Has F1 proved the Prius is a lot of lies?

[bjpower]

In this troubled time where we are under the iron fist of the church of the environment.

has f1 finally proved the pointlessness of hybrid cars.
if in F1 where they have access to the best people and materials cannot make it work to any real advantage.
Is it all just a load of crap?

discuss...

[WhiteBlue]

I suggest you give that answer to yourself or bother to read some of the more in depth threads and postings about KERS in F1. If you did you would know that the capacity and power of Kers have been deliberately restricted for the introduction in oder to not upset the old apple cart.

[axle]

In this troubled time where we are under the iron fist of the church of the environment.

has f1 finally proved the pointlessness of hybrid cars.
if in F1 where they have access to the best people and materials cannot make it work to any real advantage.
Is it all just a load of crap?

discuss...

Can't believe I'm actually bothering to respond to this drivel but anyhoo...

No. Hybrids are the future. The technology needs to mature that is all. The amount of energy wasted by a standard petrol driven car is staggering - reducing that loss with KERS and HERS systems will be the way forward, this will reduce the worlds need for oil, and allowing the supplies of it to last longer.

The KERS systems in F1 are not allowed to be very good, Toyota themselves scoffed at the rules around them, basically saying it was crude and rubbish. But that's the RULES making it so, not the teams or the technology.

[bjpower]

hybrids are the future???
cant believe you are responding to this???

petrol engines are not very efficient, fair point
so the solution is to weigh them down so it take MORE energy to accelerate by using motors which are massively efficient.

right lets start so
1. the batteries are heavy as hell better off making lighter cars Honda jazz will do 45 mpg with a 1.4 petrol and be nippy as hell, also will fit a 7 foot Christmas tree and go happily up a 45 degree incline.

2. the motor itself only gets a fraction of the braking power and then has more inefficiency pumping the power to the batts and then more loss when it comes to running the motor to drive the car

3. auto gear box less power less efficiency.

4. if you live in a hilly area you are going to have less mpg with the preus as it takes more energy due to the extra mass to push it up hill.

5.if these are the future, then we are boned as your future solution is just taping over a hole in the bucket. would the money not be better off being put into bio fuel etc.

[flynfrog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfsLcSU ... r_embedded

Hybrids have the same problem as electric cars. No good cheap battery technology.

[Steven]

hybrids are the future???
cant believe you are responding to this???

Well those reactions are what you get with such a topic title really... you might want to consider that next time you start a new topic.

petrol engines are not very efficient, fair point
so the solution is to weigh them down so it take MORE energy to accelerate by using motors which are massively efficient.

right lets start so
1. the batteries are heavy as hell better off making lighter cars Honda jazz will do 45 mpg with a 1.4 petrol and be nippy as hell, also will fit a 7 foot Christmas tree and go happily up a 45 degree incline.

2. the motor itself only gets a fraction of the braking power and then has more inefficiency pumping the power to the batts and then more loss when it comes to running the motor to drive the car

3. auto gear box less power less efficiency.

4. if you live in a hilly area you are going to have less mpg with the preus as it takes more energy due to the extra mass to push it up hill.

5.if these are the future, then we are boned as your future solution is just taping over a hole in the bucket. would the money not be better off being put into bio fuel etc.

Obviously in the end it will all depend on how efficient the KERS systems can be. The more density of energy, the more interesting they will be. Hence, if you can create a very light KERS system that helps you accellerate with energy you have gained under braking - energy which would have otherwise been lost in air by heat - you are doing a good job. Either your car will be able to accellerate faster - as in racing - or with a much reduced fuel input.

Hybrids in my opinion are the way to go, and while they improve, so will the engines by reducing fuel consumption. This two way gain is also what F1 will be looking at towards 2012 when they are planning to introduce smaller and more energy efficient engines.

Hybrids have the same problem as electric cars. No good cheap battery technology.

... meaning that flywheels may be the better solution

[j4kwan]

hybrids are the future???

5.if these are the future, then we are boned as your future solution is just taping over a hole in the bucket. would the money not be better off being put into bio fuel etc.

You're forgetting that its an energy recovery system from the brakes. It doesn't matter what the propulsion will be. Hybrids only means 2 sources of energy for our cars. Today its petrol and batteries because that's our first step forward. I'm sure in the future there will be various hybrids of sort. Eg Bio Fuel/KERS. or diesel/KERs or Hydrogen/KERs.

I'll bet we'll even have tribrid vehicles. Eg (a combustible)/KERs/solar absorbing body paints...

Hybrids are the way to go. Developing just bio fuel (or one energy source)would be putting all your eggs in one basket.

[Richard]

I suspect that it is no co-incidence that a high end road car manufacturer is the only one to take KERS seriously in F1. Whereas most hybrids started out as brick shaped buses, I imagine Mercedes are thinking of going the other way.

How long before we see a KERS SL or SLK? The KERS E and C classes will then follow.

[axle]

hybrids are the future???

I know, you are indeed misguided to think otherwise. Duel fuel systems are the future, you're naive to think otherwise. Basically, we all know oil is finite and that we can't grow enough alternatives. So cutting consumption is the way forward. The trick is to do it without taking away the fun.

petrol engines are not very efficient, fair point
so the solution is to weigh them down so it take MORE energy to accelerate by using motors which are massively efficient.

Flywheel systems don't agree with your statement. Again, lack of research.

right lets start so
1. the batteries are heavy as hell better off making lighter cars Honda jazz will do 45 mpg with a 1.4 petrol and be nippy as hell, also will fit a 7 foot Christmas tree and go happily up a 45 degree incline.

Honda Jazz, it's hardly the sort of car that is going to benefit in the short term, until the tech improves, but the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Honda system which is fitted to a smal car in testing now keeps the performance and only emits water. That will be the system for small cars when it's ready (probably big ones too).

2. the motor itself only gets a fraction of the braking power and then has more inefficiency pumping the power to the batts and then more loss when it comes to running the motor to drive the car

Rome wasn't built in a day. Efficiency can and will go up. Electric systems are highly efficient, but the technology to harness that energy is still maturing.

3. auto gear box less power less efficiency.

What's that got to do with it? If you use an electric motor it can be directly attached to the drive shafts and have very small mechanical losses.

4. if you live in a hilly area you are going to have less mpg with the preus as it takes more energy due to the extra mass to push it up hill.

Why are you picking on the Prius, are you aware of the other Hybrids? The Prius is an early version of the technology. Again battery systems will get lighter, flywheels better still, and FuelCells are also less weighty. If all your arguments are based on weight then you're going to lose.

5.if these are the future, then we are boned as your future solution is just taping over a hole in the bucket. would the money not be better off being put into bio fuel etc.

The earth can't deliver enough bio crops to fuel cars, it has enough problems feeding 6 billion mouths. Hybrids are about recycling kinetic and heat energy, they should be on bio fueled cars and fossil fueled cars.

So no F1 hasn't shown up the Prius, the systems are inherently different, different concepts for different goals, 1 saves fuel in theory and the other is a power boost system.

[Giblet]

All efficiencies aside, the hybrids have good emissions, and an electric motor, and shutting off at lights, helps you and I breath better at the end of the day.

[DaveKillens]

A hybrid vehicle (such as the Prius) is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle.
KERS can also be defined as regenerative braking. A regenerative brake is a mechanism that reduces vehicle speed by converting some of its kinetic energy into a storeable form of energy instead of dissipating it as heat as with a conventional brake.
The Prius does incorporate regenerative braking, but that's just a small part of the big picture.
The computer program used in the Prius shuts off the engine when the car is stopped, is reversing, or is descending hills, thereby dramatically decreasing fuel consumption in city driving . The HSD's on-board computer program determines when and how to use the engine, motor, or both to power the car and recharge the battery so as to maximize efficiency. Typically, a gasoline engine runs inefficiently at half-throttle, creating a choking condition called pumping loss, a major reason for the inefficiency of gasoline engines compared to diesels. The Prius minimizes pumping loss by using a high torque range as much as possible with the throttle fully open. Drive-by-wire throttle control technology and Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive (a torque combiner, electric drive, and computer control) are essential to this engine control. In addition to the immediate benefit of reducing fuel consumption and emissions, stopping the gasoline engine also improves the performance of the catalytic converter, as the exhaust gases from an idling engine tend to cool the catalyst below its optimal temperature.
Typical gasoline- or diesel-engined vehicles consume fuel when the vehicle is stopped, as is common in city driving. The Prius typically shuts down the gasoline engine and runs solely off the battery pack at low speeds and when stopped. A non-hybrid car also gets worse fuel consumption in city driving because its engine is continually used to accelerate the car to driving speed and then this energy is lost to friction brakes during stop-and-go driving. The Prius recaptures some of this energy by using regenerative braking to charge its battery pack while slowing down with its motor-generators in generator mode. For acceptable acceleration the IC engine on a "standard" car typically is much larger than needed for constant-speed travel, and is a relatively high power to rate weight ratio Otto cycle engine. By using both an Atkinson cycle gasoline engine, which whilst more efficient, has a much poorer power to weight ratio and with an electric motor for acceleration the Prius engine can nevertheless be a smaller size and still provide acceptable acceleration. This means such a hybrid are can have high fuel efficiency when cruising on the Atkinson cycle engine, and in city driving.
Considering that all these technologies are brand new and a lot still is to be learned, it's a good start.
The word prius is a Latin word meaning to precede." A Toyota spokesperson stated that "Toyota chose this name because the Prius vehicle is the predecessor of cars to come."

As far as the Honda Fit/Jazz, even that platform is being designed to accomodate hybrid technology. In October of 2008 Honda revealed a Jazz hybrid.

[xpensive]

Some time back, I wrote something like the following on the subject:

"I have amused myself with cracking some numbers on how much energy an F1 car consumes around the track, as well pondering opportunities to make it "greener". Nice even values are used in order to simplify things.

At racing speed, most of a car's losses are to overcome air-resistance, where an F1 car with a Cv*A of more than 1.50 should need some 220 kW at 220 km/h, which with a 90% drivetrain efficiency including rolling resistance means 250 kW. If you took that car around the track for one minute and 20s, the energy used would be 20 000 kJ.

Important note: When the power needed to propel an object through the air increases with the cube of the speed, the above is very much a rough estimation.

Other than that, we need to accellerate the car from 100 to 250 km/h FIVE times over that one lap, which is another 7000 kJ for a 700 kg object. A total of 27 000 kJ of energy equals roughly 0.75 liter of gasoline, but with an estimated 25% mechanical efficiency of the engine, we would need 3.0 liters for that one lap.

The end result seems reasonable to me, though greatly simplified of course, but how would you go about it to make F1 "greener"? Anyone?"

[Slife]

I thought on road cars, KERS device was used to charge the battery.

BMW had been doing this with "KERS" before the FIA allowed it for F1.

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/tech ... ation.html

[gridwalker]

Audi are using a KERS system to charge the batteries too.

It's the first time that I've seen brake energy recovery featured prominently in an advert on television, so I'm of the opinion that F1 has almost certainly helped to raise public awareness of brake energy recovery to a point where the concept is a selling point for road vehicles.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umNPnGekcYA[/youtube]

[mike]

In this troubled time where we are under the iron fist of the church of the environment.

has f1 finally proved the pointlessness of hybrid cars.
if in F1 where they have access to the best people and materials cannot make it work to any real advantage.
Is it all just a load of crap?

discuss...

interesting idea, since there hasnt been a KERS car wining a race its the rules that make KERS look dumb, KERS it self is awsome