The payoff for plug-in hybrids: 95 years?
Plug-in hybrids get far better mileage than standard cars or regular hybrids--and emit far less pollution.
But they are also tough to justify economically at the moment with existing technology, according to the first several months of data from RechargeIT.org, which is studying how well plug-in hybrids work in real-world circumstances.
Plug-ins, in fact, only cut gas consumption by about 88 gallons a year over regular Priuses in urban driving. That comes to an annual savings of $158 to $250 (when you factor in the cost of electricity too). With the conversion running around $15,000, the payoff would take decades.
RechargeIT, part of Google.org, has converted four Priuses and two Ford Escapes so they can be charged from a wall socket. These cars are then used by Google employees as fleet vehicles. RechargeIT monitors the performance of the cars and then compares the data with standard Priuses in the corporate fleet as well as government data on standard cars. Data has been collected since May. There's enough data to bolster arguments for both supporters and critics of plug-ins.
Chevy's plug-in Volt.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)First, the good news. Plug-ins pollute far less than regular cars or hybrids, noted Alec Proudfoot, an engineering product manager at Google working on RechargeIT. The plug-ins emit on average 4,623 pounds of carbon dioxide for 12,000 miles of driving, which is close to 50 percent better than standard Priuses, which might emit 6,924 pounds of carbon dioxide, according to the organization.
Both plug-ins and standard hybrids also get far better mileage than standard cars. RechargeIT's plug-ins are getting 66.2 miles per gallon, about 50 percent better than the 44.6 miles per gallon the group gets with its regular Priuses. The U.S. fleet average is 19.8 miles per gallon, so the plug-ins are more than three times better than that. The plug-ins will use 425 fewer gallons of gas than a standard car in a year while a standard Prius will use 337 fewer.
The 66.2 miles per gallon is actually somewhat low because Google's cars typically go only short distances, Proudfoot said. In the first five minutes of driving a Prius, plug-in or otherwise, the gas engine comes on to power certain internal systems.
If the cars get driven for 40- to 50-mile trips, the mileage goes into the 70 miles to 100 miles per gallon range.
"We're sensitive to the fact that the mileage looks low and we believe it is lower than what consumers will experience," Proudfoot said, adding that he gets about 80 miles to 85 miles per gallon when he takes the car out for longer trips.
When do you break even?
Now the more difficult issue--cost. A plug-in costs a driver $1,168 to operate for 12,000 miles (with gas at $3 a gallon plus electricity at 8 cents a kilowatt hour) while a regular Prius costs $1,010 for the same distance, according to RechargeIT. Because a retrofit costs about $15,000, that means drivers don't break even for 95 years, assuming gas hovers at $3.
In a rosier scenario (gas at $5 a gallon and a $10,000 retrofit with no inflation in electricity prices), the payoff drops to just under 30 years. That's shorter, but about 20 years longer than most people own their cars, making plug-ins a tough sell.
"They (owners) are never going to pay off the price" of a retrofit, Proudfoot acknowledged. "But the big focus for RechargeIT is on the CO2 savings, not the cost savings."
Like in the electric car market, the hitch is the cost of the batteries. Southern California's AC Propulsion, for instance, offers a service for converting a gas-burning Scion into an all-electric car. The Scion costs $13,000 to $18,000. The conversion costs $55,000 plus tax. Oops.
Put the plug-in numbers another way. Let's say you had $20,000 and a Prius. If gas costs $4, you could drive it 223,000 miles (5,000 gallons x 44.6 miles per gallon). If you converted the Prius to a plug-in for $10,000, you'd go 165,500 miles. (2,500 gallons x 66.2 miles per gallon). That doesn't include the price of electricity, so you'd have to reduce the number of miles the plug-in would go for that amount.
The good news is that the costs of plug-ins are expected to decline, particularly when manufacturers make cars as plug-ins at the factory. If the premium drops to $5,000 or so, a plug-in fares better in terms of dollars. "You could pay it off in seven or eight years," Proudfoot said.
General Motors has said it wants to sell the Chevy Volt, a type of plug-in hybrid, for around $30,000. For a standard sedan, that's not outrageous. (A serial hybrid like the Volt will also get better mileage than a retrofit hybrid.) The plug-in nature of the Volt could be seen as an interesting, affordable luxury. Carbon taxes will also shorten any payoff time.
Batteries, meanwhile, continue to improve. Argonne National Labs is working on batteries that could let plug-ins hit the fabled and touted 100 miles per gallon standard, according to Ron Gremban at CalCars.
When you put all of these factors together, plug-in hybrids, along with cleaner diesel cars that can get 60 miles to 100 miles per gallon, remain the best ideas for cutting transportation fuel and emissions.
The individual plug-ins, by the way, range in mileage from 69.9 (Comoe) to 65.1 (Galapagos). One car, Macchu Picchu, is rated at 54.4 miles per gallon, but RechargeIT wants to study what's going on with that one in a little more depth.
On May 7 of last year, Great Barrier, one of the plug-ins, hit 124 miles per gallon on an 18.9-mile jaunt. (One day a car got only 32.7 miles per gallon because the battery switched off.)
And to calculate the repayment rate based on a 30,000 $ or so retrofit kit is ridiculous - in the real world when Toyota markets the PHEV Prius it can't cost that much more. A regular hybrid only costs 2-3 k more than a similar car. Going one step further can't add that much more.
If one uses 75 cents/gallon cost of electricity and a realistic 6k premium for PHEV and the current $4 /gallon gas the payoff will be very reasonable.
And then there is the cost of dead American soldiers and Iraqi citizens caught in the crossfire of our fight for oil - how do we factor the cost of that bloodshed into the above equation?
We need plug in hybrids - they are our best immediate answer for getting un-addicted to oil - and they will be cost effective when mass produced.
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When someone decides to spend an extra $5,000 in options on their new car, what's the break-even period for that? There isn't one. What's the pay-back period for heated leather seats? There isn't one, but people get leather seats anyway and nobody tells them how impractical they're being because the it'll take 2,000 years to break even on those leather seats.
If someone decides to buy a $30,000 Camry instead of a $10,000 Kia, what's the break-even period for the extra $20,000 they spent? There isn't one, and nobody ever even frames their decision in terms of break-even period. They spent the extra $20,000 because they wanted to and could and the features of the Camry appealed to them.
Likewise, with plug-ins, people are motivated more by other (and more powerful) factors such as reducing their carbon footprint, reducing dependence on Saudi oil, reducing pollution, doing something about global warming, etc.
Stop talking about a break-even period with hybrids, unless you're going to apply it equally to all the other things people spend lots of extra bucks on when they buy a car. The issue for most hybrid purchasers is not how much money you're going to save driving a hybrid, but rather what you're doing to help the environment.
We'll appear insanely stupid to our descendants if we ruin the planet because it wasn't "cost-effective" to do something about it.
This article has been written carefully in order to make one point, based on one assumption, "If the cars get driven for 40- to 50-mile trips". Well I don't drive 40 -50 mile trips. I drive 12 miles per day. If I never run out of electric power then I never use any gas!
Plug in hybrid cars vary in their gasoline usage based on how far you drive before the battery runs out. In all elecric mode, when the battery runs out then the gas engine takes over. Comparisons of plugin cars versus gasoline cars should be made on a scale of 10 mile, 20 mile, 30 mile 40 mile, per day with no recharging at the destination. So you see it begins to get a bit complex. That is why the main article has been written very carefully to present one case only and to point out the negatives of that one case. Plugin-hybrid users drive different distances. Some plug in at home and when they get to work. Some have solar power on the roof of their house. Some buy electricity from renewable energy suppliers. And who is to say the solar cell manufacturers aren't using renewable energy?
The difference here is choice. With a gasoline car you have no choice, you have to put gasoline in it, no matter how little you drive. You may never have to put gasoline in your plugin if you only drive a little.
Included in the bail-out bill passed by the Senate last night, HR1424, which goes back to the House now, is a $2,500 benefit for buying a plug-in hybrid with at least a 4 kWh battery, an amount that is increased by $417 per kWh up to $7,500 for cars (with a 12 kWh battery) and as much as $15,000 for large vehicles over 26,000 pounds (with a 30 kWh battery). It is essential to call your Representative today and ask that the bill be amended to change the minimum to $5,000 with at least an 8 kWh battery. Why? Because there is no benefit to America to have 250,000 vehicles running around with 4 kWh batteries. The EV1 used 0.168 kWh/mile and the Prius uses 0.26 kWh/mile, so with a 4 kWh battery your range is only 15 to 20 miles, and since the average commute is 29 miles it is only going to double your mileage, while if the minimum was an 8 kWh battery, your range would be 30 to 40 miles and anyone buying one would not need to buy any gas most of the year. Doubling a Prius mileage saves about 150 gallons a year, based on 15,000 miles a year, the same as going from 20 mpg to 25 mpg. Think about it, what effect does having 250,000 vehicles getting 25 mpg instead of 20 mpg out of a fleet of 100 million vehicles have on our dependence on oil? Nada - nothing. That's only a quarter percent of our fleet. Now on the other hand if you could take a quarter percent of our vehicles off gasoline completely, now that is worth it. In 50 years there will be no oil left, only ethanol and biodiesel, and only enough of those for 10% of our fleet, meaning that the remaining 90% will need to be electric. A 4 kWh battery is a useless teaser. An 8 kWh battery is actually useful, so I hope you will all call your Reps today and ask that the bill be amended to substitute $5,000 and 8 kWh instead of $2,500 and 4 kWh.
- by EliasShedd June 19, 2009 8:04 PM PDT
- "A plug-in costs a driver $1,168 to operate for 12,000 miles (with gas at $3 a gallon plus electricity at 8 cents a kilowatt hour) while a regular Prius costs $1,010 for the same distance"
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(5 Comments)Looks like the $1,168 and the $1,010 were switched. (Typo)