If an international agreement to control tanker fuel quality and use were made..then the prius and leaf may be Carbon load better than any 30+ mpg North American mad car.
We had the Prius Plug-In Hybrid for a week of testing at the Design News sister site Automotive Designline. Click herefor our report on living with a plug-in.
Actually it is not a rare occaision for me to need more than 12 miles a day but the concept of this PHV seems very good to me. Most days I commute 12 miles round trip. Some days I add a few other miles to go to lunch. Sometimes there are errands in the evening. Being able to recharge before evening errands, which tend to be short trips, might keep me in all electric mode most of the time. But every few days, and certainly every weekend I have trips of 50-200 miles where a Volt or a Leaf would not do the job and I'd a second vehicle around just for that. With the gas backup in the hybrid, I would be able to manage with just one car. EXCEPT, during the summer on weekends, I end up pulling a boat about 50% of the time. Needing a tow vehicle sometimes, you either need to bite the bullet and put up with its poor mileage all the time, or bite another bullet and maintain, store, and insure multiple vehicles. Right now the savings in fuel are not enough to justify multiple vehicles, close, but not quite. At $10/gallon, I may give up the boat and SUV.
Alex: yes, in terms of what's available right now, it's a two-horse race. As Beth points out, the Prius' existing customer base, combined with a big price difference between it and the Volt, probably makes it the favorite. In the end, I believe it may also draw customers away from the Leaf. The fact that it can be plugged in is important to potential Leaf customers and others who watch their carbon footprint. Those buyers could use the vehicle in all-electric mode most of the time, then use the gasoline range extension capability on those rare occasions when they need to drive farther. The Leaf doesn't offer them that option.
This strategy seems like it could really take root with consumers, especially if the price is right and given Toyota's huge success with the original Prius. I think beyond the people who are totally committed environmentists, this slow-stepping into a pure EV vehicle might be the right strategy to ease people into alternative vehicles without having to make a total transformation all at once.
So is the plug-in electric market right now kinda the automotive version of the Republican Presidential race? That is, basically a two-candidate/horse/PEV battle, in this case the Nissan Leaf versus this new Prius? If so, who do you think will come out on top?
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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