Everyday you read about biofuels, biodiesel, and ethanol. And in the same paragraph you see strange acronyms like HEV, PHEV, FFV, EV, and FCV. What is all the buzz about and how does it affect us RVers?
All the buzz is about decreasing out gluttony for increasingly expensive oil, avoiding the political uncertainty of dependence on foreign oil, and cleaning up our air. There are millions of R & D and Venture Capital $$ now being plowed into developing substitutes for vehicles operated by petroleum-based fuels, and mega fortunes will be made for whatever becomes the next big thing–whether it be corn or switchgrass-based ethanol, super batteries, or cooking oil, palm trees, or whipped cream.
Let’s look first at vehicle types. HEVs, or hybrid electric vehicles, have a gasoline engine and electric motor and most of us understand the concept behind the HEV standard bearer, the Toyota Prius. EVs are purely electric vehicles, with no liquid fuel, just batteries, and have the shortest running distance before having to be recharged by plugging into an electrical outlet. A PHEV, or Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, is much like a combination of the HEV and EV, you can run on batteries or the gas engine, then plug it in at night to recharge the batteries. FFVs are flex fuel vehicles that can run their gasoline engine on a variety of fuels, including E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. FCVs are hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that are still a few years off, mainly because of the need for an infrastructure of fueling stations. All rest are being sold now, as well as diesel vehicles that can fun on various types of oil, not just petroleum-based diesel.
What these vehicles represent is the future of transportation, not just in America, but the world.
The 100 year-old internal combustion engine will be but a museum piece when your grandkids have kids. This is what the new vehicle types offer: better fuel mileage, a vast reduction in–and eventual elimination of–petroleum fuels, fewer to no exhaust pollutants, lower (much) greenhouse gas emissions, and cleaner air. And soon you will find them being towed behind motorhomes. And already you are seeing HEVs in truck sizes that can tow trailers and fivers.
The next big thing will be a breakthrough improvement in batteries, even better than the lithium batteries (that are actually bunches of laptop computer batteries) used in the Tesla electric sports car (that’s the car in the picture above), which is all electric, generates 240 horsepower, does 0 – 60 mph in 4 seconds (yes, you saw that right–4 seconds), tops out at 130 mph, and costs a couple of pennies a mile to operate (electric plug-in to recharge batteries), and gets somewhere close to 200 miles between charges. Improved batteries will bring EVs even closer into the range of miles between recharges that we are used to with regular automobiles. So . . . how long does it take to recoup the $92,000 Tesla price and can I tow it? Yippee for electric vehicles. I hope they get here before my electricity runs out.
Next Saturday: A look at vehicle fuels, from batteries to switchgrass.