Volkswagen's Plug-In Hybrid Due In 2010, Too

ClimateProgress:

The German government announced it will be helping to fund VW's plug-in hybrid development program with 15 million euros. VM aims for a 2010 vehicle with 31 miles of all-electric range. VW head Martin Winterkorn said that while petrol or diesel powered cars would be around for some time to come, "the future belongs to all-electric cars." According to autoblog, the Twin Drive uses a 82-hp electric motor and a 2.0L turbodiesel producing 122 hp.

VW recently signed a deal with Sanyo, which is aggressively ramping up automotive lithium-ion battery production. It expects the hybrid and plug-in hybrid markets to be 4 to 4.5 million vehicles by 2015, and aims to capture 40% of this market. Sanyo uses a mixture of Ni, Mn, and Co for the positive electrode, thereby producing a safer battery that exhibits power retention ratio of 80% or higher after 10,000 cycles (10-15 years in a hybrid vehicle).

Read the whole story: ClimateProgress

Comments

[DrPaulProteus]

Hope these are cheap. We'll all be broke by 2010 from buying gas and paying for the higher cost of food that's coming with it.

[KillTheMessenger]

Let's say you have a car with 20mpg. Let say you put four passengers in there. And suddenly you have a car that is equivalent to four cars with 80mpg each.

What separates us from a solution is our mindset, it's not the lack of solutions.

[SCG]

Bravo!

[kingcityguru]

Build 100 new nuclear reactors to get the US to France's level of 80% of its electricity from nuclear and then mandate all electric plug in cars like GMs EV1.
Recycle the nuclear waste as Israel does and you have less CO2, less air pollution, and less need for oil from the coasts or the mid East.
Problem solved.

[KillTheMessenger]

Where are all the plugins coming from? Have you seen any out there?

And where do we put all that waste? Oh, my. France recycles fuel rods, which is a no-no in the US because of proliferation concerns. We have to overcome a lot of political resistance before that is going to happen.

This is not a "problem solved" scenario but a simple non-starter. At least for the foreseeable future. We need solutions NOW, not twenty years from now.

[research]

Nukes only 25 years of the worlds energy followed by 1 Million years of waste. Terrible idea.
Even the French say reprocessing is not worth it. Breeder reactor don't work.

At current growth rates, 100 nukes worth of WIND power will be installed world wide in just 6 years.

See my profile for details and links.

NanoSolar has the price of solar down to 4$ per average watt, going down 10 times as manufacturing ramps up. There is enough rooftop to power the world with solar as well.

[mamacat]

The U.S. already produces far more electricity from nuclear reactors than does France. The U.S. is the world leader in nuclear energy production, with 102 Mwe per year. France is #2, with 62 Mwe.

Of all the nuclear energy produced worldwide, about 27% is generated in the U.S., alone.

Since France has a much smaller population, they do not need to produce as much electricity as the U.S., and their use per person is less, so it was much easier for them to reach the figure of 80% nuclear.

Generally, studies citing the low cost of nuclear do not factor in the cost to the public of governmental subsidies to nuclear, and the cost of disposing of spent fuel. Not all of the fuel can be recycled, and the amount of waste per year is quite enormous, even without building more reactors. At this time, goethermal, wind and solar are competitive if the playing field is leveled, and they are far safer.

[mergina]

So who will put of the first car that runs on garbage? Japan? Germany? Certainly not this country with the grip oil has on it.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

They should call it the Bug Zapper.............

[KillTheMessenger]

A 122hp engine???? So non-electric efficiency will be around what, 35mpg? Sounds like two steps forward and one step back. $12/gallon gas in Europe will kill this baby for all commuters who don't need this kind of muscle car.

[MajorKong]

I would think a 2 liter turbodiesel would get better than 35 mpg. I think a Jetta TDI gets at least 41.

[KillTheMessenger]

Yes, but that's diesel which has a higher energy density. If we are talking gasoline equivalent (to compare to e.g. a Prius), it's 35mpg.