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Australia Developing Massive Electric Vehicle Grid
blairerickson writes "A US firm Thursday unveiled plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network to power electric cars in Australia as it seeks cleaner and cheaper options to petrol. Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel and Denmark, has joined forces with Australian power company AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital to create an Australian network. Under the plan, the three cities will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations by 2012 where drivers can plug in and power up their electric cars. The points would probably be at homes and businesses, car parks and shopping centres. In addition, 150 switch stations will be built in each city and on major freeways, where electric batteries can be automatically replaced in drive-in stations similar to a car wash." I hope they're talking to the car companies about the necessary standardization it would take to make this work, too.
Is this the same grid who's owners are claiming there will be rolling blackouts again this summer because they don't have enough capacity?
This is the electric-car effort spearheaded by Shai Agassi, formerly of SAP. He was profiled in Wired a couple of issues back.
The gist of it is that the cars are all-electric (not hybrid), the energy companies sell the power, and the cars are basically free (or close to it). To get around the runtime problems of current electric cars, he envisions filling stations where you pull up in your electric car and instead of waiting for your battery to fully charge, the company swaps out your drained batter with a brand-new, prefilled one, and off you go. This is possible because they own the batteries anyway.
In short, the idea is to move away from the Gillette razor model for cars, toward the cell phone model.
Breakfast served all day!
Yeah, but as has been said a billion times by now, the electrical grid is cheaper and cleaner than a half billion cars driving around burning hydrocarbons. Power plants make it a point to be as efficient as possible, whereas cars make almost the inverse point with IC engines.
Looking forward, the grid is a lot easier to update to cleaner technologies as they come available. It is extremely tough to get anyone to put a new engine in their car because it might improve their gas mileage.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
envisioned that as a massive electric bump car grid.
There are many alternative power sources to petroleum. Whatever alternative power sources become economical in the future, I imagine it would be sensible to standardize on the way that power is delivered to the consumer. Electric power seems like a good candidate; hydrogen, for example, (hoax?) is not.
So as long as this grid is not hard-wired for a specific type of power source (I can't think how it could be), then I think this investment by the Australian gov should pay off.
Are you from Bolivia or Togo?
Yeah, I thought so.
Yeah, and fuck you too, seppo.
One of the main reasons this might work in Australia is because it is an island. Cars don't get on and off this country, so buying a car and worrying about going to "non-compatible" countries won't be a problem.
This is why their initiative may have a bigger effect than, say, a European country surrounded by differently positioned countries.
Full Tilt
Two whole stories from the last thirty are from Australia. This is an injustice to the world of technology news! I demand all technology to be developed and used in America only so that we don't have to hear about it from whining little bastards who need attention!
Why not a lot of really long extension cords?
-- Make America hate again!
Too late for us because its already Slashdot.au! There are more articles about Oz than any other country out side the USA. I could forgive that if it was because nothing happens in other places but its just bias by ./ edittors in favor of their favorite countries. There are more scientists in Europe than there are people in Australia but how many stories from Europe make it on to ./? How about other nations which are easily more important than Australia but which you never here shit about? The blatant self promoting of countries by edittors is as bad as the self promoting of themselves by edittors like Michael Sims or ad spammers and link farmers like Roland Piquepaille.
Actually, now that I think about it, Gillette is the wrong model. The current car model is the PC model: Pay a bunch of money up front for the computer, pay for software and support on an ongoing basis, eventually send the computer to the junkyard. Agassi's model is the cell phone model: Pay next to nothing up front, pay the service provider regular installments, replace or upgrade the hardware as needed for a nominal fee, but the hardware is all tied to the service provider. What you're paying for is not a car, but transportation.
It's an intriguing concept, but it's hard to see it taking off in the U.S., where the automobile probably ranks ahead of diamond jewelry as a universally-recognized status symbol. Even Prius owners are making a statement about their lifestyle.
But what do I know? I ride the bus.
Breakfast served all day!
Power plants make it a point to be as efficient as possible, whereas cars make almost the inverse point with IC engines.
I *like* efficiency in my internal combustion engine, thankyouverymuch. It means that I get more power to play with. I get power from a two-litre turbodiesel engine that would have been in sports-car territory just a couple of decades ago.
What I don't like are cars that have small engines with no power. It doesn't matter how efficient the thing is, when I'm on the motorway with meth-crazed Bulgarian truckers bearing down on me, I want to have something happen when I put my foot down.
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
It says the funds will be raised by Macquarie, which is an investment bank. Who, exactly, in the current economic climate, going to give them that kind of money?
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
This is just a distraction; I'd much prefer to drive a WATER-powered car, like one of these:
Water-Powered Car 1 Incredible invention by Stanley Meyer (R.I.P.)
Water-Powered Car 2 Another one, just unveiled in 2008 by Japanese company Genepax.
Water-Powered Car 3 Denny Klein's car goes 100 miles on four ounces of water.
Water-Powered Car 4 Daniel Dingel runs his car on water, too.
Water-Powered Car 5 Yet another website on the subject.
That is fantastic - but where are the electric cars?
Say what? So how can I have my spare 1Gal in my trunk?
According to Scientific American, the plan is to power the cars with "wind turbines and other renewable sources (when possible)". Take it as you will.
Breakfast served all day!
Is not a battery is heavy and contains the whole table of Mendeleev in it? Why not make small light aluminum but comfortable computerized cars with the normal engine?
You could always try steering out of the road. Why do you *have* to be in front? Are you going to get there significantly faster than the car behind you? My anecdotal tests have convinced me I can let 10 - 20 cars over take me and still not lose any noticeable time getting where I want to go.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Because of the time required to charge vehicles, we'd need a cord station at pretty much every parking space everywhere for widespread use of pure electrics to be tenable.
(even if we implemented amazing recharge rates through capacitors, we wouldn't be able to utilize them because, without a completely separate, ultra-capacity utility network, the grid would overload)
How expensive is this per capita vs a carbon trapping device from the government for everyone and a massive fuel subsidy program?
In the long term they're financially better off rolling out a complete rebuild of the power grid to support "burst charging" of ultra-capacitors so cars can be charged in a couple minutes at "stations", the same way we do now with gas.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Bugger an Electric Vehicle grid. :)
Fix the trains first
I hope they're talking to the car companies about the necessary standardization it would take to make this work, too.
For all the press Better Place has been getting lately, I haven't seen an in-depth analysis of their business model, specifically as it relates to standardization of the infrastructure, including plugs and sockets.
I have a feeling their charging plugs, sockets and protocols are proprietary. Anyone who attempts to produce a compatible charger/socket is going to find themselves on the end of a very aggressive lawsuit. Unless of course they've licensed the technology from Better Place.
Our current gasoline-based system is deeply flawed, but at least it's open. We're replacing it with a marginally better system, but we're giving up that openness for a closed system owned by a single company.
And then there's the conflict of interest issue. What incentive does a company have to reduce power consumption on a car when it's getting a cut of every charge?
Shai Agassi is a smart and charismatic man, but who can really say they're happy with the cell phone business model? Most consumers aren't, but the cellular networks are making quite a profit.
Or it could be that Australians are actually doing things of significance... Aren't the persons mentioned ... US Citizens?
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Under the plan, the three cities will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations by 2012 ...
Um, so which three cities would that be?
Technically there are half a dozen or so "cities" in what most people would otherwise call "Sydney" (eg Sydney, Manly/Warringah, Willoughby... ok I'm from the North Shore but you get the picture... frantic Wikipedia search... how about Holroyd?).
Or there are the main state and federal capitals, of which there are more than 3. Not many more than 3, but still...
Because of the time required to charge vehicles, we'd need a cord station at pretty much every parking space everywhere for widespread use of pure electrics to be tenable.
Surprise, that's exactly why they're starting the buildout now. You build it once, and you're done, you don't keep building it again and again, as you do with cars.
I'm not saying that we have to immediately switch over to everyone on electric either. I'm not even saying that petrol should go the way of the dinosaur (in this case, literally). But for most drivers, electric is more than enough for every day life. And even "slow" charging batteries are just fine, because most of us spend most of our days inside, whilst our cars sit outside doing nothing but collecting heat.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
...plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network
Sounds pretty useless. How many australians can be charged one billion dollars?
200000 stations by 2012 means that, if they started today, they would have to come out with 172 stations every day until 1/1/2012. Good luck!
Come off it. Yesterday I was in the left hand lane that was practically stopped. I could see the reason it was stopped... about 1.5km up the road the traffic was also stopped (because of an accident). The left land was slow because lots of people were trying to exit the motorway to avoid the congestion.
When a small opportunity arose, I changed into another lane. I did not accelerate to 110km/hr because I could see that 1.5 km further on I'd be stuck anyway. What happened? I got wankers on their horns 'cause I did not go 110km/hr for the next 1.5km... This is the problem on the road: people somehow cannot see more than one car ahead. This is how I judge people. A LOT of people cannot think mid- to long-term. A lot of these same people make critical business decisions. No WONDER the economies of the world are in bad shape.
Just for the record, I ended up further along the road than those fools behind me,giving me grief, dodging in-and-out of traffic, and not thinking beyond the next 2 seconds. If more people thought ahead things would BE BETTER. But, alas, the first car in front (for these fools) is always the one at fault. And they extend this stupid mentanility to all aspects of their life. The hare and the tortoise. We need more turtles
But how do you define efficient? Pure thermodynamic efficiency? Sure power plants win out - but what does that mean and exactly how useful is it? Power plants do not keep in line with demand - they cannot, as demand waxes and wanes the power grid supply more or less flat lines. How is that efficient?
I drive an old car, but I bet that I use less fuel than the vast majority of people and I am unashamed of driving my old car because the numbers don't lie. Now not to be combative but I say screw you and the horse you rode in on to anyone who tells me my car is worse for the environment than theirs. For the record I drive a 1970s 'pickup truck' (we call it a ute) with a 5 litre V8 engine, carburettor, 4 speed gearbox and low geared differential. It gets 15 l/100km on the highway (work it out yourselves - thats our unit) and I have no idea what in the city, I do not care. Why don't I care? Because I spend about $10 - $20 a week on petrol. And down here that amounts to about 7-15 litres a week, or something like 2-4 gallons. A week. So how much more efficient is driving my car the way I do (as in: I don't) than commuting to work in a plug in hybrid? Much more, whats even better is I love my car.
Back to my point: What electrical systems lack is an efficient means of *storing* energy, this is subtle but extremely important. It is basically THE issue when it comes to transportation. In my personal example I use bugger all fuel because I don't turn my car on: I walk, ride the train and bus, ride my bike, etc. I make less impact on the environment than feelgood hybrid driving fart sniffing hippies who plug theirs into the wall socket. Why? Because my hulking pile of metal with an oversized engine and two seats is recycled for one - its age alone means I have drawn out its embodied energy over 30 years, and my owning of it means one less new car needs to be built (another argument for another day). But most importantly it can be TURNED OFF.
The power grid can't just be turned off.
So how are we defining efficient operation? Electric vehicles are time inefficient - it takes a long time to charge them, so in a busy society how does that help us? What do trucking companies do? What do busy mums and dads do? Don't tell me they should just own two cars or two fleets of trucks: Then you double the required resources and construction energy required just to get back to the point we are at today, and the grid *still* can't be turned off like my V8 can. How efficient is that exactly?
No, none of this electric car business makes sense on a large (whole of society) scale. The reason we use oil is because in net terms it IS the most efficient means of storing energy, above all else it is the most *economically efficient* means of achieving mass scale transportation. You can't deny it and electricity won't change this fact. I predict that oil will not be replaced as an energy storage mechanism for transportation, not in the near or distant future. Barring some ridiculous breakthrough in battery technology and a power grid that allows us to charge our cars with megawatts (some 6 meagwatts is transferred to your car from a pump. 6 million joules... every second.) of electricity, it is not going to happen. Of course if we start talking about making oil driven vehicles more efficient, now we're talking - that is smart.
Also something to think about; if recharge prices were updated throughout the day to reflect what the demand on the grid was (perhaps slightly weighted to discourage peak usage period recharging), then it would be a good mechanism for flattening out electricity usage.
If you don't think anyone is willing to stay up late to recharge at the cheapest time, you've not seen how many taxis drive around Sydney at 4am.
I read in Wired magazine that the guy who made his money from SAP is starting a similar scheme in Denmark but actually changing the battery instead of charging 'your' battery. More like swapping so that the burden of owning a battery is gone and you rent batteries fully charged from him. Sounds interesting.
Sounds like a brilliant idea.
The timing depends, of course, on the severity of the current global economic meltdown. But very soon Kevin 007 is going to be handing out hundreds of millions of dollars as part of the Emissions Trading Scheme to companies who substantially reduce their carbon footprint.
AGL currently have a very high carbon footprint given they supply natural gas and electricity. This way they'll probably get a government grant for innovative technologies to tackle climate change, i.e. electric cars.
Where's the renewable energy going to come from? There will be very few cars actually be using the charging grid in the near future, so the current need for renewable energy will be minimal too. When the carbon credits market reaches critical mass and they get a big cash injection will be the time their R&D has perfected cheaper solar, wind and other renewable technologies. Big carbon emitters will be begging AGL to 'plant more windmills' in order to reduce their carbon liabilities.
And if they corner the market NOW, no one else has claimed the market yet, they can charge whatever they like for re-charging later. Petroleum will be at least $AU2/litre in 2012 and only set to rise.
The government handouts alone are worth the establishment costs long term.
Assuming of course climate change skeptics, The Coalition, don't get back in power in 2010/11 before a delayed ETS is operating.
Are you suggesting that no researcher or tech entrepreneur outside of Australia or the United States is doing anything interesting enough to be featured on Slashdot?
I usually don't waste my time on what are little more than Troll threads, but this time I have to say I inderstand where the GP is coming from, even if I can't exactly sympathise completely (because they are probably just a troll).
Australia really is massively over-represented on this website. I'm not denying that interesting things occur there, stuff of interest to we "nerds", but why the lack of stories from - as the GP mentioned - the hordes of scientists and researchers throughout Europe, or the rest of the world for that matter?
Sure, there's bound to be a limitation set by language barriers, but the odds are in the favour of those working from the UK and Europe, since there are so many science workers in those places, and so many of them speak English.
Yet so few stories regarding their work make it to Slashdot, or scientists from Asia for instance, while most Australian articles, often of quite marginal interest, seldom fail to appear.
Maybe Slashdot should consider employing a more diverse range of editors, rather than just the American and Australian ones they do, so that a more realisticly global spread of articles is finally achieved.
So how much more efficient is driving my car the way I do (as in: I don't) than commuting to work in a plug in hybrid? Much more, whats even better is I love my car.
More efficient than you think, because you can repair and maintain it yourself. Your ute will be rolling long after the last Prius has begun to leach the toxic contents of its batteries into the water table.
That's the same reason I stick with my 1980s Citroen, with its 1970s (at best) 2.2 litre 4-pot. I can squeeze over 500 miles from its 15-gallon tank, at a steady 80mph-ish speed. That's about as fast as I want to go on twisty mountain roads, where it absolutely hammers modern cars because of its handling and the torque from that big clattery long-stroke cast-iron tractor engine at the pointy end. No, it's not as refined as a shiny new BMW. It's easier to look after, and more comfortable for a long journey, which is what matters to me.
I want to have something happen when I put my foot down.
All the better, an electric motor *starts* at maximum torque, so you're putting down as much power as possible right when you slam your foot down... instead of like an archaic IC engine that takes time to rev up to max torque.
>>>the electrical grid is cheaper and cleaner than a half billion cars driving around burning hydrocarbons.
This is not true. ACEEE.org ranked the EV1 as no cleaner than a Prius or Civic Hybrid. That same ranking showed that the 66mpg Honda Insight was 10% cleaner than either of those EVs.
With electricity you have a 50% loss during the coal-to-current conversion. Then another 10% loss in transmission. 10% loss in the motor and almost 40% loss in the chemical battery. The end result is that the EV1's tailpipe (located at the central plant) spews out as much pollution as a gasoline-powered 50mpg Prius or Civic, and *more* pollution than a 66mpg Insight.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>I got wankers on their horns 'cause I did not go 110km/hr for the next 1.5km...
So the moral is Aussies are impatient drivers? (ducks a spitball). I deal with almost the same problem every day, due to bridge construction, and none of my American neighbors honk at me. They do have that same tendency to race to a stoplight, which makes no sense..... I think it has less to do with stupidity, and more to do with the desire to get home ASAP.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I have an Insight, and even though it only has a 70hp engine, it can accelerate just fine. In fact I've had it up over 100 mph while cruising across the American continent. At no point have I ever felt the need for more power, and I drive the four-lane-wide I-95 every day with thousands of other cars and trucks.
The key is to learn how to go with the *merge* with the flow of traffic, rather than be an obstacle that jumps in front of massive trucks.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
A hybrid has the best of both worlds - an electric motor with max torque from 0 rpm, and a gasoline engine that can be recharged in 2-3 minutes time, thereby giving the driver unlimited range.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I concur - if mod points were mine, this man would have some
Maybe true for US, but not so true for Australia.
We have 300 years of natural gas at current use with gas (that's liquefied petroleum gas or LPG) fired power stations being built which are much more efficient than coal. AGL use renewables (waste) and will incorporate alternative technologies as they become available.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
>>>Your ute will be rolling long after the last Prius has begun to leach the toxic contents of its batteries into the water table.
The Prius uses NiMH batteries which are not toxic. You can dump them in your backyard if you want (not that I recommend that). They are no more harmful than dumping salt water plus a few nickles on the ground.
As for the 1970s truck:
Due to lack of a catalytic converter, it spews about 1000 times more NOx and CO than a modern ULEV car. If it is one of the later models with a 70s-era catalyst, then it's still emitting about 100 times more pollution than a modern 2009 car. That pollution is damaging your neighbors' lungs.
Since he says he only burns 2-3 gallons a week, he's not doing too much damage, but it's still equivalent to a 2009 car burning 200-300 gallons per week (in terms of NOx/CO emissions). THAT is why the environmental protection agencies say an old car is more polluting than a new car, and why some governments uses emission tests to remove these old cars from the road.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>But, alas, the first car in front (for these fools) is always the one at fault. And they extend this stupid mentanility to all aspects of their life.
P.S. This is why, in additional to the front-facing horn, God also invented the rear-facing middle finger. It's almost become an automatic response with me:
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Finger.
Beeep-beeep-beeep. Finger.
I want them to know that I think they are "#1".
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Natural gas is definitely cleaner, but still not perfect. The natural-gas powered Civic ranked equal to the gasoline-powered Insight Hybrid. That's an improvement over the gasoline Civic or the coal-powered EV1 (tied), but still not better than an Insight.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
While a lot of what you say makes sense, driving an old car very little etc. However the second part of your post is bollocks.
1) The grid can be turned off and scaled to meet demand
2) Efficiency is measured in how much energy is lost, current petrol engines lose about 70% of the stored energy.
3) As per point 2, Oil has nothing whatsoever to do with efficient storage, the reason we use oil is because it's there, someone else(nature) stored it for us so we don't care that it's inefficient as fuck
4) We will run out of oil, nature creates it extremely slowly and we use it up rather quickly, people just argue about exactly when the oil will run out.
5) Better energy storage (batteries) is what everyone is working on, however efficient energy storage doesn't have to be an electric battery, if we for example could efficiently produce oil and efficiently use oil then that would be a good renewable process.
THAT is why the environmental protection agencies say an old car is more polluting than a new car, and why some governments uses emission tests to remove these old cars from the road.
Except the emissions testers don't really give an accurate picture. Most cars don't sit with the engine unloaded running at 2000rpm, but that's how the emissions are tested. If you test engines under load then the gap closes noticeably.
Even in normal testing, my carb-fed, non-catalyst car is cleaner than the requirement for modern cars, and is litre-for-litre cleaner than most small cars. Of course, it takes about ten minutes careful adjustment once a week to keep it that way, which is more trouble than most car drivers are prepared to put up with. Since I'm quite keen on driving a safe, efficient car, I do tend to check it over once a week to spot any problems developing. I'm genuinely scared by people who drive their cars day in, day out without even checking the tyre pressures once a week.
...are the historical problems with cars, and one of the reasons we actually haven't switched away from gasoline yet, paradoxically. (Generally, if you read the post chain, everything I'm about to say is redundant, however, [rant-on]).
Right now, your average car probably gets 20MPG. To do better, you've gotta buy everyone a new car, 30MPG. To do better, another car, 40MPG. Each time you're building whole new cars (since, as stated before, it's pretty damn hard to sell someone a whole new engine, even if it increases their gas mileage). Now we want to do any better, we notice gasoline's just not cutting it, so now diesel, new car, new engine, new fuel distribution. Now we switch to biodiesel so we can be future proof. Hopefully if you built it right you won't need to do anything else, but some cars need engine work, which means even more work... Now hydrogen rolls around, yet another car, yet another pipeline, more work.
Meanwhile: We build an electrical grid once. We're done. No matter what demands come next, the grid idea can handle it. Upgrading a grid is easier than building a new one; most of the time it's simply building more lines and putting more power in. Load doesn't change absurdly over time (since the number of drivers grows with some proportion to the population), so we're fixed forwardly looking. We will need to increase the load capability once we are able to convert more vehicles over to electricity, but realistically, that's it. When the next generation of power comes along, we plug it in at the power station, and nobody ever notices a difference. Nuclear, solar, wind, even coal and (bio-)petroleum goes into the pipe, and out of the other end is something that every car can use, every home can use, everywhere in the nation.
Notice the steps that we cut out are inefficient, lossy steps. Every time we're building more junk that we're simply going to phase out later for better junk. A couple of power plants are smaller in volume and in carbon footprint than a million car engines of any build, so it's always the Electrical grid's win. The downside is that it costs a huge amount more upfront than each one of the smaller intermediate steps cost upfront, even if the amortized cost is far, far less.
That's why it's a good idea to start building now, while oil prices are high and emerging technology budgets are fat. Not only does a nation-wide project like this create thousands of new jobs, it also gives the whole country hope, it's good for the environment, and it's good for the economy. That's why we do it.
Heh a mate of mine blasted two cars who cut him off at high speed at a point where the highway merged into one lane. As he blasted and swore the speakers in the rear of the second car flashed red and blue for a few seconds while the driver held up his middle finger.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The main component is Nickel, which is considered "semi-toxic".
Why do you *have* to be in front?
Because his penis is incredibly small and it makes him fell more like a man?
Just guessing from how those people drive.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re-reading your reply... this just doesn't make sense:
100 times more pollution? An non-cat car produces CO, while a cat car produces CO2. Considering the requirements for the cat to work (rich mixture, and reduces effective output), the cat car outputs more than the non-cat car for the same amount of work. More fossil fuel spent, and the output has gotta go somewhere.
I have a 4 door 1986 Geo Metro and it goes up to 105mph just fine as well. In fact that car is fast for it's 62hp engine. It's simply built by engineers that have a brain and made the gearbox to fit the car and a performance point. In FACT I towed back 400 miles a trailer with a entire drivetrain for a much larger car on it. I was towing 110% of the weight of my car and it did fine.
Honestly only the dumb or worfully undereducated believe they NEED high horsepower engines. They dont, they need cars that were actually engineered instead of slapped together from OTS parts to make the highest profits.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm with you. One time in Germany I was crawling through roadworks which caused a lot of delay as everyone was forced into one lane. Once the first set of roadworks ended and we were back to three lanes but I could see it was only going to be for about 2km before another set of roadworks, so I didn't bother speeding up too much (maybe to 80km/h) or changing lanes (because the lane I was in was the one we'd all be in in 2km). Of course the bozo behind in a (what else) BMW 735i was 2 inches off my bumper flashing his headlights and tooting his horn. He got the finger repeatedly. I was in a UK-registered car, right hand drive, and with GB plate, so that probably wound him up even more. I feared for his heart as he was clearly going purple with rage. Eventually, fearing a ramming, I let him past. He accelerated excessively past me, expending a great deal of effort and attention on gesticulating at me. He didn't notice the traffic was slowing down again and was stopped up ahead, but realised just in time and just about managed to stop. Llucky he had ABS. I tucked in behind him and followed him for another 10km at a slow crawl through the roadworks. As they ended, he pulled off into a Rasthof as I tootled past... You have to wonder why he felt it so necessary to get in front of me for no good reason (except it *was* a BMW, so that does go with the territory). Maybe his pa was shot down in the war and couldn't stand a British car in front. He was extremely lucky he didn't cause an accident.
>>>Most cars don't sit with the engine unloaded running at 2000rpm, but that's how the emissions are tested.
Not in the state of Maryland. The car is driven at ~55 miles an hour, and THEN the emissions are examined. So it is tested while under load and at speed. ----- BTW my 70mpg insight was so clean the sensors just reported 0.001 across the board. Way below the legal limits. Sweet.
>>>Of course, it takes about ten minutes careful adjustment once a week to keep it that way, which is more trouble than most car drivers are prepared to put up with.
And that's really what the EPA is talking about when they say older cars are dirtier, because they are NOT maintained by their owners. (Some people don't even bother changing the oil!)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I say screw you and the horse you rode in on to anyone who tells me my car is worse for the environment than theirs. For the record I drive a 1970s 'pickup truck' (we call it a ute) with a 5 litre V8 engine, carburettor ...
There's the rub. A 1970's vintage vehicle, at least in the US, was likely to not have a catalytic converter (they were mandated in the US in 1976). If your ute doesn't have one, it puts out much higher levels of CO, unburnt hydrocarbons, and lots of Nitrogen oxides (NOx).
Since it has a carb, it also emits large amounts of evaporated fuel - when you shut the engine off, its heat soaks into the carburetor and intake evaporating any unburnt fuel.
Carbs are typically less efficient than fuel injection, so you mileage is not as high as it could be, everything else being equal.
I don't remember whose ad it was, but one car company claimed that their car polluted less running than another brand's car did turned off. Most of that was due to fuel evaporation from the carb, IIRC.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
CO2 is not a pollutant. Breathing CO2 does not damage human lungs. That's why the U.S.-EPA does not regulate it. Instead they regulate CO and NOx which *is* poisonous for human beings, and according to their published statistics, a 1975 car without catalyst outputs approximately 1000 times more CO and NOx than a 2009 car.
Also it's a mistake to think a catalyst won't work with a lean-burning engine. Honda has been making lean-burn engines for years (Civic HX and Civic Hybrid and Insight), and they are all qualified for ULEV or SULEV standards, and they all get 40 mpg, 50mpg, and 70mpg (respectively).
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Clearly he was a Sour Kraut.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
CO2 isn't a pollutant all of a sudden? I thought there was this whole "greenhouse gas" hysteria because of CO2 nowadays.
Of course an non-cat car outputs a hellovalot more CO than CO2. That's the whole point of the cat. You're just phrasing it as if though old cars produce more pollution than new ones because of the cat. The cat just changes what kind of pollution is produced. It also increases the amount a bit.
With lean-burning cats, the NOx reduction is very inefficient. Hondas NOx emissions are higher than rich-burn engines, while CO output is lower. Thus, it's not working "as it should". It still demands more fuel than having no cat, so the net output is larger than without it.
This sounds disturbingly like the movie "The quiet earth" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/] As long as they don't call it project flashlight we should be ok!
Of course their systems will be proprietary. At the very least there will be strong authentication to ensure you're paying the correct operator for your miles.
The idea - as outlined in the Wired article - is that you buy miles from Better Place. They pay for the electricity - from environmentally friendly companies. They own the battery - and therefore you can replace the depleted battery in your car with a fully loaded battery at any time.
For that to work as a business model, you will need some level of proprietary solution. Unfortunately.
Stop the brainwash
It's ironic that you admit to towing something 110% the weight of your Geo Metro (!) and then go on to dismiss the "dumb or uneducated" about cars.
Will the cars lose there radio and other settings when you swap the battery?
It might be worth noting you may have gotten honked at because you became a moving obstacle when you pulled out from a near-stop in front of a car traveling 110 km/h. Having to slam on the brakes and risk being rear ended because some dingbat pulls out in front of you and doesn't get up to speed is worthy of a horn blast, in my opinion.
For the record, I understand the futility of accelerating when you've just got to slow down a short ways ahead. However, the guy already in that lane has probably noted the slowdown in front of him and has planned when to begin decelerating based on having nothing between him and the blockage. Having another car suddenly in front of him throws a wrench into the works.
This is where I think hybrids are a great idea, like the new concept Jeep putting a compact and very efficient diesel geny on the car will allow the system to top-up the battery as you go, if the car had say a 100 mile range on battery then for long trips the diesel would kick in and re-charge the batteries.
A further improvement would be having a power management option on the car so you could specify how you will be driving:
City driving : the car stays on battery till it reaches 10% then the genny kicks.
Highway : The genny keeps the battery around 50%
Performance/Towing : Genny is going pretty much full time
When you arrive at a docking station (home/office/parking bay) car can charge off the grid, in the evenings the car can soak up the surplus and during the day potentialy provide (with you prior consent) upto say 25% of the battery to help with peak demand.
Just my 2 cent but I think this is a workable solution as the car is not totally Dependant on the grid.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
>>>I thought there was this whole "greenhouse gas" hysteria because of CO2 nowadays.
Greenhouse gases are not classed "pollutants" by the U.S.-EPA or the California Air Resources Board unless they damage human lungs. You can breathe CO2-laced air every day, and nothing will happen to you. BUT if you breathed CO or NOx-laced air, you'd quickly develop asthma. Possibly even lung cancer. That's why the EPA (and CARB) strictly regulate CO and NOx. ------ That's also why fuels are oxygenated; to produce less CO, and more CO2 from tailpipes.
>>>You're just phrasing it as if though old cars produce more pollution than new ones because of the cat.
According to the EPA, which regulates these things, YES an old car without cat produces ~1000 times more CO and NOx than a modern car with catalyst. Those are the facts; deal with them.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I'd love to get my hands on a Metro XFI (~60 mpg highway). Unfortunately most of them were poorly-maintained by their owners, so it's beginning to look less and less likely.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
And you aren't even mentioning (probably) the most important factor - weight. I bet you can't find a four-wheel Citroen on sale today that weights less than yours, whatever it is.
Power plants make it a point to be as efficient as possible, whereas ....
No, they don't. not even close. Most coal-burning power plants are using 1960's era control systems, at most. Some have been upgraded to 80's technology. They don't run closed-loop. On anything. Almost all of them still require an operator to look at outputs, and change something on the input. There's alot, ALOT of room for improvement in power plant efficiency. There's no incentive for power generation to be efficient. Reducing cost only leads to more profits, which are gov't controlled to try to prevent price gouging by the power "oligopoly." Do you know what power companies do when they make too much money? They give a big chunk of it to their employees. ^^^ This is how it happens in the US. I don't know about other countries.
I bet you can't find a four-wheel Citroen on sale today that weights less than yours, whatever it is.
Citroen CX 2200 TRS, which weighs in at 1600kg fully fuelled but otherwise empty. I'm not sure there are similar-sized cars that weigh much more...
1) Im not so sure that is the case
2) This is my whole point, I'm a 3rd yr mech engineering student I know what efficiency is all about. I was kind of making a point.
3) This isnt my point - I know its inefficient, well actually it isnt. Coal plants get some 70% thermodynamic efficiency so you know, thats damn good. My point is oil is an efficient, convenient and cheap way to store and transport energy. Store and transport.
4) You can make oil from a myriad of different things. Coal is easy, but any organic matter can quite easily be converted to oil, and you can use the oil to fuel the process at a net gain. My bet is this is what we will do when we actually do hit peak oil.
5) I'm all for it. tell me how you can transfer something in the order of 6MW to your battery off the grid, cos like I said thats what bowsers do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel and Denmark
Just to make things clear:
Better Place hasn't build a single plug-in station in Israel so far.
their product is currently vaporware.
they have "built" a single prototype electric car though - or more accurately, converted a Renault Megane to electric.
that prototype car never touched public road and was only demo'ed by Better Place's drivers on closed courses.
it doesn't have an A/C, by the way.
No. The most-important factor is aerodynamics. Take a 2000 pound car shaped like a brick (SUV), and a 4000 pound car shaped similar to a teardrop (insight/prius). The brick will get lower overall MPG than the teardrop, even though the teardrop-like car weighs twice as much.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I've never noticed this tendency, perhaps because I'm not a massive douchebag... Oh wait, there I go!
I guess the USEPA or CARB doesn't acknowledge global warming then. The definition of pollution: "Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the environment that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or that damage the environment."
I'm not denying that old cars produce more CO/NOx than newer cars. It doesn't appear that you are grasping that though.
Am I the only person disappointed to find out that this article is about a massive grid for electric vehicles, rather than a grid for massive electric vehicles?
Damn.
My Voltron fantasies will have to wait for another day.
Oh absolutely, I am just waiting for them to come down to a reasonable price/performance ratio. For my usage (lotsandlots of motorway miles), a G-Wiz won't cut it.
If only Tesla were more of a car company and less of a vapourware company...
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
You don't know me, and yet you feel justified in making all manner of claims about me. I wonder what that says about *your* anatomy.
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
Just to put you in the picture, I had in mind a certain two-lane stretch of motorway that I often drive. It is clogged with Eastern European trucks, often in poor state of repair, and all in a tremendous hurry to get wherever they are going. This means that they are constantly trying to overtake each other, and as this is a two-lane motorway, this leaves nowhere for any cars to go but literally "out of the road", that is, into the ditch.
Now, as my car is not a Land Rover, this is not a feasible option, so when I am in the overtaking lane and the truck I am passing decides to pull out, my options are 1) brake, and 2) accelerate. Braking is fine if I am behind the tractor unit or don't have other traffic close behind me, but sometimes that is simply not feasible. At those times I thank the Bavarian gods that I can drop a gear or two, open the throttle, and get out of the way, because the truckers treat lights and horns as fun entertainment for the road.
In fact these articulated rigs fairly regularly leap the centre divider when the driver falls asleep after thirty hours at the wheel, and the consequences tend to the horrific. There is not much one can do about that, but I like to keep my options open for the things that I can affect.
As for speeding not making much difference, you are right there. I used to have a very heavy foot, but now that I have chilled out I can't say I notice a big difference in the overall trip time.
" There is a rational explanation for everything. There is also an irrational one. "
I'm a #1 marksman, and I'm just good enough with my pistol to shoot off a middle finger in the car ahead of me. Or, I may miss and hit the back of your head. Beep. Beep. BANG!
So what you're saying is that you were driving too slowly, in the wrong lane and you knew it. Sorry, but you do not get to decide when the rules of the road should and should not apply. If you want to go slow, pick the right fucking lane or you're likely to cause an accident. Not bothering to change lanes because two minutes later you will have to change back is just monumentally lazy, selfish and dangerous. You are extremely lucky you didn't cause an accident.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Mod parent up. (And the flamebait one too I guess)
I am so fed up with people who think they are in the right when they hold up traffic.
They should have their licenses revoked, they are a danger on the roads.
Tom...
Not too bad for a car on the market 9-12 years ago when the Prius and Insight weren't even on the market. I wonder what an EV1 with a modern battery and (hopefully Japanese) motor would be like.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Or it could be that Australians are actually doing things of significance
"Australian Government Censorship 'Worse Than Iran'"
For better or worse I suppose
This is an English-language website, so it's hardly surprising that the stories come predominantly from English-speaking parts of the world. No so much coverage of Europe as a whole, but there are a good few stories about the UK. Not so many about Ireland, but it only has 1/10th the population of the UK.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The problem is in the batteries. With mass manufacturing and a bit more research we can bring the cost of automobile-quality motors down considerably... but the one cost factor that seemingly is insurmountable is the battery. They wear out quickly, are expensive to manufacture, and even expensive to dispose of. I'm afraid that until we make a MAJOR, miraculous leap in energy storage technology we're just not going to have much luck with electric cars except in niche, short-range applications.
Ahh, but you are quoting a generic definition of pollutant. The legal definition is quite different. The EPA and the CARB's mission is making sure cars don't kill people with smog-forming chemicals like Carbon Monoxide, Nitric Oxides, Hydrocarbons, or Particulate Matter. Short-term goals (don't destroy lungs) are their primary mission.
That's why modern cars are designed to minimize lung-destroying pollutants, while old 1970s-era cars were not. Modern cars reduce smog; old 70s-era cars create it. Modern cars help people breathe easier; old 70s-era cars help people die faster through respiratory distress.
Also:
Our human ancestors lived in an environment where the north and south poles were completely devoid of ice. They did just fine; we will do just fine as well after our poles melt. I'm not scared of the future. On the contrary I think it will be extremely beneficial to turn barren Canada and Russia into vibrant fertile cropland. Maybe at last we can end world hunger.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>Not too bad for a car on the market 9-12 years ago when the Prius and Insight weren't even on the market
Actually the EV1 and the Prius/Insight were all on the market during the same time span (1999, 2000, 2001). That's why ACEEE.org did a direct comparison between them, and determined the EV1/Prius to be equally-clean, and the Insight to be about 10% cleaner. The Rav4 EV was also included on the list, and determined to be just 1% lower than the EV1.
The data is on their website... you just need to do a little digging.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>So what you're saying is that you were driving too slowly, in the wrong lane and you knew it.
Racing 80mph down the left lane when there's a roadblock just 0.9 miles ahead is stupid. It's also extremely dangerous; what if one of the slow-moving 5 mph cars from the right lane suddenly pulls-out in front of you??? BAM!
Driving down the left lane at a sedate 30-40 mph is the logical and safest course under construction conditions. You would understand that if you were a good driver (which apparently you are not). In fact in my state, moving faster than 40 in a construction zone results in an instant loss of license.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
P.S.
>>>I wonder what an EV1 with a modern battery and (hopefully Japanese) motor
It used a NiMH battery and an A.C. Propulsion-designed motor. That's about as good as you can get. You could replace it with Lithium battery, but that's not going to change the overall efficiency by much.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Yet another advantage of hybrids. The battery never needs to be replaced, unless you abuse it (frequent drains to empty). Toyota tested their Prius, and the battery lasted 300,000 miles before it showed any kind of degradation. That's equivalent to how long most gasoline engines last.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
>>>I am so fed up with people who think they are in the right when they hold up traffic.
Me too, but that wasn't the situation here.
>
>>>They should have their licenses revoked, they are a danger on the roads.
>
In my state, YOU are the one whose license would be revoked. Moving faster than 40 in a construction zone results in an instant 9 points demeanor (unless the cop decides to let you off), and anything over 6 points results in a loss of license.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Your friendly neighborhood mod here!
It's safe to say that simply towing something heavy on flat ground will do little to the car's engine. So you are not necessarily correct in what you say, and you're being rude while saying it. Consider adding something of value to the discussion next time.
I'm not one of the global warming crazies, just so you know. It's just for the sake of the argument. Are there actual numbers behind the lung-destroying pollutants? I can see that it's bad for you when enclosed, but what about semi-open spaces like cities?
"Everything" is bad for you, in one way or another.
It's funny how the definition of pollutant changes. When the crazies want to get more money, CO2 is definitely a "pollutant".
I guess it's more a matter of local versus global pollution.
Another side-effect of global warming that you are forgetting... Sahara regularly turns into a jungle due to the increased rainfall. That eats up a lot of CO2, and helps the cycle back again.
Actually, it is a pollutant. The Supreme Court so ruled in 2007.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
While we are at it, lets build in automatic driving, so you just get into the recharge lane, connect up, and it entrains you with all the other electric cars. You can then sleep or read slashdot and with the cars close together reduce both congestion and energy use (drag goes down). Perhaps the driver in the leading car would have to keep an eye out for slow moving idiots in gas guzzlers, at least during a transitional period.
Squirrel!
It is neither logical nor safe to safe to ignore correct lane discipline. It is illegal (the Germans are very serious about this - it's essential to be serious about it when you have roads with no speed limits) and it confounds the expectations of other drivers, which is dangerous in and of itself. From the description it was not a construction zone, it was between construction zones.
The main point is that no driver gets to decide what other drivers should be doing. You just do not get to decide that everybody else should be doing 80kph (50 mph) and force them either to drive more slowly than they desire or overtake in the incorrect lane. The outside lanes exist solely for the purpose of overtaking. If you are not overtaking you move the fuck over - that's the law, that's the expectation of other drivers, that's the way the system is designed. Let the other drivers decide how they want to drive. If they want to burn some fuel and wear their brakes and the law allows it it's none of your business whether they do so or not.
The effort required to change lanes is vanishingly small, it literally takes seconds and involves moving your head and arms a few inches. Inconveniencing other drivers to save such a vanishingly small amount of effort is just obnoxious.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Maude: Ned, go faster!
Ned: I can't. It's a Geo!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Even nuclear can't keep up with population growth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg
We're going to need fast breeder reactors everywhere just to prevent a massive die off.
Deleted
Glad some people here have sense when it comes to this.
I just moved away from Germany and the lane discipline there is great (except the twats, often, I must add, on GB plates, who decide to ignore the laws).
I moved to Canada and it's horrendous, not even the remotest concept of lane discipline on the 40x highways.
Before Germany, I was in the UK and it wasn't much better there. The best standard of motorway driving that I have seen to date is Germany by a country mile.
Tom...
Project Better Place spoke a few months ago at my employer, VMware. We recently added a bunch of plugs for electric vehicles in our garage.
No, I will not work for your startup
300,000 miles is way more than most cars last!
it puts out much higher levels of CO
I have a CO detector that keep in my car and it routinely gives numbers higher than 200 ppm. That is high enough to make other drivers dizzy. Australia needs to get tis act together about road pollution.
was featured in an article in Wired recently if anyone is interested. For the life of me I can't find the issue on Wired's website so I'll have to leave that as an exercise for the reader. I did find this blog entry though.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Such remarks are purely moronic given it's the speeding car that would have caused the accident. If people don't have the patience nor skill to avoid accidents in these situations, they shouldn't be on the road. Besides, accelerating up to 110km/h when you're only going to slow down again a short while after is a waste of petrol. Mind you if you did that here, the morons would just speed past you in the left hand lane anyway (yeah we drive on the left here in Australia, so you'd be in the right hand lane).
Fuck off, you weren't there. The only dangerous driver in the area was the guy behind me, and exceptionally impatient with it. I was also travelling at the posted speed limit which was in force for the roadworks. I couldn't pull out of his way safely before I did so due to heavy traffic in adjacent lanes, and it gained him precisely one place in the queue, which he didn't even need, since he then turned off. Time gained? Oh, about 0.1 seconds. Only he seemed to be having a problem - everyone else was just taking it easy in the obviously temporary gap between roadwork sections. If he hadn't been there at all my driving would not have caused any problem to anyone else and certainly would not have led to the very near accident. Unlike him, I was anticipating the overall conditions and the fact that the roadworks continued ahead, something that had been clearly signed for several kilometres. I'm sorry but his behaviour was solely at fault and quite indefensible.
We've all seen cunts like that, it's not a rare occurrence. How many times do you see traffic jams occur where three lanes go down to two because the selfish cunts are all steaming up the outside trying to gain as many places as they can, then jamming themselves in at the last moment? If everyone merged smoothly and in a timely fashion these jams wouldn't even occur, saving everyone loads of time. But it never happens, because it only takes one selfish arse and unfortunately that's probably >50% of road users in my experience.
For the record, I'm actually very diligent about using the correct lane on motorways, etc and not baulking traffic, but sometimes there are other considerations, as in this case. Everyone's a fucking expert when they are not actually in the situation, aren't they?
No, I wasn't there, I was going by your description, where you claimed you "couldn't be bothered to change lanes". They were you exact words. Now the story has changed and apparently you could be bothered, but couldn't due to traffic. That's a fundamental difference. Not being bothered to change lanes is an utterly obnoxious attitude and that's what I was was reacting to.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Actually,
I hope they leave current car companies as much as possibly out of the plans to do this. The boards of the major car companies have been colluded by Oil interests, and would I believe, make it as expensive and as hard as possible to switch from petrol to electric vehicles.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I didn't state that I "couldn't be bothered to change lanes" as you have quoted me as saying (claiming they were my "exact words". They weren't). I didn't change lanes because we were all about to be funnelled back into the one I was already in, as clearly stated, and other traffic made it unsafe to do so before I did.
Oops, I was sure I checked your exact words. My bad. Still, it doesn't change my point - didn't bother, couldn't be bothered; potato, potato.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
andy zebrowitz