Electric Cars and Their Discontents 348
A typical comment about the global impact of switching from gasoline to electric cars on a wide scale comes from reader dbIII, who comments:
"Until something replaces Coal power plants as the main method of generating electricity, you're just replacing one evil for the other."
"With better battery storage it doesn't matter much where the electricity comes from and when - the car could be charging up with solar power in the carpark in the day or with wind when it is blowing, or off-peak when the base load stations are running as low as they can but no-one wants to use the electricity."
"Battery power isn't about saving energy anyway, it's often about shifting the pollution to a big facility that can handle it instead of having heavy pollution control equipment to move about. The first hybrid car I saw, back in 1987, embodied this principle and was designed to work at an underground mine. Above ground it ran on fuel, but below ground you wanted to minimize the air pollution as much as possible so it ran on batteries."
The continued existence of the earth as a habitable planet aside, what about the car itself, and in particular its power source?
Jah-Wren Ryel has a quibble with the terminology used the linked article, writing
"This car is not a true Tesla Car. If it were, it would have no batteries at all. Instead it would gets it energy from some kind of wireless source like microwave power transmission or even the Earth's magnetic field."
Many readers worried about exploding batteries; glowworm was "left wondering if this car is involved in an accident if the batteries will vent like the recent Slashdot articles suggest. Exploding Dells, fires on planes, and soon at an intersection near you... cars venting more flame than the Batmobile."
Reader nSinistrad_D provides reason to think such explosions are unlikely:"Looks like the company that is manufacturing the batteries has replaced graphite with a 'Lithium Titanium Oxide' that they've tested and claim doesn't have the smoking, venting, or explosive problems of normal lithium ion batteries. Here is a link to a rather informative article about the battery technology that will be used in the Tesla. ... I mean, based on the stuff I've read about the founders of the company and a lot of the people who have invested in it (i.e. Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, etc.) I feel I'll wait and see before passing any judgement."
Reader artifex2004 is skeptical: "Here in Texas, where I suspect temperatures exceed battery design, I think this idea will bomb spectacularly. Seriously, though, Li-ion? I shudder to think of how those will get disposed of, eventually."
And Reader Moofie has a tongue-in-cheek solution if the batteries ever go critical: "Maybe you could design a clever little nozzle to get a boost from your on-fire battery packs. That'd be AWESOME."
It's not just safety, of course, that matters to drivers, but practicality for other reasons:
Reader iamlucky13 writes: "15 minutes on the charger might get you another 15-20 miles. And 220 volts at 70 amps is a pretty hefty 15 kilowatts, so to have a dozen cars sitting at the local McDonalds charging is going to be draining about 180 kW from their coinpurse. That is a serious amount of juice. Also, I'm skeptical that you'll be getting 250 miles at 70 mph. If I remember right, electric motor efficiency and power typically increase with load, but fall off with speed, which makes them awesome for say, a 0-60 run in 3 seconds, but marginal at best for high speed cruising. That 250 mile range estimate is probably at significantly lower speeds."
"Big rigs generally run around 5 mpg, but it varies quite a bit around that number depending on the truck, the load, and the speed. Few truckers drive at the most efficient speed because it increases the labor costs significantly."
"If you're suggesting running commercial trucks on electricity, forget it for the foreseeable future. It's definitely been considered. Not only is there the conflicting speed issues I mentioned above, but you run up against the energy density limitations of batteries fast. Assuming the numbers from the article are correct (I doubt it...something isn't quite adding up according to my gut) and unrealistically taking the charge/discharge at 100% efficiency, it's storing up 194 MJ. Gasoline holds about 120 MJ/gallon, so the 1000 pounds of batteries (according to the Tesla website) are equivalent to about 1.5 gallons of gas (6.3 pounds/gal). Divide that an efficiency of around 30% and you've got a 32:1 energy density ratio in favor of gasoline. For a truck to haul the equivalent of 150 gallons of fuel (actually diesel, not gas, but close enough), it would need about 30,000 pounds of batteries. But then you have to go farther and take into account that 2/3's of its cargo capacity has been replaced fuel, so you need to make 3 times the number of trips. And you've got a lot of trucks either sitting idle recharging or having their 30,000 pounds of batteries swapped out every few hundred miles."
"Obviously these are really rough numbers, but other engineers have already looked at the idea in more detail and rejected it."
"I'm not trash-talking the Tesla. It looks like a lot of fun, but like all sports cars, it's a toy and not a good comparison for commercial trucking. Most of a car's weight is itself, be it gas or electric. Most of a truck's weight is it's cargo."
"For the record, I think electric can work extremely well for short range commuting (5-10 miles on city streets), but if you travel far, you'll realistically be looking at gas."
As to the exact number of batteries in the car, reader wbean provides a good reason why it should be exactly 6831: "The motor is going to need a lot higher voltage than a laptop. This means that the batteries have to be organized in series/parallel banks. 6831 is a plausible number since it is 23 x 11 x 3 x 3 x 3. This gives you a lot of flexibility in arranging the banks. You could have 99 banks of 69 batteries in series, presumably giving you something like 345 volts. That sounds about right for a DC motor."
Of course, battery technology is the real crux of the issue; balancing safety, weight, volume and energy density is a tough problem, and as reader loose electron puts it,
"Whoever comes up with a significant advance in battery technology will . Li-Ion batteries have excellent amp-hour ratings for their size, but like all other batteries are still pretty limited."
"Acceleration/Torque for electric cars is not a problem. High performance capabilities are there if you want them. However, you are playing battery energy against performance against distance, and all electrics, or fuel-electric hybrids have been designed to be 'green' in their approach. (Any Hummer owners want an environmentally aware vehicle?)"
"Right now the weakest link in many electronic systems is the energy source. A good solution there and you can be a very wealthy person."
hotspotbloc suggests " a different type of hybrid," one with:- "enough batteries for ~50 miles.
- a small (100cc) biodiesel engine running at a fixed and preset RPM connected to a small generator. The engine would be set to run at the peak of its power curve.
- a small ~10L fuel tank
- and
- an AC charging circuit"
"This is a really old idea. I saw something like this (on a much larger scale) on an USCG cutter (WLB-389) that was built in 1943. Two diesels -> two generators -> one electric motor. Worked great and it could double as a light ship."
Finally, several readers' comments focused on the merits of the particular electric car, rather than only as the embodiment of its constituent technologies.
fermion was one of a handful who talked about the car as a sportscar per se, writing:
"I would wager that this vehicle is more like a Lotus Elise, or a Corvette, or even a S2000, all of which can be had for under 50K. Any performance benefits over those sports cars can be attributed to the natural advantage of this car, namely that you can go from 0-60 without switching gears, and it is easier to get it perfectly balanced without an engine. Anyway, The true test of a sports cars, as opposed to just a fast car, is the handling, which was not mentioned in review. Without proper handling, it becomes a Mustang at 30K."
"Which is to say we are still in the same world, in which low volumes and other issues cause electric cars to be 50%-100$ higher than traditional cars. All that seems to have happened here is that an electric car has been targeted to the high end market and priced accordingly. It is kind of like taking the hummer, putting a cheap truck base on it, calling it an H2, and pretending that it still has the dubious value of the original."
"Oh well, I suppose if they can build a sedan for 35K I would be impressed. We would also have to look at maintenance cost of the vehicle, which would be dominated the battery replacement. A sports car car easily run 20 cents/mile in maintenance. Knowing that laptop batteries can only handle a couple hundred charge cycles, one can image where the long term maintenance cost could approach three or four time that amount."
"I wish we had electric cars. I think the technology is there, and the pricing could be reasonable. But even companies that could be using the electric car to revive themselves, for instance Mazda and Ford, still seem to be married to the antiquated internal combustion engine."
ChronosWS largely agreed with this, writing that "cars like the Porsche Carerra and the Bugatti Veyron (mentioned in a related article) are consummate sports cars -- they exemplify not only speed but styling, handling and quality expected of a car with their price tag. Cars such as the Corvette, especially the most recent incarnation, do so relatively inexpensively. But regardless, 0-60 acceleration is not the most important statistic, and often isn't an important statistic at all except to people who don't know better (I refer the undereducated to the more useful 0-100-0 or 0-150-0 tests, as well as relevant agility tests such as emergency lane change, slalom and skid pad.) Electric cars will be desirable when they meet the following conditions met [by] existing cars:"
- "price (under 30k)
- features (styling, interior, gizmos)
- convenience (fueling in under 5 minutes)"
Thanks to all the readers who took part in the conversation, in particular those quoted above.
Bad link (Score:2)
Re:Bad link (Score:3, Interesting)
We won't see an electric car that's practical as an *only* car until someone invents the magic battery, but there are still viable niches. Of course, America simply doesn't have the electrical distribution infrastructure to replace more than a few percent of the gas we burn in cars without a multi-decade infrastr
Re:Bad link (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the daily electrical load patterns for a large state like California (www.caiso.com). There's almost a 2:1 variation between daily peak and minimum. Today, for example, CAISO is predicting a 49 GW peak at 4pm. Today's minimum was 27 GW at 4 am. The difference is 22 GW, enough to simultaneously charge 1.3 million Tesla cars at 16.8 kW each.
(Caveat: the California ISO area exclude
Re:Bad link (Score:3, Informative)
Nation wide, we use about twice as much power for transportation as is delivered through the electrical system. There's nowhere near enough slack in just hoping that people only charge their cars during off-peak hours. Could we sneak in a few electric cars? Sure, but we've already exceeded the engineering margins on the elecitrical power distribution infrastructure on the East and West
Re:Bad link (Score:2)
Also if it looked like a proper car instead of the toy of an insecure jerk, it would probably be more useful too... Ah well, one day maybe...
Backslashes and their discontents (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:2)
End of problem.
How many more Backslashes are we going to have to post this for?
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:3, Funny)
Long answer: you must be new here ;)
Short answer: all of them.
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:2)
I don't know, since I've never been one.
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:2)
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple. Problem solved.
Re:Backslashes and their discontents (Score:3, Insightful)
That way I could avoid em in the rss feed.
wow.. talk about naive (Score:5, Interesting)
That's really naive. Batteries allow for greater efficiency and decoupling between the power plant and the car. How much innefficiency is there in having lots of tiny little combustion engines zooming all over the place with a bunch of ignorant car owners (I imply we all are ignorant to some degree with our cars) compared to a couple hundred regional power facilities that can use whatever fuel and power generation necessary? They can change to new power and fuel types without affecting the auto industry and consumers. They also can be heavily regulated and monitored to make sure those couple hundred catalytic converters actually work and they are performing proper maintainence to make sure efficiency is maximized and pollution is minimized. I mean.. how many car owners actually care if their cars are a couple of percent off from max efficiency? How many will change their driving style to match the size of engine they bought to squeak out another two miles?
How many of you have been behind a car that makes you gag and you can see the trail of soot in the air for a quarter mile behind it?
People that use such sophmoric arguments are... well.. sophmoric.
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Of course I'm not going to advocate (or deny) that by driving an electric vehicle the global warming will be corrected. But that's another discussion. What it certainly does do is gives us far more control over how we manage our energy production pollution related to it. Plus as the article notes, everyone can put solar panels on their roofs and at least shave a pinch more efficiency. We all gotta have a roof so it isn't wasteful of space.
I would take that with a grain of salt (Score:2)
I'm not saying electric cars are a bad idea. But huge corporations are in business to make money, not suck up to corspiracy theorists.
There are lots of "mom and pop" sized operations making electric vehicles, and it's almost trivially easy to MAKE you own electric car, so just
Re:I would take that with a grain of salt (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
But that's bogus, because you can choose where the electrical power comes from in order to get whatever % change you want. There's no spare power in Cali to run any electric cars in te first place, so it all depecds on what you build. Build all nuclear, and CO2 emission goes away entirely. Build all coal and it will get far worse.
If the goal is to reduce CO2 emmissions, just replace coal power
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
America as a whole would have to *triple* the power generation and distribution infrastructure to move all cars to electric. The peak/off-peak difference is small compared to this. Cali is a net importer of power, so it's worse. Also, one reason Cali power is clean is Hoover Dam. There's no where to get any more clean hydro power *from*, so the addidional power generation woul
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Actually the entire thing is about efficiency. A gasoline engine is what, 25% efficient on a good day? An electric motor can be 90% efficient even without superconductors. So having half the energy density is not so serious. It's also about efficiency of cleaning up pollution, which not only works a lot better when it's a large system in a fixed location, but is also more efficient: consider the total mass of all t
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2, Insightful)
That 90% probably doesn't account for the losses starting with actual source of energy. That would probably be coal in the US. Include energy loss in the power plant, and transmission and charging losses, and it's no longer at 90%. I know power plants are more efficient than cars, but how much more? Are they at 50%, 80%? I'm sure a coal power plant/battery car is more efficient th
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
That's very true. It only counts the power source -> output of engine trail. Of course, if you don't need to shift (some electric systems have gears, some don't) then you get to eliminate damned near all the loss after the motor, all you have is a little for some CVs and the rolling friction.
On the other hand, if we actually start building breeder reactors and reprocessing used fuel, then we can decrease our fue
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Missing a few things (Score:2)
First that electicity has to be generated - usually by boiling water which involves some lost energy, then running the steam through a series of turbines which turn a generator, and energy is lost in each of these steps. The high voltage electricity then has to travel to near where you want it and energy is lost in the process. The electricity is then run through a transformer to get
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:5, Funny)
If any of these memories involve a blue Volvo and occurred in 1994, I am sorry.
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
Electricity is the long run best bet for distribution of energy because it's agnostic. You can generate it in countless ways depending on what's the most cost efficient at the time. As pointed out a
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
So, in a place like Quebec
Consider the process before reaching conclusions (Score:2)
Unfortunately it isn't that simple and does not work that way. Consider the inefficiency involved in generating the power THEN getting it to the charger THEN charging up the battery THEN running your electric motor and using it to carry heavy batteries around as well as your payload. You need to consider a longer chain of inputs as well as the output it you are comparing it to a more simple input
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
It's a
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
The battery electric EV, charged from the electric power grid, makes much more sense. See
Carrying the Energy Future: Comparing Hydrogen and Electricity for Transmission, Storage and Transportation [ilea.org]
for the detailed analysis.
Re:wow.. talk about naive (Score:2)
I'd like to see more of these (Score:5, Interesting)
On the Tesla, I'd like to see more of those as well. Especially discussion on turbine/electric hybrids. Why are we still using rubegoldberg-styled piston-based engines, with so many moving parts? I would like to see something effective and efficient for my morning commute.
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:3)
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:5, Informative)
Compare that to the 2006 Toyota Camry V6. 268 horsepower (under the same SAE standard), a several hundred pound weight disadvantage, and EPA mileage 22/31 on 87 octane fuel. The Chevy Corvette weighs 200 pounds more than the RX8 and has a huge 400 horsepower V8, and its EPA mileage rating is 18/26.
Now, Toyota can chew up Mazda and spit them out with the amount of money Toyota spends on research and development each year. So it's at least possible that future research will product Wankel rotary engines that offer superior power and efficiency versus piston competition. But right now, there's no efficiency advantage to the Wankel.
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
Yup..and the Vette looks and handles MUCH better than those (ugh) little 'family' cars......
I'm actually starting to get excited about the possibilities of electric cars, but, like was alluded to before, they're gonna have to be more stylish like a normal sports car, and have the performance AND miles per charge equivalent to miles per gas tank fill, before they get my at
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
Not that it's a better performance car than the Corvette. It isn't. But it'
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
I think they still used that in the last incarnation of the RX-7....and man, that was a great little car. Twin turbo...very fast and a very good handling car.
Trouble was...they priced themselves out of the market with that thing, but, sure was a good looking and performing car...I drooled over them while they wer
Wankel (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if you had to have a "ring job" every 50k miles. That's serious $$.
When Mazda introduced the rotary engine in America, the gas milage was better than what is listed here now, but it used an afterburner to reduce emissions rather than a catalytic converter. Just a data point. Even though they use catalytic converters now,
Re:Wankel (Score:2)
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:3, Insightful)
The V-6 engine in a Camry has a displacement of 3.3
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2, Interesting)
The last time I researched this, in fuel efficiency (work out per work in), the piston engine beat the turbine. In weight effiency (power out per weight engine), the turbine beats the piston. Turbines have less moving parts and can generally be less complex, but the materials and tolerance
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
We're using piston based engines for the same reason that cars are still being made with steel instead of lighter, and in some cases more durable materials - it breaks down well. Unless one happens to be obsessive about caring for a car, the steel parts eventually wear down and rust out, generally leading to repl
Re:I'd like to see more of these (Score:2)
What I want to know is what ever happened to CVTs. I remember reading about them over a decade ago in Popular Science. They were supposed to be some kind of voodoo hoodoo on the mileage too.
Why should the McDonald's pay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why should the McDonald's pay? (Score:2)
Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Made (Score:3, Insightful)
We already have the resources, technology and brains to make practical electric vehicles, we just have to have the willpower, patience and know-how to make them.
Does anyone really believe that a practical electric car or truck is an impossibility?
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
It's like everyone thinks they are smart enough to design the system and already see the flaws in their personal designs, so therefore the entire concept is stupid and cannot work.
Let engineers do their job. Our current approach is definitely a bit outdated.
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
I am not going to say it is impossible, but, depending on your definition of "practical", I don't think we have the technology today. Battery technology is such that electric vehicles will have severely limited range.
If battery powered vehicles are possible, t
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
Solar-cell roof shingles will collect the Sun's energy, then store it in massive batteries in your basement which will lead to a charging station in your garage.
Either that, or go buy some peanuts and hang them on strings just out of the reach of squirrels on conveyor belts.
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
Argh. It takes electricity to seperate Hydrogen from water. Then you ignite the hydrogen and regerse the process. It's a lossy inefficient process. You're better off storing the electricity and using it in a motor than you are seperating the hydr
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
And what efficiency do batteries have? And all the conversions that are required to get the energy from the power station to the wheels of the car? It's a lossy inefficient process.
Actually, I believe that hydrogen tanks can be safer than gasoline tanks? [nasa.gov]
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
Maybe, maybe not. Efficiency needs to be measured from cradle-to-grave for the particular system, not just for one's favorite agenda. Hydrogen may be less efficient to separate, and even less efficient to "burn", but the overall effect to the enviornemnt, and the actaul sunk and operating costs over
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
Define "practical" and you'll have your answer (Score:2)
Re:Powerful, Long-Running Electric Cars Can Be Mad (Score:2)
"backslash" (Score:3, Funny)
"Y'wan inny mower backslash, Jim Bob Billy Ray Bob?"
"Shore. Thanks, ma. Thar inny trackback left, teww?"
Battery Tech (Score:2)
There are folks [millenniumcell.com] working on battery tech, and the latest focus is on Fuel Cell and Hydrogen.
This backs up to *where does the energy come from in the first place* since a battery is not a source of energy, just a carrier. With that, there are no good sources. Consolidating on electric borne of nuclear sources is perhaps the highest volumetric consolidation of waste, but the willpower isn't there yet.
Regardless of battery tech and applications, the side-effects of the current energy production infrastructure
Best Backslash yet.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now on to my comments....
We all should want electric cars. The reasons are is they are not just cleaner to operate, they are also cheaper to maintain. There are less moving parts in a electric car and even the parts that are similar also get less use. The brakes don't need to be used near as much because of the regenerative braking the motor does. There's also no belts and no transmission.....no oil changes! I want a car like this. Electric cars CAN be more reliable then ICE cars. Th eoli companies just need to look at buying up some electric plants!
Re:Best Backslash yet.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if it is cleaner, I'm ok with it, but, that's never a concern of mine when I buy a car. It has to have good performance, look stylish and most of all, be FUN to drive!! And...it is fun to work on cars, even though it is a bit more difficult to work on todays car, say, vs the older 60's - 70's ones...a user can still get in there to tweak, change thing out...put perform
Re:Best Backslash yet.... (Score:2)
Re:Best Backslash yet.... (Score:2)
The Tesla's electric drive train is a lot less complex than an internal combustion engine, so it should be easier to work on. On the other hand, it's probably so simple that there isn't much you can tweak.
Hint (Score:2)
If you had to identical cars, and said "This one will cost you 25 dollars a week ingas, and this one will cost you nothing to run" That is when it would be a consideration.
efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)
Electric cars are much more efficient compared to internal combustion engines- much of the inefficiencies and losses pale in comparison to ICE's. Turbines are around 40-45% (BIG turbines), and ICE's are about 30%. I don't have a figure handy for the current state of the art in electric AC induction motors, but it's very high, comparatively. Modern chargers are better, and modern battery packs are more efficient as well (ie how much juice is lost to heat during charging.)
Battery pack technology is a big restraint; one poster in the old thread idiotically said "we don't need better technology, we need stations where you pull up and swap packs!"
Wrong. 1)Lead acid batteries are pretty much the cheapest W/$, but they are HUGE and they weigh so much the vehicle suspension has to usually be modified; they also don't last very long unless well taken care of. NiMH batteries are superior in many ways, except the current patent holder on NiMH packs won't allow companies like Panasonic to sell large NiMH packs for cars. Busses, great, sure. Mid-size sedan? Nope. Why? Probably they want to get nice plentiful royalties.
NiMH is about to be completely eclipsed by Lithium Ion-like technologies. NiMH batteries loose a substantial amount of energy during charging to heat. At least two companies have figured out how to make LiIon more stable (able to withstand charging abuse, physical abuse like getting punctured with a giant steel rod, etc) and charge faster. One of the companies has packs that can be recharged in a few minutes, provided you have a powerful enough charger. Density is better, and they're finding cheaper materials to make them with.
The other big advance has been with motor controller technology and brushless motors; before, people were using industrial-application DC motors which were brushed (which meant PITA maintenance- brushes have to be replaced, you have to have a blower to keep carbon dust from building up inside the motor, etc), inefficient, low-speed, and VERY heavy. Now you've got AC induction motors that produce a TON of power, and really nice inverter systems with regenerative braking and charging built-in.
The main problem with electric cars has always been, and always will be, that nobody is willing to SHARE, and everyone is hideously greedy. Half the industry thinks they'll be the next Henry Ford; the other half thinks someone will figure out how to make a mass-produced vehicle and license their technology for astronomical prices (NiMH patent holders, Tzero with their integrated drivetrain.) Instead, the industry has skipped to LiIon, and Honda/Toyota/GM/Ford have done their electric drivetrain (for hybrid vehicles) development in-house, or worked with industry giants like Siemens.
If you think the new crop of vehicles are different- look in the history books. Every 10-20 years someone gets a bunch of dough, and slaps together an electric vehicle for limited production. It has been going on since the 60's. Even big companies like Solectra have struggled. ZAP! has survived by diversifying, though they're pretty much gone now from the commuter car market now that Mercedes is re-assuming SMART importing in a year or two.
Things seem a little different now though- technology has leap-frogged some previous barriers. The two remaining challenges are market adoption/acceptance, and power generation. MA tried to get a wind farm planted in the middle of a shallow bay, and the fucking environmentalists screamed blue-bloody-murder about everything little thing...from a small diesel tank (1000 gal) for maintenance equipment which was portrayed as the next Exxon Valdeez, to birds hitting the things, to sounds supposedly transmitted into the ocean that woul
Re:efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
And those are the very worst kinds of "environmentalists". Not only can they not see the forrest for the trees, but the small issues they whine about aren't even legitimate problems. I guess they'd rather see whales dying from heat exhaustion than getting "confused".
As some are starting to understand, to truly fix the environmental issues, we have to think "in the large". Like choosing nuclear power over fossil fuels. Nuclear technology has advanced quite a bit in the past 30 years. And with environmentalists pushing for even more safety, it would help solve our energy problems (pollution, foreign dependence, prices) tremendously, without causing significant impact to the environment. The push for only using "perfectly safe" technologies (solar, tidal, geothermal, perhaps wind and hydro) is just helping to maintain the status quo.
New "capacitor" batteries? (Score:2, Interesting)
Measuring "Sporty" cars (Score:3, Interesting)
Even skidpad, 0-100-0, slalom, and other tests don't paint the whole picture. The best way to judge is driving experience. The 2006 Corvette is a spectacular performance machine. But I've met people who just find the BMW 330 or the base trim Porsche Boxter (both substantially slower) much more fun to drive. People spending $100,000+ for a Porsche 911 or a Ferrari actually are getting more than just a badge. (Maybe not $150,000 worth in sport, but a lot.)
0-100-0 (Accelerate from a standing start to 100 mph, then slam on the brakes to a full stop) tests will rule out things like a performance truck. The RAM SRT-10 can accelerate like a beast, but it is too heavy to stop in a short distance like a sports car. That's a good start. But a Mustang GT 500 will ace that test without offering a driving experience like a Porsche or Lotus.
Slalom tests are weight towards smaller, narrower cars. If one car is 65 inches wide and the other is 82 inches wide, the former will have an easier time weaving around cones. It has 34 inches less of lateral movement to handle as it goes forward. That's a big deal around cones, but it may not reflect their comparative handling on a road course.
At the end of the day, drive what you like.
What about people in apartments? (Score:2)
Someday we might see roadside chargers like in _The Watchmen_. But until then, no dice for the majority of urban populations around the world.
Re:What about people in apartments? (Score:2)
The thing that nags me -- and I know it's no fault of the petrol car designers -- is that electric cars are completely, utterly, useless to folks who do not live in gas stations.
Yes, I'm being frivolous, but what you say must have been true when petrol engines first appeared in cars.
Re:What about people in apartments? (Score:2)
There was a lot of infrastructure that had to be built before (ICE) cars became practical for the general populace. Should we've stuck with the horse & buggy because those funky horseless carriages required millions of miles of paved roads to be constructed (ref [dot.gov]), an entire new industry dedicated to refining this new-fangled "gasoline", and tens of thousands of
Re:What about people in apartments? (Score:2)
You're also assuming people work in a single place, it's no use to people whose jobs mean they're driving all day.
Li-Ion disposal is environmentally safe (Score:2)
Are there any toxic chemicals in the battery?
All Lithium Ion batteries are classified by the federal government as non-hazardous waste and are safe for disposal in the normal municipal waste stream. These batteries, however, do contain recyclable materials that make recycling a good idea.
I don't think lithium anything is safe. (Score:2)
From my model airplane experience, LiPo has been a pretty dangerous battery when used improperly. Here is 1 [utahflyers.org] 2 [utahflyers.org] 3 [utahflyers.org] video's of small Lipo's (3 cells is the biggest) exploding.
As you can see from the videos, just a small lipo cell can create a big 6 foot fireball. LiPo explosions are like a chain reaction, if one cell blows, you can almost bet that any ajacent cells will explode as well.
Over at [rcgroups.com] there
Re:I don't think lithium anything is safe. (Score:2)
Just because something is potentially dangerous does not make it inappropriate to use as a fuel when proper safety measures are observed.
Your assertion that LiPo batteries are the same as Li-Ion batteries is incorrect. Advance Li-Ion cells use a variety of different materials in their construction and generally have a very d
Lame. (Score:2)
Diesel electric? (Score:2)
The advantages seem obvious to me
So what gives? It seem
Re:Diesel electric? (Score:2)
I think I did hear talk of diesel hybrids being produced though, but it was for the European market.
Smog (Score:2)
If this article [austinchronicle.com] is accurate, biodiesel can actually produce more NOx and ozone pollution. It may significantly cut down on the soot, which is considered highly toxic. As I type this, there is another spare-the-air day where I live and all public transit is free. Most of this is due to NOx and ozone.
Di
Coal power (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever was objecting to using coal power plants to charge electric cars is overlooking several issues. One, would you rather keep sending billions of dollars to Bin Landenland to power our cars, or to places like Wyoming and Kentucky that have more coal? And that assumes we couldn't offset some of the additional demand with solar, wind and ethanol fueled power plants. Lift the 100% tarrif on sugar from Brazil and free up some of that for ethanol production. Take over part of the Sonora Desert and start using to cultivate oil producing algae. There are a million things we could be doing that we're not.
Kind of reminds me of those rich people back east who opposed a wind power farm because it messed up their view. I was aghast at that. Here we are dependent on a thin line of oil tankers that terminates in a crapass part of the world where people hate us and a lot of the money we spend on oil is quietly funneled to people who want to kill us. Our highest national defense priority should be developing and implementing alternative energy sources and those fat asshats are worried about their freaking view! And some of you are worried about electricity from coal? J*** H Tapdancing C**** what's it going to take before people get a clue? Instead of making energy indepedence a priority our government is spending their billions on a dead-end war in Iraq, finding new ways to spy on Americans and making damn sure a handful of gay people can't get married. Un-f'ing-real.
Why do people expect corvette even? (Score:3, Insightful)
People expecting a "sports" car out of it is ridiculous. I currently drive a cavalier, I love my Cavalier, but I don't even expect that much power. The reason you drive a first gen battery power car is to save the planet or avoid expensive gas. Would I? Nah, I'm not into the enviroment (don't bitch at me, I'm honest at least), and I want a sportier car, maybe a Camero, but at the same time I'm hopeful that as the first gen battery cars get older, and the technology gets investigated more each year we might get camero's that rocket along the roads without gas, and then vettes that do it.
The point is people who expect cars like Vettes or Veyrons to be similar to the battery cars have to also take into account that the Vette can do something like 18 miles per gallon in the city. My Cavalier can do around upwards of 25-27 and highway I easily can get 30. If the first gen cars can beat vettes and S2000's great, but no one is going to pay 60K just for a car because it can do that, those of us who want the "sports" car won't adapt as easily as those of us who already are buying Prius Hybrids and such. Their aim should be at making the system work and give decent performance in that range with out costing an arm and a leg in price. Then when the concept is proven thinking about developing a higher end car.
It's the same as any new technology it'll take time for everyone to adapt, but those of us who are looking at a car as more of a power symbol arn't going to be as easy sells to jump on the electric bandwagon.
Simply put those of us who'd buy cars that have lower and lower miles per gallon, will not be as keen on saving the planet as other folks who might have families and sedans, and aiming on making cars that will make the sports car fans happy in the first round of cars will be too expensive and possibly break the technology's finacial back too early and fast.
As for Ford and Mazda, if you think they haven't done any R&D on this then you're misguided, but at the same time to develop an entirely new engine themselves will put them in an even more precarious position then they are now.
Batteries may not be the best solution after all.. (Score:3)
"If you're suggesting running commercial trucks on electricity, forget it for the foreseeable future. It's definitely been considered. Not only is there the conflicting speed issues I mentioned above, but you run up against the energy density limitations of batteries fast.
If you have a steady flow of trucks, make them powered by electricity from overhead wires. Sure it's expensive to maintain, but for corridors like the I-5, the 580 in the bay area or the 110 in LA it may be worth it. Why not take it a step further and electrify train networks here in the US like smart people in Europe have done a long time ago!
Oh and we already have electric buses. They're called trolleybuses - developed along with the streetcars but used in the US mostly during the era of streetcar abandonement. Europe still uses them with great success. In case you never saw one and live in the US just visit San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Boston (actually Cambridge) or Edmonton.
The longest trolley bus line runs from between Simferopol, Ukraine [google.com] and Yalta, Ukraine [google.com] in Crimea - about 50 miles long (just that one line, not including local networks in both cities).
This goes to the point of another batteries not being reliable. I was seriously looking at the new Camry Hybrid, but was turned off of it for two reasons:
-It's less than the 45 MPG required here in CA for solo carpool lanes
-It's not a plug-in hybrid (although Toyota is working on one AFAIK)
I would LOVE to get a plug-in hybrid and be able to charge it from the 600-volt trolley bus network in San Francisco. Now THAT would be a cool mod!
In any case - we either need to invest in electric transportation (network of electric wires, rail electrification, trolley buses) and/or we need to invest in plug-in hybrids until a better technology comes along that can provide cheaper, more effective energy storage.
There I've used up my RANT points.
What happened to fuel cells? (Score:2)
10L of water + (electricty from an outlet) -> lots of 2xH + 0 -> convert to electricity via fuel cells -> 10L of water goes back into the car's reservoir for another recharge.
rinse repeat?
Backslash is a fine idea (Score:2)
Enough of the hidden-source argument (Score:2)
I have had enough of this “the electricity has got to come from somewhere” canned, red-herring argument against electric cars. It should not be hard to understand why replacing several hundred million gasoline engines with a significantly fewer number of power plants, coal or otherwise, is a benefit. Power plants, aside from being highly specialized for the task of generating power and open to fuels with more energy per volume than gasoline, have a major benefit in their economies of scale [wikipedia.org]. L
Electric for city, gas for highway (Score:3)
I'm inclined to think that this isn't so terribly damnable. Most of the places where one can drive at "highway speeds" are places outside dense areas, where the highways are straighter, there is lots of vast land, and I'm betting that no matter how you slice it, any square section of suburban or rural land containing a highway or interstate has less car travel (and therefore emissions) per sq. mi. than any given urban area.
Meanwhile, smog is a problem in dense areas where cars hardly ever can go at highways speeds except in the middle of the night, due to urban traffic congestion. Thousands of cars idling and not moving are dropping stagnant pollution in the same place for a longer period of time, on a near-daily basis.
An electric mode for low speeds and city driving, and a gas mode for higher speeds and highway driving wouldn't be a bad idea. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would probably go far to reduce urban air pollution.
I have to admit, pure-electric cars sound like they wouldn't work well for anyone who uses their car for anything other than commuting and in-town driving, and for anyone who doesn't own their own home (which is not most urban drivers). Driving any distance over half your one-charge capacity would be fraught with danger, since in current EV cars you have to have a special 220V-fed charging station (which requires having your own garage). If you drive over 150 miles away, where exactly are you going to recharge? Better haul out the trusty old gas guzzler for that weekend trip. (To be fair, this is probably also true of ethanol, CNG and hydrogen vehicles, for the foreseeable future.)
Make it a SUV and I would look at it. (Score:2)
Small cars already get great mileage, some regular cars get better mileage than hybrids (Civic)
No, make it a SUV, Explorer size or bigger. They have the space underneath so you don't have to cram or take trunk space, they usually are truck based suspensions, and they get hideous mileage so the change in perspective would be much greater.
If you sell it to the public in a USEFUL package they might just surprise you.
Till then, keep yo
No, no, NO! (Score:3, Interesting)
The needs of humanity and the planet are more important than any patent.
rhY
There is plenty of load at high speed... (Score:3, Interesting)
The major loads involved here are due to weight and drag. Weight mostly hurts acceleration and drag mostly hurts top speed. To double your top speed, you must quadruple your power. That should be a clear indication that there is plenty of load near the top speed of a vehicle.
Re:open your mind (Score:2)
It's really hard to get the RPMs of the turbine down to something that can be handled by a transmission. They tried making turbine cars in the 1960s, and gave up. Technology has come a long way since but it's still a pain. Consider the fact that the automatic-transmission RX-8 has a lower rev limit (7500?) than the manual version (8000) because the auto trans can't handle the RPMs. Virtually all hybrids have automatics...
Re:open your mind (Score:2)
It seems like their uses in a hybrid would overcome many of these disadvantages by converting to electricity first a
Re:open your mind (Score:2)
The reason they don't do this is that you then have to carry around the additional weight for a generator. The motors used to propel the car are around 85% efficient as a generator, so not carrying something like that around is a good thing.
Keep in mind that if you have a motor kicking out even 50 HP you need a pretty fat generator to actually convert all of that kinetic energy into electrical energy. 50 hp is a little over
Re:Power bursts (Score:2)
Gas already is much more expesive. (Score:2)
The US should probably be given up as the place to deploy better solutions for fuel economy. It's hard to lay down a proper infrastructure in the more sparsely populated areas, the people are generally too pig-headed to change (y
Ha (Score:2)
Take that, physics!
Re:Reality: Some of us don't use coal or oil (Score:4, Informative)
Hydroelectric power generation is renewable, however, all forms of power generation involve side impacts, such as siltation (the buildup of silt behind dams, which must either be removed (used for topsoil replacement, especially in alpine soils) or further dams built (a method used in a number of countries to build flat farmland areas), salination impacts due to irrigation (which can be reduced by drip irrigation and time-sensistive irrigation (don't irrigate when it's hot and sunny)), etc.
Hydroelectric energy is generated by turbines which are moved by the water cycle - which is primarily powered by snow/ice that melts, flows into rivers, powers the turbines, goes to the ocean, and in all forms of usage is evaporated (unless split for fuel cell energy storage or chemical usage) to return to the cycle - a less reliable method involves the lack of snows, but this requires large cachement basins and is less efficient.
Every form of energy creation involves inefficiencies and transmission reductions. Batteries involve the use of specific metals and other destructive methods, which involve smelting (something I've done on a large scale at Tek Cominco) as well as alloys (ditto).
Now, there are fish impacts, but from an energy perspective, that is a side effect, not part of the actual energy creation process. Coal involves a number of destructive and humanly dangerous methods in its usage as well (which I can attest to, due to experience in mining and ownership of Peabody Coal IPO shares).
Next time, let's not pretend that up is down. Heck, the solar radiation that drives this entire process comes from a finite source, the sun, which will expand and absorb the Earth way before it runs out of energy, but our seas will boil over before that day.