3 ms·

Germany considers to ban diesel cars from cities to meet polution requirenments of EU. I consider to buy a new car at the moment. My favorites are electirc or

by dorgo 8y ago

Germany considers to ban diesel cars from cities to meet polution requirenments of EU. I consider to buy a new car at the moment. My favorites are electirc or petrol. I don't even consider hybrids. I see no benefits. They have no upsides of an electic car (quit, no exhaust, clean, simple). They are basically more expensive/complex petrols with a slightly lower consumption.

WilliamSt 8y ago
I did the math on this a while ago and calculated I could travel my normal commute back and forth on the battery of a plug-in hybrid. I would only need the petrol engine on longer trips. I'd probably spend 80% of the driving in electric mode and 20% in gas mode. I wouldn't really say that's just a slightly lower consumption.
outworlder 8y ago
Not exactly. What you are describing is correct for things like a Prius, with dual drivetrains. It is certainly not correct for cars like the Chevy Volt (or the BMW i3), with the main engine being the electric one, and a gasoline generator. This combination is less complex than a normal car – for one, you can remove basically the entire transmission and hook up the eletric engine directly (with maybe a reduction gear like a Leaf). The gasoline engine can be much smaller and simpler as it is only driving a generator (and maybe not even running all the time, depending on battery and workload). Such a design is not as clean as a pure EV, but it is definitely better than what we currently have.
- davidgould 8y ago
  The Chevy Volt is not a serial hybrid like the I3. It has a very complex transmission system to blend the gasoline engine and electric motor power. A nice car, but not at all simple.
Bucephalus355 8y ago
Keep in mind, the EU pushed heavily for Diesel in 1998 to meet the requirements of Kyoto. It is very ironic that now their most powerful member, Germany, is going against them. It was supposed to be cleaner...but it generates nitrogen oxide (instead of CO2). Maybe nitrogen oxide is safer than, but I doubt at 40x the levels that most of the diesel manufacturers actually made their cars run at.
- Certhas 8y ago
  You've got it backwards. Germany pushed heavily for Diesel. The EU is pushing back by insisting on clean air in cities which Diesels have a hard time with. German politics is trying absolutely everything to avoid having to introduce driving bans.
maxsilver 8y ago
That's kind of a glass-half-empty way to look at it, which is true for conventional hybrids. But real range-extended EVs also have the upsides of both cars: - Quiet, no exhaust, clean, and simple when driving on electric (which is most of the time) - Most (but not all) of the reliability of a real EV. (You can go almost a whole year on a single oil change, since you aren't using the gas engine much. You can go forever on a single break pad set, since you regen most of the time) - The full range + refill speed of any gas vehicle (for roadtrips or other instances you needed it) There's also some fun minor efficiencies in there too. Batteries in EREVs are smaller and weigh a lot less when they only have to carry you 50 miles instead of 250. Gas is a lot more convenient when you really do want to roadtrip across the whole USA as quickly as possible, (no hunting for charging ports, which might be broken or offline. No waiting for recharge) I don't have the figures right here, but I believe it worked out that you could eliminate ~75% of all personal automobile tailpipe emissions in the entire USA today, if you put a Chevy Volt drivetrain into every single vehicle, and convinced just the people who park a car at a single family residence, to plug in their car at night. (even ignoring all apartment/condo/street-parking folks who cant charge)

by dorgo 8y ago

WilliamSt 8y ago

I did the math on this a while ago and calculated I could travel my normal commute back and forth on the battery of a plug-in hybrid. I would only need the petrol engine on longer trips. I'd probably spend 80% of the driving in electric mode and 20% in gas mode. I wouldn't really say that's just a slightly lower consumption.

outworlder 8y ago

Not exactly. What you are describing is correct for things like a Prius, with dual drivetrains. It is certainly not correct for cars like the Chevy Volt (or the BMW i3), with the main engine being the electric one, and a gasoline generator. This combination is less complex than a normal car – for one, you can remove basically the entire transmission and hook up the eletric engine directly (with maybe a reduction gear like a Leaf). The gasoline engine can be much smaller and simpler as it is only driving a generator (and maybe not even running all the time, depending on battery and workload). Such a design is not as clean as a pure EV, but it is definitely better than what we currently have.

davidgould 8y ago
The Chevy Volt is not a serial hybrid like the I3. It has a very complex transmission system to blend the gasoline engine and electric motor power. A nice car, but not at all simple.

Bucephalus355 8y ago

Keep in mind, the EU pushed heavily for Diesel in 1998 to meet the requirements of Kyoto. It is very ironic that now their most powerful member, Germany, is going against them. It was supposed to be cleaner...but it generates nitrogen oxide (instead of CO2). Maybe nitrogen oxide is safer than, but I doubt at 40x the levels that most of the diesel manufacturers actually made their cars run at.

Certhas 8y ago
You've got it backwards. Germany pushed heavily for Diesel. The EU is pushing back by insisting on clean air in cities which Diesels have a hard time with. German politics is trying absolutely everything to avoid having to introduce driving bans.

maxsilver 8y ago

That's kind of a glass-half-empty way to look at it, which is true for conventional hybrids. But real range-extended EVs also have the upsides of both cars: - Quiet, no exhaust, clean, and simple when driving on electric (which is most of the time) - Most (but not all) of the reliability of a real EV. (You can go almost a whole year on a single oil change, since you aren't using the gas engine much. You can go forever on a single break pad set, since you regen most of the time) - The full range + refill speed of any gas vehicle (for roadtrips or other instances you needed it) There's also some fun minor efficiencies in there too. Batteries in EREVs are smaller and weigh a lot less when they only have to carry you 50 miles instead of 250. Gas is a lot more convenient when you really do want to roadtrip across the whole USA as quickly as possible, (no hunting for charging ports, which might be broken or offline. No waiting for recharge) I don't have the figures right here, but I believe it worked out that you could eliminate ~75% of all personal automobile tailpipe emissions in the entire USA today, if you put a Chevy Volt drivetrain into every single vehicle, and convinced just the people who park a car at a single family residence, to plug in their car at night. (even ignoring all apartment/condo/street-parking folks who cant charge)