Always good to have powertrain options.

Like this, should help those that Fear a pure EV move more that way but with backup.

12 hours ago, dfelt said:

Like this, should help those that Fear a pure EV move more that way but with backup.

Like this myself.......

when i was traveling the other day i passed two newer state fleet vehicles that would normally likely not otherwise be fleet vehicles.  A plug in hybrid Pacifica and a hybrid RAV4.  MN passing cheesy renewable energy mandates, they must have been extending orders to start spending big bucks on purchasing EV fleet vehicles to appear to be in sync with being green.  I suppose in some cases the hybrid costs more; in the case of the Pacifica, a lot more then buying a cheap ass grand caravan.  Not that state fleets will be buying Corsairs, but you never know....... at least the new Escape is a hybrid again.

18 hours ago, regfootball said:

when i was traveling the other day i passed two newer state fleet vehicles that would normally likely not otherwise be fleet vehicles.  A plug in hybrid Pacifica and a hybrid RAV4.  MN passing cheesy renewable energy mandates, they must have been extending orders to start spending big bucks on purchasing EV fleet vehicles to appear to be in sync with being green.  I suppose in some cases the hybrid costs more; in the case of the Pacifica, a lot more then buying a cheap ass grand caravan.  Not that state fleets will be buying Corsairs, but you never know....... at least the new Escape is a hybrid again.

Hybrids make better sense for State, County and City fleets. They waste so much fuel idling their auto's that the higher mpg of a Hybrid makes sense as even in the case of a 5 year turn, they probably save money even with the higher initial costs.

Police auto's should all be hybrid with the amount of fuel they burn just idling. Plus they could benefit from the electric instant torque to get going.

3 hours ago, dfelt said:

Hybrids make better sense for State, County and City fleets. They waste so much fuel idling their auto's that the higher mpg of a Hybrid makes sense as even in the case of a 5 year turn, they probably save money even with the higher initial costs.

Police auto's should all be hybrid with the amount of fuel they burn just idling. Plus they could benefit from the electric instant torque to get going.

in the case of a pacifica, its not worth it for a state fleet to spend 10 grand more, or more, for a multipassenger vehicle.

On 1/18/2020 at 12:36 PM, regfootball said:

in the case of a pacifica, its not worth it for a state fleet to spend 10 grand more, or more, for a multipassenger vehicle.

How do you quantify that? I see so many state auto's just idle in parks, on the roads, etc. They probably burn away $10 grand in a couple years just idling.

Washington state says they base replacement of an auto on mileage then years, so 150,000 miles or 5 years old if the auto has a record of problems. Otherwise the auto can go longer in the fleet if it has a low cost of maintenance.

Savings on 10 grand of fuel can easily make this up.

I don’t even USE $10K of fuel in 5 years, never mind idling away $10K of fuel.

2 minutes ago, balthazar said:

I don’t even USE $10K of fuel in 5 years, never mind idling away $10K of fuel.

You aren't a fleet driver, though...not driving 25k-50k miles a year? 

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

I don’t even USE $10K of fuel in 5 years, never mind idling away $10K of fuel.

Correct, the City of Seattle here averaged 28,000 miles a year on their fleet vehicles and during sporting events, the Seattle Police auto's are constant running at idle for 6 to 8 hrs. All that fuel is wasted.

Just now, dfelt said:

Correct, the City of Seattle here averaged 28,000 miles a year on their fleet vehicles and during sporting events, the Seattle Police auto's are constant running at idle for 6 to 8 hrs. All that fuel is wasted.

While a hybrid will save somewhat money on idling it will not be as significant as you think.  My wife drives currently a hybrid and at idle or even slow speed the engine indeed will be cut off.  However,  that will be the case only until the battery gets low and than the engine will kick in to recharge the battery.  When the weather is cold or hot and the load on the battery is high (plus municipal and police vehicles have additional equipment that will increase the load) the engine turns on quite often.

8 minutes ago, ykX said:

While a hybrid will save somewhat money on idling it will not be as significant as you think.  My wife drives currently a hybrid and at idle or even slow speed the engine indeed will be cut off.  However,  that will be the case only until the battery gets low and than the engine will kick in to recharge the battery.  When the weather is cold or hot and the load on the battery is high (plus municipal and police vehicles have additional equipment that will increase the load) the engine turns on quite often.

I have thought of that and thank you for pointing it out, the Hybrid systems seem to be more efficient, your running a much smaller motor in generation mode than a big V8 idling all that time. 

Not sure who it was but I think it was @Drew Dowdell or @dwightlooi who pointed out that for a hybrid, you could have a very small 1L diesel generator that would be super efficient at recharging a battery pack.

I still think hybrids can be more efficient than a city, county or state, heck even federal just buying a ton of V8 auto's.

4 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

You aren't a fleet driver, though...not driving 25k-50k miles a year? 

Cops of course are the extreme. But not all fleets run that high; school buses average 12K but some are only 8K.

Regardless, it has to be the north end of the extreme to idle away $10K of fuel.

As far as fleets, postal and parcel delivery seems like the use case where EVs could work the best.   Lots of stop and go low speed daily use. 

Seems possible; not sure how such operation affects battery depletion.

On 1/20/2020 at 7:36 AM, dfelt said:

How do you quantify that? I see so many state auto's just idle in parks, on the roads, etc. They probably burn away $10 grand in a couple years just idling.

Washington state says they base replacement of an auto on mileage then years, so 150,000 miles or 5 years old if the auto has a record of problems. Otherwise the auto can go longer in the fleet if it has a low cost of maintenance.

Savings on 10 grand of fuel can easily make this up.

https://carfromjapan.com/article/car-maintenance/how-much-gas-does-idling-use/

at 1/2 a gallon of gas per hour and 2.50 per gallon of fuel.......it would require 8,000 hours (333.33 days) of idling to burn 10k in fuel.  In the case of the Pacifica being a plug in, now you're burning electric energy created from fuel anyways or inefficient and costly and toxic renewable energy. And storing it in a big ass battery with toxic materials.

On 1/20/2020 at 1:03 PM, Robert Hall said:

As far as fleets, postal and parcel delivery seems like the use case where EVs could work the best.   Lots of stop and go low speed daily use. 

this i agree.

On 1/20/2020 at 10:31 AM, dfelt said:

I have thought of that and thank you for pointing it out, the Hybrid systems seem to be more efficient, your running a much smaller motor in generation mode than a big V8 idling all that time. 

Not sure who it was but I think it was @Drew Dowdell or @dwightlooi who pointed out that for a hybrid, you could have a very small 1L diesel generator that would be super efficient at recharging a battery pack.

I still think hybrids can be more efficient than a city, county or state, heck even federal just buying a ton of V8 auto's.

on the new Chevy Trailblazer it's only got a 1.2 to start with!

On 1/20/2020 at 12:53 PM, balthazar said:

Cops of course are the extreme. But not all fleets run that high; school buses average 12K but some are only 8K.

Regardless, it has to be the north end of the extreme to idle away $10K of fuel.

particularly for a state fleet vehicle that may only serve to be a company car for a desk employee to drive up to meetings and back a handful of times a week.

On 1/25/2020 at 3:40 PM, regfootball said:

now you're burning electric energy created from fuel anyways or inefficient and costly and toxic renewable energy.

Gonna Say some states might be toxic using Coal, but BS on the inefficient, costly toxic renewable energy. That is NOT TRUE!

^ there are some numbers / facts worth consideration. Oils, greases and petrochemicals are required to build a wind turbine, a 2 MW unit costs 3-4 million & only lasts 20 yrs (with 3 gearbox changes along the way). Any discussion of efficiency must also take into account base costs and longevity. 

There’s a hydro-electric turbine that at least circa 1990 was using the same main bearing installed circa 1902. I believe the turbine was of mega-tonnage. Sorry I don’t recall the details, but it may very be still running. 

It was a major disappointment for me to learn a modern, new millennium turbine, that turns so incredibly slowly, isn’t built to last 75-100 years. That’s unquestionably, an inefficiency.

13 hours ago, balthazar said:

^ there are some numbers / facts worth consideration. Oils, greases and petrochemicals are required to build a wind turbine, a 2 MW unit costs 3-4 million & only lasts 20 yrs (with 3 gearbox changes along the way). Any discussion of efficiency must also take into account base costs and longevity. 

There’s a hydro-electric turbine that at least circa 1990 was using the same main bearing installed circa 1902. I believe the turbine was of mega-tonnage. Sorry I don’t recall the details, but it may very be still running. 

It was a major disappointment for me to learn a modern, new millennium turbine, that turns so incredibly slowly, isn’t built to last 75-100 years. That’s unquestionably, an inefficiency.

Pretty much all the Hydro dams in my state, Washington have had their turbines running since installation. You are right that these old mega dams were built to last compared to newer stuff. 

I understand that oils, grease and petrochemicals go into building solar / wind generation equipment. If built right it should last a long time, but I also get that companies have looked for the cheapest way to build things. At least they do not require petro on going long term like a gas / coal power generation plant and motor along with no emissions once in production of electricity.

Nothing is perfect, but some are better than others long term when you look at what it does. I have not looked but I suspect that emissions of a wind turbine other than when in production of the motor is significantly less than a Coal or Natural gas electric production system.

Regardless of where the power comes from, we are in a new era of how auto's are looked at and powered and I honestly think we are back in that time of a major change that happened in the 1920's as plenty of auto companies came and went and we are there now again with the Hybrid / EV auto's. Sadly this also means billions spent and lost as many of these companies will get bought up or go bankrupt. What we have in the end will be interesting to see.

One thing I know, we will never loose our trucks, after all regardless of sci-fi movies like A.I. where you saw all these electric auto's that were 1, 2 or 4 person, you never saw a truck. Yet we know we will always need trucks as constructions to basic hobbies will always require hauling and people will always have a need for the usefulness of a truck.

17 hours ago, balthazar said:

^ there are some numbers / facts worth consideration. Oils, greases and petrochemicals are required to build a wind turbine, a 2 MW unit costs 3-4 million & only lasts 20 yrs (with 3 gearbox changes along the way). Any discussion of efficiency must also take into account base costs and longevity. 

There’s a hydro-electric turbine that at least circa 1990 was using the same main bearing installed circa 1902. I believe the turbine was of mega-tonnage. Sorry I don’t recall the details, but it may very be still running. 

It was a major disappointment for me to learn a modern, new millennium turbine, that turns so incredibly slowly, isn’t built to last 75-100 years. That’s unquestionably, an inefficiency.

not to mention already needing to retire and dismantle recently built turbines and disposal or recycling of said items is an issue.  10 years maybe in some cases.

4 hours ago, dfelt said:

Pretty much all the Hydro dams in my state, Washington have had their turbines running since installation. You are right that these old mega dams were built to last compared to newer stuff. 

I understand that oils, grease and petrochemicals go into building solar / wind generation equipment. If built right it should last a long time, but I also get that companies have looked for the cheapest way to build things. At least they do not require petro on going long term like a gas / coal power generation plant and motor along with no emissions once in production of electricity.

Nothing is perfect, but some are better than others long term when you look at what it does. I have not looked but I suspect that emissions of a wind turbine other than when in production of the motor is significantly less than a Coal or Natural gas electric production system.

Regardless of where the power comes from, we are in a new era of how auto's are looked at and powered and I honestly think we are back in that time of a major change that happened in the 1920's as plenty of auto companies came and went and we are there now again with the Hybrid / EV auto's. Sadly this also means billions spent and lost as many of these companies will get bought up or go bankrupt. What we have in the end will be interesting to see.

One thing I know, we will never loose our trucks, after all regardless of sci-fi movies like A.I. where you saw all these electric auto's that were 1, 2 or 4 person, you never saw a truck. Yet we know we will always need trucks as constructions to basic hobbies will always require hauling and people will always have a need for the usefulness of a truck.

the speed of adoption of more electric propulsion on cars will depend more on refueling infrastructure.  When we can fill our cars in 5-15 minutes, literally in nearly the same number and prime locations of places where we currently get gasoline, while we stop to pee and grab snacks..... and i don't see jack in terms of that happening in ten years at this time.  20 years out, maybe.  Need electrical service and grid and FAST chargers to everywhere where gas is now.    And they know this, that is why we are still only seeing incremental technology on automobiles with electric.  Battery design will also need more time like that till we get to the point where the battery is not so huge, not so expensive, not so dangerous, and not requiring so much toxic metals from kids in 3rd world countries.  And finally price of electric cars will have to become nearly equal with gas equivalent for the average consumer vehicle.

https://www.wired.com/story/segway-bringing-hoverchairs-wall-e-life/

1 hour ago, regfootball said:

not to mention already needing to retire and dismantle recently built turbines and disposal or recycling of said items is an issue.  10 years maybe in some cases.

Further adding to my dismay at the short lifespan of so-called "sustainable energy source" wind turbines was learning that there are already 'wind turbine junkyards".

4 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Further adding to my dismay at the short lifespan of so-called "sustainable energy sources" was learning that there already are 'wind turbine junkyards".

Just like there will be 'EV junkyards'...no one is going to keep an EV for 10 years or 150k miles...they will be obsolete and expensive to repair, just lease for a few years then junk/recycle...

Someone interested in the car hobby could always re-power an obsolete EV as IC.
Someone built an LS-powered Model S already.  😁