbers they don't make sense to me. People who are concerned about particle emmissions should note that in europe (where they have low sulfur diesel) emmisions are greatly reduced.
Furthermore, if you were locked in your garage with a running engine you would survive a lot longer if it was a diesel.

Hello, we are currently working on a prototype hybrid (bio)diesel 2-seat commuter car for Europe.

-the car will give 100 miles per gallon
-it will take you from 0 ot 60mph in under 5 seconds; top speed is 120mph.
-our modified diesel engine can take any kind of diesel: not only any kind of blend (B20, B80, etc...) but also pure biodiesel made from cheaper exotic oils like palm oil and coconut oil (which would normally require pre-heating, since their iodine and cetane numbers are quite high. When the prototype's ready, we will be showing the car in exotic locations, using local biodiesel (jatropha, coco, palm)

-we think there's a market for hybrid (bio)diesel cars in Europe. These cars will be the world's most efficient, cleanest and sexiest.

What do you think?

Oh, thank you "BioHybrid"!. I've been waiting for a bio-deisel electric hybid for what seems like forever! Now, if it can just be built with a secondary tank for recycled deep-fat fryer oil from McDonalds or the local greasy-spoon then maybe we can stop messing with the Earth's carbon cycle and I can stop feeling so guilty.

I would like to learn more about the biodiesel-hybrid two-seater. That sounds like the perfect commuter car.

In the meantime, you might find my driving notes of some interest. I am experimenting with a 2003 Beetle diesel. I have added a drag reducer (wing) to lower aero drag. That improved mileage by 5% at 65 mph. Then, I changed tires-- increased diameter by one inch and moved to Michelin's new tire that's used on the Honda hybrid, the Energy MSV4 S8. That increased mileage another 6%. I am now getting 61 mpg at 65 miles per hour on the highway. (Warning- this is not "average driving," in a test I drive a few hundred miles on cruise control, and calibrate speed and mileage using a stopwatch and highway mile posts. Tank filling must be done very carefully to get reproducible results.)

Many factors affect mileage, including the time of year. Diesel fuel has less energy in winter, so winter mileage is 9% less than summer mileage. There may be a similar effect for gas hybrids.

Next summer, I expect to be getting over 70 mpg at 65 mpg with my diesel Bug. I have heard about one Prius driver that is also getting 70 mpg highway, but I don't know the circumstances.

I think the debate of vs. needs to shift to combinating both technologies as discussed by Rogers. That is what we should be demanding! I am currently looking to buy my first family car (have always had hand me downs) and of course the first car to come to mind was the VW TDI. However, it is not conducive to carrying around a toddler with ease, and biodiesel is not available in my area. I would make it myself (from used oil of course), but I live in a co-op apartment in Brookyln. So the next best is of course the Prius, with a tiny bit more room, but no biodiesel option. If only a 5-7 passenger diesel-hybrid existed and biodiesel was widely available. SOON PEOPLE - SOON!!!! LETS WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THIS A REALITY!!!

If you are living in NY city, I would get the Prius. Just because a TDI would be harder to get (NY doesn't allow new diesel sales, you would have to go to NJ probably and get a used one... or find the rare used one in NY), and you are probably going to encounter alot of traffic, meaning the MPG will be alot lower with the diesel, at least in nonwinter months (in winter I suspect the diesel and the hybrid would be similar).

Why not combine the technologies?

Biodiesel + Electricity

From a sustainability point of view, I must go with bio-diesel. Today's hybrid's have two major environmental drawbacks: 1. the run on petroleum drawn from below the earth's crust and 2. they contain toxic battery cores that must be disposed of at the end of their life cycle. Bio-diesel is carbon-neutral, non-toxic, mostly emission friendly, and sustainable. The big problem for bio-diesel is availablity. But if you can get it (or brew it yourself) it's the way to go.

Why not godiesel hybrid getting 80 miles to the gallon most states havent allowed int cause there strict state laws on diesels

Number 1, hybrids are transitional vehicles. Right now the infrastructure of the United States as well as most all of the rest of the world is to provide petroleum based gasoline and diesel. Right now in the US, gasoline is far cleaner that diesel fuel since we only have very high sulpher diesel available.

Hence, for what is available now, hybrid cars are the cleanest cars you can use with existing infrastructure. There are TWO biodiesel fueling stations in the entire state of Arizona. One in Phoenix, one in Tucson. For the other 19 million square miles of land, there's mainly just gasoline plus some diesel pumps.

Number two, your claim of NIMH battery packs containing toxic cores is AN OUTRIGHT LIE!!!!! I get very tired of lying scumbags like you making shit up like that only because you're just too stupid to find the facts. NIMH is 100% non-toxic. I'm going to repeat this 100 times to try to help you out.

NIMH is 100% non-toxic.
NIMH is 100% non-toxic.
NIMH is 100% non-toxic.

Next up, let's talk about biodiesel, which like I said, is not widely available. Today, biodiesel comes mainly from soy, and to a small degree from corn. I know of no plant creating biodiesel from algae, although that is believed to be the next step in biodiesel production since it's the least land intensive and is expected to have the lowest total cost and environmental impact once we've used all our excess capacity for soy and corn.

Turning soy into biodiesel is not a free process. You actually have to use a pretty substantial amount of PETROLEUM BASED FERTILIZER in order to prep the land not to mention tons of fresh water, which is a resource not in overly abundant supply in the United States. Then there is the cost of harvesting, as well as cost and energy expended to process and refine soy into biodiesel.

It's actually pretty expensive and doesn't scale very well, but since the federal government has huge farming subsidies and gasoline prices have gone up so much recently it's becoming a little more cost effective. From the studies I've read, the most sustainable biodiesel production is algae based. This would still require several hundred billion dollars to help start up the R&D needed to determine how to do it and a few hundred billion to build some refineries to start offering it at stations that currently have diesel.

As for brewing it yourself, I know a guy doing that. Right now he's mentioned 2 or 3 toxic byproducts of biodiesel production that he's trying to figure out what to do with. I don't recall the details but even though biodiesel itself is pretty clean, the chemicals he used to refine it and produced as byproducts were pretty nasty stuff you wouldn't want to go and dump in your back yard.

I run 1/3 biodiesel in my fuel tank. Running biodiesel is like being a pioneer and showing it is do-able, not unlike owning a hybrid car. For most people buying a Toyota Prius at 28,000 dollars isn't exactly good economic sense, either- so that puts biodiesel in perspective. Nobody here has to be told how difficult it can be to actually buy a Prius and put up with the waiting lists and dealer gouging (which is pretty much ubiquitous- I would have had to pay 28,000 dollars for a new Prius).

Depending on where one lives, finding biodiesel can be easy or challenging- the Midwest is loaded with biodiesel, California has several biodiesel pumps, as does the Washington-Philadelphia area and some areas in the South (but not as many). Overall biodiesel is easier to find than ethanol. And if you have a little knowledge of chemistry and a few extra hundred dollars for equipment (methanol storage, methoxide reactor, ester reactor/washing tanks, pumping equipment), you can make it yourself for around 3-4 dollars per gallon.

Biodiesel gives you an energy efficiency approaching almost 300 percent (for every 1 KW of energy inputted into production, it produces 3 KW of biodiesel energy). Most of the energy inputted is from the sun. Petroleum refining has an efficiency of less than 90 percent- it actually loses energy to make gasoline. A gallon of biodiesel when burned typically contain 75 percent of the carbon from non-petroleum sources. So most of the carbon comes from the atmosphere. Some biodiesel can also be made from wastes- such as used cooking oil, animal fat drippings, animal renderings, etc. The fuel I buy is made from a guy that gets his oil from a plant that it turn gets used cooking oil and animal renderings and recycles them.

So my car burning 1/3 biodiesel is making about the same overall carbon emissions as a Toyota Prius. I can pocket that eight thousand dollars I saved and spend as much money as I want on biodiesel and my car will be producing less CO2, and ultimately be more efficient in terms of the overall energy to power the car.

With improvements in engine efficiency and car design, a US fleet powered substantially on biofuels is definitely do-able in the future just using existing crops. If algae can become a reliable source of biodiesel, it will be possible to meet those goals in the nearer future, powered entirely from biodiesel, and without having to alter the fuel efficiency of the vehicle fleet (other than converting most of them to diesel engines).

Now, in certain parts of the country, finding a new diesel car can be a challenge because your government, in their wisdom, has decided that they are too "polluting", even if they can run alternative fuels such as syngas diesel, FT coal diesel, or biodiesel (or even, in some engines, creosote- so far the only alternative fuel gas engines can run is ethanol, and that requires modifications to the engine injectors and timing). But there are ways around that, even in California (go to Arizona and buy a "used" diesel car with only a few thousand miles, old VW Rabbits and TDI's can also be sold in California, NY, Vermont, and all the other CARB states).

hi there I am wondering if any one out there knows if there is a 1-cyclinder .1 or .2 liter desiel motors out there for sale to the public???? please reply to [email protected] or post your comments and i will see them thanx

I think there were some asian motorcycles using small diesels (Royal Enfield ?) a while back.

Diesel hybrids are really only practical in non-passenger huge highway trucks, not cars. Isn't it short-sighted to think in the short run & only about oneself when have a desire for a fun, fast exciting car? Thinking like that will kill you. I know it came close to me like that several times! I'd say learn to like yourself without the external thrills & you'll look for something more sustainable, & find pleasure in that. Isn't it time to grow up as individuals & as a nation, or are we all just going to die as a nation. You might say, "Well the end of the world is here, what with the depleted resources & the so called bibical signs"? What resource of nature or people would "the savior" abuse/rape. I don't think happy mindless driving is so fun when one wakes up to what's going on & one's ignorant part in it. How much fun is being part of the problem, knowing it & to continue anyway? Is that Pompei over your shoulder as your playing your "flute"? What music is that? For whom does the bell toll? The people of the lie?

Here is a link to the abbotsford times bashing diesels with the usual stuff.

http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/issue...042105le3.html

And the interesting rebuttal.


http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/issue...042205le2.html

This may seem like a dumb or stupid question, but why hasn't any car company made a hybrid diesel car yet? It would be the best of both worlds.

give it time - i'm sure toyota or honda have something coming soon. don't hold your breath for a usa company. possibly volkswagon has one as well?

see ya

Yeah, I've been reading all those low statistics for American car industries. They need to get with the program and make some hybrids other than the Ford Escape. I have heard that Chevy is making a Silverado hybrid. That's all and well but that just isn't going to cut it. Ford, Chevy and Pontiac need to make some hybrids and/or need to work on the pricing issue. One reason why people go towards foreign cars is how inexpensive they are compared to the americans. I want to support American made cars but it's getting harder and harder to do.

yah its a shame american car companies support petro fuel the way they do. With very little advancements in fuel economy in recent years if ever. Hybrid suvs are a joke. But thats what most americans want. I support bio-diesel tech/hybrid, straight up biodiesel, petro/hybrid just as long as we are dropping our foreign petro demand and cleaning up the air. Petro hybrids are just transitional until we can switch over to a better technology, maybe biodiesel. I think biodiesel has alot to offer. I own a hond civic hybrid averaging 47-57 mpg . Im happy with it but I feel I could be doing better. When I get a house, I plan on getting a used diesel car or new diesel car to make my own biodiesel fuel.I think people on this web page are making sense but we need to come together and stop knocking each other because both sides mean well and thats what really matters.

I don't knock hybrids (in fact, I consider myself very much pro hybrid, even though I don't drive one), but I don't think they are the best choice for everybody, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons why somebody would not want to own one, WITHOUT being some kind of right wing, Limbaugh-listening nutjob.


For myself, nobody made a hybrid that met my needs; a high mpg car with a full host of safety features (such as side curtain airbags), at a price I could afford (less than 22,000 dollars). So I bought a used Jetta turbodiesel wagon. I get about 36-40 miles per gallon driving in traffic on roads, and it's an automatic (the manual gets more MPG, but who wants to drive one of those?) . I've also been interested in biodiesel, so there's some overlap there; a few weeks ago our local biodiesel co-op went into production and I bought about ten gallons of biodiesel.

For some people with limited $$$ that Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic might be their best choice. They'll save alot of money vs. buying a Prius, for instance, and if they don't drive alot, they won't notice the gas prices as much. And they still won't be sucking up as much gas as some moron in their Expedition who thought that cheap oil would last forever with no consequences (I saw one of those today when I was juicing up at the diesel pump, the woman looked angry, she was probably spending 100 dollars on gas, and there I was spending about 8 dollars to top off my tank with a few gallons of fuell.)

And of course, riding a bus is usually more efficient than even a hybrid in terms of passenger miles per gallon. And, if you are really interested in saving the planet, a Japanese motorcycle I believe gets over 70-80 miles per gallon, and of course there are bicycles (personally, I'm not into bikes- too dangerous as far as I'm concerned).

the 1st inroads to hybrid technology is obviously the honda civic & toyota. but these cars really only compete to the already existing small car, econo car market.

the REAL gain with hybrid technology will be the larger car market, family cars, etc.

this will happen. the toyota's & civic are the test market. and they are test prooven very well already.

i bet in 5 years we'll see 50% of the larger cars being offered use some elements of hybrid technology.

see ya

This is what we should be building right now. In my opinion Ford and GM will go bankrupt before they even begin to catch on.

For about the past year I have offered anyone who would listen the following info: None of the American automobile companies have even responded. I have had some positive response from several educational institutions but - as far as I know - none have done any experimental work to verify my claims.

Here is what I have been proposing:

In one scale or another everyone of these systems have been proven.

Like to produce a vehicle that can burn rubber on takeoff on all four wheels and get 90+ mpg?

What I would like to see the automakers working on would have:

A turbocharged, two cylinder opposed, 2-cycle, air-cooled diesel directly
driving a generator. (It would not be running most of the time.) A 111 volt Lithium-Ion Polymer battery pack. Nothing but wires going from the controller to every wheel, except for the necessary additional friction
brakes (of course). An added advantage of this would be the ability to recharge from the electrical grid while at home, saving even more on fuel.

Each wheel, depending on the feedback to the controller from wheel speed sensors would drive with just the right power depending on the accelerator position. You would get recharging from deceleration just as you do in today's hybrids. You would also use this feedback to stop the wheel from skidding.

Each wheel would have a stationary stator and a series of fixed magnets closely adjacent all around the inside of the wheel. In a sense it would operate each wheel in a very similar fashion that the mag-lev trains use,
except the motion would be circular, of course. Something very different about this type of motor is that the stators are fixed to the axles and the magnets are driven around them. This gives a significant increase in
mechanical advantage. That's like turning an ordinary electric motor inside out.

There would be no need for ordinary electric motor brushes. In fact, many electric motors operating today are brushless.

Such motors already exist in the model airplane field and their efficiently
is amazing - approaching 90%. I've got a couple and doubt that I would ever buy any other type.

It's possible to hang the model on the prop right out in front of you and
accelerate straight up, like a rocket, with this type motor

In the vehicle the motor/generator would not turn on to recharge the
batteries until they needed it. There are already experimental Lithium-Ion
driven cars that can get in excess of 200 miles before they have to be
recharged by plugging them in. You would top off your batteries overnight by plugging them in. Some cutting edge research by Toshiba - employing nano-technology - indicates that recharging can be done so fast that you could top off while eating lunch.

Lithium -Ion battery technology is so new that I doubt that very many
automotive engineers have even heard of them, much less thought to use them in this manner. Their energy density exceeds that of any other form of rechargeable energy storage.

The Lithium Ion battery is the most efficient battery available right now. So is the outer rotor electric motor the most efficient motor.

Build an Automobile right and it will weight less and have simpler, easier to repair/replace modules.

Lets see what we can eliminate while improving performance and efficiency.

Transmission - None

Ignition system - None

Liquid cooling - None

Valves and valve train - None

Use bio-oil/fuels for both fuel and lubrication.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone you know in the Transportation business.

I bought a Honda Civic Hybrid last summer. I enjoy it more than any vehicle I've ever owned. I will Never buy another vehicle that isn't a Hybrid and doesn't get at least 50 mpg.

As far as I can tell, Detroit isn't even thinking the same way I and the vast majority of it's potential customers are.

William Lucas Jones
490 Mauldin Rd.
Sautee, GA 30571-3159

(706) 219-3333

"Number two, your claim of NIMH battery packs containing toxic cores is AN OUTRIGHT LIE!!!!! I get very tired of lying scumbags like you making shit up like that only because you're just too stupid to find the facts. NIMH is 100% non-toxic. I'm going to repeat this 100 times to try to help you out. "

I'm a certified firefighter with Hybrid vehicle fire and rescue training as well as hazardous material training. I couldn't just let this misinformation stand, because I believe people should be properly informed. Half of the things I see could be avoided if people just took some time to learn a little bit more about what's going on with stuff. NiMH batteries contain KOH as the electrolyte solution. Potassium hydroxide is poisonous, causes burns to skin and eyes, affects soil and groundwater ph and reacts fairly poorly to being involved in a fire. I wouldn't suggest you eat it or handle it and neither does anyone who knows anything about it. It probably wouldn't be good just let it sit around in the environment either. I researched it in 5 minutes and provided sources. Anyone expecting to be taken seriously, with a point to make, needs to do the same.

Check out the basic information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_hydroxide

Scroll down to Potassium Hydroxide solution and click link:
http://hazmat.dot.gov/pubs/erg/psn_p.htm
(this one is in the standard for responding to Haz-Mat emergencies-- note the word TOXIC right at the top)

And for real information about biodiesel, including EPA stuff, check out:
http://biodiesel.org/resources/fuelfactsheets/

I actually have both Hybrid & Bio-diesel.

I have a Toyota Prius as the main family car doing about 2500km / month. Doing shift work means that some days my wife and I are both driving the same car to work.
Is it a "small car" - no, it's really quite spacious and suits us well for 4-5 people.

We also have a Toyota Coaster as a camper van (it's the 20 seat bus originally). This we run on straight biodiesel whenever we can. We usually take this on long trips - often over 1000km and can not usually find biodiesel away from home and have no trouble swapping around.

Here in Australia biodiesel is most often made from Canola oil (known as rape or rapeseed in USA) and is very clean. It does leave a slight fried food smell!

We also have a car running on LPG - the stuff typically used for a gas barbecue. I understand that while this is common in Australia, it is rare elsewhere. This is also much cleaner than gasoline but requires a cumbersome large pressure tank which limits it's usage to a large sedan as putting the tank into a small hatch wastes most of the cargo space.

We find the biodiesel van great for long cruising and the hybrid Prius great for stop start commuter travel.

Until we have Star Trek technology (or 'Back to the Future') to put a pocket fusion reactor in a car there is likely to be no single solution and we need both hybrid and bio fuels to make the most of what we have.

Go Hybrid!

If Potassium Hydroxide as found in hybrid battery packs is such a grave danger, why then is the recommended course of action in the unlikely event of a spill (remember these are essentially "dry" cells, not wet batteries like lead-acid) simple dilution with liberal amounts of water? That's what both the Ford and Toyota first-responder training manuals say to do...

The facts are... there is a small amount of KOH embedded in the paper dilectric in the NiMH cells. Under rare circumstances some of the KOH might leak out. The course of action recommended for dealing with such a spill is the liberal application of water.

There are several other chemicals present in every automobile, hybrid or not, which pose a much greater risk to driver, first responder, and the environment than do NiMH cells.

The Prius on the hyway with the cruise set at 80 and the AC on gives me 52mpg. Around town and with AC on and the ambient 90 degrees I'm averaging 54mpg. What a pleasure to travel 370 miles on a steamy summer day and fill up with a litttle over 7 gallons.

I am looking for someone who would like to buy used cooking oil for bio-diesel.

What they never tell you is that the reason that the Prius get good mileage is that they have an Atkinson cycle (5 cycle) engine instead of an Otto cycle engine (4 cycle). The Prius info mentions it once with no explanation. In short the Atkinson gets much better gas mileage but has poor low end torque. An electric motor developes maximum torque at zero RPM.

Some physicist at Harvard have been putting larger batteries in the Prius and claiming 100 too 180 MPG. They charge the battery at night at home. This doesnt work with Hondas since they bolt the motor to the flywheel so if the motor runs the engine turns. There are some cities in Europe that forbid gas/diesel engine in the core of the city. European Prius have an extra switch on the dash to force electric only. This is a simple mod that Toyota doesn’t seem to approve in this country. If you Google Atkinson cycle remember it is from the 1880s and what Toyota does is a very different implementation. Mazda sold a non Hybrid Atkinson engine in Australia a few years ago.

The coming thing with diesels in Europe is to cut the engine to 2/3 the displacement (1 liter vs. 1.5 liter) and add an electric motor to a supercharger (not turbo). The supercharger comes up to speed in 300 milliseconds. You can’t run a supercharger more than a few seconds or you are towing a cop. 12 seconds to 60 MPH is nominal today. This is a much simpler mod to a stock car than going electric hybrid.

There are three companies that I know of that make motors for electric cars like Jones described. They run in the neighborhood of 80Kwatts (107 hp) each. They are water cooled. Two of them would be more than enough for a sedan. Four in an SUV would be wild. Last time I called one of them it turned out that they were not in production. One of them is in a group of 4 companies that are going to make an all electric car (plug it in at night).

The latest battery technology on the shelf is Lithium Polymer. There are three companies working on using nanotechnology to make Lithium Metal Polymer (don’t ask, I am an EE not a chemist) that they claim can be charged to 80% in three min. That’s a fast lunch for Jones. The “gold standard” is to get a range of 300 miles between charges/refuel/whatever. If you want to have some fun figure the size cable you need to charge that battery in 10 min. Then figure the size cable going into the filling station. Its going to be some time before they get close to 300 miles for a price that is affordable. A bigger battery in a Prius is here now it just won’t go over 20/30 miles between charges or engine turn on.

The same nanotechnology works for catalyst for fuel cells which are the “final solution”. They need hydrogen. Hydrogen is not a primary fuel the like oil. You don’t mine hydrogen. It is best as way to transfer energy from one place to another. You can reform gasoline to get hydrogen but you only gain a bit of efficiency in that a fuel cells maximum efficiency is over 80% where as the maximum efficiency of a gas engine is about 25%. Minus the reforming loss.

35 years ago I heard that Fairchild was working on a way to put a liquid on silicon in the sunlight and directly disassociate water into hydrogen and oxygen. If you Google “artificial photosynthesis” you will find that there are lots of people (i.e. CSIRO) working on this, both organic and inorganic. This converts sunlight into hydrogen! When you burn it you get water, fuel cell, Otto cycle engine, steam engine or whatever. Now that is going to make a difference to just about every thing in the world. Talk about culture shock. BMW gave a presentation to the local chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers on the 35 of their finest that they had modified to run on hydrogen. They don’t have to wait on fuel cells. They are ready for production.

Find the April, 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, page 33, Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D, on “Artificial Photosynthesis”. A section of desert 75 miles by 75 miles will produce all the energy that Saudi Arabia exports daily. It would take less water than a comparable sized agricultural operation. And it could be seawater! Now if you run that directly into your local power plant you have de-salted sea water and generated electricity for those that run all electric! You can store hydrogen for use at night. If you generate your electric try with photovoltaic silicon you have a “night problem”.

Look at all the other programs that CSIRO is working on – if half of them work there will be more change in the next 50 years than in all of history. We can have a renewable world that is cheaper than today. We don’t realize just how much man has messed up the world. At the time of Christ North Africa was the bread basket for Rome. Scotland was forested until the Norwegians cut it all down in the year 800. Now the North of Scotland is a wet desert. This goes on endlessly. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is in Silicon Valley, not Iraqi.

Ga Tech

William Jones did you know Dr Walter in Sautee?

I'll try to kill two birds with one stone.....In various places aling this thread there have been discussions of diesel based hybrids. In other parts of this thread opinions were expressed that GM and Ford don't know how to do a hybrid vehicle.

This article from May 2004 addresses both issues....

GM Delivers Nation's Largest Hybrid Bus Fleet to King County
235 hybrid buses to save 750,000 gallons annually


GM Hybrid bus in Seattle.SEATTLE (May 27, 2004) — The largest order of hybrid buses in history will start going into service this week in the Seattle area, thanks to the advanced technology of General Motors and the environmental leadership of King County.

.........

The system that is used in the buses is being scaled down for application in the next generation of GM large SUVs. GM is co-developing the system with DCX who will also use it in some of their SUVs.

GM actually has 3 hybrid systems developed and is working on others. Part of the reason you don't see them on the road yet is that there is so much integration required with other vehicle systems (brakes, electrical, chassis) that it is more prudent to target the development and release of hybrid systems with the launch of new vehicle architectures. Since the Prius is only available in hybrid configuration, Toyota was able to avoid the complication of developing a vehicle flexible enough to support convetional gas ICE, diesel, and hybrid. They've apparently dealt with that issue in the release of the R400h and Toyota Highlander.

GM will be introducing a lower priced hybrid SUV based on the Saturn VUE in the very near future, followed by a couple mid sized sedans, followed by the redesigned large utilities.

In real world testing diesel always beats hybrids. Bio diesel is a nice alternative if it's available. The big argument I think is the environment. To produce the battery packs for hybrid vehicles requires alot of strip mining depleting the earth's natural resources. Once the batteries are depleted disposal of these presents another issue. Hybrid vehicles are apparentley being tested to see if the magnetic fields being created from the large battery pack and electric motor could be hazardous. Magnetic fields of the nature can cause tumors especially with prolonged exposure. I see the diesel route to be alot safer until we embrace the Hydrogen age. Not the hydrogen fuel cells those will be used in vehicles to replace the battery and alternator system. The future very soon will dominated by the internal cumbustion Hydrogen engine. The only pollution free renewable fuel source.

Good grief -- did I just stumble onto the National Enquirer web page by mistake? The "information" in the post above has been debunked so many times, in so many places, even on this very web site, that it's not worth repeating yet again here.

Diesel has advantages and disadvantages. Hybrids have advantages and disadvantages. Let's continue the discussion, rather than subjecting everybody to tabloid-quality misinformation.