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GM Working on Feasible Electric Car
WindBourne writes "While Ford wants to simply offer cosmetic changes to automobiles interiors and exteriors, General Motors has finally gotten the message about electric autos. They are about to introduce the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid which gets 40 Miles on a charge, but has a generator that can keep the auto going up to 640 miles range. From a styling POV, it is not a tesla, but it is also not a focus or a pinto. From the Rocky article: 'GM did not release cost estimates but said they recognize the Volt's price will have to be competitive. Company Vice Chairman Robert Lutz said in a statement that more than half of Americans live less than 20 miles from their workplace and could go to work and back on a single charge.'"
RTFA. Gasoline motor drives electric generator which is what moves the car. This is NO different than how locomotives work today. All trains are moved with electric motors, each engine being essentially a large power generation station on wheels. It's actually rather efficient.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Larger, centralized electricity production is more efficient than having tons of little internal combustion engines running around. On top of that, it's much easier to control pollution at a power plant than it is on all those cars on the road. As I understand it electric cars themselves should be more efficient (fewer moving parts and such, in some designs they can do away with a transmission altogether). Also, we can burn less coal and gasoline, and process less uranium, if more of the power production systems move to renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro-electric).
On top of that, hydrogen is not an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy storage/transmission medium. You have to get hydrogen from something first, and at the moment, I think many producers of hydrogen get it from fossil fuels. So you'd end up with similar problems unless the grid switched to mostly renewable sources. However, I still think it's better than having all those individual little gasoline engines.
GM, just start building EV-1's again. Stop with this "always four years away" nonsense. Just get started. You already have a feasible, marketable car. Just start building it and marketing it.
The EV-1's were by all accounts practical, peppy, fun to drive, reliable, the lease terms were affordable, and when the leases expired the lessees wanted to buy them, and they had a waiting list a mile long of people who wanted them.
The R&D has already been amortized. What's this fixation with needing a 400-mile range? Sure, plenty of people do. Don't try to sell them an electric car. Sell electric cars to the people who don't. Duh. Sell convertibles to the people who want convertibles, sell trucks to the people who want trucks, and sell EV-1's to the people who want EV-1's.
Just get started. Get the things on the market. Get the charging stations in place. Sell cars with an 80-mile range this year, then two years from now bring out models with improved batteries and a 120-mile range, or whatever.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
When they talk about electric/hybrid cars with more nuclear power plants nationwide, *then* we'll have a plan. Otherwise, it's trading one problem for another.
Rest assured, California is not the only state with barely enough power-generation capacity. This could be "just the ticket" to justify hugely higher electric rates nationwide. Has anyone quantified the "recharging load" on the grid? Many people would have to recharge at work during the day to make it back home in the evening. Not all recharging could occur at night. Don't get me wrong. I think it's the right direction. But, the whole system needs to be planned and made to happen. Not just the cars.
You can't put an effective muffler on a turbine engine. Most drivers would be unwilling to wear hearing protection to drive to their local Safeway. Plus, the vehicle would violate many city's noise ordinances.
It's not like the hybrid concept is really all that new. Diesel locomotives have been "hybrids" for decades. So has "super-sized" construction equipment, like those gigantic dump trucks. They all use piston engines. If turbines were practical in a vehicle, they'd already be in use.
I just saw someone on TV same the same thing and I wanted to mention that the best solution would to keep the nuclear power, but using a better process than is currently in use. Here is why we won't be able to switch entirely to those types you mentioned:
The future I would like to see still includes nuclear power; just with more modern processing and recycling. My wish is people who claim to be environmentalists, would simply do some research and then perhaps they wouldn't be so afraid of the technology.
Well, it's not thousands of revs per SECOND, it's usually around 10,000 RPM (minute).
But the makeup of a turbine is much different than an typical internal combustion engine. (My dad has worked on both for over 30 years in the aircraft industry as an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer).
A turbine does NOT do well with constantly starting up and shutting down, it will work much better if it's just turned on and left to run forever.
If a turbine "blows up", you better run for cover. If a normal piston engine blows ub, meh, no big deal... it's all pretty well contained in that monstrous engine block and is not generally such a big deal... just expensive.
Tolerances on a turbine are much, much tighter than the piston engine. Maintenance is a MUST.
And yes, turbines are LOUD, and smelly, and generate a lot of heat, and won't do well on current pump gas.
Turbines are not yet ready for the general masses, only a select few, IMO.
$0.02 (CDN)
I find it interesting that so many people in this kind of discussion ignore customer preferences. We are not East Germany, whose government said, effectively, "Drive this Trabant or nothing!" We are America. We give people choices. And, I might add, even our biggest SUVs are cleaner than the Trabant was. A LOT cleaner.
So the problem is that most people - at least most Americans - like big, heavy cars and trucks better than small and light cars and trucks.
Many will buy what they want even if it gets 7mpg.
If technology can take a car that goes 7mpg and make it go 27 mpg, that's an enormous win - much more so than increasing an econobox from 30 to 40mpg.
I don't think there's anything wrong with giving people what they want. In fact, I think it's a big virtue of the USA that we do.
I don't like big SUVs myself - my car is the big, heavy Mercedes-Benz S-Class, that flies and gets about 20mpg in my hands. I'll probably drive something like that for the rest of my life, because I love driving that particular kind of car.
And you're not going to prevent me from doing that -- at least as long as we're still America. A hybrid S-Class would give me better acceleration and fuel economy. It would be cool. I'd buy it. And I would save fuel and money doing so.
(Although I might find the Tesla roadster hard to resist thanks to its audacity).
D