Who's stopping the electric/solar car?

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=gazpacho]
Gas contains roughly 1.3 * 10^8 Joules
An internal combustion engine is about 25% efficient.
This means for a 25MPG it takes about 1.3 * 10^6 joules to go a mile.

There are 3.6 * 10^6 joules in a kilowatt hour.
Where I live the cost of electricity is roughly 14 cents a kilowatt hour.

Battery charging is about 66% efficient for nickel metal hydride batteries. This number seems to vary a lot based on quick internet scans.

Electric motors are about 85% efficient. So 2.3 * 10^6 joules are needed to go a mile.

So about 9 cents a mile. Or about 11 miles per dollar.
[/QUOTE]

You missed something. In a gasoline engine, all of the energy lost to braking is dissipated as heat. In an electric car regenerative braking gets a lot of that back. A 2000 pound car traveling 30 miles per hour loses 2.6 * 10^6 joules to stop. Even if you only get 40% of that back, it’s going to be a significant factor, depending on your driving habits.

That 2.6 * 10^6 joules seems high to me, it’s enough energy to drive two miles, but when I consider how much gas I use going from 0 to 30, compared with how much I use cruising at a fixed speed, I guess it makes sense. I’m sure one of you guys will check my math.

Of course, you could use regenerative braking in an internal combustion engine too, but you’d need a battery to store it, and an electric motor to utilize it, and next thing you know you’re driving a freakin hybrid and you’ve got to pretend you like Ed Begley Jr., and who needs that?

22

I am curious to see further development of ceramic capacitor technology. If the news releases are to be believed, it could solve the energy storage problem:

Has anyone heard anything more about EEstor’s technology?

23

I know the OP is about electric/solar, but thought I’d mention the air car. It is supposed to go into production in India soon.

My engineering knowledge is non-existent, so I don’t know how viable it is. It is getting a fair amount of press lately.

24

Hybrid cars are not electric cars. They’re hybrids, and a much more viable idea.

25

That compressed air engine sounds to me as though while the engine runs on gas or diesel it recharges a compressed air tank that is used to drive the vehicle in city situations.

If I am correct, that means that

  • you have to run the engine long enough on highways to recharge the compressed air tank
    and
  • while running on fossil fuels, the engine has to do enough work to both propel the car and recharge the air tank.

The first point eliminates it as a city-only vehicle and the second point raises the question whether the dual loads on the fueled engine would actually drive fuel efficiency down to the point where the combine fuel/air mileage would be no better than anything we currently have. (Hybrids avoid the latter problem by admitting, up front, that their primary source of electric energy is the wall plug, not the alternator and brake. The air car company seemed to avoid that issue. (I suppose everyone could put a really powerful air compressor in their garage, but then you are paying to run that independent compressor, as well.))

Now, they are also claiming to have employed new techniques to make the fuel engine far more efficient than current models. Whether that is true needs to be demonstrated. If it is true, they may have a product worth considering.

26

[QUOTE=Ambski]
Scratch beneath the surface of the oil underworld and there’s all sorts of murky goings on. There’s a slick food chain here and ultimately (like all chains) there a link at the end.
[/QUOTE]
Of course, if we switched to electric, the demand for electricity would jump tremendously. Oil is already the primary daytime fuel to generate electricity and the oil companies have more than enough money to simply buy out the coal producers if there was a big switch in energy use, so the idea that the oil guys are trying to stop electric cars does not seem to carry much weight if we’re talking logical links.

27

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Of course, if we switched to electric, the demand for electricity would jump tremendously. Oil is already the primary daytime fuel to generate electricity and the oil companies have more than enough money to simply buy out the coal producers if there was a big switch in energy use, so the idea that the oil guys are trying to stop electric cars does not seem to carry much weight if we’re talking logical links.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly.
Now, could someone PLEASE tell me what ‘Global Daycare’ is and what it has to do with why solar/electric cars are a ‘given’??

:stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

28

Red lights, I hope.

29

First of all, the economics of electric cars and the substantially decreased carbon footprint even using coal-fired power plants with today’s sequestration technologies. Let alone taking into account that a sizable amount of electricity is nuclear generated and a growing fraction is generated using renewables, such as wind and biomass. Charging would most commonly be done at night while plants are currently at a relative down time. And sure, if solar generated electricity at a local level is cheap enough then one can imagine a car/soar generating station that is carbon neutral or even negative, feeding excess back into a grid. Less carbon. Less cost per mile. Less maintenence costs. And more energy independence from the oil-producers.

Next is the fact that electric cars are here and more options are on the near horizon. The problem is the balance of range, power, and price.

You can go with a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) which, by law, is regulated to 25mph max. These include the Kurrent, ZENN, and the Dynasty, among others. Cheap -6 to 14K, but can’t go on a road that has speed limit over 35 mph. Good for local use and in city driving. I believe that London has made parking free for these vehicles while taxing the in city use of gas engined vehicles highly.

Or the opposite extreme and go with the soon to be released Tesla which can go 0-60 in about 4 seconds and has a range of over 200 miles but for a price of about 100K. Midrange is Phoenix Motorworks SUV with a 10s 0-60, a hundred mile range and a 95mph top speed and which I believe is expected to sell for about 50K. And then there are cars from ZAP from little three wheeler NEVs to microsports cars to “soon to be released” cross-over vehicles codesigned by Lotus.

And then there is GM’s announced paradigm shifter, The Volt. This would be a sort of hybrid. It would be a plug-in electric car that would have an onboard gas engine to provide back-up generating of electricity. Under 40 miles a charge and no need to burn any gas at all. But cross country road trips would be no problem and would still get killer gas milage.

Battery technology that is powerful enough, light enough, and cheap enough is the kicker. GM has contracts out to two different developers so many believe that this is for real, but they could just be blowing smoke for pr anyway. I don’t think so though.

Meanwhile the full electric car manufacturers are working on quick charge options (under 10 minutes) using special charging stations. One can easily imagine gas stations along highways adding these fast charge stations for use at a premium charge alongside the usual pumps during a period of transition away from gas engines. Much easier to build that than alternative infrastructure than say hydrogen fueling stations all over.

Hey, I own some Ballard stock, so I still hope fuel cells are in the future, but practically this is going to be the way we go for the forseeable future.

30

Same people who made Steve Guttenburg a star [/OSR]

31

[QUOTE=xtisme]
Exactly.
Now, could someone PLEASE tell me what ‘Global Daycare’ is and what it has to do with why solar/electric cars are a ‘given’??

:stuck_out_tongue:

-XT
[/QUOTE]

Hi xtisme,
‘Global Daycare’ is the nanny culture that has arisen alongside the Global Warming ‘save the planet’ theme as supported by most major governments.
Here in the UK I see regular adverts showing the massive polution put out by vehicles and the constant message to ‘do my bit’.

On your other points:
I don’t have any proof of a ‘oil underworld’ or perhaps the full technical challenges faced in producing a viable electric/solar car but I do know this:
We are able to travel around the universe BUT apparently have challenges making what is essentially a larger version of the toys our children play with?
Go figure.

32

[QUOTE=Ambski]

I don’t have any proof of a ‘oil underworld’ or perhaps the full technical challenges faced in producing a viable electric/solar car but I do know this:
We are able to travel around the universe BUT apparently have challenges making what is essentially a larger version of the toys our children play with?
Go figure.
[/QUOTE]

Last I knew about it, our ability to travel around the universe was restricted to an occasional very expensive hop up to the nearest chunk of rock, using a one-use vehicle that more or less had to be thrown away as we did it. We’re a long way from overcoming the technical challenges stopping us getting to Mars, let alone anywhere further afield, so let’s not overstate our universe-travelling capabilities.

And yes, we have yet to scale up a kiddies’ toy to the point at which it can usefully compete with the IC-driven car, for reasons announced upthread, and you can bet your boots that if there a way to do it and make money at it someone would be doing it. Unfortunately a kiddy toy need only be able to go a few hundred yards at walking pace on a set of batteries which you’re willing to throw away, and this doesn’t scale up nice and easily to a 60mph vehicle with 200 mile range and a recharge time measured in minutes just because you ironically talk about “challenges”.

33

[QUOTE=Ambski]

On your other points:
I don’t have any proof of a ‘oil underworld’ or perhaps the full technical challenges faced in producing a viable electric/solar car but I do know this:
We are able to travel around the universe BUT apparently have challenges making what is essentially a larger version of the toys our children play with?
Go figure.
[/QUOTE]

I used to have a wind-up car, and boy did my arms get tired!

(Incidentally: “travel around the universe”? Really?)

34

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Red lights, I hope.
[/QUOTE]

Clouds and a strong head wind.

35

[QUOTE=Ambski]

We are able to travel around the universe BUT apparently have challenges making what is essentially a larger version of the toys our children play with?
Go figure.
[/QUOTE]

Heck. The USS Enterprise could travel around the galaxy and speeds greater than light and they still couldn’t cure male pattern baldness. Figure that one out.

Marc

36

[QUOTE=Alessan]
(Incidentally: “travel around the universe”? Really?)
[/QUOTE]
I went to the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago. No… wait… that was like going back in time.

37

[QUOTE=Ambski]
I don’t have any proof of a ‘oil underworld’ or perhaps the full technical challenges faced in producing a viable electric/solar car but I do know this:
We are able to travel around the universe BUT apparently have challenges making what is essentially a larger version of the toys our children play with?
Go figure.
[/QUOTE]
Your grasp of the challenges facing electric cars is eclipsed only by your deep understanding of the cosmos. :rolleyes:

38

[QUOTE=begbert2]
I once watched a movie called “Who killed the electric car?”. It was rather one-sided and occasionally accusative, but it did definitively establish a couple of things:

  1. Some major car companies created electric cars, after being forced to by californal emissions laws or something. These cars were leased to the public.

  2. When the environmental law expired/was revoked/changed, the car companies retracted the leases, collected the cars, and locked them up. They have possibly been destroyed by now.

  3. The people who had driven the cars were very sad to see them go.

This is, of course, assuming the movie wasn’t a total fabrication: total lies and creative cosmetic mods to cars to show charger slots and stuff. I’m sorry, but I have no further information.
[/QUOTE]

Here’s the Wikipedia article. GM criticized the movie but didn’t call it a fabrication.

39

[QUOTE=Grey]
Your grasp of the challenges facing electric cars is eclipsed only by your deep understanding of the cosmos. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]

Lol!

Ok, so maybe I have a gift for over (‘…around the universe’) and under (‘…easy to do’) statement! Hopefully with your more extensive capacity for accuracy you do, at least, get the point of the comparison.

IMO, its not just a lack of power sockets that stopped this becoming a reality and increased goverment funding could have solved and battery issues. My 2 cents…or pence. :slight_smile:

40

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Here’s the Wikipedia article. GM criticized the movie but didn’t call it a fabrication.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the article BrainGlutton & also to begbert2 for the lead.