Really no it is not, your claiming so don’t make it so, and your understanding of “the fundamentals” is simply confused. Series-usly.
A plug-in hybrid can have any arbitrarily sized battery be it a series hybrid, a parallel one, or one that is mixed as is the Volt. No idea why you imagine that a series hybrid means a larger battery than a parallel plug-in might have (other than that providing for peak power needs without the possibility of the ICE adding oomph in mandates it, even if the range is not needed most days). How much of typical annual driving being handled purely by the battery vs having the ICE kick in is optimal depends of course on the cost of the battery, the cost of gas, and the driver’s needs (both real and perceived). We can discuss an imagined “typical driver” and current costs of course, but individual cases will be individual cases.
For that imagined “typical driver” 50 plus miles per charge is enough for the vast majority of days and 114 much more than needed for most days. Having a battery with more than twice the range is adding significant cost in order to provide for just a relatively few extra gas-free miles per year … it’s well past diminishing returns.
But again it needs that bigger battery to provide the extra power to the wheels that the ICE can do in a parallel set up. By needs it must cost that bigger battery premium additional.
In general a series set-up has built-in inefficiency compared to a parallel one as the conversion of energy from the ICE to the battery to the motor to the wheels unavoidably incurs more losses than going directly from the ICE to the wheels. You do understand that I hope. The only possible offset is the potential of keeping the ICE in a series set up always running in its most efficient zone. Volt’s variable set up keeps its ICE back up mostly in its most efficient zone as well, having it provide the power needed to the wheels directly and also to the battery to the varying degrees needed to keep the ICE within that most efficient sweet spot.
But the problem is that the average daily range isn’t sufficient. I may drive 30 miles to work every weekday, but if once a month I need to drive 150 miles, I still need the range to do so, and as Chimera notes, driving and environment conditions, as well as age-related reduction in capacity will further limit range. And although the assumption of many is that battery-powered electric vehicles will replace gasoline and other fuels for commuter applications, they are really only suitable for a subset of drivers. The current power density of electric batteries is within about half an order of magnitude of what is physically possible, and there isn’t a lot of room for further cost reductions from economies of scale or efficiencies in processing. Electric vehicles make sense for local fleet applications and (perhaps) heavy haul where the steady highway speeds and large cargo to vehicle weight rations make them viable, as well as in geographically limited areas like Hawaii or Puerto Rico where range is not a practical concern but for many personal applications in the continental United States short range (less than 100 mi) electric vehicles are not practical.
The worst part of this discussion is the prejudice and snarkiness, which betrays a fundamental and all-too-common ignorance about people in general.
The “American People” don’t turn away from these vehicles because they are fools, or because they are sheep, or because they are ignorant en masse, or any of the other insulting reasons assumed above.
These vehicles are not as popular as their advocates wish they were, because they are extremely expensive, and because most of us don’t have the money needed to own multiple expensive cars.
As many people I know, I can't buy new cars every few years. I would have liked to have bought a hybrid before now, but the cost of replacing the battery packs on them means that no matter how well I care for them, I have to spend as much as it takes to buy a whole other used car, every few years, just to keep them on the road, in their limited function.
Basic REAL answer for why they aren’t filling the roads: the technology hasn’t advanced to the point where they are truly ready for the real American market. Until battery technology advances such that they are the cheapest part of the car to replace, instead of the most expensive, hybrids and electric cars wont make the headway you’d like them to. And I really wish people would give up this insult game, when the subject comes up. It’s petty, and vastly worse than that, it’s false.
Nissan actually does make a series hybrid, it is not currently sold in the US.
It’s not popular because it is substantially less efficient than a parallel hybrid. Nissan may have found a niche in this case because it is cheaper up front than some parallel hybrid setups, i.e. the planetary gearset based power split types used by Toyota and GM and licensed to other carmakers such as Ford and Nissan(who does sell hybrid vehicles in North America, but of the parallel type, with technology substantially similar to Toyota’s), and the elimination of the transmission might yield some packaging advantages, which make it useful in a very small, cheap car like the Versa Note. But a planetary gearset isn’t the only way to set up a hybrid drivetrain. Honda, Hyundai and VW for example us a different approach that in theory is closer to a series hybrid, but still retains the ability for the ICE to power the wheels, via a clutch that engages or disengages the engine to the wheels at a single fixed gear ratio. The Honda Accord hybrid with this system last I checked was more efficient than the equivalent Camry hybrid with the Toyota system, but that may only be under a narrow set of speeds/driving circumstances under which the coupling of the engine to the wheels is the most efficient, and which Honda has no doubt calibrated to match the EPA test cycle, but it might be less efficient under different driving modes. But a pure series hybrid has no advantage beside marginally lower cost, and most carmakers do not find it to be the optimal solution.
The BMW i3 was designed from the ground up as a pure EV, with the ICE added on as an afterthought for North America because of range anxiety that didn’t really exist in Europe. It’s a very poor implementation - the gas tank is very small as noted, and in actual driving it is very noisy and unpleasant to run.
I should add that a substantial consideration in developing different types of hybrid drivetrains, such as the Nissan series hybrid but also the Honda and GM system too, is the need to circumvent patents and intellectual property controlled by a competitor. Of course they need to make it competitive generally, but just because a system exists doesn’t mean it is a technically better solution.
Most folks do NOT have to replace their batteries. I had > 150,000 miles (12 years)on my 2004 Prius, and I know someone with > 200,000 miles on their Insight.
(actual data below)
Even if you need new batteries – you typically don’t have to replace every single one.
a. A small engine/generator is cheaper than double the battery capacity
b. The engine generator/doesn’t suck, and fully fueled the car has similar range to normal gas cars.
c. Batteries age, so starting with 100+ miles of range makes the car last longer and covers almost all ordinary daily driving cases for Americans under just battery power.
d. Fancy planetary gears and a variable speed engine that has to provide torque, not just simple horsepower, cost the same are more than doubling the battery capacity.
And a couple other assumptions. These statements I have made are probably true, thus making my conclusion probably true.
The first is an argument for plug-ins in general not for series over other approaches that include some direct ICE motive power. Again, in general since a series plug in hybrid requires a bigger battery to provide needed peak power it is an argument against the pure series approach.
The second is hard to achieve given that small and cheap will have high overlap with sucks and inadequate for the task.
Third is confused. Batteries age but the degree of aging has so far been pretty slight. Cites have already been provided but here’s another: “The trend line actually suggests that the average battery pack could go another 150,000 miles (200,000 miles total) before coming close to 90% capacity.” Certainly a plug-in hybrid does not need to start with 100 miles of range! And having that much weight and taking up that much space plus still having room for a full size gas tank and an ICE powerful enough to keep the battery charged enough to push all that weight around? Absurd.
I can also turn that argument around. Cars currently should last over 200K and a car running mostly off the electric motor will likely last even longer. Better perhaps to right-size the battery to your usual daily needs accepting a few more gallons of gas used a year on the assumption that at maybe 150K or so the battery will lose enough range that it needs to be replaced? Okay reality as noted is that likely the whole thing won’t have to be but assume it will for the discussion. My C-Max Energi battery, enough for most of my regular commute days (not enough for a day like today with me driving close to 100 miles, even with my having some chances to partly add to the charge), is only 7.6 kWh. If I do need to completely replace the battery it is a lot less money, using your current figures it’s under $1400 for another 150K miles and the engine really should last. Better to replace it once than carry around one many times bigger and heavier than I need
The fourth point is also clearly not the case. The design is less “fancy” than elegant; a Prius costs less the Tesla 3 or Bolt will cost, less even than the Leaf.
The statements you have made are not true and the conclusion is incorrect.
I can’t speak for what e.g. Tesla does, but most hybrids/PHEVs on the market treat their traction batteries very very gently. E.g. limiting how fast current is drawn from them and pushed into them, and not charging them more than 70% nor discharging them below 30%. AFAICT the batteries in Toyota and Ford hybrids have been lasting an exceptionally long time.
My issue with this type of car (including my own) is that it basically appeals to nobody, as opposed to your assumption that it should appeal to everybody.
People who are happy with a regular hybrid’s 40+ mpg surely have little interest in paying several thousand more for a large battery. People who want to get off ICE cars - either for performance or environmental reasons - want big batteries, not a smaller engine.
At best, the Volt, i3, and similar cars are a stepping stone to EVs with larger batteries. Folks who want to reduce gas use (but still may need longer ranges) are probably happy with the 20 mile electric range of a growing number of offerings.
I just don’t think there’s anyone who wants a 100 mile EV with an ICE backup. What specific technology is involved doesn’t matter. People don’t want Old Bay flavored soda whether it comes in a can, bottle, or squeeze pack.
ISTM the OP’s central objection amounts to “Transmissions are heavy & last Century. Leave them out and everything about the car will improve.”
Transmissions are one of the best-solved problems of modern automotive engineering. Extreme reliability, light weight, low losses, etc.
Removing a highly optimized component and replacing it with a larger quantity of a bleeding edge almost experimental component is probably not a change in the direction of greater cost effectivity.
Plus, as **Ravenman **just said so well, the people who want to drive an EV don’t want a sustainer ICE chugging in their trunk. jz78817, the actual automotive engineer in our crowd, hit it pretty well: In a desperately competitive industry that’s actively seeking the Next Big Thing in EVs, if series hybrids was the right answer for 2017 markets and 2017 tech we’d see them everywhere. The fact we don’t says something important. Might that change as the tech and the markets evolve? Sure. But it might not.
Last point: The US market is huge. But it’s also anomalous compared to the rest of the world. What works elsewhere doesn’t necessarily work here. For reasons both practical and emotional. Series ICE-EVs may make sense someplace else years or decades before they make sense in niches in the US. And may never make sense in the US outside those niches.
Sorry to double-post. Here’s a different observation on the larger question of EV acceptance of all flavors.
I live in greater Miami. Which is a mix of low density suburban sprawl inland, and high density high rise condos near the beach. Which is sort for a metaphor for a lot of the US, where on one hand we have dense cities and inner-ring older suburbs and on the other hand we have non-dense late model suburbia and ruralia.
The only real difference between Miami and elsewhere is the layout: one dense edge here vs. the more typical concentric circles of increasing density inwards.
I live in the high density part of the mix. I’d like to get an EV of some flavor. I could easily see getting a pure plug-in for one of my household’s two cars. My daily range needs are low, with 10 miles being about average and 20 is plenty.
But …
A key feature of the high density part of our megalopolis is that almost nobody has plug-in facilities. All the big buildings are communal condos or commercial apartments. Neither of which are going to be retrofitted with chargers until there’s overwhelming (>75% residents?) demand to do so. And until there’s a single standard type of charger that can accept all types of cars.
Conversely, out in the sprawl where people need long ranges, they all have individual houses with individual garages that can have individually installed charging stations.
So: the practical dynamic here for most people is that EITHER
A) your daily life can use a current-tech EV but you can’t plug it in at home.
OR
B) your daily life can’t use a current-tech EV but you could easily plug it in at home.
The same situation would obtain in the older, denser areas of e.g. Chicago and most other US cities. It’s certainly not limited to just around here.
ISTM this conundrum is the central obstacle to widespread pure EV adoption by the non-trivial segment of the population whose daily travels would fit one. The car fleet turns over every 15 to 20 years. The “fleet” of residential buildings, especially the dense ones, turns over every 100 years or so. That’s going to be a big millstone around the EV industry’s neck.
Vehicular autonomy does solve all that in theory. It also makes the series hybrid make sense.
That’s because obviously, if you don’t own the vehicle, it just ubers up and picks you up when you summon it, it can go to a place to park with a charger when people aren’t using it. The owner will want to lower costs - which means either they would want to pay as little per mile as possible (so running on battery is cheaper), but they also don’t want it to run out of juice on a long, revenue generating trip, or if the bays in the robotic charging stations are all full. So the gasoline engine in the back that starts when needed.
If you could keep the way of the APU down to something small - 300 lbs or less, including the fuel - you wouldn’t affect the EV range by very much. If the whole vehicle is 4000 lbs (batteries are heavy) - and half the frictional losses are air friction -
The reason I don’t like transmissions is that :
a. It’s a very complex and expensive component, adding several thousand dollars to the cost
b. The vehicle already has to have a charger. Connecting the varying AC voltage from the trunk engine is a simple matter of connecting the cables and tuning the trunk engine’s alternator to be well matched to the design of the charger’s electronics. (TLDR, the charger is, among other things, a switching power supply that can take a range of input voltages, and you just make the trunk engine’s output fit within that range)
c. You get more efficiency running an engine at wide open throttle at a constant speed, and then you tune the design for that. This allows the trunk engine to be very light but high power, and simpler as it doesn’t need to provide torque.
True. DesertRoomie was Ass Mgr at a corporate gas station/convenience store for a while some years ago. Somebody poked a hole in the pipeline from Texas and gas prices shot up from about $2.20 to $4.70 a gallon overnight. People were (understandably) upset, but at the time, her station was paying $5.00 per gallon, plus delivery, and was making money only on the cigarettes and jerky. That’s why when a short-term crisis forces prices up, when it’s over the prices sort of drift back down; they’re trying to make up for the short fall.
I feel like people are arguing past each other here because there is more than one argument being made.
A Chevy Volt (there are other similar cars) already does everything your hypothetical series hybrid does, in exactly the manner you suggest - the car primarily runs on battery power only, with the ICE charging the battery when needed. So there, your dream car has existed since 2009. Now the Volt also has the ability to drive the wheels using the ICE directly, through its’ planetary gearset, but this ability doesn’t add any cost or weight worth discussing to the car, and it adds a large amount to the car’s efficiency, there’s no reason why the existence of this ability should offend you. There are cars that do run exactly the way you suggest, i.e. the Nissan I posted above, and where I also explain why it’s probably at best a very niche product.
Your arguments about the ICE in a series hybrid being optimized for power and therefore more efficient is already a solved problem in the vast majority current hybrids - the electric motors provide all the low speed torque needed and the ICE only provides optimized power. The engine in the Prius and the majority of hybrids operate on the Atkinson cycle, where they trade both torque and power for efficiency, precisely because the EV drivetrain is there to fill the gap. The Prius and most hybrids are actually not even driveable at all unless both the ICE and EV drivetrains are working properly.
There seems to be a second argument that is being made about why cars like the Volt were not particularly successful compared to hybrids like the Prius, and that’s because A) the use case for the Volt drive train actually doesn’t appeal to as many people as you might think. Basically it only really works if you have a commute that can be done without charging, or a work location with charging, otherwise the weight of both the battery and the ICe in the Volt made it a rather inefficient and unpleasant(relatively) to drive vehicle, and more importantly B) to achieve a useful EV range, the amount of batteries needed made the Volt a $40k car vs a Prius which was a $23k car. The Volt was basically never going to pay for itself. Toyota had all the necessary technology to make a Volt long before GM did, they didn’t do it precisely because the economics didn’t really work. GM was under political pressure after 2008 to do something as a political gesture to Obama’s green agenda, even if it didn’t make any business sense, and the Volt was one such thing.
That would appeal to me, actually. I own a 2012 Volt and get about 35 miles of pure electric range on average. My office is 25 miles from my house so the round trip isn’t completely covered by electric power. However, my office lets me charge at work via a long extension cord and I can recharge the 25 miles I traveled in about six hours, so typically I can cover my daily 50 miles on pure electricity. Outside of work I have other obligations I need to travel to/from that can add an additional 40 miles. So yes, a Volt with 100 miles of range would definitely be something I would be interested in.
I always wondered why there weren’t more pure-electric cars with towable generators.
You could have the same 100 mile daily-driver range, but even less weight because you don’t have to haul the engine or fuel around except when you’re going on a trip. And you could put some extra storage capacity in the trailer, because the time you need to carry more stuff is when you’re going a long distance.