Slashdot Mirror

Seriously, the smart move is to not do diesel. We have plenty of NG in the states, so it makes far more sense. The ONLY advantage that you have with diesel right now, is that the same tank for gas can work for diesel. However, you would still need to change the tank opening.

OTOH, there are plenty of small engines that work with NG. So, what you do is put in a SMALL engine/generator. One that can drive the car at a cruising speed of say 70 mph. Then put on a small set of batteries.

As to both the generator and motor, please see UQM If you go after a LARGE POPULAR SUV, like say the suburban, with this, then you could actually create a company whose sole purpose is to switch SUVs over to NG serial hybrids. UQM would stand to profit from that, if you work with them on this.

Try telling any green environmental lefty that Ethanol is a bad thing and show them why, and they turn their nose saying, "But, but, but, but its GREEN!"

I'm not sure what type of VW he's got, but given that he's in Afghanistan I wouldn't be surprised if it's not an air-cooled Type 1 (Beetle). But it could be a Type 2 (Transporter), too. Could even be a Golf -- it's the best-selling model they've got. We Americans are the only market that shuns it in favor of the Bora (Jetta) -- though I love my lil' white Golf IV!

I found a few more electric VWs with a little bit of looking:

Diesel-Electric (1.3L TDI) New Beetle

Electric 1969 Kharmann Ghia (the Ghia is a Beetle derivative)

Electric Rabbit (US Mk1 Golf)

And that's just for starters. VW AG itself considered a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain option for the Concept 1, which later became the New Beetle, but so far only the diesel portion has survived (the TDI is an option in the Golf, Beetle, Jetta, and now the Passat and the Touareg in the US, and in the rest of the model line elsewhere in the world.)

I'd love to see VW build a Golf-based CR-V competitor with a hybrid diesel-electric powertrain and the race-bred DSG transmission.

But yeah, this guy gets geek points from me. :)

Your post is modded as funny but here's what I see happening:

Oil will become too expensive for use in automobiles. Now, companies like GM have faked electric vehicle efforts only to revert back to good ole oil. Because of the Big Company reluctance to supply EVs en masse, clever companies will eventually step in and supply bolt-in EV retrofit kits and you'll be able to plug in that 84 Rabbit instead of gassing it up.

Eventually, the BigMotorCos will have to supply EVs. The EV1 was great in the respect that it required very little maintenance (no oil changes, air filters, spark plugs, head gaskets, transmission, etc). But how can GM make money when owners can rebuild the drivetrain so easily?

Alternative Energy Engineering
Electro Automotive
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
Home Power Magazine
innEVations
Jerry Halstead's Car
Low Rolling Resistance Tires
Phoenix EAA
Unique Mobility
Wilde EVolutions catalog

I don't know about you, but I'd take a Hybrid-Electric HMMWV. Both designs even perform much better than their diesel only powered originals.

"The Hybrid Electric Powered High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) developed by PEI Electronics, Inc. (PEI), Power Management Division is making the cross-country endurance trip as part of extensive testing of this vehicle?s new advanced hybrid-electric power train.

The utility model being used for the cross-country tour is a modified version of the more powerful tactical HMMWV developed for the military, which is also powered by a Unique Mobility hybrid electric propulsion system. The utility model utilizes a small 1.9-liter diesel-fueled engine and Unique Mobility?s permanent magnet generator to produce 55 kilowatts of electrical power to maintain the long-term operation of the vehicle. Two 100 kilowatt (125 horsepower) permanent magnet motors developed by Unique Mobility, one for each axle, power the vehicle. The vehicle with its 3,000-pound payload accelerates from 0 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h. in only 10 seconds - nearly one-half that of a standard HMMWV. An operating range of up to 375 miles is possible with a smaller than normal tank of diesel fuel. The vehicle?s increased fuel economy of up to 16 miles per gallon is twice that of the standard HMMWV."

If they can make a Hummer perform better on less fuel, I bet they can also do it to the average car.

At this point I'm seeing the potential to take a 550 Spyder kit car and make it Hybrid-Electic while still having a great performer.

You wrote: "We need a way to show the oil companies that we're fed up of lining their pockets with cash" which is kind of funny since there are so many ways, and so many organisations doing so.
Rule #1: Buy NO unneccessary plastic items. I make an exception, personally, for my kids' legos. But I don't buy a new case for my computer just because the ATX form came out, I hacksaw the old one. Plastics are essentially a waste product of the petroleum industry.
Rule #2: Buy NOTHING from Exxon. Because we need to convince the Oil Barons that there are some things that don't blow over - and Exxon's had the most egregious crimes as well as being the last vestigal trace of the original Petroleum Trust (Standard Oil = S.O. = Esso = Exxon, you can confirm this easily).
Rule #3: Stop whining and do something. I am converting my truck to gas/electric hybrid ASAP. My bud Pete runs used fryer oil in his (unmodified) Mercedes diesel.

Alternative Energy Engineering
Ballard Fuel Cells
Electro Automotive
Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.
Greenpeace International Homepage
Home Power Magazine
Hydrogen Web (English/German)
innEVations
Jerry Halstead's Car
Low Rolling Resistance Tires
Phoenix EAA
Roofing Systems
Unique Mobility
Veggie Van (BioDiesel)
Wilde EVolutions catalog
United Solar Systems Home Page

--Charlie

Sticks and Stones may break my bones but FUD will never concern me.

Well, you and most of the others commenting on this issue are sure willing to spread the FUD around....

1) Car battery disposal is not a major pollution problem (manufacture being another issue). Those little ever-readies that you're tossing blithely into the trash are one of the most pressing ecological issues of our time, but people driving electric cars recycle ALL their batteries (the spent cores are quite valuable) and most gas vehicle batteries are also recycled.

2) Point source pollution (i.e. power plants) is easier to control/prevent than distributed pollution (cf. privately operated internal combustion engines). Gas lawn mowers are one of the principal causes of air pollution in the US, incidentally.

3) Many people are supplied power from hydro, wind, or photovoltaic sources. If you actually become a part of the electric vehicle underground you will find that many people are generating their own power, or use power from commercial "green" providers.

Your statement "yes the energy does come from some coal or oil burning plant" is thus incorrect through overgeneralization, which makes it relatively accurate compared to most of what's being posted here. Your comments on ethanol and car prices are similarly FUDular.

Alternative Energy Engineering

Electro Automotive

Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.

Greenpeace International Homepage

Home Power Magazine

innEVations

Jerry Halstead's Car

Low Rolling Resistance Tires

Phoenix EAA

Roofing Systems

Unique Mobility

Wilde EVolutions catalog

United Solar Systems Home Page

First of all let me say, to the few people who know what they are talking about, and posted correct information, thank you, and this obviously doesn't apply to you. For the rest of you:

I am amazed and sickened to realize how ignorant and myopic most of these posts are. I have been reading slashdot for a couple of years and researching electric vehicles off and on for about eight years. I never would have guessed that the usually intelligent, forward thinking, able to see through the BS- crowd here at slashdot would be so uneducated and unwilling to see the benefits of electric vehicles.

The idea that an EV is a greater environmental threat than any internal combustion engine (ICE) is ABSURD.

Yes, the electricity comes from plants, many of which burn coal, but those power plants burn cleaner and more efficiently than almost any ICE vehicle on the road. Think of it in terms of mass production- you can make thousands of ________ for a lot less than you can make one _______. And the same goes for kilowatts. The boiler in the power plant is always at OPTIMUM temperature, and the turbines are always spinning at OPTIMUM speed. Also, when you build a power plant in some wide open space it's easy to tack on another acre or 100 acres if you want, to install scrubbers to keep emissions in check.

For those of you who think that burning coal is so much dirtier than burning gasoline- where exactly do you think gasoline comes from? It comes from a filthy black sludge that is ostensibly liquid coal. And it has to go through extensive processing (i.e. refining) to become the "clean burning" gasoline. Do you really think that drilling hundreds of feet into the earth, pumping out sludge, using ocean freighters the size of a college and then 40 ton semi trucks to transport it to a refinery, then the refining process, and then more 40 ton trucks to get the fuel to a gas station so you can drive over there and pump it into your car, and spill some on the ground.... do you really think that's easier, cheaper, and more efficient than plugging your car into the wall at night?

Furthermore, one of the biggest problems with pollution isn't just the AMOUNT of pollutants, it's the pollution DENSITY. Using electricity from a one power plant out in the middle of nowhere to power hundreds of vehicles within a few hundred square miles is obviously going to distribute the environmental load more evenly, and the planet can process it more efficiently.

Worried about batteries as a source of pollution? Read this article. If you're to busy/lazy to read it- it addresses that specific issue, and the punchline is: batteries are better than fossil fuels.

For those of you that think electric drag racing serves no purpose- It does. With the exception of a few things that come from aerospace programs and crash testing facilities, almost every significant advancement in automotive technology has come from racing. In this case, efficiency, range, and performance are universal. Electricity obeys Ohm's Law, and that simple equation dictates that anything we learn about how to make a car go fast in a quarter mile can be directly applied to making a car go 100 miles, it just wont go as fast for that long.

"Electrical transmission has terrible efficiency, about 91% loss of energy in transmission. You're only getting 9% of an already poor energy conversion from fossil fuels, which is 3 times that of electric transmission. "

This is the most ridiculous claim I have ever heard. That means that for 626 KWH of power that of energy that I used last month, the power plant had to make 6329 KWH. Times how many homes in a city? And how many businesses? Ohm's law is V=IR and power P=VI. Anyone who doubts that the person who posted this is wrong, please do some math. If the transmission system dissipated 91% of the energy, we'd have glowing wires running from pole to pole all over the country. Until they burst into flames.

"I haven't heard of any major advances in battery technology in years. Yes, new electronics is helping, but power density and cost are as unfavourable now as they were ten years ago."

Then you aren't paying attention. Check out evercel. They have a new Nickel-Zink battery with almost double the energy density of current lead acid technology. And this article talks about how the expense of Li-Ion batteries is based solely on it's incredible performance and politics; not on cost of materials or production. Li-Ion is better in every way than any battery currently available and will eventually be cheaper than all of them. The technology to make EVs viable is here today, you just can't get your hands on it because the people in the oil industry and people in the automotive industry are protecting their present interests.

"You have to wonder how long these motors last. That smoke you see coming out the back? No... it's not just the tires. :)

Uhmm, yes, Beavis, I think that was just the tires. Furthermore, and electric motor will survive a drag racing environment for orders of magnitude longer than an ICE engine.

"It's not about speed ...it's endurance. When I can jump into an electric car and drive from Akron to Detroit non-stop, heater, defroster, wipers, headlights and stereo all going full-blast, I'll take electric cars seriously. Until then they just don't cut the mustard.

Sorry, eco-geeks. But pound for pound, gasoline rules over batteries. I'd love to see a leap in technology that changes this, but I'm not holding my breath.

Why not both? Check out the tzero built by ,ac propulsion. It has a 100 mile range (longer than the EV 1 built by GM) and is faster than a Ferrari (and Porsche, and Corvette, and everything else).

There are a lot of things that an EV wont be able to do for a long time. Like a cruise ship. But for MOST people, MOST OF THE TIME, an EV is a cleaner, quieter, cheaper (by far, on a daily basis) solution than an ICE powered car.

On the other hand there are lots of things that an ICE vehicle could never do that an EV can do. A good example of that is this hybrid electric hummer (which is discussed in more detail here) that can be operated off of it's battery pack and run in almost complete silence to sneak up on the enemy. And it outperforms it's ICE counterpart in EVERY other area (yes, even range) as shown in the graph on this page.

Normally when I read or hear about people dismissing electric vehicles, I let it pass, because most people don't have the technical knowledge to understand all of the energy conversion arguments and do the math (literally and figuratively). But I couldn't do that in this case because there are a lot of people from all over the world who consider slashdot to be a meeting ground for intelligent people, and a source of good information. Slashdotters aren't stupid, but some of you are ignorant about this stuff. Please educate yourselves before you spout fallacies. EVs have enough perceived and political problems to overcome without intelligent people propagating incorrect information about them.

Thank you.