Q: Are you planning on discussing the advantages of the all-electric Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV)?
A: Although full electric vehicles have range limitations (50-100 miles per charge depending on battery type and driving conditions) and cost issues that have reduced their appeal, the fact is that most drivers travel less than 50 miles most days. This has led to the concept of Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV). NEVs have limited range and reduced functionality compared to a typical gasoline car, but can fulfill most daily needs while producing no pollution from the tailpipe. As with plugin hybrids, the benefits of these vehicles are inherently tied to how clean the electricity is and when the vehicles are recharged. NEVs are a viable part of an overall clean vehicle future, but likely as part of a “niche” market. Another interesting niche for battery electric vehicles is use in areas such as airport equipment, harbor vehicles, and forklifts.
Q: Could you please let me know which are the muscle hybrids. I'd like to be able to avoid buying one. And I'd like to be able to advise my grandchildren (9) about them as they are all driving age. Also, I like to take trips out to the west coast, but I want something that will get me over the mountains out by Flagstaff without letting me get run over by a semi. Thanks in advance.
A: In our Tech Center we define muscle hybrids as vehicles that sacrifice fuel economy to achieve extra acceleration performance. Currently, there are no cars on the market that we would classify as pure “muscle hybrids” since all of the true hybrids do get some fuel economy improvement—but it is clear that some are a lot more muscular than others. It is also clear that the fuel economy benefits from these vehicles are still uncertain. We are waiting for more data to figure out how much of a real world benefit these muscular hybrids do provide.
The Honda Accord Hybrid, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and the Lexus RX 400h all took advantage of the hybrid system to increase performance beyond any of their conventional versions. In all three cases, the vehicles use modified versions of the same 6-cylinder 3 liter or 3.3 liter engines they started with and then added the hybrid system on top of that. They still cut down on fuel use, but could have done far better had they used a smaller 6-cyilinder or even 4-cylinder engines that, along with the hybrid system, would have left them with the same performance as their 6-cylinder conventional counterparts. On the other hand, the Toyota Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid, and Honda Civic Hybrid all achieve acceleration levels in line with their conventional counterparts.
In the end, the best way to judge a hybrid, however, is not by a name, but by its fuel economy and emissions. The higher the fuel economy and the lower the emissions the better. The GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado “Hybrids” are a perfect example of this. It does not take us telling you they are “hollow hybrids” to know that a one to two mpg increase in fuel economy doesn’t qualify them as being part of the revolution that hybrids can deliver.
p.s. the best way to avoid being run over by a semi is to drive defensively, not necessarily to have more power…
Posted by: ScottN
* Note, while I am posting these answers, they were actually written by our research director David Friedman (DJF)—credit where credit is due…
I recently answered the "elsewhere emission vehicle" accusation against battery electric vehicles, including NEVS, at
http://hybridblog.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/hybridcenter_ma_1.html#comments
so I won't repeat that here. However, the part of this post on NEVs is slightly misleading, as it appears to conflate "city" EVs and "neighborhood" EVs. A "full-function" EV can run at freeway speeds for distances that greatly exceed the average daily commute-and-errands driving, and as such would impose no limitations if used to replace the vast majority of gasoline driving. The post refers to a class of EVs that have "limited range and reduced functionality" but that "can fulfill most daily needs"; this sounds more like "city" EVs, for example the TH!NK City models that narrowly escaped the crusher when Ford abandoned the project (it's now at www.thinkev.com, and not available in the U.S.). These are freeway-legal vehicles that have ranges of around 50 miles, and as ScottN points out, they could replace most daily commute-and-errands gasoline driving--just not for as many people as full-function EVs could.
NEVs, by contrast, are much more limited. They have a range of around 20-30 miles per charge, which is still enough for quite a few people's daily driving. However, the legal requirements for an NEV's safety equipment and crashworthiness are greatly reduced compared to full-function or city EVs, and so their top speed is legally limited to 25 MPH and they are only legal to drive on streets with posted speed limits of 35 MPH or below. This makes them useless for, say, my own seven-mile roundtrip commute, since my job is surrounded by 40-MPH streets. By contrast, a city EV could handle about 80% of my solo driving (though I'd still need a bigger vehicle for my family), and a full-function EV could take care of 95% or more of my family's needs--hardly a "niche."
The reason I characterize this confusion of NEVs and city EVs as "misleading" is that most people's mental image of EVs today is of a "glorified golf cart," which is how some unsympathetic observers have described NEVs. The only EV available in the U.S. from a major automaker today is an NEV, the GEM Car (www.gemcar.com) from DaimlerChrysler; some EV advocates think that this is because an NEV, being truly a "niche" vehicle, is the only kind of EV that is no threat as a replacement for gasoline vehicles. Some conspiracy-minded folks (notably www.evuk.co.uk) assert that automakers actually stay involved with NEVs in order to _encourage_ the perception of all EVs as niche vehicles unworthy of consideration by most drivers! But even without making accusations of conspiracy and ulterior motives, the fact remains that failing to clearly distinguish niche vehicles like NEVs from the far more capable full-function EVs and even city EVs is a sure-fire way to perpetuate the misconception, and thus to undermine the prospects for EVs that most folks could actually use.
Posted by: altfuels | December 14, 2005 at 06:01 PM