"John Rumm" wrote misinformation in message
...
Doctor Drivel wrote:

Power is applied simultaneously to the transmission/wheels from two
motors:

1. A petrol motor
2. An electric motor

Which means...no gearbox required. Got it? Nah, you haven't

I agree, it has no (conventional) gearbox.

At last. Is he grasping it after all this time?

It has transmission

As do all, even EVs have them.

The ratio is continously variable

......oh no! failure. The planetary cluster is referred to as a
power-splitter. A normal gearbox/CVT lowers and raises ratios. No ratios
are raised and lowered.

Back to basics. If you apply the correct power/torque at the wheels you
don't need a gearbox. An electric car doesn't have a gearbox because the
electric motors can do this.

The Prius splits the power from the two power sources, which are approx 70
hp each, and sends the combined power to the wheels. No raising or lowering
of ratios, no gearbox, no CVT. That is what it does. Simple. Now you
know.

Therefor it has CVT, it does not have a gearbox, and does not use pullys
or gears. Whatever way you look at it though it has CVT.

No see above. A CVT raises and lowers ratios, the planetary cluster does no
such thing. No CVT. Toyota say it has an electric CVT, ECVT, this is for
marketing purposes only, as they think a departure from a gearbox is
something the public are not tuned up to. In practice it doesn't need one;
just clever application of power/torque.

Two outfits are working to improve matters:

The California Plug-In Hybrid Cars Initiative (http://calcars.org). This is
a non-profit organisation funded by private donations.

Team Fate (http://www.team-fate.net/), an electric vehicle research group at
the University of California.

What these outfits are doing is building plug-in hybrid vehicles, PHEVs.
PHEVs still have petrol engines which turn electric motors to charge the
batteries. PHEVs have a plug to attach a power line. You plug in the PHEV
at night, and leave your drive with a fully-charged battery. You still use
energy, you just aren't burning on-board fuel to generate it all.

The petrol motor in a PHEV would still need to turn occasionally. In the
Prius, the power output of the petrol motor and the electric motor are
matched, giving about 70 horsepower each. The petrol motor will always
start if you floor the accelerator. The petrol motor might still start even
if you don't need over 70hp, if the on-board computer determines that the
battery needs some recharging. As the cost of batteries comes down, the size
of the electric motor will be increased and the petrol motor decrease.

If you could plug in an existing Prius the car could travel about 2 miles on
electricity alone. This is known as a PHEV-2. CalCars have installed
lead-acid batteries into the cargo area of a Prius, and added an AC inlet to
create a PHEV-10. Three prototypes are running. The standard Prius battery
pack is NiMH, so the CalCars PHEV-10's are carrying around a far more bulk
than they could.

The Prius battery bay is larger and can be filled with a Lith-Ion pack.
CalCars says
Panasonic are increasing battery factories by 500% to keep up with demand.
When production is on full belt the battery prices will drop. The £2K
replacement for the Prius is predicted to drop to £1K. that this would
convert a Prius into a PHEV-30. Many people could do their daily commute on
electric. A PHEV-30 doesn't mean that the petrol engine will not come in,
as occasionally it does. Acceleration and charging demands would mean it
may cut in.

Travelling on batteries is not energy free, as that electricity was taken
from the grid the night before, but cheaper to run than petrol and more eco
friendly as overnight wasted electricity is being used. Team Fate has built
a PHEV-60, 60 miles range on batteries alone. This is all with existing
technology. All feasible.