I got my Christmas catalog from Sams Club today and I couldn't believe my eyes . The front cover has a Mini Cooper pulling Santas sled, but this isn't just any Mini Cooper it is a hybrid Mini Cooper.

See for your self at the Sams Club website.



2007 Hybrid Technologies Lithium Mini Cooper
Price 2008 Model $65,000 USD

 

This keeps popping up, and I keep asking,..what happens when it breaks?

 

I guess you just wait your turn in the returns line at the Wal-Mart customer service desk?

 

As good a guess as any, I suppose. It is the first thing I would want to know if I was going to seriously consider this vehicle.

 

Looks like it's not really a hybrid ... the system is made by Hybrid Technologies, but it's all electric, powered by lithium-ion batteries. Nothing to get excited about really, for the same reason that all other electrics have flopped. 100 miles on a charge ... you can easily eat that up in 2 hours or less, and then it takes 7 hours to charge it back up. And all for the low, low price of $65,000 - before you start adding packages. That's a lot of coin for something with such limited use. :impatient

 

There is a local group here in Chicago who does electric conversions using standard lead acid batteries. For something that has some good performance you can get about 50 miles a day. The cost he told us is about $5000.00 for the conversion. Sure, not that great for a roadtrip but for someone who drives less than 50 miles per day it is not a bad deal. You can tune it to get longer drive times but you give up performance.

 

The compressed-air powered car will be the one to keep your eyes on. Imagine your own modern wind-generator at 2kw per day powering your home and driving the compressor that fills the HP tanks in your air-powered car. No electricity bill, no gasoline, no pollutants. Of course, this is the scenario for the daily commute. The car itself is a hybrid.


http://www.theaircar.com/

 

Sold by Wal-Mart? I didn't know that MINIs are now being made in China.

 

I'd say the guys at PML got it right.
http://www.pmlflightlink.com/archive/news_mini.html

 

Ewww! Sam's Club and Wal-mart are nasty, and as far as corporations go, it is shameful what they have done. Just do a Google search and see what comes up. But since this thread is about hybrid MINIs, I'll stop.

 

Most Americans drive less than 30 miles per day for a commute.

NiMh can reach about 85% charge in less than 2 hours, and we can easily obtain 100 - 180 miles between charges. Li-ion batteriees can do even better.

Not to mention that even with 50% of our energy coming from coal-fired plants, we would still reduce emissions dramatically by using electric cars. And getting our power from electricity equates to over 100 MPG when you do a KWh to MPG comparison.

If auto manufacturers got serious about making electric cars, the cost of incorporating the technology into mass production (economies of scale) would only be a few thousand (an maybe only a few hundred) dollars more on a per vehicle basis.

I long for the day.

 

Agreed ... 'cept whatever I buy and regardless of how much I pay for it, I'd like be able to use it for more than just a commuter.

That's definitely better than the 100 miles/7 hours claimed by Hybrid Technologies, but still a limiting factor (for me, anyway).

An encouraging statistic; and think of how much more attractive the process would be with more environmentally-friendly means of generating that energy. Like a wind turbine in my back yard ...

I absolutely agree, and I'd love to see it, too. But therein lies the biggest obstacle ... manufacturers have no incentive to make the technology more efficient and then produce it on a large scale. A huge investment is required to make the technology desirable to the masses in function and affordability ... and to some extent, image. With the economy and the auto industry in the condition they're in today, that's a risk nobody is willing to take. And until somebody does something to mitigate that risk -- or until the oil runs out -- that unfortunately is not likely to change.

Meanwhile, I'll be happy with my 35-mpg Mini ... once it actually gets here, that is!

 

Just to clarify, if you read the fine print on the catalog page it states that Sam's Club/Walmart have absolutely nothing to do with the sales of this MINI. It states that you contact Hybrid Technologies Inc direct to purchase the car and it's apparently just a paid advertisement for Hybrid Technologies within a Sam's Club catalog.

I believe the fine print also states that there is no warranty from BMW/MINI in the event of any problems with car and the warranty falls on Hybrid Technologies to make any needed repairs. That should be as easy as stopping into your local Hybrid Technologies dealership's service dept...down the street...next to the Saturn dealership.

...and no one has even mentioned that it's a 2007/2008 R53...not an R56.

 

I was lucky enough to see one fof hybrid tech's MINI's first hand at SEMA. I'm suprised no one asked on this thread about the first thing I wanted to know. What did they do with the batteries? The rear seats are lost and the batteries have taken their place. By my best estimation the new floorboard was level at the height it would be if it had been placed on top of the folded seats. So ther was quite a bit of room back there still.

I didn't get to see it in action, but 9 seconds isn't bad for an electric. Personally, it exites me. Not because I want to go out and buy theirs, but because it is a half-way decent starting point. Like WuxCrusin said,
This project, along with others like the Tesla Roadster, show they we are getting closer to the point where it is actually cost efficient to go electric. Past projects have made little wake because there was no fiscal reason to do them. We are nearing the point on the curve where it will start to make some financial more sense. Thats not to say that the above mentioned vehicles don't have crazy price tags.

Succubus is right on IMO, Batteries are expensive to both the consumer and the environment. Some $20,000 of the sticker on the Hybrid Tech MINI can probably be attributed to the Lith-Ions in there. An air tank would be like a big battery and not as expensive or toxic. I just wonder what a compressed air car would sound like. Imagine a huge pneumatic drill going down the highway.

 

Finally, I can drive around in a GREEN hybrid MINI.

I'll just ignore the fact that it is actually powered by Alabama's coal-fired power plants which are among the worst polluting plants in the country.

Sure feels good to pretend to be helping the environment!

 

If driving an ultra-low emissions vehicle like this would bother you that much, you can always buy green energy credits to clear your conscience.

 

The batteries in electric cars are something I have always wondered about...
Batteries are toxic so in the long run wont they do as much damage to the environment as gas emissions?
Are battery powered cars just the lesser of two evils at this point?

 

I think the point of these new "hybrids," though, is to generate (pun intended) interest in creating true alternatives to the combustion engine. Sure there will be some growing pains, but if the public wants cleaner, greener vehicles, we have to begin somewhere. There are new technologies for much cleaner coal plants, too.

 

Come up here to the other Alabama, as we call it here in Madison, Morgan and Limestone counties, Yucca. We use TVA power plants as a source which consists of nuclear, hydro and I believe natural gas.

 

As Yucca Patrol says, electric cars aren't free--just displacing the energy load. And as WA Mini Girl says, sooner or later those batteries are going to be replaced. What happens to the old ones? Do they magically vaporize in a cloud of H2O? That's the same for all of those electrics and hybrids out there.

$65,000 for the car. Let's see. I bought premium today at $3.099. Wonder where the break even point is. (Probably longer than my lifetime.)

 

this is a FULL ELECTRIC by Hybrid Technologies.

Li-ION batteries ARE NOT filled with Toxics. Lead Acid and NiCd are, but Ni-metal hydrids and Li-ion are not.

This looks pretty cool, it's $65k, but that's a third of a tesla!

Matt

 

So, what do they break down as? I didn't think lithium was too great unless you were bipolar.

 

Anyone else notice that this is supposedly a 2007 car, but it's an R53?

 

and they show an R56 conversion. I'd guess that it's an early conversion, and they buy cars as they are ordered.

Matt