Plug-in Conversion Kits for Hybrid Cars?
Just some random thoughts about hybrid cars…
I've always been a little interested in alternative fuels, not because I care about the environment, but because I hate the idea of giving so much of my hard-earned income to the bastards at the Big Oil companies. After some research, I've learned two things:
- It's very possible and not very hard to convert a normal car that runs on desiel to a a car that runs on vegetable oil. This is appealing to me because it would allow me to take vegetable oil used by restaurants, that I could presumably get for free since they normally have to pay someone to take it away, and pump it into a car to use as fuel… This would basically mean free fuel for the life of my car. Of course, the logistics of doing this are a little more complicated. Still, it's very possible. By the way, as a side-effect, this causes the converted "grease" cars to get greater gas milage, too.
- It's very possible to perform a conversion on a hybrid car to allow it to be plugged in at night, thus supplementing the power it would normally have to get from the gasoline engine. This is interesting to me because it would give me the choice of using energy from the power grid for my travel around town, which makes up a vast majority of what I use my car for. If I was interested in the environment, I'd probably also be thrilled with the fact that I'd be using hydroelectric, nuclear, and coal as a source of energy instead of crude oil, but again, I'm more concerned about choosing where my money goes rather than how it impacts the environment.
So here we have two very interesting but very different approaches to channeling my weekly energy tithe away from Big Oil. You could take the latter approach a step further and get a solar panel to plug your car into, but I haven't investigated the wattage requirements of a plug-in hybrid nor the cost of a solar panel large enough to meet said requirements.
But what if they came out with a desiel hybrid? It would then, in theory, be possible to have a vegetable-oil-powered vehicle that could be plugged-in at night. You'd never need traditional fuel at all, and depending on your driving habits, you wouldn't really need much vegitable oil either. Interesting stuff.
Wednesday, August 30th 2006 at 12:12 am
Disadvantages of Hybrid Vehicles
Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are probably the most popular types of vehicles of today because it offers a number of benefits including low emission, less air pollution, and extended gas mileage. However, hybrid cars also got some few disadvantages…
Saturday, September 2nd 2006 at 6:10 pm
What is interesting is the SVO (Straight Vegitable Oil) costs about the same as diesel now … about $3/gal. Taking WVO (Waste Vegitable Oil) or SVO and making it directly suitable for existing diesel transports, costs in the neighborhood of $1 per gallon. Thus, SVO costs $4/gal; diesel costs $3/gal; and WVO costs $1/gal. The $1 difference between SVO and diesel does not yet have the SVO sources gearing up to compete directly with diesel. But the number of home brewers of BioDiesel from WVO is growing rapidly.
So what can we expect? We can expect the BioDiesel to keep slight (i.e. negligable) downward pressure on diesel prices by cutting into its demand. And we can expect the price of BioDiesel to go up as WVO sources find their waste to be in demand. I think the real question is where is the equilibrium point.
We know SVO consumption (for frying foods, etc. and then thrown away), is nowhere near the level of diesel consumption (thrown away in its process). I think what we are really seeing here is a small window of opportunity which will quickly close as the demand for WVO overwhelms supply. Right now I’m using WVO in a WWII design 3hp diesel engine. All I do is strain it through a coffee filter. So my cost is zilch. But I have already lost two sources of supply as these people learn their waste has value.
Wednesday, August 8th 2007 at 9:56 am
Check out this 2001 VW Beetle TDI! We’re converting it to run on Waste Vegetable Oil(WVO).
2001 VW Beetle TDI WVO Conversion
Sunday, January 13th 2008 at 10:02 pm
Pressure must be made on the car manufactures to move in this direction. Tax laws could be changed to give these ideas a chance to develop. Already Bio-Diesel, processed form Soybean Oil-not just waste oil-is competitive with petrol based diesel. Why not reduce the state tax on these renewable fuels to bring them in line with petrol based fuels?
Certainly a diesel/plug-in/hybrid is the answer to many of the issues we face.
Add a trickle charging solar panel and we have a car that re-generates it’s power while parked. This is “Off-the-Shelf ” technology that is ready now! Don’t settle for less.
Monday, March 17th 2008 at 10:58 pm
Waste vegetable oil is not free, I’ve checked this out in my area. All the restaurants have a recycler come around who collects the used oil, recycles it and sells it back to them. This has been going on for some time now, so I don’t know where you and others get this idea that you can get used oil from french fry joints for free, it’s not going to happen, if you ask they’ll just laugh at you. If I were to make biodiesel from veggie oil, I would have to buy the oil, also I would need to buy racing grade ethanol, the cost per liter for the biodiesel would be about $2/liter, I can buy diesel locally for $1.10/liter, I would have to get the oil for free or it’s not a money-saving proposition.