The Hybrid Car Thread (split from EP088 comments)

[Chodon]

You should NEVER exceed the PSI rating on the sidewall of the tire or you risk having a blowout due to increased temperature (and therefore pressure) at highway speeds.

So if mine say 28 in the front and 32 in the rear, I shouldn't load them up to 50PSI?

There are two recommended pressures - the one on your car (either inside the door on the frame of the car or in the glovebox) and the number printed on the side of the tire itself.  It's okay to exceed the one on the car.  The worst it's going to do is decrease tire life  by wearing the middle of the tire down before the sides.  It will also increase gas mileage, but when you think about the energy required to make new tires and dispose of the old ones I don't know if you break even or not.

The number printed on the sidewall of the tire should never be exceeded.  That is the pressure rating of the tire.  Sure, there is a lot of safety marging built into the number on the sidewall, but as the tire ages and the sidewall develops cracks that margin is going to decrease. 

If you're in the market for new tires check out low rolling resistance tires.  They usually have higher rated pressures and can reduce rolling resistance by as much as two thirds.  They'll have a bigger impace on your mileage if you do a lot of low speed driving where rolling resistance plays a higher factor than wind resistance.

Summary: lower than mfr's specs = faster tire wear and poor mileage (all around sucks)
              mfr spec pressure = good tire wear and okay mileage
              over mfr spec, but under tire rating = faster tire wear and good mileage
              over tire rating = really fast tire wear, fantastic mileage, but greatly increased risk of blowout

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Not to be too self-promotional about it, but I've been bookmarking a lot of interesting stuff about solar, wind, and electric cars in del.icio.us - if you click the link in my sig block, and pick a tag like "alt.energy" or "sustainability", it should bring up the list.

Lots of cool stuff out there is starting to become possible thanks to the increased oil prices.

[Chodon]

Not to be too self-promotional about it, but I've been bookmarking a lot of interesting stuff about solar, wind, and electric cars in del.icio.us - if you click the link in my sig block, and pick a tag like "alt.energy" or "sustainability", it should bring up the list.

Lots of cool stuff out there is starting to become possible thanks to the increased oil prices.

Very cool reading, TAD.  Thanks for the link!

Something I noticed missing from your links (maybe I just breezed through too quickly) was EV conversions, which means taking a gas-powered car and replacing all the gas stuff with an electric system.  It looks like a lot of work and technical skill would be required.  I have been talking it over with my boss and an electrical engineer I work with.  We are seriously considering doing it: boss puts up the financing, the sparky and I (a mechanical engineer who went to college at university formerly owned by one of the big three) do most of the work for free beer.  Since he has about a 60 mile commute every day the economics of an EV conversion are looking more and more attractive.  The most in-depth how-to for EV conversions can be found here.  It ends up costing about as much as a brand new car (assuming you have a car with a blown up engine, or one you can get for very cheap).  Also, being in Michigan there are lots of issues in the winter with keeping batteries warm and driving on slippery roads with an electric drivetrain.  Because with an electric motor all the torque is at the low end it's pretty much anti-traction control.  Starting off from a stop on icy roads could be a little problematic.  It's a fun side project we like to talk about at lunch though.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Not to be too self-promotional about it, but I've been bookmarking a lot of interesting stuff about solar, wind, and electric cars in del.icio.us - if you click the link in my sig block, and pick a tag like "alt.energy" or "sustainability", it should bring up the list.

Lots of cool stuff out there is starting to become possible thanks to the increased oil prices.

Very cool reading, TAD.  Thanks for the link!

Something I noticed missing from your links (maybe I just breezed through too quickly) was EV conversions, which means taking a gas-powered car and replacing all the gas stuff with an electric system.  It looks like a lot of work and technical skill would be required.  I have been talking it over with my boss and an electrical engineer I work with.  We are seriously considering doing it: boss puts up the financing, the sparky and I (a mechanical engineer who went to college at university formerly owned by one of the big three) do most of the work for free beer.  Since he has about a 60 mile commute every day the economics of an EV conversion are looking more and more attractive.  The most in-depth how-to for EV conversions can be found here.  It ends up costing about as much as a brand new car (assuming you have a car with a blown up engine, or one you can get for very cheap).  Also, being in Michigan there are lots of issues in the winter with keeping batteries warm and driving on slippery roads with an electric drivetrain.  Because with an electric motor all the torque is at the low end it's pretty much anti-traction control.  Starting off from a stop on icy roads could be a little problematic.  It's a fun side project we like to talk about at lunch though.

Thanks for that!  If it's not in my links, then I probably didn't know about it. 

If I may put on my Web 2.0 proselyte hat for a minute, that's what I love about del.icio.us; I have an RSS feed set up so I see everything my "friends" bookmark.  In fact, the editor of one of my RSS feeds - the Ecotech Daily blog - actually added himself to my del.icio.us network, because he saw me bookmarking stuff from his blog, and I've seen him post a couple of items that I found first. 

(And, of course, I've got all the Escape Artists feeds and Jonathan Coulton bookmarked, too.  )

[Windup]

And we come to another important point on behalf of hybrids: from Mythtickle