Progress On Electric Cars

Mike sends along a couple of items of interest to those anxiously awaiting the era of production electric vehicles. First, there's the upcoming Aero EV, which Shelby Supercars claims will charge in just 10 minutes and will be able to produce over 1,000 horsepower, powering the vehicle from 0-60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds. Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e, which will have a top speed of 90 mph and go around 100 miles on a charge. This EV also features a strong and aerodynamic body, a lithium-based battery, front-wheel drive, and an improved door design. Release is planned by October of 2009.

Comments

That's it?

[AKAImBatman]

What, no love for the Big 3? Lemme see here. We've got the range-extended Town & Country EV from Chrysler that will do 40 miles on a single charge, plus another 360 miles using a mixed gasoline-electric propulsion. They're also working on Dodge and Jeep vehicles with similar designs.

Ford used to have the market in a bag with their Ford Ranger EV pickup. Of course, they discontinued it in 2002. Now they're playing catch-up with the rest of the market. They are promising an electric vehicle by 2011, so there should be plenty of competition in late 2010/early 2011.

Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.

Then there's the announcement by Aptera of the first pre-production model of the Aptera 2e

I rather like the look of this car, but I am concerned by a couple of issues. First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard? I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)

My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted. Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues? I'm just imagining something flying off the road and getting wrapped around the the axel. Or in an accident, a pedestrian getting an appendage caught in there.

Or is this a rear-wheel drive vehicle? In which case, is that axel really necessary? Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?

Just my 0.005 cents worth after accounting for inflation. :-P

P.S. The Shelby looks pretty darn sweet! I'd never spend money to purchase a vehicle like that*, but I wouldn't mind taking her for a spin.

* Unless I had way too much!

Re:That's it?

[homey of my owney]

From where will the electricity come? Are we going to say yes to burning coal?

Re:That's it?

[Seakip18]

If you look right at the summary, you see that the vehicle's description includes front-wheel drive.

Now, the info on safety is a little sparse from my quick look at Aptera's website, with the faq saying "It will match other commuter vehicles". Faq here. Safety Here

They focus on force-redirection, composite body and airbags but nothing on traction or stability. It's not the speed of being thrown to the side of your car that hurts, it's the sudden stop. I mean, with that much acceleration, I'd worry at fishtailing or, like you said, having that rear tire blow out.

 

Re:That's it?

[AKAImBatman]

Say "Yes" to nuclear. It's less radioactive than coal, has killed barely a minuscule fraction of the number of people coal has killed, and we have enough supply to easily last for as long as we can reasonably project our energy requirements.

Oh, and it's a key component for any serious attempts at interplanetary or interstellar space travel. Which could be important if we want to research more efficient solar collection or need to go track us down more nuclear materials. (Or you could send missions to Titan and supply the Earth with a near-infinite supply of $10billion/gal gasoline. :-P)

Re:That's it?

[Thelasko]

Let's not forget the Tesla. Top Gear had an interesting piece on it, that ended in scandal.

Re:That's it?

[Lonewolf666]

Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt [chevrolet.com]? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.

I think the gold standard is by definition the best existing electric or hybrid vehicle. Right now that is probably the Toyota Prius.
Once the Chevy Volt is available, it will be interesting to see if it can beat the Prius and in which scenarios.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that having 3 wheels allows a car company to skirt those pesky "safety standards" that regular 4 wheel cars currently must abide by.

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

If you look right at the summary, you see that the vehicle's description includes front-wheel drive.

All vehicles these days have front wheel drive, it's cheaper to make than an FR layout. One back wheel on that thing also probably keeps them from transmitting back to an axle....

The single rear tire is bad unless it's rear-wheel steer like Dyson's car. Even then, I'm much more comfortable with front-wheel steer, rear-wheel drive, especially in non-optimal road conditions. Front wheel drive is bad enough in the snow on four wheels, coupling it with just a single back wheel (and even worse, rear-wheel steer) would be a disaster. Cars have 4 wheels for a reason, and there's also a reason we didn't make everything RF layout before transverse engines and AWD.

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

It doesn't matter *WHAT* was used to generate the electricity, it will *still* be cheaper and cleaner than burning gas in cars. Large power plants are tremendously more efficient and clean because they have the scale... even burning coal (as long as they are modern plants). Don't focus just on coal & oil. Throw in natural gas, solar, geothermal, nuclear, hydro, and wind... they already account for a huge percent of electricity production and increasing each year.

And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. No love for the big 3. Chevy just announced a battery supplier this month for the volt...supposedly a 2010 release. Its unlikely that $40k car will survive without massive tax credits or $4 gas anyway. Chrysler has canceled or delayed every new and redesigned model pending the outcome of the bailout. One off hype-mobiles for auto shows don't count. Their latest move? Giving Fiat 35% in return for the chance to sell their compact cars in the USA. It'll be at least 6 months before it becomes clear which ones will survive, let alone pay back all of our $17 billion. No sense in blaming everyone now, the best move would be to reorganize from the ground up asap.

sources: mostly www.thetruthaboutcars.com

Re:That's it?

[dangitman]

You could put solar panels on your roof, or a windmill in your back yard, depending on your location. Or buy "green electricity" which is the same thing but generated off-site.

Re:That's it?

[f0dder]

Very unlikely if they're sticking to the initial pricetag of $40,000.00 At that price point you can almost get 2 Prius.

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

I'm not all the interested in where the energy comes from...BUT, after seeing these cars, like the Aero EV, I'm glad to see that another company besides Tesla are going to start making them as performance cars, and not so damned fugly and utilitarian as the current batch of EV's and Hybrids.

Now...if they can just get the prices down to that of a Vette....I'm sold and will finally go green!!

(Well, with the exception of my motorcycle, I'd never want an electric one for that, you need the sound and the rumble, that is half the fun of a cruiser.)

Re:That's it?

[roaddemon]

Agreed. The best part of electric cars is the decoupling of power production and power consumption.

Re:That's it?

[Spectre]

On the exposed axle shafts ... lots of cars have this now, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Take the Honda CRV AWD for example. Lots of them all over the place, the rear axle shafts are exposed and spinning away whenever the vehicle is in motion. The only real difference is the Aptera vehicle has them in the front instead of the rear.

For that matter, it seems the risk of exposed axle shafts is a lot less than exposed wheels spinning away, especially motorcycle wheels with their spokes that can more easily capture debris.

Re:That's it?

[LandDolphin]

I'm pretty sure the car is not designed for places with snow.

Living in Arizona, and driving a vehicle with two wheels, three will be an upgrade from my current situation and far more stable/safe.

Re:That's it?

[xaxa]

From where will the electricity come? Are we going to say yes to burning coal?

As Boris Johnstone, Mayor of London, said on Top Gear (car show) "from plugs". I'm glad the audience laughed at him, it restored some of my respect for them. Londoners lost most of it when they elected BJ mayor.

Re:That's it?

[int2str]

The Aptera is rear wheel drive. The "Axle" in the front is actually only the push-rod for the steering. There are no rotating parts exposed in the front (other than the wheels of course).

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, with the exception of my motorcycle, I'd never want an electric one for that, you need the sound and the rumble, that is half the fun of a cruiser.

So you can be like every other asshole that rumbles by on my road in the summer.

Re:That's it?

[ninjagin]

They recently changed that. It's now going forward as a front-wheel drive. The pictures, as you note, have not caught up.

Re:That's it?

[xaxa]

Its unlikely that $40k car will survive without massive tax credits or $4 gas anyway.

Perhaps they intend to sell them primarily in Europe? According to Wiki almost all of Europe already pays more than $4 for a US gallon, most are even above $5/gal.

Re:That's it?

[fireman sam]

Bur if we say yers to nuculer then ther terists win.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Now, the info on safety is a little sparse from my quick look at Aptera's website, with the faq saying "It will match other commuter vehicles". Faq here. Safety Here

The old version of the website was more detailed; it's kind of in transition right now. Yes, they have a full compliment of airbags, ABS, etc. Crash testing has been modelled by the same software BMW uses. It's a layered composite, like exotics (ever seen an exotic wrecked at 100+ mph, and the driver walks away? Composites are great that way). Here's a copy of an article whose author was introduced to the Aptera by its manufacturers handing them a sledgehammer and letting them wail on a shell. They nearly knocked their teeth out on the rebound and couldn't even scratch it. Roof and door crush strength have been reported to be over double the NTSB standard for cars.

First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard?

No. Here's excerpts from a great Road and Track article on the subject of three wheel stability. Net results of their testing of various delta (one-wheel forward), tadpole (one-wheel backward), and four-wheel vehicles? The deltas were always prone to oversteer and rollover, and no amount of tuning could change that. The tadpoles, like four-wheelers, were prone to understeer -- even a bit more than the four wheelers -- and were just as stable. Plus, they had a lower moment of inertia, and thus had a faster reaction time. When you think about it, it makes sense. When you brake, your CG shifts forward, putting it between the wide front stance. There's not much weight on the backside of a four-wheel vehicle when braking/turning.

I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)

The panels on the side come off. Same with the front wheels.

My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted.

Correct, except for the "electric motors are heavy" part. Electric motors are exceedingly light for how much power they produce. Batteries are heavy.

Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues?

Driveshafts are typically exposed on the underside of a 4WD vehicle, right where rocks are getting kicked at them. Anyway, if there was any problem, they'd just shroud it.

Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?

The pods do swivel. The entire front of the car doesn't turn at once. There are CV joints at the wheels.

It should also be noted that it's been reported that the batteries are mounted low, as is the passenger seating, so your CG is low. Anyone who's not familiar of the gains of mounting batteries low should take a look at videos of a Commuter Cars Tango ;) Tall, narrow little vehicle, looks like the most unstable thing in the world, yet it barely budges side to side on turns.

Re:That's it?

[gnick]

I've looked at several Priuses, but have yet to find the plug that allows their owners to power it off of the grid. Do you have some advance-sale special model?

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Price of a Vette? HA. That car featured as a headline has 1000 HP (same as the $1.5m+ Veyron) and claims to go 200 miles WITHOUT GAS, and it looks much better than anything else in Detroit. And you want it for the price of a Vette? You'll be lucky to see this vapor-car for less than $500,000, if ever. Everyone is so demanding of EVs and wants them for nothing. Being on the bleeding edge of technology isn't cheap.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Aptera is voluntarily meeting most federal safety standards, and exceeding many by very wide margins. Yes, they get to pick and choose what makes the car safest and what's not important, but at least they're choosing to do so. The car was designed in parallel with aerodynamics and crash modelling software from Abaqus and CD-Adapco, both top notch. It has a full compliment of typical car safety features, long crumple/deflection zones, and one heck of a strong composite construction.

Three wheels helps them get a vehicle to market faster and cheaper, that's quite true. But there are also a wide range of other benefits. Insurance is cheaper. The car can more easily follow the optimal teardrop shape. Reaction time to driver input is faster. Cost of construction is lower. Maintenance is lower. The car is lighter, and thus has less rolling drag. Lower rolling drag and lower aero drag means faster charging times and less power consumed. And so on down the line.

Re:That's it?

[ncohafmuta]

Speaking of competition, what discussion is complete without mentioning the Chevy Volt? Still the gold standard for the emerging industry, it will be anyone's guess if it lives up to the hype.

While i agree with most of your post, this statement is a bit of a contradiction. For something to be a "gold standard" it has to first be released and in proven use AFAIC. Otherwise, it's not really anything other than a standard that may or may not work well.

Re:That's it?

[Guysmiley777]

that ended in scandal. [jalopnik.com]

If that's true it's disappointing, but I guess it's asking a lot to expect anything else. Top Gear is entertaining as hell, but isn't really a pinnacle of journalistic integrity.

Re:That's it?

[snaz555]

The rear wheel could be completely inactive, and just a caster. Turning can be done by braking and driving the front wheels - to enter a turn brake the left and continue driving the right; as the vehicle picks up rotational momentum the tail will come around; then to exit the turn reverse - brake the outside and drive the inside. Think Segway with a tail.

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

So your roads may have dust/dirt/gravel if the movies' depictions of long, dusty, barren wastelands in Arizona are accurate (...hahahaha!). It rains once in a while right? Your roads aren't perfectly maintained, are they? My Cobalt can't handle rain very well; my old RWD nissan from 1991 handles in it perfectly, even when the rear wheels slip from too much power off the engine going into a slick turn (fishtail's easy to correct).

Re:That's it?

[hardburn]

European cars are generally more efficient by means of lighter weight and less regulations on saftey and particulate emissions. This makes for a lot of 1.3 to 1.5 liter engines available, along with diesels, wheras it's unheard of to find something below 1.9 in the US, and diesels are uncommon in anything that isn't a truck.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

It actually gets worse. Clarkson is big into the hydrogen hype, and according to him, even if the drive had gone perfectly, he still would have consigned it to the dustbin because he feels electric cars are a dead end.

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

"Price of a Vette? HA. That car featured as a headline has 1000 HP (same as the $1.5m+ Veyron) and claims to go 200 miles WITHOUT GAS, and it looks much better than anything else in Detroit. And you want it for the price of a Vette? You'll be lucky to see this vapor-car for less than $500,000, if ever. Everyone is so demanding of EVs and wants them for nothing. Being on the bleeding edge of technology isn't cheap."

I'm just saying..that when they can get these electic cars to a state where you can get one that looks like a cool 2 seater sports car (I've never owned anything in my life with more than 2 functional seats), and has performance numbers, for a reasonably affordable price (a vette is in my range), let me know and I'll be near the front of the line to go 'green'.

:)

Till then...not interested.

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

"I think the gold standard is by definition the best existing electric or hybrid vehicle. Right now that is probably the Toyota Prius."

If only it wasn't so damned fugly.

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

That... I ... dude, a completely computer controlled steering system... get me out of here. I need to be far away from this. It needs to have its own roads because I don't want that crap anywhere near me o_o

Re:That's it?

[Phil06]

Gas and diesel fuel cost the same in Europe as in the US, it is the tax that is different.

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

I have to agree with you, anonymous coward. I have a motorcycle. And it is *QUIET*. I have a motorcycle because it is fun, efficient, and fast. I don't think the definition of a motorcycle should include annoying the crap out of everyone around you.

Re:That's it?

[Guysmiley777]

The problem with hydrogen is energy volume density. Sure, batteries suffer from energy mass density, but at least there have been improvements. 1 liter of hydrogen still takes up the same amount of space as it did 100 years ago. The amount of power you can store in a kilogram of batteries has vastly improved in 100 years.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Volt as a gold standard? Maybe a gold standard for vaporware whose price keeps on climbing.

The under-researched Li-Ion batteries are going to explode/catch fire in that car and kill people. GM hasn't put in the research or exhaustive testing needed for such a vehicle.

And probably none of the vehicles mentioned in the article would pass any kind of crash tests.

Re:That's it?

[GrahamCox]

My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy

But not as heavy as you might think. 20kg/100kW for an in-wheel motor is about the state-of-the-art, and given that it replaces the brake assembly and (part of) the drive shaft it ends up only slightly more than a conventional hub. For example, see:

http://www.pmlflightlink.com/motors/hipa_drive.html

Since last time I checked out that company, they have a) moved everything to do with this to a much less informative website, and b) gone into administration. That is doubly unfortunate, as I think they had some of the best motor technology out there.

Re:That's it?

[rocketPack]

I hear this argument far too often, and it makes no sense.

Let's think about it this way... How much easier would it be to replace every single vehicle and retrofit every single service station in the country if we decided to switch between different chemical fuels? Compare that to the difficulty of updating where we derive electricity...

SURE, it's COAL today... but will it always be coal? If we try to nay-say electric vehicles and talk our way into biofuels or hydrogen, and we run into issues obtaining it in the future, we're stuck. Electricity is the universal medium -- it's the same network to distribute, store, and utilize at the consumption end regardless of how we make it... that means the cost of retrofitting is significantly lower at the power generation side when/if we decide to switch down the road.

Re:That's it?

[srothroc]

But we've also been mining and using coal for far, far longer and much more extensively. Don't you think that if we'd been using nuclear power as long as we've been using coal, we'd far more nuclear power-related deaths and incidents than we do now?

Re:That's it?

[sheepofblue]

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html true natural gas and nuclear are significant according to that table however they are still less than coal when combined, with coal close to 50%.

That said while I have nothing against electric cars so far they have been vaporware. I will believe it when I see it. Further as electric pluggables replace gas powered vehicles the load on the grid will rise by a significant factor. So who is willing to have the new power plant nearby? If history is an indicator no one in California thus brownouts will become more common. Add in new transmission lines also, yep support for those is high also.

I like to see technical advances but according to press releases made 5-10 years ago the solution to efficient solar is here today ;-) So take this article with a grain of salt also is my recommendation.

Re:That's it?

[int2str]

Do you have any references to back this up?
I couldn't find anything about that on their site.

Also, that would mean completely re-configuring the motor layout etc. I highly doubt they would do this at this stage.

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

The load on the grid is not likely to be a problem at all. Why? Because most charging of electric vehicles would be at night, when the demand on the grid is at the very lowest.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Yep. Batteries don't advance as fast as computers, but they've advanced a heck of a lot faster than anything in the transportation industry. In the past 15 years, battery energy densities have tripled, and power densities even more than that. And they show no signs of slowing down; check out the list of recent li-ion tech breakthroughs that promise 2-4 fold increases in energy density. The odds of every last breakthrough on that list failing to make it to commercialization seems vanishingly small.

Re:That's it?

[int2str]

Nevermind....

Found it:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/24/aptera-switches-to-front-wheel-drive-delivery-date-still-unknow/

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they intend to sell them primarily in Europe? According to Wiki almost all of Europe already pays more than $4 for a US gallon, most are even above $5/gal.

Currently running at about $5.03 per (US) gallon here in Ireland.

Re:That's it?

[aztektum]

According to the Top Gear spokeswoman, the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge.

"Top Gear stands by the findings in this film and is content that it offers a fair representation of the Tesla's performance on the day it was tested," the BBC said in statement."

Yeah, OK. So they're saying my gas powered car will miraculously make it home if I run out of fuel? I can't believe anyone would take that show seriously.

Re:That's it?

[MichaelSmith]

Electric motors are exceedingly light for how much power they produce. Batteries are heavy.

Also I think we will soon see integrated motor/wheel/brake assemblies on the market, so the mass overhead is shared between three functions.

Re:That's it?

[xaxa]

Gas and diesel fuel cost the same in Europe as in the US, it is the tax that is different.

I know. I live here.

The price at the nearest place is £0.88 per litre, that's $1.26 per litre, which I think comes to US$4.77 per gallon. There is a "duty" (flat tax) of £0.5365 per litre, plus VAT (like sales tax) of 15% (VAT is charged on the duty as well as the fuel). Without the tax it's £0.23/L, or US$0.33/L. (23p + 54p) * 1.15 = 88p

Re:That's it?

[c_forq]

I, personally, am much more interested in the Fisker Karma http://karma.fiskerautomotive.com/
I think the guy really knows what he was doing, and was recently able to pick up some good buildings and people in Detroit due to the recent troubles at the Big Three.

Re:That's it?

[COMON$]

Exactly, and if I want to generate my own electricity there is nothing keeping me from becoming an independent island in case of the global economic meltdown.

What I don't get is, why is it my 88 Silverado suburban diesel could get 28-30 miles a gallon, while these new pop can sized cars are being advertised as 'fuel efficient' at 33 mpg? I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything but come on people....lets see some actual innovation in fuel efficiency...anything at all in the last 20-30 years?

Re:That's it?

[droopycom]

Three wheels helps them get a vehicle to market faster and cheaper, that's quite true. But there are also a wide range of other benefits. Insurance is cheaper. The car can more easily follow the optimal teardrop shape. Reaction time to driver input is faster. Cost of construction is lower. Maintenance is lower. The car is lighter, and thus has less rolling drag. Lower rolling drag and lower aero drag means faster charging times and less power consumed. And so on down the line.

Even with all that reduction in cost, it still doesn't make economical sense for me (and most people I would assume) to own this.

I mean, somebody needs to compare owning this to a subcompact car, for 10 years and about 12000 miles/year. My quick calculation shows me its not worth it, even at $5/gallon.

Add on top of the economic factors, the practicability factors, and the only reason I see today to buy this is if you have money to spare and want to be green. Sadly most people cant afford to be green at that price.

Re:That's it?

[baxissimo]

I'm curious as to whether annoying the crap out of everyone around you is a constitutionally protected right. I'm thinking no. Which is why I'm surprised there's not more of a police crack-down on such behavior. You'd think they'd be all for any way to increase their revenues.

Re:That's it?

[dmrobbin]

the trick to the single back wheel is it gets considered as a motorcycle by the government and gets around all kinds of safety regulation stuff which is WAY expensive. not saying this is good or bad (I ride a Harley) but it's the motivation for doing it. that plus lower rolling resistance

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

I haven't done the math, but I suspect that even if MANY millions of people were charging cars at night, it still wouldn't approach the daytime load of the grid. Keep in mind that most people would only need to top off their charge from their short (25 miles perhaps) daily commute.

As for cross-country, I guess one would have to rent a gas car.... they won't be going away anytime soon. Me? I would much rather fly (it is a LOT faster, and probably cheaper, too).

Re:That's it?

[BarefootClown]

There is one thing that doesn't seem to be discussed about the Top Gear bit. I agree that emphasizing what happens when you run out of charge--when they didn't kill the battery--isn't entirely fair, but there is a difference between running out of charge and running out of gas.

I can easily walk to a gas station and carry a couple of gallons of gas back to the car, which is enough fuel to carry me at least a couple dozen miles in even a heavy SUV.

How many miles worth of charge can you carry back?

Re:That's it?

[WCguru42]

What, no love for the Big 3?

Nope. Let's face it, the Big 3 have spent the past 40 years advertising that bigger is better and not to worry about fuel consumption or consumer safety. They abandoned most of their electric research in the 1990's and now they're playing a terrible game a catch-up. I'm not saying I want the American auto industry to go under but I'm not going to support them until they start making some reliable cars. Currently, if you're looking for a reliable car you look to Japan or Germany, and then Korea, then maybe you move onto the US. It's a shame but no, there is no love for Detroit because they royally screwed up and in a market economy you don't get any free love.

Re:That's it?

[WCguru42]

most charging of electric vehicles would be at night

Or during the middle of the work day when everyone is recharging for their return commute. Do you know what that would do, it would take a bad problem and make it even worse. I am 100% for electric vehicles, but don't kid yourself, anything approaching a 10% adoption rate of EVs could easily crush the grid. We need a serious overhaul of means and delivery of producing electricity. Our system is dated (70 years dated to be exact) and it needs an upgrade.

Re:That's it?

[WCguru42]

My Cobalt can't handle rain very well

Really. I usually try to be polite but seriously, you need to learn to drive. It's not like Cobalts are known for their tremendous power.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric motors are not heavy. Those used off 60Hz line power are, but that is due to the low frequency and speed of the rotor. High speed motors used for RC applications are quite powerful for their size. One example is a 72V 160A PM brushless motor that weighs about 5lbs and generates about 15HP. A 2.0L DOHC 16V I4 produces about 140HP and weighs about 250lbs. A 150HP RC PM BL motor would weight just 50lbs for a weight savings of over 80%.

This is why for a given peak power level its better to have a small sustainer IC engine and make up the difference with electric motors and batteries. A 40HP turbo gasoline engine would weigh about 50lbs and add that to 4 motors twice as long as the above would make 160HP peak and still get great city and highway MPG at normal speeds. You also get short distance commuting entirely off the battery. A A123 based LiFePO4 battery generates 0.25KW per 7.5WH 70g cell. To generate 120HP, you would need 90KW or 360 of the above cells. They would store 2.7KWH nominal or about 2.16KWH using a 90/10 cycle. That is enough to go 15 miles at 60MPH. 0-60MPH times would be about 7.5 seconds faster than the current 8 seconds for the engine. The combo would weigh about 150lbs compared to the 250lbs for the engine alone. Lastly the smaller engine would only run during long drives and thus perhaps 15 to 33% of the time that the current engine would.

In Europe, the same car has an option for a 1.4L 75HP engine. You can take the above and reduce the number of cells to 120 and shrink the motor sizes so that the combo weighs about 96lbs, has a 5 mile 60MPH range (15 miles at 30MPH), a 0-60MPH time of about 14 seconds and cut the overall cost in half. In either case, the top sustained speed would be about 90MPH, more than fast enough for today's roads.

Re:That's it?

[alexandre_ganso]

Everyone is so demanding of EVs and wants them for nothing. Being on the bleeding edge of technology isn't cheap.

Electric engines aren't the bleeding edge of technology. They are known to work more or less the same for decades. Gasoline and diesel engines has evolved way more in the last 30 years than electric ones.

The battery is now evolving, but not to the bleeding edge.

And that's why the chinese are going to bring some interesting cards to the game. They know how to produce electric. They dominate battery technology. Teach them how to make nice designs and detroit is going to have a big problem in their oily hands.

Re:That's it?

[VanGarrett]

Yes, but how do you legally define "annoying the crap out of everyone around you", without creating a loophole, in which the law can be abused to violate another's constitutionally-protected rights, such as Freedom of Speech? "Annoyance" is a fairly broad term, especially in a culture as impatient as our own. God forbid that anyone should upset another person.

Re:That's it?

[MpVpRb]

If you don't like nuclear power, you can freeze in the dark.

Here's the song.

Freeze In The Dark

Re:That's it?

[Anpheus]

I presume you also forcibly remove your power steering because it's scary and new, right?

Re:That's it?

[Spatial]

I can't believe anyone would take that show seriously.

I don't think you're really supposed to. It's a hilarious show.

Re:That's it?

[JM78]

Chevy Volt...40/100 miles on a single charge...promising an electric vehicle by 2011...

Please. The big 3 are useless and should have been allowed to die (thanks for continuing to waste my taxes gov). Tesla has had cars for purchase for a couple years now. Granted they're slow off the line at the moment, but at least they're not simply a paper-concept with crap specs and have created some kind of decent (and available) standard to strive for: Tesla Motors

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

The most common number for the lower-cost EVs for range seems to be about 100 miles. About what percent of Americans do you think travel more than fifty miles to work and then 50 back? I'd bet under 10%. Probably under 5%.

but don't kid yourself, anything approaching a 10% adoption rate of EVs could easily crush the grid

This has been studied, over and over again. No, they don't. EVs are actually a rather sedate grid load in that they don't suddenly kick in, draw a huge amount of current, then stop; it's a steady load. And easily most of the time, it's a nighttime load, which is a boon for the grid, not a bane.

But yes, our grid could use some overhaul because it's not good at dealing with our current loads. We need HVDC for long-distance transmission, a smart grid for timing loads, and EVs for variable loads and, potentially, V2G.

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

So true.

Although there is a relatively easy way to make such a definition, since it already exists. There are federal guidelines that regulate maximum noise of motorcycles and their exhaust systems. Replacing a muffler with something unapproved (or just removing it), it actually against the law. It is actually printed on the muffler, itself (believe it or not). So all these people tampering with their exhaust systems- removing the mufflers and replacing them with "louder" ones, are all breaking the law.

To my knowledge, there is little or no enforcement of such laws. I am not sure why, though... since it *should* be part of most states' annual inspections. But, I see unsafe and maladjusted vehicles all the time with valid state inspection stickers.

Re:That's it?

[Firethorn]

Don't you think that if we'd been using nuclear power as long as we've been using coal, we'd far more nuclear power-related deaths and incidents than we do now?

Don't have the study handy, but Nuclear not only has a far lower death toll than Coal in total, it also has a far lower death toll per kwh produced. For example, China, any given year, has more coal miners die in accidents than Chernobyl killed, even if you take upper end statistics. Even the 57 or so immediately attributable deaths from Chernobyl are exceeded by coal mining deaths in the USA in a couple years. If you want to add in statistical radiation deaths, we need to also add in the deaths from pollution from coal plants, and again, we end up with that a Chernobyl a year would kill fewer people than coal.

Re:That's it?

[madsci1016]

While we could go back and forth on the grid and if ready or not, the data isn't 100% conclusive. Although, i will add that a power plant takes 30-50 yrs to build from location scouting to full power production, so if we do need more power we better decide soon.

My concern is what the article says about charge time. It claims 1000 horses and a distance of 150 miles per charge. If even you stay conservative on some of the unknown variables, that is a high capacity battery to store that much energy. And to have a battery with such low internal resistance that is is able to fully charge in 10 minutes jumps out at me. That means a very high current battery charger to deliver that much energy in that short of time.

Imagine this, a whole street of rich boys all getting that car, coming home from the office at the same time, and plugging in there car simultaneously. I fear there might be a new strain on local low voltage (compared to power transmission) power distribution systems. This might cause a whole new concern for the power industry, besides the fear of low power production capability.

Re:That's it?

[Cinnaman]

It's one step down the road, the only way to cure out current transportation (and global warming) woes is to drive electric cars that run on 100% non-polluting sources. I wonder if enough attention and funding is being paid to the various forms of solar power generation (arrays of mirrors, solar cells etc.).

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

No, but I have a little fun watching people put on traction control and take curvy roads at 45mph in the snow, then when they lose control have themselves going faster than the computer can correct, much less themselves. It's also commonly quipped in driving circles that AWD vehicles and ABS are "awesome," except for "the vast number of stupid drivers that don't realize that, although they can now go 50mph in the snow in their new AWD SUV, they can't stop before they wind up parking in my living room."

This isn't much "human error" though (aside from lack of road feedback), but it does leave a technical problem: the system you described has NO FALLBACK. It steers by drag. One wheel accelerates, the other drags, car turns. What happens when the system fails, and your steering no longer does anything?

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

My old Nissan had less power, it had a KA24e engine in it, 134hp peak and 154ftlb peak. The amount of power isn't what's related to handling; it's that when the rear wheels slip, I can adjust steering to correct fishtails. Try that when the front left wheel slips 20%, the front right wheel slips 5%, and the car accelerates -- to the left, while you've got the wheel a quarter turn right. Any attempt to steer when you either hit the gas a bit too hard or just glide over some extra-wet slippery slush with one wheel is moot, the car is going where it wants to.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

i believe the Aptera is a rear wheel drive and it was a mistake in the article. As far as i know, the rear wheel is directly connected to the engine

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

100Wh/kg for batteries, 200Wh/mi for highway-speed consumption in a typical EV. You decide.

Also, if there's any relevant percentage of EVs on the road, expect AAA and the like to start carrying high-power generators or battery packs around.

Re:That's it?

[merreborn]

And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go. No new infrastructure. No hazardous or explosive alternative fuels (like hydrogen or LP gas). No special equipment or training. Plug it in... Done.

That's definitely a great advantage, but in the interest of fairness, there are a few disadvantages:

1) "Refueling time" is much higher. An energy transfer you could do in a minute or two with gasoline takes hours with electricity

2) Energy density is much worse. A pound of battery holds a fraction of the energy a pound of gasoline does.

3) Vehicle "fuel" storage is much more expensive. Gas tanks are cheap.

Advantages:
1) Simplified powertrain. It's even possible to eliminate the transmission entirely, which is a pretty large source of energy loss in cars

2) As you mentioned, infrastructure exists... up to the curb. Fast charging will require upgrades at charging sites themselves. The Tesla Roadster comes with a special 220 volt, 70 amp charging system, which requires some decent electrical work to install (in that it's not just an issue of plugging it in to the wall). The advantage, however, is you can charge a Tesla to its full 220 mile capacity in just 3.5 hours. On a standard, 110 volt, 15 amp circuit, it takes 32 hours to fully charge.

This isn't so much a limitation of the Tesla's batteries as it's a limitation of just how little energy 15 amps at 110 volts is. It takes a long time to get a gas tank's worth of electricity at that rate.

Re:That's it?

[DragonWyatt]

I haven't done the math, but I suspect that even if MANY millions of people were charging cars at night, it still wouldn't approach the daytime load of the grid. Keep in mind that most people would only need to top off their charge from their short (25 miles perhaps) daily commute.

This is exactly my description. I have a 12.5 mile commute each way to work and back. I am currently converting a 2002 Ford Focus to full electric. I expect to have a total range of about 40 miles per charge.

The charger I'm using is what I would consider a middle-of-the-road charger, in terms of power consumption (about 4.8KW). It is wired for a 240 VAC, 20 amp circuit, and should be able to charge my 144 volt, 28 KWH pack in about 6 hours. Keep in mind, 4.8KW is less than the steady state power consumption of a typical 1.5 ton capacity heat pump. The grid will trivially be able to handle this kind of load during the night.

Re:That's it?

[dgatwood]

It is pretty easy to define it, at least in this case. You define it as a maximum number of decibels measured from a distance of 30 feet from the vehicle. If you exceed that limit, whether because you don't have a decent muffler or because your radio shakes the entire freaking neighborhood, you get fined, and if you do not correct the problem in a timely manner, your vehicle is impounded. Simple as that.

Re:That's it?

[merreborn]

This post neatly explains the math behind Tesla charging.

If you do the math, a 10 gallon tank of gas holds about 360 kWh of energy. It'd take 9 days to suck that much power through a 110 volt, 15 amp circuit.

Fortunately, electric cars are more efficient at converting the energy in their batteries to kinetic energy than gasoline engines are -- they require fewer kWh per mile than gasoline cars, which in turn means you need to "refuel" and store less energy than a gasoline automobile does.

Re:That's it?

[Hucko]

We'll just bit-torrent the grid!

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

How'd you arrive at that?

Let's say the Aptera is a $15k premium over a traditional, 30mpg car, and let's assume no tax credits. $15000 / $5 = 3000 gallons = 90,000 miles = 7.5 years. With interest on the purchase premium, let's say 9 years. Throw in an extra year for the (uber-cheap) cost of electricity. The average car today lasts two decades, and with little steel to rust and lithium phosphate (very long-life) batteries, you should expect at least that. Let's say no difference in maintenance even though EVs have a small fraction as many moving parts to break -- meh, let's say that's because a battery pack replacement or something (even though a decade from now, battery packs will be a fraction of the price). The premium paid for your car pays itself off and then earns money for over half its lifespan. How's that not a winning proposition?

It bugs me that most people don't look more than a few years ahead when planning their finances. Can you imagine if businesses took that same tack? No large factory would ever be built, no large mines ever developed, etc.

(Oh, and if your argument is, "I won't keep my car until it dies; I change every several years"? Probably the biggest factor in determining the depreciation rate is how cheap it is to run. A Hummer costs 1.5 times as much as a Prius but depreciates 3 times as fast. And compared to even a 30mpg car, an Aptera is dirt cheap to run. So, expect a low depreciation rate.)

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

> Or during the middle of the work day when everyone is recharging for their return commute

That doesn't make any sense. Any EV of any reasonable range will allow a commuter to get to AND from work. There should be no reason to need to charge at work.

I still think if almost all of the charging is done at night, it will not overload even the existing grid. Daytime loads are *huge* in the day from business consumption, by comparison. And in the summer, all those A/C units in all the buildings have to work very hard during the day and very little at night.

Most of our electricity nightmares (lack of plants, grids at capacity, brown/black-outs, etc) are at peak loads during the summer days. Charging a car at night will use similar power to an A/C running in the day; yet most of that time all your lights, TV's, etc are all off.

Electric companies even offer dual-metering with much lower night prices to encourage usage during the night when they have so much unused capacity. This is extremely common for businesses- less so for private/home, although it is possible (and could expand).

Re:That's it?

[Pentium100]

If you want to charge the electric car in the same time as you would fill a gas tank, you'd better have 1.21 gigawatt power plant nearby...

Re:That's it?

[markdavis]

>On a standard, 110 volt, 15 amp circuit, it takes 32 hours to fully charge

No doubt. But it should be much easier to provide a 220 volt, 20 amp circuit (4,400 watts) which is 266% more power than the energy of 15@110 (1,650 watts) (compared the the exotic 70A Tesla circuit). And, unless one is doing a LOT more than just commuting to work, one will rarely have to charge the car all the way from dead. So a half-charge top-up with 266% more power might be more like 6 or 7 hours.

Re:That's it?

[Pentium100]

No, but, when you see that you have little gas left, you can drive to a gas station and fill your tank in a few minutes.

You can't do that with electric cars (well, unless, of course, you are near a nuclear power plant)...

Re:That's it?

[cowlum1]

If you examine the pictures closely you can see the wheel pods have space all around the suspension arms. This indicates the car steers in the usual manner. The 3rd arm (black in the picture) is probably the tie rod*.
The single back wheel i am guessing will be to remove drag. one less wheel reduces 25% of the tyre resistance.

*it may even be a combined tie rod and drive axle.

Re:That's it?

[rbunker]

The single back wheel does two things, each important:

1. Reduces weight by quite a lot,

2. Allows the vehicle to count as a motorcycle, and thereby ignore all of the safety standards to which cars must comply. So just don't look at crash test results, if any are every published....you won't like them.

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

"I have to agree with you, anonymous coward. I have a motorcycle. And it is *QUIET*. I have a motorcycle because it is fun, efficient, and fast. I don't think the definition of a motorcycle should include annoying the crap out of everyone around you."

Hmm...well, I bought Cobra pipes...they are perfectly legal. They have a nice, tuned rumble....I don't gun it though neighborhoods at night, etc. Are they louder than the stock ones I had? Yes. Are they horribly obnoxious, IMHO, no. But, then again, some people probably get annoyed at the stock pipes on many bikes.

I"m certainly WAY below the decibel level, and house shaking ability than many of the cars I see driving around with stereos at full blast...pumping out nothing but earthshaking bass (do those guys even know what a midrange or tweeter speaker is?).

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

" So all these people tampering with their exhaust systems- removing the mufflers and replacing them with "louder" ones, are all breaking the law.

To my knowledge, there is little or no enforcement of such laws. I am not sure why, though... since it *should* be part of most states' annual inspections. But, I see unsafe and maladjusted vehicles all the time with valid state inspection stickers."

It is perfectly legal to change out your exhaust system with 3rd party pipes. They are approved in order for them to sell them, with the exception of straight pipes, which have warnings saying they are only legal for off road use.

And not all states require inspections for vehicles.....varies from state to state. And, even states that do inspect....each has different requirements. For instance I now live in a state that does inspections, but, only to test for lights, brakes..etc. I've never lived anywhere where they have exhaust sniff tests for emissions.

Re:That's it?

[MJMullinII]

That's why I'm glad to live in my fine sovereign southern state. NO vehicle inspections, period!

I'm currently celebrating by making plans to stick a big ass, 502 Ramjet big-block V8 in my 89 GMC Sierra.

I guess WE truly believe in freedom :).

Re:That's it?

[Anpheus]

I'm not advocating his crazy ideas about keeping the wheels rigid and parallel to the frame, it sounds like an awful good way to wreck the car.

I personally don't understand why each wheel can't turn independently.

Re:That's it?

[Sardaukar86]

Noooo, nooo - we can't hear you - our fingers are in our ears, coz you said the BAD SWEAR.

Nobody's allowed to use the 'N' word in these enlightened times. We don't care that the dirty 'N' is a sane and rational way of reducing our carbon emissions in lieu of a better idea.

We're just happy someone is thinking of the children and stopping all this silliness with their wailing and hand-waving so we can all get back to Coronation Street and not have to worry our little heads with any more complicated thinks.

Re:That's it?

[Lynchenstein]

The Aptera has a great drag coefficient - but I don't see any way to attach a front licence plate and still maintain anywhere near that level of slipperiness. In states and provinces where both front and rear plates are required by law how do they plan to deal with this? I hear that it will initially be classified as a motorcycle (requiring a motorcycle licence and helmet I presume) but what happens after that? Just wondering...cuz it looks like an fantastic design and I'd love to drive it.

Re:That's it?

[B4D BE4T]

I'm curious as to whether annoying the crap out of everyone around you is a constitutionally protected right. I'm thinking no. Which is why I'm surprised there's not more of a police crack-down on such behavior.

Something is not illegal simply because it is not defined in the Constitution as a right.

That said, there are laws that define the acceptable noise level that an exhaust system may produce, but they vary from state to state. In California, the limit on motorcycles varies between 80 and 88 dbA depending on the date of manufacture. California law also states that the exhaust can't be modified to exceed that level.

Re:That's it?

[B4D BE4T]

I guess WE truly believe in freedom :).

I guess that depends on your definition of "freedom". Personally, I would rather enjoy my freedom to breathe cleaner air and avoid having to listen to unnecessarily loud exhaust systems.

Re:That's it?

[B4D BE4T]

Right, and in most states it has been defined similar to this. Here is California's definition, measured "50 feet from the centerline of travel".

Re:That's it?

[piojo]

We have laws against "disturbing the peace", and I think that making a whole lot of noise without a permit would fall under that category.

Re:That's it?

[B4D BE4T]

You also need to take into account the amount of energy required for distribution. i.e. How much does it cost to distribute electricity over power lines vs. distributing gasoline? And how does this compare to distributing other forms of energy storage? I imagine less energy would be consumed by distributing electricity over power lines than hauling gasoline in our current gasoline distribution network. Although I haven't done/seen the calculations for any of this, just noting that it needs to be taken into account.

Re:That's it?

[pandaman9000]

You can hear my exhaust for 2 blocks, IF I step in it, messing around. I can hear games late into the night from a stadium over 1 linear mile away from my house. Sometimes announcers are heard inside.

Perhaps we should all drive silent econoboxes, and live in 900 square foot homes, in tightly packed neighborhoods, to minimize our impact on the world, though.

Oh, wait. You don't live in a 900Sq foot domicile? You have a big wasteful yard? Why do you need x number of PCs, when 1 would suffice? Why aren't you buying the lowest power consuming electronics?

Insert any other little bit of luxury you give yourselves, and consider why you have/do it, since it impacts the world around you.

Then realize that I pound the SHIT out of my gas coming down any block I see populated by judgemental fucks with 4 SUV in their 5 person home's driveway.

Safety note: 1st gear only. Up to the legal limit of 25, or less.

Re:That's it?

[pandaman9000]

I may be wrong on this, but here is my understanding of the potential of electrics:

Pros:
Low heat output
Max torque from zero to near max RPM, flat
RPM ranges that extend WELL past 10K
Simple driveline setup (no cams, timing, etc etc)

Cons:
Limited range at this time due to....
Limited energy storage.

As a performance car, I expect that, aside from the expected games manufacturers play to differentiate models, the electric would destroy any fossil burner. There is no contest when you have huge torque at less than 100 RPM, and you can develop linear torque throughout the rev band.

HP=(TqxRPM)/5252
So:
400Tqx10,500RPM=~800 HP.
Torque is limited by simple electric motor designs. In theory, you could use a 2 speed or no transmission, eliminating shift times, and leveraging raw off the line torque for steeper gearing.

But they'd be totally silent, engine wise. Creepy.

Re:That's it?

[Loki_1929]

Just filled up in New Jersey at $1.67 per (US) gallon.

And it's full-service (they come out and pump it for you), which was nice, as it was snowing and below freezing.

Re:That's it?

[gtada]

About the Aptera:
I rather hate the look of it, but I'm guessing the reason for the trike configuration is that it can be licensed as a motorcycle in the US. If I remember correctly the laws are changing regarding the license to operate a trike however.

Also TFA mentions that the Aptera is front wheel drive.

Re:That's it?

[pjt48108]

Re.: the wheels and power train... The front wheels are for steering. The back wheel is the drive wheel. Apparently, this is a fairly stable setup.

I am kind of a fan of the Aptera, though I am more eager to see the gas-electric hybrid.

Re:That's it?

[keean]

The problem is almost nobody wants a car that takes 10 hours to charge. People are used to driving and stopping at a filling station when they need to. The solution is batteries like the Altair NanoSafe, used in the Lightning car, which can charge in 5 minutes from a 440V industrial 3-phase supply. This however will put a load on the grid. In summary the grid is fine for cars most people don't want.

Re:That's it?

[Jedi Alec]

Or during the middle of the work day when everyone is recharging for their return commute. Do you know what that would do, it would take a bad problem and make it even worse.

I work for the power company, you insensitive clod!

Re:That's it?

[MtViewGuy]

I think the primary market will be plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) by 2015, NOT all electric vehicles.

I cite the following reasons:

1) Since the vast majority of commuting is relatively short range, the all-electric range of a PHEV of around 43 to 49 miles (70-80 km) is not such a big issue.

2) With a PHEV, you don't need a big battery pack like you do with an all-electric vehicle.

3) Since PHEVs are an extension of the now-mature hybrid vehicle technology developed by Toyota and Ford, it also means way lower development costs.

Given that today's gasoline engines have very low emissions anyway, a PHEV backed up by a small gasoline engine is what will be common by 2015.

Re:That's it?

[plurgid]

... so there should be plenty of competition in late 2010/early 2011.

No, probably there won't be. It's like this

10 gas is expensive, yo!
20 people get pissed off
30 start getting serious about alternative fuel
40 oil cartel drops prices
50 everything goes back to normal
60 while (people not pissed off) {
70 oil_price ++;
80 }
90 GOTO 10

We are on line 30.

The fuckin' electric car is always "a few years off", it has been since I was in high school.

So the only two you can actually buy right now are:

A) a ridiculously expensive sports car that goes fast but not for long

B) a ridiculous jetsons car that goes reasonable speeds for a decent period of time but in a form factor that's mostly unusable, and certainly not mass marketable.

HEAVEN FORBID, we make an electric car with the features of B in a form factor that people would you know ... actually buy. I doubt they're gaining THAT much efficiency from the shape.

Re:That's it?

[CannedTurkey]

Maybe try some better tires.

Re:That's it?

[eXonyte]

Louisiana Revised Statutes title 32 section 353:

No person shall modify the exhaust system of a motor vehicle in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the motor of such vehicle, above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle and the original muffler shall comply with all of the requirements of R.S. 32:352.

In plain english: Changing your exhaust system in any way that makes it louder, assuming it was legal before modification, is illegal in the state of Louisiana.
I'm sure many other states have similar laws, and I'm sure many states that have laws fail to enforce them just as here in Louisiana. I can't comment on federal laws as I have not read them personally.

Re:That's it?

[Dare nMc]

well some of that comes from the dynamics of a differential that causes unexpected shifts in power, especially if you have a spinning wheel grab traction. Amplified by automatic transmissions that have jumps in torque without warning (and a single pedal that controls shifting, power, and speed that makes precise control difficult at best.) With separate electric motors on each side all of a sudden it's possible to control torque precisely and instantaneously. Of course that also means they need to do good software because it would be easy to do it precisely wrong. This somewhat assumes they use AC motors, and separate control. Even if not they will behave much more reasonably than the seemingly random jerk jerk you currently get.

Re:That's it?

[Abcd1234]

The problem is almost nobody wants a car that takes 10 hours to charge.

According to whom? Hell, here in Canada, during the winter we regularly have to plug in our cars anyway, just to make sure they start the next day. Plugging it in to charge it overnight seems like an extremely minor issue. And you get the bonus of knowing your car is "fueled" up when you take it out the next day (ie, you don't have to worry about checking that gauge and hitting a station if you're running low).

Re:That's it?

[cayenne8]

That is actually quite interesting.

However, I bought the bike used....the new pipes on it were already there when I bought it. So, in my eyes...they are the original pipes "I" got. I didn't get the original OEM ones when I bought the bike.

But aside from that...it isn't like this law is enforced (thankfully). No one checks your bike for 'sound'...or emissions. Hell, they don't do that for cars either....the Borla exhaust system on my old 911 turbo I used to have, used to not so much be LOUD...but, rumbled very, very low....I used to have fun setting off car alarms that were sent too sensitive when driving through a parking deck, or the French Quarter...

Re:That's it?

[lancelotlink]

There's laws on the books for noise pollution with people blasting their radios out their car windows. Some of these bikes are far louder than that. I'm sure something can be arranged.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

For everyday life, charge time is pretty much irrelevant. Charge time is only relevant on trips. And there are several different solutions for that.

1) Rapid charging. As you note, AltairNano packs can charge pretty much as fast as you can cool them. Individual cells have been charged in the lab to 80% in under a minute. The downsides of AltairNano is the price ($2/Wh, compared to $0.30-$0.40/Wh for traditional li-ion and, soon, LiP and spinels) and energy density (70Wh/kg compared to 100-110Wh/kg for LiP and spinels and 160-180Wh/kg for traditional li-ion). LiP and spinels can charge in 15-20 minutes.

2) Battery swapping: I'm not a big fan of it, but several entire countries are moving in that direction.

3) Internal range extenders (PHEVs/ER-EVs).

4) Range-extending trailers.

5) Rental or car-sharing for those relatively rare times you want a long trip.

6) Simply slowing down (for example, an Aptera equipped with the optional higher-power charger should be able to hop from RV park to RV park and spend nearly as much time driving as charging -- and when it's charging, you can eat, shop, sleep, use a laptop, or whatever the heck you want to do). And RV parks don't really have all that much current available compared to a typical charger, and even the higher power Aptera charger doesn't look likely to be able to use all of what they do offer.

In my view, #1 is an optimal solution, while #6 will only appeal to a certain type of individual (myself included, but I don't expect that to be a mainstream solution -- it's just a solution that's available today without any new infrastructure or vehicle hardware).

Re:That's it?

[facelessnumber]

Computer controlled steering of any type is a scary idea. These innovations are good, and need to happen, but the number 1 design feature needs should be graceful failover to human control, and the ability for the driver to turn it off. I just don't see that happening on any kind of drive-by-wire system, or steering of the type described above.

If computers always did what they were told, and always knew better than me, I (like many of you) would have a completely different career.

Also, "front-wheel drive" is a bug, not a feature.

Re:That's it?

[CopaceticOpus]

Say "Yes" to nuclear.

Coming in 2020: The Chevy Curie!

(I know that's not what you meant, it's just what first popped into my head as I was skimming through the comments.)

Re:That's it?

[Thing 1]

It has a full compliment of typical car safety features [...]

Those safety features look rather nice on you! :)

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then realize that I pound the SHIT out of my gas coming down any block I see populated by judgemental fucks with 4 SUV in their 5 person home's driveway.

That is OK. We have day and night scopes on our rifles. WLSATAU (We Like Shooting Assholes That Annoy Us). And you keep a nice slow speed. Just to make it a little bit harder.

Re:That's it?

[keean]

I agree on the whole with what you say, but I still feel that electric cars will have to offer people something better than petrol to succeed. Diesel is the short term solution, and in Europe we have cars achieving fantastic 70+mpg with 100+mpg on the horizon. These are not factory figures either, we get a real 62mpg from a Ford Fiesta Zetec. I am talking about the mass market though, and if I am right you will not see electric cars selling in big numbers until people can use them just like a petrol car - including stopping at a filling station for 10 minutes... oh and they have to be nearly the same price as well.

Re:That's it?

[Big Boss]

People are going to have to get used to the "fugly" shape if they want efficiency. The Prius is that shape to lower wind resistance while maximizing interior space. Wind resistance is the enemy of efficient high speed transportation. So pick your poison.

Re:That's it?

[Cornflake917]

You're no longer President, George. Let the grown ups handle these issues now.

Re:That's it?

[keean]

According to the market... If people wanted them they would buy them, the show rooms would be full of them. People don't want to risk running low on charge and having no option of a quick fill-up. Besides which the government do not want to get rid of all the filling stations, so they would need to have a role in the future. Quick charge electric satisfies that too. You don't have to believe me though, just watch what happens. It would make me happy to be wrong, but I don't think so... The British governments report on this issue, from transport and car industry experts is betting on diesel short term and hydrogen long term, precisely because of the charging and weight problems of electric cars. Honda have a hydrogen fuel-cell car ready to go to market. It looks like a normal car, not a toy, and as far as I can tell it is the future of green transport... not battery/electric cars.

Re:That's it?

[b0bby]

The cops around here rip the baffles out of their new Harleys first thing they do. They're not worried about the noise.

Re:That's it?

[ptudor]

Yes, you have to walk to a gas station when you run out of gas. I just have to walk to the nearest building and plug in--- I ride my EV past a lot more buildings with electricity than I do service stations to air up the tires. But, I've only actually run a car out of gas once, when I was young and couldn't afford more than a few dollars of gas at a time. I've never run out of stored fuel in my EV and I never expect to, but if I did it would be easier to find an electrical outlet than a gas station.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Certainly the prices of EVs have to come down, but they will. It's all an issue of mass production. The tech is there, but the production infrastructure is not. When EVs are cheaper to purchase, their incredibly low fuelling costs and maintenance will win out. Easily.

Don't get me started on European MPGs. 1) Sometimes they're reported in Imperial gallons, and imperial gallons are bigger. But even when not using imperial gallons, 2) The really high figures are almost always diesels. Yes, diesels are more efficient, but part of that is simply due to the fact that a gallon of diesel contains almost 15% more energy than a gallon of gasoline. 3) The official mileage figures for European cars are measured on the NEDC (New European Drive Cycle), which gives about 15% higher mileage figures for the exact same car as the EPA drivecycle. And it's not like the NEDC is particularly unrealistic; it just is designed to represent typical European driving, which tends to be less fuel-consuming than typical American driving.

All of that said, European cars do tend to be a bit smaller and operate a bit more efficiently. Just not as extremely as the numbers would seem to indicate at first glance.

Re:That's it?

[Abcd1234]

According to the market... If people wanted them they would buy them, the show rooms would be full of them.

Hardly. The technology is only now reaching the point where a real EV is feasible. Furthermore, economic factors have meant that alternative fuel-based vehicles simply haven't been attractive options to the consumer. Fortunately, that has changed in the last couple years as gas skyrocketed.

People don't want to risk running low on charge and having no option of a quick fill-up

So buy a plug-in hybrid. All electric until it runs low, then switches to a small gas-powered motor. This is, I think the future of electric vehicles, as it marries the best of both worlds: all electric for short trips, which is the vast majority of commuting, and longer range on gasoline when it's needed.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Oh, god, not hydrogen again... do we really have to keep kicking this dead horse?

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull. American cars are beating the foreigners in reliability these days. They have the stigma from years past.

Re:That's it?

[keean]

See: http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/ Feel so confident about hydrogen being a "dead horse"...

Re:That's it?

[DuckDodgers]

Nuclear power supplies 20% of the electricity used in the country, and it's done that for decades. Coal kills people with black lung disease, mining collapses, and of course lung cancer, asthma, and emphysema from coal burning emissions.

If we multiply the number of Americans killed by nuclear power each year by 5 to extrapolate if nuclear power supplied all of our energy, we still end up with a number far below the deaths from coal.

Re:That's it?

[DuckDodgers]

IF GM's Volt, or Chrysler's EV concept ever make production, they have a solution to the problem. The vehicle travels 40 or 60 miles on its battery charge, and if you keep driving an onboard generator turns on to supply electricity and recharge the battery.

In effect your car is a complete EV for a reasonable commute, and a fossil fuel vehicle (although not a traditional one) for long trips.

But the rumors are floating around that when the GM Volt hits showrooms, the price tag on the tiny four seat sedan will be above $30,000.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's no forget people: the Big 3 built those bigger & heavier IC-engine cars because SALES SHOWED THAT WHAT AMERICANS WERE BUYING!

Want someone to blame?... look in the mirror.

Re:That's it?

[DuckDodgers]

6 reasons:

1. Tightening emissions standards make for more exhaust restrictions. Exhaust restrictions sap power and economy from the vehicles.
2. Vehicle fuel economy sticker ratings were revised downward by 10-20% by the EPA in 2007. A car rated at 33 miles per gallon today would have been rated 36-40 miles per gallon in 1988.
3. The US has very high emissions regulations for diesel engines. Thus far, only Volkswagen (and child company Audi) and Mercedes offer diesel engine passenger vehicles in the US, despite the fact that nearly every automaker - including Toyota, Honda, Ford, and General Motors - offers diesel engine vehicles overseas. Diesel is more energy dense than gasoline and can be combusted more efficiently, so diesels often get extremely good fuel economy. But people can't buy them.
4. Diesel fuel is expensive in the US. Environmentally, it may make sense to get 38 miles per gallon from a diesel instead of 28 miles per gallon from a gasoline engine. But financially, a lot of buyers break even or even save money getting the cheaper fuel.
5. Performance standards have increased dramatically. Family sedans today with 4 cylinder engines sport more power and faster acceleration than V8 family sedans from 1988. That extra power reduces fuel economy. Related to that, larger wheels in proportion to the total vehicle size are in style and having the engine turn a bigger wheel also requires more work.
6. Newer electronics, airbags, and crash safety structural improvements add weight, and of course weight saps fuel economy.

Any questions?

Re:That's it?

[Radical Moderate]

"First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard? "
No. Putting a single wheel in front does create a roll over hazard, putting it in the back does not.

"how servicable is that tire?"
Good question. With some clever engineering it should be easy to remove, but it would be interesting to see how it's rigged.

"I'm just imagining something flying off the road and getting wrapped around the the axel. Or in an accident, a pedestrian getting an appendage caught in there."
Seriously? 'Cause you can run over pedestrians with your car, and they're fine? I'm trying to remember the last time something flew on to the road that could have wrapped up my axle. Can't think of one. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I think you're reaching.

Re the drivetrain, it was originally going to be rear-wheel drive, they recently switched to front.

Re:That's it?

[Rei]

Yes, you can subsidize a hydrogen vehicle down to whatever price you want for PR. Want to see what hydrogen vehicles cost unsubsidized? $7,700 a month corresponds to about $500k purchase price. And that's not just a radical case; bulk fuel cells cost over $10/W, and one horsepower is about 750W, so that's about $7,500 per horsepower; I'll let you do the math. Just for the fuel cell stack. And then we get into efficiency -- or more appropriately, the complete lack of it in hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. A fuel-cell vehicle takes 2-4 times as much energy as an EV per mile travelled. A H2 ICE takes 3-6 times as much. Then there's hydrogen itself; it really is a nasty substance. Not toxic, but ozone depleting, metal-embrittling, explosive in almost any fuel-air mixture, readily undergoes deflagration-to-detonation transitions, burns clear, leaks through almost anything, incredibly non-dense (i.e., expensive to store), and on and on down the line. Then there's storage density, which now is barely better than li-ion (hasn't advanced nearly as fast as battery tech), and the filling time for hydrogen vehicles has actually been *increasing* as they try to up the storage density, to the point where it takes longer to fill one of the latest generation of hydrogen vehicles than it does to charge titanate batteries, and nearly as long as it takes to charge phosphates and spinels. Then there's longevity, freezing, moving part count, fuel purity, and on and on... read the link I provided; there's a lot more in there.

In short, hydrogen is the perfect answer if you can spend someone else's money and want to do three times as much environmental damage for no real benefit but increased complexity and risk.

Re:That's it?

[jeff4747]

Nuclear has the benefit of not requiring nearly as much material to be mined.

A medium-sized coal power plant will run through roughly 2 coal trains a day.

A nuclear plant gets refueled what, every 20 years?

So replacing coal with nuclear would reduce mining deaths, for the simple reason that there's less mining going on.

Re:That's it?

[jeff4747]

anything approaching a 10% adoption rate of EVs could easily crush the grid

What, exactly, would they plug into? I don't know about your work, but here there aren't plugs scattered throughout the parking lot.

With only 10% adoption, and the fact that most of the vehicles have ranges that exceed normal commuting, or a range-extender such as a generator, there still wouldn't be plugs in the parking lot.

Re:That's it?

[nusuth]

The problem with all kinds of batteries are that they (must) depend on a reversible chemical reaction and during the reaction some chemicals must physically move. That is not so bad when discharging, or when charging at a rate similar to discharge rate. However when charging the batteries quickly, charging rate is proportional to speed of the reaction, which is proportional to the charge passing through the cell. In order to increase charging rate, more current must pass through the cell. In order to have more current, more potential difference between the electrodes must be supplied. However the chemical reaction only provides a relatively constant potential difference between electrodes, so any potential difference applied above the reaction's potential must be converted in to heat. In other words, as long as battery must be charged (much) quicker than discharge speed, a surplus of energy must be supplied to the cell, only to be wasted and increasing the cell's temperature in the process. This is a concern for charging at "gas stations" as well as for regenerative braking systems. Quick charge with long discharge times is fundementally inefficient with batteries. http://www.williamshybridpower.com/ however, has a new twist on mechanical energy storage systems, which, AFAICT, has no such drawback. Hopefully, they will prove the technology on track and obsolete use of batteries as primary energy storage in cars.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ford Fusion is one helluva reliable car. Just ask Consumer Reports.

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

I despise automatic transmission and wish my parents would have cosigned a loan on a $925 cheaper manual. :| I test drove the car in stick, it had twice as much power!

Re:That's it?

[brkello]

We have an national electrical infrastructure where we can plug in all kinds of different sources. They could be coal, but they could be renewable resources like solar, winds, tides, etc. It is a lot easier to have electric cars and then upgrade the efficiency of our electrical systems than to create a whole new infrastructure like something like hydrogen would require.

Also, electrical cars require less moving parts and are easier to manufacture allowing it to be much easier for new companies to break in to the market.

So yes, bring on the electric car.

Re:That's it?

[bluefoxlucid]

This is the essence of every argument I've ever made against the crap in cars today. I know people who yank the ABS fuse in certain conditions, and leave it in in others, because ABS causes problems for people who know what they're doing in 6 inches of snow (stopping distance is much greater).

I'd buy a car with ABS, TC, and ESC; but I'd have it all off most of the time. Problem is, they don't give you an ABS switch anymore; when is the TC switch (which cuts off ESC too) going to go? I really, really don't mind switching this stuff on when I have to drive home in road conditions that I'm perfectly aware I can't reliably drive in; otherwise, I want the car to be predictable, rather than having a computer second-guess what to do to my steering/brakes based entirely on wheel spin speed and steering angle.

I don't want drive-by-wire. Gas pedal should pull on the air intake and open it wider, end of story. It shouldn't open it "a bit wider when it's cold" to "keep the fuel burn rate consistent," because damn, I don't know exactly how many millimeters I'm depressing the pedal, I just know I give it power and it goes! There's no reason to hide that the car's less efficient at -47 degrees from the driver, this is pure technology-because-it's-shiny.

Re:That's it?

[facelessnumber]

Preach it, brother... This is why I drive a 38 year old car, and I will continue to drive old cars until they're illegal, at which time I will become a criminal.

Re:That's it?

[bandmassa]

EVs, meh. As most of the world's electricity is coal-fired, and most modern battery technologies are carbon positive in production and disposal, EVs are no better solution than bio-fuels. (Which turn food producing land into petrol farms.) The ONLY sustainable vehicle is the bicycle. Maybe trains between major centres. Nothing else is "green" no matter how much carbon you offset.

Re:That's it?

[bandmassa]

The nuclear/rail/bicycle future! :D

Re:That's it?

[COMON$]

Cool, good to hear, I figured it was something rational. Especially points 1, and 3. The others are explained away, eg my suburban got 28mpg, that isn't what it was rated, that is just what we got when driving it. Cars are made from lighter alloys, electronics are able to do more on less watts now, and diesel isn't THAT much more expensive. Of course I live in a region of the US where agriculture is very prevalent.

Re:That's it?

[penguinstorm]

> What, no love for the Big 3?

Not really, no.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple you put a noise level ordinance in place. Cars have mufflers for a reason, bikes can too.

Re:That's it?

[SoopahCell]

Don't forget the Mini-E either.

http://www.miniusa.com/minie-usa/

100-150mi/charge, $850/mo lease

Re:That's it?

[keean]

Time will tell who is right...

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with all that reduction in cost, it still doesn't make economical sense for me (and most people I would assume) to own this.

It is actually hard to say at this point. Biggest cost reductions generally come with mass production, and initial prices correlate only lightly with later pricings.

But beyond this: most car purchase decisions are not really decided on by economical factors.
For some, notion of reducing pollution is feel-good factor that they value enough to make it
more likely purchase.
It is possible, too, that there might be tax incentives, if and when governments decide pollution reduction might be in their best interest as well.

Personally I do hope gas goes back to 4+$ of course, but even if it won't these vehicles will become more and more appealing over time.

Re:That's it?

[aztektum]

True you can't NOW, but when they're ubiquitous you won't even need to drive to a filling station. Instead you'll plug-in while parked. These sit right by the curb like a parking meter (I walked by them installing one in Portland the other day).

Re:That's it?

[craagz]

Maybe EVs will work better if the government comes up with Electric charge lines going over the road. you need charge get it by extending your charging stick (like electric trains). have a meter on the car for paying for what is charged. Used only when the power is about to run out or has run out. Like a laptop runs on AC (battery for EV) while the power is there and runs on battery (power line over road for EV) when no power is there. Hoping to have made sense.

Re:That's it?

[tigerbody1]

plug-in hybrids are after market.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

V2G

Viagra to go?

Re:That's it?

[droopycom]

Obviously it all depends what your input data is. I think your $15K premium is too low, since the article stated the price of the new aptera between 25K and 45K. I took the middle at $35K. The cheapest cars you can buy are less than 11K. So with those numbers the break even point is 12 years. Not even counting the cost of electricity.

Now how you count depends on your own perspective. Some things you cant put a price on it either.

- I didnt count financing yet . At 35K, I'm pretty sure I would need financing, at $11K not so much.
- You're going to say that the Aptera comes with more features than a cheapo chevy Aveo or Hyunday accent.
- But I'm going to say that you can carry 4 persons, including a car seat, in the cheapos cars.
- You're going to say less maintenance on the Aptera, I'm going to say my neighborhood shop wont know how to change the brakes or the windshield wipers on the Aptera.
- Depreciation could go either way.
- I'm counting people will keep the car 10 years, if you count 20 years, then bonus for the Aptera.
- If gas prices are going $8/gal or more, then even better for the Aptera.

At then end, Aptera might prove a better deal depending what your assumptions are.
But you cant predict the future. The fact is we have a lot more data to judge the current crop of cars for depreciation, maintenance cost etc. than we have for the Aptera.

The Aptera is basically still a gamble.

Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[gcnaddict]

parking lots. If Shelby Supercars created their own charging technology in-house, I wouldn't be surprised if (assuming SS licenses their technology, or assuming the company which licensed the tech to SS pushes it to other car manufacturers as well) gas stations are flattened and converted into parking lots with high-wattage 220volt outlets per parking spot.

Let's hope that SS's claims are true. This would eliminate the need for hydrogen cars as well (water vapor is another major greenhouse gas).

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[erbbysam]

Let's hope that SS's claims are true. This would eliminate the need for hydrogen cars as well (water vapor is another major greenhouse gas).

God forbid water vapor should be in the air!
 
:)

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[AKAImBatman]

water vapor is another major greenhouse gas

While I'm not so sure about a lot of climate science, water vapor is supposed to be a relatively invariant quantity. Excess vapor dumped into the air is not a concern as it will not remain long enough to be a greenhouse issue.

The greater concern is supposedly the CO2 gases since that is one of the few things we can change about the climate. (Especially with the ocean's capacity to be a huge carbon sink/carbon emitter.)

Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare. Supposedly our air conditioners were going to rip a hole in the Ozone layer and cook us all to death. Apparently, the CO2 we were ignoring is far more insidious.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[roc97007]

Just asking, how is electricity generated in your area? We're lucky enough to have mostly hydro, but I remember reading in one of those science mags that over 60% of electricity in the country was generated by burning coal.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[ElectricTurtle]

Don't you remember, that's how the Cetacean probe was destroying the Earth in Star Trek IV!

But seriously, water vapor? Without water vapor in the atmosphere there would be drought.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Idiomatick]

CFCs were much worse and HORRIBLE for the environment, it really would have cooked us to death. Thats why they were phased out across the globe in 1994, we'd have been seriously screwed had we not. Same idea goes for CO2, it is just less obvious.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[dangitman]

Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare.

We switched to hydrocarbons for things like aerosol cans, alternative gases for refrigeration, and places like McDonalds switched to cardboard from foam packaging. There aren't that many activities that require CFCs anymore.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[LandDolphin]

It is a green house gas. Sure, a certain lvel of it is needed, but youdon't want more then what is occuring naturally.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[CannonballHead]

Humans aren't natural?

I presume a "yes." Things humans make aren't natural? What if a monkey learned to make something, would it be natural?

Obviously I have a point to make here. From the evolutionary standpoint that most say they hold, human machinery is just as natural as a monkey using a bone as a club (sorry, I just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey). It's time to define "nature" and why I don't get to be considered "natural." Which seems like it will be hard to do form the scientific/atheistic viewpoint. Even more so when people want to tell me that genetically modified stuff is just as natural as non GMO stuff... "natural" stuff. So on one hand, we can modify nature and be natural, and on the other hand we can't.

And yes, this is on topic, since "greenhouse gas emissions" implies that there are natural and unnatural things, and most of the time, "global warming" is linked to those horribly unnatural and wicked humans.

As opposed to whatever caused the last ice age when humans weren't around, I guess.

/me runs away from the flamebait mods, hehe

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Xabraxas]

Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare. Supposedly our air conditioners were going to rip a hole in the Ozone layer and cook us all to death. Apparently, the CO2 we were ignoring is far more insidious.

CFCs were phased out a long time ago. They are still used in some applications but they are heavily regulated by the EPA to insure minimal impact on the environment.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[LandDolphin]

By that logic, is anything "unnatural"?

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[gtbritishskull]

"Natural" vs "Un-natural" really doesn't matter. The main thing is that the things we are doing is CHANGING the environment in which we evolved. The reason people like "natural" is that things in nature tend not to change very quickly, and they tend to promote homeostasis. I am not really worried about the earth surviving. It will. I am worried that humans will not survive in the environment that we create.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Rei]

It's just over 50%. After coal comes nuclear and natural gas (near-zero emission and low emission, respectively), which are nearly tied at just under 20% each, then hydro at 6.5% (near-zero emission), then oil and renewables at about 3% each. However, two points:

1) Renewables are very rapid growing. A third of the power that went onto our grid last year was wind alone. And that percent of renewables keeps rising, and is likely to rise even faster under the new administration.

2) Power plants are more efficient than internal combustion engines, and only get more efficient over time. Transmission and charging losses for EVs are minimal -- 92.8% US average transmission losses and typically 92-93% efficient chargers, 96-99% efficient li-ion batteries. Electric drivetrains are ~85-90% efficient in typical operation. Oh, and EVs that charge at night, like most do, can reduce the amount of spinning standby (wasted power) and increase power generation efficiency (many generator types are inefficient at reduced capacity).

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[sswanny]

Could all those ice core samples be wrong? Look it up.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Jorophose]

CFCs are going to cook you to death soon.

I've always wondered if the current "global warming" BS isn't just CFCs coming to haunt us.

Considering if CO2 keeps heat in, shouldn't it reflect an equal amount of heat? But the poles don't really have CO2 up high (from what I recall most of it falls there, and then gets covered with snow). So what if the ozone holes are letting in dangerous quantities of UV rays, that are climbing, and they just get reflected, creating most of this heat?

Now that makes more sense, to me at least.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[roc97007]

> 1) Renewables are very rapid growing. A third of the power that went onto our grid last year was wind alone. And that percent of renewables keeps rising, and is likely to rise even faster under the new administration.

I'm all for wind. (Although I've joked about "slowing down the earth" it's usually to trap people with no concept of scale.) But I remember reading that conservation organizations are trying to shut down wind farms because of the damage they do to birds and (more recently) bats. Is this still the case? I'm also just tickled pink that the US is finally getting serious about lessening our dependence on middle-eastern oil, in any reasonable fashion. I worry a little about possible destabilization of that region when revenue drops significantly, but that's for the politicians to figure out.

I'm also just tickled pink that the US is finally getting serious about lessening our dependence on middle-eastern oil, in any reasonable fashion. I worry a little about possible destabilization of that region when revenue drops significantly, but that's for the politicians to figure out.

Although there is a potential for millions of cars in their charge cradles at night helping to balance out capacity, I suspect that in actual use people will want or need to charge up somewhere on the road, if only because that fits the paradigm to which they've become accustomed. (But for other practical reasons also.) The original poster alluded to this -- "filling" stations that dispense electricity, presumably for a fee. A 10 minute charge time would make this scenario more likely. (Although this seems astoundingly short -- I wonder what current would be required?) This won't necessarily help balance generator capacity.

I'm not sure, though, if I buy into the original poster's contention that water vapor from hydrogen fuel cells will contribute in any significant fashion to global warming. Water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas, but I believe that's because of sheer volume, not because a little water vapor is a potent greenhouse contributor.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[SwedishPenguin]

Personally, I want to know what happened to the CFC scare. Supposedly our air conditioners were going to rip a hole in the Ozone layer and cook us all to death.

Well, it did cause holes in the ozone layer. Thankfully, we managed to phase CFC out before the doomsday scenario occurred. So the "CFC scare" was very effective at stopping the ozone depletion.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Rei]

But I remember reading that conservation organizations are trying to shut down wind farms because of the damage they do to birds and (more recently) bats. Is this still the case?

Even the Audubon Society supports Cape Wind. The "environmentalists" opposing these "controversial" wind farms are mostly just wealthy landowners who don't want the value of their homes to drop. The bird thing is largely a myth. Even taking into account the relatively small percent of our power that comes from wind, wind farms are just blips on the radar in terms of bird deaths in comparison to glass windows and housecats. The Audubon Society supports wind farms because pollution from fossil fuel power plants is a lot worse for birds than the very rare turbine-caused bird deaths.

Although this seems astoundingly short -- I wonder what current would be required?)

Depends on the size of your pack. On Oahu, they already have a network of AeroVironment Posicharge chargers, 60kW. Aerovironment makes them as big as ~250kW. As for generator capacity, the really big chargers use their own battery banks, which they trickle charge. And in the future, hopefully, will be able to smart charge and even feed power back.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[MichaelSmith]

In Alaska or Siberia you might be at risk of your exhaust pipe being blocked by ice.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[benjamindees]

CO2 is a greenhouse gas because, like the glass of a greenhouse, it transmits light in the visible spectrum but reflects light in the infrared.

The majority of the light from the Sun is in the visible spectrum. The vast majority of energy lost from the Earth is in the form of infrared light.

CO2, and other greenhouse gases, allow visible light from the Sun to strike the Earth, but block the heat (infrared light) that is emitted from the Earth.

This is an important concept to understand before one goes around in public claiming that global warming is "BS".

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Bonobo_Unknown]

By that logic, is anything "unnatural"?

No.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[jmorris42]

It's time to define "nature" and why I don't get to be considered "natural."

I can't imagine anything I'd write being better than what RAH wrote long ago, so....

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" -- but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race -- i.e., his own self-hatred.

In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.

As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women -- it strikes me as a fine arrangement -- and perfectly "natural".

Of course his use of 'naturist' betrays the age of the quote, now it would be environmentalist or Green.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[WCguru42]

Considering if CO2 keeps heat in, shouldn't it reflect an equal amount of heat?

Nope. The wavelength of radiation entering the Earth's atmosphere is not the same as that being reflected by the Earth. Basically, the greenhouse effect allows the entering wavelength to come in but traps the reflected wavelength back to the earth.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[WCguru42]

The bird thing is largely a myth.

As I've said previously, There are a lot of reasons why birds die.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[roc97007]

I remember that thread! "Oh, the costs". Well, to be perfectly truthful, your earlier missive in that thread had so many inaccuracies that I basically stopped reading at that point. I mean that in the most positive sense, of course.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[CannonballHead]

I think I left that to your worldview for consideration, not mine... since I don't adhere to an atheistic evolutionary standpoint, my basis for defining "natural" or "unnatural" is likely different. :)

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[WalksOnDirt]

But the poles don't really have CO2 up high (from what I recall most of it falls there, and then gets covered with snow).

No, carbon dioxide is well mixed in the troposphere. The poles have about as much above them as anywhere else does. It doesn't fall, the temperatures are not low enough to freeze it out, and even if that somehow happened there is too little snow at the center of Antarctica to impede the sublimation of the carbon dioxide when it warmes up.

The carbon dioxide level does slowly fall a few ppm with increasing altitude in the stratosphere, but I think this is because of it taking a long time for the increased level in the troposphere to diffuse up there. This is true everywhere, not just at the poles.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Rand310]

Nature is indeed a difficult concept to describe. But there is a relevant and practical distinction between humans and their creations and other animals'.

The most relevant definition I've come up with is rate of change. That which changes at order of magnitudes different than others is unnatural to its environment.

In this way, most of what humans do i unnatural. As are most virii, many catalytic processes and others. In being 'unnatural' they change their surroundings (environment) in drastic and often extreme ways.

I think it's unfair to a logically sound, if not-well resolved distinction to feel that much of what humans are doing to the planet today is unnatural. It is not self-hatred, rather an acknowledgement that a bever must live within strict confines of his environment and can only build what his surrounding will let him. We have escaped those bounds allowing us to build dams every 10 feet along every river on the glob if we had the inclination.

I too am a H. sapien, and with that unique distinction I and all of my products are indeed one and the same as that around me - but I am capable of great affect on those surroundings. There are very different limits on the rates of change I can affect than those placed on other entities around me.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Jorophose]

The carbon dioxide level does slowly fall a few ppm with increasing altitude in the stratosphere, but I think this is because of it taking a long time for the increased level in the troposphere to diffuse up there. This is true everywhere, not just at the poles.

Strange. It must have been raw C, then, or something else. I kept hearing that in winter time the arctic (well, rather, the north pole) is covered in the stuff, and that in the summer it gets carried around by (solar winds?).

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Jorophose]

This is an important concept to understand before one goes around in public claiming that global warming is "BS".

I was calling BS on the sensationalism. Something is obviously wrong, and we know that CFCs could still be a big part of it. But to jump the shark and start firing shots at everything is not the right way to do it.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[rhakka]

This is such a boring, shallow point. yes, Humans are natural and we have certain abilities to affect our environment which any reasonable observer should note is far, far beyond that of any other creature on earth. Right? Or are you claiming that massive scale coal power generation and Bone Clubs are really the same as far as life on earth is concerned because I have to say just on shallow, base examing it sure seems like huge amounts of coal smog affects a hell of lot more than a few monkeys in a jungle beating stuff with bones.

Look: most natural stuff is around because it has withstood millenia of evolutionary pressure. most of the bad stuff (bad, meaning "not sustainable" or "not fit for the world") died out. Nature is a tough mistress. She finds flaws and exploits them mercilessly.

What we are calling "unnatural" is really just "new"... or, more to the point, "relatively untested". Not many call cultivated or even naturally cross pollinated plants "unnatural" even though they are not the result of a random combination in nature. But many would call GMO plants unnatural... mainly because we haven't had them for a thousand years to see what happens with people who eat them vs people who don't.

It is absolutely reasonable and correct to trust something (if you're going to massively generalize, at least) that human beings have likely EVOLVED AROUND... such as, naturally grown, organic food... in an unchanged state, rather than some modern innovation which may or may not be better than all that came before, and that we will not know for sure until at least years, probably decades, and maybe even longer to see. Our recent modern history is littered with examples from baby formula to radium clocks to offgassing VOCs as examples of unintended downsides that are much less prevalent in "natural systems"... that is, the systems that have been around nearly as long as human beings themselves, or longer.

That is what it means to call something "natural". Meaning, "it's been around long enough to have a pretty clear understanding of the upsides and downsides" or maybe even "I probably have GENES that formed around this thing in me somewhere". Unnatural does not mean bad.. but it does mean you are much more likely to be unclear on how good or bad it really is, so far.

In other words, the "unnatural stuff" is COMPLETELY UNTESTED from an "evolutionary standpoint", which only cares about things on timeframes far, far longer than anything you in particular care about, since for it to have any evolutionary impact at all, you would have no way of knowing until the NEXT generation... at the earliest!

I don't give a fig about climate change (though I care a lot about environmental toxicity and resource depletion). But I do care when people act like tinkering on massive scales with basic life processes is the same as a monkey with a bone club. An ounce of perspective, please.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[caitsith01]

You're just playing semantics. There's a clear and logical distinction between animals living without the ability to develop and share technological methods for survival, and humans, who do have that.

From another thread where someone made a similar point (in that case it was that humans wiping out other species was 'natural' because we're animals too):

The problem with this type of reasoning is that we have evolved to a stage where we can "beat" any other species. Human-level intelligence has transformed evolutionary competition into a straight out massacre. We also have the ability to change the environment in ways which are effectively catacylsmic from the point of view of evolution - if you radically alter the environment over the course of a few decades or even centuries, then there is nowhere near enough time for a typical vertebrate to adapt via natural selection to a hostile environment.

If we are indeed affecting the climate, as seems likely, then I find it plausible to think that we could quite easily end up wiping out most species on earth, save for a few super-hardy ones. Unfortunately we will probably survive ourselves, which hardly seems fair. If you want to compete until the end, I hope you like the sound of a future filled with cockroaches, feral cats, rabbits, rats and flies because those are the types of animals which will thrive in a man made environmental apocalypse.

I would like to think that if we are intelligent enough to realise that we have the power to exterminate the other varieties of life on earth, then we are also intelligent enough to realise why we shouldn't (including both cold rational reasons and aesthetic/moral reasons).

Do you really believe that it is ok on any level if, say, every last tiger dies as a result of human impact on the environment? What if we go out and shoot them all? Because we could, and it sounds like you're saying that would be good and proper, or at least 'evolutionarily correct' in some way.

You are 'natural' in one sense. But when most people distinguish between 'nature' and what humans do, they mean it in the sense that, by reason of our intelligence, language and technology, humans have reached a point where they are no longer subject to the usual medium-term ecological forces which limit the effect animals have on their environment. We may still be subject to long-term ecological forces, but unfortunately that will probably involve all life on earth dying.

You should read Ishmael. At the very least it's a thought-provoking consideration of how humans differ from other animals.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[WalksOnDirt]

That's not too far off from what happens on Mars. Maybe you just got your planets mixed up.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[Molochi]

It was pointed out to me not so long ago that the term "natural" refers to a specific dogmatic ordering of what/who effects events in the universe. Anything effected by mankind is unnatural. The affects of everything else is natural.

This is actually what the word means. It might come from the judeo/christian belief that God gave us freewill and mastery of the world. Kinda like how "Alchemical" describes the belief in the Ptolemaic system.

So if a bonobo sat down one day and made a cobalt bomb it would be natural. But if someone who decended from Lucy's genepool did it, it would be unnatural.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[An Onerous Coward]

Natural, unnatural. Who cares? We're just as dead. By your reasoning, all murders are natural deaths, the same as when bugs kill or eat each other. I have no problem with those semantics, as long as you don't go on to claim that we should therefore eliminate laws against murder. Which is basically what you're doing here.

In short, don't mistake semantic shenanigans for actual contributions to the discussion.

I don't know where you're getting your belief that "greenhouse gas emissions" is a loaded, anti-human term. There are unarguably natural sources of greenhouse gases. The oceans emit H20, trees emit methane, animals and volcanoes emit CO2. The difference is, those sources are historically well-balanced with CO2 sinks. Human emissions are not, which is why our (much smaller) emissions actually raise CO2 concentrations, when other sources don't. Source.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[PMBjornerud]

Humans aren't natural?

I presume a "yes." Things humans make aren't natural? What if a monkey learned to make something, would it be natural?

Logically incorrect, the "artificial" argument should be considered a convenient simplification.

Humans are capable of creating some really nasty stuff. This is linked with industrialization and advances in chemistry. Or in short, that we're advancing so much faster than evolution can keep up with.

The "natural" approach simply reduces the exposure to things that you're not evolution-proofed by.

Lesson learned: DDT.

I'll err on the "natural" side of things. We can't evolve fast enough to adapt to advances in technology, but we can discover harmful side effects and learn from them. You are free to embrace any and all things "artificial", but one could argue that you're performing the job of human guinea pig by doing so.

Re:Soon, gas stations will be replaced by

[pixelpusher220]

I've also read that the newer 'mega' windmills actually are much safer for birds as they turn more slowly and use gearing to ramp up rotational energy for power generation.

maybe 'bigger is better' isn't such a bad thing ;-)

question

[trybywrench]

Toby Hunter, Minneapolis Star. No really, is this a joke?

Math

[Anonymous Coward]

1000hp = 745,699.872 watts
American High Voltage Outlet = 240 V
745699.872 / 240 = 3123 A

And this things charges in 10 minutes? Uh, right.

Re:Math

[Fudge Factor 3000]

You obviously don't need 1000 hp all the time, so the average power output of the engine is going to be a lot lower...

Re:Math

[ccool]

Sorry but your maths are not exactly right!

Watts != Energy
Watts == Power!

Huge difference there. But I do agree that charging batteries for 100 miles/161km in 10 minutes will require a lot of Energy. I'll give it a try...

I read somewhere that a car needs about 30 hp on the highway at 100 km/h (62mph). If that is true, you will need about 22.37 kW for 1.61 hours. This means about 36 kW-hour of energy. Now, back to your house, in order to charge that in 10 minutes, you will need a power output of 216.1 kW. Using 240 Vac, this will result in a current of 900 Amp.

I may be wrong, but 900 Amps is a lot more than what the tipical house can take (200 Amps over here).

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

They are talking about a charging aparatus. Perhaps this device draws and stores charge in capacitors or other short term facility and then dumps that into the vehicle? 240V @ 6 amps could be drawn on average per day to supply?

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU may not need 1000hp all the time, but rest assured, *I* do.

Re:Math

[gplus]

Nice math, but:
If you're in a hurry, you don't charge your batteries. You just exchange them at the gas station. When they have the infrastructure down, this will take seconds.

Re:Math

[Kleen13]

Better start hitting the gym, cause those suckers are heavy!

Re:Math

[Rei]

A typical aerodynamic EV draws just over 200Wh/mi. A hyper-aerodynamic one like the Aptera can use much less, but let's ignore that for now and say 200Wh/mi * 200 mi = 40kWh. 40kWh / 235 (voltage drop) / 0.90 typical fast-charger efficiency * 6 = 1100 amps.

And yes, some people are skeptical of this claim. It's not that delivering this sort of power is impossible -- far from it. Aerovironment's PosiCharge line goes up to the 250kW range -- that's the upper end of what's known as "L3" charging. But as far as I'm aware, that's normally done at higher voltages, with only a few hundred amps and a cooled cable. These sorts of powers sound extreme, and they are compared to what's in a typical wall outlet, but on the scheme of things, they're smaller than what goes into the switch at even a small industrial facility *24/7*. The only thing novel about this application (charging) is the requirement to be able to safely attach and detach this kind of current.

Note that the only commercially-available batteries I'm aware of that could potentially meet these charging requirements are AltairNano's "nano-titanate" cells (a similar chemistry to Toshiba's SCiB). They could meet it easily, but they're super-expensive -- $2/Wh. Much cheaper are spinels and phosphates, but they're generally limited to 15-20 minutes for a full charge.

Re:Math

[gplus]

So, in other words. Electric cars will provide jobs for uneducated labour. Well more power to the 'lectric cars then.

Re:Math

[ccool]

I understand your point of view, but charging capacitor during the whole day is not a viable option. This is due to the fact that the amount of Joules needed is enormous.

If you think about it, why would'nt we put these capacitor directly into the car... The answer, we can't (yet). The volume would be too big. This means the charging aparatus would be HUGE! hence, you would need a garage for the aparatus itself (plus probably a good amounth of cash). Unless, like you said, if it was at a charging station...

Re:Math

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a warehouse for a summer. We had battery operated pallet jacks and battery operated forklifts, because obviously you don't want the exhaust from a combustion engine inside. The batteries for the pallet jacks weighed 1100 pounds. The ones for the forklift weighted about 3000.

Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Bearhouse]

And a range of 5 miles if you use it.
Now that gas has come down in price, predict these things - as always - arriving too late/early for the market.

Still want a Tesla, tho'.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

chevy volt?

[Anonymous Coward]

am i the only one that has been continually disappointed by the chevy volt? shorter distance on charge, underpowered, longer charge time, and still nowhere near the streets.

Re:chevy volt?

[Anonymous Coward]

...no JATO rockets, less space than a minivan. Lame.

Here's what we need...

[HeyBob!]

- 5 passenger
- mid size and safe
- 500km range
- a/c and heat
- charge up at home and work
- under $20,000

Re:Here's what we need...

[ccool]

Wait, what, no: "Choose two" ?!?

Re:Here's what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

You just used dollars and KM in the same post...

TRAITOR!

Re:Here's what we need...

[Locke2005]

A plug-in version of the new Honda Insight Hybrid comes close to those specs, but I suspect for a pure electric the 500km range is incompatible with the other requirements -- the batteries alone would cost over $20k for a 500km (300mi) range. I would settle for a hybrid with those specs.

Re:Here's what we need...

[sir_eccles]

500km range = time to get the train or airplane

Most journeys that people really need their cars for are less than 50km, going to the shops and commuting.

Re:Here's what we need...

[DreamsAreOkToo]

- 17" chrome rims
- aggressive "face"
- chrome grills
- tall enough for your kids to easily flip it
- 10 billion dollar advertising campaign
- large enough to kill anyone I hit

We want people to actually use these things, remember?

Re:Here's what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

+ Stop making these cars look like they came out of I Robot or Bicentennial man. Some people are cool with standing out but most of us will feel like idiots driving around in these ridiculous looking things. Not to mention the fact that it's preferable if a car meant for day to day activities didn't practically have "I'm worth a shitload of money" printed on it.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Idiomatick]

500km? A honda civic gets about that i'm sure people will be willing to give up SOMETHING. You described exactly a honda civic with a bit more range, the ability to charge at home and much lower cost to drive around. I'm sure people will be willing to spend more or give up some range. Generally people don't need to go from Toronto to Philly in on go without a stop.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Chrutil]

- 5 passenger - mid size and safe - 500km range - a/c and heat - charge up at home and work - under $20,000

I agree to almost everything except that on a plug-in charge, its range should be around 40 miles.
It needs to go 500km, but that would be using gas-electric or other hybrid technology, but there is certanly no need to do it purely on electric power.

Re:Here's what we need...

[mrsquid0]

>500km range = time to get the train or airplane
>Most journeys that people really need their cars for are less than
>50km, going to the shops and commuting.

That is true, but most people do not want to have to worry about recharging (or refueling) their vehicle after each trip.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

A plug-in version of the new Honda Insight Hybrid comes close to those specs, but I suspect for a pure electric the 500km range is incompatible with the other requirements -- the batteries alone would cost over $20k for a 500km (300mi) range. I would settle for a hybrid with those specs.

I think that was his point...until we improve tech to the point where they aren't incompatible requirements we won't be able to get true mass appeal.

Re:Here's what we need...

[robot_love]

...or a Canadian.

Re:Here's what we need...

[kraut]

A hybrid with a plug-in range of 80-100 KM and a quick (4h) charge would cover most people's commute.

The batteries for a 500km range would also weigh tonnes, reducing the range .. ;(

Re:Here's what we need...

[gtbritishskull]

Aerodynamics changes the look of a car. If you feel like an idiot driving an aerodynamic car then stick to your gas guzzlers.

Re:Here's what we need...

[PrescriptionWarning]

most likely you're only going to get half that range in the near future, but even that wouldn't be half bad so long as the time it takes to recharge is reasonable.

Re:Here's what we need...

[benjamindees]

hahahahaha, lemme make that a bit more realistic:

- 2 passenger
- small and safe
- 300 km (185 mile) range
- a/c and heat
- charge up at home and work
- under $25,000

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

500km range = time to get the train or airplane

Assuming there's a railway station or airfield anywhere near where you're going.

I pretty regularly make a 500 mile round trip, which could not be done by air (well, private plane maybe), could not be done by rail (no railway anywhere near), or for that matter by bus (well, it *could* if I didn't actually need to take more stuff than I can physically carry by myself).

A hybrid wouldn't be much use either, because its dinky little 60bhp engine would be working very very hard to carry the battery and electric motor around, as well as all the rest of the car. At no point in the trip would it be running on electricity.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Rei]

I see it just the opposite. I, personally, am not fond of discovering that I have to go out of my way home from work to fill up with gas in the middle of a blizzard. I'd much rather just plug in each night and know that I never have to go out of my way to "fill up" except on long trips (i.e., the exceptions, not everyday life).

I think the "500 km" requirement is not borne of anything actually related to driving, but simply is an artifact of "lets be like gas cars!" Gas cars need long range in order to cut down on how frequently you have to deal with the annoyance of having to fill up the tank in your everyday life. When it comes to long trips, the times you actually need range, you're supposed to get out and stretch every couple hours anyway. So so long as there's good enough infrastructure that there are frequent enough rapid charging stations (fast charging EV) / battery swap stations (battery-swapping EV) / gas stations (range extending trailer or PHEV), 150 miles range seems just peachy.

Re:Here's what we need...

[xaxa]

I pretty regularly make a 500 mile round trip, which could not be done by air (well, private plane maybe), could not be done by rail (no railway anywhere near), or for that matter by bus (well, it *could* if I didn't actually need to take more stuff than I can physically carry by myself).

This isn't Soviet Russia, the electric car needn't be suitable for 100% of the trips made by 100% of the population. Making something usable for most trips my most people would be good enough. (Ideally, I'd like to see most people living where they can cycle/walk for most journeys, but that's another issue.)

Re:Here's what we need...

[WCguru42]

it's preferable if a car meant for day to day activities didn't practically have "I'm worth a shitload of money" printed on it.

It's also preferable if a car meant for day to day activities didn't have a 1000HP engine. This car is not something you buy for everyday activities, this is a car you buy so you can say, "I'm worth a shitload of money."

Re:Here's what we need...

[Jorophose]

No thanks. Train = 8 hour trip for 400$ a person, airplane = 3 hour trip for 600$ a person, car = ~500$ for an 8 hour trip as a group of 6.

This is why North America likes its big cars. I personally think SVUs are shit, but I wouldn't buy any of the seriously overcramped cars I saw in Belgium... in Europe the price of flying is cheap. Here it isn't. Here we have the comfort of just driving eight hours to our destinations. I'm two hours from Montreal, five hours from Toronto, eight to nine hours from Detroit, and about 5-6 hours from New York.

Screw the plane. I'll drive there and it'll be cheaper.

And until I can do this sort of stuff with an electric car, do not want. On the other hand, Tesla has an excellent start with that ~430km range (isn't it?) and even just 200km is pretty good for city stuff. (you'd be suprised at the amount of taxing some parents do, and even more so at how clogged a city can be when its transport services are run by greed)

Re:Here's what we need...

[mrsquid0]

The thing is, I want my car to be able to work if the power goes out for a few days. I want to have the option of not needing to think about refueling (or repowering) every day. Gassing up is simple. It is on the Sunday chore list, so it is part of the routine. If I have to worry about it every time that I go out it is going to get irritating fast. On the other hand, people get used to all sorts of irritating things...

Re:Here's what we need...

[westlake]

If you feel like an idiot driving an aerodynamic car then stick to your gas guzzlers.

how much benefit do you get from aerodynamic design in the urban utility vehicle or the surburban commuter car?

Re:Here's what we need...

[Rei]

Gas pumps don't work without power, either.

If power's out at your home, then for those rare days, you need to go elsewhere to fill up. But again, that's the exception, not the rule.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Waccoon]

Oh, come on. How many regular cars are there under $20,000?

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

This isn't Soviet Russia, the electric car needn't be suitable for 100% of the trips made by 100% of the population.

Exactly. I just wanted to point out that they're not the universal panacea.

Hybrids would work extremely well for taxis. I've often wondered why they don't have more hybrid taxis - perhaps Toyota won't licence the technology? You've got a nice big boot for storing batteries, a big slow-revving diesel engine with plenty torque to spin a generator, and a large space for the gearbox. Perhaps they could be retrofitted.

Re:Here's what we need...

[azadrozny]

The passenger capacity of the electric cars I have seen is a problem for me and I suspect a lot of other families. My family needs a sedan that can hold three young children in the back seat (car seats are very wide). A minivan option is also nice since it carry the grandparents that visit frequently on the weekends.

Range is also important. 500km is close to the current range of our current cars on one tank of gasoline.

Hybrids are only just now beginning to meet these requirements. All the electric cars I have seen are not practical for most families.

Re:Here's what we need...

[MtViewGuy]

Alas, you won't get that with an all-electric vehicle unless there is a MAJOR breakthrough in battery technology.

The vehicle you described is more appropriate to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, which may be able to travel as much as 800 km (500 miles) on a single tank of gasoline.

Re:Here's what we need...

[mrsquid0]

>Gas pumps don't work without power, either.

But the gallons of petrol in the tank do. The point is that having to think about recharging after each trip is a lot more effort than planning a once-a-week trip to the local petrol station.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Locklin]

Why would you carry a power supply capable of 500km around with you every day? How often do you drive that far? It just seems pointless to carry that extra weight. Unless battery energy density gets so high that it doesn't matter, I'd prefer a lighter system with some way to compensate for the range (battery exchange stations, rapid charge stations, charging rail on highways, plug-in hybrid, detachable auxiliary battery, just take the train, etc...)

Re:Here's what we need...

[Rei]

Gasoline car, when power is on, everyday use (99.5% of the time): Drive to the gas station once every week or so.
Gasoline car, when the power is off (0.5% of the time): Drive to the gas station once every week or so.

Electric car, when the power is on, everyday use (99.5% of the time): Never drive to a charging station.
Electric car, when the power is off (0.5% of the time): Drive to a charging station every day or two.

How, exactly, is the former better? It's only a better situation in that 0.5% of the time (actually, less) that the power is out. Why optimize for that sub-0.5% of the time instead of that 99.5% of the time?

Re:Here's what we need...

[gtbritishskull]

It depends on what area you are in. Do you use your suburban commuter car on the highway? The drag goes up by the square of the speed. So, if you double your speed you quadruple your drag. But, regardless, an aerodynamic car will get better milage than a non-aerodynamic car. Even if you are going slow. And, I understand if you need a pickup truck (and actually use it consistently instead of just commuting to work in it). It should look like a pickup truck because that is more useful. In that case you should sacrifice your milage for utility. But, if the whole reason why you don't buy an electric car is because you don't like their aerodynamic look, then I think you are shallow and an idiot. (directed in general, not at parent)

Re:Here's what we need...

[ptudor]

But in a car I only need two passengers, a 50km range, no heat or AC, I only expect to charge it at home, and I'd pay $30k for a pure-EV, no PHEV. I don't need whatever makes the Volt a $40k+ car unless it's faster and smaller than my chipped GTI.

So I settled on my one-passenger EV with a 50mile range, sunlight for heat or sea breeze for AC, I only charge it at home, and with VRLA batteries it's a tenth of the price I'd pay for a two-seater. (So I upgraded the batteries to Li-Ion.)

Re:Here's what we need...

[ptudor]

LiFePo4 I should say

Re:Here's what we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

The perfect environment for electric cars is urban areas (short trips, low speeds where gas is inefficient). Unfortunately, when you live in a city you don't usually have a private garage attached to your home where you could recharge your EV every night.

Rather, you live on the Nth floor of building X and the car is parked on the street a few blocks away, or you're paying $150/month for an assigned spot on a parking lot without an electric outlet, or $250/month for a spot in a garage also without an electric outlet. This is why it's still a requirement that the EV has a decent range... You do have to go out of your way to fill it up just like a gas car.

Re:Here's what we need...

[zippthorne]

"gas guzzlers" are already fairly aerodynamic. And nothing about the power-plant affects drag.

If an electric car is so anemic that it needs a special "super aerodynamic body" to have acceptable performance, then that same body over a gasoline car would provide more than enough improvement to take electric cars out of the running until gas gets really expensive.

Re:Here's what we need...

[jeff4747]

All the electric cars I have seen are not practical for most families.

If you're like most families, you have at least 2 cars.

"Dad's" car, that he uses for commuting to an from work. This is electric/efficient/etc, since he only uses it for commuting, and maybe drive to lunch.

Have "Mom's" car be a traditional sedan/minivan. Aside from it's daily uses, it also serves the outlier cases.

(Swap "Dad" and "Mom" as appropriate)

Re:Here's what we need...

[Whorhay]

Mom's vehicle is likely already rather fuel efficient when you break it down to miles per occupant.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Vexinator]

Two words: Emergency Generator

Re:Here's what we need...

[pixelpusher220]

remember that most people don't *need* an SUV either. Your point about not being near a train or plane is a valid concern based on the US geography; i.e. very big. But lots and lots of people live close enough to other transportation options to make the electrics/hybrid's a viable market.

A hybrid's only failing (I own a 2003 Civic Hybrid) is sustained major mountain climbs. The gas engine is smaller because of the electric motors doing part of the work. When the 'juice' runs out, your left climbing with an underpowered car. But it does climb them just fine, just slower since it loses the electric boost after a while. Most people don't climb Pikes Peak very often though...so this isn't a major concern.

The range extended hybrids likely won't have this problem since they will run completely on electricity and the gas engine simply providing the electricity for the electric motors when the batteries are depleted. (same as diesel electric locomotives...the diesels never actually 'drive' the train)

You're complaint about hybrids not being able to carry the battery and electric motor is complete hooey. The 'extra' weight is something like 10-15% of the vehicle weight. By doing this you get to recapture 100% of the kinetic energy of the moving vehicle. This is how hybrids work, capture wasted or cheaply generated power, and reuse it in times of high power need.

The all electric vehicles will certainly have this ability as well...it would be stupid not to have it.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

A hybrid's only failing (I own a 2003 Civic Hybrid) is sustained major mountain climbs.

I live in Scotland. Half of any journey is mountain climbs.

You're complaint about hybrids not being able to carry the battery and electric motor is complete hooey. The 'extra' weight is something like 10-15% of the vehicle weight. By doing this you get to recapture 100% of the kinetic energy of the moving vehicle.

And that's going to last how long? A couple of minutes? Why not just use a 60bhp engine with a conventional gearbox, and not have all this heavy lossy extra stuff?

Re:Here's what we need...

[azadrozny]

That could work for some families. In my family we split the drop off at school and daycare. Mom drops off in the AM and dad picks up in the PM. There is no one best fit for all families. This is why I would like to see more options in the electric market than are currently offered. I am willing to sacrifice on horsepower, but I cannot give up passenger/luggage capacity and distance.

Re:Here's what we need...

[jeff4747]

I submit it will work better once one or more of the kids are no longer in car seats.

Re:Here's what we need...

[pixelpusher220]

Not having been to Scotland (yet!) I won't argue about the terrain ;-) So it's entirely possible a hybrid wouldn't be a great solution; nobody is claiming they are the complete end all be all for every situation.

As for how long it takes, I don't follow your question. In current hybrids the extra 'weight' is the battery, the transmission additions, and the regenerative breaking apparatus. For the 10-15% weight penalty you get to recoup energy from 100% the kinetic energy you've *already* spent getting the car moving. Obviously it's not 100%, but even if it's 60% you're still ahead of the game in terms of net energy. Its going to be wasted if you don't recapture, so why not?

It does work, I get 20-30% better fuel economy than a standard Honda Civic.

When you start talking full electric's with range extenders (PHEVs), then you won't have the mountain climb problems since all the propulsion is done by the electric motors. The gas engine just supplies the electricity. So those will work for your situation as there isn't any loss in power except when the gas runs out...which is no different than regular cars ;-)

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

It might suit some driving styles. If you're doing a lot of stop-start driving then yes, a hybrid will work. I tend to get the car moving and then sit at a fairly constant speed for several hours. There's not much stopping involved, because there's not much to stop for. If you're only slowing down a little then there's nothing to be gained by using a hybrid system compared to just lifting off the throttle a bit - when you speed up again you've still got to overcome drag on the car and the hybrid system will only put back what using magnetodynamic braking removed.

Re:Here's what we need...

[pixelpusher220]

actually it will still work out better. Because the long constant driving is a fairly low energy need/high economy situation. The systems also can pull energy from the drive train while your driving.

My Civic does this when I'm almost out of battery charge, it uses the transmission to charge the battery when its not under heavy load. If you need to hit the accelerator it stops the charging and gives you the full power of the drive train.

its the same concept in a slightly different implementation. You take energy generated during a period of high economy (constant cruising) and store it for reuse during low economy (acceleration/climbing).

The full electric (PHEV's) will do this by default, charging the batteries using the range extender gas engine when power needs are below the generated power.

think of it as buying something when its on sale for use at time when its not on sale. You get the benefit of a lower price without the penalty having to buy it right when you need it.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

its the same concept in a slightly different implementation. You take energy generated during a period of high economy (constant cruising) and store it for reuse during low economy (acceleration/climbing).

You're not saving anything, because the engine has to work harder to charge the battery. Look at it like this:

If I slow down using magnetodynamic braking, I'm recovering energy that would normally be dissipated as heat by the brakes, and storing it in the battery.

If I then speed up, I can drain the battery and use that energy to recover some of the speed I lost. The energy to do this is "free", because it would otherwise have been wasted.

If I'm travelling at a constant speed, and the battery is not being charged, the engine is using a certain amount of fuel.

If the generator starts to charge the battery, this places an additional load on the engine, and I need to open the throttle further and burn more fuel to compensate for it. This energy is *not* free.

Re:Here's what we need...

[pixelpusher220]

You are correct but you're missing the bigger picture. The gains from using the transmission to charge the battery are less than using strictly regenerative breaking, but they are still better than just using the gas engine for acceleration. If your home electric rates are different at different times of the day, when does it make sense to charge your cell phone battery? during the periods of low energy cost.

It really is like the sale scenario I mentioned. It costs less to generate energy during constant cruising rather than heavy acceleration, yes? Your fuel economy is higher during cruising because of this. You will reduce your cruising economy *slightly* in this scenario, that I fully admit. But by using this 'cheaper' energy during periods of 'expensive' energy such as acceleration, you end up with a net saving of energy expended, and thus better overall fuel economy.

Spend 1-2% when you can easily spare it for bigger savings when you need more energy. And do note, this is *only* when the battery needs charging, not all the time.

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

it costs less to generate energy during constant cruising rather than heavy acceleration, yes?

No, it doesn't. It costs more, because with the throttle closed the engine is far less efficient. Okay, so opening up the throttle will then increase the efficiency, but I don't think that's going to be enough to pay for the extra fuel used. For the engine to be running at its most efficient, it should be at wide-open throttle. That won't be when it's at its most economical, though ;-)

Your argument would work rather better with a diesel engine, which doesn't have a throttle at all and therefore is always running with the greatest possible airflow. Pumping efficiency is much higher. I do wonder why they don't have diesel hybrids - petrol engines are about the worst you could possibly use.

For most of the journey - when I'm not accelerating, but sticking to a fairly constant speed - the hybrid bits are extra weight. Taking the midpoint of your estimate - 12.5%, say - that would be an extra 175kg in my car. That's more than two adults (or 1.75 Gordonjcps :-/ ) and I would definitely see a hit on fuel consumption hauling around an extra two people.

Re:Here's what we need...

[pixelpusher220]

I'm wondering if we're talking about different things because your arguments don't make any sense based on actual real world experience.

I will admit to not being that knowledgeable about the inner workings of motors but here goes...

From Wikipedia:
In a petrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine, the throttle is a valve that directly regulates the amount of air entering the engine, indirectly controlling the fuel burned on each cycle due to the fuel-injector or carburetor maintaining a relatively constant fuel/air ratio.

So the more open the throttle is, more fuel is being used per piston cycle, yes?

How is that *more* efficient than when the throttle is letting in less fuel per piston cycle? Its great for exceleration since you want to change the cars inertia - you impart that extra energy expended into the speed.

When you're going at a constant speed you don't need full power, as such the throttle is definitely not fully open. The energy needed to turn the shaft is lower hence less fuel and better economy.

If it worked as I understand your reasoning cars would get their best fuel economy when the accelerator is floored. That is obviously not the case.

Yes you pay a penalty carrying around the weight of the extra stuff. But the penalty is lower than the gain you get back from it in the electric energy it stores from the braking/transmission.

The base measuring stick here is the fuel economy of the vehicle. By your logic, hybrids would get worse overall fuel economy, and yet they *all* get better economy than their gas only equivalents. Please explain how that can be if its as you say?

Re:Here's what we need...

[Gordonjcp]

I will admit to not being that knowledgeable about the inner workings of motors but here goes...

That's okay, you probably know more about your favourite subject than I do. Sit tight, read carefully and don't be afraid to ask questions.

From Wikipedia:
In a petrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine, the throttle is a valve that directly regulates the amount of air entering the engine, indirectly controlling the fuel burned on each cycle due to the fuel-injector or carburetor maintaining a relatively constant fuel/air ratio.

Correct - note the bit about "relatively constant fuel/air ratio", we're going to come back to that.

So the more open the throttle is, more fuel is being used per piston cycle, yes?

Yes, but that's not the whole story.

How is that *more* efficient than when the throttle is letting in less fuel per piston cycle? Its great for exceleration since you want to change the cars inertia - you impart that extra energy expended into the speed.

Okay - remember that bit about "relatively constant fuel/air ratio"? That's important, and it's the key to understanding why petrol engines are less efficient than diesels. The throttle is a butterfly valve across the engine air intake. It's basically a metal disc mounted along a rotating shaft, which can be turned to block off the air intake. With the engine at idle, the disc is almost perpendicular to the air intake, so it blocks it. At wide-open throttle, the disc is parallel to the air intake, so it is "edge on" to the airflow and blocks it as little as possible. Going back to Wikipedia, you'll see a section diagram of a carburettor which will give you an idea - see how the bottom flap rotates to block the airflow?

Right. So, if you read the Wikipedia article on carburettors then you'll see how that all works - opening the throttle increases airflow, which draws more fuel through the jet, and the fuel/air mix stays about the same. In modern cars we use fuel injection, which actually just measures the airflow and opens a little solenoid valve to admit a certain amount fuel. This lets us control the mixture very accurately even at very small throttle settings, where engines are typically quite inefficient.

Wait, that was the bit you didn't get. How can it be inefficient when it's not using much fuel? Well efficiency is not the same as economy. It may only be using a small amount of fuel, but that doesn't mean that it is using it as well as it could! The engine has to work harder to draw air past the closed throttle - that would be the pumping loss I mentioned earlier. Let's try a non-car analogy - imagine cycling quickly so that you're breathing quite fast. Is it easier to breath through your mouth or your nose? You *can* breath through your nose but because the intake area is restricted, your diaphragm has to work harder to inflate your lungs. Because there is a larger charge of fuel and air at higher throttle settings, it swirls more in the cylinder and spreads out, making it burn more efficiently.

I haven't even begun to go into how things like valve overlap affect engine efficiency at higher speeds (suffice it to say that your exhaust system must resonate at a particular frequency, and altering the exhaust will make efficiency worse. So all the ricers with "reversed over a bucket" exhausts are making their cars *less* powerul, often by as much as 25%) or other things like that, mostly because many people have written very fat books with very complicated graphs explaining it.

Typically petrol engines are less than 10% efficient at low throttle settings and approach 20% or more at their designed optimum speed. Diesel engines, which as I mentioned earlier have no throttle, are overall somewhat more efficient because of their higher compression ratio and lower pumping losses. Because petrol engines are less efficient at low speeds, hybrids can and do make sense in towns, where you're

I meant too much water vapor.

[gcnaddict]

Well duh, water vapor should always be in the air, but if suddenly a whole bunch of cars start creating immense amounts of water vapor from hydrogen gas + oxygen... well, that's much more water that's being converted from liquid to gas than by weather alone (or even by cars today).

It's a fact overlooked by many.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[sycodon]

Clearly, you have never lived in the southern states.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[vakuona]

Do you have an idea how much water vapour is released over the oceans.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[gcnaddict]

Do you have any idea how much more will be released if every car on the planet is replaced with a hydrogen-powered car? It won't happen now, but it will later if Hydrogen takes off. That's why I'm fond of electric-powered vehicles... or mini fusion plants in cars, but that won't happen during our lifetimes, nor would it be too nice given that we'd be converting water permanently to helium and oxygen (breaking down water and fusing the hydrogen).

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Anonymous Coward]

It will increase humidity but then it'll rain. I suppose that'll make things more bleak but its better than death by lung cancer i guess.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[JesseL]

Do you realize that one of the primary combustion products of a conventional hydrocarbon burning engine is water vapor?

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Anonymous Coward]

What, no love for the atomic car? Ford had a concept car powered by a nuclear reactor called the Nucleon, in the 1950:s.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[cayenne8]

"It will increase humidity but then it'll rain. I suppose that'll make things more bleak but its better than death by lung cancer i guess."

I guess you've never seen street flooding in NOLA during the rainy season....?

:)

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[hardburn]

It's a fact overlooked by many.

They should keep overlooking it. H20 is a greenhouse gas, but it's close to saturated nearly everywhere on the planet already. If you put a little more in, it'll just rain out. In the places where it's not saturated (which is pretty much only near the poles), it'll freeze out.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[hardburn]

Also, the hydrogen you'd use in a car almost certainly came from water that already existed. Or worse, it came from methane produced from oil wells (which is where most of the current hydrogen production comes from). Not only that, but current cars already put out lots of H2O as a result of the normal combustion process.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Bonobo_Unknown]

why not just condense the vapor back into liquid? You could have the vapor being fed into a container where it's condensed back to water...

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Anonymous Coward]

At last, I'll get to savour the real English weather again... right from my balcony in New York!

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Waffle Iron]

Do you have any idea how much more will be released if every car on the planet is replaced with a hydrogen-powered car?

Why, yes. But let's not stop there: What if all of the world's energy needs were met by burning hydrogen?

The annual global energy consumption is somewhere around 5e20 J. That would mean burning 3.5e12 kg of H2 to create 3.1e13 kg of water. Worldwide annual precipitation is 5e17 kg of water, which is more than 16000X greater.

In other words, even in the worst case our impact on humidity levels would be lost in the statistical noise. And as others have pointed out, any of this insignificant excess would rain out within a couple of days (in contrast to CO2, which lingers for centuries).

We undoubtedly already cause much larger variations in humidity by building dams and other activities that alter the balance between land and water surface area. Maybe you should worry about that instead of hydrogen cars.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Molochi]

It's true. If we got more water in the air here, it would just fall to the ground and make a puddle.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is H-twenty? Are you really too retarded to distinguish between 'O' and '0'?

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[vakuona]

And, if I may add, where do you think we will be getting the hydrogen? (Hint, it doesn't exist naturally in it's pure state).

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[kabocox]

They should keep overlooking it. H20 is a greenhouse gas, but it's close to saturated nearly everywhere on the planet already. If you put a little more in, it'll just rain out. In the places where it's not saturated (which is pretty much only near the poles), it'll freeze out.

Flooding or massive non seasonal storms are nothing that we need to worry about as a side effect.

Actually we aren't that foresighted. We'd do it; get the massive flooding/non-seasonal storms, and then go back to see who to blame for it.

That's why I'm iffy on the entire climate change thing. It's more like us to do nothing now. When it hits, we'd change stuff, and then who ever comes out on top would punish who ever they pulled out of the hat to blame. This looking ahead and actually planning and taking species wide collective action is definitely generally non-human behavior from what we've seen before. ;)

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[hardburn]

Your ability to get hung up on an obvious typo inspires us all.

Re:I meant too much water vapor.

[hardburn]

Again, where are you getting all this hydrogen in the first place? Right now, it's mostly coming from methane produced as a side effect of oil wells, but I can't see that continuing if hydrogen-based cars cause a huge spike in demand. It's almost certainly going to come from water already in the atmosphere. Unless you intend to havest it from Jupiter's atmosphere. Even then, I'm not sure we could possibly use enough to cause torrential downpours.

what represents the biggest group of people

[Anonymous Coward]

choose 1
a. people anxiously awaiting electric cars
b. linux desktop users
c. slashdotters that read articles

Re:what represents the biggest group of people

[orlanz]

d. Anonymous Coward

Energy storage

[rlp]

The big problem with electric cars is energy storage. Lithium batteries are too expensive, take too long to charge, don't have a high enough energy density, and don't last long enough. If the current work on ultracapacitors pans out (and that's a BIG if) electric cars will become a lot more practical for the mass market.

Re:Energy storage

[WillAffleckUW]

Not really, depends on use.

Energy storage for in-city commuting is fairly easy, with plug-in chargers given prized spots in garages and free electricity, and in sunnier climes with solar panel addons.

The major impact of energy storage is for those who actually commute more than 20 miles each way, or have multiple trips with no easy recharge.

Paradoxically, the West is an area where that is frequently a problem, even though we have vast quantities of hydropower, wind, and solar easily harnessed to charge the batteries since these can be demand-constrained and even out the power draw.

Re:Energy storage

[MrEricSir]

There's always hydrogen. It's efficient, simple, and the technology is already worked out.

Plus when you have an accident, the explosion will look much cooler.

Re:Energy storage

[Kleen13]

There's always hydrogen. It's efficient, simple, and the technology is already worked out.

You'd better tell Ballard that...

Re:Energy storage

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Lithium batteries are too expensive, take too long to charge, don't have a high enough energy density, and don't last long enough.

There have been a couple breakthroughs in Lithium cells that address all of that. The new ultra-fast-charge cells are already in production for use in buses and this should get the price down, production up, and bugs out very quickly. If nothing goes wrong they should be good and cheap enough for passenger cars within a couple more years.

If the current work on ultracapacitors pans out ...

Ultracapacitors have the problem of voltage variation with state-of-charge which complicates the drive electronics. And IMHO they're likely to ALWAYS lose to batteries on energy-to-weight ratio. (Though I'd LOVE to be proven wrong on energy density. The electronics thing is soluble and capacitors can handle a LOT of very fast and deep cycles.)

Re:Energy storage

[orlanz]

Losses are high, transportation is a pain, storage is a pain, and remember, we are talking about water that is 20C above absolute zero or just really, really cold.

The explosion would look much cooler.

Re:Energy storage

[WCguru42]

the technology is already worked out

Um, that's not entirely true. I haven't seen many hydrogen vehicles for sale recently.

Still too expensive, but nice geek porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool cars, but the car prices still make gas cheaper. Green technology is too expensive, and the tax breaks still won't help me break even. If I sell my midsized SUV and buy one of these, how long until payback? Assuming I can get $10k on a trade-in and option 2 costs $25k, that leaves me out $15k, which would buy me 7500 gallons of gas, enough to drive me 150,000 miles on the highway. If the price of gas doubles again, I'd still have to drive 75,000 miles before I see one red cent. If I wanted to read about sports cars I can't afford I'd head over to Car and Driver or Motor(head)Trend.

Re:Still too expensive, but nice geek porn

[markdavis]

Step/assumption 1- scrap the SUV and get an electric car (doesn't have to be tiny, just reasonable). Step/assumption 2- a rage of 100+ miles per charge. Step/assumption 3- you need to buy a replacement vehicle because it is time to replace the old one, not just to make the switch. Step/assumption 4- electric cars have a large battery replacement expense after several years, but it might be about the same costs as gas engine car maintenance over the long term (gas engines are FAR more complex)

With those assumptions, if you were driving even 30 miles to work and back every day and for errands and trips on the weekend and your current SUV gets a respectable 15MPG, that is 2 gal of gas a day. If gas were around $3/gal (which is not unreasonable, and it will get MUCH more expensive over the years), that is $2,190 in gas costs per year. With electricity, that cost would be about $250/year; a savings of $1,940 per year, or $9,700 per 5 years. If gas jumps to $6/gal (again, not completely unrealistic in several years), that 5 year savings could be $19,400.

So.... it kinda depends on how much you drive and how much more an electric vehicle costs vs. a non-electric vehicle to purchase. For many people, the savings would be great, for others (like me, who drives very little) it would cost *MORE* to own/operate an electric car. And, still, for others, it will be a break-even.

But in the long run, it is the right thing to do. Electric cars are more reliable, quieter, simpler, potentially higher performance, easier to maintain, and pollute far, far less. Let's hope consumers have some real options soon.

Re:Still too expensive, but nice geek porn

[Facetious]

I often rage for 100+ miles, but as I get older that is decreasing.

Re:Still too expensive, but nice geek porn

[orlanz]

When gas prices were about $3, my monthly gas bill was about $100 a month for my '97 Maxima. My dad's '97 Camery does even better. I think it is a better option for those big SUV owners to settle for a smaller car or SUV (my cousin's CR-V gets 27mpg). And rent the big Home Depot trucks/vans or Avis SUVs when needed.

As much as I want elec/hybrid (I don't consider hydrogen to be a valid alternative in place of elec), I don't think they are a viable alternative for some time. The tech or the market for what works (50 mile range) just isn't there. I have driven multiple hybrids, and the Prius is the only on that comes close. But it costs $5000 more than I feel its value is worth. I don't mind paying 10% more to feel better, but 25-30% more?

Really....

[sycodon]

...I just need something to get me the 6 miles to work and then back again. The four mile round trip to the grocery store would be a bonus. Ahh...But in TX, AC and heating are a must.

Re:Really....

[Malc]

Bicycle? Oh you're in TX - I guess somebody will shoot you or run you off the road.

Seriously though. I lived for three years in the suburbs of Denver, and didn't own a car. Not as humid I'm sure as TX. But then I did it for seven years in downtown Toronto (range from hot/humid to cold and danger of frost bite) too. Anything within 10-15km is easy easy easy.

Re:Really....

[sycodon]

Not as humid I'm sure as TX

Not even close.

Re:Really....

[randmairs]

This is easily done with just a set of lead acid batteries. You might want to take a look at the EV Album (http://www.austinev.org/evalbum) where there are over 2,000 EVs listed. Many have ranges well over your requirements.

Using AC **and** heat together will reduce your range by about 15%.

The tZero (www.acpropulsion.com) has been driven over 300 miles on a charge using laptop batteries. A battery under development at Stanford University has the potential of extending that range to over 3,000 miles on a charge (http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html). But there are many obstacles before a battery in the lab can go into production. Still the battery pack for the new MacBook Pro is supposed to be able to be recharged a 1,000 times compared to a standard laptop's pack 200 to 300 times and the MacBook Pro is suppose to run 7 to 8 hours instead of the current 3 to 4 hours.

Buy the book Convert It and build your own.

Re:Really....

[sycodon]

I can probably get the wheels attached to the Macbook, but I don't know where I'd sit.

Re:Really....

[xaxa]

Bicycle

Not as humid I'm sure as TX

Not even close.

Take it easy once it gets a bit hot and there's no reason it couldn't work for many months of the year. (Looking at the weather forecast for a random city in Texas tomorrow, you'd need gloves and a couple of layers, and have no worries about getting sweaty).

Re:Really....

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't bike 6 miles?
I've never lived in the South during the summer, so maybe it is too hot.
What about an electric bike? Enclose it with coroplast (or if you're adventurous and can build things, fiberglass) and allow for air vents. You can get high air flow, without doing any work, and 6 miles could easily be done with a $400 battery, $300 motor, and $200 bike.

Re:Really....

[Malc]

Hmmm, but I did live in Shanghai for nearly five months over last summer. Once I overcame my fear of the apparent randomness on the roads, cycling is ok there too. I suspect it might be more humid. Cycling is great because it creates a cooling air flow.

Cities like Hangzhou (about 170 km from Shanghai) have built awnings at intersections so that cyclists don't have to sit in the sun when waiting for lights. Not that I saw the sun much in China :P I can't see that happening any time soon though in Western cities, especially in TX where I suppose there are few bike lanes.

Re:Really....

[jeff4747]

Not as humid I'm sure as TX

It's not the winters that's the problem. It's the summers.

Typical summer day in Denver: 75-80 degrees, 30% humidity. Pleasant for a bike ride.

Typical summer day in most of TX: 90-95 degrees, 95% humidity. You walk out of the A/C'ed house and it's hard to breathe because it's so damn hot.

Lots of us ready and waiting...

[markdavis]

The Tesla and Aero are interesting, but waaaaaaaaay out of normal price range. And most of the other electric cars don't cut it. This is what I want, and probably what most consumers want:

1) A real sized car, not a tiny econobox with motorcycle-sized tires
2) Range of at least 100+ miles per charge (I am guessing 80% of people are within a 20 mile round trip to work, 90% within 30 miles, and 95% within 40 miles; so other than occasional, long road trips, that is a lot of coverage).
3) Ability to charge with regular home voltage/current (don't care if it takes several hours to charge overnight)
4) Real performance- at least as fast (accel & top speed) as a gas car (like a 3 liter V6, not a 2 liter 4cyl)
5) Features- full A/C, heat, heated seats, auto climate control, GPS, cruise, auto lights, auto windows, defroster, etc
6) Safety- comparable to a quality conventional car- crumple zones, airbags, seatbelt tensioners
7) Reasonable price- comparable to a quality conventional car, although many of us are willing to spend more for the advantage of electric... but not 50%+ more

When that happens, I am betting people will flock to them. Hybrids (plugin or not) are just too complicated; they have all the complexity of a gas engine (cooling, emissions control, transmission, lube, injection, etc) with all the added cost of electric (motors, batteries, charging systems).

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

2) Range of at least 100+ miles per charge

That's great --- as a second car, unless you want to rent a car every time you need to drive over 100 miles. You don't want this car to be your first car, because the last thing you want for long drives is your old and unreliable (and gas-powered) second car.

I realy believe that plug-in hybrids are the solution. 40 mile battery-only range satisfies 95% of journeys and probably 90% of the miles and the gas/hydrogen/whatever energy source allows the car to be useful for longer journeys when needed. The backup power source (very small gas engine and generator) is probably lighter than the batteries needed to extend the battery-only range from 40 miles to 100 or 200 miles so the car ends up lighter.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[ArsonSmith]

"they have all the complexity of a gas engine (cooling, emissions control, transmission, lube, injection, etc) with all the added cost of electric (motors, batteries, charging systems)."

This just isn't true. Hybrids have one less part than a standard gas motor just the scales are re-arranged. Larger single starter/alternator tied into the power train permanently rather than a separate starter and alternator. They also have larger batteries, and a little more computer to control it all.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[markdavis]

Those are good points.

I should have said "much of the complexity of a gas engine", not "all". My bad :)

What is amazing is just how simple a well-designed all-electric vehicle can be compared to a gas vehicle. No radiator. No brakes (regenerative instead). No sparkplugs or ignition. No injection system and pumps. Usually no transmission (which can be as complex as a gas engine, itself). No oil or filters. No alternator. No intake system nor air filter not valves. Possibly no hydraulic systems. No starter. No gas tank & evap canister. No exhaust system nor muffler. No catalytic converter.

Those components are all replaced by a larger battery system, a charger, and a few sealed motors.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

@4: Why does it require the acceleration of a V6? Most 4 cylinders can do 100+ MPH and get to the speed limit in under 8 seconds. Why are people so performance-hungry?

@7: If you want a reasonable price, try being reasonable. You would never need to buy gasoline again and your car would have virtually no maintenance or service intervals.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[markdavis]

@4: Because most of us (myself included) are spoiled (at least I admit it). We don't want to give up anything.

@7: Good point. Another point is that an electric car should retain more resale value. The wild-card, of course, is the cost of that battery pack replacement.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[gtbritishskull]

What's wrong with renting a car for long trips? I know a guy who has a sports car that rents a car for long trips to save money on the gas. If the need it there, companies will pop up that rent cars for long range trips. Come on, open your mind and think outside the box.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[markdavis]

I might not be typical, but if I had an electric car that had a range of 220 miles, then it would have covered me for all but two car trips in the last 16 or so years. If it had a range of 220 miles, then I would have to keep at least one gas vehicle, since I make trips of 220 miles about 10 times a year, many more times than I would be willing to rent a gas car.

Range is a basic limitation of most electric cars. Unless you have an ultracapacitor or something, charging is a looooooong process; unlike filling with gas or some other chemical fuel. Not sure what the magic range number might be to eliminate most people's need for a secondary gas car. But a typical family has at least two cars, so, unless the range is *really* low (like 50 miles), most families could easily get by with at least one electric car.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

What's wrong with renting a car for long trips?

It's inconvenient and expensive.

Scenario: It's Sunday, the weather is good and I decide to go to the beach, which is about 120 miles away. Where do I rent a car? How long does it take to rent this car and return it? Yes, it's possible that rental car office may increase in number and have longer opening hours, but it still takes a long time to actually rent a car and I doubt the car rental companies deliberately make this a slow process today, so why should it improve?

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

I might not be typical, but if I had an electric car that had a range of 220 miles

And you are comfortable that, if you drive a little more spirited than usual on a 200 mile journey, you might be left stranded by the side of the road, out of charge? That's part of the problem -- yes, it might do 200 miles, on the other hand, hills, stop-and-go traffic and all kinds of other issues may reduce this and unlike a gasolene powered car, the result is that you are stranded. You can't just look at range, you have to look at the consequences of exceeding the range. A plug-in hybrid solves all these problems.

I think that once you accept that the electric car is a second car, most people could accept a reliable range of 50 miles. Most people commute less than this.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[karnal]

If you're frequently renting cars, becoming a preferred member (my company uses Avis I believe?) solves this problem. I can go online, reserve a car, and show up at any location I've determined online and just get in and go. Don't even need to talk to a representative.

Simple!

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[rhakka]

so there is a minor inconvenience in choosing a vastly superior technology for cost/cleanliness and maintenance. Assuming of course, that those features are true ;)

the point is, having a carpool is inconvenient too. But doing it makes very good sense, and failing to do it if it is possible is silly. Life is not really all about convenience. Granted, it's nice to not have to plan six months groceries for one trip to the "country store" a two day buggy ride away, but still... perhaps we could simply not necessarily demand every possible convenience before we make a better decision once in awhile?

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people drive a Civic or Corolla. Either one is missing half the features on your list.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

so there is a minor inconvenience in choosing a vastly superior technology for cost/cleanliness and maintenance. Assuming of course, that those features are true ;)

the point is, having a carpool is inconvenient too.

And what percentage of people actually ride in a carpool? Probably the same percentage that would find an all-electric car with a 200 mile range useful. Answer: not many.

On the other hand a plug-in hybrid provides 90% of the benefits of an all-electric car, with none of the disadvantages.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

a 2 liter engine can deliver more than 200 bhp, wtf do you need more?! And I don't know who "lots of us" are, but I couldn't care less for heated seats, auto climate control, cruise control, auto lights etc. Just useless bloated junk you pay a lot of money for imo.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Real sized car - like the majority of electric cars *now* being produced ... so you can go to work *on your own*
Range of 50 miles so you can do your trip to work and back ...Done
Charge overnight on regular outlet : Done
Real performance - Tesla has this now
Features - Done
Safely - generally they are safer ....
Price - the only current sticking point but this is due to the small production runs

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[rhakka]

You're right that most people don't carpool: my point is, that's the problem, not the lack of car features, but the expectation that we should just always be able to do whatever the hell we please, just because we can, with no regard for the consequence and no willingness to endure any bit of inconvenience to dramatically reduce our impact on the world. Here in maine, if I could stay warm on the way to work and go to and from work on all electricity, which I can purchase from all non-fossil fuel sources, I would be doing a very good thing.

Maybe a plug in hybrid would be that answer, but I believe the cost of a plug in hybrid is unlikely to ever be in my price range. The cost savings of dropping the gas engine *should* make a full on EV much more economical (once we have volume production and we're past the early adopter stage) and much, much easier to maintain than a plug in hybrid. I regard those two features as much more than "10%" of the benefit of an EV.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most of us" drive a car with ~2L engine, with 2.4 liter probably being the most common engines you'll find on the road in a normal-sized car. 1.8L isn't all that uncommon either, what with the insanely popular Civic and all, but then, you already decided that the general populace doesn't drive econoboxes so I guess it doesn't count, let's scratch those millions.

You may very well be spoiled, but please don't wrongly generalize your tastes to the rest of us to justify them.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[MtViewGuy]

If you're willing to limit yourself to around 70-80 km (43 to 49 miles) in all-electric mode, the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) will meet most of the criteria you want. Say hello to the 2012 Toyota Prius with the PHEV battery pack option. :-)

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Thumper_SVX]

That's great --- as a second car, unless you want to rent a car every time you need to drive over 100 miles.

And why NOT rent a car every time you need to drive more than 100 miles? I think if I'm honest with myself, this is the definite exception rather than the norm for me. I drive less than 20 miles each way to work, and I think if I were to total up the number of times I've driven more than 100 miles in a day during the last year I might be able to use the fingers of one hand.

Honestly, I've done this anyway... recently. I love my car, and I love driving my car... but last time I took a trip to Peoria (I live in St. Louis) I rented a car because when I figured out the cost per mile of wear and tear, tires and so forth on my own car, renting a cheapo econobox really started to make sense. Oh, and I got better gas mileage in the rental. Sure, it wasn't fast or pretty... but it still had an AUX IN for my iPod and a trunk to carry my stuff.

When Aptera finally manages to get their sales out of California, I'll probably be one of the first in line. The hybrid is a "feel good" stop gap rather than a real solution.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Thumper_SVX]

... 'cos we all know that petrol cars never run out.

Seriously... when there's a demand, there'll be charging stations on the same lots as the gas pumps. It's only a matter of a standardized receptacle and then someone actually bothering to break the negative feedback cycle of "I won't buy one until I can charge on the go" and "I won't provide charge on the go until I have customers".

No, it won't provide a full charge... it'll provide a partial. But realistically, I think there'll be more than enough juice you could pump into an EV that could get you home.

And really... we ARE running out of cheap oil. It's GOING to happen. We ARE going to have to change out lifestyles at some point in the future, probably in the lifetime of most of the people on this site. Those who are willing to make sacrifices now are going to be better prepared to deal with it when it happens. No, I'm not a survivalist nut... I don't think civilization is ending... I just think our easy and cheap lifestyles ARE ending.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Thumper_SVX]

It's inconvenient and expensive.

And how much do you think your car ACTUALLY costs per mile when you take into account all the other consumables EXCEPT petrol? You might be surprised.

I installed a program called Autolog on my Windows Mobile phone some time ago and started tracking everything... every oil change, every tire change, every battery... everything. Even when I take petrol out of the equation the cost per mile is surprisingly high for an average sedan... and you can easily rent a car that's the minimum required for your needs. I often rent the cheapest and simplest car I can for trips to Peoria and/or Chicago from St. Louis because the reality is that it saves me money, and reduces the wear and tear on my car which I want to drive until I kill it.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tesla and Aero are interesting, but waaaaaaaaay out of normal price range.

Actually it is not that bad of a price if you live in it. Put a hole in the floorboards, mount a toilet and yer good to go, Green as you can get toilet. no wasted water down the drain and you fertilize the earth as you go....

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Radical Moderate]

I tried doing that for about a year, but spending up to two hours at Avis before a trip was a huge PIA. If the rental companies could get their act together and make it easy for their regular customers to pick up a car, this could work. Hasn't happened yet, at least in my neighborhood.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Whorhay]

I've rented a number of cars in the last four years and never had a problem with how long it took. In most cases I called to ask if they had a vehicle that fit my requirements then bummed a ride from a friend over to pick it up. The paper work usually takes under five minutes and I am out the door.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[Whorhay]

Look up www.Zipcar.com My sister has been using their service for several years and it's been a big boon for her. If everyone just owned an electric vehicle or two that met their normal daily needs, services like Zipcar would spring up all over the place and the prices would likely get even more attractive through competition.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[markdavis]

The general populace that drives econoboxes are not going to be the ones that can afford an EV anytime in the next decade or two. If you want to target the people who *can* afford an EV, you have to make sure it competes with the quality, spirited, feature-full cars such people already own. Eventually that will start the prices falling and others can follow along.

Offer a stripped-down EV with crappy performance and features (that will necessarily cost 20-50+% more than gas econoboxes) and it will likely be a failure.

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

Maybe a plug in hybrid would be that answer, but I believe the cost of a plug in hybrid is unlikely to ever be in my price range. The cost savings of dropping the gas engine *should* make a full on EV much more economical

Actually, I disagree that there will be a big price differential for several reasons:
1. Less batteries = cost savings
2. The engine can be smaller and much simpler than current engines. It is relatively easy to build an efficient engine if you only ever run the engine at one load and speed.

My concept of a plug-in hybrid is not a Prius with bigger batteries. I believe that the engine should never drive the wheels -- only power a generator, when required. When it is charging the batteries, it runs at wide-open throttle (reducing pumping losses). It doesn't need to have complex valve timing or other mechanisms for efficiency because of the single load/speed use. The engine can also be quite small -- since it doesn't have to put out the power required for full-throttle acceleration.

Wasn't there a discussion on /. of using a sterling engine for this purpose a few weeks ago?

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[rhakka]

interesting, I must not have understood that part of the sterling engine discussion. but would you be able to generate electricity at the rate needed for driving? that would be a fairly large generator, would it not?

Re:Lots of us ready and waiting...

[whoever57]

but would you be able to generate electricity at the rate needed for driving? that would be a fairly large generator, would it not?

Not really. Think about how hard you normally press the accelerator while cruising-- the system only needs to be able to generate energy at a rate that is a little higher than the average amount of power needed for driving. That's way less than the power rating of modern engines -- my guess is that 50HP would be plenty for a mid-sized car.

say that Shelby Supercars are beatin Tesla

[quarkie68]

"To say that Shelby Supercars are trying to beat Tesla would be an understatement." Ahmm! For the amount of money they ask for the Tesla, ANYTHING will beat the Tesla in terms of reliability. What was in "Top Gear"; Ehmm, structural panel failure, break failure, and then a short circuit..... I sincerely hope that Shelby will make something better than the Tesla.

Re: say that Shelby Supercars are beatin Tesla

[Anonymous Coward]

Tesla's claims weren't nearly as ridiculous as Shelby's are. 1000 hp? Recharge in 10 min from 220 volts? Say their performance actually is better than the tesla roadster yet has the same 55kWh battery pack...

To charge the battery in 10 min on a 220 volt outlet would take 1500 amps! Household circuit breakers usually run around 30 amps. Not only would they have to do better than tesla, they'd have to do better than physics.

Re: say that Shelby Supercars are beatin Tesla

[Nick Number]

Ehmm, structural panel failure, break failure

No, structural panel failure is a break success.

Re: say that Shelby Supercars are beatin Tesla

[quarkie68]

Come on! Be a little bit inventive. They assume that the people who pay the cash to buy such a thing will find solar recharge stations that give multiple 55 KW plugs in the middle of nowhere! :-)

Relevant solution

[gcnaddict]

Good point. Most of the electricity around us near DC is from coal/oil, though some parts get nuclear energy as well.

You know what would work best? This.

Morons

[willy everlearn]

Those high paid morons still do not get it.....

I want, need, have needed for years an electric car. I want 100 Klicks per charge. It only has to do maybe 100 Kph max. OK, so I need to re-buy the batteries every five years or so. I do not want a car that goes 0 to 110 Mph in 3 seconds. That is just stupid. It should cost around 15 grand. Where is that car?

This has pissed me off for years!

And I call myself Willy Everlearn

Re:Morons

[AKAImBatman]

I do not want a car that goes 0 to 110 Mph in 3 seconds. That is just stupid.

Actually, you get that for free with an electric drive. The torque capacity of electric motors is so high that they are usually governed to more reasonable levels of acceleration.

As for the reason behind sports cars, that's easy. Sports cars are expensive. Electric drive technology is expensive. Electric drive technology is great for race cars. ("Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races." --Carroll Shelby) Ergo, selling an expensive electric sports car is a great way to get electric technology into the marketplace. Once the technology is in the marketplace, the price will be driven down by the laws of economics.

Re:Morons

[DotDotSlasher]

> I want, need, have needed for years an electric car. I want 100 Klicks per charge. It only has to do maybe 100 Kph max. OK, so I need to re-buy the batteries every five years or so. I do not want a car that goes 0 to 110 Mph in 3 seconds. That is just stupid. It should cost around 15 grand. Where is that car?

Let's look at some real-world examples -- the Prius can go about 7 miles on battery-only power at 35mph max. Replacement batteries are about $8k. They start at $23k.

Fast forward two years: the Chevy Volt can go 40 miles on battery power. Replacement batteries: ???, but most be more than $8k. They will start (I'm guessing) $40k.

Rewind 12 years: GM's EV-1 was produced for: well, they spent about $1.5B for 1500 cars - that's around $1M each. Higher production numbers: let's guess $100k. Batteries (replaced every 3 years or so - guessing again): $50k. Not close to $15k. GM bet big that they would find a significant battery break-through (the breakthrough that has been "just 5 years away" for the past 25 years). What do you do with 1500 cars that will require a $50k replacement battery pack? Recall them, and shred them.

Toyota's Rav4 EV is a contender. Though battery packs for that vehicle are $26k (so says Wikipedia). I've seen used ones on ebay in reasonable shape for $60k. Except for cost -- this one is a winner for you.

The Aptera has 3 wheels so it can be classified a motorcycle, and not meet all the safety requirements and testing that cars need. (neighborhood cars - max speed of 25mph and another way to avoid being tested as a "real" car - are not included here) It's much lighter and easier to get speed and distance out of the batteries (plus batteries are better today).

Assuredly -- if someone could build a viable EV for $15k, they would, and they would make a killing. Your $15k goal is too low for today's battery technology.

Re:Morons

[Anonymous Coward]

The car you do not want does not exist in the US because short-range low-performance tiny runabouts have historically sold very poorly.
The EVs being developed by Mitsubishi and Subaru for the Japanese market are exactly as you described, essentially being modified kei-cars that don't look particularly sexy. They'll underperform the Teslas and the Shelbys but will probably cost less, not because it's much cheaper to make (most of the cost is taken up by the batteries, which are the same regardless of how spiffy you make the hood look) but because they can't charge more for it. I'm not sure they'll ever bother releasing those models in the US.

Earth calling Mars

[slashdotlurker]

I do not understand why these cutting edge car designers can't make a conventional looking car (something as boring looking like a Corolla). Your friendly neighborhood soccer mom or PTA dad is not going to want get caught driving this.

I am not saying they should copy Corolla's body style but for heaven's sake, make something that looks like its meant for this planet. I am betting that these people probably spent a good deal of money on the shape designer. This car will appeal to teenage nerds, extreme yuppies and the Hollywood set. How many of them are there anyways ??

If they are really serious about addressing the actual gas problem, they should make something that looks a little more common (oh horrors !). This car looks like a rich man's gimmick. Don't be surprised if the middle class gives it a miss.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[LandDolphin]

I beleive Aerodynamics is an important part of vehicles lie kthe Aptera

/I could be wrong

Re:Earth calling Mars

[hAckz0r]

why these cutting edge car designers can't make a conventional looking car

Because its hard to make a brick become aerodynamic. The majority of the energy of moving a car down the road goes into making the air that is in front of the car get back behind the car. Its not at all about being yuppie, its just if you want efficiency this is what you need to do. The more it looks like a space pod the more efficient it generally is. Perhaps a Porsche is more your style?

I happen to work in a physics lab, and I had been gathering ideas on exactly what I wanted for the past year, and had almost started buying equipment and materials to build it. Now I am just glad to see that someone actually did it for me, and there is not much wrong with it that I would want to change. Other than its availability in the other 49 states, like mine for one.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[arootbeer]

Aerodynamics is definitely one factor, but these are designed to be much closer to a break-even car than something that could be mass-produced. They cost a huge amount of money, because the companies are looking for money to get to the next level of research for the batteries. The technology currently won't allow them to make a $25k car (even at 200HP; the motors are a very small part of the cost) at any volume which would provide positive returns.

It's very much an early-adopter market right now; once these companies get the battery tech worked out to be mass-produced cost-effectively (or when someone makes a spectacular breakthrough in a related area, like capacitors), you'll see your Corollas and Camrys coming out of the woodwork.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Soccer moms and commuters are not interested in cutting edge cars. They merely want point a - point b as cheap as possible. Rich men who want gimmicks are the only people who can really afford to be beta testers on exotic new technologies.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[boxless]

It was all to just get a start. They knew they couldn't build them cheap, but they wanted to get started. So why not build them where price is almost no object.

Seems like a decent idea. At least it's more realistic than saying they are going to take over the world.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, as of now the only state they can sell the Aptera in is California.

In California, a 3 wheeled "car" is considered a "vehicle", not an "automobile". That means that it can use the HOV lane, and use motorcycle tags and insurance (Cheaper to register and insure, plus a quicker commute in the car pool lanes).

My employer has a half dozen "electric car only" parking spots with free power left over from the old EV1 days. My round trip commute is 28 miles. That means I wouldn't even have to foot the bill to charge the thing except on weekends.

There's also plenty of room in the trunk for my guitars and an amp for gigs.

I've had one reserved for a while now. I'm upset about the design changes. They did away with rear view cameras in favor of mirrors, and made a ton of other design concessions in order to get around cost and laws. It's not the car I originally signed up for. . . but so long as they keep the price under $30k, I'll buy it.

BTW they also have a hybrid that includes a gas generator in place of some batteries for those who need more distance. They're saying it'll get ~300mpg that way (so figure about 100mpg since that's startup talk)

-W

Re:Earth calling Mars

[ishmaelflood]

You are correct. The Aptera has a lower Cd than most cars because its basic form is a low drag shape that was invented back in the sixties, from memory. It has a higher Cd than some cars because of all the silly suspension struts and so on, and sensible features like doors and wing mirrors.

The GP might like to consider why all of these efficient vehicles don't look like Mum's taxis, it isn't just an image thing.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

In which case they should be shaped like a tear drop, not a wedge.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[MachDelta]

The majority of the energy of moving a car down the road goes into making the air that is in front of the car get back behind the car.

Not unless you regularly drive around at 120mph it isn't. Friction and inertia are much bigger enemies when it comes to pushing around a commuter car.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Why does every EV car look like something from the Jetsons? For christ sakes, just make a regular car, it doesn't have to look funky, or go from 0-100 in 2 secs.

The first car company to come out with a plug-in, 5 seat remotely normal compact run-about like a Corolla that doesn't cost 200% of a Corolla will sell bazillions of them.

I looked at the Prius a while back, and while I would be prepared to pay a slight premium for the technology, there is no way I'm paying 250%. In Australia the Prius was around $50,000 or more while a comparible size car like the Corolla is about $20,000.

The big kick in the nuts with the Prius was that its fuel economy is not really any better than some other petrol-only 4-cyc cars. I thought the fuel economy was like half of the next best, leading to savings over time, but when you actually look at the numbers, there are plenty of small petrol only cars at about the same km/ltr, and a couple even less (Audi I think).

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Another thing that shits me is the fscking stupid governemnt came out the other week and said they were subsidising Toyota to build a new "fuel-efficient" 4-cyc car to be rolled out 2011 or some such. WTF!

We already have small fuel efficient 4-cyc cars! Now the government is giving them ??? millions to develop another one over 3 years. Fsck the petrol cars, sponsor an EV dickheads!

Re:Earth calling Mars

[MadUndergrad]

It has a higher Cd than some cars because of all the silly suspension struts and so on, and sensible features like doors and wing mirrors.

As far as I know, there are no production cars with a lower Cd than the Aptera.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Perhaps since they're unable to produce a conventional electric car just yet, they have instead oped to make an expensive car that someone with a lot of money might want to buy? As for spending money on a "shape designer" it looks like the engineers did it themselves to save money. And why do all proof-of-concept cars have to look like normal cars? Do you think that designing conventional looking cars is a good way to get people interested in green cars? Keeping in mind that the people who make cars probably have more of a passion for cars and related technology than a consumer who just want to get from A to B. It seems to me that you are the one off on another planet.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[keean]

The point is to produce aspirational vehicles. Remember all the kids into cars used to have posters of a Lamborghini on their walls? Now I think of it doesn't that Shelby look a lot like a Lamborghini? Anyway the idea is that if all the kids want one when they grow up, electric cars will become cool, and people will want one. Of course they wont be able to afford a Shelby so they will end up with an electric Ford Focus (or equivalent), but they will want the Shelby.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[ishmaelflood]

I agree. That is why I didn't type "production cars". You idiot.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[MadUndergrad]

Now that was just uncalled for. Asshole.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[MtViewGuy]

Interestingly, while the second generation and the upcoming third generation Toyota Prius may look like an environmental statement, once you see it in person and note you can fold down the rear seats to get a HUGE rear cargo area, the snickering stops. :-) And best of all, the Prius has surprisingly roomy rear seating area, too.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it is called "AERODYNAMICS." To get 100 miles to a charge you need to reduce the biggest factors in the consumption of energy, drag and weight. The shape takes care of the drag.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[lupine]

Wind resistance is friction. Aerodynamic drag increases as the square of speed.

On flat ground an average car(0.378 CD, 2450lbs) will have equal wind resistance and rolling resistance at around 35mph. At 70mph wind resistance accounts for about 80% of total friction.

The Aptera 2e has a CD of 0.15 and a weight of only 1480lbs which means that the wind resistance=rolling resistance at 45mph. At 70mph wind resistance still accounts for about 75% of total friction.

So aerodynamics is very important if you wish to attain maximum efficiency.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[slashdotlurker]

Drag, from what I remember of my fluid dynamics, is a rapidly increasing function of speed. Don't make an EV with a top speed of 120 mph. Make it a top speed of 75 mph (which will do fine for most normal people). Your design requirements will relax immediately. Further, have an idea of how long a typical driver will drive at what speed. If it is being driven for 20 minutes at 70 mph and 1 hour at 30 mph or less, it just seems stupid to design it for maximal efficiency at 70 mph.

Re:Earth calling Mars

[ishmaelflood]

Yes it was. Douche.

Cost???

[Locke2005]

How much $ for the Aero EV? I'm thinking the batteries alone must be over $100K, so we're talking what, a quarter-million dollar car? Much as I'd love to own one, I'm just not THAT desperate for an elaborate electric penis-extension.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Idiomatick]

Thats amazingly short sighted. Do you think the drop in gas prices will stay that way forever? I'm amazed on the stats for SUV sales in the US. They vary in lock step with that weeks gas prices as if it mattered.
 
Oh and the shelby has 150mile range just so you know.

10 minute charge is BS...

[nweaver]

Lets say its a tesla-equivelent battery pack, a nice 50 kWH.

To charge in 10 minutes, you'd need to shove in power at 300 kW!

At 220V, that means you'd need 1300 A of current!?!

Re:10 minute charge is BS...

[JaredOfEuropa]

To charge in 10 minutes, you'd need to shove in power at 300 kW! At 220V, that means you'd need 1300 A of current!?!

Perhaps the trick is to run a thick steel cable up a bell tower and wait for a thunderstorm. A lightning strike delivers its 1.21GW for 1/6th of a second, you'll get 50kWH and your car is charged. Come on people, we've seen this work...

Re:10 minute charge is BS...

[TheSync]

At 220V, that means you'd need 1300 A of current!?!

It's not just an electric car, it's also an arc welder!

Re:10 minute charge is BS...

[randmairs]

The person writing the article screwed up. However, the Alatair Nanotechnology Nanosafe battery pack with a 100 mile range has been recharged in 10 minutes. The test was conducted by Aerovironment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altairnano)
 
    The person conducting the experiment said the "conducting cables got warm" with the inference that the batteries themselves did not.

Re:10 minute charge is BS...

[snaz555]

Yes, you'd need very high current - industrial power. Which means it's only relevant when retrofitting gas stations and other commercial charging locations. For home it hard matters since you can leave the car to charge while doing something else. It's mostly important for the gas-station-equivalent.

Big list

[Rei]

I've compiled a big list of upcoming EVs and their stats here.

Re:Big list

[smilindog2000]

Thanks for the links. Did you forget Fly the Road?

Re:Big list

[internerdj]

Nice list. Any chance I can get one somewhere other than California?

Re:Big list

[Rei]

I don't keep track of release locations on that list. I can tell you offhand that the GM Volt will be launched nationwide at the end of '10/early '11, and Aptera will be going nationwide 9 to 12 months after their initial launch (i.e., summer to fall of '10).

In fact

[WindBourne]

Coal has killed FAR more than is attributed to it. Right now, nearly all the deaths attributed to coal is based on coal mine deaths, which IS much greater than nuclear power deaths (even when including all the uranium mining for weapons). But what is not added in there is the mercury poisoning that we get. Most of the mercury in our water is from coal. Likewise, much of our acid rains, etc are from coal. In a nutshell, Coal is far far worse than nukes.

Re:In fact

[AKAImBatman]

You forgot the airborne, radioactive particles which may be inhaled and cause cancer. Not to mention The Great Smog which killed 12,000 people.

Re:In fact

[geobeck]

...IS much greater than nuclear power deaths (even when including all the uranium mining for weapons).

Hmm, that makes me wonder how total coal-related deaths compare to total nuclear-related deaths including deaths from the development, testing, and use of nuclear weapons. Nukes have only been used in anger twice, and there has probably been an elevated incidence of cancer among early development and testing personnel, but would King Coal still come out ahead?

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

First, I'll point out that I believe that nuclear weapons aren't in the same category as nuclear power; that'd be like adding deaths from tank weapons into automotive deaths.

Still, I think it's an interesting topic.
Hiroshima: 140k
Nagasaki: 80k
Chernobyl: 57 direct deaths, 4k 'additional cancer cases', estimated, not all of which would be fatal.
Other: Various accidents; under a hundred. Less than 1% of the above, easily within the margin of error of the nuclear weapons usage.

224k total, of which 1.8% can be attributed, partially, to nuclear power(Chernobyl was also a weapons material plant, which affected it's design).

If you believe this article, 24k lives are 'shortened' by coal power, cause 2.8k cases of lung cancer a year, 4k deaths from asthma, heart attacks, etc... At 4k, we're killing a Chernobyl's worth of citizens each and every year. In the 63 years since the nuclear attacks in 1945, that would be 252,000 people.

On to China - They've made it a 'goal' to reduce their annual coal mining deaths to a 'mere' 5k in 2007 over the 7k of 2003. In 1988 - "chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was 26% of all causes of death. If even a fraction of a percent of those deaths are from the pollution from coal power, 26k a year isn't outrageous from a country of over a billion.

Basically; I figure coal power kills more people every year than Chernobyl accident did period, and it bypasses our nuclear bombings in less than five years.

And people wonder why I'd shut down all the coal plants if I could...

Re:In fact

[Anpheus]

If we're going to attribute intentionally harmful applications, then charcoal, being a component of gunpowder, would win.

Re:In fact

[dgatwood]

Coal has killed FAR more than is attributed to it. Right now, nearly all the deaths attributed to coal is based on coal mine deaths, which IS much greater than nuclear power deaths (even when including all the uranium mining for weapons). But what is not added in there is the mercury poisoning that we get. Most of the mercury in our water is from coal. Likewise, much of our acid rains, etc are from coal. In a nutshell, Coal is far far worse than nukes.

If by coal mine deaths, you mean deaths from mining accidents, etc., then you also forgot black lung disease, which on average kills over 1,000 Americans per year by itself (on average over the last decade). Source: Wikipedia.

Re:In fact

[WindBourne]

Actually, that is exactly what I was thinking of. Even today, the feds still pay the health care costs which is part of the subsidy for coal. Oddly, all of our energy is subsidize, but it is only bad on AE.

Re:In fact

[XDirtypunkX]

Then again, nuclear power is used in relatively few places compared to coal. I wonder how those numbers will scale up if a country like China replaced all it's coal with nuclear.

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

I wonder how those numbers will scale up if a country like China replaced all it's coal with nuclear.

56-70 confirmed for Chernobyl*. Considering the 50 year history of nuclear power, we average less than 2 deaths a year, even including it. Any arguments about cancer deaths also has to deal with the cancer deaths from coal plant pollution. The only power death's I'm aware of since Chernobyl was a couple of Japanese workers who violated about a phone book's of regulations, didn't use the proper equipment and safety measures; preferring to mix the stuff in a stainless steel bucket in quantities far exceeding what they were supposed to.

In 2001, we produced ~ 2.5k TWh of electricity from nuclear sources; 16% of the world's electricity. Coal is 40%.

Build up to 4X as many nuke plants as we currently have and we'd be able to shut off all the coal plants.

Going by our average of 2 nuclear power deaths a year, that'd increase to 8 a year. Big whoopty do. Well, except for the unlucky 8 - but I'd rather sacrifice 8 than 100,000.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

*Sorry, but I tend to discount greenpeace's numbers as an outlier. I've seen no evidence that they considered chemical pollution(the USSR wasn't very clean), tobacco use, heck the very contamination from dirty coal plants.

Re:In fact

[iggymanz]

lifespans are getting longer, the electricity coal makes saves far more lives than it takes.

Re:In fact

[iggymanz]

silly, charcoal isn't make from coal. It's a biofuel, made from wood. And modern gunpowder has no charcoal in it, large scale production of "black powder" stopped in the last 1800s in favor of "smokeless powder", which is nitrited cellulose, originally made from cotton. Modern smokeless can also contain other nitrites.

Re:In fact

[iggymanz]

and what of all the live-extending benefits of modern life that are coal-powered. coal has saved and extended far more lives than it has taken.

Re:In fact

[Anpheus]

Did I say charcoal was made from coal? No.

The rest, yeah, you're right and I screwed up. But don't start your post with an unfounded assumption.

Re:In fact

[iggymanz]

but it is fun to attribute the massive amounts of death in wars due to the nitrating or nitriting of the up to three substances that make the modern smokeless powder recipes: cellulose, glycerin, and guanine. Or, in layman's terms: cotton, liquid carb sweetener, and bat shit.

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

Please name the ones that couldn't be replaced by nuclear power, or other alternative sources of electricity.

If the alternative was coal or no medical devices, no heat, no computers, no electricity, then yes, coal has saved far more lives.

But we can do cleaner today.

Re:In fact

[iggymanz]

I agree alternatives should be quickly implemented because the negative consequences of fossil fuels are accumulating a kind of compound interest that left unchecked would actually wipe out the benefits I pointed out. I wish "the bailout" of the U.S. economy was a trillion dollars invested in the known workable alternative energies and energy storage systems.

Re:In fact

[bh_doc]

Whether true or not, it misses the important point: No electricity Coal generated electricity Nuclear generated electricity

Re:In fact

[bh_doc]

Insert appropriate inequality signs. :/

Re:In fact

[Ex-MislTech]

Lifespans are not getting longer due to coal.

Electricity can be made from CSP Thermal Solar and Wind
and if those run out the whole planet is dead anyways.

Coal is set to run out a lot sooner due to the rest of the world
ramping up use of it massively.

The coal producers in the US have nothing to fear of the US
getting off coal, China is building coal fired plants faster
than any 2 other countries on earth combined.

Re:In fact

[cyn1c77]

Coal has killed FAR more than is attributed to it. Right now, nearly all the deaths attributed to coal is based on coal mine deaths, which IS much greater than nuclear power deaths (even when including all the uranium mining for weapons). But what is not added in there is the mercury poisoning that we get. Most of the mercury in our water is from coal. Likewise, much of our acid rains, etc are from coal. In a nutshell, Coal is far far worse than nukes.

But we also use more coal than we do nuclear material.

You need to show deaths from coal normalized by energy produced from coal. Then compare that to an equivalent figure for nuclear power.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I want to believe you. But the logic you guys are pushing is flawed. Radioactive waste is some baaaaad shit and we haven't even begin to deal with it in large quantities. Can the human race really keep nuclear waste out of the envrionment for the thousands of years it takes for it to inert itself?

You think a little mercury in our water and food sucks? What's going to happen when radioactive waste starts ending up there?

Re:In fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok fair is fair...

Isn't coal a component of gunpowder? If so, add all conventional war casualties to the King Coal tally and see who wins then.

Re:In fact

[Dutch Gun]

You should do a bit of research into breeder reactors. They're extremely fuel efficient, are powered by a much more common thorium, and my understanding is the waste material they would produce has a half-life of half a century instead of twenty-five millennium. And, they can use the leftover fuel from conventional reactors. When people talk about "going nuclear", it's with this type of technology that they're referring to, not building inefficient 1950's style reactors.

Re:In fact

[syousef]

Basically; I figure coal power kills more people every year than Chernobyl accident did period, and it bypasses our nuclear bombings in less than five years.

The flip side of your statistic is that it only took one nuclear accident to kill the same number of people as all the coal power plants in the world kill in a year.

Re:In fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's what you say until you hear my counter-argument: coal electricity house fingers boom no generators dogs scam boxes of trout.

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

The flip side of your statistic is that it only took one nuclear accident to kill the same number of people as all the coal power plants in the world kill in a year.

Have to correct your statement a bit. By some counts, you'd have to have 25 Chernobyl level disasters a YEAR to equal the toll of coal. Clearly, statistics don't support anywhere near that level of incidents. For one thing, the containment structures all operating reactors have(that Chernobyl lacked) would tend to stop leaks. Chernobyl killed somewhere between 50 and 70 people directly. 4k is a 'worst case' scientific estimate. There are some theoretical higher numbers, but they depend upon disputed science(linear harm theory), as evidence shows that lower exposures to radiation don't cause expected extra cases of cancer. Outside of Chernobyl - there's something like a half dozen casualties; most caused by steam explosions. Steam explosions aren't unique to nuclear power either.

China's coal mining has averaged 5k-7k deaths a year, for decades. Meanwhile, we've had 1 Chernobyl over the course of 50 years. Pollution wise, there are estimates that it kills over a 100k, some even say a quarter million, a year.

We build 3X more plants than we have now and we'd be able to turn off the coal plants. Probably less even, as modern genIII plants tend to have more capacity than genII plants while being considerably safer. Using modern design techniques, they really simplified the plants. Fewer pipes, valves, switches, etc... Fewer things to break.

Anyways, like I said, if I had my way I'd be replacing all the coal plants with nuclear not because nuclear is 100% safe - but because it's substantially safer and less polluting than coal plants. In the USA, approximately 200 people are killed mining and transporting coal to the power plants.

Re:In fact

[WindBourne]

We need to implement IFRs. All the waste is wasted energy. We barely tap what is there. If we moved to electric cars/trucks, built all our power plants as IFR's, and used nothing but the waste, it would power America for 100 years. The problem is that we are worried about nuclear proliferation, when at the same time, you have neo-cons selling our nuclear bomb know how to Turkey and Pakistan (and it is not known how much further those guys went). In the end, an IFR is the right answer. I am hopeful that Obama will do what W did not; restart Poppa Bush's program.

Re:In fact

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal worldwide only produces 2-3 times the amount of electricity as nuclear, so the adjustment may not be as large as you think. Even in the US, where we haven't built a new nuke plant since the 70's, our electricity is 25% nuclear. A large nuclear plant really is capable of producing an enormous amount of power.

Re:In fact

[Cowmonaut]

Chances are there wouldn't be very many issues. One you don't NEED as many nuclear power plants as you do coal plants. Two the air pollution is non-existent. You just have to worry about the radioactive waste, which can be partially recycled (believe they're called "reprocessor" plants). Chernobyl was the only real bad accident. 3 Mile Island was actually a success, nothing bad happened. Plenty of fear but that's becoming the status quo unfortunately. France has been using nuclear power without incident for decades now.

Really, its just a matter of getting people out from under the covers and actually learning about the differences between nuclear and coal power. Only issue is the level of apathy most people have these days (and not just in the US).

Re:In fact

[Dare nMc]

according to wikipedia radon reportedly causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States.[2] now that could be a argument that we need to get that nuclear material out of the soil so it'll quit producing the gas. ;^) But to be fair that is a significant risk in or near the mines, smelters, etc that produce the materials needed for nuclear. But since we get copper, and everything else first from all the U mines, those deaths/ injuries wouldn't necessarily be attributed to nuclear power either.

Re:In fact

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the major factors that makes nuclear fission not so great is the by-products it creates that have half-lives of thousands of years. If you think we would know now where the Romans buried a bunch of nuclear waste, you're sadly mistaken.

If we can figure out a way to get around this problem, then this source will be viable. But if you have hundreds of thousands of nuclear plants churning out radioactive waste to power the world, the waste will start piling up fast.

Bottom line is the problems with nuclear fission power have a lot more to do with waste management than the safety of running the plants.

Fusion sounds good though!

Re:In fact

[stonecypher]

Please name the ones that couldn't be replaced by nuclear power, or other alternative sources of electricity.

Safe modern power generation is difficult in seismically active areas. No matter how safe a nuclear plant is - and I'm a nuclear supporter - you don't want one on the San Andreas fault. There are many areas of the world where, between earthquakes, bad insolation, the inability to safely access geothermal, the lack of rivers and the unreliable nature of other sources such as wind mean that currently alternative power isn't viable.

Whereas I'm all for nuclear, it is not a one-size-fits-all fix. We won't have that until we have room temperature superconduction, which will allow us long distance electrical transit, or relatively cheap fusion (of the sort that the Focus Fusion guy promises, whether or not he specifically is viable.)

Re:In fact

[Bob-taro]

Electricity can be made from CSP Thermal Solar and Wind and if those run out the whole planet is dead anyways.

So what you're saying is that if we use too much solar or wind power, we're all dead. There's just no good long term solution, is there?

Re:In fact

[Firethorn]

Safe modern power generation is difficult in seismically active areas.

So? Some of the nuclear reactors are very close to fault lines already, and have thus far weathered all earthquakes without serious damage. Besides, it's not like you can't transmit the electricity elsewhere - even over hundreds, thousands of miles. While our superconducting lines still have to be cooled, that can be done with liquid nitrogen which is easy enough to make, and economical when you get enough wattage/amperage transiting the lines.

Nuclear plants are designed to take earthquakes as a matter of course. I figure that between the various methods of generating non-fossil fuel power and various transmission systems, we can provide reasonable cost power to pretty much anywhere there's civilization.

Whereas I'm all for nuclear, it is not a one-size-fits-all fix.

Never said it was. I'm sure there's a few exemptions out there, but in general anywhere you can slap down a coal plant you can also slap down a nuclear plant.

Re:In fact

[Mozk]

I love how in Omaha there is a coal power plant right next to a water treatment plant.

That recharging spec is total B.S.

[sirwired]

Recharging a battery that could run a car that size, that long, in ten minutes would require far more current than an electric grid could reasonably deliver, at least to more than a token few cars.

SirWired

Re:That recharging spec is total B.S.

[Guysmiley777]

I wonder if they have some fridge-sized gizmo that trickle charges off the grid and then can dump into the batteries via... I don't know, friggin' arc furnace terminals?

Incidentally, what ever happened to flywheel energy storage? Did they decide that having multiple thousand kilowatts of kinetic energy sitting in a house was a bad idea?

Re:That recharging spec is total B.S.

[randmairs]

The EVs of the future may have ranges of over 1,000 miles. I'm basing this on the tZero which has been driven over 300 miles on a charge on laptop batteries (www.acpropulsion.com) and the development of a lithium silicon nanowire battery with the potential of storing 10 times as much electricity as a laptop battery. (http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/nanowire-010908.html). The idea is that the driver will be exhausted before the battery pack is exhausted. Therefore, the batteries can then be recharged over night.
 
If a person drives 400 miles a day at 4 miles per kwhr, the car would use about 100 kwhrs of electricity. At 220 volts and 10 hours of recharge time, the amphr load would be about 50 amphrs which is doable for a single car but the parking lot at the Holiday Inn would be rather warm.
 
The answer might be car trains where you hop aboard a train with your car, or overhead wires fed by day time solar cells, or extender packs that allow several thousand miles of travel per charge. At your destination, you drop off the extender pack and come back to pick it up recharged. The extender pack would act as a modifying influence on the grid to keep electrical generation even.

Re:That recharging spec is total B.S.

[jeff4747]

Only if we're talking about the grid out in the sticks. That kind of power is available in any reasonably-sized town. In fact, it's probably being fed into every single factory in the industrial part of town.

Aptera

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been following Aptera for quite a while.

I haven't checked the site for a while, but all of their proposed plans had REAR wheel drive. The single rear wheel is powered by an electric motor. The idea was to make the vehicle inexpensive (the plan was ~20k, but last I checked the total was closer to ~30k) and reliable. I didn't like the plan for the windows to be static (immovable), but the roof was to have a solar panel array dedicated to cabin temperature moderation (alleviating the heat exhausted pet/child left in the car).

The Gas/Electric hybrid had a small gasoline generator that could recharge the batteries during operation, yielding a theoretical ~100 miles per gallon (5gallon tank and ~500 miles range) if one fully depleted the gasoline tank.

The Aptera 2e is the electric only model.

This summary from Techreport is just wrong. Sorry for the rant but the jist of it all is the Aptera's are all REAR wheel drive with a nice sturdy belt transferring the power.

Unfortunately after a quick navigation of the website, I could not find the information I had once perused.

Re:Aptera

[Rei]

I haven't checked the site for a while, but all of their proposed plans had REAR wheel drive.

The switch was made last January, but wasn't publicly announced until December. Switching to FWD gave a huge number of benefits, including much better regen, handling, and more room in the back.

the plan was ~20k, but last I checked the total was closer to ~30k

The plan hasn't been ~20k since mid 2007. You have been following them for a while! ;) When the Typ-1, Mk1 ("Zen") was unveiled in late '07, the announced prices were $27k for the Typ-1e and $30k for the Typ-1h. When they switched to the FWD 2e, they announced a price range of $25-$45k for the 2, depending on "options and drivetrain", and that there will be "a number of drivetrains" and "many options".

I didn't like the plan for the windows to be static (immovable)

Steve announced very early on that the windows *would* roll down in the final version.

Unfortunately after a quick navigation of the website, I could not find the information I had once perused.

Yeah, unfortunately, their site is in a bit of a transitional state right now. I'm not too impressed with Saxony Creative (who does their web work), personally.

Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Rei]

According to a DOE study conducted at PNL, switching to EVs is a net win even on our current grid. The main reason is that power plants are a lot more efficient than gasoline-powered cars at turning fuel into energy, while transmission and charging are very efficient. Also, EVs, which mainly charge at night, reduce the need for spinning standby, allow plants to operate more efficiently at night, and so on. The net result is that you could switch 84% of our cars over on our existing grid and you'd cut CO2 emissions by a third, increase PM somewhat, NOx would drop slightly, SOx would stay the same, and CO and VOCs would be nearly eliminated. The pollutants that would be emitted would be emitted on average much further from people's lungs and so affect them less.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Anonymous Coward]

That's switching to EV cars built like the vehicles they replace. The Supercars and the Tesla's are race cars and no where near being green, despite being "zero emissions".

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Rei]

Actually, they are. One of the curious things about EVs is that the more power the drivetrain has, the *more* efficient they get. Just the opposite of gasoline cars.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[silas_moeckel]

Telsa has a fast car but the current mainstream hybrids are pitiful as far as performance goes. That has serious safety issues on current roads where you need to get from a stop sign to highway speeds in a few hundred feet to merge.

Now it does seem that the drivers of the smart cars just have a death wish I am getting cut off by them about once a week and I drive a full sized truck.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[keean]

Transmission is _not_ efficient. In fact it has been estimated the UK could meet its CO2 requirements simply by moving to localised power generation, and eliminating the transmission losses. So the green solution is localised generation (in the community) and by using this we could meet CO2 targets without reducing the ammount generated from coal and oil. Also most people do not want a car they can drive 100 miles, and then re-charge over night. They want it to charge at a filling station in about the time it takes to refill a car, a little longer would be acceptable, say 5-10 mins.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Rei]

False. Transmission is efficient -- in the US, an average of 92.8% efficiency.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[keean]

So what about: http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/community_content/_low_carbon_news/2691 I guess it depends on how efficient you think is efficient. The above study shows that sending electricity over wires is less efficient than piping gas or driving/shipping oil/coal. Moving to localised generation would save london 3.5 million tonnes of C02 per year. Decentralised generation also allows CHP (combined heat and power plants to be used which can be nearly 100% efficient because waste heat is used to heat nearby buildings).

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Rei]

1) They say electricity and *heat*. Heat is almost certainly the bigger component here, as it goes away relatively quickly with distance and is often simply wasted as it's too expensive to ship.

2) 3.5M tonnes of CO2 per year may sound like a lot, but the UK emits 153M tons per year.

Heat is a *bonus*, but transmission is still efficient, and even when power has to be sent long distances and the heat is wasted, EVs are still more efficient than gasoline cars.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[Big Boss]

I don't know why people think current hybrids are dangerously slow. I have owned a Prius since early 2006. I can keep up with any small 4-cyl gas car on the road. I do better than many 6-cyl SUVs at getting up to highway speeds.

The electric motors alone are rated for 250-lb/ft of torque. That's more than most common gas engines produce at the top of their torque curve. And electrics generate that torque from ZERO RPM. Add the CVT (no shift delays) and the gas motor, and I can get up to speed pretty quick. Speed changes on the freeway are also quite fast. Can I keep up with a Vette? Not even close. But do I need to? Nope.

It's not a "performance" car. But it's also not marketed as one.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[keean]

right road vehicles account for 33M tonnes of CO2, and London represents roughly 10% of UK electricity consumption. So, moving the whole of the UK to local generation would reduce CO2 emissions the same ammount as scrapping _all_ road transport in the UK (and not allowing that usage to be shifted to other forms of transport). If you consider that those trips will have to take place by train or EV, then you can see that moving to local power generation will reduce CO2 emissions much more than scrapping all petrol/diesel cars. So the savings are a _lot_.

Re:Even coal is better than gasoline (no, really!)

[DuckDodgers]

Funny, the 10-12 second 0-60 mph times of the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid was perfectly normal 20 years ago.

Only recently have we suddently decided that a V6 family sedan needs to effortlessly keep pace with all but the best 1960s muscle cars. There are pickup trucks on the road today that can haul two tons of gear faster than a 1980s truck would run when empty.

I love high performance cars, but I don't understand why suddenly economy cars need to run like greased lightning.

3-Speed Transmission?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, even the SSC Ultimate Aero's gasoline engines, which has 1000+ hp and 1112 ft-lb torque, need a 6-speed just to make it to 208mph that Ultimate Aero EV is reaching. Since the EV's torque doesn't even reach the rating of the gasoline car, it will have to be in a very tall overdrive gear running probably twice the redline rpm as the original, and have a salt flat the size of Utah for it to accelerate anywhere close to top speed. In other words, even more unobtainable than the gas Aero's 270mph top speed. Besides, by running electric engine at such high speed for 500hp engine, it is going to wear out a lot quicker than the gas Aero's engine. Sure, your computer's hard drives may be running 15000rpm all the time, but they are not carrying the load anywhere close to Aero EV is carrying, and they certainly do not generate even .5 horsepower.

Reliability aside, having engine revving up all the time with lousy 3-speed is going to eat up battery power a lot quicker than a 6-speed running at lower RPMs. Sure supercar owners do not car much about fuel efficiency as average Joes do, but increasing the need to recharge will wear out batteries a whole lot faster. Last time I checked, rebuilding batteries are a lot harder than rebuilding internal combustion engines, and in many cases, old batteries can only be recycled at best.

This is great but....

[elashish14]

Where is the electrical energy supposed to come from? Our power plants still aren't close to being non-polluting let alone carbon neutral. This will be an improvement over current gasoline engines, but it only solves part of the problem.

In the mean time, it's good (though hardly believable) that the Shelby has such a quick charge time. In order to be viable for long-range trips (say a full day), you need to be able to get a quick charge while on the road. Hell, even if you can only get ~100 miles/charge, it's still a pretty good thing. Think about it[comma splice] you already spend about 3 minutes at the gas station, so this isn't that bad.

Re:This is great but....

[randmairs]

Home Power magazine had an article about Solar Hot Water systems recently where Solar Hot Water could save about 10 kwhrs of electricity a day. 10 kwhrs is enough electricity to power an EV for 30 to 40 miles. With electrical rates at $0.10 /kwhr, the cost of driving 30 to 40 miles is $1.00. With gasoline at $2/gallon and an equivalent 20 mpg car, the savings is $3/day. A $9K Solar Hot Water system would take about 3,000 days to pay off or roughly 10 years. It's called conservation and smart investing. As gasoline stocks dwindle, the payback could be much quicker.

Re:This is great but....

[potat0man]

Where is the electrical energy supposed to come from? Our power plants still aren't close to being non-polluting let alone carbon neutral. This will be an improvement over current gasoline engines, but it only solves part of the problem.

Are you the guy who at the scene of a near-deadly car accident says, "Oh good, you've stopped the bleeding and saved his life. But he still has brain cancer so what good was all that work?"

Cold climates

[Midnight Thunder]

The big problem with electric cars is energy storage. Lithium batteries are too expensive, take too long to charge, don't have a high enough energy density, and don't last long enough. If the current work on ultracapacitors pans out (and that's a BIG if) electric cars will become a lot more practical for the mass market.

There are certainly issues with current electric cars, but only by having them in the market place in some form will there be any incentive to improve them. Lithium is expensive, but it will come done like anything else.

My concern will electric vehicles is how they will pan out in cold climates, like Scandinavia or Canada. From my experience batteries perform badly in the cold, with apparent charge dropping off until the battery is warmed up. For me this is where the real test of the technology will happen.

Re:Cold climates

[LoRdTAW]

And add to that the problem of heating the interior. From what I know the electric motors do produce waste heat for the cabin but is it enough to heat in very cold climates? I remember reading/watching something about how electric cars will have to be built with smaller windows, double pain insulating glass and extra cabin insulation. This will keep them warm in the winter and prevent the AC from draining the batteries in the summer. If they need to add a resistance heater to keep the car warmer, efficiency becomes a real factor in the design process.

Re:Cold climates

[BitterOak]

Lithium is expensive, but it will come done like anything else.

Actually lithium is an element, like gold, so it can't be manufactured. There's only so much of it. Therefore, unlike manufactured goods, as demand goes up, price goes up, not down.

Re:Cold climates

[randmairs]

We have two Rovers crawling around on Mars for over 5 years in -100 degree Fahrenheit temperatures using only solar cells and Lithium Ion batteries. A portion of the battery's energy goes to warming them but the Rovers don't go very far per charge.

Re:Cold climates

[Anonymous Coward]

And add to that the problem of heating the interior. From what I know the electric motors do produce waste heat for the cabin but is it enough to heat in very cold climates? I remember reading/watching something about how electric cars will have to be built with smaller windows, double pain insulating glass and extra cabin insulation. This will keep them warm in the winter and prevent the AC from draining the batteries in the summer. If they need to add a resistance heater to keep the car warmer, efficiency becomes a real factor in the design process.

Since burning gas for heat can be very efficient even on a small scale (90%+ efficieny home furnace), this may mean carrying gas (propane, natural gas, or gas gas) for heat in an electric car! Based on current energy prices, the gas is likely to be more efficient than resistive heating, and a heat pump may not be feasible, this could become a viable option. You can add lots of insulation but if the only source of heat is people (100 watts/person) and motor waste heat, then what else will you do? An air exchange heat pump could work down to the low 30 Fs. After that, you need to burn something.

Re:Cold climates

[WCguru42]

ANYTHING is likely to be more efficient than resistive heating,

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Cold climates

[RealTime]

I would suggest keeping the battery pack warm using the same power source that is being used to charge the battery. Also, insulate the battery pack, since the batteries typically warm themselves as a result of being discharged, due to their own internal resistance.

This mainly becomes an issue if you park the car somewhere for a long time in a place that is cold, but there is no way to plug the car in. I suspect that parking garages would start offering electrical outlets for charging the parked vehicles. Smart grids would probably help with this, causing the car owner to be billed for the electricity used to charge and pre-warm the car (or credited, if the car contributed excess electricity to the grid during daytime peak hours in periods of relatively mild weather).

Similarly, the car interior could be pre-warmed (or pre-cooled in the summer) when plugged in.

Re:Cold climates

[RJFerret]

Actually, instant heat! :-) No more waiting for an engine to warm up, just flick the switch.

You mention waste heat from an electric motor, horrible, horrible if your motor is so inefficient it has waste heat...

The electric car I rode in also had a 120v home stereo system in it.

The kits were wonderful back in the 80's/90's, it's amazing to me that nobody has accomplished this in a production vehicle since Honda's EV Plus (which was only leased).

Re:Cold climates

[Mana Mana]

> batteries perform badly in the cold

Not to be facile with an answer---super insulation. Our mundane car battery is designed for a paradigm that does not value lossless charge retention.

Re:Cold climates

[Toshito]

And heating is not only important for the passenger's comfort, but also for defrosting the windows. Having super insulated double pane glass is not very useful if you can't see trough it because drizzle is freezing on it.

I can't imagine having an electric car perform well on a cold night in winter, having to heat the cabin, fan at fast speed to defrost the windshield and side windows, defrost on for the rear window, wipers on, lights on, and spinning wheels in the snow...

Just to give an idea in winter if there is very cold weather (like -30C) for a couple of days and a lot of snow I do about 150km less on the same tank of gas (in my small Accent). That's a 25% drop in efficiency because of the cold weather and the snow. And that's in a conventional car, were the heat is free (waste heat from the engine).

Re:Cold climates

[An Onerous Coward]

With insulation, it would only take a small fraction of a battery's charge to keep itself warm.

Re:Cold climates

[Anonymous Coward]

ANYTHING is likely to be more efficient than resistive heating,

There, fixed that for you.

Hold the phone, Mr. Fix-IT! Resistive heating has its place. My most useful and energy saving heater is resitive. It is an electric mattress pad and on full power it draws 100 watts. I can barely stand the heat from half power and tend to run it at a paltry 20-40 watts. What makes it efficient is that it puts constant heat exactly where you need it safely and more cheaply than a combustion source would. It allows a bedroom at 60 F or less to be very comfy (under the covers at least). And its cheaper than paying a prostitute to keep me warm at night. If a space heater means heating 1/3rd or less of the space a full-on furnace would, then it is about even money. If you only need to heat 200 sqft of a 2000 sqft house, I'd go with the space heater. Although a hybrid approach works OK: blast the furnace to get the house where you want it and use a space heater to maintain the heat where you need it. My utity bills are low (gas and electric).

Re:Cold climates

[WCguru42]

Resistive heating works well for contact heating (like your blanket) but for space heating, like you would need in a car, it just isn't that effective (something like 10% efficiency, I think). But then again we could just use blankets/something like a blanket instead of the traditional HVAC in a car and that might actually prove to be quite effective (at least for heating, not sure about cooling).

Re:Cold climates

[Langolier]

A large drop in mileage at -30C is due to the increase in air density. The density of a gas is proportional to the temperature in Kelvin, so there is 280/250 - 1 = 12% more air being pushed out of the way at -30C than at 0C. Your tires may also be underinflated at those low temperatures, if you don't put more air in them to compensate.

Re:Cold climates

[Radical Moderate]

Some of the old air-cooled Volkswagens had gas heaters decades ago. It's certainly possible.

Required Reading on the Subject

[Enderandrew]

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi?currentPage=all

What do the rest of us do....?

[sugapablo]

I know a lot of people are all big on plug-in electric cars, but what do those of us not fortunate enough to have integral garages with outlets in them? I don't know what the percentages are, but I'm assuming there's a lot of average Joe's like me who, even if we own our own homes, have to park on the street wherever we can find parking. Are they going to put outlets in the sidewalks for me?

Re:What do the rest of us do....?

[markdavis]

I have often thought of that. I am guessing that most home owners that don't have a garage but do have a driveway can just use an extension cord and plug on the house. For those with no driveway, they might opt to just bury a power cord and have a controlled outlet near the street. It really isn't that complex and probably not very expensive (although going under a sidewalk could be an issue). Put a power switch in or near the house to prevent someone from stealing your power and you are ready to go. Might need some type of sensing gadget to protect children from messing with the outlet or shorts.

Of course, for people who don't have their own street frontage, it does become a problem. I suppose a city could address that with city-supplied and metered power outlets. It would be expensive, but streets usually have power already running down at least one side.

Re:What do the rest of us do....?

[snaz555]

I know a lot of people are all big on plug-in electric cars, but what do those of us not fortunate enough to have integral garages with outlets in them? I don't know what the percentages are, but I'm assuming there's a lot of average Joe's like me who, even if we own our own homes, have to park on the street wherever we can find parking. Are they going to put outlets in the sidewalks for me?

You know, you can call an electrician and have them install a circuit...

Electric cars are dumb.

[bluefoxlucid]

We're talking about energy storage here. First off, to accelerate a 2000 pound (907kg) car 0-60 in 5 seconds (Mustang GT take-off with stick) requires 4865kg*m/s^2 i.e. 4865 newtons of force. It's going to go about 5m/s^2 for 80 meters, expending 60 watts of power.

My grasp of physics is pretty incorrect here. Somebody please help, because the numbers I got say a 12V car battery supplying 5A of current can pull this off (they can supply around 400A for 30 seconds at 0F, so ... yeah a car battery would run your car for about 40km with this math, at full acceleration, supplying 400hp).

I can't do this, damnit!

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[AKAImBatman]

i.e. 4865 newtons of force.

You're right so far.

It's going to go about 5m/s^2 for 80 meters, expending 60 watts of power.

Not sure what this is all about. 4865 newtons is 4,865 watts. 4,865 watts * 5 seconds = 24,325 joules.

the numbers I got say a 12V car battery supplying 5A of current can pull this off

12V * 5A = 60 watts. You're off by a factor of 81.

*munch* *munch*

Fig newton?

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[bluefoxlucid]

No, a newton meter per second is a watt. That's what's killing me.

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[AKAImBatman]

Oh, is that what's tripping you up? Here:

https://nrich.maths.org/discus/messages/8577/7263.html?1071520520

v = u + at

27m/s = 0 + (a * 5s)
a = 27m/s / 5s
a = 5.4m/s^2

5.4m/s^2 * 4,865kg = 26,271 newtons = 26kW

That sounds about right. Snack time!

Fig newton?

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[ishmaelflood]

"M grasp of physics is pretty incorrect here."

60 mph=27 m/s

a=v/t=27/5=5.4
F=m.a=907*5.4=4.9 kN (so you got that bit right)

Power=F*v (instantaneously) so at 60

Power=4900*27=132 kW=177 hp

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[AKAImBatman]

Power=F*v (instantaneously) so at 60
Power=4900*27=132 kW=177 hp

I'm pretty sure this is wrong. 27m/s is the constant velocity. 5.4m/s^2 is the acceleration. Never the two shall meet. Also, you're computing for momentum (potential energy), not power.

Of course, I made a mistake in my computations as well. Parent did something confusing and inserted "4,865kg" into his calculations when he meant "newtons". Let's see if we can rejigger this from scratch.

Acceleration = 5.4 m/s^2
Mass = 907kg
Time = 5s

First we need to compute the newtons.

5.4m/s^2 * 907kg = 4,897.8 newtons

From that we know the wattage:

4,897.8 newtons = 4.9kW (6.57hp)

Energy used during acceleration:

4.9kW * 5s = 24.5kJ

Of course, we're computing for a vacuum. Friction and air resistance is going to significantly increase those figures. From the last time I did the work to figure out what it takes for a car to travel a constant 60mph, ~20kW of power sounds about correct. Unfortunately, I'd need to know the exact drag of the vehicle to compute this properly.

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[bluefoxlucid]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt is what's tripping me up

1 W == 1 J/S == 1kg * m^2 / s^3 == 1N * m/s

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[bluefoxlucid]

20kW, right? 60 miles at 60mph needs 20kWh? Not perfect efficiency, and charging isn't perfect either, but to go to work (30 miles away) and back would need about 20kWh, each day, 100kWh a week, perfect efficiency, right? I'd rack um... 400kWh up a month, my current electric bill is 46kWh per month... nevermind grocery store, college, etc...

Thanks, this is the original point I was trying to make. I'd still like to see some solid numbers though...

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[AKAImBatman]

For rough estimates, that sounds about right. I get 72MJ for a round trip, which converts to 20kWh. So I'd say you've got it. :)

Worst case, add about 50% on to that to cover unexpected usage. (e.g. Hitting a lot of stop lights. Going to the grocery store. etc.) That would give you about a 600kWh usage per month. You can use this chart to figure out what your monthly "fuel" bill would be. Using California as an estimate, the cost for 600kWh would work out to (600 * 0.12) $72/month. Not too shabby.

If you live somewhere less expensive, like the nuclear powered Illinois, you could have a bill as low as ~$50/mo.

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[Pentium100]

1N != 1W

5.4m/s^2*4865kg=26.271kN of force

The average speed of the car is 27/2=13.5m/s
The car accelerates for 5 seconds, traveling 67.5 meters

26'271N force * 67.5 meters = 1.773 mega joules of energy
1.773MJ/5s = 34.56kW of power

There is also a faster way of calculating this:

After the acceleration, the car is traveling at 60 miles/hour (27 meters/second), so it has kinetic energy of (e=(m*v^2)/2) 4865kg*27m/s*27m/s*0.5=1.773MJ
All that energy was supplied during those 5 seconds of acceleration, giving power (E=P*t; P=E/t) of 1.773MJ/5s=34.56kW

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[bluefoxlucid]

Dude, we're talking about plug-in charge cars. 3 cars, possibly "refueling" multiple times a day (it takes me a full 20kW to get to work and back? A full solar array on my house could generate 3.0kW and get 2.5kW past the inverter). You're either at the gas station 1-2 times a day (time cost, convenience cost, massive delays waiting in line at the gas station); or at home, with 2-3 cars (you, wife, kid), raising your power bill from 200kWh to 1500kWh or 2000kWh. How much can the power grid take?!

Re:Electric cars are dumb.

[Anonymous Coward]

Newtons != Watts

Watts = kg*m^2/s^3, Newtons = kg*m/s^2. If the units don't work out in your math, then something is wrong.

I don't even know what you're trying to calculate. If you're trying to calculate the energy needed to take a mass m at rest up to 60 MPH, in a vacuum with no friction, you simply use E = 1/2*m*v^2. That's because you take the mass at rest to be E = 0, and the mass at velocity v to have E = 1/2*m*v^2.

In order to calculate the power, you differentiate that expression by time. Assuming constant acceleration a, v = at. Which means E(t) = 0.5*m*a^2*t^2. P(t) = m*a^2*t. Note that this means instantaneous power is not constant in time.

... where's Rosen Motors? ....

[ninjagin]

Remember these guys? What happened to their idea? A jet-powered hybrid?

Re:... where's Rosen Motors? ....

[jeff4747]

Well, previously the main issue with turbine-powered cars is the incredibly loud noise they emit. And you can't put a muffler on a jet.

Dunno if these folks ran into the same problem.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[tweak13]

Oh and the shelby has 150mile range just so you know.

His mention of range was to point out that it's ridiculous to have a 1,000 HP motor when actually using all 1,000 HP would drain the batteries so fast you'd never get anywhere. Of course it would go farther if you only used a tiny fraction of the motor's capability, which is almost certainly what the 150 mi value is based on.

Is the Aptera road legal?

[jfengel]

The Aptera looks like a recumbent bicycle. Is it going to be legal to take it on American roads?

It's easy to make a car get a zillion miles to the gallon (or the charge) if you remove all of the safety features, like a body that crunches instead of the driver.

If you want high mileage, get a motorcycle. It may also significantly improve organ donations.

Re:Is the Aptera road legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Appearance is not everything you know. If regulations were going by appearance, the Smart probably wouldn't be street legal, and according to Wikipedia, it received a 4/5 rating for frontal impact and 5/5 for side impact.

Re:Is the Aptera road legal?

[Overzeetop]

It is legal, and it is just as safe as any small car on the road. It's far more safe in any collision than a bike. Yes, it looks a bit goofy, but that's basically the shape you're going to have to live with if you want a Cd of 0.11, which is what you'll need to get the kind of range/kWh they're getting. And you won't get the aptera's milage on a bike because the Cd of a biker is pretty darned poor (sorry, no cite).

Re:Is the Aptera road legal?

[Muad'Dave]

In Virginia, this thing is a motorcycle.

Re:Is the Aptera road legal?

[jfengel]

Thanks. Interesting. I drive a small car myself, and would rather see more of them on the road. I just get cranky about stories whose headline is "look what kind of mileage we got from this alternative fuel/engine" when the real message is "look what kind of mileage you can get when you take all of the steel off the car".

Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

For you questioning the "charge in 10 minutes" claim : be aware that a lithium ion battery exists that DOES have this feature. Altair nanotechnologies is shipping a battery right now that supposedly has an improved anode that solves the problems that prevent rapid charging conventional lithium ion batteries. Actually, they claim 5 minute recharges in their marketing materials.

They ALSO claim to have solved the other big problem with lithium ion batteries : finite lifespan. They claim their batteries do not 'wear' and can be put through at least 20 years worth of power cycling. Again, note that these special batteries can be purchased today, they are not vapor-ware. (I don't know if their claims are valid, but I do know the physical batteries exist)

Yes, I am aware that a 10 minute recharge would strain the capacity of standard electrical service. You would need the electric gas stations to either have extremely high amperage connections to the grid, or to have some kind of energy storage technology at the station. Such as super-capacitors, a bank of precharged batteries, flywheels, ect.

So could it be done? Mass produce these high end lithium ion batteries by the billions, putting banks of them in every new car and truck on the road and in electric gas stations? I think it could, but the huge upfront costs of such a conversion are going to put it off well into the future. The ultimate long run costs might be the same or cheaper than fossil fuels, but in the short term consumers won't pay for something that is significantly more expensive.

For the conversion to occur, one of these has to happen

          1. "Moore's law" makes lithium ion batteries so cheap that electric cars are cheaper than gas
          2. Oil shortages make gas so expensive that even electric cars look cheap
          3. The government puts a huge tax on gasoline/diesel and artifically makes electric cars seem cheap

A lot of people have pointed out that an electric car is actually simpler than gas. The motors are a lot smaller, and the battery banks consist of thousands of identical battery cells. The only other thing in the car is the power handling circuitry, which is solid state. If the batteries didn't wear out with age, then an electric car would probably be much cheaper to maintain.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of super-capacitors. Several companies are
trying to make these things work. Does anybody
understand enough to know if this looks real and
what the time frame is likely to be. Presently
the time frame is "in the fall". It has been that
way for several years.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

So could it be done? Mass produce these high end lithium ion batteries by the billions, putting banks of them in every new car and truck on the road and in electric gas stations? I think it could, but the huge upfront costs of such a conversion are going to put it off well into the future.

This might be a worthy use of the trillions of dollars the government is spending/printing to "stimulate the economy"... nah, lets shore up real estate prices and give out a few hundred dollars per head in tax cuts instead.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

For the conversion to occur, one of these has to happen

          1. "Moore's law" makes lithium ion batteries so cheap that electric cars are cheaper than gas

          2. Oil shortages make gas so expensive that even electric cars look cheap

          3. The government puts a huge tax on gasoline/diesel and artifically makes electric cars seem cheap

4. The government puts a subsidy on american-made batteries for DIY converted cars / trucks

That could stimulate domestic battery production and get a lot of cars converted to electric.

WRT #3, gas/diesel is currently artificially cheap: there are spillover costs from production and use, and gas taxes are supposed to fund road infrastructure.

Personally I think we need an agency with the right charter that can change taxes, incentives and investments without involving congress on energy issues.

Re:Interesting

[big_paul76]

I read about a case of Toyota buying back a first-generation Prius from a taxi operator, that had a million miles on it, because they wanted to study how the battery breaks down.

Now, maybe there's something else going on, maybe this was an "outlier" and most Priuses don't last for 1,000,000 miles. But if a Prius went 1,000,000 miles without a battery failure, I think the battery isn't a problem.
 

Re:Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

The Prius batteries are not lithium ion, and are not appropriate for an all-electric car.

Re:Interesting

[gemada]

read some of the other posts. the batteries will last far longer than most people will keep the vehicle. 10 years at least on current generation electric vehicles.

Re:Interesting

[big_paul76]

Ahh, that makes sense.

But, aren't there people who are doing plug-in electric conversions on Priuses (god that's an awkward word to pluralize...)?

I've only heard of it, no idea of tech details, I just remember hearing that you'd get 40-50 miles using no gasoline at all.

That's not a completely zero-emission vehicle, but 40-50 miles covers what, 80% of people's commutes? That's a pretty good start...

Re:Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

Well, here's the thing : think about the concept. What kind of vehicle technology would YOU rather have?

1. A vehicle that uses a complete gas engine, including fuel systems, air intakes, fuel injection, even a turbocharger. Throttles, radiators, lubricating oil, ect ect. AND a battery bank AND electric motors AND power conversion circuitry.
          More than DOUBLE the number of drivetrain components.

2. A vehicle with a much bigger battery bank, using special batteries that can fast charge in 10 minutes so you can go across the state as long as there are enough electric charge station 'waypoints'. You have GPS so it takes a lot fewer of these than it did back in the days of the first gas cars.

Which technology do you think is going to be cheaper to keep running long term? Or to manufacture?

Plug in hybrids are a good start in that they spur developement of cheaper batteries, power conversion circuitry, and all electric drivetrains. But they are only a stopgap measure, and may never be economical.

Re:Interesting

[khallow]

Personally I think we need an agency with the right charter that can change taxes, incentives and investments without involving congress on energy issues.

Congress is that agency. It probably doesn't have (even if it were to desire to) the power to delegate taxation authority.

Re:Interesting

[keean]

The Altair NanoSafe battery is being used in this car: http://www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk/

Re:Interesting

[An Onerous Coward]

4) The government runs up some additional debt to get these things on the road.

To me, it makes sense for government to resort to deficit spending whenever there is a project with long-term payoffs, but the short term incentives keep the market from doing it. Still, I might prefer #3, especially if it was part of a tax reform that swapped the payroll tax for a carbon tax. Tax pollution, not work!

You're right about electric cars being cheaper to maintain, if battery degradation weren't an issue. The cars are lighter, which translates into less wear. They also have fewer and simpler parts, and fewer of those parts require fluids that need to be checked or replaced. Carbon-composite frames would yield further improvements.

On a more persnickety note: there is no Moore's Law for batteries. Moore's Law is just a prediction about the number of transistors that can be put on a chip over time. Some have expanded it to other computer-related fields, like disk storage, bandwidth, processing power. They've even tried to use it on the price of photovoltaics. The usage is still wrong, but at least there is an exponential trend they can point to. Battery progress is much more sedate, and I think it doesn't follow an exponential trend.

Anyhow, using Moore's Law as a synonym for exponential improvements in computer and semiconductor-related fields is one thing. Using it as a broad synonym for technological progress will get your geek card revoked. You don't want that.

Re:Interesting

[thermowax]

Re: electrics are simpler than gas:

Indeed, there are many people (myself included) that think a large part of the Big 3's reluctance to pursue electric vehicles is the loss of parts and maintenance revenue. They touch on this in "Who Killed the Electric Car", in fact.

Gasoline engines are pigs. In addition to gasoline, they require oil changes, oil filters, air filters, fuel filters, coolant changes, emissions control system maintenance, and a bazillion other items and their corresponding labor costs. (Personally, I do all that stuff myself, but I still have to pay for the parts- and I'd be willing to bet that I'm in the vast, vast minority.)

Additionally, it's been said, here and elsewhere, that Toyota doesn't make a profit on the sale of a Prius. Well, obviously they're not doing it for free, so how are they making their money?

1. Brand building (goodwill) and
2. Maintenance

Would you take your whiz-bang high-tech Prius to the corner garage? I wouldn't. You probably can't, anyway, for anything beyond tire changing type stuff. So, off to the Toyota dealer goes the Prius owner...

Re:Interesting

[holmstar]

It doesn't matter if the batteries can theoretically be charged in 10 minutes, even if you DO have massive capacitors in your garage. The quadruple digit number of amps required to charge the batteries that fast at the voltage available in the home mean that the cables going into your car would have to be HUUUUUGGE. As in so huge as to be difficult to handle and completely impractical. Even if you step-up the voltage the cables would still be unwieldy because of the thicker insulator that would be required.

Re:Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

care to show some math?

Re:Interesting

[ShooterNeo]

Solution : water cooling.

The power cable might be an inch in diameter, and would have plastic tubes carrying distilled water spiralling around the cable sheath. There would be a ground sheath, electronically monitored, and a switch to kill the juice when there's a leak.

The power pack would use a similar coolant system, complete with fan and radiator. The Tesla power pack already has this.

ugly

[BobVila]

The Shelby looks okay, but the Aptera is ugly. If someone is looking to buy a car, they aren't going to buy that. It looks nothing like a car.

Electric vehicle problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that electric vehicles have to overcome some daunting problems: 1) charging - if it is to be a plugin type charger, then we are simply moving the source of pollution from a highly regulated point source (gas cars), to a gross polluter source (power plants). 2) battery disposal/recycling and costs - people tend to forget that the most: your Prius needs a $7-10K battery after a few years and there is currently no way to recycle the old one. 3) price - this has been mentioned here but its still a problem

Re:Electric vehicle problems

[justinlee37]

then we are simply moving the source of pollution from a highly regulated point source (gas cars), to a gross polluter source (power plants)

What in the world makes you think that a car is more efficient at burning fossil fuels for energy than a power plant, which is a large, stationary device built only for that purpose? Burning oil to generate electricity at a plant is many times more efficient than burning it in your car. Even a basic grasp of thermodynamics would allow you to realize this.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[CannonballHead]

Oh and the shelby has 150mile range just so you know.

Depends on the speed. You can probably get upwards of 200 miles if you push it faster! ;)

I already said that.

[gcnaddict]

I already said that:

that's much more water that's being converted from liquid to gas than by weather alone (or even by cars today).

So yes, I do realize this.

Re:I already said that.

[JesseL]

So how would water vapor emissions alone be worse than water vapor + carbon dioxide? Especially considering water vapor tends to be self limiting in the atmosphere.

Re:I already said that.

[gcnaddict]

Water is self limiting but not when too much of it is being vaporized. In the end, hydrogen-powered cars are redirecting solar energy which would otherwise hit the land (indirectly or directly the form of energy used to break water apart) into water in the form of water vapor. Sure, burning hydrocarbons releases water and CO2 (this is understood), but burning hydrogen gas and oxygen releases more water vapor into the air (well, in terms of sheer numbers of molecules) than the CO2 and H2O released when burning octane.

In the end, more solar power is going towards shoving water vapor into the air.

Re:I already said that.

[hardburn]

The vapor will condense into clouds, increasing the Earth's albedo. In other words, more energy is reflected into space. Water is not something to be concerned about as a greenhouse gas.

10 minutes to charge?

[hairykrishna]

10 minutes from what power supply? 10 minutes on 240V, 100amps would allow it to produce 1000hp for an impressive ~0.5 seconds.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Guysmiley777]

With electric motors you pay heavily for "over sizing". Electric motors approach their max efficiency as they approach their maximum rated load. So using 1,000 HP of motors to generate 150 HP is pretty bad. (I admit it's also pretty bad-ass...)

"Most journeys" aren't enough.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Most journeys that people really need their cars for are less than 50km, going to the shops and commuting.

And if you buy a car for "most journeys" that doesn't handle "all journeys" you need to buy, license, insure, and maintain TWO cars. The costs are obvious and I won't even START on the environmental impact of that. (And don't give me "rent one when you need one", either.)

If the electric/hybrid is to REPLACE the fuel-only auto it needs to be able to handle the daily commute, the shopping trips, the entertainment trips, and the vacations.

Call me when you get one that can do the Silicon Valley commute and weekend shopping trips on batteries only, runs hybrid on ski trips to Tahoe and weekends in Reno (scavenging a couple thousand feet of altitude downhill energy for use uphill like a hybrid scavenges stops for starts), and goes all-day cross-country on the flat with mileage at LEAST as good as a gasoline-only car and distance between fillups ditto. THEN you're ready for prime-time.

Re:"Most journeys" aren't enough.

[sir_eccles]

You miss the point though.

If you really really need something that matches a gasoline car for a particular purpose like a ski trip to Tahoe, hire a car for the weekend.

For Mr and Mrs Smith going shopping or commuting, a short range electric car is sufficient.

Ideally there would be an associated enlargement of public transport, light rail and intercity rail to take away those medium range journeys.

It's a whole integrated solution not one thing to solve all problems.

Re:"Most journeys" aren't enough.

[Miszou72]

What you say makes sense, but take my situation as a counter-example.

I commute 15 miles each way to work and my wife works from home. I drive a small car that gets 30mpg and she has a minivan for toting kids around, grocery shopping etc.

If we ever need to go anywhere that requires comfort, additional space or a long drive, we will take the minivan. For running to work or zipping around the neighborhood, we use the smaller car.

An electric car that would suit our lifestyle perfectly existed over ten years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Re:"Most journeys" aren't enough.

[jeff4747]

And don't give me "rent one when you need one", either

Why not?

If it truly is an outlier, and 95% of the time you don't need the extra-long range, renting makes perfect sense. You don't buy your own moving van for the rare times you move. You call up U-Haul.

Even if you insist on buying a car that can handle the long trips, the typical US household has at least 2 cars. For daily use, one person drives the electric, and one drives the 'vacation-capable' car. Use the electric for weekend shopping drips, and the 'vacation-capable' car for vacations. You don't need 2 'vacation-capable' cars.

Kind of need a driveway for a charge at home car

[smallfeet]

If you live in an apartment or in the city and have to park on the street, you really don't have a good way to plug a car in over night. I think I will patent a 'Charger Post'; insert credit card, open door and plug in car, lock door, next day insert card again to open door.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Anonymous Coward]

its only low for the time being, you can bet that when the economy picks back up so will the prices at the pump

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Antimatter3009]

If you're in the US, it actually seems like a good bet that gas will stay fairly cheap. If you look at the past few decades, we've had cheap gas with spikes here and there. There's no reason to think that things have fundamentally changed.

That said, there are plenty of good reasons to pursue electric/alternative cars. Pollution, energy independence, etc.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[Rei]

You're thinking of gasoline engines. Electric drivetrains are highly efficient across their entire torque/RPM range. "Optimal" is generally something like a third of maximum torque and a third of maximum RPM, but even the worst case (which is usually high torque / very low RPM) is usually only like 70% or so efficiency. Not a huge difference between that and the peak of 90-95% efficiency or so.

And actually, "over-sizing" electric drivetrains makes them *more* efficient. You have to use fatter cables to be able to handle the peak currents, which means that a given "cruising" current will encounter less resistance. The Tesla Roadster got something like 15 miles extra range when they upgraded to Powertrain 1.5 in order to compensate for removing the 2-gear transmission that kept breaking because there was too much torque.

Re:Kind of need a driveway for a charge at home ca

[xaxa]

If you live in an apartment or in the city and have to park on the street, you really don't have a good way to plug a car in over night. I think I will patent a 'Charger Post'; insert credit card, open door and plug in car, lock door, next day insert card again to open door.

Like these, in London? (They're not actually free, there's a £200 yearly registration fee, but that's a bargain for parking in central London, where you'll be paying £5 an hour or more.)

I don't approve of the on-street ones though -- I'd rather they just removed the parking space. The street space in central London is far too valuable to be used only by a few people who can afford to leave a car there; a wider pavement (sidewalk) or a bike lane would benefit far more people.

I disagree - looks are important.

[maillemaker]

To me, looks are an important part of the car buying criteria. Now with the price of gas as it was recently, I admit, I'll buy anything that gets good gas mileage.

But what I really [u]want[/u] to drive is a sports car. Even if it doesn't perform like a sports car.

ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, I'll pick the car that looks like a Corvette.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[slashdotlurker]

We do not disagree. Looks are important. Except that different looks matter to different people. And its more than looks. How am I supposed to stuff a week's worth of groceries from Costco into one of these ??

That is my point - these designs, while aerodynamic and Hollywood friendly, do not take into account the real needs for real people in real life. Make it a 40 mile range car that goes from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds. I do not mind that. Its just my hunch (and I have not taken fluid dynamics since undergrad) that that is doable with a design that will fit me.

A car is primarily a transportation vehicle. Not a fashion statement primarily. The issue with the argument with early adoption is that it remains just that - there are never enough early adopters for whom cost is no object. Look at the history of the gas fueled auto. Yes, the cost is high initially, but make something that will catch fire with the general public. Changing designs later does not work because by then you already have a reputation for poor ergonomics.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[jeff4747]

How am I supposed to stuff a week's worth of groceries from Costco into one of these

You take your other car.

The typical US household has at least 2 cars. One person drives the hyper-efficient car to work, the other drives the 'regular' car to work. When it's time to go to Costco, take the regular car.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[slashdotlurker]

Then why wouldn't I just keep the two cars I have instead of replacing one with an EV ? If it can't do what the car it is replacing can, then it is useless. I usually shop on my way back from work. Am I supposed to drive an extra 5 miles (back and forth) to drop off the white elephant and pick up a normal car and then go shopping ??

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[jeff4747]

Then why wouldn't I just keep the two cars I have instead of replacing one with an EV ?

Because the EV is cheaper to operate, or because the EV is better for the environment. Pick whichever motivation is more important to you.

I usually shop on my way back from work. Am I supposed to drive an extra 5 miles (back and forth) to drop off the white elephant and pick up a normal car and then go shopping ?

No, you're supposed to drive the regular car, and the other driver in the house will drive the EV. Unless, of course, your only goal here is to object to EVs instead of actually think about the "shopping" problem.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[slashdotlurker]

Because the EV is cheaper to operate, or because the EV is better for the environment. Pick whichever motivation is more important to you.

Cheaper operation is always important. Its the reason why I bought a Prius and sold my old Civic. But my Prius does not tell me "Oh, I am sorry. You can't do this, and that, and that, because I am too trendy to be a car."

No, you're supposed to drive the regular car, and the other driver in the house will drive the EV. Unless, of course, your only goal here is to object to EVs instead of actually think about the "shopping" problem.

Spoken like a true "genius". So, I should force the other driver to accept lower capabilities (than a normal no-frills car) so that I can tell myself every night that at least I am helping the environment ? I have a better suggestion - maybe I could just sell the other car and walk to work. It would be radically friendly to the environment, no not even the extra emissions from the production of the other car.

You must have been on a focus group where such dumb design decisions are made.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[jeff4747]

But my Prius does not tell me "Oh, I am sorry. You can't do this, and that, and that, because I am too trendy to be a car."

And your Prius also tells you to pay more for your initial purchase, and more for maintenance. To some people, that's fine. Others would prefer the cash.

So, I should force the other driver to accept lower capabilities (than a normal no-frills car) so that I can tell myself every night that at least I am helping the environment

No, you and the other person in your house probably agree on either the environmental benefits or the cash-saving benefits.

My point is your objections are trivial to overcome if you think about it for more that 5 minutes. But if you insist on having 2 cars with 300+ mile range for your 50 mile daily drive, go ahead.

Re:I disagree - looks are important.

[slashdotlurker]

My point is your objections are trivial to overcome if you think about it for more that 5 minutes. But if you insist on having 2 cars with 300+ mile range for your 50 mile daily drive, go ahead.

Heck, I would accept a car with a 40 mile driving range, if only it would do one of the things that cars are made for - carry family groceries/shopping home. As to triviality of groceries, try convincing your wife about that and let us know how you get on.

Is there an EVRA yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many decent performing electric make and models will there have to be before there's an Electric Vehicle Racing Association? (Is there one already? I haven't googled just yet.) And not necessarily drag racing or slow moving endurnance events. I'm talking about track style events (and it doesn't have to be circle track a.k.a. NASCAR style, you could base it on another racing series with switchback turns that might penalize heavier cars) with pit stops where not only do they swap the tires when the car is jacked up, but also may have some established means to hot swap the battery pack before dropping the car back down. And to make things a little more challenging, restrict the number of battery packs in rotation per event. So that way, if you're charge is low on pack #3, you'd better hope that battery pack #1 is topped off because it's next in rotation again. Even if it's not loud and smelly, the go-kart like torque-heavy acceleration and the drivers of the electric race-cars would still put on a good show. Seems like a well thought out racing series would be an entertaining way to push electric powertrain development in a way that worked well for internal combustion power.

Re:Is there an EVRA yet?

[MachDelta]

This is what i've been wondering too. A huge number of technologies applied to modern day vehicles come from either motor sports or military research. An all electric vehicle racing league would do wonders for encouraging rapid development on electric commuter cars.

Not exactly...

[Symbha]

And using electricity means that everyone has a fuel source right at home, ready to go.

Not exactly... our electric grid could not support a population of people charging cars at home. At least not as it is now... so, 'ready-to-go' not exactly. (Incidentally, improving the electric grid is in Obama's agenda, so that is good.)

For the record though, I agree 100% on the comments of efficiency, and the principle in general. I'll add too, that electric motors are vastly more efficient than internal combustion motors.

Re:Not exactly...

[WillAffleckUW]

Wrong.

Our electricity grid could easily support a population of people with new cars charging their cars at home, using the time-dependent charging mechanisms that allow the power draw to be at low usage times.

Remember, the largest number of vehicles proposed to be sold in the US over the next 3 years is at best 1 percent of the total number of vehicles that will be sold over those 3 years, and less than 1 percent of the total number of vehicles on the road at the end of 3 years.

Re:Not exactly...

[BlackSnake112]

And many of us apartment/condo dwellers cannot charge at 'home'. There are a reasons: 1. few or no outside outlets to plug in to. 2. It could be against the rules of your place. We would have to move or see if work (it doesn't for me and my work is very very green) allows one to plug in.

Re:Not exactly...

[WillAffleckUW]

Actually, in my city, apartment dwellers are mandated to have charging facilities in their parking lots. It's not up to the owners, the city requires they provide it.

It's not about range

[91degrees]

Modern motors and batteries are great! We can make a car with perfectly acceptable range and have been able to for a few year now.

It's all about recharge times! Most people want a car that can get them from where they are to wherever they want to go, and get them back again. Having to stop overnight for a recharge is a seriously major issue.

greenstage.co.nz

[FriedmannSolution5]

in NZ you should check out: http://www.greenstage.co.nz/ an open-source LiFePO4-based racing vehicle.

has to be renewable

[FriedmannSolution5]

no need to burn a lot of coal to save some octane. what about this: http://www.solarnetwork.net/

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[snaz555]

His mention of range was to point out that it's ridiculous to have a 1,000 HP motor when actually using all 1,000 HP would drain the batteries so fast you'd never get anywhere. Of course it would go farther if you only used a tiny fraction of the motor's capability, which is almost certainly what the 150 mi value is based on.

But you really only use the capacity of any car engine a fraction of the time - to start from lights, to accelerate to highway speed, etc. The rest of the time you coast at a fraction of capacity. And for this electric motors are fantastic - power out follows power in very closely, unlike a large-displacement combustion engine. And most of the time you wouldn't use the full 1000 hp, in fact anything over 300 hp likely makes no difference whatsoever in normal traffic. With a composite body you can still accelerate and brake like a motorcycle. But it might be fun to have on track days, and since it doesn't affect the everyday driving negatively, if you don't mind the expense - why not! (And yes, I do understand that acceleration is a function of gearing, while top speed is a function of hp.)

An electric car company from India

[shakuni]

http://www.revaindia.com/

This Company has been in business since 1994.

Don't tell the marketing dept

[Cajun Hell]

and will be able to produce over 1,000 horsepower, powering the vehicle from 0-60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds

That sounds awesome, doesn't it? The funny thing is, when I see that, I think, "Oh, this is a high-powered car, analogous to a gasoline-powered car that uses a V-8. I don't buy those kind of cars; I buy the cheapest stuff that Toyota and Honda make. Ergo, I don't want this particular electric car."

Yes, it's irrational. I know that high-performance doesn't necessarily really mean expensive to run. And electric cars all tend to all have really good acceleration. I don't actually, consciously and rationally consider a slow car to be "better" than a fast car. That's just been the historical tendency of gasoline-powered cars (the faster it is, the less likely it's the car that I want).

But here's a marketing hint: Stress the convenience of plug-in. Stress the economy of efficiency. Shhhh on performance; I don't want to know. I do, but I don't. Know what I mean?

3 Wheels == Motorcycle

[KalvinB]

At least according to government standards. That helps reduce the safety standards which reduces the weight and cost of the vehicle.

So driving a three wheeled electric car around gives you more stability (and keeps out the elements) than a 2 wheeled motorcycle but you're still never going to win in a crash. Unless you consider not dying a win for you. It is possible that in minor crashes you'll walk away.

Does this /really/ help the environment?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean; we still need to generate the electricity to charge this baby. And where does that come from? Ah right; from the sources we want to keep out of the picture because we want to focus on how clean the car is.

Re:Wheee! 1,000 HP!

[WCguru42]

There's no reason to think that things have fundamentally changed.

Actually, there is an amazing good reason to believe things have changed. All the previous spikes in gas prices have been caused by supply shocks. This means that various oil producing conglomerates have decided they would or could not provide the amount of oil because they didn't like the cost of it. This past years price shock was caused by a demand spike that could not be met. With the rapidly growing economies of China and India (~1/3 of the world's population) there are going to be more and more demand shocks on resources that have never been seen before. I'm not upset at China or anything but the game has changed with their growth and that means that there need to be real changes in how we view our resources.

Batteries of any kind don't work well in the cold

[caseih]

The simple fact is that electric vehicles will only ever be very practical in the southern part of the United States. Get north of Utah and the weather is simply too cold for lithium-based batteries to work well. Even lead acid batteries struggle in the cold. Certainly in Canada an electric vehicle is a no go 5-6 months out of the year. Even if you find a way to heat the batteries and keep them warm, that takes electric power that you can't use for actually driving. When stopped you'd obviously plug in your car to charge and warm it. Even still, on those 40 below mornings (yes parts of the US and Canada do experience them from time to time), as I coax my gasoline car to life (which will barely crank over when left unplugged), I am reminded as to some major flaws in the electric car idea.

nuclear power - excellent idea

[mrflash818]

Nuclear power is an excellent idea.

I prefer fusion myself. Big 'ol billions of years of reliable fusion power plant... and our planet orbits it constantly.

Now we just need enough collectors, via solar panels and concentrating solar power plants, to use all that freely available power.

Re:nuclear power - excellent idea

[DuckDodgers]

I've posted it before, but it bears repeating:

Nevada Solar One solar plant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One
One US nuclear power plant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs_Nuclear_Generating_Station

In 2008 dollars, the nuclear plant cost about 16 times as much to construct, $266 million versus $4 billion. But the nuclear plant supplies 104 times as much energy per year as the 134 million kilowatt-hours from the solar plant. So the nuclear power generates more than six times as much energy per dollar spent on construction, which still dramatically offsets the ongoing maintenance and fuel cost advantages of solar.

Nukes suck. period.

[bussdriver]

It makes far more sense working on those "never ready" green technologies that are perpetually 5 years away than it makes sense working on similar mythical clean coal and next-gen nuclear technologies.

Nuclear power never was profitable and likely will not be in a generation or more. It costs so much more than most everything else its amazing it has continued as long as it has (government fits the bill to prop up the industry.)

Re:Nukes suck. period.

[MJMullinII]

I'm afraid you'd be in a small party if those are your feelings.

To anyone claiming Nuclear Power was never profitable, I'd point to the 60 year history of Nuclear Energy in the United States.

'fraid there isn't much more too say.

Re:Nukes suck. period.

[bussdriver]

There is more to say; back your false statements up with some numbers! You could find an expert (as I did) and ask them and get yourself informed.

Simply put my ignorant friend:

Government greatly subsidizes nuclear power and did for the whole history of it along the whole chain from the ground to waste storage. Without government welfare it couldn't be profitable without raising the price of energy. Not to mention the high regulation and security costs involved that are a mandatory part of the industry which government pays for as well.

Cheap nuclear is forever 5 years away. I want it proven; 60 years of scamming the public demands it.

Re:Nukes suck. period.

[MJMullinII]

There is more to say; back your false statements up with some numbers! You could find an expert (as I did) and ask them and get yourself informed.

Simply put my ignorant friend:

Government greatly subsidizes nuclear power and did for the whole history of it along the whole chain from the ground to waste storage. Without government welfare it couldn't be profitable without raising the price of energy. Not to mention the high regulation and security costs involved that are a mandatory part of the industry which government pays for as well.

Cheap nuclear is forever 5 years away. I want it proven; 60 years of scamming the public demands it.

Which I would find interesting if I didn't know the Nuclear Industry PAYS A TAX ON EVERY WATT of power generated in order to PAY for "the chain from the Ground to Waste Storage".

That's something Greenpeace Scientists (which are just about the only one's to pass on this dribble) never seem to get to in their LONG-WINDED diatribes.

I weigh this against the MASSIVE SUBSIDIES wind and solar get everyday (which they are NEVER required to pay back) any day of the week.

You really should look in the mirror before pointing the "ignorant" stick at others, you know.

screw electric cars..

[56ksucks]

.. how about progress on flying cars?!? am I right?

The organization to watch for EVs

[zogger]

Ya, the supercars are cool if you are a bailed out banker with some buckets of cash sitting around, the three wheelers are...interesting.... looking, Detroit has the usual plethora of concept cars they are fooling around with like they always do, but the one to watch will be the Better Place organization because they are building the whole EV stack, they have a name brand big OEM behind them (nissan/renault to build the vehicles which will be normal looking, plus they are developing a standard charger plus fast battery pack swap outs), and have national governments and some US states behind them. These will be the electric cars that really get the show on the road for the "masses" guy.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[Anonymous Coward]

You only need to heat them before starting, and not much energy is needed for this if the battery pack is well insulated. Once going, internal resistance will keep the packed heated.

I agree with a nuclear powered car :-)

[Whatsmynickname]

I don't know why Ford never came out with this model!

How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

I understand the efficiencies with a electric motor can be substantial. But the math does not add up.

A battery will delever up to 90% of the energy put into charging it. A electric motor can be up to 90% effecient as well so we are at 80%. Cool.

Now the grid will loose anywhere from 20% to 50% in distribution. Just for conversation lets call it a 35% average loss. So we are at about 55% energy lost so far.

Now a coal or gas power plant has a 40% maximum efficiency. Since most of the electricity generated in the US is via coal, you just added a double wammy because you are not burning a nice hydrocarbon anymore, you are just burning carbon.

So now that your electric car is a 20% to 25% efficient contributing to CO2 emissions more than a standard hydrocarbon burn, what state is pushing for this technology... California???? The state of rolling black outs?

Sorry, it just does not add up.

Give me a Hybrid Turbo Diesel any day!

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[Archimboldo]

Your arguments have been answered in many places. Here's one http://pbjots.blogspot.com/2008/07/electric-vs-combustion-engine.html As far as pollution goes, power plants are kept under tighter controls and better maintenance than your average automobile engine - comparing barrel of oil to power plant generation versus barrel of oil to refinement to automobile engine.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[Monoman]

20-25 percent efficient. OK but compared to what for conventional vehicles?

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

Thanks for the link. It certainly helps my argument after you un-spin the converstaion and use thier own data. I noticed they convenently left out power transmission losses in the tabled data, though they mention it in previous paragraphs.

Additionally, chemistry still calls for the generation of electricity using carbon only (read coal) to emit more CO2 than using a hydrocarbon, such as gasoline or diesel. It matters not how much you clean the fuel before use.

I will go head to head, EV vs Turbo Diesel Hybrid and win in any category; emissions, efficiency, pollution (Recycling batteries), costs of operation.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

About the same.

The problem then would become higher operating costs, a total lack of infrastructure (think existing rolling blackouts without adding the new load), and more CO2 emissions (burning coal vs a hydrocarbon).

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[cheesybagel]

Now a coal or gas power plant has a 40% maximum efficiency.

No it doesn't. Even a coal power plant can have efficiencies of 48%. Combined cycle natural gas power plants can have efficiencies of 60%. With Combined Heat and Power, even greater efficiencies are possible.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

Well that is good news!

Of course you are citing the new designs and not the normal average plant that exists tody.

Your reference also cites that a coal powered plant emits three(3) times the amount of CO2 that a nice hydrocarbon (natural gas) one does. My premise still stands.

Interesting that I scored a 1 but the ineffective rebuttals are scoring 2. So much for science.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[cheesybagel]

Scoring in this case has nothing to do with science. It is just the Karma bonus. Anyway, lots of people have done the math on electrics vs ICE and fact is you end up emitting less using the electric grid, any way you cut it.

For example, you count losses, but forget all electric vehicles have regenerative breaking which reduces energy use in stop and start situations such as urban settings (which is where the pollution problem is more serious to begin with). You discount the fact that just the ICE engine has about the efficiency of the whole electric system from power plant to wheel you mentioned. The ICE vehicle will have additional losses as well: transmission losses and other engine losses due to not operating at the designed RPM, which a pure electric should not have, since the engine can be connected directly to the wheels. Then there is the fact that the energy mix is not pure coal or gas fired. I do not know where you live exactly, but in the state you mentioned, California, the electric energy mix is like this:

Net Electricity Generation California
Total Net Electricity Generation 17508 thousand MWh
Petroleum-Fired 9 thousand MWh
Natural Gas-Fired 10431 thousand MWh
Coal-Fired 194 thousand MWh
Nuclear 2606 thousand MWh
Hydroelectric 2033 thousand MWh
Other Renewables 1986 thousand MWh

Sure, on a pure economic sense presently a hybrid diesel is better at this moment in time. But theoretically that is not an invariant and there is more room for efficiency improvements in electrics than ICE (which is barred by the Carnot limit for a thermal engine operating at that temperature)

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[cheesybagel]

PS: In short: electrics are more efficient and have lower emissions than ICE. The problem is the cost of the batteries, but that is expected to come down as electrics enter mass production. I expect the natural progression to be ICE -> hybrid -> electric. It may come to be a time when non-electrics will simply be banned from certain cities just because of air pollution concerns - it has been proved some time ago that tail pipe emissions are a cause for heart disease (namely stroke).

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

The problem with this scoring mechanism is that the moderators are scoring on perceived Karma... very subjective. Thanks for pointing it out.

Many of your assumptions are just that. The Turbo Diesel Hybrid uses regenerative braking as well.

It matters not if many people perform the same math to achieve a incorrect answer, the answer is still incorrect. I have attacked the personal transportation problem looking for an answer, and the EV just did not measure up.

Problem number one for EV's are the batteries. They are VERY heavy, their energy density is horrible compared to a stored liquid fuel, they are expensive and have very limited life times.

Problem number two for the EV is the generation and distribution of electricity. While I appreciate your table of electricity generated in California, a more relevant table would have included consumption. It is my understanding that California imports most of its electricity. If so this would make the table irrelevant. It is my understanding that nationally, in the United States, 80% of the electricity generated is done so using coal.

I am not married to the internal combustion engine, figuratively speaking. The turbo diesel just happens to be the most efficient method of mobile power generation at this time (well a jet turbine engine is more efficient, but it has issues). Fuel cells look very promising, but have a way to go (the lack of available economical catalysts, etc..).

The advances in aerodynamics, drive train efficiencies, and power conservation in EV's are impressive. If we would apply them to a Turbo Diesel Hybrid, we would have a product ready for the masses that would solve the majority of the problems with personal transportation.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[cheesybagel]

It is my understanding that nationally, in the United States, 80% of the electricity generated is done so using coal.

Goodness gracious no. Just nuclear alone does 19.3% of the electric generation. Coal does 48.2% of generation. Before claiming everyone else is doing failed calculations try revising your own.

We are talking about near and mid term solutions to the transportation problem here. Things that may be practical in the next 10 years. I never claimed currently sold electrics are economic. FWIW I own a diesel car. Considered gasoline-hybrid but it makes no sense here due to fuel prices.

Re:How is this saving on Carbon Emissions?

[elkto]

Well, I indeed need to re-look at my calculations. But I do not expect the results to slant towards EV's as the first time I performed them, EV's where so bad allot, and I do mena allot, would have had to change.

A diesel is great if you spend a good deal of your time on the highway. Hybrids only make sense with a lot of stop and go driving, such as in a city.

It was good exchanging ideas with you.

Where's the current source for fast recharge?

[shoor]

If you're going to recharge a battery fast, you need lots of amps don't you? Where's the current source for that?

Personally, I think the best solution is aluminum air batteries which, when they are drained, you would replace at a station. Not much different than stopping at a (gasoline/diesel) station now. Then you could optimize the design for other things instead of fast recharge.

Will Hydraulic Hybrids short circuit Electrics

[clay_buster]

Hydraulic hybrids are being designed that are simpler than electric hybrids with higher energy storage density and higher MPG. Electric cars may be the "obvious" solution to higher mileage but they are quite complicated. Most of us techie types thing of electricity as the only way to store power but that isn't true. It may be that 3rd generation hybrids use a completely different energy storage model that that of a battery or capacitor.

Re:Will Hydraulic Hybrids short circuit Electrics

[elkto]

I am interested in in information you might have on this. I have seen the Buss's presently in operation and have three concerns.

Weight (in comparison to batteries)
Gas compression inefficiencies (Heat generation at compression)
Safety. Oil at a couple thousand PSI scares me in a crash situation.

So close...

[Cosmic AC]

correction:

...no JATO rockets, less space than a (Chevy) Nomad. Lame.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

No win...

Point 1: I can buy a used car that gets 25MPG+ for about 3,000 $USD off ebay today.
Point 2: I can put 10-13 gallons into the car in less then 5 minutes (including prepaying time)
Point 3: I can go 200-250 miles on 1 fill up.

I will no change that progression, for a deprogressive state due to a lack of fuel. Until the fuel is gone, no more gas stations or a new fuel type that provides the same or better on the points above. It will not happen. Welcome to the world of today.

Carbon footprint, global warming, whatever.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[myrdos2]

The molten-salt 'Zebra' battery works very well in the cold, and is competitive with lithium-ion in terms of energy density.

Basically, it needs to be heated to 250 degrees Celsius to work. The battery is very well insulated, so if you turn off the heat it takes 4 days to completely cool down. (And another two days to heat back up to 250 degrees)

You need to keep the car plugged in at night to run the little heater, which can also be powered by the battery itself. You can get this type of battery with the Th!nk City electric car, and it is superbly resistant to cold temperatures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_battery

I don't see any reason you couldn't take the insulation and heater from a Zebra battery, and use them to package a battery of any other type. For one thing, the required temperature would be much lower.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[Anonymous Coward]

note: I'm not complaining about you specifically, but a whole class of people who all annoy me.

ADDING "THE FACT IS" TO THE BEGINNING OF YOUR SENTENCE DOESN'T MAKE IT TRUE.

You aren't a god. You can't call something a fact and make it so. If you're gonna use these words, cite a goddamn source.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[evilviper]

Even lead acid batteries struggle in the cold.

No, they don't.

Your only experience with lead-acid batteries is trying to start your car in the morning... yet you consider yourself an expert, and feel qualified to make baseless assertions.

Lead-acid batteries are used in UPSes in open-air telcom buildings, even in the coldest areas.

The fact that cars have trouble starting in the cold is only half due to battery voltages falling in the cold weather... The thickening of oil, and shrinking of cylinders has just as much to do with it. And even then, if you had a battery twice as large, you'd never even notice. It's just that the cheapest (therefore, smallest) battery that will work is used in cars, so you don't have much of a margin to work with in adverse conditions.

An electric car won't have anything like the duty cycle of current car batteries. They will draw relatively small amounts of power when you start moving, and continue the draw as you continue to move. Since the draw is only 1/1000th of the battery capacity, no matter how low the temperature, they will allow the vehicle to operate.

And once the vehicle is in operation, the continual discharge of the batteries will generate a substantial amount of heat, internally. The sheer mass of the lead-acid batteries will keep the normally generated heat from easily escaping, provided they aren't mounted externally, directly in normal airflow.

Getting RID of the heat generated is the real problem with batteries, and that's a manageable issue as well.

more to it than money

[misanthrope101]

Every dollar I spend at the gas pump sends money to Saudi Arabia and other countries that in turn fund terrorism, torture their citizens, suppress democracy, etc. Exhaust from internal-combustion engines contributes to asthma and other respiratory ailments, which kill thousands every year. Wanting an electric car is not just a gee-whiz feel-good thing.

A reputable source about Coal Carnage

[GPS Pilot]

Batman, here's an article by a reputable source, Agence France Presse, which says coal kills 20,000 people every year: http://tinyurl.com/CoalCarnage

Good.

[HornWumpus]

Not that I believe you.

BTW for CO2 induced global warming to be a problem computer modelers have to pull a positive feedback coefficient out of a dark place. This coefficient represents additional H2O vapor in the atmosphere producing positive feedback on any CO2 based global warming.

Without additional H2O vapor, the CO2 is no problem.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Electric motors and speed controllers generate heat. This one has liquid cooling. Think I see a way around this. Might not make it as practical as an IC engine car, but might make enough of a difference for many.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[DNS-and-BIND]

I ride an electric moped with lead-acid batteries (a little different from car battery) and I can't go nearly as far when it's freezing outside like it is now.

We have been going backwards since 1997

[Colin Smith]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Sunrise

space ship one ?

[tanktop]

Ok, so the next question will have to be: Why do these things always have to go through the spaceship stage? Don't most of us just want a car that looks and handles like a normal car, is affordable, drives further than back and forth to the hardware store and can be bought at a local car dealership? Will that ever happen by the way?

Electricity gets cheaper!

[guetenburg]

I've read lots of comments about grid concerns. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned was V2G technology. This is Vehicle to Grid. Suppose that 100,000 people have electric cars in a city. And 1% don't use their car on any given day. Each car has about 30kWh of battery energy. That's 30 MegaWatt Hours of energy that is available to go back into the grid. There are two ways for the power companies to use this. One is load leveling across the peak times 10am-2pm. So the vehicles can be plugged into the grid and the power company can suck the energy out of the battery and put it back into use during the high demand time. This saves significantly on new plant production and allows us to reduce our investments. The second way to load level is minute by minute. Currently power companies must generate "extra" electricity at all times just incase there is a power spike. They need to be able to provide energy to any spike. Thus, they have to produce extra at all times. If we use these same batteries to cover the spikes, we can match them exactly with power from batteries and we don't have to run high all the time. This will actually save about 10% of all the power consumed. With these two opportunities along with the fact that we would be using the powerplants at night and be able to improve our utilization by about 40%, we could actually see a reduction in the price of electricity. Full disclosure, in 2007 I started an electric vehicle conversion company named "Plug-In Motors". You can find our information at www.pluginmotors.com Kurt

What we need is standardized batteries.

[The Creator]

And put wheels on them as standard so that they can easily be pulled out of the car through a slot. "Charging" your car could be just as fast as filling a petrol model.

Maybe 2-3 different sizes for different wehicle types.

Re:What we need is standardized batteries.

[cheesybagel]

That is not very important since new generation batteries can be charged in 5 minutes. You just need a fast-charging network. Besides, with electrics you can slowly charge at home, something which you cannot do with a gasoline car. That reduces the need for fast-charging (in fact it may make it as uneconomic as public pay phones).

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[Anonymous Coward]

"And even then, if you had a battery twice as large, you'd never even notice. It's just that the cheapest (therefore, smallest) battery that will work is used in cars, so you don't have much of a margin to work with in adverse conditions."

Wrong. The following is from the Trojan Battery company website (major manufacturer of deep cycle batteries) :

    When operating batteries at temperatures below 80 F (27 C) they will deliver less than the
rated capacity. For example at 0 F (-18 C) the battery will deliver 50% of its capacity and
at 80 F (27 C) it will deliver 100% of its capacity.

"An electric car won't have anything like the duty cycle of current car batteries. "

In fact, the duty cycle will be much more severe. Starting batteries are designed for shallow discharge with high immediate power. Deep cycle lead acid batteries are designed for repeated deep discharge but the deeper the discharge cycle, the fewer the cycles in its lifetime. Lithium based battery chemistries don't suffer as much from this.
        The highest current draw from the batteries will happen when starting the vehicle moving, worst case would be starting on a hill. Electric motors get immediate torgue - there's no rev up required like an ICE. The draw is not 1/1000 of the battery capacity unless you have a tractor trailer load of them - its more like an average of 200 watt-hours/mile.

"And once the vehicle is in operation, the continual discharge of the batteries will generate a substantial amount of heat, internally. The sheer mass of the lead-acid batteries will keep the normally generated heat from easily escaping, provided they aren't mounted externally, directly in normal airflow."

And when you're parked all day at work in the winter, I hope your employer will let you plug in to keep your batteries charged and warm.

I'm totally in favor of electric vehicles and am in fact building my own now but get your facts straight before trying to be an advocate or you are just adding to the marketing hype that's already too prevalent.

The important one is STORAGE

[WindBourne]

Screw the production. If we figure out storage, then production will come all over. You can bet on it that nukes AND AE will be built as fast as possible. That is why I would love to see us use SMALL solar thermal COMBINED with salt storage as storage in cities. You figure that in the nighttime, it can take excess power and store it as heat. When the storage is getting hot, then skip using solar. By doing this on say 1 mile grids, it would allow us to decouple homes from the power. In fact, if done correctly, the small storage/grid approach could lead to new small business.

Re:The important one is STORAGE

[DuckDodgers]

Solar thermal power is nice because it can supply power 24 hours a day unless you have a long stretch of highly overcast days. The problem is that solar thermal power plants are ridiculously expensive compared to coal or nuclear.

The Nevada Solar One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One) solar thermal power plant cost $266 million and supplies 134 million kwh per year.

The Calvert Cliffs power plant in Maryland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs_Nuclear_Generating_Station) cost $766 million to construct in the 1970s. Depending upon how you calculate inflation, that would be maybe $4 billion today. The plant supplies more than 14,000 Gwh per year, on average, or 14 billion kwh.

So the nuclear power plant costs 8 times as much to construct, but supplies 104 times as much power as the Solar Thermal plant in a year. That's 12 times as much electricity per dollar spent. I'm certain the higher maintenance and fuel costs on a nuclear plant do not nearly offset that difference. Nuclear is still the way to go.

Re:The important one is STORAGE

[DuckDodgers]

Oops, my math is off, the nuclear plant costs about 16 times as much. That's still roughly 6 times as much electricity per dollar spent, an enormous cost edge for nuclear.

Re:The important one is STORAGE

[Firethorn]

That would be using an old GenII design; the newer GenIII designs, in order to increase safety and reduce building/maintenance costs are far simpler.

Estimates put them at $1-2 per watt of capacity, putting a 1.6GW plant like Calvert at 3.2B to build on the top end.

But yeah, nuclear power, despite the huge build costs are still cheaper than the alternatives.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if you look at any site focused on doing EV conversions, you will see mention of lead acid battery heaters for colder climates. I imagine those people know what they are talking about, as I doubt they would want to waste battery energy on heating the batteries if it was not absolutely necessary.

Laws need to change for this to be accepted

[Muad'Dave]

At least in Virginia, it's my understanding that three-wheeled vehicles are classified as motorcycles, with the same requirements for a special driver's license and helmet requirements. From the Code of Virginia, 46.2-100:

"Motorcycle" means every motor vehicle designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground and is capable of traveling at speeds in excess of 35 miles per hour. The term "motorcycle" does not include any "electric personal assistive mobility device," "electric power-assisted bicycle," "farm tractor," "golf cart," "moped," "motorized skateboard or scooter," "utility vehicle" or "wheelchair or wheelchair conveyance" as defined in this section.

Production is still important...

[Firethorn]

Salt storage isn't something that scales down well; it's used by solar thermal plants, not solar voltiac cells. You wouldn't be placing this every mile, you'd be keeping it at the solar plant.

In my combined vision for the future I figure a couple things:

1. Plug in Hybrids/EVs will have a far greater role.
2. Due to expense/savings, many/most home charging stations will have load leveling capabilities.
3. Putting a PHEV/EV in a garage will swamp all but the most extreme energy saving measures otherwise taken. The tesla roadster has a 53kwh battery, and uses 28 kwh per 100 miles. 3.57 miles/kwh. Figure an annual average driving distance of 15000 miles, that's 4.2K kwh/year, 350 kwh/month. About 50% of the average annual usage of households in the USA(8,900 kwh/year. Keep in mind that the Tesla is light and efficient compared to most EVs due to it's sports car heritage and LiIon batteries. Oh, and that most families at this point have 2 or more vehicles.

A - Given 1&3, More generating capacity will be needed, not less, even if our population remains stable.
B - Given A&2, the difference between peak and baseload should shrink.
C - Despite 3, energy saving and leveling measures should be taken where practical.
D - Despite what realtors tell us, homes DON'T always increase in value. It's mostly the land the house sits on. At some point it's worth it to tear the sucker down and build a *GOOD* house on the plot. Good today = energy efficient. All sorts of tricks are possible with a new house that aren't possible or practical with an old one. But I'd put a dryer(30A@220V) or even stove(50A) plug into the garage.
E - Save the oil/NG for building materials and long range high speed travel.

Get people off of direct electric heat and towards geothermal heat pumps. Interesting tidbit - did you know that heat pump water heaters are produced? They'll cool and dehumidify the air around the hot water tank while heating the water. Cost is around a third that of direct electric. They've also developed heat pump dryers - they need a line to a drain like the washer, but use substantially less electricity and dry clothes faster with less heat. If I was running a laundrymat in a trustworthy area, I'd seriously consider them - not only would it reduce my expenses with the dryers, it'd also reduce the amount of AC needed.

I figure lots of solar in areas where peak demand tends to coincide with peak sun, wind in the appropriate areas, all backed up by a ton of nuclear capacity - and nuclear CAN load level; they're generally run at max capacity because they're the cheapest source of demand electricty going. Spreading solar out is pretty much required; in my area putting a wind turbine up next to/in a lot of the small towns would reduce the amount of electricity lost on wires.

This ignores the real problem

[doghouse41]

I think it's interesting that the whole electric vehicle debate has shifted in the last year away from the issue of how to store a reasonable amount of power in a vehicle.

What I hear now is "but it takes 8/12/x hours to recharge!".

This issue does not seem to be down to the battery technology available today, rather it is due the fact that you simply cannot pull enough power out of a standard domestic circuit to recharge these vehicles in a reasonable time.

This isn't hard to see: If you have a 50KWh power pack in your vehicle and you want to charge it in 6 minutes then you need a 1/2 Megawatt supply. A standard 50Amp/240 V supply will deliver about 12KW (or 0.012MW). Go figure.

Megawatt rated power supplies are not rocket science (most electric trains operate at this level) However the cost of installing such a supply at home is likely to be prohibitive for most users (especially if you only need it for a few minutes a week).

I predict that we will shortly see the rise of the "electric filling station" equipped with the kind of power infrastructure that can be optimised to deliver Megawatt-level loads into electric cars.

Re:Nuclear power

[Dare nMc]

well someone please tell the tree huggers or you won't have that supply, we are currently using up our nuclear reserves quickly and they are trying to kill the one place that we know of with enough supply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Dam,_South_Australia. Check out the related links at the bottom for all the reasons they try to kill mining at the one place needed to try and keep a realistic nuclear powered future alive.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[Anonymous Coward]

Lead acid batteries lose capacity as they are cooled below the standard temperature of 25 C, about 50% of their capacity by -27 C, and freeze (with usually permanent damage) at about -50 C when fully charged, and at higher temperatures when partially discharged.

As far as I know, lead acid batteries do better at cold temperatures than anything else.

This information gleaned from actual field experience in Antarctica.

Re:slushbox autos.

[Dare nMc]

auto does seam to be a feature heavily encouraged by manufactures, I assume because you cant grenade the engine in one shift, and they have higher maintenance that is heavy dealer profit (and not under warranty.) So they publish only the standard specs that show similar performance and economy. Economy is from optimal shifting in a auto that is not taught for manual (rules changed with EFI, carburetor teachings persist). Performance shown is 0-60, mostly because trans losses don't matter in the critical 0-20, and responsiveness isn't tested.
Especially for towing I could tow the same with the smaller engine and a manual, or the larger engine and auto + extra towing cooler + $500/year increased maintenance + 50% less economy + 1/2 or less lifetime of trans.

Dumb. Most US electricty comes from coal

[Orig_Club_Soda]

Coal pollution is so bad, that a recent Wired article says that auto emissions are negligible in comparison.

Because renting costs time.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

And don't give me "rent one when you need one", either

Why not?

Because renting costs something more precious than money: Vacation time.

It costs it in the time consumed to rent, pick up, refuel, and drop off the car.

And it costs it in risk: That the car won't be there, won't operate properly or will break down, will be unsuitable, poorly cleaned, etc. When it's your car these are under your control. When it's an agency's car it's under theirs. (Even if the failure probabilities are the same the aggravation level is higher when a rented car fails.)

Vacation time is precious. Typical workers get two weeks of vacation and fifty of work - so multiply the daily pay by 25 to get a cost estimate. Subjective quality-of-life losses from shaving the vacation to rent the car may be higher.

Quality of life suffers in other ways, too. Like the weekenders you might take if you can just throw the bags in the car and go, which you won't if you have to deal with Avis or Hertz.

I could go on. But the point is that the "rent it when you need more range" so-called "solution" has unacceptable costs for some consumers.

And the OTHER point is that, if it can meet a few simple performance targets, a plug-in hybrid COULD completely replace the passenger car for many users - and thus be a big market winner. But the manufacturers, so far, are wearing their "commuter" and "eco-nut" blinders, building low-range, low performance, flat-terrain cars, and not yet aiming for those targets.

Re:Because renting costs time.

[jeff4747]

It costs it in the time consumed to rent, pick up, refuel, and drop off the car.

Many rental companies will bring the car to you. And if it's not about money, they'll also offer you a plan to refill the tank at slightly more than the going rate for gas.

And it costs it in risk: That the car won't be there, won't operate properly or will break down, will be unsuitable, poorly cleaned,

These problems are also present with your own vehicle. In fact, rental fleets are better maintained than your typical car, since that's how the rental companies make money and they have on-staff mechanics and on-site car washes to keep the cars maintained and clean.

Quality of life suffers in other ways, too. Like the weekenders you might take if you can just throw the bags in the car and go, which you won't if you have to deal with Avis or Hertz.

If 'just rent a car' is your long term plan, you'd be foolish to not be part of their 'frequent renter' program, due to the savings and other offers they give you. One perk of all such plans today is incredibly minimal interaction with the car rental agents. Takes about 5 minutes to drive off with a car if you go to their lot.

However, it's unlikely you'd get your long-range car from the current versions of Hertz, Avis, etc. Most likely, you'd be renting from something closer to a "Car share" program, which removes the vast majority of your 'headache' arguments. You're not trying to pick up a car at the Orlando airport at the height of Disney's season.

And the OTHER point is that, if it can meet a few simple performance targets, a plug-in hybrid COULD completely replace the passenger car for many users

At far greater initial cost and maintenance cost. Having two engines is far more costly than a single engine, and reliability suffers when you have to maintain two engines for the very occasional long-distance drive.

flat-terrain cars

I'd like to see your commute that only involves going up hills. Since going down the same hill recharges the battery. Sure, it's not 100% efficient, but it takes a lot of the pinch out of going up.

Anyway, my point is this: It's perfectly acceptable to rent a larger vehicle (truck, moving van, etc) when needed for extra cargo capacity. Why is it also not perfectly acceptable to do the exact same thing on the occasion when you need more range?

And if it's still completely unworkable for you, fine there are alternatives. Including the little detail that the vast majority of US households have 2 or more cars. Buy one electric and one traditional gas/diesel if you absolutely, positively have to be able to drive to Vegas at 3 in the morning at a moment's notice.

Re:slushbox autos.

[bluefoxlucid]

ouch. Heating up the torque converter with the extra load costs that much?

Re:Wind Resistance

[lupine]

This guy modified his honda civic to achieve .17 Cd and now he gets 95mpg at 65 mph:
http://www.aerocivic.com/

Re:slushbox autos.

[Dare nMc]

not really, under load you lose 15-25% of the power to the auto transmission. (some in the transmission, + the extra fans to cool the transmission) But then I would have to get a 20% bigger engine to get the same towing performance as a manual... maybe 50% is a little exaggeration, I get 50% better economy from my 6 cylinder towing than my brothers 8 on the same trailer (10mpg to 15 mpg) but he can definitely pull the hill faster because he has more than the required 125% HP. is more like 15% when not towing (17 vs 20MPG) But I have noticed if I shift like his, example: pulling empty down hill his auto unlocks the gear and engine turns under 1200RPM, if I shift in N every time down hills, I get 22MPG not 20, but who wants to do that every hill, light, speed zone, etc?

That spec calls for 10 min recharging

[sirwired]

It's the 10 minute recharging in the spec that is frightening. Slow charging would be difficult, but doable.

SirWired

A factory-sized feed for every gas station?

[sirwired]

Crunching some quick numbers, and assuming a car about as economical as the published specs for the volt, charging a two 100-mile battery packs at once (needed for a commercial station) in 10 minutes would require approx 1300 Amps at 210V. Now I know that the voltage would not be stepped down that low at the curb, but that should give you an idea of how inconceivable that stress on the grid would be. Yes, every factory has a feed that large, but there are a heck of a lot more cars than factories. And a 100-mile range is nothing. Could you imagine every long-haul car on I-95 pulling that kind of load every hour and a half during the day?

In any case, that 10-minute number for batteries sounds pretty suspect. For a cap bank, maybe, but not batteries. They'd catch on fire without some super-elaborate cooling setup.

SirWired

Re:A factory-sized feed for every gas station?

[jeff4747]

The 10-minute charge, however, is not required for at-home charging. The 10-minute charge would be at the equivalent of a gas station.

For home charging, an overnight charger with much lower amperage should work just fine.

electric cars and battery technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought on the Aero EV but has anyone calculated how a household 110 volt, or even 220 for that matter of fact can recharge an over 1000hp EV in 10 mn? Something doesn't add up.

As far as the lithium vs lead acid base battery debate, there is room for everyone. Read John Petersen's posts on Seeking Alpha to see that lead acid base are improving. Our take is hybrid batteries, lithium and or lead acid/gel, etc with ultracapacitators.

Nick
electricnick.com

I agree that home charging is feasible

[sirwired]

I agree that home charging is quite feasible, at least after major upgrades to the grid in general. (The grid simply does not have enough current reserve capacity to meet more than a fraction of our transportation needs.) The only point I was making was that those advertised recharging specs were completely pulled out of thin air. There is simply no way they have developed a 100-mile battery that can take a charge in ten minutes. Ultracapacitor bank, maybe, but not a battery. At least not outside of a lab with a cryogenic plant to keep the battery from exploding.

To me, this simple fact makes the whole article suspect.

Also, if charging a car took ten minutes, (twice as long as gassing it), a normal eight-pump station along a long-haul route is going to need about 48 chargers. (Twice as to charge long vs. filling a tank, 1/3 the range as gasoline.) That's a 13MW feed for one piddly little quickie-mart along an interstate. A larger gas station like the kind commonly found along major routes (again, long-haul routes where trickle charging isn't going to be an option) could easily require three times as much. A 39MW feed for one gas station, easily!

There isn't any practical solution for this obvious problem any time soon, which is why I think hybrids are going to be it for the forseeable future. (Or maybe people will own a EV for commuting, and rent a hybrid or conventional vehicle for long trips...)

SirWired

(no, really!) No. No way...

[elkto]

Wow, you and the DOE are so wrong....

A coal (read carbon) burning plant emits three(3) times the amount of CO2 as a gas one (read hydrocarbons).

At 90% efficiency for the electric motor, you loss 10%. Add another 10% loss in the battery charge/discharge (not bad really). 28% average transmission loss for grid distribution. Wow you have already lost almost 50%, lets hope generation is better.

A typical coal power plant is a little over 40% efficient. But it belches out 3 times the amount of CO2.

Can we get a refund from whoever did this DOE study?

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[caseih]

Can't believe the mods let you get away with baseless assertions and misinformation. In fact a number of your assertions are wildly inaccurate.

First, it's a cold hard fact that the amps a battery can deliver (amps, not volts) goes down as temperature decreases. So even if the engine wasn't stiff and cold, the amount of amps available for cranking is much lower. The UPS simply cannot provide backup power nearly as long under very cold conditions as it can during warm conditions. True a battery warms up (pretty dramatically) as current is drawn, but if the temperatures are such that current is simply unavailable (witnessed by voltage drop), then it's going to have a problem getting warm since it can't enter operation, or takes longer to do so.

Your assertion than an electric car would draw only 1/1000 the capacity of the battery continuously is prove-ably absurd. Furthermore electric cars are probably much, much, harder on the battery duty-cycle-wise. Unlike cars which draw massive amps periodically and stay charged the rest of the time, an electric car is going to pull moderate to high amps continuously, and cycle the batteries much more deeply.

We can prove that your 1/1000 number is pulled out the air. Basically what you are saying is that if we take the batteries rating, say x Amp-hours, and divide it by 1/1000 amps, then we're left with a total runtime of 1000x hours of operation! Pretty impressive. Either a very very very small and efficient battery, or else the car is packing a couple of orders of magnitude more battery than it needs.

Coming at it from the other direction, if we expect a car that can operate continuously for 6 hours at some particular amp draw, then we end up with something like an expected amp draw of 1/6x amps. Quite a ways off of 1/1000x! So no. Sorry. The amp draw cannot possibly be as low as 1/1000x amps. I believe it more likely that current electric cars can probably only cruise for 4 hours, so the amp draw has to be even higher. We could probably take the current distance estimates and divide by speed to calculate that.

So please, before you accuse me of trying to be an expert and making baseless assertions that I apparently know nothing about, try to get your own facts straight. I am interested to know what cold weather testing auto makers have done on electric cars. So far I can't find any information on this.

Re:Batteries of any kind don't work well in the co

[caseih]

Oops. Units got messed up a bit there. You're SWAG of 1/1000 results in 1000 hours, period. The variable, the capacity of the battery, drops off completely, leaving only hours behind. Hence the reciprocal of the fraction of the batteries capacity one is using is the number of hours one expects to draw that current. But average amp draw is 1/h * x where h is the number of hours you actually get from the battery (for simplicity we'll say at a constant draw meaning a certain cruising speed) and x is the capacity of the battery in amp hours.