CHARLES BURY
I have seen the future and it includes an electric Zamboni machine and a car with a 100-pound battery -- as well as a 1.5-litre engine.
Actually I suppose it's the present, because they're both good sellers. But they'll be here for a while so it's in the future too.
The recent energy show in Sherbrooke, Quebec, featured cheap-running, clean-air vehicles from all over the world. During a brief visit I took a drive in a space-age Toyota that gets twice the mileage of the smallest conventional cars, and only blows smoke if you light up inside.
There were several cars to choose from. I don't have a prejudice toward Toyota cars, but that company's representative David Stone was the only PR man with the initiative to extend an invitation
.
The Toyota Prius (where do they get these names anyway?) runs on a combination power plant - a 1500 cc gasoline engine, a 288-volt rechargeable battery, and -- wait for it -- the brakes. It was lots of fun to drive, as would be any brand-new car that's been paid for by someone else.
Using what Toyota calls 'hybrid' technology, the motor feeds the battery and the electric motor moves the car, so you don't have to stop every now and then to plug it in and recharge. In fact you can't plug in the Prius except to keep the motor warm in winter.
The gas and electric motors together generate 86.1 horsepower, giving the Prius a top speed of about 160 km-h (100 mph), which is plenty for anyone this side of Gilles Villeneuve. I don't have any demerit points to spare so while driving it around Sherbrooke I kept it under 100 km-h.
The four-door, five-passenger sedan has plenty of pep and its behaviour is essentially identical to that of any other modest mid-sized car. Except for the TV on the dashboard I really couldn't tell the difference without looking under the hood.
Then there are the brakes. Patterned after the 'dynamic brakes' used in diesel locomotives, the Prius brakes actually harness the energy used to slow or stop the car, convert it to electricity, and send it back to the battery and power train. The result of all this technology is a car that runs like any other, but uses only 3.5 litres of gas per 100 kilometres driven.
That's about a thousand klicks on a 50-litre fill-up, and roughly twice the mileage of today's typical smallest car.
As for clean exhaust, with tens of thousands of them already on the road in Japan, Toyota claims the Prius is way ahead of the rest of the pack. Carbon-dioxide emission is half that or a regular car, the company says, and oxides of nitrogen, hydrocarbons (not carbohydrates) and carbon-monoxide are about one-tenth of current standards in Japan.
Here's how they put it in a company press release (sorry about all the acronyms): "Using strict California Air Resources Board (CARB) standards, Prius meets current LEV (Low Emission Vehicle) requirements and approaches ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) ratings. However Toyota's target for North American release in 200 is proposed future SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles). This could mean a SULEV Prius will be 400 times cleaner than the current LEV model."
One more time now, that's CARB for LEV to ULEV to SULEV, ASAP, okay?
The Prius is a "transition technology" between current old-fashioned motive power and the hydrogen-eating, water-only-exhaust car of the future, says David Stone. When it goes on sale in North America next year it will be priced in the mid-range and backed by Toyota's usual guarantees.
I forgot to bring my hockey rink with me to the energy show, so I didn't get a chance to drive the electric Zamboni. But I did learn that a Quebec company, MG Service, is offering an electric conversion.
Gas-powered ice machines put out so much noxious smoke the owners sometimes have to close down their arena. For half the $110,000 price of a new machine, MG will convert a gas Zamboni to battery operation.
And that's good news for rink rats everywhere. Charlie Bury is a freelance writer based in Birchton, Quebec.
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