Thursday, June 21, 2007

A cancelled hypermiling interview ...

A certain reporter from a local news broadcasting organization called me a week ago , with a request to appear in a daily show concerning hypermiling and other fuel saving techniques (I will conceal the details until such time it is appropriate to disclose them) . At the time, I agreed to honour the request provided that I got a glimpse of the interview script. It will become apparent why I added that condition ;)

Anyhow, today this reporter finally got a hold of me with the script, and after a short discussion I expressed concerns about the overall leanings of the questions and how it appeared that it was dismissive of many hypermiling and even ecodriving techniques. I explained to the reporter that much of the questions appeared designed to create a poor image of hypermilers as dangerous and selfish people concerned only about driving slowly and drafting perilously close to 18-wheelers.

I also made evident my disappointment with the lack of time allocated to me for the purpose of providing a good description and definition of the techniques involved and how they could make a difference in the amount of fuel we consume and pollution we produce all the while increasing the safety factor on our streets. That would obviously "de-fang" their show and sensationalism factor.

Anyway, given the traditionally "conservative" leanings of this bradcasting organization I was not totally surprised by their reluctance to neuter their program so that it could be more informative.

Anyway... others will certainly come who are more balanced and beneficial to a cause greater than temselves. When that happens, I may agree to an interview or two.

Cheers;

An almost depleted IMA battery...

Today while we were returning from my daughter's birthday celebration dinner, we encountered some stop and go traffic. We were riding on our 2006 Civic Hybrid and as usual we expect the fuel economy to suffer a little in a bumper-to-bumper routine.
However, it was a little warm today and we even though we had the automatic climate control ON, the battery state of charge was almost depleted in less than 20 minutes in this crawling traffic. So what happened?
Just before the traffic slowdown the battery state of charge was sitting at 6 bars. Less than 15 minutes later the state of charge indicated 3 bars. 20 minutes later the SoC was sitting at 1 bar. From that point on, no electric-only propulsion or EV assist was available and the system kicked into a 4 regen bar routine which lasted for a good 10 minutes after we left the traffic congestion.

Now, this is the second time since last summer that I've encountered this battery state of depletion. The weather was a little warm (30C) and the resulting mileage was still not too bad (5.2L/100km). Normally we get 3.8-4.2 L/100km in this type of typical city driving itinerary.

Anyhow, let the summer come - This is still better than the -40C winters we are accustomed to !!!

Thursday, June 7, 2007

And another hybrid is added ...

Well, the second Honda Civic hybrid (2007) is now added to our hybrid collection.

This also means that the 2007 Prius is going out to its new role as a company vehicle. OK, OK. Many of you will say, what the heck? Why replace a Prius with an HCH? Why not keep one of each instead of going HCH all the way?

Well, the Prius never really connected with my wife and frankly despite its "current" exceptional fuel economy, it did perform worse than the 2006 HCH during the colder winter months. So even though I would really like to keep it at home, it is now to an alternate parking lot. The other bright side of this deal is that I got the same price for it that I had paid back in October 2006. On top of that, I am getting a $4,000 rebate from the government for the new one. In the end, it is an awesome deal.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Does diesel have a future in a cleaner and more eco aware future ?

Sure, why not.

The key though is for it to be as clean as possible. But can it be clean enough? This means that it must easily achieve a Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions rating or better otherwise the lower fuel consumption alone will not be much better over the exiting (and very dirty) solutions we have available. Heck, even a standard fuel efficient gasoline powered vehicle is rated as a Tier 2 Bin 5 and we all know that that is not clean enough.

Our future success in this area will depend on a viable and relatively clean set of technologies and the Diesel solution will only be part of that future if, and only if, it cleans up its act. Unfortunately, this also means that much of the touted advantages that diesels are purported to have will also be eroded by higher costs and engineering complexity needed to clean up its emissions. And given the challenges ahead of diesel platforms like cost of fuel, technical competence on the part of dealers and compliant emission control systems, the scrutiny placed on this technology is only bound to increase with time. Also complicating things a bit, is that hybrids keep getting cheaper and progressively more efficient with each new generation and that too will only help dampen the diesel acceptance.

Only time will tell, but I sure hope Diesel vehicle manufacturers invest enough and in very short order to assure Diesel tech of a good future. We desperately need a good array of viable future solutions and academically speaking, there's no reason why Diesel cannot be a part of it... if it could just clean up a fair bit.