Australian Politics Forum - hybrid vehicles

freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 53324 At my desk.	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #30 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 11:10am That's equivalent to 75c per litre of petrol. Where did you get that from? It's a lot higher than I would have expected.
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muso

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #31 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 1:55pm

freediver wrote on Jun 24^th, 2008 at 11:10am:

That's equivalent to 75c per litre of petrol.

Where did you get that from? It's a lot higher than I would have expected.

I worked it out in my head. Let's do it carefully this time:

The Energy value of petrol is 34 MJ/L. Multiply by 0.278 and you get 9.4 kWh/L (Units/L). With petrol at $1.60 per litre, that's 17 cents /Unit.

Discounted Electricity is 9c per unit = 9/17 = 53c per litre.

Hmmm, I might have used a slightly higher energy value on the previous calculation. (Or I might have made a mistake). Is that more like what you expected?

A bit of Googling shows that the AIP figures for energy content are 31.9 MJ/L for petrol and 21.2 MJ/L for ethanol. I guess we should be using those figures.

That gives us 17.9c/ Unit for Petrol at $1.60 per litre and 18.2c/Unit for E10 at $1.57 per litre (wow!)

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« Last Edit: Jun 24^th, 2008 at 2:00pm by muso »

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 53324 At my desk.	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #32 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 2:37pm That sounds more reasonable.
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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #33 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 3:28pm I forgot to multiply through by the price of petrol: 9/17.9 x 1.60 = 80 cents/litre That's closer to what I got before. I was right the first time round. I think I used $1.53/L before, which is what I filled up for on the weekend.
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 53324 At my desk.	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #34 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 3:31pm Let us know when you figure it out. To get a meaningful result you would have to take efficiency (ie the various losses) into account as well. You will probably have to go by measured performance rather than trying to equate energy sources.
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muso

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #35 - Jun 24^th, 2008 at 3:35pm

I thought about efficiency, but it all becomes too hard when you consider the use of electricity. The efficiency of appliances varies enormously. Incandescent light globes are about 10% efficient in terms of light output.

Keeping with Units is close enough for me.

This is a good exercise though. I must develop a spreadsheet for it.

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Acid Monkey

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #36 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 12:55am

From today's The Age newspaper

"HYBRID CARS COST $50 MORE TO RUN"

Extract:
Fuel for thought for potential hybrid car buyers is the revelation that the Toyota Prius, which uses an electric motor to help the petrol engine, costs about $50 a week more to run than its closest petrol equivalent, a Toyota Corolla small hatch, and up to $5 a week more than a mid-sized four-cylinder Toyota Camry.

The Honda Civic hybrid costs about $23 a week more to run than its four-cylinder petrol equivalent, the survey shows.

That should change when the hybrid Camry stars rolling off Toyota's local assembly line in two years, Mr Case says.

The Camry hybrid is expected to cost about $4000 more than its petrol equivalent, compared with the Civic and Prius, which cost about $10,000 more than their petrol equivalents and add substantially to ownership costs.

(Source: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/hybrid-cars-cost-50-more-to-run-20080624-2w65.html)

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muso

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #37 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:45am

Acid Monkey wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 12:55am:

From today's The Age newspaper

"HYBRID CARS COST $50 MORE TO RUN"

Utter horsefeathers. Don't believe a word of it. "costs about $50 a week more to run than its closest petrol equivalent, a Toyota Corolla small hatch" ????

Guess what ? The Corolla is a much smaller and less powerful car than the Prius. The cost of servicing a Prius is the lowest of any car I've ever owned. Apart from anything else, the reliability is far superior to anything else I've driven. I've seen the oil that comes out of an oil change for a Prius. It comes out clean, because the engine is built to tighter specifications. The wear is minimal. Even the brake disks never wear out, because most of the braking is inductive. I spoke to a Prius mechanic recently who told me that he had never replaced the brake disks on any Prius yet, and he had never replaced the rechargeable batteries either.

The fuel consumption of a Prius is around 4.4 L/100km compared to about 7 for a Camry. Also, read what I said earlier about resale value.

What has happened to reporting standards these days? I always take anything I read in the mainstream media with a grain of salt .

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« Last Edit: Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:51am by muso »

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Acid Monkey Gold Member Offline Goth Father Posts: 1064 EU Gender:	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #38 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:09pm muso wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:45am: What has happened to reporting standards these days? I always take anything I read in the mainstream media with a grain of salt . I'm of the same view.
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Acid Monkey Gold Member Offline Goth Father Posts: 1064 EU Gender:	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #39 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:10pm muso wrote on Jun 24^th, 2008 at 1:55pm: The Energy value of petrol is 34 MJ/L. Multiply by 0.278 and you get 9.4 kWh/L (Units/L). With petrol at $1.60 per litre, that's 17 cents /Unit. .... What does the figure 0.278 represent?
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Neferti Gold Member Offline Posts: 7965 Canberra Gender:	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #40 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:16pm It's very basic. You have a car, it needs fuel to run it. Nobody gives a fig on how much YOU spend a week getting to work. It will always be cheaper to stay at home and WORK than driving to the Orifice, should you be able to do that. Or catch a bus or train.
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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 53324 At my desk.	Re: hybrid vehicles Reply #41 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:46pm The best option is to live close to work and ride your bike. That way you get some much needed exercise as well. Assuming you are a desk jockey of course.
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RecFisher

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #42 - Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:22pm

muso wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:45am:

Utter horsefeathers. Don't believe a word of it. "costs about $50 a week more to run than its closest petrol equivalent, a Toyota Corolla small hatch" ????

Maybe they are including depreciation and other "whole of life" costs in their calculation. There's a lot more to the cost of running a car than the fuel it uses.

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muso

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #43 - Jun 26^th, 2008 at 12:06pm

Acid Monkey wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 6:10pm:

muso wrote on Jun 24^th, 2008 at 1:55pm:

The Energy value of petrol is 34 MJ/L. Multiply by 0.278 and you get 9.4 kWh/L (Units/L). With petrol at $1.60 per litre, that's 17 cents /Unit.

....

What does the figure 0.278 represent?

Energy unit conversion from MJ to kWh.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/energy.htm

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muso

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Re: hybrid vehicles
Reply #44 - Jun 26^th, 2008 at 12:07pm

RecFisher wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:22pm:

muso wrote on Jun 25^th, 2008 at 9:45am:

Utter horsefeathers. Don't believe a word of it. "costs about $50 a week more to run than its closest petrol equivalent, a Toyota Corolla small hatch" ????

Maybe they are including depreciation and other "whole of life" costs in their calculation. There's a lot more to the cost of running a car than the fuel it uses.

Maybe they are buying it on the highest available interest rate and trashing it after 1 year without any insurance. Read my previous posts on resale value.

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