On our way out of Seattle and headed toward Canada, we decided to stop in Lynden, WA as it had been recommended by my wife’s Aunt as a neat town to visit. We were going through a really nicely done museum there and when I turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs to the basement displays, I was flabbergasted to be staring at an almost mythical car: a 1997 GM EV1.
The EV1 story is fascinating, and as I’m currently on slow interwebs access, I’ll give you a couple links to follow for your own further edification and edumacation rather than write that up here.
There were a total of 1,117 EV1s made and 660 of those were the 1997 Gen 1 models. None were sold—you could only lease, and that only after going through a vetting process (detailed at one of the external links above).
Nearly all of the cars were repossessed and crushed by GM at the end of the program—around 40 were saved and were made available to museums and universities, with an agreement that none could ever again be driven on public roads as an electric vehicle.
There’s still a lot of controversy surrounding the car and especially how GM ended the program. I did find that one of the Gen 1 vehicles has been reanimated, but that’s as part of a university hybrid research program (in order to meet the agreement with GM).
This was an incredible find for me personally, as this is a car I never expected to see in person, and especially not in the basement of a small-town museum in the far Northwest corner of Washington State.
Interior photo courtesy wikipedia.com. All other photos by author.
Wow, that’s a rare treat. Too bad it’s hidden down there. EV1 was a brilliant piece of engineering, a little ahead of its time.
I suppose you didn’t get a chance to visit the new LeMay Museum in Tacoma. I haven’t yet either, keenly looking forward to it. If you noticed the big wooden domed arena in Tacoma while coming through on I-5, LeMay is right next door. They just opened this summer, 1500 car collection, 350 on display at any given time. They have an EV1 too.
Thanks for the postcards, and safe journeys!
Back when these were out on the road, I attended a lunch meeting where a guy on the engineering team spoke. He drove an EV-1 to the meeting. Much of the engineering work on these was done in northeast Indianapolis, so all of these guys were local to me. I believe that a lot of this operation was spun off to EnerDel. The part that sticks with me all these years later is that “gear” selection was done by electric pushbuttons. Until that moment, I had never considered that pushbutton gear selection might have a modern application.
I remember being impressed with the amount of fresh engineering that went into the cars. We did not get rides, but got to look at the car up close. I recall that the interior was jammed with test equipment. I also remember that the thing had an extremely low (for the time) drag coefficient. Like everyone else here, I have not seen one of these in years and years, or even thought about them.
I believe the Cd was .19…
Correct, Cd = 0.19, and that’s still better than any production car by a good margin. EV1’s body design and non-battery engineering were done by Dr. Paul MacCready’s AeroVironment, the firm that designed the Gossamer Albatross human-powered aircraft that crossed the English Channel in 1979.
EV1’s first lead-acid battery system was developed by GM’s Delphi branch, that got spun off into EnerDel.
Both AeroVironment and EnerDel are quite active in the EV business today.
They have a gear lever just like a regular car, see the photo above, no push buttons.
The car I saw must have been some kind of engineering mule, because there is no way the interior that I saw looked that clean and nicely fitted out. The pushbutton setup was pretty crude, so it may have been some engineer’s quickie way to rig a gear selector, for use with the console and such out of the car. Virtually the entire passenger side of the car was filled with instruments, gauges, wires and black boxes.
But while we are on topic, it’s a shame to soil that clean console with a clunky early 20th century relic like that big fat lever. A row of lighted P R N and D buttons would have been so much cooler. 🙂
Someday Chrysler will build an EV. Let’s hope they bring back the pushbuttons. “Suddenly it’s 2060!”
The lead-acid battery’s final and glorious swan song. I’d like to see what the range on one of these would be with updated li-ion batteries.
With Delphi ‘s 16.5 kWh lead-acid pack in 1996, EV1 weighed 3,086 pounds and had a range of 60 miles. (Wikipedia)
In 1999, the 2nd-gen EV1 got its originally intended 26.4 kWh nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery pack from Delphi, which cut the weight to 2,908 pounds and upped its range of 160 miles.
And that’s where I have to agree with the “who killed the electric car” crowd. Thirteen years ago, GM got better range with the NiMH EV1 than you get today with a Leaf, Mitsu MiEV, or Focus Electric. Where could we be with continuous development of the vehicle rather than years of dormancy? What range would you get with a modern battery in an EV1? How much of that range would you lose from the weight necessary to stretch it to a four seater? I have a vague memory there was a four seater EV1 prototype, at least a mockup of the body.
What range would you get with a modern battery in an EV1?
Think Tesla Roadster: some 200 miles; 250 if really pushing it.
One of the major problems with the EV1 was its two-passenger seating. The US market has spoken: we want four-five seats. The gen1 Insight didn’t sell, nor has the CRZ. That may not be the only reason, but it is a big one. There’s a very good reason all the current and planned EVs and plug-ins are 4-5 seaters.
The EV1 would never have attained the volumes necessary to make it truly viable.
Range is not the issue I know 2 different people who have home built S10 based EVs that have 300 mile ranges but the cost of the battery packs, even cheap (relatively) Chinese ones, is the cost of a Leaf. The average person just isn’t willing to spend 60K to have that range when they don’t drive that many miles between opportunities to charge. As Paul mentioned the Tesla Roadster has that 200mi range but it’s cost made it either for a hard core EV’er or a rich man’s toy. I know the guy who I know who owns one is both.
When they had recently been released I saw one on display outside of the rental car agency near LAX when traveling to CA, it was for rent but I don’t know for how much nor how you would charge in a practical manner, since back then it was all inductive and there wasn’t such a thing as a 110v convenience cord. I know there were a few public chargers available in the LA area but still it wouldn’t be convenient for a rental car unless you were going to an all day meeting at or near one of those locations.
The documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car” covers this vehicle’s story perfectly; it’s highly recommended. Spoiler alert for those unfamiliar with the EV1: There are none left, and only two examples are still in existence today; one (non-functioning) in a museum and the other (re-animated used for research. All the others were taken from their owners (who leased them, but could not buy them -no matter what), and crushed, by order of GM.
There are about 40 remaining (one of the links above covers this), and all but a few of those were disabled completely. Smithsonian has one, and one of the commenters above has seen another EV1 besides the one I photographed above.
There’s one at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento; below is a photo I took last month. They’ve got a charger with the inductive paddle displayed with the car. Presumably this car has been made nondrivable like the others, although there was a heavy duty cord running from the charger off somewhere, presumably toward a source of power.
There are apparently now several universities that have gotten their EV1’s running, with varying degrees of tolerance from GM. Some of them have done it by replacing a fair number of the parts with comparable, but not identical, systems, so the question arises at what point does it stop being an EV1 and start being a homebuilt electric using an EV1 body and frame.
I guess their take made for a good movie script, but what really killed the EV1 was its lack of range and way too expensive construction. Sure, GM would have avoided some bad PR by handling the disposition of them better, but the EV1 was never going to meet more demanding crash and safety regs, and was doomed. And given how litigious our society has become, I can see why they wanted to wash their hands of them.
The EV1 had no real or viable future; that belongs to the next generation, like the Leaf. let’s see how well it does.
I feel favorable to EVs, but I couldn’t take the movie: way too contrived and slanted, making out the EV1 as the savior of the automotive world.
I did happen to cite “Who Killed the Electric Car” on the OEVA email list today. A local Leaf owner is getting a lot of grumbling and occasional outright hostility from their dealer’s service manager.
There’s a segment of the movie showing how little service EV1 needed from the Saturn dealers that handled them, compared with the cart full of oil, filters, brake pads, etc. they sold the ICE drivers.
Existing car dealers are independent businesses that get a lot of their profit, maybe most of it, from the service department. They hate EVs because they will cost them lots of service business.
Exactly.
The people who run these rackets are total outright morons and nothing more.
If progress is to be made, one must get rid of the leeches and hanger-ons that run the automobile industry in the US.
Who killed the electric car certainly was a poor representation of the facts.
#1 it was a hand built car that cost way too much to produce.
#2 GM leased them for 2 reasons first the actual cost made them nonviable since gas was so cheap driving one if you payed the real cost would have cost you much more than the most gas hoggin car of the era. Second since it was full of hand built parts it would have cost GM way too much to provide the required by law replacement parts for the minimum required amount of time.
I wonder what would have happened if GM had instead offered them for sale at a price that would have given them some profit and priced the required replacement parts so they could make a profit on those too. I’m thinking that would have quelled a lot of the people who said they wanted to keep/buy it. However since the people leased them at far below real cost the people who drove them had totally unrealistic expectations.
Wasn’t it clear at the time, that they were basically prototypes out on extended test? What would now I suppose be called a beta test. That was my impression at the time from the other side of the world.
No offense, but all I see here is excuse after excuse as to why the EV1 wasn’t successful.
Truth be told, GM knew it would kill their business model, being so heavily dependent on the internal combustion engine and all of the rackets that sprung up to support it.
It’s the defeatist attitude of those in power that hinders progress in this country. Either they’re defeatists or they’re just scared of what the future truly holds.
And here were are nearly 20 years later, and its still not viable.
@ Dabro: Yeah, not true. I’ve seen one with my own eyes, many times in fact. The College for Creative Studies in Detroit has a red one, and it used to live in the lobby of the WB Ford building. Might even still be there, though I haven’t seen it since last year.
I might add to this, or sum it up: scientific and technological knowledge can’t be suppressed. Not successfully…what one scientist or engineer can do, others can repeat. It’s why “peer review” is so important in scientific papers.
Sure, a patent can be granted; but even then, the knowledge is there. It becomes a question of what royalties does the patent-holder want. And in any event, a patent expires with time, generally seventeen years.
No one is talking about GM’s patents or proprietary technology as regards the EV-1. There’s just vague murmurs about it being “hidden” and “taken off the market” and “mismanaged.”
Well, the GM of old is dead, dead, dead. Its successor hold its proprietary rights. And it’s beyond rational to suppose they would deliberately not use them on the Volt.
I would submit that the documentary makers, not GM, were engaged in misrepresentation. And I would suggest that the EV-1’s “lack of service needs” suggest it wasn’t the lease-holders’ primary vehicle; that, of the celebrity crowd, they often they took the car to burnish their social-consciousness images.
What about Jay Leno’s Ev1? I thought he bought his.
Good job Ed. Think the General could have had a Prius fighter here. Movie out about that “who killed the electric car”. Watched it quite a while ago. Wish they had done something with this other than just crush.
Prius fighter? With a half-million dollar price tag and a 50-80 mile range? Hmmm.
By 2000 they had the range up to 160 miles. They could have sold EV1s for something like $100K in limited production.
Roger Smith’s GM couldn’t have pulled that off. There is evidence they “planned for a flop”, and “hoped that lawmakers and regulators will postpone or scrap the (California zero-emission-mandate) deadline.” GM and Delphi did such a fine job on the EV1 I’m not sure I believe that. Though it wouldn’t have been the first time an engineering organization developed a great product that was killed by the front office.
Elon Musk’s Tesla startup did pull off a $100K+ EV business a few years later.
Now Tesla’s selling technology to Toyota, who’s building electric RAV-4s in GM’s old Fremont plant.
There’s still the issue that the EV1 was not designed for future safety/crash regs, and redesigning it would have been immense. As well as others.
Anyway, I really don’t want to sound anti-EV1. It’s obviously a piece of brilliant engineering. And if GM had really wanted to sell it, they could have. But for all the many reasons we now know, that was not going to happen. Its destiny was to play the role of the EV prophet.
But I am anti the “Who Killed the EV” movie, and its sequel. I understand why it was the way it was: in order to attract eyeballs. But not mine. About as “fair and balanced” as Fox News.
I was very disappointed in the sequel, “The Revenge of the Electric Car”, all talking heads, not much cars.
GM could have fitted out a Saturn with the EV1 drivetrain and gotten to market pretty quickly. Or the Saturn Sky could have been a production EV sports car more like the 2-passenger EV1.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda…hey what if Studebaker had gone back to making EVs? After all that’s how they got started in the car business. Edison drove one.
i have to agree with mike. i think gm just wanted anything that might be used to promote the continuation cali’s zero emissions mandate destroyed. after all, toyota sold a version of the rav4 as part of the same program and some are still in private hands.
Certainly never thought development would stop right here. Yup, there isn’t any reason to think it couldn’t have been just that.
Btw, ref your fair and balanced comment below: I gave away my television because finding an honest and non polarized television network was about as futile as the search of Diogenes. That was about four years ago and I still feel that way. I do like it that CC is usually absent of political comments.
I actually got to drive one of these back in the late 1990s – it was leased to one of my company’s suppliers. The acceleration was good, but turning belied the weight and the LRR tires didn’t help either.
The 2nd-generation battery packs NiMH did pretty well, actually, with real-world ranges getting into the 3-figures.
The guys up at Western Wash Univ in Bellingham got into a lot of hot water for reanimating their donated EV1 (which had all of the electronic control modules removed) as I recall, they received a nasty letter from GM’s lawyers once the video of it driving around become public.
Ha! Good for them.
One of the first cars I reviewed on TV. GM dropped one in my lap for two whole weeks.
Two whole weeks of range anxiety. First-gen battery.
Range meter read 80 when you’d start it up. Drive 15 miles and it would read 45. And that was babying it. Drive it hard (redmondjp is right about the acceleration) and it was like watching a digital stopwatch count down.
It was an important first step, but Paul nails the answer to “Who Killed The Electric Car?”. The EV1 simply was not ready for mass production and mass consumption.
Nobody ever said EV1 was the next Malibu. It would have been much like Leaf and Volt and Focus EV are now, low-production experience-building halo cars. The GM that existed before it went bust couldn’t imagine that possibility.
It was a bit early, gas in the US was $1.60/gallon in the late 1990s. ($4 today.) Also batteries have gotten much better and much cheaper in the 15 years since EV1.
GM was already loosing money on regular cars, they didn’t have the time or money to burn on a limited production golf cart for Hollywood weirdos. The EV1 was impressive, but like the Chrysler Turbine car it was an experiment, and when it was over, the car still belonged to GM, and they could do with them what they wished.
Limited production golf cart for Hollywood weirdos?
Hello? Climate change has been calling for years now and the American mindset is to ignore it, denigrate it and go on as if nothing is happening.
Congratulations, sir. Enjoy the defeatism while you’re at it.
I have been lingering here for months but haven’t commented since I know so little compared to most of the experts who comment frequently (I do know where Towson Ford is, though). On this one, however, I guess I do have a somewhat unique experience. I got to ride in one on the Atlanta Perimeter during a visit down south. The acceleration was surprising, and the interior was definitely kind of futuristic. If I recall, there was a keypad where the driver entered a PIN to “start” the car. It was also pretty quiet for a small car. Obviously, no engine noise, but not as much road or wind noise as I would have expected either. For some reason, I expected it would be like riding in an electric Saturn, but the experience was much nicer than that. I believe heat was provided by a heat pump, which was fine for a Georgia winter, but made me wonder would would happen if these were rolled out in greater numbers and found use in colder climates.
Cool your jets fanboiz. The BEV peaked a century ago. Back then BEvs were more than a third of the market, and Mrs. H Ford drove one, as did my great grandmother. BEVs are, and will continue to be, obsolete technology.
“BEVs are, and will continue to be, obsolete technology.”
I’m sorry but that statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. Motor, battery, and computer technology has advanced greatly and continues to do so. Fact is the ~100MPGe is going to be what allows those of us who like that outdated technology that is the ICE to continued to be purchased by those of us that like them.
I know a number of people who have Leafs and love them, for one of them it is their only car and he has managed to drive it over 12k in the first ~6months and I’m expecting that now that he has had it a year I’m fairly certain he has put over 24K on it.
That’s quite interesting Eric, as at ~500 miles a week it means he must be using a full or near full charge very regularly, almost daily. Do you know if he has changed his driving habits compared to his previous car? As in there would have to be times when he is constrained by the range of the Leaf.
He frequently engages in opportunity or guerrilla charging. He purchased a Volt charger since it was cheaper, mounted it to a board and fitted a long oversized gauge wire and made up a number of adapters. He also uses his 110v cord and has used it numerous times to travel to his part time job that is almost it’s range away and then charges it there with the level 3 440v charger. So on numerous occasions he has used it more than it’s range in a day.
If he really needs to take a longer trip he just borrows one of his friend’s homebuilt S10s with a ~300 mi range. If that isn’t enough he hooks up the range trailer he helped the owner of the S10 build which increases the range to near 600mi. Using that range trailer they traveled I5 from the Canadian border to the Mexican border and back again in about a week including taking it to a EV meet in CA and visiting the Tesla factory.
Thanks for the extra info. Charging on the go will be an interesting area with a number of factors in play, but it will be interesting to see as the numbers of EV’s increase whether somebody might offer a range trailer commercially. It is not as if the technology is unknown, it would be basically like wiring a camper (caravan) hitch in reverse. It would work especially well with a hatchback EV, providing extra luggage capacity.
The power company I worked for had about 20 of them on loan from GM, and this was in Florida, which was far from the EV1’s California/Arizona lease market, we even install MangaCharge units all along the front of the building for the 20 EV1’s(we also got about 10 Electric S10’s for the security guards). The cars were part of a ride and review progam, FPL employees signed up to get a chance to drive one for about a week and fill out a log about their usage, I never got to take one home, just drive around in one.
They didn’t “start” as someone else pointed out, you would enter a code and the car would “boot up” all the gauges and instruments would light up and you would be ready to go, the torque was impressive, but it was like driving a car with a 3 gallon gas tank, the a/c usage did no favors to the range in 95 degreee FL heat.
I too had experience with the EV S-10. I was working in the Orlando area and WDW had a small fleet they were still driving around 2000-1. I sold parts to WDW and several of my customers did work for WDW. I think FPL had gotten rid of theirs by than. Anyway one day one of the customers stopped by and we took an EV S-10 for a short drive down the street for lunch. You know by my “seat of the pants” I think 0-60 was faster with the EV than a ICE 4.3 V-6 was. I still see EV S-10s for sale. I wonder if Delco still services the batteries for them? I’d have to do some digging to see if the places that did sell the parts can still service these.
Yep, Disney usually has GM fleet vehicles, from their relationship with GM and their pavillion at EPCOT, I recall seeing S10-EV’s at Disney parks.
Whats funny is that although you cant buy an EV1, you can still buy an electric S10 when they pop up from time to time.
There was also an EV Toyota RAV4 and a Ford Ranger EV that were sold in limited quantities to fleets during the EV1 era to meet the diktat from the CARB commissars.
When I worked at the Energy Commission in CA I knew an engineer who manged to commute from ~150mi round trip daily from Grass Valley to downtown Sacramento with the EV Ranger. He could make it down the hill ok, but on the return trip he had to stop about half way in Auburn and have dinner and let it charge for ~90min.
I always felt that allowing this program die was one of the GMs lesser sins. It should have been kept alive as an engineering exercise, green halo car and hedge against a future when people could no longer fill up their Canyoneros at 1.50/gal.
I mean if they can spend the money making a carbon fiber ‘Vette and developing the Kappa platform they could have thrown the green car folks a bone.
The RAV4 EV and Ranger EV were not originally fir sale either, they were lease only vehicles and were also scheduled to be crushed at the end of the lease. Rather than suffer the bad publicity of GM and the fact that some dealers inadvertently didn’t use the special Ranger EV lease form meant Ford struck a deal to extend the lease on some and sell some to lessees that refused to return them, as well as some of those that were returned and spare parts to a outside company. I don’t know the specifics of how the Toyotas ending up being sold but I do know someone who has one that she brought from CA and still uses it regularly as part of her and her husband’s all EV fleet that includes a Tesla Roadster and Leaf.
Remember several of those “green car” grants ended after Clinton left office in 01.
I’d argue that GM did continue the program and the result it today’s “Volt.” Significantly more practical than the EV-1 and it can go all electric if you want (and have access to charging) but can save it self with gas if you can’t or don’t.
I see the original Honda Insight as the more mainstream successor to the EV1, same highly aero 2-seater.
Walter that is true basically because there weren’t many mainstream BEV’s until recently – for good reason of course. Note that I don’t think any comments above say “I wish I owned one”.
Nice point about the 1st-gen Insight.
Out of the hundred or so engineers in my office, four are daily EV drivers, three Leafs and a Mitsubishi. They all like them a lot. They don’t pay attention to gas prices anymore either. I’m way behind the curve with my dinosaur-burning Prius. Gotta get to work on the electric Miata one of these days.
I’m glad someone’s buying the Leaf. Sales are way down this year from last year, off 50% in August. Nissan’s goal of 20,000 Leafs sold in 2012 will likely not be met, especially if the current trend continues.
Meanwhile, Chevy Volt sales are up strongly all year, and the trend is still upwards. Range anxiety?
I think that range needs to be some 250-300 miles (in an affordable BEV) before they really start to make broader impact.
Certainly one of the reasons the Leaf sales are down is the fact that the Volt came out, the other fact is that there was a surge due to the pent up demand.
Due to that sales slide a local dealer was offering a 24 month lease for $79 per month, yes $79 with a 12K per year mileage limitation. I was going to get one but unfortunately I saw the ad the day before we were leaving for a week and the offer had expired by the time I got back and they only had 3 at that price. No it wasn’t a significant down payment either just $2500 (though Nissan Finance was getting the $7500 tax credit) and that included a $1000 allowance for the 220v charger.
Personally I see no need for a range that long the Leaf’s is just a little bit shorter than we need to do our worst case local driving when you consider the need for heat, lights and wipers in WA in the winter. However for the bulk of our driving the Leaf’s range is more than really needed. A option for a lower cost and a 50mi range with heavy lights, heat and wiper usage would be perfect to me.
An article is yesterday’s Wall Street Journal cited sources that have calculated that GM incurs a loss of about $47k PER CAR on each Volt sold. This will go down as additional production further amortizes the investment in it, but I have a hard time seeing how GM will ever make a profit on it unless market conditions change drastically.
Well, there’s considerable debate about the veracity of that claim, since the New GM got the Volt program essentially for free from the Old GM. Regardless, it’s a sunk cost, for whoever bore it. At this stage of the game, the only thing relevant is whether the actual ongoing program and build costs are lower than the revenues, or at least close to it. And from the numbers they estimated, it seems that’s the case. So it certainly makes sense for them to push them hard, and increase volume.
It’s estimated Toyota invested $1 billion in Prius. They sold 29,500 Prius cars worldwide in 2001. Divide $1B by 29.5K and you get $34K loss per car. Nobody in the real world accounts for it that way, except Murdoch’s minions when it serves their agenda.
Now Prius is the third biggest selling car in the world, after Corolla and Focus.
This is how global manufacturing works: big bets on the long term. They’re not selling cupcakes you know. Or newspapers.
Funny that one of these would turn up in Lynden, WA of all places. That town is mainly known for dairy farms.
To me it is best know for dancing not being and sales of alcohol not being allowed in the city limits.
So dancing in your yard with a beer would cue a Blues Brothers-style police chase?
Guys, c’mon. The third shooter behind the grassy knoll killed the electric car. The bullet bounced off Connally’s wrist, went through a worm-hole and hit the EV-1. Given the JFK was seeing Marylin, and Jack Ruby’s ties with the mob, well, it just makes sense. Really, let’s be realistic about this.
In all seriousness, the electric motor, for propulsion, is going to remain part of the mix. It has serious advantages. Lot’s of torque on tap, right at the start, for one. My guess is we’ll see motors more often as part of a hybrid system, or in conjunction with a generator, rather than true EVs. There will be some pure EVs, for those who actually know how much driving they do.
I’m still waiting on someone to offer a diesel-electric option (not hybrid, no energy storage). VW, are you listening?
Ed, that’s going to be a long wait. Straight diesel-electric drive (not hybrid) is intrinsically significantly less efficient than a diesel hooked to the wheels mechanically. That explains (in part) why the Volt gets rather modest mileage running on its gas engine. The losses at both the generator and e-motor add up, and are much greater than the very small loss through a transmission, manual or automatic.
The main reason diesel-electric locomotives use it is because it’s just about the only way to put that much power to their slip-prone wheels, in a reliable way. If they could do it mechanically, in a reliable way, they probably would. It wouldn’t surprise me if they do someday, if diesel prices keep going up.
Correct. Just for grins I did the numbers once for an off-the-shelf “high efficiency” Honda generator as an EV range extender (or plug-in series hybrid, call it what you will) and only got about 30 mpg. Makes Toyota’s feat of getting 50+ mpg out of a non-plug-in hybrid all the more remarkable.
Diesel-electric locos aren’t hybrid vehicles since they have no batteries (except when they do). Massive maximum torque at zero rpm is why electric motors drive the wheels.
A return to mechanical drive is unlikely in the extreme, since electric drive technology is improving at a much faster rate than mature mechanical tech. Though a high gear direct drive like Volt’s does come to mind, but there’s another advantage to electrically-driven wheels, the trucks (wheel carriers) have to turn on the curves.
If I remember correctly, the Volt’s “direct drive” transmits only a modest percentage of the driving torque mechanically. 25% 35%? I’d have to look it up.
Apparently it’s enough better to matter. They took lots of media heat over those gears after years of claiming Volt was a pure series hybrid.
I’d be interested in what you find out.
I guess I’m going off the real-world data we got when my employer introduced the D7E electric drive bulldozer – it reduced fuel burn by around 20-30% over a comparable direct-drive setup. Part of this is due to being able to keep the engine in its sweet spot rpm-wise at all times. Elimination of torque rise is of course another benefit.
Seems like you could realize similar efficiencies in an automotive application, especially if you replaced mechanical drive accessories (think anything run by a belt today) with electric drive…
That’s a bigger improvement than I would have expected. But there are many variables there. How “direct drive” was the old setup? I would assume it wasn’t strict mechanical drive, but with some torque converter? Or ?
Even the Volt added a partial mechanical direct drive at highway speeds in order to improve its efficiency.
Paul – without looking, I’m pretty sure the mechanical drive is truly mechanical (planetary gears)… When you’re moving dirt and rock, I wouldn’t think a slushbox would be of much help.
They have. My 2010 Prius has zero belts. Even the water pump has an electric motor.
Rare-earth magnets and affordable power transistors have made small torquey motors commonplace in new cars. That’s one reason even economy cars come with power windows, they may actually be cheaper now than the windup kind.
This is the front end of my two-year-old Prius 1.8L engine, where you’d normally see a water pump, alternator, PS pump, AC compressor, etc. No belts, no pulleys, no distributor, no plug wires. No vacuum hoses, not even for the brakes. It’s down to the block and head.
Funny how the core technologies hang on seemingly forever, because we get so darned good at them.
It stays remarkably clean under the hood.
I think you are right on Ed. I would invite you all to read about a 75 mpg Opel GT that ran on Mechanical/Electric drive and used golf kart batteries. Btw, this is from about 1970 and the range was whatever he wanted it to be. Not diesel but a lawmower engine was the range extender. He later went diesel.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1979-07-01/Electric-Car-Conversion.aspx If that fails just google “Dave Arthurs amazing 75 mpg car” and click onto the one under the mother earth heading.
That power plant eventually found it’s way into a VW van with a charging trailer like Eric was describing for the S10 of his friend. I know there are probably better ways to do it but on short trips he could be straight electric.
There are losses when you switch means of power. But Dave Arthur could do this over 40 years ago and if I could follow his lead in a clasroom exercise that was actually workable when it broke, then, I think we have a lack of national will. It is not a lack of tech knowhow. Prius should have been a wakeup call.
Bob Lutz and GM heard the wakeup call and created the Chevy Volt. Ford’s quietly coming out with a Focus EV too.
Lee – I’ve been enjoying ~45mpg for eleven years now with my TDI New Beetle (other TDI models with lower Cd numbers report 50+ on a regular basis). I think a diesel-electric setup could easily push that toward 60mpg… and without the downstream issues involved with battery replacement/disposal. The total cost of ownership (TCO) would *have* to be lower when compared with a true hybrid setup (hybrid = energy storage and retrieval, different from diesel-electric with no energy storage).
You haven’t explained how a diesel-electric setup will improve efficiency in a car. The generator will have up to 10% efficiency loss, and the electric motor another 5-10%. A mechanical transmission will lose as little as 1.5%.
Why do you think the Prius gets about 50mpg on the highway (where its battery plays little role) and the Volts struggles to get about 33-35 on the highway (in gas-driven mode)?
There were some engineers (not GM) that predicted this, based on the efficiency losses of the generator and e-motor.
I can’t properly speak to the reality of bulldozers (your 20-30% improvement sounds suspiciously high), since their operating parameters are extremely different. But I’ve read quite a bit about serial drive (diesel or gas) and I’m very convinced that it would be less efficient in typical auto driving use, especially on the highway.
You may indeed be right as far as auto applications go, but I also feel you’re focusing on only one aspect of the whole picture. Keeping the engine at the sweet spot and eliminating pumps run by belts, etc. are other factors to consider as I suggested.
The fuel economy improvements I mentioned are real world data coming back from customers, fwiw.
Eliminating pumps and belts have their primary benefit in the use in a hybrid, so that A/C can be kept running while the engine is off. There is probably a very small benefit in the electric water pump, but I doubt it’s material.
The bigger picture issue here is that the hybrid system has clearly proven itself to be very effective in reducing consumption in the kind of usage cycles an automobile is subject to. Electrifying a car’s propulsion system without having it be a real hybrid seems counter intuitive to me. That’s certainly not the case for vehicles like bulldozers, locomotives or over-the-road trucks, which utilize a substantial percentage of their engine power most of the time, unlike a car.
And I strongly suspect that if a diesel-electric non-hybrid had material advantages, it would have been built by now. The technology is all there, and manufacturers certainly have every incentive to do so.
Yup running an engine at it’s most efficient rpm can net significant gains. Ford’s second generation hybrid was a series unit powered by a 1.0l 3cyl turbo diesel that managed ~100mpg when in charge sustaining mode. When the SOC reached a predetermined level the engine would kick in operate at it’s most efficient rpm and charge the battery until it reached a specific SOC. Or you could use it as a pure electric by choosing the charge depleting mode when you turned the ignition. Should it reach that min SOC in charge depleting mode then the engine fired up it went into charge sustaining mode but charging it to a lower SOC so it can be plugged in later. Unlike the EV1 it was a family car with similar passenger room to the original Taurus.
Unfortunately instead of gas price climbing to record levels, as was predicted when they started the project, it instead dropped to historic lows and the Explorer became the best selling “car” in the US, so Ford decided to sell it’s tech to Toyota to finance the development of the Expedition.
I’ll answer the question on diesel-electric locomotives: While a direct drive may be more efficient in OPTIMUM conditions, optimal engine RPMs and ideal gearing; over the WIDE variety of speeds a diesel locomotive is expected to function, it’s completely impractical.
For instance, locomotives today (which are, except for Amtrak, all expected to be “dual-purpose,” switching and road) can be expected to creep under loading tipples at 1.5 miles an hour (computers on modern locomotives are great at holding steady at such low speeds) or on mainline speeds of typically, 60 mph and in places, as high as 79.
The newest General Electric locomotives mostly use the engineer’s “throttle” as a control of the alternator exciter – how much current is taken off the alternator.
While the throttle has eight positions (and used to be it would correspond to eight specific engine speeds) the GEs have only four engine RPM speeds:
–Idle (about 150 RPM)
–Fast Idle (about 280 RPMs; called up in Notch 2)
–Midrange, about 450 RPM
–Upper range, about 950 RPM
–Full Throttle, Notch 8 only – 1050 RPM.
Names of these speeds are mine and engine speeds are approximate. I haven’t worked on GEs in many years, being relegated to a short line these days. But the point I’m making is, to maximize fuel efficiency, engine speeds are set and maintained. Having an infinite variation of engine speeds would cut efficiency.
The other problem is…with a diesel engine block as big as a small school bus…how would anyone arrange an efficient, sturdy direct drive to the six driving axles, twelve wheels? There just isnt’ any WAY. The few direct-drive diesel switchers made, sixty years ago, were four-wheel mules with gearboxes…with much lower power, about a tenth of a typical modern diesel locomotive.
No…I think the locomotive model is an engineering peak-out. Further improvements will await new prime mover power or new propulsion systems
Did you miss this post I did a while back: http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/trackside-classic-the-vw-bus-2200-hp-big-brother-and-it-had-four-mechanical-gears-too/
The Krauss-Maffai diesel locos had “mechanical drive” to all their wheels, but used a torque converter instead of a clutch. So it certainly is possible.
But the truth is, I’m not in any position to second guess the efficiency issues regarding diesel-electric drive in things like locomotives and bulldozers. But I do know that in the way cars are used, the losses incurred by the generator and e-motor substantially exceed the mechanical losses of a mechanical transmission.
That explains to a considerable extent why the Prius is so efficient at highway speeds (where the battery plays a very minimal role), and why the Volt isn’t. There’s a very considerable difference between the highway mileage between these two vehicles, and this was predicted by a few key engineers (not GM’s) because of the losses involved in the Volt’s drive train.
There’s one big difference between bulldozers and other pieces of equipment: they spend half their time backing up. You push a load of dirt, then back up and push another load…. Therefore a transmission that allows you to back up as fast as the rig can go is a big timesaver – I wouldn’t be surprised if all the modern bulldozers are geared this way.
Even though I was already very familiar with construction equipment, the very first time I really thought about this was when I saw the Green Peter Dam project east of Sweet Home in 1962. They had about a dozen bulldozers working on both sides of the canyon. This was the first big job I’d seen in which backup alarms were in use and all the bulldozers there were so equipped. Man, all I could hear was backup alarms echoing back and forth across the canyon – they made more noise than the dozer engines.
That’s true of locomotives, also – they need to be bi-directional at any speed. They’re mostly paired, back-to-back; aside from the advantage of double the horsepower and traction, it eliminates the need to turn units at the end of the run making a return trip.
Plus, this is off-topic – it’s mechanical insurance. A heavy train with one of two locomotives down can generally creep in or get to a more accessible place for repair/repowering. A train with only one locomotive…when the power’s got problems, the whole railroad has problems.
There are a couple of key reasons the Prius is so efficient at highway speeds. Number 1 is that it almost does function as a fixed rpm engine due to the ECVT transmission. #2 is that the electric motors that make up that transmission effectively eliminated a lot of the frictional losses vs a conventional transmission. While the battery doesn’t come into play in steady state hwy cruise the motor/generators are operating all of the time. The MG connected directly to the output is constantly generating power that is used to turn the other MG that is connected to the planetary trans so obtain that infinitely variable transmission. So the only way it goes down the road is by one operating as a generator sending that power to the controller which in turn sends it to the other that operates as a motor. So the hwy efficiency of the Prius is heavily due to the efficiency of the electric generation, transfer, and turning it back into work.
In addition, the planetary gearset gives the engine a direct mechanical path to the wheels, while the MG speeds are varied to allow wheel speed to vary while engine speed stays in the sweet spot. At highway speed most engine power is mechanically coupled to the wheels, while the rest passes through the two motor-generators to the wheels, in proportion to the speed. Toyota called the planetary gears a “Power Split Device”.
I always thought planetary gears were somehow magical, when I saw the Prius I knew they were. There’s a dandy page about the Power Split Device, with an animation and controls you can use to vary the MG and engine speeds. Toyota Prius – Power Split Device (PSD).
But it is not a purely mechanical direct path to the wheels since w/o MG1 being powered the ICE can not propel the car forward. If there was a way to mechanically lock MG1, which there isn’t, then there would be a purely mechanical path to the wheels. Otherwise unless regenerative braking is occurring electrical power is being consumed by MG1 to propel the car forward. During acceleration that power is being provided by the battery pack but in all other conditions MG2 is providing that power by sucking some of the energy that is directed to the drive wheels.
The link you provided does provide a good graphical showing of the speeds of the various components however it doesn’t show the power flow in and out of the motors and for some reason I can’t find the one I’ve seen in the past that does so. It also makes it look like there are times with MG1 comes to a complete stop when the vehicle is in motion. It does but only for the split second when it is reversing directions. The computer will alter the engine rpm before allowing MG 1 to be held in stall for a perceptible amount of time, since that consumes large amounts of electricity that must come from somewhere (MG2), and it could quickly cause MG1 to overheat and let the magic smoke out.
All well and good, but what we need to know is just what percentage of the drive is mechanical. According to your description, it could well be a very small amount. I was always under the impression that it was a small amount, at typical steady highway speeds, that being a key aspect that made the Prius so efficient on the highway as well as in the city, where the hybrid drive become drastically more “active”.
I wrote a lot of articles at TTAC during the volt’s gestation. I did quite a bit of research, and began to challenge GM’s oft-stated prediction that the Volt would get 50 mpg in gas mode. I don’t have it here in front of me, but the numbers I seem to clearly remember is efficiency losses of 15-20% through the generator and e-motor, in the type of setup the Volt was assumed to use. And that mechanical losses in an a modern transmission can be as little as 1.5%.
Based on that, I called BS on GM’s 50mpg claim, and in the end was vindicated. In fact, the Volt’s EPA gas mileage (37 mpg) turned out to be even lower than even I would have expected. (I predicted 40-42).
And that’s on premium fuel (to maximize efficiency). On a cost-adjusted basis, that works out closer to 33 mpg. The Prius does 49mpg (EPA combined) on regular fuel.
What else to explain such a huge difference?
I can see where gas or diesel/electric drive (non hybrid) might well be very well suited for certain applications, and perhaps the efficiencies on generators and motors will continue to come down, but I’m still convinced that it is a less efficient propulsion system for the typical automotive application.
No automotive trans comes anywhere near close to a 1.5% frictional loss. Even manuals or dual clutch automatics have a higher frictional loss than that. A single helical gear interface like you’ll find in an OD has a ~2% frictional loss assuming no more than 3 teeth are engaged at a time, then you add in the churning loss from flinging that lubricant around and the friction of the bearings and you are lucky to get a manual down to a 5% loss.
If you get into conventional planetary transmissions it gets worse real quick since there are a lot more teeth engaged at a given time and in addition to the churning and bearing/bushing losses you got the power required to pump that lubricant. Not that the Prius’ transmission eliminates all of those losses either.
In addition to teaching the kids about the stuff involved in the robotics programs I picked up a few things along the way.
A govt. document quotes average automotive transmission losses at 5.6%. My understanding is that the Prius’ “transmission” is more efficient than that, and not by an insignificant amount.
In any case, the basis of my argument stands. The Volt, running as a gas-electric, gets substantially lower mileage than the Prius. I’m convinced that a major reason is the losses in the generator and e-motor combined, which can easily run 15% or more; significantly more than the losses in the Prius’ “transmission”.
But the Prius Transmission is a pair of Motor/Generators that operate any time the car is in motion and occasionally when it is not in motion.
A lot of the Prius’ hwy effeciency is due to the aerodynamics of it’s Kammback design. The other big factor is it’s Atkinson cycle engine.
The Atkinson cycle engine does two things to increase efficiency. First it lowers pumping losses since in lowers vacuum as one cyl partially fills the next. It also changes the ratio of the compression stroke to the expansion stroke so that a minimal amount of pressure is left in the cyl when it hits the end of it’s stroke. That extracts a higher amount of energy from the act of combustion. What you end up with is an engine that is very efficient and is the major contributor of the high hwy MPG of the Prius.
Clearly when all your car’s energy comes through an engine, and you’re cruising at a steady speed, it’s best to gear that engine straight to the wheels. Like JPT said way up there, electric drive wins on the varying load, which in a car is everything else. Toyota’s full hybrid system is brilliant at both. Case in point, my Portland – Salt Lake road trip, cruise control all day at 65-75 mph (limit+5), 2010 Prius delivered 48 mpg. That had to be nearly all mechanical engine-to-wheels.
When the engine is a range extender, as in the Volt, things are different. A range-extending series hybrid makes sense when the long trip is only occasional. Many Volt commuters are reporting they never use any gas. If the engine is only used on say 10% of the miles, its series-hybrid-mode mileage is much less important.
There is a substantial penalty to loading up an EV with an engine, fuel tank, cooling system, radiator, etc. Small gas turbines or Wankels developed from scratch for series-hybrid use might improve the situation. (Mazda’s working on that.)
All this is temporary in the long run. Another factor of two in battery technology makes 200 mile pure EVs reasonable. Let’s see how it looks in ten years.
No as I’ve explained above to achieve that low engine rpm during cruise MG2 generates electricity to power MG1 to achieve any gear ratio.
Basic power flow in a Prius trans
Reverse: MG 2 provides all propulsion and MG spins freely not consuming or generating any power.
Acceleration: MG1 and MG2 both operate as motors and consume power from the battery with MG1 creating the gear ratio.
Steady state cruise with a SOC near it’s minimum as after significant extended acceleration or long hill climb: MG2 operates as a generator recharging battery and providing the power to operate MG1 to obtain a gear ratio and transfer the engine power.
Steady state cruise with a high SOC battery: MG2 operates as a generator powering MG1 that operates as a motor to provide a gear ratio and transfer the engine power.
Coast: MG2 operates as a generator or is electricity neutral depending on SOC and MG1 does the same.
Regen braking: MG2 operates as a generator and depending on the SOC and desired braking rate MG1 acts as a generator to charge the battery or as a motor to dissipate the excess energy and provide a form of engine braking.
Idle, yes a Prius can idle with extended use of the AC while motionless which results in a particularly low SOC. MG2 does not spin and is thus power neutral and MG1 acts as a generator recharging the battery.
Now if we are talking a Honda style hybrid drive where the MG is pre-transmission or an International with a post transmission MG then there is a true direct mechanical drive w/o the generation and consumption electricity involved.
Alrighty Eric and Paul, this is a fascinating and subtle topic, let’s nail it. Here’s a scan from Toyota’s “Prius New Car Features, May 2000”, a book they made available to early Prius fanatics like me.
“When the vehicle is being driven under normal traveling condition, the motive force of the engine is divided by the planetary gears. A portion of this motive force is output directly, and the remaining motive force is used for generating electricity through MG1.”
Another reference is Prius fan Graham Davies’s page on the Power Split Device. Scroll down to “Torque Relationships in the PSD”, where he gives an intuitive explanation of where the forces are going among those gears. It gets very involved but it’s worth it.
Engine force on the planet gears directly pushes on both the ring gear (to the wheels) and the center sun gear (MG1). Toyota shows that with a split arrow in the diagram. That’s the Power Split of the PSD.
By electronically varying the load on generator MG1 it varies the speed of the center sun gear, which varies the gear ratio between engine and wheels. That load’s power is delivered to the wheels through motor MG2.
Pretty damned clever if you ask me. What engineers call an elegant system.
Yes it is an incredibly elegant solution to the CVT. Though it throws the KISS principal out the window concerning the hybrid drive concept where Honda and Internationals systems that are not integral to the drive of the vehicle shine. Complete or partial failure of motor, motor controller or any other part of the “hybrid” system other than a complete failure of the bearings/explosion of the motor will not render a Honda or International dead while with the Toyota system it will. Not saying it is common for a debilitating problem to occur with the Toyota just that the potential exists so it is not so elegant in that respect.
Bad link to Graham Davies’ page, here the good one:
http://prius.ecrostech.com/original/Understanding/PowerSplitDevice.htm
True about the failure modes, Eric, though the same can be said of a modern engine / automatic transmission. For all that’s going on here Prius has few moving parts, and no clutches, bands or fluids involved.
I was prepared as a pioneer first-month owner to take some arrows in the back, but Toyota pulled off incredible reliability with that 1st gen Prius, actually winning top reliability among all cars. Ford and Nissan have had good experience with this system too.
All the same, I’d rather be driving a pure electric like this EV1 on my daily commute, and keep the Prius for the longer trips.
I did miss that piece – busy this summer; there are times when I’ve just been working and sleeping.
The history of locomotive evolution is a fascinating one, not just for the engineering but for the politics of it, in various flavors. For instance, the Chesapeake & Ohio tried for YEARS to get a propulsion system as efficient as a diesel-electric, powered by coal or a coal derivative. This done to appease their shippers, coal-mine operators, and to protect their own investment in coal mining.
They failed. As other experiments failed, including a Westinghouse gas-turbine setup, a New York Central rocket-propelled train (reached 200 mph!) and various advanced-for-the-time hydraulic-based drives.
The only changes contemplated seriously today are, hybrid locomotives and what’re called “gen-sets” – where a pair or trio of diesel engines (in what would have been two or three locomotives) are cross-wired to where an optimal number of axles on all the chasses are powered by an optimal number of diesels…one, two, or three.
With computer controls, it’s doable. Slugs, that is, weighted chassis with no engine and power cords, run off the “mother” engine, have been around for decades. This is just taking it a step further.
Gen-sets will work. IMHO, hybrid locomotives will not…based on what I saw with the “Green Goat” on our property some years ago.
There is a Volvo diesel hybrid
Interesting…here everyone reads into the EV-1 story whatever they want to read. To some, it was a PR blunder; to others, proof of a con-schpirashy!! Having seen, over the years, fawning press for such boners as the Vega and Alliance and Wankel vehicles; and understanding that most engineering progress is incremental…I’m inclined to dismiss the EV-1 as an engineering exercise gone wrong.
The mistake was to put too many (any, really) test mules in the hands of the celebratti crowd, overpaid starlets who are famous for being famous and who know nothing of either business or engineering. Or, for that matter, industrial impact of electric-versus-gasoline vehicles.
EV-1s recalled back and destroyed, in a conspiracy? Sure. That all but states the engineering was successful and the company wanted it buried to keep their gas-guzzlers selling and profitable. So….what happened ten years later when SUVs were NOT selling so well? Why wasn’t all this fairy-dust trotted out to make a car THE PEOPLE NEED?!
Instead, GM went into a cash burn that ended in their politically-overseen bankruptcy.
Today, GM’s SUCCESSORS – that’s an important point, it is NOT the same company – hold the patents and technological data to build and sell that car. So…why are they not? The decision was made to go with the Volt-style hybrid instead of a pure electric vehicle. So, given that the EV-1 had all that miracle technology that gave it otherworldly performance, why cannot the Volt do any better than it DOES, with newer-technology batteries?
What all this says to me is that the people who are putting out the EV-1 propaganda variously do not know what they’re talking about or are actively spreading disinformation.
ONE problem related to me in readings, is that more than a few EV-1s were in the hands of celebrities who wanted to show their “concern for the planet.” While they may have met GM’s screenings, they almost certainly didn’t drive the cars much. More likely they drove it to public events to be photographed doing so…
Well and good. But that hardly makes them expert, or even slightly knowledgeable about how the car functions or how easy/hard it is to live with.
What incidents like this show me illustrate more the burning need some people have for conspiracy theories to explain the world, than of any merits of electric cars.
By the way, an engineer in our Hillsboro office, who normally works from home in Corvallis, easily drove his Leaf 105 miles to work today. He stopped at a new Level 3 quick-charger halfway there on I-5, just long enough to have some coffee, and he was good to go. “Just like driving a normal car” he told me.
And that is how you really make a Leaf pay for itself.
Getting back on the EV-1 topic, since they were built by “old GM” which no longer exists, wouldn’t that leave the owners of the surviving EV-1s to do as they please with them? Just curious…
While they may have been built by the “old” GM the patents and such transferred to the “new” GM some of which are used in the Volt so who knows.
I think the real issue is the liability and if that is the case then the “new” GM shouldn’t care and my not have legal standing to stop people.
I do happen to have a GENUINE 1997 GM Ev1 owners manual signed by some of the people who worked on it and other Ev1 memorabilia (NOTICE:NOTHING IS FOR SALE).