The one I drove for six days was a 2004 Toyota Prius that had been retrofitted with a lithium-ion battery pack and a charging outlet on the back bumper. Concord-based Hymotion did the retrofit, using batteries from Boston-area company A123 Systems, which is now Hymotion's parent company. It's the same battery technology being considered by General Motors for its Volt electric car, which is scheduled for commercial release in 2010, and a plug-in hybrid version of its Saturn Vue SUV.
Link: TheStar.com | Business | $3.83 to power hybrid plug-in for 6 days Pretty good article IMHO. Not as rosy eyed as some, and not as negative as others, but a pretty good balance of what PHEVs are and aren't good at. I want one! Rob
A123 is the company owned by an MIT professor. Read an article on their inexpensive lithium iron phosphate batteries in the Tech Review. That's when I decided to buy a Prius. A123 seems to have a head up on other battery companies. They dope the electrode with metal particles to greatly improve efficiency. A bit of a breakthough. A motorcyle run on one of these batteries went 0-60 mph in less than a second.
Killacycle, 7.824 @168 MPH KillaCycle - World’s Quickest Electric Motorcycle White Zombie, 772 Ft lb Street legal Datsun 510, 11.466 @ 114.08 mph Welcome to Plasma Boy Racing, home of White Zombie, the world's quickest street legal electric door slammer in the 1/4 mile drag. A123 does seem to make an impressive battery. Definitely gives some extra credibility to the Hymotion conversion, particularly since they are confident enough in them to offer a 3 yr warranty. Rob
Do you guys think the price of the mod will ever come down? I can't see it even being an option for me unless it got down to around 5k. Maybe I could finance it?
And how do the tires generate that sort of traction? They must have run it on a cog line, or used tires made of glue. Tom
The tread compound, when heated during burnout, becomes quite sticky. Like accelerating on flypaper, as it were.
7.82s for 1/4 mile.....holy cow! The high-torque electric motor really is the future of high performance and efficiency for vehicles.
Assuming constant acceleration, he'd have gone 44' in one second. By my reckoning (one thousand one...) he hadn't even reached the light stand which looked about 20'. If the acceleration is end loaded during the second that would be even more than 3G's. He'd have to tie his hands to the handle bars. Is this some theoretical calculation based on torque?
This thread is a bit misleading, I think. It makes it sound like the PHEV conversion that costs 10K allows you to drive for almost a week for $3.83, but the real cost is that electricity, half of it generated in the US from coal, plus fuel at anywhere from 4 to almost 8 liters per hundred K. I have averaged 4.0 l/100k for my first year of driving a non-plug-in Prius. Why would I lay down the 10 large for the privilege of pulling electricity from the grid for no benefit? No wonder the thread went off into the discussion about the cool bike.
