Plug-in Buzz

According to a recent study by Harris Interactive, via Energy Efficiency News, 20% of Europeans are very or extremely likely to purchase a plug-in hybrid model for their next vehicle.

Think Open Blue
Hey, Ace, speaking of the Better Place Race, in comments at the Energy Leaders Summit, sponsored by Financial Times and the World Energy Council and held in London last week, Jan-Olaf Willums, who is the CEO of electric car company TH!NK GLOBAL, said, “The electric car is here to stay.” Say it with me, EU-ers, “No plug, No deal.”

“Due to a combination of higher fuel costs, concentrated driving conditions, and cultural differences that cater to high levels of environmental protection, Europeans have historically been more adopting of technologies that contribute to additional efficiency in their vehicles,” says Stephen A. Lovett, director of automotive and transportation research at Harris Interactive.

However, US consumers are also now waking up to the potential of plug-in technology.

“Mounting economic and environmental trends in the US will likely start to level the playing field in the future among US and European consumers,” adds Lovett.

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This entry was written by jcwinnie, posted on 2008-9-25 at 1:16 pm, filed under analysis, patterns, research, shopping, tracking, transportation and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

One Comment

  1. jcwinnie
    Posted 2009-3-3 at 10:25 am | Permalink

    Randall Parker cautions that real world tests of plug-in hybrid efficiency have been disappointing.

    A Seattle test of hybrids modified to be rechargeable and theoretically to run 30 miles on electric power produced disappointing results so far. 14 specially customized plug-in hybrid Toyota Priuses did not do much better than standard Priuses in fuel efficiency.

    Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.

    It’s what 14 plug-in Priuses averaged after driving a total of 17,636 miles. The pilot project is one of the few in the nation to subject plug-in hybrid cars to regular motor-pool duty, as opposed to being driven by hypermilers or alt-energy enthusiasts.

    Vehicles engineered for production quality will probably do better than these customized cars.

    The article also points to Google’s own fleet of hybrids and plug-in hybrids. At that web page Google provides data on how these vehicles compare in fuel efficiency. Their Ford Escape hybrids are averaging 28.6 mpg while their pluggable versions of the Escape hybrd get 37.7 mpg for a 32% improvement. Not earth shattering. Their conventional Prius hybrids get 42.8 mpg while their pluggable Priuses get 54.9 mpg for a 28.3% improvement Again, not exactly the end of the oil era. Google breaks out the numbers by car. The best has done 60.5 mpg. But if you look at single day results you can find cars hitting 107 mpg.

    Why these disappointing results? A fleet car could get driven a lot in a day and run down its batteries. To maximize the benefit of a pluggable hybrid one really need to drive almost the battery’s range each day but no more. Someone who happens to commute a distance that is a little less than the range of a hybrid’s battery is the best candidate to get maximal benefit. People who drive too little will pay for higher battery costs that take a long time to pay back. People who drive too much will run much of the time on gasoline.

    I also wonder how motivated fleet car users will be to plug in every time they stop somewhere they can plug in. Then there’s the need to stop at places where plugging in is even possible. There’s no golden bullet for replacing oil.

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