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Tesla Motors Is Delivering Cars
jamie found the news that Tesla Motors is delivering roadsters in California. (We've been following developments on the Tesla front for a couple of years now.) According to a letter from the CEO, "9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week... In fact, currently there are 27 Roadsters in various stages of assembly." The early owners must be proud, but there could be complications.
Erm, the title has an error.
America, Home of the Brave.
The summary's second link is to http://tech.slashdot.org/hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/151234
I don't think that will work. :)
..until it's ion-propelled, RADAR navigated, coming complete with a charged particle beam and a death ray as standard safety features against enemy vehicles (eg: anyone who dares to race you at the traffic lights).
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
A blue Tesla was parked on Homer Ave in downtown Palo Alto on Sunday.
Anybody want to fess up to owning it?
now sergey and larry and elon have some toys to play with
What do you mean? I've seen that guy posting all the way back in 1997.
The summary has it right, the caption does not. I was a little confused when I read that: "Telsa motors. Mmh. Maybe competition for Tesla motors or something."
Despite any flaws, I think they're an absolute breakthrough and a sign of things to come in the next decade.
Not only do they have performance, but they also go the distance and I believe they're also astoundingly cheap. If I had a spare $100,000 laying around and they were shipping to Australia, I'd buy one in a heartbeat!
The price of carbon fibre is declining faster than predicted and battery production is ramping up in line with Toyota's ramp-up of hybrid powertain cars and GM's announcement to mass-produce an electric car so hopefully the price of batteries will come down a lot as well.
Things are definitely looking good. Now we just need to start building a bunch of nuclear power plants so they'll be ready in time for when the plug-in hybrids and pure-electric vehicles hit critical mass.
I'll believe it when they ship... wait this isn't how vaporware is supposed to work.
Next thing you know they'll be telling me that these solar panel thingys are real too.
About those alleged "Complications" ... well yes sure, if you run out of stored power then you're in trouble. However, this isn't exclusive to electric cars, but applies similarly to liquid-fueled vehicles. If you set out on a voyage of 500 miles with only 200 miles of gasoline and you can't find anywhere to refuel, then you're in trouble too. Fortunately, most people understand power and refueling constraints and know how to plan ahead.
Admittedly, electrical recharging infrastructure is almost non-existent at the moment. However, this isn't a total disaster nor an unforseen "Complication". It's thoroughly forseen, so any early adopter who can add and subtract won't be travelling further than the stored energy allows, minus a safety margin since nobody likes getting stuck. In many cases, it'll be a second car anyway, mainly for short hops around the local area and short office commutes.
But let's look at the worst case scenario as well. When the power runs out in between recharge points, will it be a total disaster? Well, it certainly will be a big annoyance, but that's where the recovery services come in. All it takes is a phone call and some waiting in the comfort of your car while you sulk at your arithmetic incompetence, but soon your vehicle will be sitting snugly on the back of the recovery truck, and remedial transport sorted out. This is normal today in the event of breakdowns, and it will be just as normal when cars go electric, both for breakdowns and for recharging mishaps. (The vehicle recovery industry will certainly boom for a few decades, until vehicle recharging infrastructure is widespread.)
So while "Complications" will exist in the short term, they're not exceptional ones. We already have similar issues today, and solutions to them as well. It's just a matter of degree. For the next few years, trips in EVs will have to be a fair bit shorter on average. We can cope with that.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
don't blame them. Blame GM, Ford, VW, BMW, PSA, Toyota. I don't find it surprising that, all of a sudden, various car-makers are developping electric cars and fuel-cell cars, ... why couldn't they do that 10 years ago? I am waiting for those a long time now.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
As currently envisioned, the Tesla Roadster is SO FAR out of my reach at $109k, with an additional $55k to lock in your delivery date. oy! Not knowing much more about the Tesla than "it's an electric sports car" i'm wondering how the second/third generation models are envisioned to ring up $$-wise. Is their manufacturing process projected become a production line or will the cars "always" be assembled by a team of craftsmen (i.e. more like a chevy or a ferrari?). Will there be compromises in the materials schedule so as to lower the price? Are these questions best asked 5 years from now? Oh ya -- is anyone here on The List?
It looks like the thing that has largely fixed the EV issue is the laptop computer/mobile phone - which has justified the research effort into lithium batteries.
From a volume point of view in the short term the manufacturer to watch is Mitsubishi: they have a joint venture factory with Yuasa, and last week they delivered a test sample EV to a Japanese police force (they already have them with Tokyo utilities.) The Miev may not be as large and fast as the Tesla, but it is likely actually to be affordable. $100000 will only appeal to the rich who want a status symbol, as the payback compared to (say) a Mercedes Bluemotion clean Diesel will be forever. But a $30000 commuter vehicle may well make economic sense. I could justify one right now if oil reaches $200/barrel.
In fact, there are reports that sales of the EVs currently available are very poor, presumably because people who might have bought one as a third car are spending the money on new, efficient vehicles which will show a real cost saving in a sensible payback period.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
ObCarAnalogy: It's like if someone made a really trendy sportscar, but it was also run on electricity!
In the current combustion engine, running out on the road (rare, but it happens when you try to squeeze that extra few miles before refueling) meant calling up your buddy or AAA for a quick gallon of gas to get you on your way to the nearest filling station. I can't imagine any "instant battery" systems exist for this type of situation and I doubt your nearest service station has a "recharge" plug for your car. If they did, would it be compatible? Yes yes, I know the infrastructure is non-existent yet. But I hope everyone has the foresight to create a unified universal charging "plug." Does the tesla charge using those EV charging stations that you might see every now and then? I guess if you have 100k for this car you probably wouldn't flinch at having it towed to your house.
I've always wondered (and not really seen stated anywhere) how an electric vehicle's performance varies from the point of being fully charged to fully flat. i.e. does the performance (speed, acceleration, etc.) gradually get worse as the car's charge dwindles or does it suddenly just stop when the batteries are exhausted? A petrol or diesel car performs just as well (if not better due to less weight) when the tank is almost empty. Does a Tesla that has only 5 miles worth of charge left perform like a milk-float?
They did occasionally but as long as petrol was cheap, there was not very much demand. Also, the car industry is a very conservative one which rarely tries something dramatically new. Most of them would rather wait for the competition to take the risk, and then copy the idea if it worked.
The last such attempt was Toyota releasing the Prius, which was a success. Now, various car makes have released hybrids or are working on them (which confirms the wait and copy attitude).
On the positive side, I think introducing hybrid technology is a breakthrough because it allows the industry to make progress in its traditional way of little steps. The "plug-in hybrid" is one of those: ;-)
Make the batteries larger and add a charger - nothing spectacular and risky here
C - the footgun of programming languages
In fact they don't like any form of power generation.
nuclear = [insert glowing green fluffy sheep horror stories]
fossil = [insert global meltdown story]
wind power = [insert migrating insert birds killed by blades sob fest] or [blot on lovely landscape rant]
tidal power = [insert moan about marsh habitat of less spotted wading snot gobler flooded]
Solar power = [insert some fucking rare tortoise issue]
hydro = [insert whinge about flooded valleys/woodlands/displace peasents etc etc]
You just can't win with this brainless hippies.
Because sometimes when they try something new and exciting they get the Edsel
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Anyway , come on , who runs out of fuel these days? read the friggin gauge! Plus if you did you could damage some modern fuel systems so you wouldn't be restarting your piston engine car either.
One simple solution: Built-in tesla attack coil.
The SUV wouldn't stand a chance.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I can't imagine any "instant battery" systems exist for this type of situation
An "Instant Battery" is also called a generator. Honda makes tiny little ones that weigh about as much as a toddler, or perhaps as heavy as a fat feline house-cat. Strap a one quart gas can to it and an extension cord and you're set.
I've been thinking about those trailer hitch shelf devices that people stick on the back of their obese SUVs... I wonder if you could stick a trailer hitch on a Tesla, then one of those "shelves" and strap a generator to the shelf plugged into the charger and basically drive forever in "hybrid mode"
I doubt your nearest service station has a "recharge" plug for your car. If they did, would it be compatible?
It has a 110V onboard charger for this use. If you can plug in a floor lamp, tv, or a PC, you can probably figure out how to plug in the charger.
Yes yes, I know the infrastructure is non-existent yet.
Yes, always entertaining to make fun of the local electric utility, but seriously they more or less do a good job.
But I hope everyone has the foresight to create a unified universal charging "plug."
Yeah we got this 110V AC system figured out pretty well after a century or so of use. Even have those new fangled GFCI outlets for the past couple decades. Of course those Europeans insist on using 220V. At least the Japaneese use a civilized 110V AC system like us, and since most innovation seems to come from Japan, that is convenient for the US.
I guess if you have 100k for this car you probably wouldn't flinch at having it towed to your house.
If you have that kind of money, your butler will pick you up in your personal helicopter, or perhaps one of the paparazzi whom follow you everywhere will help you out in exchange for some pix. It's just not an issue dude. Besides rich people don't sit on their behind for enough hours to drain the battery anyway, if it's 100 miles away just hop in the learjet or helicopter and zoom over there in 5 minutes, not sit in traffic.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
we have met the enemy, and he is us;-}
the pp is obviously a product of our marxist-infiltrated public school system, parroting the party line of blaming business, when in reality (also obviously foreign to the aptly-named p-red;-) people demanded gas-guzzlers...
some-1 mentioned the edsel: proof-positive that the evil car marketeers can make us buy things we don't want or need;-}
So when are we going to see "normal" and "diesel" electricity? I mean the electricity corps need to squeeze more money out of the consumer, right?
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
Big Oil has been buying and burying patents for 50 years. So the "why haven't we seen cheap, ultra-efficient cars?" question is answered by, "BIG OIL wants it that way."
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
proof-positive that the evil car marketeers can make us buy things we don't want or need;-}
I'm going to assume you were being sarcastic since the Edsel didn't sell enough to get off the ground. I know people like you. It is true, even paranoiacs have enemies. Usually the rest of us just get pissed off at the "They're out to get me" BS.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
The charging plug has been standardized. Its likely one of the reasons why the EV-1 was killed off. GM used an inductive paddle style charger "plug", while the standard that was eventually agreed on uses a more traditional conductive charger. Its a moot point though since the car will have the option to charge on standard household 120V outlets (albeit at slower charging rates).
Of course those Europeans insist on using 220V.
You get double the power for the same current that way. 20 amp power outlets are pretty common in Australia for industrial applications. At 250V thats 5000 watts for charging with no new interface required.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If they came with that ability, I would find a way to come up with the $100k+.
Lots of factors here. Power stations are a lot more efficient than internal combustion engines but you lose a lot through recharging a battery. Roughly 70% of US power is generated by fossil fuels (20% by gas which produces less CO2 than coal). Electric cars do have the advantage of losing practically no energy when stopped, and have regenerative braking which helps a lot. The net result is emissions are lower but probably somewhere around 50% rather than zero emission.
There is another benefit that the pollution is generated a lot further away from residential areas.
I wonder if you could stick a trailer hitch on a Tesla, then one of those "shelves" and strap a generator to the shelf plugged into the charger and basically drive forever in "hybrid mode"
That's called a "plug-in hybrid". The propulsion is 100% electric, but when the battery gets low, an internal-combustion generator kicks in. I know there are some experimental/home-made ones on the road right now, and some manufacturers (Toyota, maybe others) are actively developing them.
You could say the same for any roadster.
which is totally what she said
to see these cars "broke down" on the side of the road because their $60,000 laptop battery is suffering from the lithium ion aging effect, and the batteries died halfway into their trip. If the batteries in these cars last as long as my laptop batteries have, the owners are in for some serious disappointment.
Death is life's great reward. R. Hoek
then dont fuckin make use of the socialist retirement, minimum wage, weekly working hours, weekly holidays, yearly vacation days concepts. let go of those rights.
Read radical news here
How is this number significant? It's not an internal combustion engine, so you can't compare that sort of thing to anything people are used to. I bet it won't make the sort of npis
As for the 256mpg figure, is that in terms of equivalent CO2 from the power plant? That would depend on the type of power generation. If you can power it from solar or wind then that's great, but I suspect that for most people it's likely to be coal.
Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html
-- Humans, because the hardware IS the software.
I have nuclear power in my area. So a Tesla would be about as clean as it gets from a greenhouse emissions standpoint.
The game.
So now that we all want to switch to an electric car, I have to ask, how much more efficient is an electric car and also, roughly how much would one reduce my CO2 output?
According to the company website, if you extract a megajoule of natural gas (a major source of electricity) out of the ground, convert it to electricity, transmit it over the grid to your Tesla, you can travel well over 1 km. A VW Diesel rabbit ( a very small, efficient car) can get you a bit less than half a km on a Mj. So, this car is much more efficient if you are talking about moving a single person a km. You can probably squeeze four people into the VW, which would be approximately as efficient per passenger mile as this car with two persons in it. If you're driving anything that gets less than 30mpg, you'll probably need to have five or more people in the car before you can effectively counter the Tesla motor driver's smugness.
With respect to CO2, according to the company web site, California gets over 40% of its electricity from sources with no net CO2 emission. If you are traveling on long trips on uncongested highways, you'll probably get some net CO2 reductions, but not as much as if you take trips that are inefficient for ICE, such as city travel or travel on congested roads. Short of bicycling or taking public transportation (heaven forbid), you'd be hard pressed to cut down your personal CO2 per mile more.
The "sweeping emissions under the carpet" argument is correct in stating that electric car emissions aren't zero, but it's wishful (???) thinking that electric vehicles emit more net pollution than ICE cars -- even extremely efficient ICE cars. Unfortunately (???) the $100,000 grapes are not sour in this case.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No use, I'm afraid.
One of those little electric generators will produce, maybe, one or two kilowatts. Unfortunately the Tesla's engine consumes about two hundred kilowatts. Even allowing for driving very slowly to make the most efficient use of the energy, you're simply not going to be able to get enough charge into the car's battery in a reasonable enough time to be useful.
(People don't realise it because they measure car engine powers in horsepower and electrical engine powers in kilowatts, but car engines are ludicrously powerful. My crappy 1200cc Ford Fiesta produces enough power to run my entire house with all the heating turned on four times over. Cars use phenomenal amounts of power, and there's a reason why they're not powered by the kind of tiny lawnmower engine that you get in those generators...)
Of course those Europeans insist on using 220V.
Actually it's 230V +/-10%. Nicely fudged to accommodate the original 220V and 240V standards across the continent. http://users.metro2000.net/~purwinc/seec2_2.htm
Didn't Boeing say they won't be testing carbon fiber wings to the point of failure because they'd need to call in the hazmat team? Is this the same type of problem we'll see when carbon fiber vehicles crash? I'm just asking.
That's the beauty of the whole conspiracy. Big Oil are hiding behind shell companies and using false names and own the whole patent system anyway, so you'll never find the patents no matter how hard you look, nor any evidence to prove it either way. But we all know it's true.
... why couldn't they do that 10 years ago? I am waiting for those a long time now.
I'm still waiting for my flying cars. Makes me wonder if there is some nefarious motive for me not being able to do a George Jetson already....
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So, as a resident of Montreal, I have to ask, does anyone know how well electric cars are supposed to fare in cold-weather conditions? How about hybrids?
Could it perhaps be that the infestation of Earth with this parasitic species called "humans" is bad for everything else?
VOICE (O.S.): Just what exactly do you think you're doing?
The Orkin Man turns around. EDGAR stands in the doorway to the garage,
staring at him disdainfully.
ORKIN MAN (shrugs): Takin' care of your pest problem.
EDGAR: "Pest" problem? "Pest?"
ORKIN MAN: Yeah. You got a hell of an infestation.
Edgar advances on him, slowly.
EDGAR: You know, I have noticed an infestation here. Everywhere I look, in fact. Nothing but undeveloped, unevolved, barely conscious pond scum. So convinced of their own superiority as they scurry about their short, pointless lives.
ORKIN MAN: Well -- yeah. Don't you want to get rid of'em?
EDGAR: Oh... In the worst way.
Edgar lashes out quickly, jerking the mask off the Orkin Man's face with
one hand --
-- and shoving the gas hose down his throat with the other.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
This can easily be proven, since one of the companies has even gone so far as to name themselves Shell.
This guy's the limit!
Patents are public informsation...
Find 5 patents that would have led to ultra efficient cars and aren't being used.
If "Big Oil" has been buying up patents for 50 years than we have at least 30 years of inventions no longer under patent protection...where are those inventions?
The reality is that while Oil companies probably have tried to squash some tech, the basic laws of thermodynamics suggest that internal combustion engines are about as efficient as they are going to get.
Battery tech is also progressing very quickly (Microsoft, IBM etc are pushing for better batteries and can compete with oil companies) however most of the really efficient and high power batteries are due to nano-type materials, ultra pure processing and extremely fine manufacturing controls. Until very recently these techniques were impossible to test and those that were testable were prohibitively expensive to produce.
If you want to claim a conspiracy, you must offer some proof.
Nah...just because you have a patent issued doesn't mean it is possible to produce the item effectively OR that people even want to buy it.
However by making the design public it might help you create something even better.
Remember, under patent law, you can patent an improvement upon a device. Therefore if Big Oil owns a patent on a 500 MPG engine, you should improve the design, make a 501 mpg engine and NOT sell out to the oil companies.
You're confusing acceleration with cruise and confusing power vs energy and confusing full charge with "enough to get to the nearest commercial AC outlet"
Yes an average car "needs" hundreds of KW to go 0-60 in a couple heartbeats. But at cruise on a highway all you need is a couple hp. Even hill climbing doesn't require much electrical power, think of the tiny motors running a modern elevator. A typical car needs maybe a hp or so at normal (non-autobahn) cruise speeds. Notice your accelerator foot barely above idle on the highway... Half the time my foots off the gas completely.
The power and energy confusion relates to above. Sure when you floor it it draws 200 KW but it 4 seconds you get a speeding ticket. At cruising speed you may only need 1 KW to keep going. Perhaps in a desert the nearest gas station is 10 miles away. So worst case scenario is your tiny generator pumps in a KW for twenty minutes giving you around 15 "KW-minutes" (due to conversion losses, etc) and then you drain it out driving to the AC outlet consuming a bit more than 10 "KW-minutes"
The final confusion is no need to fill the battery completely to drive another 200 miles, you only need enough to get off the highway and to a power outlet.
Also try flooring your fiesta for more than one minute, it'll overheat and explode. Now marine, aircraft, and diesel train engines are designed to run full throttle forever. It's always amusing to compare a 1000 HP F1 racing engine that only survives 500 miles and I could wrap by arms around it, with a 1000 HP train engine that is literally roughly the size of a garden shed...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Was it really necessary to include a link to some webcomic with less art than xkcd and less funny than User Friendly?
I mean, really?
"If "everybody knows" such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one."
Robert Heinlein.
Now, care to exercise your brain and provide a few facts, or will you continue being a conspiracy theory slacker? Does Big Oil control China and India? Do you really feel (notice I didn't write "think") that those nations would hold off deploying superior technologies if it gave them a competitive edge?
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
That's called a "plug-in hybrid". The propulsion is 100% electric, but when the battery gets low, an internal-combustion generator kicks in. I know there are some experimental/home-made ones on the road right now, and some manufacturers (Toyota, maybe others) are actively developing them.
Yes I know, which makes my idea interesting. No need for a multinational multibillion dollar development effort, just hold my beer while I strap down the "off the shelf" generator on to the "off the shelf" "hitch mounted shelf" and plug in the extension cord to the onboard charger that was a factory option (or is it a standard "option" for the Tesla now, don't know).
Probably the biggest problem with my high tech redneck approach to a plug in hybrid is when it rains, which is why the Toyota guys are paid the big bucks to "develop" this.
Also there are issues with optimizing the charge cycles, and if you know the generator will always operate at a fixed high load you can optimize it's engine for efficiency. And it would be cool to have the generator automatically start and stop itself.
But it is an amazingly simple way to get something like a plug in hybrid to sort of work, more or less.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You must be new here? On /. there are three rules about postings.
1. You do NOT have to RTFA to know what it says.
2. It's all GWBs fault.
3. There is always a conspiracy to screw us out of something if the topic involves BigOi, the U.S. Government or the Military.
Sorry about that everyone...The HVAC is broken at my office in Georgia in July.
I am still figuring out how Big Oil and the CIA did it so I was distracted from the general consiracies...please accept my apologies!
Of course those Europeans insist on using 220V.
You get double the power for the same current that way. 20 amp power outlets are pretty common in Australia for industrial applications. At 250V thats 5000 watts for charging with no new interface required.
Yes but the Japanese, whom are the source of all new technology, do not use that household voltage, so I assume EVs will be rolled out to 110V countries first.
Also gas pumps and gas tanks are more or less worldwide compatible.
Importing IC cars is mostly an exercise in import duties and sales taxes and excise taxes and registration hassles and non-technical and non-scientific environmental regulations. etc. On the other hand, importing EVs is going to take at least a new power plug and at worst a completely new battery charger. It may actually take technical skill to import an EV.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That solves the range problem now until batteries get better, especially for any theoretical cheaper all electrics. They need to get the 50 mile range much cheaper commuter cars out there now, then the generator trailer option for trips-plus handy to have said generator around the house. And the generator could be run on home made biodiesel for that matter.
This is a great breakthrough. Sure I can't afford one right now. 100k is way to much for me. But what is going to happen is that the people paying 100k are going to want more mileage from their cars. So these cars will improve on their 220 miles per charge. My Mercury Sable gets about 260 miles per tank (if not squeezing every drop from it, I can probably go 300 if I run til the fumes run out). So if they can up the miles per charge to 260 or more then it becomes a viable replacement (even at 220 I think I would like to try one). The money that is being paid right now will go towards more R&D and as Toyota and the other big guys dump billions into battery tech we will start to see cheaper and cheaper electric cars. I expect that it will be 7-10 years before these fully electric cars are mainstream and affordable to the person wanting to pay no more than $20,000 to $25,000 for a new car.
You can only start it during a severe thunderstorm on a remote mountaintop somewhere in Transylvania.
When it starts, you get this strange compulsion to maniacally yell, "It's ALIVE!!, It's ALIVE!!!".
You know what they say about opinions. They're all fabulous!
Since cars typically drive 150-250 thousand miles and a 30 mpg car releases 0.2 pounds of CO2 per mile, a standard car would release 50,000 pounds of CO2. A tesla may release 0.
Since the manufacturing techniques are going to be the same (or very near) it almost doesn't matter how much CO2 you emit. Youa re still saving 25 tons of CO2
BS... just last week I was reading an analysis on new tech being developed by Nissan along with Ford and a few others, a Variable Compression Ratio (VCR) system.
This tech would would dramatically improve the performance of turbo charged engines not just in terms of power output but also in terms of fuel effective, and it would make the engine run much much smoother.
I guess I don't understand how combustion engines are supposedly tapped out. Keep in mind that most of the engine's performance characteristics are still very much mechanical and are basically "hard coded" for a good median of power output and fuel economy since they don't have the technology to dynamically change the characteristics when one is needed over the other.
Even Variable Valve Timing is in it's infancy and the current methods for that are crude at best, there are alternative methods under development that could theoretically give you a Corvette when you stuff your foot into it and a Prius when you're just cruising on the highway or around town.
Even the engineering techniques are just starting to get interesting... engines developed completely new in the last decade mark the first engines completely prototyped in a virtual environment as opposed to the old method of just building something similar to what's been done before and making slight improvements through real world testing. Chevy's LS series motor (found in the late 90s Camaro, Firebird, and Corvettes) marks one of the first of such motors and with a 6-speed sees an impressive 31MPG with 330HP. And even over the last decade they've been able to make small tweaks to that power plant in terms of both power output and fuel economy. And there's still a world of possibilities that can be done to improve things still.
In short... If you're just looking at the explosion in the chamber and the resulting torque then yes, combustion engines are already "pretty good" in terms of effency. However that neglects the fact that conditions change mili-second to mili-second in terms of air-pressure, air-temperature, load on the engine, and numerous other things. Engines aren't dynamic enough to work as good as they could in every possible scenario so they're built for a best average across the board.
Collector's Edition
Guess what? I knew someone that bought an electric car back in I think 72!
Don't blame the car makers blame physics and customers.
The reason that liquid hydrocarbon fuels have been so popular for cars is because they are a great solution for powering cars.
Build an electric car that can take four people and luggage 300 miles on charge. Oh and the recharge time has to be five minutes, battery life has to be 150,000 miles and the cost? Under $20,000. That is what it would take to be a better car then a Mazda 3.
The real problem has nothing to do with the auto companies. It has everything to do with us.
People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer. Everybody thought I was nuts because I actually like smaller cars. I don't have kids yet and I think smaller cars are more fun to drive.
Companies work on the premise that you should give the customer what they want. We wanted big SUVs and trucks and not small cars and minivans.
Now customers want more fuel efficient vehicles. It takes a while to make the change.
Now what I find funny is that back in 84 a car that went 0-60 under 10 seconds was quick.
Now that is considered slow.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You have a good suggestion, but I think it would pose complications too. For example, say a vehicle has a worn out or defective battery that barely holds a charge? A less than honest driver could "unload" the bad battery, getting a free upgrade to a good one, just by dropping by the "charging station".
Conversely, the recipient of the dud battery would be inconvenienced, angered, and might even go as far as filing a suit against the charging station - claiming they owe him/her a new battery.
(Granted, your proposal of having microprocessors on the batteries would *theoretically* offer a solution to this dilemma. A station could refuse to swap a battery that was "out of spec" without paying a fee. But how long do you think it'd be before someone programs false values into the chip to cheat the system? We do it now with ink cartridge refills for printers as a matter of course!
If you can cruise at 2hp you're driving a moped, and an efficient one at that. For an American car with a "normal" drag coefficient, cruising at 65mph requires around 20–30kw (~25–40hp). And the reason an elevator can use such a small motor is because it has a counterweight balancing the load.
The Tesla is very lightweight, and has a low drag coefficient, so I'd expect it to use as little as 10kw (~12–15hp) cruising at 65mph. Which is still very good, on par with a small riding mower or dirt bike, but you sure won't find a 10KW generator the size of a house cat.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Pretty much everything you described is OUTSIDE the engine.
But, Internal combustion engines of the size usefull for motorized transport are about as efficient as they are going to get at extracting energy from gasoline.
How you use that energy will imporve, providing an effective increase in efficiency (hybrid tech and the like) but you will still only be extracting about 20-25% of the total energy in Gas for real work. You might be able to get up to 30% using a Volt style power train where the engine is always run under optimal conditions and is used to generate electrictly only. The only other thing in your post that would effect energy efficiency in ICE is that tighter controls would increase fuel efficiency...by 1 or 2 MPG.
This is actually dictated by Carnot's law.
Well, if you drive a wedge backwards, you're not going to get the same 'top speed' as going forwards. ;)
That said, My mom's old Volvo 66 could do that, due to its Variomatic gearbox. I don't think she ever tried it, though. :D
"Good news, everyone!"
Tesla has to get out now. They are simply one of the better marketed names in this upcoming industry. If anything the cars coming down the road in the next year or two (pun, I know) will make this car look amateurish.
Other than the chassis and frame this is not a great example of the technology. The chassis and frame were done by an established company and hence this confined the ability to do something different.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What's the point of these things if they run off the grid? The grid is dirty power. These cars increase load on the grid thus increasing dirty power usage.
These things are nothing but spending large sums of money to feel like your making a different. They're not.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Who killed the electric car?
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
The battery makers...While people who didn't have to buy them LOVED them, anyone who was forced to pay for them balked (with a very low percentage of exceptions).
The batteries were to expensive and gas was too cheap. Plus the range was still low.
Now things are much different...batteries are MUCH cheaper, gas is Much more expensive and the range is getting comparable.
think bigger.
Nobody "has" a battery.
You pay the energy, plus a "recharge fee" (which will depend on battery type, etc).
Maybe a "new battery surcharge" if you really want a brand new one.
The batteries will circulate the system until they are no longer useable, at which time they will be written off already.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
While I do believe that there is some truth to this. I think a lot of it has to do with how inexpensive gasoline has been in the past. Even now, at near $5 a gallon, Hybrids don't really save you money. So a Hybrid, when gasoline was $1 a gallon would have not been economically viable to the consumer.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Prove it. Find 5 patents that are owned by "Big Oil". Also, define "Big Oil".
Okay, Big Oil should be pretty easy. From this wikipedia page, you'll get ExxonMobile, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Total S.A. And they don't register these patents under their own names- they use subsidiaries. For example, Chevron owns Cobasys, a NiMH battery maker.
5 Patents? Hell, I can find you at least 40.
Do I get a cookie?
Sigs are for losers
Hmm,
I'm surprised folks are missing one important point about this car. Let's say you're rich and you want to buy a supercar. Most gas powered supercars use huge amounts of gas. After all they're not designed to save fuel. They're designed to go fast. This thing is an electric and generally very efficient so right away you've helped the environment there by not burning huge amounts of gas. At $100,000 the price is cheaper than most high end sports cars and being rare that will look good too. Sure it doesn't have much range but how often do you take your car on cross-country trips. Hell if you're rich, how often would you seriously want to spend hours driving across country versus taking a plane? It's range is great for most normal commutes in the city. It's also very likely highly reliable too being that it has very few parts. So yes, this isn't your common man's car but for the rich or enthusiast this seems like a good idea.
"let go of those rights"
You didn't list any rights. Don't think I disagree with your point, but nothing you listed is a right.
I can give you 125 examples.
According to Wikipedia, Cobasys and ECD Ovonics hold 125 patents for battery technology, particularly NiMH battery technology. They produced the batteries that powered the ill fated EV1. In 2001, Texaco (now Chevron) bought Cobasys. Since then, they have refused to sell automotive batteries or license the technology to smaller players. Since the big players were not interested in electric cars (perhaps because of influence from Big Oil), this effectively killed electric cars.
They have also actively used their patents to prevent others from selling NiMH batteries for automotive purposes in the US. In 2001, same year as they were bought by Texaco, they sued Panasonic EV Energy for patent infringement. The results were that Panasonic is restricted from selling commercial quantities of some batteries in the North American market until 2010.
A lot of the comments here resemble the same kind of skeptical remarks that were made when the first automobiles came out. They were outrageously expensive. They got flat tires constantly. You almost needed to keep a team of horses on retainer to drag the thing home after one of the innumerable breakdowns. Et cetera. Et cetera.
No new technology leaps full-blown into existence without glitches, screw-ups and mistakes (yes, I know about the 100-year-old electrics, but a lot has changed). They're part of the territory, especially where a complete changeover in something as basic as personal transportation is concerned. What's needed is the vision and will to change, and the guts to persevere through inevitable problems to something that works. That's what seems to be missing these days.
I wonder what the smog situation would look like in a city where most two-car families included an electric for local jaunts and basic running around, and a regular car for longer trips? I recall seeing many parking lots with electrical outlets available at each space for block heaters, back when cold weather presented a starting problem for regular cars. Perhaps they might appear again to serve next-generation electrics. I have no idea what shape the actual solutions will take, but I'm quite confident that solutions would be found, once a decision is made to move away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
I'm certain of one thing: as long as those with a vested interest in the status quo are allowed to present every mistake as a disaster, every bump in the road as an insurmountable mountain, nothing will be accomplished.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
From wikipedia, on the toyota EV (based on the rav4) that was scrapped somewhere in 2003. Would need to validate the sources.
Whether or not Toyota wanted to continue production, it was unlikely to be able to do so, because the EV-95 battery was no longer available. Chevron had inherited control of the worldwide patent rights for the NiMH EV-95 battery when it merged with Texaco, which had purchased them from General Motors. Chevron's unit won a $30,000,000 settlement from Toyota and Panasonic, and the production line for the large NiMH batteries was closed down and dismantled. Only smaller NiMH batteries, incapable of powering an electric vehicle or plugging in, are currently allowed by Chevron-Texaco.
I cant name 5 patents but I CAN name one very important one. Try making and selling Nickel Metal Hydride batteries suitable for electric cars and see how far you get. You will likely be sued by a company you haven't heard of called Cobasys for violation of their patent on NiMH battery tech. What the lawyers probably WONT tell you is that Cobasys (and the NiMH battery patent) is actually controlled by Chevron (not the largest oil company but big enough).
Chevron makes a lot of noise about how they aren't just an oil company any more, they are an "energy company" but all the work they are doing is just replacing one fuel source (crude oil) with another fuel source (hydrogen, tar sands, oil shale, coal liquefaction/gasification, gas-to-liquids etc)
Big Oil doesn't care if its gasoline, diesel, LPG, natural gas, corn ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, liquid coal or whatever else. They just care that the worlds cars continue to run on fuel of some kind (fuel that they can continue to sell from their station forecourts). Plug-in vehicles threaten that monopoly as the provider of the source of energy for our cars.
??
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Notice how batteries have remained in the same state as the 1990's...
NiMH batteries have a wide range of problems and were never trully suitable for an electric car. They were too expensive to make, toxic and had pretty bad memory issues.
It is true that big oil killed the electric car but NOT by buying up patents but instead by providing cheap gas.
In the example you provided, the patents were only purchased AFTER the EV1 failed. The reason it failed was primarily market pressure not some vast conspiracy.
But the question was where are patents on Internal Combustion Engines that have been locked out?
Three replies and no answer. Iirc, the range is 200 miles and the battery pack is about 52kWh. So take 200 miles and divide by your local electric rate (potentially your off-peak rate if it coincides with charging) times 52. To get your answer in miles per gallon instead of miles per dollar, just multiply the result by gas costs:
i.e., my electric rate is 8.6c/kWh, so I can go 200 miles for $4.47. I filled up Saturday for $3.82/gallon (Roanoke, Virginia), so my price-equivalent mileage is 171 mpg.
if you happen to pay 25c/kWh, then the equivalent drops to 59 mpg.
As a comparison, the Aptera - far less sporty, about 1/4 the price, and not due to roll off the assembly line until next year - will be more than 3 times as efficient.
As for carbon footprint, if you get your electricity from wind, solar, or nuclear you would have a large reduction, if coal, then a moderate reduction. Power generation on a large scale is still much more efficient than the automotive ICE.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This roadster is missing a gas powered generator for the times that you need to go over 220 miles.
Of course if you're paying $90k for an electric car I'd hope that you have other gas powered cars for destinations out of range.
That is why I consider this thing a toy.
The Volt looks promising, it is all electric as long as you stay under a certain range and plug it in every night but will kick on a generator when the battery is too low.
But your nonchalance regarding rights vs. "perks" is scary. You shouldn't be so cavalier when discussing them, the difference is important.
Just imagine what will happen when a soccer mom runs over this thing with an SUV (or someone else with any other proper size car)! Aboslute deathtrap!
Yeah, because when the SUV runs over it (far more likely to be one tire rather than both), it's already top-heavy design will cause it to start rolling over like a fucking out of control rock tumbler. And not only is she going to be blended, the unfortunate Tesla driver is going to be smushed!
I agree, SUVs sure are deathtraps. For everyone on the road!
The enemies of Democracy are
Every other electric or hybrid till now is just plain fugly....Prius for example, I rest my case.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
the basic laws of thermodynamics suggest that internal combustion engines are about as efficient as they are going to get.
I couldn't disagree more. There have been consistent advances in fuel control techniques, from the introduction of throttle body fuel injection in the late 80s to direct injection and custom piston head shapes in the late 90s. As computing technology advances, we continue to see better control mechanisms for spark, fuel, and valves. As these control systems improve, we'll see fuel efficiency improve and pollution decrease. When I was in college, I worked on a hybrid vehicle development team that won a national collegiate contest. The rule of thumb for energy distribution at the time was that of the heat energy released from the fuel, one third goes to mechanical power at the crankshaft, one third goes into the engine coolant, and one third goes into the exhaust system. That tells me there is a huge potential for improvement.
Am I the only one here who realizes that NiMH batteries suck? Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer have a MUCH better density and cycle life, not to mention being lighter. When was the last time you saw a NiMH battery in a cellular phone or laptop? 1999? I don't even run them in my radio control cars anymore, LiPo has 4 times the run time and 2x the "punch". NiMH sucks, you know, scientifically speaking.
Just another ignorant American.
People bought giant SUVs and Pickups just for style and the fact they felt safer.
Actually, I have a pickup truck to haul things that won't fit in the trunk or on top of a car, or if they do would damage the paint job. (Try putting a load of 2X4s or a cubic yard of topsoil in your car). Also, my wife drives it when we get standing water in the streets during bad rain storms (her minivan has a tendency to stall in wet conditions).
I take the bus to work - but I won't give up my truck because it has come in handy over the years for various projects. (it is 6 years old)
It mostly sits in the driveway - but what I save riding the bus more than pays to keep the tank full for when we do need it.
If they made a cost effective electric or hydrogen powered pickup truck that could do all that - then I would buy it. Right now the exotic fuel vehicles are pointed toward a) commuters, b) high end sports car collectors. When they make a truck that I can afford - give me a call.
Most generalizations are not a complete representation of reality.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Debunked.
Unfortunately the Tesla's engine consumes about two hundred kilowatts.
that's the PEAK running-at-red-line power. at normal speeds, it's significantly less, into the single-digit KW, abou 5KW @ 65mph, IIRC, and a bit less at lower speeds.
I can find a 5500W portable diesel generator without much trouble or a 15KW trailer-mounted generator. The latter is not exactly cheap at $11,000, but if you've got money to buy one of these cars, that much shouldn't be a problem.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
cant name 5 patents but I CAN name one very important one. Try making and selling Nickel Metal Hydride batteries suitable for electric cars and see how far you get.
You mean like the large-format NiMHs in the Vectrix scooters?
You will likely be sued by a company you haven't heard of called Cobasys for violation of their patent on NiMH battery tech.
Cobasys has repeatedly made it clear that they will deal in large orders for large format NiMH, but not small orders. There haven't exactly been people lining up around the block wanting large orders of large-format NiMHs, however. It's old tech, inferior in about a dozen different ways to the modern automotive li-ions.
FYI, Cobasys only holds the patent rights on said large format NiMHs in the US, not internationally. Oh, and they've cross-licensed their patent portfolios with PEVE (who they initially sued for making NiMHs for sale in the US without paying them); PEVE now has the right to make large format NiMHs for sale in the US. The fact that they haven't should speak volumes for the demand of said batteries.
NiMH was top of the line tech back during the original CARB ZEV mandate. It no longer is.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
that your reply was perfect in demonstrating the OPs case don't you.
That point is, you can't make all people happy but we are nearly stuck simply because with the current court system we might actually have to.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I own an LS based engine. Let me tell you, I stuff my foot in it daily. The cars got 120,000 mi of this kind of driving. The engine performs almost as perfect as day 1. The only maintenance it gets is synthetic oil changes. 5-30 all the time. (in fact, I slid through a roundabout destroying a Mustang GT convertable of the same year this AM)
Lets not forget too though, that we blow a metric shitload of energy out the tailpipe in the form of heat. Making that heat useful by turning some sort of thermal powered device. A steam alternator + electric waterpump & AC could give us back over 20 hp + better fuel economy, less drag on the engine, and lower idling speed.
Lets also not forget about the story of the six stroke engine. The one that uses water in the 5th stroke to cool the cylinder about doubled the power & economy of a standard 4 stroke engine. And it was carbeurated.
We are on the cusp of a revolution w/ engine tech. We are unfortunately also on the cusp of peak oil. How will we know when we hit peak oil? The day we drill ANWR & American coasts we'll have hit peak. We're about 8 years out though I think.
8 years is not that long, but of course, I am pulling a number from where usually only 2's come from.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Exactly. GM was busily working to undermine and kill off the CARB mandate as fast as they could. The fact that they sold off their battery rights should speak volumes to how much they actually wanted to be in the business of building EVs. They had already shut down the lines at that point.
GM never wanted to be building EVs, and was all to happy to ditch the program and shuttle it down into the memory hole, only bringing it up in passing to spin it as a "failure" so that they wouldn't be pushed into doing it again. Their timing was impeccable... impeccably bad. Whether it's fears of global warming, fears of "running out of oil", high gas prices, a distaste for shipping oil overseas, a strengthening green movement, rapidly advancing battery tech, or just outright trends, virtually everything has been moving in the direction of EVs and PHEVs. And with hybrids reaching US shores from Japanese automakers, GM ensured that they had the worst image possible as they steadily lost market share from falling SUV sales.
Such horrible management.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
How are they going to get Joe/Jane Average to remember that its T-E-S-L-A and not T-E-L-S-A, which is the way I hear 90% of the people pronounce it (on those rare occasions that Nikolai manages to come up in conversations)?
English speakers in NA, do very poorly with anything that seems remotely foreign in spelling or pronunciation, and mostly seem non-motivated to try to get it even remotely correct
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Toyota Prius is a piece of crap. Only people who can't understand shit can buy one of them. They are slow, consume a lot of petrol and look ugly. But hey, I'm saving the world with it .... right.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
10 years ago, car manufacturers didn't have access to cheap Lithium Ion batteries
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Hey I would love a small pickup for just what you said.
The problem isn't people buying pickups or SUVs. The problem is people that don't need a pickup or an SUV buying them.
There is a girl at my office that lives with at home and owns a RAM 1500 Hemi just because she likes big trucks.
It never tows or hauls.
There is a family at church that has an Excursion. They have nine kids of which eight of them are adopted. They have use for an Excursion.
Again take a look at the "small" trucks you can buy today and compare them to the small trucks of the 80s.
But the thing is people where looking to lay blame but are not willing to take any responsibility. The car companies should have FORCED us to buy fuel efficient cars.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
and the cost? Under $20,000. That is what it would take to be a better car then a Mazda 3.
Oh, really? Your Mazda 3's gasoline costs a penny or two per mile? You can fill it up at home while causing minimal environmental damage and not exporting money to countries that hate us, and your vehicle costs almost nothing to maintain? Really?
No, you picked and chose gasoline's strengths and weighted it up against electricity's weaknesses, ignoring gasoline's weaknesses and electricity's strengths. First off, you simply cannot ignore the operations cost advantage. And this is something that will almost certainly hold over into resale value; there's a reason why a Hummer, which costs 1.5 times what Prius costs, depreciates three times as fast. The average person drives around 12,000 miles a year. At $4 a gallon and the average of 25mpg, that's ~$2k per year. Electricity is dirt cheap; let's say $200 a year. Let's toss in another $500 in maintenance savings -- a total savings of $2.3k a year. The average car on the road is now roughly nine years old, implying an average lifespan of 18 years. Ignoring inflation on gasoline prices and interest on the purchase, this would work out to a savings of $41,400 over the lifespan of the vehicle. That's a *Lot* of money. Saying it has to cost under $20k is just stupid.
As for fillup times, you may be surprised to learn that LiPs, spinels, and titanates *can* charge in 5-10 minutes. You, of course, need a fast charger, and hey, guess what? There's already a network of 60kW Aerovironment PosiChargers installed across Oahu, and Aerovironment makes them as big as 250kW. Epyon and several other companies are also getting into the fast charger market.
As for range, why on earth would you need to be able to drive 300 miles on a single charge? The standard recommendation for drivers is that you stop and stretch for five to ten minutes at least once every two hours of driving. Big gas tanks are only really a way for gasoline vehicles to compensate for the fact that they can't charge at home, a way to make it so that they don't have to drive by a pump every day. A range of 220 miles slow highway speeds and 150 or so at fast highway speeds should be more than sufficient for general usage. Depending on your aerodynamics, a four-seater car getting this range would require 20-50kWh of batteries to achieve this. If you're willing to accept the look of extreme streamlined vehicles, go for the lower end; if not, go for the upper end. LiPs are currently about $0.50/Wh, but unlike traditional laptop batteries ($0.30-$0.50/Wh) (which are limited by raw ingredient prices -- mostly the price of cobalt), LiPs are made of dirt-cheap ingredients (they eliminate the cobalt). Their prices are only high because they're new and aren't mass produced. LiPs should easily be able to get down to $0.15-$0.30, possibly even lower, with mass production. Let's go with $0.20. That's a pack price of $4k-$10k -- easily affordable. These packs could fully charge from 250kW in 5-12 minutes. Even from 60kW power, what's already available in Oahu, that's only 20-50 minutes for every 2-3 hours of driving. For the ability to charge on dirt-cheap power instead of $4/gal gas, that's quite the deal.
Oh, and did I mention that these batteries have incredibly long lifespans, that EV smart charging actually helps the grid, that we already have enough power capacity to convert most of our transportation fleet over to EVs, that only one in every few thousand vehicles on an interstate needs to be an EV for installing fast chargers nationwide to make financial sense (even ignoring tax breaks, green cred, customer loyalty, or using charging as a loss-leader), and that even running on coal power, an EV is cleaner than a gasoline vehicle?
An EV transportation system with fast charging just simply makes sense.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
No, Who's on, first base. And if you're asking what's the name of the guy who killed the electric car, What is on second.
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
> There's just no way that there's going to be a 1MW charger (1000V @ 1000A) handy (my whole house can only supply 32kW)
You can deliver energy to your car at home at any rate you like. Only the average power over 24h is limited by your mains supply rating and house wiring, not the instantaneous power. What you can't do is supply higher powers continuously over a 24 hour period, but only for a short burst. Eg. charge up your garage ultracapacitor over 24 hours at 32kW, then connect up the car and squirt the energy over to it at 1MW for 45 minutes through really fat bus bars.
This is bound to be the way it'll be done eventually (assuming that ultracaps become stable and mainstream), since people don't want long charging periods. Instead, your home ultracap in the garage or driveway will charge up your car ultracap at megawatts rate for a short period each day, and then the car ultracap will charge up your car battery more slowly, if it can't run your car directly for some reason. What your 32kW-continuous rating *does* limit is the total amount of energy your car can store each day (and hence your trip lengths), but that's a separate matter from the charging wattage.
Blasting electrical energy across at 1MW from a low-rated mains supply is not a particularly hard problem. The difficulty is in making a temporary storage unit that can take it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Rent the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car".
Rent it? If you can find it, sure - otherwise, get it on bittorrent
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
The reason why you don't have to keep your foot on the accelerator is that the engine management computer (or, more likely, a shaped cam in the carburettor) is automatically feeding in enough fuel to keep the engine happy. There's a reason why it's eating a gallon of petrol every 30 miles or so. And if your car consumes 1kW at cruising speed, you're either cruising at walking speed or riding a scooter --- 20 or 30kW is rather more realistic...
Because, as with people, businesses won't change their (bad) habits until they experience an "STE": Sudden Traumatic Event. Hopefully, Tesla will continue to be a recoil-inducing shocker and strip some of the valence off the oil companies...
OTOH, i don't drive, so if the price of gas goes past $4.91 (here, in SF, it's around $4.91 to $4.98 for Premium...) it may or already did trigger increase in MUNI transit fares for riders, but hopefully, it'll change habits of lots of people. In case anyone hasn't notice, it seems the Bay Bridge traffic is down dramatically... people SEEM to be commuting now.
Sadly, it appears many of the lettered commuter buses don't seem too packed, at least not when I see them drive past me as I'm walking in the evening. If higher prices put even MORE people on the buses, GREAT.
Go, Tesla, GO!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The most used Lithium Ion chemistry uses LiCoO2 cathodes. Disadvantages:
- Price (Cobalt is relatively rare and expensive). Acceptable for a notebook, not so good for a car that needs 500 times the capacity.
- Aging (will lose capacity even if unused, so you might have to buy new batteries halfway through the life of your car).
- can blow up when overheating or due to faults in manufacturing, see Sony laptop batteries...
Now there are some very interesting new developments in Lithium Ion technology, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion#Improvements_to_Lithium_Ion_Battery_Technology
I guess one or more of those will end up making large Lithium Ion batteries a lot more attractive than NiMH. Right now some companies use these for battery tools and scooters (Segway), but the big breakthrough is yet to come.
C - the footgun of programming languages
It seems to work ok with kegs and propane tanks... If nothing else, you'd have to keep it within the same company. Batteries are still universal, but you pay a deposit and can only do a 1-to-1 swap from the same battery company. So I pay a deposit to Chevron and as long as I keep swapping out Chevron batteries I can still ride off my original deposit.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
NiMH aren't as prone to thermal runaway as Lithium Ion, and Lithium Polymer batteries haven't been out long enough for automakers to be able to warrant a vehicle with them.
Why don't you google "payback period hybrid". Payback period on the Prius and Camry Hybrid is between 2-3 months at $4/gallon. Also, hybrids are being sold used for the same price as new with the current price of fuel. Hybrids will have an almost immediate payback when the price of gas hits $5/gallon.
I just did, and I did not find 2-3 months. I found this:
Honda Civic Hybrid, 4.8 years, $2,803 premium over Civic LX;
Mercury Mariner Hybrid, 6.4 years, $4,904 premium over standard Mariner;
Lexus' V-6 powered RX 400h hybrid SUV, 6.4 years, $4,407 premium over conventional V-6
powered RX350;
Saturn Vue Greenline, 7.1 years, $4,770 over Vue XE;
Ford Escape Hybrid, 7.3 years, $4,161 over Escape XLT;
V-6 Lexus GS450h, 7.7 years, $2,722 over V-8 powered GS460
http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2008/05/soaring-gas-prices-shrink-hybrid-payback-period-boost-small-car-sales-and-sink-big-trucks.html
,br> Maybe you could do me a favor and point to a source that says 2 to 3 months?
Granted, I did not take into account the Tax Credits,
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Re "VCR": a turbocharger is a variable compression system. Once again a terrible name. All you need for variable compression is a variable wastegate. You can get a manual boost controller for about fifty bucks, or you can get fuzzy logic for around five hundred. MDI uses an articulated connecting rod system in their air motor. Internal combustion engines are and always will be inefficient. A reciprocating valvetrain is inefficient and failure-prone, period end of story. We should just let the ICE go (it does have a place on weedwhackers and go-karts.)
The most efficient internal combustion engine in the world is a diesel the size of a house that's in a container ship. It gets 50% efficiency. This is piss-poor compared to a best-real-world-case turbine, let alone an electric motor. Seriously, clinging to the ICE is pathetic. We just need to build a bridge, and get over it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What a terrible mish mash your reply is.
Resale value.
"And this is something that will almost certainly hold over into resale value; there's a reason why a Hummer, which costs 1.5 times what Prius costs, depreciates three times as fast."
Well lets take an honest look at this on.
The Hummer has terrible resale value for a lot of reasons. A big one is that it is a terrible vehical with a terrible repair history.
A Prius is a Toyota and has a great repair history. Why not compare it to a Lexus, Honda, Acura, or Mazda 3 or 6. I think you will find it still has a great resale and in large part that has to do with current price of fuel. Also a Prius isn't an electric car.
"The average car on the road is now roughly nine years old, implying an average lifespan of 18 years. Ignoring inflation on gasoline prices and interest on the purchase, this would work out to a savings of $41,400 over the lifespan of the vehicle. That's a *Lot* of money. Saying it has to cost under $20k is just stupid."
Yea you are ignoring the interest that you would have to pay on the extra money. The other thing you are forgetting is that car loans are limited to usually five years and you are ignoring the cost of a battery pack replacement. I doubt that any battery pack will last the 18 years you are perdicting for a car life span.
"Let's toss in another $500 in maintenance savings -" $500 a year? On my Mazda all I have had to do is change the oil and get new tires. Since tires are tires let's take a look at the oil changes.
At $50 each and at 6000 miles per change I would have to drive 60,000 miles a year. Yes that includes filters and what not.
"As for fillup times, you may be surprised to learn that LiPs, spinels, and titanates *can* charge in 5-10 minutes. "
And those are not available yet for a car sized battery pack plus I question the very idea of charging a Li/Poly car pack in five or ten minutes. That will out a LOT of heat.
None of those technologies are available right now.
"As for range, why on earth would you need to be able to drive 300 miles on a single charge? The standard recommendation for drivers is that you stop and stretch for five to ten minutes at least once every two hours of driving."
Where do you get that?
Anyway even if you can live with a two hour range that means from a practical point of view at least a two and half hour range. At seventy mph that puts it two hundred miles. Why two had and half hours?. You don't want to drive until your battery is flat. That extra half an hour give you time to get to an exit or get past a storm when on a trip. People do drive on trips.
The statment was why don't we have electric cars already. That is because hydrocarbons where and still are a better choice. Will they always be? Maybe or maybe not. Methanol fuel cells hold a lot of promise. I read about a Methanol IC engine that was very interesting. It was based on a VW diesel block but they added a spark plug and instead of a throttle it used EGR to control the amount of O2 available for combustion. That way it didn't use a throttle plate so it suffered no pumping losses.
It produced very low emissions and good power and very good economy. Of course Methanol is a hydrocarbon.
You like way too many zealots seem to jump to the conclusion that I am saying electric cars will never work. Not at all. What I am saying is that the reason that auto manufactures have not made them is because we didn't want them. The car makers simply make what we want them to. The reason that there are so many SUVs and big Pickups on the road is because we wanted them a bought them.
I use we because when I was car shopping a few years ago I was tempted to pick up a big SUV. I decided that a car was a better choice but I can see why they are attractive. In the end it is our choice so stop blaming the auto companies for giving us what we asked for.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is why I propose the next deployed all electric or plugin/hybrid (burning hydrogen?) should be a heavy duty all-wheel-drive pickup truck.
Maybe something like THIS
289 kW (387 hp) peak power (more powerful than my current gasoline powered pickup truck).
Yummy!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well lets take an honest look at this on.
The Hummer has terrible resale value for a lot of reasons. A big one is that it is a terrible vehical with a terrible repair history. A Prius is a Toyota and has a great repair history.
Okay, how about a Toyota Sequoia with a Honda Civic Hybrid? $26k versus $20k, but just over $17k 5-year depreciation instead of just over $8k 5-year depreciation.
It doesn't matter what comparison you do; guzzlers have horrible depreciation in comparison to fuel-efficient cars. Namely, because guzzlers continue to cost a lot to run, while a person who's buying used is doing so to save money.
Why not compare it to a Lexus, Honda, Acura, or Mazda 3 or 6.
Because we're comparing fuel-efficient vehicles with guzzlers, obviously.
"The average car on the road is now roughly nine years old, implying an average lifespan of 18 years. Ignoring inflation on gasoline prices and interest on the purchase, this would work out to a savings of $41,400 over the lifespan of the vehicle. That's a *Lot* of money. Saying it has to cost under $20k is just stupid."
Yea you are ignoring the interest that you would have to pay on the extra money.
And inflation on gas prices. If you want more detailed calculations that include interest and inflation, go here.
The other thing you are forgetting is that car loans are limited to usually five years
And so one should pretend that economics doesn't matter because of this, right? Whether the money is coming from a car loan, a savings account, home equity, or whatnot, economics is still economics. All that changes is the interest rates.
and you are ignoring the cost of a battery pack replacement. I doubt that any battery pack will last the 18 years you are perdicting for a car life span.
1) That's covered by the linked calculations.
2) LG Chem expects their spinel packs for the Volt to last 30 years. A123 has already gotten over 7,000 cycles on their pack. AltairNano titanate cells have done over 20 *thousand* cycles.
"Let's toss in another $500 in maintenance savings -" $500 a year? On my Mazda all I have had to do is change the oil and get new tires.
Um, no. In 2005, the average driver spent $2,013 in gasoline and motor oil plus $2,339 on other vehicle expenses (repairs, insurance, etc). Unless you have a magical car that never breaks, your car needs more than just oil and tires changed.
And those are not available yet for a car sized battery pack
BZZT, sorry, try again! *Almost all* new PHEVs and EVs coming out in significant volume in the coming years are using one of those chemistries, and the prototypes are running on them. The only glaring exception to this is Tesla.
plus I question the very idea of charging a Li/Poly car pack in five or ten minutes.
I love how you confused LiP, spinel, and titanate cells with li-poly; that was just the icing on the cake.
That will out a LOT of heat.
Li-ion variants tend to be over 99% efficient at slow charging and ~96% or so efficient at fast charging. 60kW*4%=2.4kW -- 50% more power as heat than a blow dryer consumes. 250kW*4%=10kW, still the tiniest fraction of the heat released by a running internal combustion engine.
None of those technologies are available right now.
What part of "Already Installed Across Oahu" don't you get? What, do you need a link? Or two? How about a map? Or
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
Do I get a cookie?
Note if you're using NoScript
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Big Oil has been buying and burying patents for 50 years.
So Ballmer can't patent it? There's prior art?
Lock the wife and the dog in the boot of the car.
Return one hour later.
Who's happy to see you?
Not sure what you're contending....that there have been patents bought and buried, but you think it's five or less?
Are you contending that you believe within 50 years of operations that Big Oil (meaning all the biggest oil companies, duh!) hasn't even bought and buried even 5 patents?
Either you have no clue how business works, or you have no idea how many patents there are. It's statistically unlikely that what the OP is saying hasn't happened - at least on the scale of 5 patetents or less that you seem to be contending.
It's likely that in their strategic efforts any patents so buried would not have been insignificant either - they wouldn't be browsing for them on the USPTO website like you - they find inventors or labs with ideas they're looking to sell, and buy only the ones that are worth a hoot or have a chance at achieving the tipping point into popularity.
These inventors or labs are by and large out there trying to sell or get backing for these ideas anyway, so there's no particular "smoke and mirrors" about the affair. It's ordinary business practice, and human nature on both sides.
OTOH, none of it has to do with the laws of thermodynamics (nobody was focusing on internal combustion or anything else particularly), or Slashdot conspiracies. (???) The price of oil does figure in however, as does the basely conservative attitude (historically speaking) of the American Auto Industry.
Please get a clue.
Thanks!
-Matt
P.S. I'd be more interested to hear the theory that would support the idea that these huge companies with nearly unlimited resources would go through 50 years or more without looking out for their own interests in the manner described. Cosmically unlikely in my book, just given human nature, but even moreso given the known history of the auto industry.
"And those are not available yet for a car sized battery pack
BZZT, sorry, try again! *Almost all* new PHEVs and EVs coming out in significant volume in the coming years are using one of those chemistries, and the prototypes are running on them. The only glaring exception to this is Tesla."
Bzzt right You can not get them NOW.
"Why not compare it to a Lexus, Honda, Acura, or Mazda 3 or 6.
Because we're comparing fuel-efficient vehicles with guzzlers, obviously."
Well you are. I am comparing a fuel-efficient IC vehicle to an electric vehicle. Of course in this market millage sells.
My comment was about why do not have a large number of electric cars NOW. The post was stating that it was because the oil companies where paying off the car companies.
"Um, no. In 2005, the average driver spent $2,013 in gasoline and motor oil plus $2,339 on other vehicle expenses (repairs, insurance, etc) [census.gov]. Unless you have a magical car that never breaks, your car needs more than just oil and tires changed."
What you will not have to pay insurance tag and title on your elective vehicle? Do you think it will never have issues? Also good modern cars are actually very trouble free. Not all mind you and I wouldn't bet on first gen mass market electric cars to be as trouble free as they will be in the future.
As to your dismissing fuel cells. I wouldn't. Just as battery tech will improve so will fuel cells. I happen to think that for the short term that IC will continue to rule for a while.
I think we will all be surprised just how much millage people will get out of IC engines.
The reason I put down 200 miles was simple rounding. When I drive to visit the wife's family in Texas I often drive 330 miles between fill ups to try and make good time And yes that is in my Mazda 3.
Just now has battery tech gotten to the point the electric and hybrids don't suck as cars.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The problem with ICEs is that you are never going to exceed ~37% efficiency from them. That is the theoretical limit. Most vehicles are about a third to a half that efficient, with diesels and hybrids being better.
Your typical motor is well over 90% efficient.
Commonly used NiMH batteries aren't that great at 60-70% efficiency or so due to heat generated while charging, but newer LiIon chemistries are over 90% efficient as well.
When you combine that with the fact that producing renewable fuels for ICEs are also extremely inefficient compared to sources like wind and solar, it's fairly clear that electrifying the vehicle fleet is best solution on the horizon.
We imagine pulling into a filling station and attaching a cable to our car and filling the battery; the problem is that you need to either (a) deal with dangerously high currents or (b) deal with dangerously high voltage.
Yeah, and when you're turning the key in your car you're connecting a circuit that runs at > 400V, but nobody gets hurt. There are plenty of connectors and circuits that can be made tamperproof and safe.
Think of this in Matrix terms: "There Is No Filling Station." When you're at work, or at the movies, you just plug in your car and it tops off. Simple electronic transactions to handle payment. A service industry would spring up to maintain this equipment so the movie theatre only needs sign a lease agreement and gets an additional revenue source. Heck, "free ticket with a 150,000 Joule charge" (I have no idea what the right number is).
Now, if you want to put a robotic arm in the charging post so nobody has to get their hands dirty, go for it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I saw that too (bout 3 min after I friggin posted!), I know that it's coming, but I really did'nt think it'd be this soon.
Oh well, time to move to Montana, and live off the land.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Bzzt right You can not get them NOW.
Bzzt, you can build your own right now, because the cells are out there and readily purchasable by anyone.
Well you are. I am comparing a fuel-efficient IC vehicle to an electric vehicle. Of course in this market millage sells.
And EVs operate on a price equivalent of hundreds of miles per gallon. So, if you want to talk about reducing operations costs...
What you will not have to pay insurance tag and title on your elective vehicle?
Did I give a discount on insurance in the above numbers? Nope, try again.
Do you think it will never have issues?
Its drivetrain only has about ten percent of the moving parts of an ICE.
Also good modern cars are actually very trouble free.
Look at the figures above. They don't break down insurance versus repair, but I can assure you, the average person isn't spending close to $2k on insurance.
Not all mind you and I wouldn't bet on first gen mass market electric cars to be as trouble free as they will be in the future.
These aren't first gen mass market electric cars. First gen was in the early 1900s, and they were most definitely mass market (the Baker Electric being one of the biggest sellers). The second gen was from the CARB ZEV mandate era, from the late 90s to the early '00s. These vehicles, such as the EV1, were generally adored by their lessees for being low maintenance. What's coming up is the third generation of EVs.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
The parent mentions flaws and the article mentions "powertrain 1.5."
The development of the Tesla wasn't quite smooth sailing. They're asking for a lot of performance out of a relatively lightweight power supply and motor. At some point in the last year or so, Tesla ran into some durability problems with their two speed transmission. They were never clear about what the problem was, but it became apparent when they started talking about changes.
They switched from a 2-speed transmission to a single speed. Obviously, this takes them outside the ideal operating ranges of the motor at the high and low ends of the rated performance (115 and 0 mph respectively). It also meant a redesign of a major component, which is probably a significant part of the delay of these vehicles that were supposed to be shipping late last year.
What they have shared, however, is that they plan to build vehicles with the 2 speed transmission and more restrictive motor governing (read: lower performance than originally advertised) while they finish development on the single speed transmission. At that point, they'll change over to the single speed in the factory and refit the vehicles already in customer hands at no extra charge.
To match the original performance promises, they changed to a higher-rated motor controller, and made a few other changes in the electronics. A side benefit they are claiming to have achieved is slightly higher efficiency from better electronics, although the range on an EPA test cycle is still a little bit below what they initially planned to achieve and were touting two years ago (235 miles on a full charge, IIRC).
Overall, an exciting sports car, but I'll hold back from calling it a breakthrough until I start to see the same technology applied to lower performance, more practical cars that fit the budgets of ordinary people. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing the Stig take it around the track on Top Gear.
Tesla article on Powertrain 1.5
PS - the Tesla Roadster uses Lithium batteries, not NiMH like the Prius or Civic hybrid, so others ramping up production doesn't directly affect costs for Tesla.
... why couldn't they do that 10 years ago?
They did.
Then they shredded and destroyed it.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
"Bzzt, you can build your own right now, because the cells are out there and readily purchasable by anyone."
But you can not buy them in a car right now. You sure couldn't buy them in a car last year.
"Did I give a discount on insurance in the above numbers? Nope, try again."
No but you didn't include it. You put down how much repairs and insurance was as a cost and wrote all of it off for an EV.
Plus that covers all repairs. I did have a $500 repair on my Mazda 3. I was stopped at a red light and got rear ended. I don't count that in my calculation since it was in pay way a failure of the car. Those numbers don't seperate fender benders and such.
I can assure you that the average person is probably paying close to $500 a year of more for insurance. If an electric car is much more expensive than the equivalent IC car then the insurance will be higher as well.
And no we still have not seen the the first generation of mass market EVs yet. Notice the mass market part of that statment.
The indisputable fact is that you can not buy a good moderate priced EV today. In a year or two maybe. And the reason that you can not is the technology wasn't available three or so years ago.
Just take a look at the problems that Tesla is having with their rich boys plaything and that GM is having with the Volt.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
All the more reason to say that if you don't produce commercial product (which includes reasonable intents on volume and price considering your company size) within 5 years, you loose exclusive rights, or other companies may use the patent with a small mandated royalty.
46137
I dunno about the other stuff but are you saying the Hemi was from the 90's?
-Matt
about rapid charging a Lithium-ion-polymer battery
"The voltage of a Li-poly cell varies from about 2.7 V (discharged) to about 4.23 V (fully charged), and 'Li-poly cells have to be protected from overcharge by limiting the applied voltage to no more than 4.235 V per cell used in a series combination. Overcharging a Li-poly battery will likely result in explosion and/or fire.' During discharge on load, the load has to be removed as soon as the voltage drops below approximately 3.0 V per cell (used in a series combination), or else the battery will subsequently no longer accept a full charge and may experience problems holding voltage under load."
limiting applied voltage to 4.235 volt per cell, means rapid charging is only possible with a massive array of very small LiP batteries. Exploding batteries are not fun for anyone.
oh and hey, depending on how you make the LiP battery you might need to cook the battery on a silver plate at 200-300 degrees Centigrade.
that's ~400-750 Fahrenheit, um yeah, that kind of process does make it harder to ramp up to a mass produced product, probably why there are 2 methods of making LiP batteries.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Your contention that development ceased on nuclear plants is incorrect. The plants today are NOTHING like 3mile island or the plants of old. There have been wide and vast improvements in process design and control (not only in Nuclear, either). From the safety systems to the steam process -- all of it is better understood today than it has ever been. The materials, the instrumentation, the valves, the control systems. All of it has seen improvement over the last 20 years. Have you ever actually been inside a modern plant of anykind? I have. My livelihood depends on it.
There are lots of firms who have been and are very active in this space. They haven't been sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They, in fact, have designs sitting on the shelf that can be pulled out and worked on at any moment. I am certain all of them stand ready to help whoever wants to build a nuclear power plant.
It is not a lack of technical know-how that prevents us from using nuclear plants. It's a lack of will that does it for us. We have plenty of engineering brain power to get it done. PLENTY. We're just a bunch of pussies about it.
The problem BOTH of you have here is that the real life durability of the newer battery chemistries is not known yet. Batteries are the things that will make or break the economics of electric cars.
If they are as good as Rei claims he wins the argument, because electric motors are mature technology and VERY low-maintenance. But if they fail after 5 years and you have to pay $10,000 for a new pack... ouch, I'd be sorry for the one who bought the car.
C - the footgun of programming languages
" NiMHs, however. It's old tech, inferior in about a dozen different ways to the modern automotive li-ions."
Inferior except in one critical way. NiMH batteries dont lose 20% of their capacity a year just by exisiting. So while you can design a NiMH based car that will last 20 years, you cant design a Li-ion on that doesnt need a new $10,000 battery every 5 years.
"Bzzt, you can build your own right now, because the cells are out there and readily purchasable by anyone."
But you can not buy them in a car right now. You sure couldn't buy them in a car last year.
What sort of world do you live in where new car lines are created that fast? Bringing a new series of car to market takes years -- which is why I've continually mentioned "the next few years" as the timeframe for when a whole bunch of EVs/PHEVs with automotive li-ions will be coming out.
"Did I give a discount on insurance in the above numbers? Nope, try again."
No but you didn't include it.
That's because I was computing *savings*. If the price of something is the same on both an EV and an ICE, its net savings is $0. It doesn't affect the calculation of savings.
You put down how much repairs and insurance was as a cost and wrote all of it off for an EV.
I distinctly did not. I credited EVs with $200 of electricity expenses, -$2000 of gasoline expenses, and -$500 of maintenance expenses. I gave them zero advantage over gasoline cars when it comes to insurance.
I did have a $500 repair on my Mazda 3. I was stopped at a red light and got rear ended. I don't count that in my calculation since it was in pay way a failure of the car. Those numbers don't seperate fender benders and such.
What, the census numbers? No, they don't. But accident repair costs are almost always dwarfed by accumulated maintenance costs -- every timing belt, pulley, pump, etc. An EV drivetrain has roughly 10% the moving parts. Doesn't even need oil changes. Heck, doesn't even have a transmission (have you seen how much a transmission failure will run you?). Even things unrelated to the drivetrain tend to wear less, such as the brakes (most braking work being done regeneratively).
And no we still have not seen the the first generation of mass market EVs yet. Notice the mass market part of that statment.
You apparently ignored what I wrote about the first generation. Electrics were initially the prime competition to gasoline cars in the early 1900s. In 1900, at the Paris exposition, there were 176 gasoline models, 40 electric, and 21 steam. By 1911, the Anderson Electric Car Company offered 21 different EV models -- and they were just one of dozens of EV carmakers. For example, in 1914, the Milburn Wagon Co sold 3400 EVs. Anderson sold 6,772 that same year. EVs were very popular among women, as at the time, gasoline cars had to be crank started. When Ford started mass-producing the Model T on modern assembly lines in 1913 (lower volume production began in 1908; between 1908 and 1910, Ford had only sold 12,000 cars), they had been losing market share to the electric runabouts. Their massive increase in production, advancing ICE tech, a stagnation in batteries, and the advent of the electric starter motor doomed EVs up until the 90s.
Even though the second gen was proportionally small compared to how many gasoline cars were on the market, it still involved thousands of EVs driven for years, racking up hundreds of millions of drive miles.
The indisputable fact is that you can not buy a good moderate priced EV today.
True! The ones remaining from the CARB ZEV era are generally so beloved that they sell for over double their purchase price; yet they're technological dinosaurs compared to what's being developed today. Which is part of why there's such a huge rush by virtually every automaker to bring more onto the market. GM alone plans to produce 10k Volts their first year, 60k their second year, and ramp up from there.
And the reason that you can not is the technology wasn't available three or so years ago.
Actually, it was. LiPs have been on the market for over half a decade. There wasn't as much of a demand, though, and companies weren't as willing to accept the risk on what was then a much newer product. Even Tesla wasn't; that's why they went with conventional laptop cells, despite their inferior properties for automotive applications.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
...the patents were only purchased AFTER the EV1 failed. The reason it failed was primarily market pressure not some vast conspiracy.
Eh...to be as clearly decided about the EV1's story as you are would suggest you haven't read up much on the history of the EV1. It was a lot more complicated than that. It's not even clear that "market pressure" was a significant factor, let alone the only one or predominant one.
To reinforce the OP's point, there's nothing to have kept GM from staying in the market by getting into bed with a Lithium battery producer, just as they'd done with the folks making the NiMH batteries.
Lithium ion batteries were commercially available (from Sony) starting in 1991. The EV1 came out (with NiMH) in 1996. By the time GM would have been ready to market an EV2, they could have been able to develop lithium technology for a decade and been prepared for now with an EV2-LIION(tm).
That's not what happened though. :)
For a picture of where GM is today, let me quote the top 3 new stories from their website as I type this:
2008-07-14 GM Achieves All-Time Quarterly Sales Record in Latin America, Africa and Middle East
2008-07-13 GM, National Governors Association Team Up on E85
2008-07-11 HUMMER Announces Pricing for All-New H3T"
So they're ramping up operations overseas, finding new ways to get in bed with the political leaders and coming out with a new giant SUV!
Sounds like just what we need.
-Matt
Been all over this story with nary a mention of TFA.
Between the announcement of this Tesla pure EV shipping and VW's announcement of their upcoming 235mpg (internal combustion!) one-seater, I'm hoping these are omens of a wave of positive change coming to the auto industry! :-)
It's been stagnant at least since the oil crises of the 70's. (That's when we got out first crop of remotely energy efficient cars...several outperfomed the "economy cars" that are considered "new" today and which - even relatively - cost a lot more.) Harumph.
-Matt
No, the hemi is an old (and as far as I'm concerned, crappy) approach that the american manufacturers rejuvenated in a ridiculous attempt to compete with the japanese companies. What I was talking about was this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection
Here's a decent writeup also:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/03/29/215606.php
I guess I don't understand how combustion engines are supposedly tapped out. Keep in mind that most of the engine's performance characteristics are still very much mechanical and are basically "hard coded" for a good median of power output and fuel economy since they don't have the technology to dynamically change the characteristics when one is needed over the other.
ICE's are fundamentally limited in efficiency for two reasons:
Electric motors don't have these limitations. We're already at a stage where inefficent electric cars use less energy then my hybrid.
No, I will not work for your startup
Along with fix-a-flat there will be ten-mile fuel cell quick jump kits for your car to get you to your next plug in.
What would be an even better (and just as useful) measure would be to run inductive chargers under the pavement on long stretches of the interstate system where you charge as you ride, or largely ride for free. Or (if we _must_) you have a Charge Pass(tm) meter to get billed for charge as you go.
Make fun of the charge-for-free if you like, but it is likely cheaper to give the passers-through the free ride than to clean up the mess of the fuel economy (plus billing etc). Imagine how well the power systems would be regulated if the fed were footing the bill for the electricity delivered to the interstate highway system.
Regardless of that sky-pie...
Since there is no inherent danger to making electricity available, as opposed to the inherent danger of making petrochemical distillates available, getting a charge as part of parking at your rest stop or attraction (or while parked at work because of your employers clean-air program) could delete the entire concept of the dedicated fueling station.
Go to Denies, or MacDonalds, or Taco Time, and get a (full or partial) charge while you eat.
Sound unlikely? Well in colder climates they already rig their parking lots with plugs to keep your engine block from freezing while you shop or eat.
Hell, having reduced-price or even free charging at the local highway rest-stop would cut way down on tired long-distance driving accidents. Pull over, take a rest, get a charge on us 'cause it's cheaper than having to dispatch Life Flight etc.
Once the "fuel" is electricity, which is literally everywhere in our society, we lose the need for the "filling station" to be a super-defined super-regulated contentious resource. Anybody can sell "their" electricity if they have the amperage to spare.
Once motive force stops being "rare and dangerous" gasoline, the paradigm totally goes to distributed recharging as the most sensible practice.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
NiMH batteries dont lose 20% of their capacity a year just by exisiting.
Neither do automotive li-ions. Don't tell me you've confused laptop cells (LiCoO2 cathode, graphite anode) with automotive li-ions (phosphates, titanates, spinels, etc).
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
of our fine edjumacashunal system...trying to explain a fine point of language to some1 like unity100 is a waste of time:-{
YHBT
YHL
HAND
Yeah, I though Li-ions were all the same.
So I did some googling and found some information contrary to what you say which makes me think you are a Bullsh1tter.
"The lower energy dense manganese-based lithium-ion, also known as spinel, maintains the internal resistance through its life but loses capacity due to chemical decompositions. Spinel is primarily used for power tools. "
Or: You Have Been Trolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day.
What a bonehead you are, if you're going to act like an immature fool, always remember to post as an anonymous coward. You weren't trolling, you spoke your mind and the rest of us were amazed at the hollow echoes.
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
You think so? I'll restate my comment here:
I was attempting to point out the fallacy of the original "Big Oil has been buying and burying patents for 50 years" post - the whole beauty of conspiracy theories is that you can never convince the zealots that believe them because they have a 'logical' explanation for every argument you put forward. eg if you tell them "show me the patents then", the response you'll get is that you can't find the patents because they are owned by shell companies etc.
Obviously my attempt at humor was too subtle as you weren't the only one who misunderstood...
Wrong spinel; there are several (just for manganese alone, there's LiMnO2, LiMn2O4, Li2MnO3, and combinations thereof). This spinel is the primary one being investigated for automotive applications. Read more about the differences and Argonne's work on the subject (they have their own version). For LG Chem's cells, accelerated aging tests suggests a lifespan of 15 to 40 years. When referring to automotive batteries, when someone says "spinel", it's cells like LG chem's that they're talking about.
Look, before you start spouting off, educate yourself. If you had to look up the terms on these most basic issues of battery chemistry, you're way out of the loop and need to get in the loop before you debate the topic. It's not like these are esoteric details; we're talking about the fundamentals.
The phosphates probably are the most widely known. These are what powered, among many other different vehicles, the Killacycle electric motorcycle, with its 0-60 in less than 1 second. Check into them -- A123 reports over 7,000 normal cycles on them, while independent testing by people on the RC Groups forum (they're becoming popular for RC aircraft) put them through over a thousand incredibly abusive cycles (3-4C charge, 6-8C discharge, sometimes all the way down to 0V) and only lost 20% capacity. And, heck, while you're at it, check out the titanates. They're even more impressive, IMHO, than the phosphates and spinels. AltairNano has done over *20,000 cycles* on a single pack. They're so stable that they're being used for grid load balancing, where the cells go from drawing 2MW from the grid to feeding 2MW to the grid, over and over whenever demand or supply fluctuates, to give peaking plants time to come online.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
Try making and selling Nickel Metal Hydride batteries suitable for electric cars and see how far you get.
That's not a matter of patents, but a simple matter of engineering. Batteries with memory are horribly suited for vehicles. I have enough trouble maintaining a good charge cycle on my electric razor. Imagine trying to do that with a car.
On the other hand, the consequences of a LiPo or LiIon explosion in a car are much more serious than in a laptop. One fact of mass production is that consumers will misuse your product in every way possible. No matter how many safeguards you put on your batteries and chargers, some idiot is going to blow his face off and sue you.
If you want to claim a conspiracy, you must offer some proof.
You clearly aren't familiar with the first rule of conspiracy theories: "The lack of evidence is proof that they are covering it up."
On the Explodo-meter (TM), I'm rather sure that gasoline is more dangerous than LiPo batteries. Just a theory though, I haven't adjusted the Explodo-meter (TM) recently.
Not to say that people don't blow themselves up with their cars now (they do, for sure), I just don't think that LiPo batteries are any more likely to kill anyone then a big tank of flammable liquid.
Just another ignorant American.
The most efficient internal combustion engine in the world is a diesel the size of a house that's in a container ship. It gets 50% efficiency.
For a heat engine, that's really quite good.
You're definitely right in that bigger is better: As you scale an internal combustion engine, the volume (and with it, energy per cycle) goes up as the cube of the scale, while surface area (and with it, heat radiated) only goes up with the square. So naturally, the huge diesels on container ships are among the most efficient real-life heat engines -- surpassed only by power plants.
But... turbines are also lucky to get 50%, actually! As I mentioned, the most efficient heat engines are the huge ones in power plants, and IIRC the best-ever-achieved is around 60%, using exotically-high temperatures and pressures (but I can't find a source for that.) This source cites 48% as a competitive efficiency for a coal-fired powerplant.
The point is that 50% is pretty impressive, actually.
Turbines do have big advantages: They're much more reliable than piston engines, because they're mechanically much simpler. But I'd like to dispel the myth that the reciprocating motion of piston engines is a major source of inefficiency. The K.E. of the pistons is negligible compared to the thermal energies involved. Rather, the reciprocating action is bad for reliability.
That is the theoretical limit.
Yep! With energy being so central to our lives, I wish people understood thermodynamics better.
What I don't understand is how to thermodynamically analyze fuel cells. I'd like to understand what their maximum theoretical efficiency is, and how it relates to the Carnot cycle.
[...Because the Carnot efficiency comes up in all sorts of interesting places. It's a fundamental limit even on solar cells; you just need to view them as heat engines working between a hot reservoir (the sun, via blackbody radiation), and a cold reservoir (the earth). I find that thought fascinating. You can even dream up (completely fantastical) mechanical heat engines using mirrors, that use photons as the "working fluid." Light goes in blue, comes out red! (directly related to temperature.)]
Is there a theoretical physicist in the house?
Actually, the car companies have tried everything already at least once. Electric cars were popular for a period of more than 30 years, 100 years ago. So as far as GM and Ford are concerned, there isn't anything new, it is just a matter of warming over the same old shit every few decades and if they are lucky, it may end up a little better than the previous time.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You forgot the notion that economics are involved. "Big Oil" knows they're running a race due to the limited availability of petroleum, so I seriously doubt they're gonna just quash any idea that they could turn a billion dollar profit if they could make work. Yeah, I've heard of the EV or whatever, but the problem was the cost of the vehicle... Why would anyone build a $500,000 electric car that didn't get the range and speed of a $20,000 gasoline engine car?
Same thing with what the Democrats in Congress are doing with blocking any domestic US drilling. They want alternative energy solutions, but the reality is that most cars you see on the road are older cars. Do you think people buy old cars because they like them, or because its what they can afford? Even if some amazing new technology gets into production, you're gonna see a lot of old cars on the road for 10-15 years. Drill now, for the love of God...
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
The efficiency of fuel cells is not really that important if you are comparing them to electric cars.
Keep in mind that a fuel cell is a direct replacement of the battery in an pure electric car - fuel cell vehicles are also augmented with batteries. They are basically an electric car with a fuel cell for power storage. So at best it will match the efficiency of an electric car.
Even if the onboard fuel cell was 100% efficient (which they aren't), you still have to figure out how to efficiently produce the energy carrier (Hydrogen). Unfortunately, producing Hydrogen is not very efficient, so at best, you typically end up with over power efficiencies that are very similar to today's hybrid vehicles.
Since Chevron-Texaco was broken up by the SEC, and BP bought Texaco instead, I'm finding your facts weak enough that you'll need to do some homework and get it right before anyone will believe you.
+++OK ATH
Show us your numbers. They don't lie. It's far more likely that you do.
+++OK ATH
People buying/doing shit they don't need to isn't a problem. If you're so worried about it, unplug your computers, stop wasting electricity posting on Slashdot. Rubber, meet road.
+++OK ATH
I'd like you to defend your "minimal environmental damage" statement at the very beginning. If you had a magic wand, and we were all driving electric cars tomorrow, what would the additional load be on the electric grid, and how much more pollution would that load cause when fed (mostly) by coal-fired power plants?
I contend that energy consumption is energy consumption, and moving everyone from hydrocarbon burning to burning coal isn't really fixing anything in the long-run.
+++OK ATH
On the contrary!!! Don;t drill now...let the Saudis sell off all their oil while prices are only $147 a barrel! The Dems are brilliant because we will be able to sell ours at $500 a barrel.
But yes, the technology just wasn't there until now to build a cost effective EV with characteristics similar to gas powered cars.
"What sort of world do you live in where new car lines are created that fast? Bringing a new series of car to market takes years -- which is why I've continually mentioned "the next few years" as the timeframe for when a whole bunch of EVs/PHEVs with automotive li-ions will be coming out."
But the post I originally replied to was WHY DON"T WE ALREADY HAVE ELECTRIC CARS!
And the answer is because they where not as good cars as hydrocarbon powered ones.
I was not making any comment about the future at all except that I think that hydrocarbons still have a future as a an energy storage medium and that IC engines will be around for a long time.
When gas is under two dollars a gallon electric cars are not as good as gas. In many cases electric systems are still not as good as hydrocarbon systems. A lot of has to do with energy density and a lot has to do with infrastructure. The future? Well maybe they will be better. But the thing is that you can make gasoline with electricity, air, and water if you have cheap enough electricity. But you keep talking about the future. I am talking about today and last year. Every thing you say may come to pass I never said it couldn't but I am talking about right now.
I still think that the short range will be the thing that holds back the EV. Plug in hybrids and even better a plug in hybrid with an advanced IC engine seem to hold more promise out side of major metropolitan areas.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
First one, where using multiple batteries with a cooling system, might have been quite hard on them.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6255015.PN.&OS=PN/6255015&RS=PN/6255015
Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. was bought by texaco not long after they got the first patent I just described, and successfull patent application shows it up.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6969567.PN.&OS=PN/6969567&RS=PN/6969567
I'd like you to defend your "minimal environmental damage" statement at the very beginning. If you had a magic wand, and we were all driving electric cars tomorrow, what would the additional load be on the electric grid, and how much more pollution would that load cause when fed (mostly) by coal-fired power plants?
How about a DOE study conducted by PNL? We could convert 84% of our existing vehicles over to PHEVs running mostly on electricity without building a single new power plant. Even though the extra power would be mostly coal, the only pollutant to rise would be particulate matter. CO2 would drop by a third, NOx would stay roughly the same, SOx woudl stay roughly the same, and CO and VOC pollution would be virtually eliminated. To top it all off, the pollution would be displaced from "ground-level in densely populated areas" to "out of the cities and emitted at altitude".
Here's another study for you. Check out the graph.
I contend that energy consumption is energy consumption, and moving everyone from hydrocarbon burning to burning coal isn't really fixing anything in the long-run.
I contend that not only is it far easier to clean up the grid than to clean up individual tailpipes, but that the very basic fact that power plants are far more efficient than individual ICEs makes even coal cleaner. And I'm backed up by peer review. And you?
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
I shall indeed pull the links from my del.icio.us account. And of course, yes, it's so likely I'd lie to others on Slashdot. Because I have nothing better to do with my time. Riiiiiight.
Unfortunately, producing Hydrogen is not very efficient, so at best, you typically end up with over power efficiencies that are very similar to today's hybrid vehicles.
Oh yeah; I'm definitely with you on that. I always bring that up when people talk about hydrogen cars. Hybrids too: "You realize that's really just a gasoline-powered car with a different kind of transmission, right?"
But the reason for my question isn't even necessarily related (directly) to vehicles, actually: The real point is, so long as we're using fossil fuels, I wonder what the theoretical limits on the efficiency of the getting-work-from-fossil-fuels process are for fuel cells, as different from that for heat engines.
Say you want to turn natural gas into CO2, water, and electricity. You can do what we currently do, which is burn it at a high temperature to power a steam- or gas- turbine -- OR, you can convert it to methanol and use that to power a fuel cell. And if you can avoid the Carnot heat-engine efficiency hit, I wonder what your theoretical max on efficiency is.
See the point of my question?
Still, I'm completely with you re. vehicles. That's right on.
By any chance, was the competition you refer to Formula Hybrid? (If so, I worked on that too!)
So let's talk turkey here. We all watch patents being busted every day. Know how?
Have a viable product that will more than pay for your legal defense, and settle out of court.
It's about business numbers, not patents. Patents make it more difficult, but if the solution is viable and has a high-enough profit margin while still providing more value to the consumer than the alternatives... it'd be done by now.
Not to mention -- anyone wanting to build cars (including the big 3 and the overseas manufacturers) back then, could have bid for the patents themselves, or developed them sooner. None of them are rocket science.
Why would they not? They did the math and found the ROI to be at least a decade on an electric car back then. Today, it's roughly 6-7 years without tax incentives (which are slowly being taken away, and already aren't as good as the first Prius drivers got).
It's just not fiscally sound yet. People can't afford it. Hydrocarbons will go higher in price until there's a compelling reason ECONOMICALLY to switch, and because of elasticity... the price of electrics will have to be SIGNIFICANTLY lower with a positive ROI before it happens.
Looking over even the worst predictions for peak oil and the taper-off, I'll be long dead before that happens if the greenies don't win the "war on panic" in people's heads who aren't THINKING sometime in the next 30 years.
Think like a business -- would you pay a 50% surcharge for something that promises to save the planet? Only a very few will. Bravo to them, but I'll be waiting until I at least see price parity between the systems. And I don't want price parity by tax breaks, since that's just shifting of wealth and unnecessary meddling by the government.
If the electric (or whatever alternative automotive energy source) fans could actually show a better ROI on gas, people would flock to them in droves.
+++OK ATH
Yep, it's a good question.
Using your example of trying to decide whether to burn natural gas to generate electricity or use it to produce hydrogen or methane for fuel cells, even if we are talking theoretical peak efficiencies, I believe that it's still more efficient to generate electricity.
Using numbers I pull from various sources (primarily wikipedia):
Theoretical efficiency of fuel cell: 83%
Theoretical efficiency of gas turbine: 75%
Looking at this, this means that producing hydrogen or methane must be at least 90% efficient to match the efficiency of a gas turbine.
Hydrogen production from natural gas seems to be limited to about 80% efficiency.
Hydrogen production from electrolysis seems to be limited to about 50% efficiency.
So yes, even looking at theoretical efficiencies it's more efficient to bypass hydrogen or methane and just use the hydrocarbons to generate electricity where it's practical.
When gas is under two dollars a gallon electric cars are not as good as gas.
The price of electricity is roughly the equivalent of gas at $0.75 a gallon. And it's cleaner whether gas is that cheap or not.
But the thing is that you can make gasoline with electricity, air, and water if you have cheap enough electricity.
True -- and that's something most people don't realize (I'm glad you're informed enough on this topic to be aware of that). But try running the math on how much that'll cost you. You'll come up with at least $8 a gallon with current electricity prices after factoring in losses. Not end-of-the-world prices, but way, way too expensive.
But you keep talking about the future. I am talking about today and last year.
I must have misunderstood your intent, then. I'm talking about what'll be out in the next couple years, from almost every major car manufacturer in the world.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
I have not heard of a 50% efficiency rating but assuming it is true it still wouldn't result in 300 MPG car.
Gas has 34.8 MJ/L worth of energy. Your car gets 34.8*.3 = 10.44 MJ/L
Using your new efficiency your car would gets 34.8*.5 = 17.4 MJ/L
Assuming it takes 10.44 MJ to move your car, with your new efficiency you could drive 17.4 / 10.44 = 1.66 times as far.
So your 30 mpg car now gets 30*1.66 = 50 MPG.
Now, do you ahve a source for your ceramic engine?
Particulate matter. That and N0x - the two things that currently have VW's cleanest running diesel cars ever... banned from being imported.
Can't have it both ways, greenies... pick a poison, the energy consumption is NOT going down. Next pick the most efficient solution that has the biggest ROI for today, and it's... gasoline.
You're saying that States that have tailpipe emissions standards aren't meeting them? ("Can't clean up tailpipes.")
Hell, here in Colorado we cleaned up the tailpipes and dropped safety inspections and within two decades the insurance companies forced the legislature to make us a no-fault insurance coverage state.
Meanwhile we still have no standards for emissions from OTR trucks, busses, construction equipment, etc etc etc...
+++OK ATH
Show me the money, girlfriend.
+++OK ATH
http://www.buyingadvice.com/
I don't necessarily disagree with the intention there, but the problem is two-fold. First, that's not their motivation for keeping our prices high, its that they're beholden to the environmental lobby. Secondly, and more importantly, oil is the life blood of our economy, for good or ill, if we don't do something to drop the prices, inflation is going to get worse and we're all gonna feel the bad effects of high gas prices. You think $4/gallon is bad, wait for $8-10/gallon. For a political party that seems to care so much about the lower class, they're sure stabbing them in the back right now. The ripple effects of high gas is going to get a LOT worse if they don't do something about it now.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
You left out the CIA and the NSA. Many conspiracy theorists see one or both of these two as "Them".
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
Combustion engines in general are limited on efficiency. Another poster noted that we've gotten them about as efficient as we're going to. Further developments along the current lines of research are probably past the point of diminishing returns.
If we insist on personal transportation, we need to concentrate on making hydrogen fuel cells work. Use them to create electricity to charge batteries. Use them to power ultra-efficient electric motors with regenerative braking. Practical fuel cells and batteries are the sticking points.
Creating hydrogen generation and distribution infrastructure could be tricky too. However, I keep seeing fuel points with big solar panels and a water supply. We'd need to capture and get rid of all the excess oxygen though.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
If you're talking Carnot cycle and efficiency and heat transfer, leave the physicists out of it. They'll end up out on a tangent trying to figure out theoretical possibilities. Carnot cycle and efficiency and heat transfer are all topics taught to mechanical engineering students.
In a nutshell, efficiency is the ratio of the work you can get out of it compared to the work required to make it go. So, simply measure output power and input power and find the efficiency.
That 37% max figure comes from thermodynamic limits and is based on steel engines. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine) This limit is due to the fact that to raise efficiency you need to increase the operating temperature, and for RICE's, the limit occurs when the engine basically melts.
Also, stop comparing diesels to ICE's. Different cycle, different efficiency. Highest I've heard of is 44%, but I would not be surprised if the big ones in ships approach 50%.
My point?
If you use solar or wind to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, does the efficiency really matter all that much? At the beginning it won't. Then later, as the technologies mature, efficiency improvements will determine which companies profit and which fail.
TANSTAAFL GIGO Acronyms to live by!
Except by exploring off shore you MIGHT get oil on the market in 10 years. In 10 years the damage will be done and we will have shifted, at least partially, to other mobile power sources (I think batteries/ultra caps etc will be very good by then and could replace gas as a portable energy source plus at $150 a barrel, a lot of bio fuel sources become profitable, coal liquefaction becomes profitable etc).
However if you use the Dems idea than we force the oil companies to use the resources they already have instead of giving them a reward for not using what they already have. Exploiting the land they already have will get added oil to the market in 2-3 years.
The real problem is NOT a lack of oil but a lack of refining capacity. If you want to effect gas prices than build more refineries...it will take two years to build a new refinery.
The reality is that $8 a gallon is really what it SHOULD be right now. The US has lived in an artificially low priced gas environment for the last 80 years. It is unavoidable that gas will reach $6-7 a gallon in today's dollars. But this doesn't worry me THAT much because in the next two years there will be viable electric cars in my price rage ($30K) with performance that matches or exceeds gas powered cars. After I drive the wheels off my Civic I will buy an electric to replace it.
What will "save" the US is NOT more oil. It really doesn't matter if we start looking at new sources or not. By the time any come on-line the damage will be done. What will save the US is electrical storage with similar capacities as gas. Since very little electrical power is supplied by oil, the electric vehicle will make us energy independent. The power grid as it is right now can supply current power needs plus 80% of all transportation energy needs. The upgrades needed for the power grid are not that significant and could be completed over 20 years. New power plants could be nuclear fission Uranium (with fuel reprocessing which eliminates almost all waste but is still a fuel we don't readily have), nuclear fission Thorium (which produces almost no long term waste and is readily available in the US but the tech is not quite developed, the first plant is looking like 5 years), nuclear fusion (I have high hopes for the Bussard Polywell which hope to have a 100 MW poerplant in operation in 5 years but we have all heard the fusion stories in the past), solar (photovoltaics are getting much better and much cheaper, within the next 5 years it will be cost effective to install solar grid-tie systems in the bottom half of the US) and if all else fails clean coal.
As you can see, ocean exploration will come too late to do anything but damage the environment (even if just a little). The sad truth is, we in the US will have to simply "grin and bear it" for a few years than hop on electrical as soon as possible.
I think we agree. I might have misread your post so thanks for the clarification.
You are right that the NRC is pretty strict about what types of plants they will consider.
Yes the original post was on why we don't have EVs right now.
I never say never but I do think the hydrocarbons will out perform batteries for a while.
I do think you are off on the weight of Fuel cells. The big problem with Fuel cells is still cost and the fact that hydrogen isn't a power source and a real PITA to deal with.
Methonol fuel cells and IC systems seem to hold more potental to replace gasoline than batteries to me.
But notice I used the words "seem" and "to me". Since I got my Crystal ball on close out who knows?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I agree with almost everything you said, except the following:
+ the 10 years myth... its a myth, trust me. It's political smoke and mirrors. Within two years (4-5 max in a worst case scenario) we would have that oil to market.
+ Speculation. If Congress passed legislation tomorrow saying we were gonna release the handcuffs, you'd see the price drop 20-30% within a matter of weeks. I've heard that as much as 35% of the current price is due to speculators knowing the Democratic-led Congress will not let us expand domestic production.
+ If an oil company had a lease that was profitable at $150/bbl, they'd be producing it. Its doesn't make any sense not too at these prices. Conspiracy or not, they'd be sucking it out of the ground.
+ Environmental damage. Another smoke and mirrors trick by the media and environmental lobby. When Katrina and (I am tired, I forget the name of) the other hurricane hit the Gulf of Mexico back to back, out of the thousands of existing production platforms, there wasn't a single problem. I will be the first to admit that accidents happen, but the reality of oil spills is that, first, they're not really as bad as people make them out to be. If they hit the shore, yes, its bad for animals, but the recovery technology is good enough that it probably wont get to that point. It can be cleaned up on the water's surface comparatively easy. Crude oil is not nearly as bad as people tend to think. As a matter of fact, I've seen spills on farm land turn that farmland to the richest soil on the pasture. The danger of an oil spill is primarily in the salt water that usually accompanies it, however, the government doesn't really give two shits if you spill salt water. (Yes, I know this from experience. Spill some crude, get a hazmat team out, they take soil samples, etc etc... spill some salt water, which renders soil dead for decades... they literally just say to vacuum up the standing fluid. There has been a lasting campaign to demonize anything having to do with petroleum for decades. The legislation reflects it as does the media attitude... but I'm rambling.)
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
#1 we don't know exactly where the oil is...we know about where it is but that is different. If you started today: To exploit off shore oil you first have to do extremely detailed underwater analysis of the geography (6 months to a year). You then do test wells (two years to find the right site). You then build the oil platform on site (two years since it is an extremely complex machine in a fairly difficult area). You then do a full well (one year to drill it, validate the stability and start extracting oil). Then you spin up production which typically takes about 2 years (that's as fast as they can do it). Therefore to extract any meaningful oil it will take a MINIMUM of 7.5 to 8 years. This is assuming the laws were changed yesterday AND not fought in court. 10 years is actually a conservative estimate. The sad truth is that drilling several miles into the crust UNDER a mile of ocean and pulling out oil without spilling any is HARD.
#2 The US's ability to produce oil in the first place is starting to drop. Peak oil was reached for all existing US wells in the 80's. Even if every single known or suspected reserve in US territory was drilled immediately, we wouldn't add more than 10-15% to the global supply. It is true that speculation has driven up the price of oil, but the the US has very little to do with it.
#3 Oil companies have reported record profits across the board. They had secured rights to the land and were already running very close to their max capacity plus the price of oil is not going to drop any time soon even IF everyone started pumping as much as they could. It's not a conspiracy but it is good business sense. In addition I would like to point out that it is a known fact that oil companies have leases to public land which they are NOT drilling. It is public information.
#4 Yes Katrina and Rita did not cause any spilled oil because the rigs capped the wells and left the area. It still took months to restart production. But I wasn't refering to an oil spill. I was thinking about the damage to the area from the test wells, from the construction etc. Spilled oil (and yes even the best oil rig spills oil) just adds to that.
The problem with oil spills is that it spread out to a huge geographic area. Oil recover techniques are really only effective if you catch it very early and it is a small spill. Even if the oil doesn't hit the land it still kills off most of the creatures in the ocean below it. A layer of oil prevents oxygen exchange with the ocean and gradually suffocates the plants and animals living there.
As far as oil spills on land, please provide a citation. I know that non-point sources of oil pollution (like oil leaks from cars etc) is the largest category of harmful pollution. I have worked for my states Department of Natural resources and my job was to monitor the health of the states major lakes.
I challenge your assertion that crude oil contains a lot of salt water. It is true that salt water is used in the extraction of oil but that is because they don't mix and oil rides on top of the oil. Unless you can provide a document showing that crude oil barrels have some appreciable level of water I call bull shit.
The difference between the danger of salt water vs the danger of oil is that there are natural processes to handle salt. There are none for oil. If land is full of salt you won't be able to use it for agriculture but there are natural plants, bacteria and animals that will seek it out and gradually clean it up. Plus rain will gradually wash it away. With oil there are no such natural processes. It is generally not usable by bacteria or other life forms and rain doesn't wash it away very quickly. Land filled with oil must wait for the oil to gradually break down on it's own, typically with sunlight, and then wash away. A gallon of sea water will kill an area for a few years. A gallon of oil will kill an area for a few centuries.
Dream on! The simple answer was that gas was way cheaper than electricity. On a different thread, a guy showed that a plug-in costs the equivalent of about $3.20 a gallon to operate. When gas was anything less than that number, electric made no sense. On to your Iraq war issue. Govt. shouldn't be the funding engine of technology. By its nature, govt. is slow and inefficient. Look at the space program. Burt Rutan managed to build a space craft and successfully launch and recover it, twice! with no govt. money. Markets and individuals know how best to spend their money. Washington bureaucrats know only how to waste it. I have read a good series of articles about hybrids, like "Hummer Hybrid Hums" at http://www.economicefficiency.blogspot.com/ It has some really good, and funny articles about this kind of stuff.