Slashdot Mirror

If you don't mind spending thousands of dollars on a generator that can keep up with the car's power drain, and the snickers of everyone around you when you pull into a gas station with your $100K EV to fill up the tank. :-)

Hey, if it's just occasional cross-country use, there's always a pusher trailer.

Oops, I forgot the link to the truck I mentioned - here it is.

The average EV-1 size electric vehicle consumes around 400 watt-hours per mile. Somewhere around 140 miles is a good estimate. This site has a lot of home conversions: http://www.evalbum.com/

If you sacrifice the bed, you can get a 92 mile range commuter vehicle out of an old S10.

http://www.austinev.org/evinfo/build/eva-selectingavehicle.html
http://www.evalbum.com/037

That may be much more than what you need, but the less you draw down your batteries, the longer your batteries will last. If you never let your batteries drain below 95%, they will last much, much longer than if you're draining them halfway down every day. In the long run, this may save you a lot of money, as battery replacement is the majority of the cost per mile for running an electric vehicle.

If you are interested in the electric car scene, check out this website with all the individual conversions, there's a lot of them, from lawn tractors to commuter cars to sportscars to full size trucks, scooters, e-bikes, you name it, it's been converted. EV Album

The real problem is long distance trips. Unless you have charging stations every 50 miles and can transfer 10-20KWH to the car in a few minutes at each of those stations, you still can't effectively make a long distance trip in an electric car, whether it's you driving or a robot.

Some people with electric cars who have spent upwards of $15,000 on lithium batteries (not practical for most people) can go a hundred miles or more before refueling. The best batteries (A123) are so expensive as to be almost impractical, but they can charge fast enough so your refuel time is probably limited by your cables or by how much current your charging station can provide.

Electric cars aren't out of practical reach, even without robotic drivers. Check out EVAlbum.com -- there are hundreds of electric commuter cars out there. It's just that they can't go long distances without recharging, and charging takes a few hours at least. I don't see how robotic drivers help with either of those problems.

Now, if you can get the power usage down, then long distance trips in electric vehicles become practical. Even with a human driver.

I think you're missing the point. The volumetric energy density of batteries isn't up to the task. It doesn't matter if it's a pickup truck or a motorcycle - they all seem to go about 35 miles on a charge. Why? Because energy density is Wh/l or Wh/kg, and smaller vehicles carry fewer liters or kilograms of battery. Banging that lower energy storage against a lower energy requirement of the smaller vehicle - hey! about the same effective range. Imagine that.

Have a look through the projects over at EV Album. Most of the folks are "hoping" to get 30-40 miles of range. All manner of budgets, motors and battery chemistries are represented. The results aren't stunning.

Biodiesel and butanol represent renewable energy storage methods that are compatible with the current distribution infrastructure. Both may be synthesized from renewable feedstocks (that aren't food, dammit.) Moving toward all-electric is desirable, but it's not the immediate next-step. Battery storage densities need to increase by 10x (though 5x would probably be good enough.) The power distribution grid needs to be upgraded too.

What? Why can't we just "plug in?" Let's compare the electrical power requirements of a current-day EV. Running a 6+6 flooded lead acid cell pack (six in front, six in back,) you've got 144V at about 50Ah. A full charge is 7.2kWh (we'll ignore the charging losses for now.) To charge in one hour, which the batteries will object to, requires 7.2kW. With a 120VAC source, which rectifies to a bit over 165VDC, you'll need about a 50A source. Don't have one of those at the office, do you? How about spreading that charge out over several hours? Okay, let's use an entire 15A branch circuit - you'll need 3.5-ish hours to charge the battery.

I'll add some reference numbers. My electric power bill (looking at it now) has a one-year historical use chart on the back. My 4-person 3-bed residential usage is about 1000kWh for 30 days, or about 33kWh per day. My anemic EV needed 7.2kWh twice a day - outbound trip and return trip, recharging at the office. I'm going to need to increase my electrical usage by almost 50% to convert to EV transportation. The current electrical grid is barely adequate for the existing load. Oh, and don't forget that my wif has a vehicle too, so converting our family to EVs will double our existing electrical load.

The Dymaxion Car was *very* space efficient, and it had a teardrop shape. (Seated 11)

The Dymaxion Car plan would be great for a skateboard chassis like GM was planning.

If you applied carbon fiber construction to such a "skateboard," combined with wheel hub motors, you could probably get beyond 100 miles range with just Lead Acid batteries. (Simply because the shape could be optimized for strength without compromises for doors, and you could use the entire bed for batteries, as in the Red Beastie)

Seconded. I'd like to encourage that poster to submit to EV Album dot com. Amazing what people can turn out of their garages. You can do a search on the site for Huffy, Schwinn, Trek and so on. I have no connection to the site other than being a visitor. You may be interested in these two in particular.

This sounds somewhat close. A 2006 Schwinn Ranger. http://www.evalbum.com/1634

I'm really impressed with this one though. A 1987 Suzuki SP200 electric conversion. http://www.evalbum.com/1511

Seconded. I'd like to encourage that poster to submit to EV Album dot com. Amazing what people can turn out of their garages. You can do a search on the site for Huffy, Schwinn, Trek and so on. I have no connection to the site other than being a visitor. You may be interested in these two in particular.

This sounds somewhat close. A 2006 Schwinn Ranger. http://www.evalbum.com/1634

I'm really impressed with this one though. A 1987 Suzuki SP200 electric conversion. http://www.evalbum.com/1511

Remember, far more energy is used, and more CO2 is produced in building a car than it will produce in its lifetime, so keeping old cars running is good for the environent!

Actually.. this is only true if the car is built from virgin steel, which is happening less and less. Cars are heavily recycled. And while CO2 emmissions may be less, other "worse" pollutants are not. Cars older than 10 years have to abide by less strict emissions standards, and are often poorly maintained. The worst 10% of the cars in the US produce 90% of the NOx and CO emissions.

Of course, a well maintained older vehicle can still be cleaner than a poorly maintained new car (hint, if the check engine light is on, don't open the hood, verify it is still there, and then ignore the light)

Or you could go the other route... buy and older car, convert it to an electric vehicle and get the best of both worlds.

If you're somewhat mechanically inclined and enjoy a good project, you can roll your own. Check out some existing conversions:

http://evalbum.com