A Utah-based company called Raser Technologies recently unveiled a new electric Hummer, called the Electric Hummer H3. The company is touting the vehicle as able to go 100 miles per gallon. The vehicle is also said to be able to reach a top speed of 100 miles per hour.
The vehicle, which was unveiled in Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. this past week, is supposed to be in showrooms by 2011. The company states that the Hummer can go 40 miles on electric mode, but it will then need to be plugged in or recharged by the gasoline engine. The vehicle is expected to cost approximately $55,000.
The 100 miles per gallon figure has been computed by considering a driver using the vehicle in electric mode and then driving with the addition of gasoline for 25 miles. However, some critics of the vehicle claim that it truly only gets about 33 miles per gallon.
Doug Schiller, of AlternativeEnergy.com, is the man behind the 33 mpg figure. The 100 mpg figure has many flaws, beginning with the assumption that the driver is going for a long trip where the entire gas tank is used prior to the batteries being recharged.
The most vital information that appears to be missing from the miles per gallon estimate is the inclusion of energy required to produce the electricity. Stated Schiller: “They’re discounting the whole issue of all the energy that is in the electricity used to power the SUV. If you include that energy, and convert it into the equivalent gasoline, the H3 would get 33 mpg. That is the formula they should be using. The industry is working toward that definition but what Raser has done is use the most misleading way of reporting the H3’s miles per gallon by ignoring the electricity.”
