Prius 'to be part solar-powered'

[Sash]

Toyota is planning to add solar-powered air conditioning to high-end models of its Prius hybrid cars, a report says.

The new feature would be part of the third-generation Prius, which is due to be launched next year, according to the Nikkei business daily.

It reported that the models would have Kyocera solar panels, which could provide between two and five kilowatts of electricity.

Toyota has a policy of not commenting on future product plans.

Sales of the Prius have been increasing as rising oil prices have made the better fuel consumption of its combined petrol engine and electric motor more attractive.

More than one million of the models have already been sold and Toyota aims to sell one million a year sometime after 2010.

BBC NEWS | Business | Prius 'to be part solar-powered'

Would be great if they could make these cars cheaper to buy than current cars too.

[teflon]

Nice idea if you don't live in Britain. But I suppose you only need air-con on really hot sunny days, so it makes sense.
The MPG on a Prius is shocking anyway, you get almost double on a small Polo or C2 diesel without looking like the world's most smug yet misguided idiot.

[Grael]

Originally Posted by teflon

Nice idea if you don't live in Britain. But I suppose you only need air-con on really hot sunny days, so it makes sense.
The MPG on a Prius is shocking anyway, you get almost double on a small Polo or C2 diesel without looking like the world's most smug yet misguided idiot.

Ye i dont understand why people are going for Prius's when diesels are still give more MPG and the emissions on diesels are still very low.

[meow]

Originally Posted by Grael

Ye i dont understand why people are going for Prius's when diesels are still give more MPG and the emissions on diesels are still very low.

if as I assume the Prius is an electric/fuel hybrid then the reason is very clear,
if you do most of you traveling on relativly short stop start journeys
especialy inner city routes then the electric part wins hands down,
your not siting at trafic lights or in trafic jams pumping out noxious fumes wich is becomeing a huge concern in inner city areas,
the breaking energy is recycled too.

If your going to do a long motorway run then theres no point trying to compare becuase its not realy meant to compete for that. if that means you need two cars, well most families have two or more. some european cities are taking measures to restrict fuel only based cars, hybrid ofc are alowed in, and should be subject to advantages in any congestion charges.

[teflon]

Originally Posted by meow

if as I assume the Prius is an electric/fuel hybrid then the reason is very clear,
if you do most of you traveling on relativly short stop start journeys
especialy inner city routes then the electric part wins hands down,
your not siting at trafic lights or in trafic jams pumping out noxious fumes wich is becomeing a huge concern in inner city areas,
the breaking energy is recycled too.

If your going to do a long motorway run then theres no point trying to compare becuase its not realy meant to compete for that. if that means you need two cars, well most families have two or more. some european cities are taking measures to restrict fuel only based cars, hybrid ofc are alowed in, and should be subject to advantages in any congestion charges.

If you're doing short stop-start journeys in a city, surely you can use public transport if you want to be all green. People who don't live inside vast inner-city slums and actually have to cover more than 20 miles round trip to buy things or get to their work will achieve significantly better ecomony in a small diesel car.
The Prius is for smug environmental posers, it has a green reputation it doesn't deserve, look at the batteries in them, they are hardly environmental to produce, nevermind the independantly tested MPG figures which are terrible. It can't just run around on battery even in a city, it has to fire up the engine to recharge.
It's hilarious that Lexus 4x4 hybrid thing is exempt from congestion charges, what sort of backwards world do we live in if we are promoting them over VW Lupos.

[meow]

I dont know if you have experienced iner city smog polution from cars but even in st albans its awefull, and its all from cars siting in trafic with engines running.

I used to have to wear a breathing mask under my helmet in london to filter out the deisel smog or I would find I was coughing all day at work.

The only real point is the engine doesnt have to run on idle while your siting in trafic, I would gues the Prus maybe a rather poor example of the potential for hybrid car technology though.

20 miles yeah I think thats probably about right, that would cover a lot of congested inner city areas easily though. im not sure how many miles the batteries last but you can probably charge it up overnight and save a bit.

inner city polution is becoming a real killer in some places though. runing an engine at its maximum eficiency even in iner city to recharge the batery is probably beter overall, although it would defat the pourpose, the idea would be to make sure the batery is fully charged before you reach the inner city.

public transport can be a nightmare, having to change tube/train/bus so many times, but then traffic is so slow in london when I last drove, but then again I was on motorbike so just laughed at them.

lead acid battery is stil being used for electric vehicles and is an ancient technology, the weight is the achilies heal too, wich is why the hybrid can be better than an all electric vehicle, but new technologies just cant seem to come up with a better electric energy storage system wich has an exceedingly good energy to weight ratio. the bateries also have a limited lifetime, but the lead in the batteries is obvioulsy recycled , and has to be done so by law now, youre not allowed to just simply dump lead acid batteries in a waste dump, and lead is baned from all othger goods accros europe now, with the exeption of bateries wich are recycled. so from a green point of view there isnt too much of an issue.

a much beter energy to weight ratio technology uses molten sulfer as an electrolyte but obviosly this is not without problems.

hyrdogen fuel cell is a viable but expensive alterntive. but also not without problems.

liquid feul still has by far the best energy to weight ratio and liquid fuel cells would be a better alternative if the technology could be perfected.

interestingly I was looking at air powered cars, initialy I saw this as a joke, but the breathing aparatus that fireman use, stores very high pressure air and is made of carbon fibre, the energy to weight ratio stored in those compressed air cylinders easily rivlas that of lead acid batteries.

there was another one of these silly programs where they straped two of these cylinders onto a moped and made an air power motorbike lol.
it was an amatour attempt but stil it managed to do enough miles to make a few pizza deliveries lolz.

the air powered car can be recharged as quick as filing a car with petrol, much faster than recharging lead acid batteries.

[Grael]

Ye but what sort of power would you actually get from air power? You need SOME performance at least.
Tbh im not really bothered about being green, i have diesel car but thats for me to save money more than anything cause i travel some distances.
I mean if these inner city morons REALLY cared about the environment they would cycling to work everyday.......

[Sash]

I don't mind if it runs off cow poo so long as it's cheap for us to buy and run, and is a 7 seater. It's the fact that these "green" cars are so overpriced that normal people can't afford to run one, and then they are penalised by higher tax etc.

[meow]

Originally Posted by Grael

Ye but what sort of power would you actually get from air power? You need SOME performance at least.
Tbh im not really bothered about being green, i have diesel car but thats for me to save money more than anything cause i travel some distances.
I mean if these inner city morons REALLY cared about the environment they would cycling to work everyday.......

youd be surprised how much power you can get even from small air driven handtools.
the power to weight ratio of an air engine is far superior to an internal combustion engine.
it more closely matches that of turbines, in fact you can even have air driven turbine if you want, and you dont have any of the weight of the fuel injection or exhuast heat problems.

but im not sure this would be most efficient, as one problem with air power is that when its fully charged its ok, but the air tanks start to go flat, then its a bit harder to get the same power with a turbine. the more air pressure the more power obviously.

the energy from an air cylinder can be released almost instantaneously, wich is a problem becuse it makes a big boom !

also the air pressure we are talking about here is phenominal, car tyre is about 40psi, an air cylinder used for breating is i think 2000 psi, i get confused wich units they use but for real performance air cylinders they pressure is at least double that, and if it could be extended higher it would be better but the thicknes of the material to contain that presure goes up too increasing the weight so the energy / weight ratio is hard to improve. but the higher energy density means it can be put into a smaller space.

no one seems bothered about being green here, its all about economy, thats wy i think unles they make tax incentives so green is a lot more economical we wont get anywhere.

if the true cost of fosil fuels was added on as a tax then it would make sense, such as adding on the cost of air polution related health care etc.. in inner cities.

[meow]

also I forgot to mention :- on that program, with the air powered moped, they had no gearing on the air motor, wel I mean it was one fixed gear wich they had to lower cos it wouldnt start going initialy, but the motor was realy tiny, much smaller than the actual moped engine iself.

it was such an amaturish looking result I was surprised it was able to do a delivery wich involved a fairly steep hill.

they also demonstrated wave powered technology in another program too, building a batery charger wich was just efectivly a big tube going down the side of a harber wall, and an upside down funel on top wich had a special fan wich went the same way wichever way the air went, so as the waves went up and down the water in the tube pushed the air up and down wich sucked and blowed on this fan and it went faster and faster.

it was enoughh to power this caravan by the sea side, by these two surfers, who wrote it in as a challenge.

again an amaturish atempt as both of these were chalenges to do it in like one or 2 days, but its surprising what can be done but is seemingly being ignored.

cant quite remember the name of the program il have to look out for it. only seen 2 so far.

you can look up air powered technology on wiki etc wich i did after that first program, but theres quite a lot of links I went through before I realy could work out if it was sense or nonsense, but its certainly interesting, and a surprisng alternative.

some of it was too technical even for me but the basic principle is that the air is compressed about 600 times so the pressure is about 600 times higher than atmospheric wich is 14psi, altohugh boyles law and heating come into play, when you compress air it heats up, if you lose this heat then you are wasting energy, also when the air expands it cools a lot, wich if you dont have a system to keep it close to ambient temperature again you waste energy this is the oposite problem to a petrol engine ! lol

again I hope this is interesting to some people, i find it interesting myself, and cant help posting the stuff lol.