The BYD DM-i Super Hybrid technology is a great example…
The figures that @plonkster provides are maybe not so bad. What is the efficiency of current ICUs as used in motor vehicles? 35%?
I remember a piece a couple of years ago saying that modern F1 racing cars, with the various energy recovery systems they have, were running at about 50% and that was a figure that the engine makers (Mercedes, Honda, Renault, Ferrari) and F1 itself should be shouting from the rooftops to counter the regular charges of them being a major source of pollution.
Hydrogen is ‘interesting’. Cost/efficiency issues aside, it is a pretty crap way of moving energy around.
Per mass, energy density is great. But by volume it is terrible. Need at least 4x more storage space than the equivalent energy of petrol. Never mind the problems of storing H2 (either high pressure, or in some sort of matrix). And gaseous H2 leaks - all storage/transport systems need good ventilation and/or leak detection.
No existing transport/storage/dispensing infrastructure can be re-used for H2. It will require an entire new infrastructure from the ground up.
Reacting H2 with CO2 to make methanol is expensive, but provides a good all-round compromise (easy distribution and storage, can still be used in hydrogen fuel cells, and ICE engines can easily be modified to run on it).
For bulk transport/freight it can make sense.
But in most cases you are back in the PHEV trap. You are adding a snot load of weight/cost/complexity/maintenance to address <1% of the average person’s driving needs.
Personally, I still think the best solution is an EV with a smallish battery and a system of rented generation trailers (using petrol/hydrogen/whatever). Solve 99% of the problem as cheaply as possible, and only add a range extender when actually needed.
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Building all those disposable carbon fibre parts and a few tires is the issue… 
It depends where you start measuring. One source (don’t ask me to find it now, this is what I remember) said if you measure from the oil well to the wheel of the car, the average petrol car comes in at around 19%. A Diesel does slightly better, around 25%.
If you measure just from the tank to the crank, it’s around 35% to maybe 40%. I heard rumours that Mazda has some secret up their sleeves that gets over 50%, but the Carnot number (the theoretical efficiency of a heat engine) is apparently 37%. Now that needs a heap of disclaimers added, because internal combustion engines aren’t pure heat engines, so that estimate is done by constructing a carnot model that approaches that same value. Or something like that, I’m regurgitating what I remember here. I believe the Atkinson-cycle engine in the Prius is around 40%. To the crank.
Once you subtract drivetrain losses, pumping losses, parasitic losses, etc, it is probably around 35% at best. That’s also the average efficiency of a coal plant, for comparison.
But with all that said, I think efficiency doesn’t matter as much as we think. I mean, it does, but it is not the only thing we worry about. If the process is clean, we may not care that it is only half as efficient. A very efficient internal combustion engine running from fossil fuels still pollutes.
The correct answer is to point out that the Tour de France generates more emissions than an F1 race, but nobody picks on them because it’s all cyclists up in the hills.
F1 tyres are all recycled now. Actually they have some catching up to do as some of the American series are now experimenting with renewable tyres. Indycar has moved to 100% renewable fuel.
F1’s situation is more complex. Indycar has a single fuel provider and only two engine builders. So they can enforce fuel changes pretty quickly (Captain Picard style: Make it so!). F1 has always allowed fuel companies to be sponsors, and some of them spend whopping amounts and are willing to work towards some sort of specification that could plausibly be used in road cars, but will resist outright standardisation.
Teams are moving towards carbon fibre recycling. The current rules, with a cost cap (in millions of dollars, but still a cap) on building the car encourage them to do that.
For some reason there is a rule that all nickel used in the cars, transmission or engines, must be recycled. Why nickel?
They had a green race last year. Austria. One of the biggest contributors to F1’s carbon footprint is the amount of electricity needed for a race weekend, and all the generators that get used to provide that. So at Austria they used a combination of rooftop solar and generators running on green diesel to produce the electricity.
But a big problem is moving everything around. Again the USA is taking the lead here, with a requirement that all vehicles moving staff or race cars between the factories and the tracks must run on renewable fuel. This is harder for F1. American series are confined to North America and don’t need to fly anywhere. F1 has a global footprint (pardon the pun).
They are getting better. All the passes for team crew, drivers, media, celebrities are now made using recycled plastic. They are starting to lay down regulations about the packaging and procurement of food sold at the races.
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That is some great marketing. 100% renewable fuel - but only 20% reduction in CO2 output…
People tend to ignore the fact that for most countries, almost 1/3 of their total CO2 production is from agriculture. A large chunk of that being from the energy inputs into artificial fertilizer production.
So while bio fuels are technically ‘renewable’, the actual CO2 reduction is marginal. Very expensive window dressing, at best.
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OK… well F1 certainly beat that. But that’s with what they call the “power unit” which is the ICE plus the two energy recovery systems. One recovers braking energy, one recovers excess heat from the turbochargers. So if you take all of that as a unit then they are getting very high levels of efficiency.
The heat recovery system is complex, clever (it is two way, so you can spin the turbo up from the battery), and horribly expensive. It’s actually going to be scrapped in the next set of engine regulations (which will allow two turbos instead of the current one, and more recovery from the brakes).
This is very true (or, as one old lady I used to know was given to say “it is the very truth”). But I think it’s a thing that gets picked on, or will be until the whole process is clean. F1 circa 2020 were about the fastest they have been but were using less than half the fuel for a race distance than the previous generation of engines had, so they are hugely more efficient than they once were. Again this was under publicised. Strange, because given how motor sports in general come under fire they got themselves into a position where they could hold their collective head up and point out the gains that they had made (and ask what the Tour de France had done).
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Meanwhile IndyCar (and Nascar) do a very good job of publicising the increasing greenness of their credentials.
Whilst on motor racing what’s the latest on the African F1 slot?
Last I heard they cancelled all talk of this being in SA with the Lady R debacle…
I think it’s more mundane. There is no FIA Grade 1 circuit in Africa. Kyalami is closest, but still needs non-trivial money spent. Cape Town’s street circuit is too short for F1 and has a lower grading than Kyalami.
It’s all about money, really. Money for the upgrades and money for buying a slot on the calendar.
Several races rely on subsidies to be viable. Or the government just foots the bill, considering the publicity worth the spend.
Austin, for example, gets subsidies based on how much they boost hotel and other hospitality business in the area. That’s not fixed, so they have to market the race well.
Load shedding is probably not an issue. F1 already uses large amounts of electrical power and so the teams pack or hire lots of generators. F1 does its own broadcasting and that includes power for the cameras (all theirs) and commentary positions.
So just money. Everybody seems to agree that a race at Kyalami would be a good thing. Nobody wants to pay the hosting fees or for the upgrades.
Some years ago the commercial rights holder (then Bernie Ecclestone) started assuming the financial risk on some races as hosting fees were cranked up and promoters said they couldn’t afford it. Bernie, of course, turned a profit.
This model is returning now. The Las Vegas race is underwritten by the current rights holder. They just require all the necessary permissions to be obtained.
Just my thinking: F1 increasingly is keen on street races in eye candy cities. You’d think that Cape Town would be a good fit, if they can get the track extended and up to spec. Money again, I think, and planning permissions.
Also this year the calendar finally hits the 24 race limit that the teams agreed to (but didn’t think would happen). So somebody has to drop out. That said, many contracts are short and/or up for renegotiation.
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Is there a new rule to make Max Verstappen start from the back row in every race??
I think Lewis made that rule 
WenGroetnis
For those who may be waiting to take the plunge once a well-priced model comes by… another good candidate from my notification feed this morning. Only 36k km on the odo, and it has the 93Ah battery (the middle size). Pure BEV, the one you want.
Has the smaller screen inside. Looks like it has the parking assistant, but is otherwise pretty basic. And the extra cup holder is missing, which is a bummer, but maybe you can get them to knock off a little from the price for that (they are like 7k to replace!).
The brain keeps on ticking over on this idea of a proper 4x4 EV conversion…
So I decided to commit some maths to determine battery sizing. And it is actually quite easy, as petrol engine efficiency has not really changed much in 30 years, and BSFCs are well characterised.
So, I took some BSFC numbers from a 90s engine (Saturn I4) and a Prius - and I will assume most petrol engines will be somewhere between the two.
Then take real world petrol consumption of the target vehicles at 120km/h and see what happens.
First, for calibration, try the XC40 B5:
XC40 Recharge uses 24kWh/100km @ 120km/h, so this spread sheet seems to work…
Then a potential conversion, the Pajero:
(Surprisingly, estimates from claimed drag coeficient and calculated frontal area say 30.7kwh/100km - which is comforting.)
Hmmm… Would need at least 40kWh for a daily driver, 80kWh for typical weekend drives, and 120kWh for highway drives (given current charging network).
Batteries are still the killer - you need a BIG battery to make a big car go…
Although I am still thinking about a range extender trailier - but for proper 4x4 use, it will be a big trailer with a powered axle.
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Jaguar LR announced the end of ICE production by mid 2024 
IceIceBabyGroetnis
$245-million
… what 20,000 EVs cost Hertz to offload. The car rental giant and its CEO Stephen Scherr are parting ways. He bought 165,000 EVs to help Hertz make a big comeback but customers weren’t interested.
So… 245 million sounds like a lot, but how much is it really in terms of annual profit or operating cost… usually when people quote just the number, I’m already suspicious. In this case, however (according to yahoo finance), they are struggling a bit and made somewhat of a loss last quarter (despite revenue growth). So one can sort of understand why they needed a scapegoat.
Americans are a weird lot. Research from the Pew institute shows that about 50% of them have no interest at all in buying an EV, while about 38% (which is actually a healthy number, if you consider it was probably way less than this just a few years ago) would be interested if it becomes more affordable or the charging infrastructure improves. On top of that, people who rent a car don’t want the extra trouble of having to recharge it before returning it.
I experiences this myself last year in NL. You need to return the car with at least 80% charge. Thankfully there is an oplaadstation not far from Schiphol, but if you’re already running a little late, I can imagine this is an unwelcome additional task.
I have a feeling that this issue with the rental EVs may be specific to America though. And if not, I would think a very easy way to get people to flock to the EV, is to waive the admin fee they nail you with if you return the vehicle with an empty battery. Bill me for the electricity, at whatever rate a fast charger charges… it is worth it 
Some years ago I decided to do the decent thing when visiting the UK for a Holiday and I dealt with some rental company that offered a “green” option. I booked a Nissan Leaf. I actually didn’t know it was an EV. I checked boxes like “low emissions” and so on, and the website recommended this to me.
Well… I did get a Nissan, but it wasn’t a Leaf, it was bunny-killing SUV. They were cheap skates and took out some little SIM card thing that enabled the satnav. This was still tracking the car’s position because I would get warnings for speed traps.
Anyway… I was miffed that I’d tried to book a green(er) car and got this thing instead. But they said well, they didn’t have a Leaf in stock and I wasn’t paying anymore and no, you can’t have one of those little things over there because they’re all booked. Bah.
But actually the Leaf would have been a major PITA on that trip. I’d have had to be looking for charging points all the time (in rural Wales!), and taking the time to recharge. And then, as you say, I’d have had to take it back charged up.
I like the idea of an EV, but I think some things have to change. I recently watched a comparative test of 12 EVs in English winter conditions. Just mundane tests with laps around a testing ground at 20mph, then 50, then 70. Drivers were changed every lap so that no vehicle would be disadvantaged by some tester’s heavy foot or unfriendly habits. Cars were all set to the same interior temperature.
They talked about the cars (just watching them go around would have been boring), how 19inch wheels are more efficient (for an EV) than 18inch, but you had to pay for them. How a heat pump to drive the vehicle heating was more efficient, but you had to pay for it. Tyres, tyre pressures… all of this was about being fair, but it also suggested that you had to pay attention a lot of details.
The Tesla 3 had the best range on the day (or 2nd, but came tops on efficiency). The VW with the heat pump option went 16 miles further than the one with out. The Jeep (European car of the year) did worse. The BYDs were the furthest from the published specs.
The test really was to drive each car until it stopped. A couple went into a sort of “last gasp” mode where they gave you lots of warning lights, but would proceed at 5mph or so in an effort to not leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
They worked out an efficiency for each car, as they didn’t all have the same size battery. So how many miles per kWh? Tesla did well again.
Then, since all they’d really done was start each car with a full battery (or full the previous evening, they’d let them stand overnight) they costed out how much that would cost a person.
Now if you live in the UK you might still be on to something. Because there’s a special middle of the night tariff intended to make charging EVs cheaper. And that’s really cheap. It also means you need the charging station at home.
They costed out charging at home but in off-peak daylight - nearly 3 times as much.
Then they costed out charging at public facilities. The cost nearly tripled again.
So this left me thinking some things
- You don’t want to rent one of these, because it will cost you a lot of time and money to charge it.
- They’re very good in towns. For long trips where the B&B proprietor might not be happy about you running a lead into his house (or where all the guests have EVs and all want to charge) and so you’re at the mercy of the charging stations it’s going to get expensive.
- You have to pay attention to a lot of things, and make the right choices when you buy, and get the right tyres etc and that might not be so easy in SA. OK… some of those things might be things that we should pay attention to on regular cars and would make a difference.
- Even the cheapest one they tested wasn’t that cheap.
They’ll get better. The price of the tech will come down. The engines and the ancilliaries will get more efficient. And eventually we’ll all adjust. But it maybe you’ve got to offer the right combination of carrot and stick before there’s a large take up.
[EDIT] This didn’t make me happy. I like the idea of EVs and want them to be easy to use and plentiful.
One way I can see that will easily improve EV uptake as a rental: Throw in a “tank” of free fuel. Of course it isn’t free, you price it in, but it is free from the perspective of “no additional cost”. Immediately the guy who rents the car for the day, and who is not going to drive more than 400km in that day, has a massive advantage.
Also, I must say that when you drive in a foreign country, especially when it is on the other side of the road, the cheapest manual car you can rent can be a hindrance. You want an auto, and what is more auto than an EV?
I don’t know exactly how Hertz approached this in the US. In NL, I actually rented that Polestar from Hertz. Video attached… thankfully there was much less rain the next day!