Gas-electric hybrids, is gas cheaper or electricity to drive a given distance?

Main Question or Discussion Point

IT is possible to modify a gas-electric hybrid so that you recharge the battery from the outlet, and run the car on battery. This costs electricity which costs money.

Of course you can use gas. which also costs money.

Which is cheaper to drive 20 miles, gas or electricity?

Personally I would think such mods would be very dangerous. For one thing you would need to hack directly into the car's electrical grid.

Would it be a good idea to equip gas-electric hybrids with a standard outlet or an ac/dc converter outlet to help customers save money by fueling up on electricity rather than gas? (or improve mgp by shifting power away from gas and toward electricity?)

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Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
If we assume 125000 BTUs of energy per gallon at a typical efficiency of 30%, then a gasoline engine can produce about 37,500 BTUs of work for every gallon of gasoline. At $3.00 per gallon, this is 12,500 BTUs of work per dollar – or 13.2 MJ [Mega Joules] of work per dollar For electricity, if we assume typical values of 90% efficiency of the electric motors, and 80% efficiency for the batteries, we get about 72% efficiency overall [before the drive train]. Electricity sells for about$0.10 to $0.15 per KW-Hr [depending on where you live], and a KW-Hr is 3.6 MJ, so at 72% efficiency we get about 2.6 MJ of work per KW-Hr of electricity , or 2.6 MJ / ($0.10 to $0.15)... = 26MJ to 17 MJ of work per dollar. So it would appear to be as much as twice the expense to burn gas than to run an electric motor - if you only pay 10 cents per KW-Hr for electricity.. If you are paying 3$ for gas and 15 cents per KW-Hr of electric energy, there is only about a 30% price increase going from electric to gasoline - from 17MJ/$for electric, to 13MJ/$ for gas.

But then you have to factor in the purchase price, lifespan, and the maintenance costs of the vehicle. For example, right now batteries are expensive and they don’t last long. A standard deep cycle lead-acid battery discharged to 50% capacity with each cycle is only expected to last for about 1000 charge cycles. Also, electric cars and hybrids are quite a bit more expensive than gasoline powered cars. So your question is not as simple as it might appear...not to mention the fact that some cars get 40mpg, and some get 10 mpg. In principle the work done per gallon should be about the same for all gas engines, but obviously some cars are implicity more efficient due to their low profile and higher aerodynamic efficiency, more efficient transmissions, etc.

Biodiesel has 118300 BTUs per gallon with a typical efficiency of 40% for diesel engines. Also selling for about \$3.00 per gallon, you would get about

- 16.6 MJ of work energy per dollar from your diesel running carbon neutral biodiesel
- about 23% better than gas, but no batteries. And diesel engines are well known for their long lifespan as compared to gas engines.

That was for 100% pure biodiesel. If you are running B20, which will be the most popular blend of biodiesel with regular diesel, you now have 127,259 BTUs per gallon which leads to

- 17.9 MJ of work energy per dollar of fuel, or about 35% more energy than gasoline for the price. So for those paying 15 cents per KW-Hr or more for electricity, it would be cheaper to drive a B20 powered diesel car than to drive an electric car.

Note: 1055 joules = 1 BTU.

Recent news:
...Now Honda is trying to take it back. Its technology of choice: the stinky old diesel engine. Or make that a not-so-stinky new diesel. By 2009, Honda plans to sell "clean diesels" in the U.S. These cars will likely go some 30% farther per gallon than gasoline models. The 2.2CTDi diesel-powered Honda Civic, sold now in Britain, delivers 43 miles per gallon in town and 55.4 mpg in combined city-highway driving. The hybrid Civic manages only 50 mpg in combined driving, while a gas Civic averages 33 mpg. "We're leading the way to cleaner diesel engines," says Honda Chief Executive Takeo Fukui. [continued]

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IT is possible to modify a gas-electric hybrid so that you recharge the battery from the outlet, and run the car on battery. This costs electricity which costs money.

Of course you can use gas. which also costs money.

Which is cheaper to drive 20 miles, gas or electricity?

Personally I would think such mods would be very dangerous. For one thing you would need to hack directly into the car's electrical grid.

Would it be a good idea to equip gas-electric hybrids with a standard outlet or an ac/dc converter outlet to help customers save money by fueling up on electricity rather than gas? (or improve mgp by shifting power away from gas and toward electricity?)
I read/heard that some Prius owners have come up with a couple of mods to their cars. One is a conversion (actually an add on) to make it a plug in electric hybrid. The other mod I've heard of is to somehow change (reprogram?)the controller (computer) to get the car to run longer (at higher speeds) on it's electric motor before the gas engine kicks in. I don't know how well these mods have worked, wether they've gone beyond the "shade tree mechanic" stage to an aftermarket product, but apparently it's being done.

Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
I read/heard that some Prius owners have come up with a couple of mods to their cars. One is a conversion (actually an add on) to make it a plug in electric hybrid. The other mod I've heard of is to somehow change (reprogram?)the controller (computer) to get the car to run longer (at higher speeds) on it's electric motor before the gas engine kicks in. I don't know how well these mods have worked, wether they've gone beyond the "shade tree mechanic" stage to an aftermarket product, but apparently it's being done.
Running the batteries lower than intended will only decrease the life of the batteries. And this could end up costing far more than any potential savings.
http://www.usbattery.com/pdfFiles/Avg%20Life%20Cycles.pdf [Broken]

It is best to leave the engineering to the engineers who designed these cars.

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Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Gold Member
Regarding the engineering choices made for charging and discharging procedures, this happened to come up today.

The develop an optimal charge procedure, the relation between battery available capacity, applied overcharge, and the depth-of-discharge (DOD) level prior to charging needed to be established. Therefore, a series of parametric tests was conducted to measure the charge acceptance of lead-acid batteries from initial DOD levels of 25, 50, 75, and 100%. Because the available capacity and charge acceptance of the lead-acid battery are dependent on operating temperature, all the charges and discharges were initiated at a fixed temperature. Also because of the typical variation in available capacity of the lead-acid battery with age, baseline performance measurements were periodically acquired for normalization of the charge acceptance test data. The results from these tests show that the amount of overcharge needed to obtain the maximum available capacity from an EV-3000 improved lead-acid battery (which uses electrolyte mixing) is greatly reduced from that needed for commercially available golf-car lead-acid batteries. This was true for all initial DOD levels. The overcharges needed by the EV-3000 battery was a function of the DOD level prior to charging, but the overcharge needed for the golf-car battery was independent of DOD level. The acquired data can be used to derive an optium charge algorithm that relates capacity, overcharge, and DOD level. Applying only the minimum overcharge level needed for full capacity offers advantages of: (1) reduced generation of gases, (2) reduced water consumption, (3) cleaner battery containers, (4) reduced maintenance, and (5) increased battery life.

Running the batteries lower than intended will only decrease the life of the batteries. And this could end up costing far more than any potential savings.
http://www.usbattery.com/pdfFiles/Avg%20Life%20Cycles.pdf [Broken]

It is best to leave the engineering to the engineers who designed these cars.
What about directly recharging the battery as described?

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Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus