California Utility Company Hacks Prius for Home Power

[BoogyMan]

Interesting idea. The house can charge the car and the car can power part of the house. :)


Source: Link (http://www.therawfeed.com/2007/04/california-utility-hacks-prius-for-home.html)

California's big power utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., today rolled out a prototype Prius hack that lets you plug the car into your house to power lights, PCs and blenders. The Toyota hybrid has been modified with what they call Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. You simply plug the Prius into a standard wall outlet, which charges the Prius batteries when the house has power, or lets those batteries power the house when it doesn't. Cool technology, but shouldn't the power company be working on preventing blackouts, rather than work-arounds for when the blackouts happen? Whatever. I want one.

[Sugar]

I don't think that such a technology will be cost effective in the long run. Batteries of the vehicle are not 100% effecient to provide so much power as has been used to charge them. If the Car is used to power the house and when the vheicle is required to be driven mepole may find that the batteries are flat due to home use.

This is no solution to blackouts?

[Buck Laser]

Fully electric vehicles may have a role to play in our future, but from my experience as a hybrid vehicle owner for nearly three years (Honda Civic Hybrid), the great advantage is vastly increased gas mileage. My 34 month average is 41.6 mpg in all kinds of driving situations. Compare that to the 19 mpg I get in the Dodge Caravan, and the advantage of the hybrid becomes immediately evident. If 20% of the driving public were to shift to hybrid vehicles as the technology stands now, I suspect the US energy crisis would change radically.

Eventually, I think there will have to be a far more thoroughgoing change in our consumption habits, but a shift to hybrids is one of the things that can be done now. Battery technology is making rapid advances, but there's a loss of efficiency any time energy is transferred from one mode to another--e.g., fossil fuel to electric to mechanical, and Boog's idea about the Prius modification is interesting to me.

[Mayberry]

Sounds great in theory Buck, but hybrid and or electric vehicles have a long way to go before they're truly viable. Electric's ranges are still too short, and hybrids are too small and have virtually zero towing capacity. Now if they'd some up with a Tahoe sized SUV that gets 30 mpg and can tow 9000 lbs without getting winded, and doesn't cost $50,000, I'd sign right up. But I really don't see that happening any time soon. And it'd have to be out for 5 years or so before I'd buy one, because I won't buy brand new vehicles. I'd rather someone else take the depreciation hit, and I refuse to make a car payment that nearly equals my mortgage, not to mention the outrageous insurance. I still think that until someone comes up with the "Mr. Fusion" from Back to the Future that there won't be much change. Don't get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to see America acheive energy independence, if for no other reason than to be able to give OPEC and Hugo Chavez a big "up yours". But as it stands, none of the alternatives give you more bang for the buck than good ol' gasoline or diesel, and that's what it will take for an alternative to become viable.

[bluchap]

Well all that talk about the increased milage. But have you calculated the cost of charging the batteries. I am sure the vehicle running on fule does not produce enough electicity to fully charge the batteries. an external source will be required. Then there is cost of periodic battery replacement and I am sure that would cost a bomb. If you calcualte the total cost of running and maintianing a hybrid car for a period of say 10 years most of us will die with the shock we would gen on see the figures. Going Hybrid just for the sake of switch is not going to help.

[BoogyMan]

Hybridization is an interim step bluchap. We have to start somewhere and hybrids seem like a good place to begin making such a change.

[Buck Laser]

Well all that talk about the increased milage. But have you calculated the cost of charging the batteries. I am sure the vehicle running on fule does not produce enough electicity to fully charge the batteries. an external source will be required. Then there is cost of periodic battery replacement and I am sure that would cost a bomb. If you calcualte the total cost of running and maintianing a hybrid car for a period of say 10 years most of us will die with the shock we would gen on see the figures. Going Hybrid just for the sake of switch is not going to help.

Bluchap, please see my post in another thread about my three-year experience with my Honda Civic Hybrid. You're wrong on several points about maintenance costs, "plugging in," etc. There's no charging plug on a Hybrid.

[Labrocca]

bluchap you should learn about a technology before speaking about it.

Cars already have batteries...do you charge yours? No because the alternator actually helps to charge it. The hybrid car is NOT an electric car...it's a gas vehicle that uses the gas to power the electricity and it switches rather seemlessly from the electricity to the gas in certain situations. It's still a gas car...just one that uses electricity in part to power the car. Past cars only used the electricity to run the lights and radio...now they help the motor as well. This is where the extra MPG comes into play.

Personally..I think the next tech boom is in energy efficiency.

[nmspl]

Yea the tech boom is here for sure, I read about Bucks Civic in another post. I am really impresed with the milage he has quoted. The govt. should not allow conventional vehicles any more if the need to reduce pollution is there. Unless you impose technology and have it mass produced, fuels hogs will continue spitting venom into the air.

[wonder cow]

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)

I read some articles on this a while back. Seems promising.

[Mayberry]

The govt. should not allow conventional vehicles any more if the need to reduce pollution is there. Give me a break. What do you intend to replace all those vehicles with, and who's going to pay for it? Grow up and get out of fairy tale land for Pete's sake. Unless you impose technology and have it mass produced, fuels hogs will continue spitting venom into the air. Impose how? Are the SUV cops going to beat down my door at 2 AM and take my Jeep? And nothing will be mass produced unless there is a market for it. SUVs proliferate because there is a demand for them. Because most folks don't want to drive around in a little plastic death trap.

[Buck Laser]

We had rationed gas during WW2, a time I remember well. Our car stayed in the garage during most of the war, and we only went to town, twenty miles away, when we could combine ranch business with our personal needs. Today there's a sense of entitlement encouraged by the gummint with the enthusiastic support of the business community, to consume more and more. Every time questions of energy use come up, today's "conservatives" seem to claim that it's their God-give right to waste as much as they want to--and it's a such a glaring contradiction to the attitude all of us had in the 40s, when we saw ourselves as all in it together.

I don't fault consumers nearly so much as I do the administration for this attitude. Had Bush been TRULY concerned about winning after 9/11, he'd have worked to lead us into a sense of unity. Instead, we still have a volunteer army, augmented by the exceedingly expensive mercenaries of Blackwater, a massive resistance to steps to conserve energy or the environment because it's "bad for business."

I certainly don't suggest that everyone should be forced to buy a hybrid, but I think a national energy conservation program would be most appropriate. The chances that anything will happen under this administration are less than zero, though.

[Mayberry]

we still have a volunteer army You suggest it should not be? such a glaring contradiction to the attitude all of us had in the 40s, when we saw ourselves as all in it together.
Iraq and WWII are not quite on the same scale. Much different circumstances. Though I do agree we should ration gas, if for no other reason than to reduce these ridiculous prices. Had Bush been TRULY concerned about winning after 9/11, he'd have worked to lead us into a sense of unity. Democrats are as much or more at fault for divisiveness. I think a national energy conservation program would be most appropriate. Agreed.

[deepk]

Cars already have batteries...do you charge yours?Â*Â*No because the alternator actually helps to charge it.Â*Â*The hybrid car is NOT an electric car...it's a gas vehicle that uses the gas to power the electricity and it switches rather seemlessly from the electricity to the gas in certain situations.Â*Â*It's still a gas car...just one that uses electricity in part to power the car.Â*Â*Past cars only used the electricity to run the lights and radio...now they help the motor as well.Â*Â*This is where the extra MPG comes into play.


The manufacureres must aim at producing cars which use gas for only starting the car and nothing else. This would ensure the maximum milage. The current technology used gas till a certain spped is achieved. This threshold speed needs to be lowered more to reap the true benefits of this technology.

[Sugar]

Why not swithch over to hydrogen driven fuelcell cars. This would ensure zero polluction as well as use hydrohen which is abundantly available.

[Mayberry]

Why not swithch over to hydrogen driven fuelcell cars. This would ensure zero polluction as well as use hydrohen which is abundantly available.
Because hydrogen currently requires as much energy to produce as what you get out of it. Energy that comes mostly from fossil fueled power plants. So the benefit is negated.

[Mayberry]

Here's a little info on the subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production Hydrogen production is commonly completed from hydrocarbon fossil fuels via a chemical path. Hydrogen may also be extracted from water via biological production in an algae bioreactor, or using huge amounts of electricity (by electrolysis) or heat (by thermolysis). These methods are presently not cost effective for bulk generation. Cheap bulk production of hydrogen is a requirement for a healthy hydrogen economy.

[bluchap]

some fules cells are producing power from methanol also!

[Mayberry]

some fules cells are producing power from methanol also!
Also not a viable solution. Can't grow enough corn, or whatever, to fuel everything. And what are we going to eat? :D

[deepk]

The best solution would be to use pure electric cars. And cheap electricity could be produced by using the abundant hydrogen to run nuclear fusion reactors.

[Mayberry]

The best solution would be to use pure electric cars. And cheap electricity could be produced by using the abundant hydrogen to run nuclear fusion reactors.
Sure. Got a fusion reactor laying around the house? Cold fusion is not yet a reality, and probably won't be for some time. And for that matter, it would be more efficient to have the reactor in the car, instead of converting the energy 3 times. And yes, hydrogen is abundant, but as I stated earlier, the current means of production are not very efficient, and still rely on petroleum or natural gas. As the old saying goes, you can wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which one fills up first. Looking to the future is good, but we need practical solutions to our problems now. If people would use just 1 gallon a month less, gas prices would drop significantly. Oil imports would be reduced. And people need to get off their high horses and let us increase our domestic oil production, and maybe build a new refinery or two.

[Truth_and_Power]

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)

I read some articles on this a while back. Seems promising.


As a florida resident this sounds great because it's cheaper than buying a generator and should provide some minimal amount of power in the case of a hurricane.