NAIAS 08: Ford Escape Hybrid Plug-In Concept

[nsap]

NAIAS 08: Ford Escape Hybrid Plug-In Concept
www.gminsidenews.com

Short Take: An exercise to show that Ford is actually working on plug-in hybrids as well.










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High-Resolution Escape Images

[paul8488]

I don't think the question is will GM be beat to offering a production plug-in hybrid, but by how many competitors will it be beat. Ford has the vehicle to put this technology in... GM is working on a whole new vehicle too. Toyota and Honda are certainly well along their way whether they talk about it or not. I'd love to see GM win this race... but Ford's clearly gunning for the goal too.

[nsap]

Originally Posted by paul8488

I don't think the question is will GM be beat to offering a production plug-in hybrid, but by how many competitors will it be beat. Ford has the vehicle to put this technology in... GM is working on a whole new vehicle too. Toyota and Honda are certainly well along their way whether they talk about it or not. I'd love to see GM win this race... but Ford's clearly gunning for the goal too.

GM will be showing the Vue Two-Mode Plug-In Monday at NAIAS.

[chakis24]

how come none of these pics work for me (the f-150 ones dont either)?

[paul8488]

Originally Posted by nsap

GM will be showing the Vue Two-Mode Plug-In Monday at NAIAS.

Ah well that's good to me! There will be huge marketing power behind having the first plug-in... as much as I think having it arrive int he form of the Volt would have huge impact... if that means it'll be after Ford or Toyota or Honda, I'd rather see them release it in an existing vehicle like the Vue or Equinox or Malibu.

[CamaroCrazy]

I could see a house will solar panels (the prices of which have come way down in recent years) generating enough electricity to repower your vehicle at night, so as not to place a burden on the nation's power grid. I really wonder about every home in America plugging their cars in overnight and how much additional juice that will require. Then the next problem would be getting the government to back off and let us build more power plants. And we know there will be fussing over the idea of more nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. Ergo, buy some solar panels. I know I would.

[jbernie]

Originally Posted by chakis24

how come none of these pics work for me (the f-150 ones dont either)?

ditto!

[BWAnaheim]

Originally Posted by CamaroCrazy

I could see a house will solar panels (the prices of which have come way down in recent years) generating enough electricity to repower your vehicle at night, so as not to place a burden on the nation's power grid. I really wonder about every home in America plugging their cars in overnight and how much additional juice that will require. Then the next problem would be getting the government to back off and let us build more power plants. And we know there will be fussing over the idea of more nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. Ergo, buy some solar panels. I know I would.

This may seem like a silly point, but solar panels would not work at night to recharge the car's batteries. The only way it could work as you described would be to have a battery array that stores energy harnessed from the solar panels during the day, then have the battery array transfer energy to the car at night. This also assumes that the battery array is not connected in parallel with the house wiring, as electrical draw from the home would also draw from this battery array.

I once had a quote done to install solar panels on the roof in sufficient quantity to power the home, and it was on the order of $30k. It would take quite a few tanks of gas to make up that initial cost, and that $30k did not even include UPS or storage batteries.

I am all for plug-in vehicles, as it is more efficient to generate energy on a large scale than it is to have small gasoline engines generate power. As long as the loss in transmission of power from the point of generation (really transformation from one form to another, but we will call it generation since the industry seems to) to the vehicle is not great, the overall energy consumption should decrease by making use of highly efficient sources of energy generation.

[camaro_freak]

Originally Posted by nsap

GM will be showing the Vue Two-Mode Plug-In Monday at NAIAS.

The Vue is already on the heavy side... adding all the two-mode technology probably won't help things any... hope they can keep the weight down.

[jkennedy293]

Originally Posted by CamaroCrazy

I really wonder about every home in America plugging their cars in overnight and how much additional juice that will require.

DOE says the nation's power grid can "comfortably" accept 1.5 million vehicles recharging overnight. Power companies actually produces a lot of excess power during the evening because they can't flip a switch and slow down the generators. Seems only reasonable to actually use this energy.

[jkennedy293]

Originally Posted by camaro_freak

The Vue is already on the heavy side... adding all the two-mode technology probably won't help things any... hope they can keep the weight down.

Right, because it had no effect on the Yukon/Tahoe/Escalade.

[jkennedy293]

Originally Posted by paul8488

Ah well that's good to me! There will be huge marketing power behind having the first plug-in... as much as I think having it arrive int he form of the Volt would have huge impact... if that means it'll be after Ford or Toyota or Honda, I'd rather see them release it in an existing vehicle like the Vue or Equinox or Malibu.

The Vue plug-in will be a 2009 model, which should beat everyone else to the market.

[Wolfman01]

Originally Posted by BWAnaheim

This may seem like a silly point, but solar panels would not work at night to recharge the car's batteries. The only way it could work as you described would be to have a battery array that stores energy harnessed from the solar panels during the day, then have the battery array transfer energy to the car at night. This also assumes that the battery array is not connected in parallel with the house wiring, as electrical draw from the home would also draw from this battery array.

I once had a quote done to install solar panels on the roof in sufficient quantity to power the home, and it was on the order of $30k. It would take quite a few tanks of gas to make up that initial cost, and that $30k did not even include UPS or storage batteries.

I am all for plug-in vehicles, as it is more efficient to generate energy on a large scale than it is to have small gasoline engines generate power. As long as the loss in transmission of power from the point of generation (really transformation from one form to another, but we will call it generation since the industry seems to) to the vehicle is not great, the overall energy consumption should decrease by making use of highly efficient sources of energy generation.

Don't count solar out yet. Nanosolar is now producing and shipping their industrial grade panels. The costs for these panels is only $.99 per watt. They have been quoted by some media outlets that their flexible panels when released, will be running somewhere in the neighborhood of only $.30 per watt.

A grid intertie system coupled with a Volt or other plug in hybrid would be a great combination. Even at the .99 per watt, the new panels completely blow away silicon wafer panels. Nanosolar has pre sold out their entire first year's production.

I impatiently await being able to buy a system from them for my home.

[A.J.]

It's nice to see that the New York Times didn't reveal everything about the NAIAS. It makes me wonder if we'll see the new Chevrolet Traverse there.

[blank disk]

^ LOL.

Where are the Escape pics though?