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I came up with an entry at the HybridFest 2007 mpg challenge that could be sort of like the alleged cheating of Greg Landis in the Tour de France - a plug-in hybrid. It's just a matter of time before it happens. The contestant will probably finish the course with zero gas consumption. The question is what to do when they enter - set up a new category?

There is a conversion for 1 gallon of gas to KW. If youknow how much electricity they burned you can convet it back to equivilant gallons.

This chart (http://www.soypower.net/EnergyEquivalents.asp) declares that 33.53 kw/h is roughly equal to a gallon of gasoline, at least going by BTU.

Hi All:

___Only have a few minutes but if the Hymotion PHEV-30 based Prius w/ a topped off pack were to have taken the course, it would have consumed 0 gallons of fuel. From the calc’s we were doing back in Pittsburgh last year, you can get a Prius down in the 100 - 125 W/mile range pretty quickly and doing the math, the FE and distance numbers get really stupid really quick.

___I really wish the Hymotion owner would have taken the course as the numbers alone would have knocked all of our socks off let alone the publicity for Hymotion itself! Take a look at the latest 2 news items posted this morning and you can see the un-informed journalist’s skepticism begin to creep into their stories. There are the Toyota/Ford induced EV only speed limits to protect and/or help MG1 perform its function but the next gens MG1 constraints will be removed and the PHEV will become not only a concept for the manufacturers but a full blown PHEV in kit form that will work to the degree you want to spend the $’s or add the pack modules. I personally cannot wait!

___In any case, I read some of Mike D’s posts around the net and have mixed feelings as to his take on the FE challenge itself. This after all was a FE challenge, not a stroll around Wisconsin’s beautiful countryside to burn off an hour of our time. I do hope the results provide a method in which the average consumer takes notice, begins their own search, then seeks out the same FE techniques that most any member of CleanMPG can reply to with either a few quick links or even better, teach the new user what any of us can do when pushed from memory. It is the right start imho …

___Good Luck

___Wayne

This could get real complicated real quick. I think an out and back course with hills, stops, city and highway of not less then a 100 miles total and probably not more then 200 miles would be a good indicator of a car and drivers "REAL" capabilitys. I like the out and back on the exact same road because if you climb a hill on the way out you, you decend the same hill on the way back, so it evens out the road. I like the longer distances because it forces the car to regen and allows a good bit of reality to set in. If you are going to be fair about it, at the end of the MPG challange, the battery should be at the same place it was when you started out.
I think you are going to have to be open to more categories. Right now most of what we see is gasoline/electric hybrids but as you mentioned. What about the plug ins, what about diesel/electric, pedal/electric hybrid ( www.twike.co.uk/ ) E85/electric, all electric? I know the title of this event is MP[G]=(GALLON) challenge, but do you want to limit it to only liquid petroleum and self generated electric hybrids, or do you want to open it up to anyone and anything that reduces the use of petroleum fuel . This is were the complication comes in. How do you measure the energy used to move you from here to there? If it's not liquid, its complicated. Even if it is liquid it's hard. We just saw the limitations of the car computers and we all know that you have to adjust a scan guage to make it right, so is it really right? A suggestion would be to have the MPG challenge committee measure off the distance of the course and use only that figure and use only one pump at one station filled by the same person before and after the run.
I didn't make it to HF2006 but wish I could have. I know what a huge job it is to put on an event like this. Years ago my wife and I and others started the Southwest Unique Little Car Shows. It is a show for older high MPG mini and micro cars like Isettas, Messerschmitts etc. It has grown to be the longest running mini car event in the USA. One thing that we do that you might consider is moving the event around the country. Every year it is in a different city and put on by a different group. That helps to keep the orginizers from getting burnt out. Even though there are thousands of people that go to the event, there are only about 20 or so people that do all the work. Different locations also help keep the event from getting stale. If you want to do an event in AZ let me know, I'd be happy to help....Louis

Despite some minor disputes along the way, the Tour de Sol people
have put a lot of work into calculating all forms of energy put
into a given vehicle and converting to gallons-of-gas equivalent.
So Hymotion and EDrive would probably bring in entirely normal
numbers -- well, *IF* they had actually tried this year.
.
But yes, it *is* complicated, and different divisions/classes
need to be split off to meet the rapidly diverging type of
vehicles we're seeing today. *I* don't even know the full "formula"
TdS was using to deal with this; Brian Hardegen has it in a
spreadsheet somewhere but he hasn't made it public.
.
This is one thing that pisses me off about these plug-in claims
of "120 mpg!" and all. It's not free energy; it just happens to
cost a little less coming out of a wall than a pump, and they
NEVER state it that way.
.
I think better standardization of measurements is needed for any
of these competitions, other than the mild "fun runs" to see who
can push numbers in whatever they're driving. For the more
serious stuff, something akin to a non-tamperable scangauge is
needed -- in fact, Jim Dunn was considering buying a whole slew
of those "carchip" logging devices for all the contestants whose
vehicles spoke OBD2, but that didn't come about. Tour de Sol
is one of those events where people at least *pretend* to be
genuinely curious, down to the watt-hour and ounce of fuel, how
much a vehicle is consuming to get from here to there.
.
In the meantime, minor stuff like force-charging your Prius before
a run isn't being counted. I think for a 20 mile run it makes
a definite difference, especially if you come back in on your
last legs of EV-only mode too. For 100 miles, it would probably
be down in the noise. I just had a discussion with Web Bingham
about this this morning -- he thought the force-charge was a
mild form of cheating, but then I pointed out that if Prius drivers
just come up to the line as they are then you're going to see
SOCs all over the place and someone's going to have a handicap.
So telling ALL of them to force-charge not only teaches them that
they can do that, it brings them all into a consistent state
with each other before they set off. And it's great for publicity
because over a 20-mile run they probably *do* come back with
nice fatter numbers which then go up on the results board.
.
We'll see how I do tomororw morning. It's not 99.9 territory,
too many little twisties, intersections, towns, and a crawl up
a pretty hairy hill on Route 1...
.
_H*

Good luck tomorrow hobbit. Come up with some good numbers!

Please post back here to let us know how the event was.

Hi Sno779:

___An Insight’s capability over 100 miles is the same as it is over 20 or even 2. If you can pull the gloves off, the numbers achieved are going to be nuts. Every challenge I have been a part of, my own Tour of Illinois w/ the Insight, Prius Marathon Attempt, Tour Del Sol 2006, and Hybridfest 2006 have had round trip segments so any back and forth comes through the same elevation changes as they start and finish at the same point. It does not really matter if we take the same road out and back or not, the RT covers the elevations the same for the most part.

___About regen, SoC, and distance. Nothing is forced to regen and I have never relied on it for any kind of FE increase in any hybrid I have had the opportunity to push. An Insight’s pack isn’t worth but 1/2 of a mile over a 20-mile challenge anyway let alone a 200 mile one and this is through assist only. If I had my wish, Honda could remove IMA in its entirety as its probably 250 + #’s of weight not need for anything other then a wonderful IMA start. TDS tied our hands behind our back on their 200 mile course. 2 people in the car, 44 #’s maximum in the RE92’s, no WAI, no FAS’ing, no P&G’ing for the IMA guys, lots of mountainous driving, very high speed highway and then we were under a time constraint as well. When I go back and forth to work, I don’t constrain myself to anything but road laws and leaving early enough to get to work with plenty of time to spare. I might even push on the road laws a bit but I most certainly am not constraining my route or techniques to some course or rules so as to keep the averages close to somebody else’s actual. I am also certainly not holding the car back because of some rule committee saying I do not want anyone to achieve 40% greater then the EPA combined so we do not have to pass out a cash reward let alone see 250% + of EPA combined as was achieved at Hybridfest. If Dan K. or I had a daily commute running along ½ or all of Linda’s HF2006 route, you can darn well bet we would find an alternate around the higher speed highway section as well as a particular nasty stop sign in the trough of a long downhill section. It is in our nature to improve our routes and or techniques to and from work and that improvement means lower fuel consumption over whatever route we would decide to take, lower emissions, and higher FE! NASCAR is traveling almost 4X’s the legal limits of the Interstates surrounding Chicago and using leaded fuel that has not been available to the general public for quite some time yet there rules are on slight aerodynamics, ICE size, and Carburetor inlet sizes. The big number that stands out is 4X’s the legal limit. Are FE challenge’s supposed to show what is achievable or are they supposed to tie our hands so that we receive less FE then what we normally do driving to and from work day in and day out?

___Hobbit, Hymotion’s PHEV-30 was sitting in the lot ready to go! I would have loved to see it wipe the floor with each and every one of us. I as well as just about anyone here would have loved to have been the driver of it too ;) Using < 2.5 kWh to cover the 20 miles at $0.08/kWh comes out to less then a Quarter which is about what I used in the Insight to cover the same 20 miles. The only difference is that its emissions were lower (well to wheel even on coal) and I know the Hymotion PHEV-30 driver would not have had to do much other then maintain less then 34 mph or whatever the EV mode switch mod constraint is nowadays vs. the way I was swinging Billy’s Insight to make it achieve what it did? You are entirely correct that over 100 miles, a force charged Prius adds practically nothing. The Prius Marathon Attempt’s highest segment was achieved from a SoC in the pink and came back home solidly in the green over ~ 90 miles. In the case of Force Charging a Prius II, we might be talking 1 - 1.5 miles if the driver came back at just 3 bars or in the pink from max on departure, right? I would hate to go up against a Prius driver over just 2 miles as that might be a bit to overcome but 20 miles? I have no problem with that in the least.

___I loved the fact Eric, Linda, Bill, Bradlee, Justin, and the rest allowed us to pull the gloves off given the way I drove that course last Saturday is the exact way I would drive it if my daily commute followed it to the letter. Just one more reason I was so pleased with the HF2006 team, Linda’s course, and Billy’s Insight doing what it did. That was as real world to me as I could have imagined other then not owning Billy’s Insight :(

___Hobbit, 99.9 is not out of the question anytime you can keep her under 40. Do all of us proud tomorrow as I know you will do your level best and most here including myself will be cheering for you from afar.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hobbit,

I hope Saturday will be a good day for you.

I echo Wayne's sentiment that you can go past 99.9mpg.

Really regret not posting this earlier - please get some pictures. Hope they have a good crowd turnout.

Slightly off topic, a newbie at GH is looking at getting a Prius, then making a plug-in conversion. Told him about Hymotion, then he replied their website does not mention the cost is $9,500. Don't know if he can get it much cheaper, given this is a very new and limited market.

Ask him why he wants to do it. If it is to save money it probably isn't going to do that just yet.

Hey would have to use no gas for quite a while to break even.

From a financial standpoint - a plug-in kit is not worth it yet. I hope in 2-3 years the price goes down. If Toyota has them as an option on their cars, it will.