that’s probably similar in function to a design that micro-drills the charge plates. I’ve been hearing about it for over a year. I’ve been following all the “AMAZING” energy technologies since the 70’s and have grown weary about getting excited by them. Heck, I saw a demonstration of a capacitor battery that totally got my heart pumping. That was at least 5 years ago. It was a demo that replaced the batteries in a cordless drill. It didn’t have the range of other batteries but it charged in seconds.
I’ve actually gone back to Ni-cad batteries because I’ve killed a couple of Li-on batteries way before their time. There is an entire planet jonesing for a better battery.
It might be old, but it isn’t optimized for automotive use.
Edit: Just in case it hasn’t been clear. My answer to the OP is YES. I am more interested in how do we reduce the time to get there, and how to do it in a fiscally responsible manner.
Improvements in drivetrain efficiency and reductions in motor mass per unit of power will help EV get the most out of battery technology.
Batteries are the fuel, they are going to be the same across the board for all auto manufacturers. So how do you differentiate yourself in the market? Economy or performance. How do you get more range out of the same unit of energy that the other guy has to work with? That is where a lot of effort is focused and a lot of change is still to come.
I’m hopeful that I may have the opportunity to own an electric drive vehicle in my lifetime. But it is still a long way off before a pure electric can perform as a replacement in this one auto household.
Are any manufacturers working on hybrid designs that are a tru electric drive platform with a generator set? That seems more logical to me than adapting electric motors into a convention ICE drivetrain. At the least it seems to further engineering and design toward pure electric platforms.
The Fisker Karma is a pure serial plug-in hybrid that meets your criteria. The first ones are rolling off the assembly lines right now, and will be available to buy this summer. It has a pair of 201 hp electric motors driving the rear wheels, a 50ish mile range on its batteries, and a 2.0 liter turbocharged inline 4 to act as a generator. I know with the Chevy Volt, the designers considered making it a pure serial hybrid (which is how it usually works) but decided that the added complexity of having the motor directly drive the wheels at highway speeds when in charge-sustaining mode was worth the extra efficiency gain.
Electric motors also offer a lot more interesting packaging choices than ICE engines, due to being much smaller for the same amount of power. The fact that most ICE cars are FWD is largely a design compromise resulting from the large size and cooling systems an ICE needs (meaning the best place for the engine is in the front, unless you only want to carry 2 people), and the fact that running a drive shaft to the rear wheels costs more and reduces the amount of cabin space available.
Given a choice, most auto enthusiast and designers would prefer cars to be RWD or AWD. With an electric car (or plug-in hybrid) the only good reason to make the car FWD is if you are starting with an existing FWD platform. Once we start seeing designed specifically for electric motors platforms, then we will get a lot more RWD cars. For example, the Tesla Model S places its motor right between the rear wheels, and its battery is a very flat block built into the floor. So it ends up having an extra trunk under the front hood, lots of interior room, and the rear hatch area ended up large enough that they put in a flat-folding rear-facing seat that can hold 2 kids, in addition to the 5 regular seating positions it has.
Can electric cars replace the gas driven ICEs? They are doing it now and will do even more in the future. The end is coming for the ICEs. It is about time. The EVs wa
I was thinking a little more along the lines of off highway vehicles like this where there is no conventional drive-train at all, the electric motors are built into the wheel hubs. That’s a million pound plus gross weight vehicle capable of 40 mph!
Anyway, just thinking that from large auto manufacturer standpoint, you could have one, two, three, or four wheel drive configurations all using the same motors to create different performance level platforms all from the same stock of electric drive parts. Of course configurations with more motors would need larger generator sets, much like a pickup has a larger ICE than an economy car.
I thought by this point we would see something along these lines but it seems, hybrids for the most part are just tacking an electric motor onto existing drive-trains thus failing to eliminate losses from the mechanical drive-train. And on the other end EV is being pursued as a limited scope ultra economy vehicle concept with little cross platform adoption of technology likely.
To add further, several cars makers (Volvo and Peugeot at least) are working on “through the road” hybrid systems which have a conventional gas engine FWD system, and an electric motor(s) driving the rear wheels. They can do at least low speed driving entirely on electricity, and the two systems give the car all-wheel drive ability in poor road conditions. And for long range steady highway cruising, having the engine directly power the wheels is more efficient than having the engine turn a generator to power the electric motors. Stop and go traffic is where electric and hybrid vehicles really shine, since electric motors are more efficient over a widely varying range of RPMs than ICEs, and they can recapture a portion of the energy lost in braking.
Accepted that a variety of PHEV approaches can move a sizable amount of miles driven per year off of gas and onto the grid as a fuel source. But conversations get confused for some when we discuss PHEVs and true EVs in the same threads with people conflating the advantages and disadvantages of one approach with the other creating chimeras like Chevy Volts that have limited range and Nissan Leafs that cost as much as the Volt does.
I’m having a hard time with this bit. It it seems fairly well documented that conventional automotive drivetrain losses run anywhere from 16 to 25%. And steady highway cruising is still not constant load, so the engine can’t possibly be in it’s optimum efficiency trim the entire time, nor can we count on the cruise speed being the same from one road to the next so engine rpm at cruise can deviate from the ideal. An electric drive system with wheel motors directly driving the wheel hubs, should have no driveline losses if direct coupling is achievable. That leaves the only source for losses to be the generator itself, and here I can’t find much of anything for efficiency of gasoline or diesel driven generator sets.
There’s a loss o efficiency at higher electric motor speeds. This is why the Volt went with a variable ratio transmision (also the Prius). The Leaf and the Ford Focus EV have opted to go without a transmission but use a reduction gear.
No mention of how many electric vehicles though. There’s a big difference between having a few and making it a fleet’s backbone. But the concept is still important to note: a business cares about the predictability of its cost structure and EVs give them that.