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Electric Cars and Their Discontents
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.
Tesla roadster article.
"You're everywhere. You're omnivorous."
The most hotly contested issue raised by yesterday's Backslash was the gratuitous number of Backslashes that have now appeared. In today's Backslash we look at the most insightful comments regarding this issue, and ask; will we find an answer, which we can summarise in tomorrow's Backslash?
"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."
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.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
I'd like to see more posts on Slashdot -- discussions distilled down into their component topics, some useful information, and a rehashed go at it again. I hope to see more of these.
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.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Why should the McDonald's pay for charging up your electric car? There's no reason why someone who arrived at the McDonald's by foot be paying some cost of charging up someone else's car. The driver or owner of the electric car should be paying McDonald's (or whomever McDonald's subcontracts or franchises the electric car parking spot) for the electricity. I would expect that any parking spot that would support charging up an electric car to also have some way to charge the driver for money for the electricity, since the whole concept of an electric car is basically going to obsolete the notion of a gas station or e85 station or hydrogen station. Heck, this could even be marketed as a time saving scheme -- you no longer have to go to the gas station because your car will always be ready to go. Unless electric cars start using disposable or at lest removable batteries that can be changed quickly at a 'battery station' for long trips, there's no need to refuel for short-trips.
Just like we wanted to put a man on the Moon and orbiters on Mars, if we want to accomplish a scientific feat badly enough, we will find a way to do it.
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?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This not about a fleet of new cars using todays technology. This is about opening up your mind to new ways of doing things.
Why can't the trucks which haul freight be diesel-electric?
Why can't vehicles be gasoline-turbine-electric?
There are many, many ways of skinning this cat. The goal is to reduce dependence upon fossil fuels.
If we could stretch the same amount of oil two, four, or ten times as far then we have reduced dependence somewhat.
Exactly!
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.
Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
If battery powered vehicles are possible, then a better solution might be hydrogen powered. The hydrogen can be created through electrolysis and the energy density of hydrogen is far greater than batteries. Hydrogen comes with its own set of problems, but I believe they are all easier to solve than the problems associated with battery powered vehicles.
Now, we still need to solve that pesky problem of from where is the energy actually going to come? Nuclear?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
First of all...Happy 150th Birthday Nikola,
...an ASS!
Tesla's wireless power transmission system was the impetus for his 1935 Packard (?)
There were no batteries used at all.
Nikola-Tesla.com - The World's Greatest Inventor
His true genius will be never known since most of IT has been classified by the G'ment.
But his ingenuity is praised every time you flip a light switch or plug into an electrical outlet.
It will be a cold day in HELL before the likes of Tesla are surpassed. The surprising thing is, that it will happen...but don't hold your breath.
Edison was and still is
sounds like some weird Southern food
"Y'wan inny mower backslash, Jim Bob Billy Ray Bob?"
"Shore. Thanks, ma. Thar inny trackback left, teww?"
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Backslashes are even more annoying than slashbacks. It's like a dupe of a story yesterday, but the editors actually know about it already and sanction it!
Now, we still need to solve that pesky problem of from where is the energy actually going to come? Nuclear?
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.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There are folks 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 are only going to increase with demand (population size). If you're looking for a snappy solution-oriented comment here, forget it. Just get ready for some incredible sprials ("energy production->global warming->energy demand..." as just one) that push our society to the edge of survival.
This is a GREAT use of Backslash and the post even had a different look to it.....
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!
Gorkman
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
Please help metamoderate.
An electric car could cruise the highway for about $1.50 per hour. That's cheaper than most cars but not much cheaper than the most efficient cars. Given that the cost of gas is mostly made up of taxes, and given that the state would find a way to tax the electricity if enough people started using it, electricity will have a hard time attracting users.
Anyway, if the cost of oil goes up, the cost of electricity will also go up because demand for it will go up as people substitute electricity for oil.
What about those new "capacitor" batteries?
For the freight market, the respondent that commented on the energy density of batteries vs. chemical fuels has it exactly right. Maximizing load capacity is the overriding requirement, and electric power alone will not let you do that. A hybrid scheme makes a lot of sense in this case - use a big-ass traction motor on the wheels, and a high power constant speed genset to keep a set of batteries charged (and to provide direct power for acceleration) so that you can maximize internal-combustion engine efficiency while minimizing driveline losses. The Canadian company Railpower has created hybrid switching locomotives that use this principle, and they give much better fuel economy (and correspondingly reduced emissions) than a locomotive that has the conventional engine-generator-motor driveline.
Less is more.
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.)
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.
First of all, let's get the whole horse on the table before we start the operation. You have to look at the whole system from energy source to final use (car), then decide how the whole system fares with each important consideration.
First choose a complete system then analyze it, component-by-component:
coal plant > transmission lines > electric car
nuclear plant > transmission lines > electric car
hydrogen source > distribution system > fuel cell car
refinery > fuel distribution > gasoline car
refinery > fuel distribution > hybrid car
others?
Now we can discuss the important considerations:
1. Machine efficiency of the system (better use of the energy from the source?)
2. CO2 emissions (Do we create less or more?)
3. Pollution (how does it impact air, ground, water)
4. Cost to build or maintain the infrastructure
5. Is it practical (EX. if it costs more to make hydrogen than we get out in benefits, maybe it not a good idea?)
Has any study like this been done?
I started that thread!
I had a hard time keeping up with the responses!
I did like that thought out response above - really well thought out IMO.
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The thing that nags me -- and I know it's no fault of the electric car designers -- is that electric cars are completely, utterly, useless to folks who live in apartments. That's a lot of people, and we're not all poor. I'd buy an electric NOW if I could get one in the ~20 to 30k range. But how do I charge it? Do I dangle an extra long extension cord from my balcony?
Someday we might see roadside chargers like in _The Watchmen_. But until then, no dice for the majority of urban populations around the world. I'll keep riding my bike, and I'll keep around my little 2-door stickshift focus for long hauls.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
= Line of sight. No Tesla car for you!
From the Tesla FAQ:
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.
When I read the title, I assumed "Their Discontents" meant the oil industry.
For slashback I would ask, 'How much do you think the oil industry is spending this week to slander and block electric vehicle technology?'
Most people on Slashdot would think I'm an outrageous left-wing nut for asking. But really, if every week the oil monopoly makes over a billion dollars in profits, do people believe they wouldn't spend a small fraction to oppose a disruptive technology that could bankrupt them?
Another problem is "rings". The rotor has flat barriers at the points of the triangle, and rings around the two faces of the rotor. These wear very quickly, and need to be replaced.
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, and so don't have to run "a little rich" to fuel the afterburner, the milage still sucks?
My "government intervention" detector suggests all those standards and requirements that have been building up over the decades have created a situation where they are trying to do more, and that costs fuel. The MTBE contradiction: It reduces emissions, but burns less efficiently so more fuel is burned thus increasing emissions.
I would be interested to see a tiny rotary compared to a tiny turbine to be connected to the generator of a hybrid. I wonder how those two scale compared to pistons? Hmmm.....
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The hydrogen can be created through electrolysis and the energy density of hydrogen is far greater than batteries. Hydrogen comes with its own set of problems, but I believe they are all easier to solve than the problems associated with battery powered vehicles.
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 hydrogen and combusting it.
Recall energy cannot be created or destroyed. Recall also that in an ideal, frictionless world, energy conversion would be lossless, but that isn't the case here. Furthermore, who the hell would want to drive around in the hindenberg?
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As a geek and a fisherman, my trolling motor on my boat supposedly runs on very short bursts of power. This is to make the battery last considerably longer. I confirm that it is a huge improvement over the older models. I geta an entire day 8+ hours on a 12 volt car battery.
r .asp?pg=maximizer
The text at the top, when referring to cars and trucks not being able to sustain speeds but being better at short bursts, fails to account for this technology.
http://www.minnkotamotors.com/advantage/freshwate
I was left with the over all impression that the electric car fanboys in the film generally attributed the demise to the same shadowy global industrial-gummint conspiracy that no doubt saps and impurifies their Precious Bodily Fluids.
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 do it and stop whining.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer are very closely related. I think the only major difference is the packaging.
From my model airplane experience, LiPo has been a pretty dangerous battery when used improperly. Here is 1 2 3 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 there is 100's of reported incedents of leaving LiPo's to charge, and the owner returns to find their kitchen/car/garage engulfed in flames. An improperly charging Telsa LithIon pack could probably blow the roof off your house.
3 cell Lithium Battery in a model aircraft 500 feet over my head is fine, but I wouldn't want to park a huge pack like what's in the Telsa anywhere near my house.
First you start out with a lightweight shell on wheels and implant a form of linear accelerator into just the highways. The inductance of the magnetic field in the roadway is powered by natural sources whenever possible, and the "controlled" stray magnetic field from the roadway accelerator induces a reactive field in the vehicles lightweight battery charging system which will power the vehicle for short distances from the highway to home or work. For longer range distances from the highway the rack mountable battery system is exchanged for a larger power plant (hybrid, fuel cell, turbo desel, etc) for travel where the "infrastructure" does not yet exist.
The roadways can now become single high speed lane each direction because the cars communicate, cooperate, and physicaly couple for combined "drafting" to cut wind friction by literally having no space between them. There will be few accidents and thus no traffic jams caused by them. Since there are no moving parts required during highway travel, except for the wheels, there are also fewer breakdowns, many of which can be assisted off the road by its peers via built in coupling.
This form of travel needs to be a "cooperative process" so everyone can get where they are going with the least amount of wasted energy and loss of time.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
...as was shown in a recent article I saw. Considering the total energy costs to make and run the cars from "dust to dust", hybrids use several times the energy of conventional cars. Battery power is only a bit of the equation. Cost of the electricity, cost of materials all factor in. There might be gains to the atmosphere if nonpolluting sources like nuclear (yes, nuclear, preferably Pu powered) were used to make the electricity. As it is, much of the power in US is made by burning coal (which spreads considerable radioactivity incidentally among its tons of other more mundane pollutants). Battery materials, and the light stuff hybrids must be made of, are not cheap to make either - far more costly than old fashioned steel (AND harder to recycle).
Better to do the math before getting anxious to depend on such beasts...
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
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 50 years (or whatever), may make it the best process to go with - BMW believes so much that using hydrogen in a minimally modified engine as we're all familiar with today is the right approach that they've invested a billion dollars in that belief. There's not enough detail shaken out of the various alternatives to oil, which of course is for now still the most viable energy source, to decide what to commit to fully - so people continue to try a little fo this and that, and the process will eventually go in some direction.
The advantages seem obvious to me
- Diesel engine runs at an efficient speed when needed
- You lose the transmission/drivetrain complexity
- You get gobs of low end torque
- 4 motors = AWD = you could do funky traction control stuff with four independant motors
- You get regenerative braking built in.
- We've got 50+ years of experience building them for very high demand applications. We know they can handle abuse.
So what gives? It seems so obvious I can't imagine why people haven't built them already unless there's a real catch."Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
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.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If I was to buy a battery car, it should work as well as a ford focus, or neon, or some other car I personally wouldn't want to drive. If such a car existed that would drive in a similar style to the Prius Hybrids that's is so "hip" now, and at the same time cost similar, meaning approximatly around 5K more or less including fuel expenses for 3-4 years (Aka if you have to replace your battery each year vs. a year of moderate gas use.) Then it's a viable car.
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.
First, I would like to say that although batteries are not there yet to completely replace the internal combustion engine they are good enough to supplement it. I think also, the real benefit of this car is the fact that it is a proof of concept(EV1). The way I see the use of an onboard power-source supplementing the internal combustion engine is to balance the use of oil to be that of the ammount that the country can produce it-self. For example, here in Canada on the west coast, most if not all our electricity comes from Hydro power. However, we are producing so much of it that we end up having to sell most of it and/or dispose of it as there is more supply than demand. For us, an electric car would be perfect. Then, when you are on a highway driving at high-speeds you could simply have the car turn on its gasoline/biodesil engine and take up the slack of the electric motor. In conclusion, the real issue is the fact that everyone is caught up in Hydrogen as being the thing to take over the role of internal combustion engines when in reality that is not going to happen. The real issue is that there is currently very little movement coming from the big car companies with regard to new technologies for transportation. There needs to be real incentive for them such as a law or tax break for consumers. Warm feelings don't pay dividens.
Huh? [devShell.org]
Speaking just of trucks...
Last weekend, by friend phoned me up and wondered if I wanted to go camping with him. I said "sure" and jacked up my 2000lb truck camper, parked the truck under it, fired up the propane-powered fridge, hauled some food out, hooked up my 14' boat, buckled in my kid and wife, stopped at a gas station on the way out of town and was headed out after about an hour and a half of preperation. I drove for four hours non-stop and arrived at the park where we had non-electical sites. Stayed there saturday night, loaded everything back up and drove another four hours home. That's eight hours of driving hauling around about 4000 lbs of "stuff" on 1.5 hours preparation. Currently, switching to some electric truck would definately not allow me to do that with todays resources, technology, and brains.
Regarding cars:
Last year I made a trip, me and my wife drove a total of around 50 hours in three days with on day stop in the middle (four days total). A friend of mine had an old server I could have if I went and got it. Again, this trip would have been impossible with any electric car built with todays technology.
Now, onto the practical electronic vehicle...
This one is absolutely possible. For short-haul vehicles which need to carry minimal cargo (ie: commuter vehicles) or fixed-route mass-transit vehicles (wait, these practical electric vehicles already exist and are in use) it is an excellent idea. If I don't need to ever go more than (say) 200 miles in a 24-hour period, it's great. However, it has much less flexability than a car... such a thing cannot fill every role the car fills today.
So... "impossible" well, who knows. Say someone invents a perfect electrical storage container which can be flash charged in less than 30 minutes to hold enough power for a six hour drive... then all the electrical generation and distribution systems are upgraded to be able to deliver that kind of power on demand to everyone who wants it. Well, at that point it would become possible. The distribution/generation system is probably possible right now (fiendishly expensive... but possible - can SoCal folks run air conditioning any time they want yet?). But yeah, I think that without a major breakthrough *and* major infrastructure overhaul, replacing all cars/light trucks with electric vehicles is impossible.
American gasoline doesn't have nearly the tax payload that gasoline in other countries does. Effects of that can be seen with oil-prices; American gas prices fluctuate relatively wildly compared to European prices. Gas in Holland costs around US$6.70 per US gallon, and that's cheap.
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 (yes, you can travel long distances in comfort in cars that don't weigh four metric tons or more. And if you'd actually live near where you wanted to be, you wouldn't even have to), and the current power and fuel production companies are too heavily tied into government for government to force the issue.
No, let's just let Europe or Asia lead, and let the Americans catch up if and when.
Why are we reinventing the wheel?
:D
"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 and Yalta, Ukraine 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.
-Palal
The current process is extracting it from a bio-fuel. I'm not sure how efficient it is, but it only produces about the same waste as letting the biomass rot. I wish I had some idea of how to track this down again, but I remember a company that was going to market them to gas stations at $5000 each. If you don't like the gas station's prices, open your own hydrogen refinery.
Why is there no mention of fuel cells or hydrogen in the article? Weren't these supposed to give the greatest energy density?
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?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
but it's tiring on the eyes to read so much italic text. But probably my headache today is not helping it either.
The filesystem is the package manager
Just like we wanted to put a man on the Moon and orbiters on Mars
Oh, so thats why MCO hit Mars. It was actually supposed to land. Well why didn't somebody say so?
872835240
"Now is the winter or our discontent made glorious summer by this hybrid of Ford" department
- The energy density of metal hydride storage is huge compared to chemical batteries - you just can't make a practical electric car with any kind of range because chemical batteries are just too heavy for the power they store.
- If you make the metal into suitably small glass-encased spheres, you can transport it using the existing infrastructure for gasoline. Building the additional electrical distribution infrastructure to replace what we have would take decades - we'd have to triple what we have now.
- Metal hydrides are a very safe way to store power densely. Batteries (and liquid fuel, of course) are very dangerous in a fire. I wouldn't want to store the power to run my house overnight in chemical batteries, and that's a big drawback to going all-solar.
It's the big picture that makes hydrogen make sense. Plus, by using the existing gas infrastructure the oil companies still make money, so it's politically viable.Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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. Let me summarize this another way.
Anyone care to educate me as to why the opposite of any of this is the realistic case? (Or add more?)
Join Tor today!
"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."
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.)
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I wake to the sound of traffic - electric cars will have less noise pollution - less road noise - makes the golf courses by the motorway or houses near the ocean but with large streets between - that much nicer! also that gagging smell of exhaust when stuck in queues of traffic. All that carbon monoxide has got to be bad for you!. Not to mention all the asthma and allergies that come from it. I wish my scooter was electric - i could dock it at home and wouldn't have to go into those gas stations and try and juggle gloves, helmet, wallet and bankcard at the same time
They are being tested in the Netherlands
The company claims the buses pollute less because their engines never accelerate (think of the fumes emerging from a conventional bus as it accelerates away from a bus stop, this is avoided with a hybrid).
the E-traction buses have their electric motors in the wheels.As for hundreds of regional power plants - in nearly every case of power generation something that is big is going to produce power more efficiently than a smaller plant - that goes for all forms of thermal, hydro, waves and wind up to the practical size limits of the unit. About the only thing that only gives you linear output (you only get twice the output for twice the size) is photovoltaics - so if that's the way you go you may as well have it where you want to use it.
BTW - the "one evil for another" emotive language was the parent poster in the other article and not me.
I'll put the microwave transmitter on the car!
Take that, physics!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As far as I know there still is no effective solution to the amount of NOx smog produced by a diesel engine. A lot of this is due to the high compression ratios used, not necessarily the type of fuel.
If this article 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.
Diesel-electric is perfect for trains, since they need a huge amount of torque at zero RPM and electric motors solve this nicely, basically eliminating any requirements for a complex transmission.
-Aaron
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
tzero has an attachable "range extender" for their pure electric sportscar, precisely for long trips. It turns an electric into a hybrid when needed, so that during the commuting week, you can be pure electric, weekends or vacation time, bolt this thing on and go driving like normal. Here is an url for the unit.
i ng_trailers.htm
http://www.acpropulsion.com/Products/Range_extend
You could take the same idea and build a bolt on unit yourself. Being in alaska I am sure there are any number of generator outfits you have access to. As to the electric ride, kits are out there on the web to convert normal cars or pickups. So, build a kit, get a trailer, slam a small diesel genny in the trailer, make a nice plug...load up the rest of your gear.. go for a long drive..seems doable...
So, there's one answer from a near-zealot. snort. Been reported here in several other electric vehicle discussions. Anyway, it might not be perfect, but nothing else is either. It's a cinch that the days of cheap fuel are over,(cheap in cost to the wallet, I once paid 12 cents a gallon when I was a teenager, double HA!, cheap in cost to the environment and people's health, etc) barring some tremendous breakthrough and the hundred buck backyard Mr. Fusion.
Almost no one cares what powers there motor. They want a nice looking car with good umph and in a good price range.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you want to conquer the market then hit it where it makes the most sense.
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 your little cars. If I want small I will ride my motorcycle. I use 4-wheel vehicles for their utility, not because I want to. (and yes, I own a SUV, a Murano - hybrid comes in 08)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A diesel electric train or a hybrid car removes a few steps and so uses less energy than an equivalent electric vehicle even though the onboard power generation is a lot less efficient than the generators in a power plant that can be very large and don't have to be carried about.
I for one live in the Pacific Northwest, where more than 90 percent of our energy supply comes from renewable hydroelectric energy, and we also have massive wind farms too.
I used to live in British Columbia, Canada, where - again - we used hydroelectric power.
Some people live in the EU, where by 2012 more than 20 percent of all energy will come from renewable sources like wind power, biomass, solar, and so on. France, for one, gets most of its power from nuclear fission, which while having horrendous waste byproducts, is supposedly less polluting. Some places like Scotland and Norway use tidal power.
Most of these don't add carbon to the atmosphere and in fact help calm down the overabundance of energy stored in our oceans that is one of the side effects of global warming (technically global massive temperature oscillation, as it can get really cold really fast just as much as really hot really fast, both locally and globally, when you start messing with the global weather patterns).
So, just because when you drive an electric car it means you burnt coal, doesn't mean when I drive an electric car it burnt coal. In my case, it runs on snow turned into river water.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It depends on what you mean by "practical".
Just keep in mind that you cannot exceed the laws of physics... or chemistry. And it's damn hard to beat the energy density of gasoline with anything "practical" (for cars).
That "watch the energy density" tip was handed me by my father who has spent ~35 years in the petroleum industry.
I've found it a useful touchstone when assessing about the latest alternative "breakthroughs". If you know the energy density of the substitute, you can usually figure out what the "catch" is of the alternative. Batteries, hydrogen, etc.
Fusion in a cup solves a lot of problems of course. (But then we end up with a magnificent heat pollution problem... it's hard to get around entropy!) Good luck! I too hope we make some progress. Even a little progress can make a huge impact in a trillion-dollar industry!
--LP
... or so I thought the article header read.
Though maybe not as funny as the talking cat video
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
You are right.
;-)
Great analogy, this putting a man on the moon stuff.
Nobody doubts an electric car, weighing 2000 tons when it leaves the garage, will take three people to the walmart a couple of dozen miles away and back home. They might even bring back a shovel of gravel from the parking lot at the walmart.
If the government foots the 1 billion dollar bill for each electric car made, that is. As an additional bonus, you get the gravel for free.
> Does anyone really believe that a practical electric car or truck is an impossibility?
No. But from an engineering POV, given current prices of various available energy sources and foreseeable improvements in battery technology and electrical energy distribution, an all-electric, battery powered vehicle resempling currently popular SUV's does not seem to be anywhere near an optimal solution to the problem.
If you really want to put an Apollo program sized effort in it, here is what i think is needed :
- Curb the dead weight.
You do not need a 4000-pound vehicle to transport a single 200-pound person.
However, this requires that passive safety features such as airbags and massive steel safety cells be replaces by active collision avoidance.
This basically means you are not allowed to steer your own car, but have to have a computer system do it. (no obligatory BSOD jokes here, please
This is what Detroit (regrettably, but correctly, IMHO) asseses as a tough sell to the customer.
- Limit the speeds to sensible values, like 50mph.
While this seems to cost you time, actually your commute is going to be shorter, because there will be no need for traffic lights and there will be no congestion.
- Combine a comparatively small battery or capacitor for regenerative braking and acceleration boost with a small, efficient fuel-cell or internal combustion engine.
it seems pretty obvious to me that (1) petrol fire is worse, and (2) a battery, even if explosively burning, presents a far simpler job of fire control - it wouldn't be impossible to simply eject the whole battery assembly and let it burn itself out on the road.
Dan's Data had a great idea that solved the range problem for electric cars. http://www.dansdata.com/modularcar.htm
Basicly, make an electric car with a 50-100 mile range, something the size of a civic or a prius, then have a hookup on the back where you can attach a small diesel generator on wheels. Just like the small trailers you see for moving, but this would generate the power needed to 'hybridize' the vehicle, but you don't need to have it hooked up the vast majority of running around town you do. Also, one generator could serve a whole group of vehicles, or maybe even make them rentable for trips.
Mazda is pulling a slight of hand with their "1.3L" claim. That's the effective displacement of a single rotation of the engine. However, the total volume of all cylinders, not the effective volume of one revolution, is typically how displacement is measured in piston engines. So if you look at it from the definition of total possible volume, the true 'total' displacement of a 13B/Renesis is actually 3.9L. Now, that's not exactly fair either, since the rotary engine actually has to make three revolutions to use it's total volume, compared to two with a 4-stroke piston engine. So if you square both engines up at two revolutions each, the relative displacement of a 13B/Renesis is 2.6L. Which makes a lot more sense for the kind of power it puts out.
:)
Rotary's are (or can be) great engines, but they're not exactly miracle motors like Mazda would like you to believe.
The energy density of a metal hydride storage tank that you can buy today from Ovonics is about 2 or 3 times better than a lithium ion battery in terms of energy density (both volumetric and specific). I would not really call that a huge advantage. Sure, this is about 1% H2 storage and the projected limit is 8%, but I would not call that huge. Batteries will advance as hydride technology advances, and will likely advance more quickly. By contrast the energy density of a gasoline tank is orders of magnitude higher. On top of this you have to consider conversion efficiency. Combustion of hydrogen is a joke - you spend too much energy making hydrogen to use it in anything as inefficient as an otto cycle. The tank from the ovonics site I am looking at weighs 127kg and carries 1.7kg of hydrogen; by most people this is considered to be equivalent to about 1.7 gallons of gas. 127kg!
I've never heard of any scheme for transporting and exchanging hydrides. The hydride storage that I have heard of is the standard ovonics metal hydride tanks with hydrogen added and removed as a gas. There are schemes to use sodium borohydride as a chemical carrier, but I've never even heard of what you are proposing here. Again, metal hydrides are REALLY HEAVY. You don't want to ship them around. I've also not heard that we would need so much additional transmission capacity in order to move our automotive fleet to electricity - if you look at the diernal cycle of power demand, there is a LOT of excess capacity at night. Conveniently this is when we aren't driving very much. It is dubious to imply that trucks full of hydrides are cheaper or more efficient than stringing up more power lines.
Again, I'm not sure where you're getting this. Most metal hydrides are reactive when exposed to air. They are not that much more energy (or power) dense than existing batteries, and you are going to be throwing away at LEAST 50% of your energy in losses in your electrolyzer and fuel cell (assuming you are using a fuel cell - best case). If you are using a hydrogen ICE it gets even worse. The round-trip efficiency of batteries (about 90%) totally KILLS metal hydrides for storage of energy in stationary applications. The only reason that hydrides are being considered for H2 storage for cars is their safety and potential for improved power and energy density over gaseous or liquid H2.
I would argue the opposite. Hydrogen is a distraction. We replaced battery electric vehicles that cost $60K and could be recharged anywhere with minimal infrastructure cost with fuel cell (and H2 ICE) vehicles that cost a million or more each (optimisitcally $300K with mass production) and have to be refueled at hydrogen stations that do not exist with hydrogen that will optimistically cost $14/kg (that is equivalent to a gallon of gas). If you use compressed hydrogen you have already used 10% of the energy in the H2 just to compress it to 5000psi (the usual pressure, for 10K psi it is even worse).
+++ ATH0 +++
Does anyone really believe that a practical electric car or truck is an impossibility?
We've had milkfloats since the 50's.... (and the ill-fated sinclair C5's). Unfortunately neither really enhanced the reputation of eletric vehicles. http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/ox-co-op.html
It may well be that in 10-20 years we could solve the cost and infrastructure problems that stand between us and widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells. But battery technology isn't standing still either... batteries are improving every year, especially now that the hybrid and laptop markets are providing the necessary economic incentives. Perhaps by the time hydrogen fuel cells are ready for use, the technology will be moot, because by then batteries will do everything that people require of them.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Hello, I'm an electric car
I can't go very fast, or very far
and if you drive me,
people will think you're gay
("one of us, one of us!")
I have done my research on transmission losses. The losses are less than the losses of running an alternator off of a piston engine in the first place. Even at it's worst, you are about 30% more efficient using all coal than you are burning gas in a variable RPM, small scale engine with high loss alternator that idles every time it stops, and doesn't regain energy lost in breaking. Even with batteries, you're still burn'n less stuff.
That said, nobody seems to be mentioning the prior slashdot articles about carbon nanotube capacitors. By using carbon nanotubes, the surface area inside the capacitor is now high enough that small capacitors can be used in place of batteries for the same charge in small electronics. Best of all it has no effective life ilke a battery does, so it doesn't need to be replaced, and capacitors charge VERY quickly. I've seen people ask about 'filling up quickly and continueing?' THAT is how you do it. Have your coast-to-coast drive that you'll never take anyway.
The obvious solution to the whole debate is to get a hold of the US flywheels we are currently using on the ISS. There's no reason we can't mass produce them and replace batteries with a more efficient electrical storage system. Other than of course a few patents, which is of course why I'm in the Pirate Party.
The needs of humanity and the planet are more important than any patent.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
ICE-driven cars break down, as everyone knows. With so many moving parts, vast temperature fluxations, etc, they very rarely last longer than 150,000 miles, which is around 10 years for most drivers. Most people who can afford to, however, end up purchasing a new car every two to three years, and trading off the old one, under the assumption that cars will start developing problems after 50,000 miles or so.
However, electric motors and drivetrains have a much, much longer lifespan. I've never seen exact numbers, but I would imagine 200k-300k wouldn't be unreasonable.
So, as a business, do you choose to spend your R&D dollars on a car that needs to be replaced every 10 years, or a car that needs to be replaced every 20, 30, etc? It really doesn't make sense to cut your own throat like that. Granted, there will still be people who buy new cars every other year just to keep up in style, but the depreciation rate will decrease considerably.
BTW, I'm sure somebody else has mentioned this, but there's a movie called Who Killed the Electric Car? coming out soon that goes into this. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
While there are many possibilities involving alternate fuels and transportation, most suffer from the fundamental issue of public acceptance, or lack thereof. Until people accept a potential solution, that solution won't gain the needed widespread use, and so will remain only as a potential.
We have a society that is used to the freedom of individually owned and operated cars. People are used to a certain vehicle range, fuel price, fuel availability, vehicle price, time needed to fuel the vehicle, etc. These factors are important because they are linked to our expectation of what a vehicle can and should do, and those vehicles failing to meet these expectations will undoubtedly have a much harder time gaining acceptance.
Electric/battery cars fail on several fronts. Fueling stations aren't available. Vehicle range is significantly shorter. And fueling (recharging) time is much longer. These factors cannot be written off with simple words about efficiency or emmissions, when there is no expectation that these cars have any place in today's marketplace. Less prominent is their greater weight and accompanying reduced efficiency and cargo/carrying capacity.
Electric/fuel cell cars wouldn't suffer as harsh a critisism. It seems likely for them to have comparable fueling times and similar range. One area they may fail in is startup time, where I've seen figures in the 1+ minute range. Anyone remember the widespread critisisms about how you couldn't immediately start a diesel? And, they suffer from a lack of fuel distribution network, though the exact fuel they will use has some flexibility. Of course, we don't yet have any practical examples or experience with which to judge their final form.
Hydrogen suffers from a lack of a distribution channel for the fuel. Specialized equipment will be needed to handle the flammable, pressurized gas safely. This rules out simple changes to existing gas stations to enable them to handle hydrogen cars.
But there is one interesting possibility that seems overlooked: ethanol. The reason ethanol is interesting is in part because it is compatible with most everything, from engines, to distribution. It addresses dependence on foreign oil most effectively, and allows for lower (though not zero) emmissions. Most importantly, it can meet expectations immediately through the use of flex-fueled cars (which have the capability to run on any mix of gas/ethanol), which are currently being sold and driven in countries like Brazil.
Consider, a car that you can buy today that is only slightly more expensive than a comparable gas model, yet allows you the additional freedom of using an additional fuel. Even if this potential isn't immediately usable (no stations mearby selling ethanol), this will slowly change as businesses find motivation to carry ethanol as they watch the rising number of potential customers. Given ethanol's lower price, this would be a natural course for businesses to follow.
Since a flex car runs on gasoline, there will be no 'period of adjustment', and the car will do most everything people have come to expect of cars. This will be a comfort to the many people who are reluctant to make huge changes in one large step. Another comfort is that ethanol isn't completely new to the public eye. It's already in our gas (10%), and racing cars have run on alcohol for many years. Knowing that Brazil has 'been there, done that' and has a working system is the proof of concept many will look for.
There are a few areas where ethanol cars don't equal the behavior of gas cars. Their fuel efficiency is not as good, so to go the same distance will require a larger tank, which in turn means fueling will take slightly longer. The biggest issue will be that ethanol engines don't produce as much power as gas, but there are quite a few market segments where this difference will not be an overriding concern, such as family minivans.
For me, I would be happy to have legislation mandating all vehicles sold to be flex-fueled. This would put the key in
Thanks for a well-presented response.
/. article on this a few weeks ago, strangely enough. The Department of Energy just recently obtained a patent on the pumpable spheres. Compressed hydrogen is a non-starter. As you point out, compressing it to any useful energy density takes too much power, it's not safe to "pump" at that pressure, and it eats through seals like a sonofabitch.
So the energy density of metal hydride storage should be 20 or so times better than chemical batteries, but it's still not good enough? What's that say about cars powered by chemical batteries? Billions upon billions have been spent trying to make a better chemical battery for this purpose, but there are fundamental limits, just as there are for rocket fuel. Electric cars for use outside of big cities are probably beyond that limit, and electric 18-wheelers (which are a big chunk of oil for transportation) are right out.
I've never heard of any scheme for transporting and exchanging hydrides.
There was a
The "hydrogen economy" depends on the technology for transportable hydrides working out, but that problem doesn't seem intractable, just a matter of dumping enough into R&D(and the goverment is dumping billions into this, near as I can tell). It also depends on the price of hydrogen becoming reasonable, but that's just supply and demand, and in any scenario where we replace oil with electricity for transportation we're significantly increasing generation capability. At least with transportable hydrides we don't also have to triple our electrical distribution capability.
Fuels cells don't make sense yet, but hydrogen burned in existing engines works fairly well; the conversion isn't that expensive assuming you have fuel injection to begin with (and every new car does, thanks to OBD2).
Of course, the far more likely scenario is that we'll spend just enough billions on R&D to make this practical, then in '08 oil will be cheap again and the next president will drop the idea like a flaming muskrat.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Do you have a source for your claims? I can cite sources that show ICE vehicles are far less efficient than EV's. Taken over, say, a 10 year lifespan of a typical car, an EV will use significantly less energy than a gasoline powered car. I still have not seen a single shred of proof behind the the myth that EV's are less efficient than ICE.
The USN was somewhat unique in using a series hybrid design (no connection between the crankshaft and propellers).
GE built some diesel eletric hybrid locomotives ca 1930 - which could also run off a catenary (Lackawana) or third rail (NY Central).
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.
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.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Last weekend, by friend phoned me up and wondered if I wanted to go camping with him. I said "sure" and jacked up my 2000lb truck camper, parked the truck under it, fired up the propane-powered fridge, hauled some food out, hooked up my 14' boat, buckled in my kid and wife, stopped at a gas station on the way out of town and was headed out after about an hour and a half of preperation. I drove for four hours non-stop and arrived at the park where we had non-electical sites. Stayed there saturday night, loaded everything back up and drove another four hours home. That's eight hours of driving hauling around about 4000 lbs of "stuff" on 1.5 hours preparation. Currently, switching to some electric truck would definately not allow me to do that with todays resources, technology, and brains.
People have slept outdoors before without requiring 4000lbs to be moved for 8 hours with an internal combustion engine.
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.
Streetcars never died in the US, it's just that today we have a new name for them - "light rail".
For now, the Tesla sports car is a technology showcase, and an incremental bump in efficiency, or so they claim with their 250mile range and 3.5hr charge time.
Someone mentioned why build it? Because it's suicide to build anything else first for the company.. it needs brand recognition and a cash infusion for their "cool, new" prototype, and guess what, people here in the silicon valley will buy it, because it's better than the TZero and can actually take you places and beat the 150mile range of the Civic GX for example (which runs on CNG). Don't get me started on CNG (compressed natural gas).. it's been around for ages, Europeans have been modding their cars with systems like Bedini and have dual gasoline/CNG. I had one myself.. which doubles your range.. I had something like 600-700miles on both tanks.
Why isn't this bigger in the US? Ask your favorite car company and their politicians.
Now for the real solution.. the only way we will get to transportation heaven is to cascade a multitude of technologies and efficient energy conversions in such a way that the efficiency for the leftover byproducts keeps the entire system conversion cycle running many times over.
This is something along the lines of burning hydrogen which creates heat and water, where the heat is used, and the water is used again to make more hydrogen. Simple example with diminishing returns, but imagine a chain of conversion reactions 10-20 elements deep. Much better. Now put together high efficiency motors, channel all their heat output to a boiler for steam which spins a Tesla Turbine, and round and round we go.
What about Klein/HHO/Brown Gas? Aka Aquygen. This gas, made from plain water exhibits amazing properties. Originally used by welders for cutting the hardest metals in seconds, this gas is cheap to produce and can be made so fast, that a car could run with a generator making the gas on demand.
Combine that with electric and you have a car that runs on water. Perfect for Seattle with some built in rain collectors. Wanna fill up on a hot day? Get a carwash. Or find a deep enough puddle. Fuel stations could be as simple as large dips in a driveway filled with water you drive through. How's that for convenience.
Single fuel/cycle technologies won't survive as none are effienient enough. Technology integrators who figure out the right sequence of the cascading fuel/energy conversions will make interstellar travel possible. The rest just need to fill in the gaps and work on efficient matter and energy conversion.
Let's hope in our lifetime...
-- Robi
How much energy is there in a fuelled up vehicle:
Gas:
18 gallons of 95 octane LL:
-64.8 l
-46 kg
-51619 J/g
-2375 MJ
Li-ion:
400kg battery pack:
-3.6 V
-19500 Ah
-632 J/g
-253 MJ
Lead Acid:
400kg battery pack:
-12V
-1089Ah
-118 J/g
-47 MJ
So Li-ion has 1% the energy of gas, and Lead Acid 1/6 of that again. Internal combustion is inefficient, and polluting but the batteries lasts only 200 cycles under best circumstances.
They also claim to be 3 times as efficient as a Toyota preus, so lets say it is 6 times as efficient as average roadster today. Lets also assume you can get a *really* good deal on Li-ion battery.
Bottom line for the tesla car:
Size of tank: 1.5 gallons, and replace tank each year for $50,000.
And BTW: Lead acid: Size of tank: 0.25 gallons, and replace tank each year for $1000
"Fix it"
I think intermediate electric vehicles can help define a path toward cheap enough electric cars. I'm talking specifically about electric bikes and scooters. These are cheap to buy, have reasonable ranges of 15-30 miles and reasonable speeds of 20-30 MPH. There are some quality models like the $1200 Ego2 (www.egovehicles.com) that have sold in numbers and have millions of user miles on the design.
Of course these would not normally replace an automobile, except possibly in some small-town or inner-city applications. What they CAN do - now and cheaply - is help eliminate a lot of the traffic/pollution/noise/expense of the many small trips we take. The short runs to get take-out food, or to rent a video, swing by the grocery store, or drop by a friend's house. They can be used for commuting by people who live close enough to work.
There are hub motor kits that can "electrify" a normal bicycle for as little as $350. There are also some Vespa-sized electric scooters that have greater speed and range (think 35-40 miles range and similar MPH), and priced around $2000 - $3000. There is a full-sized electric motorcycle, the Vectrix (www.vectrixusa.com), which will retail for about $8000 and offers 50 mile range at an average 50 MPH (top speed is 63).
The point? Electric transportation is available now at reasonable prices and for reasonable uses. Sure there are limitations. Sure the battery technology is not mature. The only way to get there is to jump in and start using it. If even 10% of the car trips were replaced with electric bike or scooter trips, we would save money, save petrol, ease traffic, pollute less, enjoy our little errands more, and help create a market for innovation.
May I recommend taking a few minutes to read the Telsa white paper? It neatly summarizes most of the relevant facts about energy production, efficiency of the motor, charger and battery system, CO2 emissions compared to a Prius, etc. http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/white_papers .php
But I suppose that would take all the usual fun out of debating from ignorance. :-(
The leverage system -from stopping, starting, turning, + road bumps- is not the Main System for running the car. It's just for keeping the air + steam engine "fueled" with more compressed air. Enginewow uses a system that injects steam into the cylinder FIRST. This creates a "low pressure area" (semi-vacuum}, so that when the compressed air is injected into that partial vacuum it EXPLODES instead of the "controlled expansion" that was obtained with Dr. Abraham Hertzberg's 1997 LN2000 that used nitrogen.
Later, after the media shouted him down, he admitted he could have used plain air instead of doing it with nitrogen {would have been much cheaper & no processing energies required for separation from air}.
The steam acts as a catalyst, multiplying the expansion speed of the compressed air, pounding the piston head with many times the power of the LN2000. However, there's more to it than that. This engine is a "dual catalyst" engine process because the cold compressed air is also a temperature difference catalyst that makes the separated steam MOLECULES collapse like little Black Holes. This creates a Negative Energy blast toward the piston head that adds to the Compressed Air blast.
There are many power magnifications going on in my engine systems. One additional beauty of this system though is that a car that has more weight out around the sides, front, and back -being furthest away from the center-mounted larger compressors- actually makes having a heavier car desirable over a tuna can car.
Enginewow has a tiny battery, no heavy cooling system or heavy starter needed since the starting engine isn't pushing the pistons against air, no exhaust system, muffler, catalytic converters to drag the vehicicle weight past 2500 pounds, then the next engine I designed http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm could produce a true Tesla engine, if by that term you mean an engine that runs without using any {$$} fuel.
One of your letters mentioned too much weight is coming from fuel storage or batteries. My engines are all real-time machines. There is extremely little storage, all of it being "inside" the system design not in a tank or banks of batteries. With enginewow, there's always enough compressed air left when the engine stops that restarts it again, since V/little horsepower is required to "turn the engine over". The cylinders do not have any compression because it is the compressed air that delivers compression into the cylinder on a per-cycle basis. Real-time basis. Everything is happening in real time.
The Millenial Dawn engine always leaves a charged capacitor for restart. The long curved arms that the metal balls fire into have a dual job, acting as Levers for Force Magnification {multiplying the force being delivered into the top generator}, so as the balls criss-cross over they return into restart still possessing enough kinetic energy & speed-magnified kinetic energy at that to the opposite side. However, they are first depleted of the remainder of their kinetic energy running through the base mounted dual direction generator at the base of the machine. Maybe none of these eng
Haven't you people ever heard of trains? There are quite a few varieties of electric trains and they fill a remarkably similar niche to long distance truck transport. The trucks should only be used to deliver that last stretch inside of the city.
This car is electric, its not meant for distance driving, its meant for commuter travel, and it goes 0-60 in 3 seconds for the fun of it. This car is for people that like to go fast compared to the speed limit, and like the fact that the car is electric. Electric cars aren't exactly ready for the big time, but investing in them now is the only way they'll ever get ready for the big time. The more we coach this technology along the closer we'll come to having a complete green energy grid.
Of all the uninformed comments on the debut of the magnificent, zero-emission Tesla Roadster, the "conspiracy theorist" label tagged onto EVangels like myself is the most laughable. General Motors, Chrysler and a group of new auto dealers sued to void the zero emission vehicle mandate that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed in 1990 (nine months after GM debuted the 'Impact' electric vehicle (EV,) which became the EV1.) The W Bush Administration filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs. The CARB soon folded its hand, negotiating a memorandum of agreement with automakers that allowed them to build a few EVs and test-market them. Of eight EV models built by six major automakers, only two were ever offered for sale. Tortuous qualifying and expensive home installation of $3000 chargers was GM's way of depressing demand for the EV1, which was available by closed-end lease only (no buy-out option.) That was before CARB wilted; afterwards, GM stopped building EV1s and soon refused to renew leases. GM repossessed a thousand EV1s, trucked them to its Mesa, AZ proving grounds and crushed them all. See EVWorld.com or Electrifying Times Magazine online for more information.
Breathe free,
Those weren't ENVIRONMENTALISTS. Those were the spokespeople for the uber-wealthy who would suffer with those horrible windmills cluttering their view of the bay! The "environmental" arguments made came from professional PR organizations they hired to manipulate people like, well, you.
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
Well, it does show "backslash" on the homepage. It just doesn't show through to the rss feed. Slashback's show up with "slashback:" in the title, which is all I want for backslash's as well.