THE HYBRID TECHNOLOGY

(MINOR REPORT-1)

AMIT DHIMAN 2K9/ME/217

INTRODUCTION
The world started down a new road in 1997 when the first modern hybrid electric car, the Toyota Prius, was sold in Japan. Two years later, the United States saw its first sale of a hybrid, the Honda Insight. These two vehicles, followed by the Honda Civic Hybrid, marked a radical change in the type of car being offered to the public: vehicles that bring some of the benefits of battery electric vehicles into the conventional gasoline powered cars and trucks we have been using for more than 100 years. In the coming years, hybrids can play a significant role in addressing several of the major problems faced by the United States and the world today: climate change, air pollution, and oil dependence. Whether this new technology delivers on its promise hinges on the choices automakers, consumers, and policymakers make over the coming years. Poor choices could result in hybrids that fall short even of what conventional technology could deliver on fuel economy, emissions, or both. If they are designed well, these hybrids can equal or better the utility, comfort, performance, and safety weve come to expect, while saving us thousands of dollars at the gas pump.

DEFINING HYBRIDS
Hybrids have been defined in a variety of ways, few of which help in determining whether a particular model realizes the technologys potential. The checklist in Table ES-1 (see page 2) provides a reasonable method for evaluating which cars and trucks are hybrids and for differentiating among them based on their technologies. In general, hybrids with more checkmarks do more to provide energy security and less to harm the environment than those with fewer checkmarks. However, the most effective way to gauge a hybrids energy security and environmental performance will be to evaluate their fuel economy and emissions performance directly on the road.1 On this checklist, the Insight and the Civic Hybrid each receives three checkmarks and are thus considered mild hybrids. With four checkmarks, the Prius is a full hybrid. A vehicle that receives five checkmarks is a plug-in hybrid, none of which are yet available in the United States. If a vehicle has only one checkmark it is actually just a conventional vehicle. Two checkmarks qualifies a vehicle as a muscle-hybrid, a vehicle that uses hybrid technology to increase power and performance instead of significantly increasing fuel. economy leading to an expensive vehicle with very low cost-effectiveness. As more vehicles enter the market, this checklist can be used to evaluate the hybrids automakers offer.

The Technologys Potential

The Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Prius are good examples of the current potential of hybrids but theyre just start. More technology is ready to be put to work and not only for compact cars. This study provides a broader picture of how hybrid technology could transform the whole passenger fleet both within this decade and into the next. A fleet of cars and trucks that takes full advantage of hybrid and other advanced technologies could reach an average fuel economy of 60 mpg, as Figure ES-1 shows. Even conventional technologies could boost the passenger vehicle fleet average up to 40 mpg. And all the hybrids examined in this study can meet todays most stringent standards for tailpipe emissions2 (excluding the zero-emissions standard). The studys key findings are outlined below. A fleet of passenger cars and trucks using conventional technology has the potential to reach a fleet average of 40 mpg. The average vehicle in this fleet will cost about $1,700 more in the showroom, but will save consumers $3,800 at the gas pump over the vehicles 15-year life for a net savings of $2,100. A fleet of mild hybrids can reach nearly 50 mpg, with a retail price increase of about $2,900 by using advanced technologies available to automakers within this decade.3 Lifetime gasoline savings will amount to $4,700, producing a net savings of $1,500 for the average driver when the cost of battery replacement mis included.4 Mild hybrids that use more moderate technology or smaller motor/battery systems will achieve lower fuel economy and will be less cost effective.

Does this vehicle...

Conventional Vehicle

Muscle Hybrid

Mild Hybrid

Full Hybrid

Plug-in Hybrid

Shut off the engine at stoplights and in stop-and-go traffic

Use regenerative braking and operate above 60 volts Use a smaller engine than a conventional version with the same performance

Drive using only electric power Recharge batteries from the wall plug and have a range of at least 20 miles on electricity alone

Full Hybrid
Today's Average

Mild Hybrid

Conventional Gasoline

20

30

40

50

60

Passenger Vehicle Fleet Average Fuel Economy (mpg)

Full hybrids using advanced technology are the key to a passenger car and truck fleet that approaches an average of 60 mpg. The average price increase for such vehicles is about $4,000 and the owners will save nearly $5,500 on gasoline over the life of the vehicle. Including battery replacement, consumers would see an average net savings of $900. Plug-in hybrids would realize even greater energy security and environmental gains, but with higher costs and lower net consumer savings.

 Using the advanced technologies available today is a key step to ensuring cost-effective hybrid options with good performance. If an automaker simply adds an electric motor and battery to the typical car or truck on the road today, the resulting vehicle will be more expensive and will not perform as well as the hybrids evaluated in this report. In achieving higher fuel economy, future hybrids will not sacrifice safety. In fact, drivers of SUVs and pickups will be safer: battery placement in practical hybrid designs create a lower center of gravity, making SUVs and other tall vehicles less likely to tip over. And since they will be lighter, but just as strong as today, they will pose less danger to others during collisions, while keeping the SUV driver and passengers safe.

Hybrid Vehicles: Filling the Gap

This study emphasizes the role hybrids must play in our efforts to limit the contribution our cars and trucks make to US oil dependence, global warming, and local air pollution. In the short term, conventional technologies could quickly raise the average fuel economy of the passenger fleet to 40 mpg. Over the long term, we will have no choice but to adopt hydrogen fuel cells and other alternative fuel approaches. But these technologies will not be ready to replace the internal combustion engine in most new cars and trucks for over a decade. Considering the slow turnover of the passenger vehicle fleet, this leaves a significant gap of ten to twenty years after the gains from conventional technology peak and before the promise of fuel cells will be fully realized. During that period, rising travel and increased car ownership will continue to drive us to import more and more oil from politically unstable countries and to

add to global average temperature increases of 2.5 to 10.4oF by the end of the century. And the gains we will have made in air quality will begin to turn around due to rising travel and car ownership. By filling this technological gap with well designed hybrid vehicles, passenger vehicle oil consumption and global warming emissions from cars and trucks can be reduced to below 1990 levels even before fuel cell technology makes its full impact. As hybrids move into the marketplace, offering consumers additional choices, they also assure us that fleet average fuel economies of 50 to 60 mpg can be achieved by the end of the next decade. At the same time, growing hybrid sales will bring down the cost of future hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, since they share many technologies, such as electric motors, power electronics, and energy storage.

Realizing the Promise

The role that hybrid vehicles can play is clear, but their success at filling this role is not guaranteed. Two key things are necessary to ensure that that they live up to their promise: 1. Hybrids with the best possible conventional and electric technology need to be made available to the public. 2. Production and sales of these hybrids need to reach mass-market levels in the hundreds of thousands per year. These keys are in the hands of automakers, governments, and consumers.

GOVERNMENT

A,B
AUTOMAKERS CHOICE

CONSUMERS CHOICE

Automakers hold the first key. With most of the necessary hybrid and conventional technology in their hands, they will be responsible for building the best possible hybrid vehicles and sending them to the showrooms. Automakers that try to graft hybrid technology onto todays conventional vehicles will end up producing expensive, lowperformance vehicles better left in the research lab. The resulting lemons could tarnish the image of hybrid technology and discourage consumers. Automakers that take the practical approach of putting the best available technology to work will provide consumers with no compromise vehicles. And theyll garner a profit as the vehicles reach massmarket production levels. By leading the industry, these automakers will create a sound footing for future profitability and a solid image of environmental and corporate responsibility. Automakers also hold some responsibility for helping hybrids to reach mass-market levels. They will need to support hybrid sales by aggressively educating dealers, service personnel, and consumers about their products. But unless education and advertising campaigns are backed up with the good products, they will simply be false attempts at capturing a green image. But automakers cant do it alone. Government at all levels must act to help hybrids sell well during this decade if automakers are to reach the economies of scale necessary for hybrids to become profitable. A variety of tools can provide this support, such as regulations, including fleet purchase requirements, tax credits and other

financial or nonfinancial incentives, and education programs. All these measures must be carefully crafted to assure that they provide support to hybrids in proportion to the energy security and environmental gains they offer. And they must acknowledge the extent to which hybrids help pave the way for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Consumers also have a part to play in ensuring that hybrid sales reach massmarket levels. Assuming government and industry do their parts, this should not be a challenging task. Recent market studies indicate that at least 25% to 30% of con-sumers are already interested in purchasing a hybrid instead of a conventional vehicle. When they do, they will find themselves saving money over the life of their hybrid even as they do their part to reduce oil dependence and their impact on the environment.

THE ROLE OF HYBRID VEHICLES

The world started down a new road in 1997 when the first modern hybrid electric car, the Toyota Prius, was sold in Japan. Two years later, the United States saw its first sale of a hybrid, the Honda Insight. These two vehicles, followed by the Honda Civic Hybrid, marked a radical change in the type of car being offered to the public: vehicles that bring some of the benefits of battery electric vehicles into the conventional gasoline-powered cars and trucks we have been using for more than 100 years. While hybrids are not as clean and efficient as vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells or solely by batteries, they offer both lower emissions than todays conventional vehicles and dramatically higher fuel economy. And they provide a steppingstone to zero emission vehicles. Today, four years after their introduction, many of us know something about hybrids, but many of our questions remain unanswered:

What exactly is a hybrid vehicle? How good will hybrids fuel economy and environmental performance be? How fast will they go? What will they cost? Will people buy them? And where do you plug them in? The answer to the last question is simple: you dont have to! (For some this will be a disappointment, for others, a relief.)1 The answers to the other questions are more complicated. This report provides some of those answers.

Why Hybrids?
The primary importance of hybrid technology for cars and trucks is its potential to increase fuel economy dramatically while meeting todays most stringent tailpipe emission standards (excluding the zero emission vehicle standard). At the same time, the performance of hybrid vehicles can equal or even surpass that of most conventional vehicles. Moreover, hybrids can play a critical role in helping bring the technology of motors, power electronics, and batteries to maturity and in reducing their cost. Such changes are vital to the success of future hydrogen fuel cell and other zero emission vehicles. Thus hybrids could be a key element in US strategies to address our growing energy insecurity and environmental problems. Whether hybrids live up to their potential hinges on automakers and governments embracing them as one means of moving toward a secure energy future and a healthier environment.

Oil Dependence and the Environment. The size of our oil dependence
and its rate of growth, as well as the environmental problems that are its consequence, require an immediate response. This calls for both changes in conventional technology and a longer-term investment in hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells, and alternative fuels. As the earth continues to warm, we face a great risk that the climate will change in ways that threaten our health, our economy, our farms and forests, beaches and wetlands, and

other natural

habitats. Cars and trucks are also major contributors to air pollution. Regulations have helped clean up passenger vehicles over the past three decades. However, rising demand for travel and increased vehicle ownership will outpace even the standards on the books through this decade. Cars and trucks will need to clean up their act even more if we are to eliminate the threat air pollution poses to public healthespecially to our children and the elderly. Finally, producing and distributing the gasoline that went to fuel our cars and trucks in the year 2000 resulted in the emission of 848,000 tons of smog-forming pollutants and 392,000 tons of benzene-equivalent toxic chemicals, in addition to the pollutants emitted from the tailpipes of vehicles.4 Altogether, cars and trucks are the largest single source of air pollution in most urban areas.

As with US oil use and global warming emissions, upstream air pollution is expected to continue to rise significantly over the next two decades, posing the greatest health threat to children, the elderly, and other vulnerable members of our population (Table ). The situation is urgent, but not hopeless. A range of technological approaches can help us break free of our oil habit and protect our health and livelihood against the environmental problems associated with vehicle use. Hybrid technology is one of the most promising.

Investing in Our Future. No single silver bullet can solve the problems
posed by our use of cars and trucks. But if we choose now to invest in a variety of solutions, ranging from near to long term, together they could eliminate the use of oil for transportation. Hybrid technology can fill the midterm gap between immediate improvements to conventional vehicle fuel economy and the long-term hope offered by hydrogen fuel cells and alternative fuels.

Conventional Fuel Economy Technology.

The quickest and most effective way to limit oil dependence during the next 10 to 15 years is to improve the fuel economy of gasoline-fueled cars and trucks. Analysis of existing and emerging technologies based on reports by the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at MIT, and others indicates that conventional fuel economy technology can enable conventional cars and

trucks to reach an average of 40 miles per gallon before the middle of the next decade (DeCicco, An, and Ross 2001, Friedman et al. 2001, NRC 2002, Weiss

et al. 2000). Moreover, this can be done cost effectively. With more efficient engines, improved transmissions, and better aerodynamics and tires, automakers could reach a fleet

average of 40 mpg over the next ten years. At that rate of implementation, passenger vehicle oil use would stop growing by 2007, stabilizing at todays level through 2020 (Figure 1). This would save consumers billions of dollars every year, effectively paying us to reduce our oil habit and our impact on the environment (Friedman et al. 2001). Conventional fuel economy technologies are thus a good short-term investment in energy security and the environment. But if we stopped there, after 2020 increases in the number of miles traveled and the number of vehicles on the road would begin to

overwhelm the fuel economy improvements and oil use would again rise. Thus a long-term investment strategy is necessary.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Hydrogen fuel cells and alternative fuels are the most promising technologies in the long run, since they could virtually eliminate oil use in cars and trucks. But they are not yet available and are unlikely to reach significant market penetration for 10 to 15 years. Moreover, while these technologies will shift us off oil, they will not make as rapid progress toward eliminating cars and trucks global warming emissions. For example, during the first decades after fuel cells are introduced, the hydrogen they use is likely to be produced from natural gas. This will result in lower, but still substantial emissions of global warming gases. Todays vehicles stay on the roads an average of 15 years, so waiting 10 to 15 years for hydrogen fuel cell or other alternative fuel technologies would mean locking ourselves into a path of increased oil dependence and environmental problems for the next 20 to 30 years, as Figure 2 shows. Since hydrogen fuel cells are not yet right around the corner, the best solution in the very near term is to bring more advanced conventional technologies to the marketplace. At the same time, we will need to prepare for the long term by investing in developing and demonstrating hydrogen fuel cells and alternative fuels. But thats not enough. This scenario leaves a gap of ten or more years without significant progress in reducing our oil dependence. While thats not a good prospect, the consequence for climate change. is worse, since the severity of global warming is a function of cumulative global warming gases. Every ton of global warming gas that could have been avoided is another ton that will remain in the atmosphere for the next 100 years.

Since hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are likely to deliver only modest global warming emission savings by 2030, another technology is needed as the gains from conventional technology level off in the next decade.

Hybrid Vehicles.
With their recent entrance into the market, hybrids are poised to serve a key role in pushing down oil demand and global warming emissions from cars and trucks through the next two decades. They offer a solid midterm strategy of investment in energy security and the environment, filling the temporal gap between conventional technology and hydrogen fuel cells (Figure 3). Hybrids can also serve as an insurance policy for regulators contemplating significant increases to fuel economy standards over the next decade. While a 40-mpg fleet could be reached with existing conventional technology, hybrid vehicles

provide additional assurance of reaching that goal, since they promise fuel economy levels as high as 50 to 60 mpg. Further, they open the door to fuel economy standards of 50 mpg or higher by the end of the next decade. In addition, hybrid vehicles can mitigate the risk of delays in hydrogen fuel cell development and market success. Theyll also help ensure the success of fuel cell vehicles by bringing down the costs of the technologiesmotors, batteries, and power electronicsthat the two share. And theyll help pave the way by acquainting consumers with electric drive technology. Given the necessity of continuing to reduce oil use and global warming emissions over the coming decades, hybrids are a key interim step, taking over where improved conventional technologies leave off

and before fuel cells can fulfill their promise. The Gee-Whiz Factor. In addition to the logic of hybrids as a key part of investing in energy security

and the environment, other factors, such as consumer and automaker choice, could prove crucial to their success.

Consumer Choice. Despite automakers claims to the contrary, consumers

are showing interest in having an option to buy cars and trucks with better fuel economy. A consumer preference study found that 30% of the more than 5,000 recent new-vehicle buyers they surveyed would definitely consider a hybrid for their next purchase. An additional 30% showed strong consideration. The primary reason people noted for considering a hybrid was their concern about high fuel prices .A second study, found that 25% of the 400 potential car and truck buyers surveyed would purchase a hybrid vehicle instead of a conventional vehicle when given information on the potential costs, savings, and performance of the hybrid . Clearly, consumers want automakers to provide them with hybrid vehicles as additional. choices when they step into the showroom. performed as part of larger study on hybrids by the Electric Power Research Institute,

Automaker Choice. Only Toyota and Honda have so far offered hybrids for
sale in the US market. Both are likely to offer more models very soon, as are most other automakers. Ford intends to enter the market with a hybrid SUV using a design similar to the Prius. GM and Daimler- Chrysler are expected to offer hybrids in 2004 or 2005. These new vehicles will help build the hybrid market, bringing in consumers interested in pickups or SUVs as well as those who want compact and family cars. But if some of the automakers choose to offer vehicles with hybrid nameplates just to capitalize on the gee whiz factor or the green image of hybrids, much of the potential benefits from hybrid technology will be lost. Automakers have a responsibility to society

and

consumers to market hybrids that provide the dramatic improvements in fuel economy the technology promises, along with substantially cleaner tailpipe emissions. And consumers must hold them to it, by putting their dollars where they will do the most good. Chapter 2 provides a checklist for determining whether a vehicle is a hybrid and what kind of hybrid it is. Chapter 3 evaluates how much environmental benefit is provided by a variety of hybrid designs.