According to GM, there where only 50 people committed to buying an EV1. That didn't stop environmentalists from chaining themselves to the last enclave of EV1s in Burbank, CA.
I don't know who told them that lie, but try this link: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique &newsid=3751 It is an LA Times story of a person trying to buy an electric vehicle. The bottom line is that there was not an adequate supply!!!!
If world oil production were occurring today, even the future of hybrids would be short. Gasoline and Diesel costs would soar and an all electric car refueled by the sun would look very appealing even if the range sucked. An electric would allow you to do local errands and even commute to work (if your place of employment still existed). While others wait in line for horrendously high cost fuel, you could at least drive to a local fishing hole. The oil shocks were not that long ago and should were a warning of things to come.
The crushings of the RAV4 electrics and the EV1s were the equivalent of smashing the Wright Brother's Flyer or Curtis Jennies. At least the Japanese learned and incorporated their knowledge into the hybrids. GM wasn't so wise (and still isn't). Peak Oil will be the clue...
In order to go 300 miles in a GM Sequel, the three carbon wound tanks had to be pressurized to 5 tons per square inch. If there are roughly 200 million cars on the road, that would be 600 million tanks. Can you or would you guarantee all these tanks fall within specs and that not one of them would be susceptable to slipshod manufacturing techniques, cost/corner cutting, substandard glues/resins/epoxies, Murphy's Law, etc? There have been many safety recalls on brakes, drive trains and other important automotive parts. Usually they were issued after several accident investigations pointing to a defect. In some cases, the auto industry tried to suppress the recall. I'm not so sanguine about these tanks.
These tanks are under 5 ton per square inch of pressure. The first couple can be manufactured up to specs but what about 600 million? Can they guarantee that all the tanks will not rupture due to faulty construction, dried out glues, repeated molecualr stress? Even Toyota has had recalls on their vehicles. I do not want to be near one of those tanks when it goes.
I like the idea of a hydride tank but even there it takes a fair bit of energy to get the gas in and out of the tank. Also the range sucks. I think they have gotten up to 170 miles.
Why not put the energy into something like the tZero (www.acpropulsion.com)? It can go more than 300 miles on a charge. It uses 160 wh/kg batteries. There are Lithium sulfur batteries in development that have 320 wh/kg specific energies and could propel the tZero more than 600 miles on a charge.
Why waste all that energy transporting hydrogen around in specially designed tanker trucks? Electrical outlets are everywhere and a pack can be suddivided and charged in less than an hour.
So if I understand you correctly, your university has to have a prof who is the campus idiot. That parallels the Federal Government where out President is the Federal idiot. No President left behind.
To go 300 miles in a fuel cell Camry, Toyota used carbon wound tanks and had to presurized them to 700 bar. 700 bar is a polite way of saying 5 tons per square inch. The Camry used 3 of these tanks. There are 200 million cars on the road. Can industry build 600 million tanks so that there is not a defect that causes an explosive rupture in a hand full of tanks?
The wells to wheel efficiency of the Toyota Rav4E as measured by EPA is 301 Wh/mi which translate into an equivalent of 49 miles per gallon of gasoline. A Honda FCX (fuel cell vehicle) when hydrogen is made from renewables (electrolysis of water) is 12 miles per gallon. The battery electric car is 4 times more efficient.
The ACPropulsion tZero can travel over 300 miles on a charge and be recharged in 2.5 hours. It uses Lithium Ion batteries that have an energy capacity of 160 Wh/kg. Several batteries under development have energy capacities of 245 Wh/kg and 420 Wh/kg which, if they make it to market could give the tZero a arange of 450 and 750 miles per charge.
Solaicx has a new solar cell technology that can cut the cost of silicon solar cells to about a $1/watt. to be competive with commercial utilities you have to be about $1.50 to $2.50 a watt.
Personally, I see the Toyota developing a plug in hybrid that can be refueled from solar cells. Gasoline usage around town could go to zero.
the solution to gasoline, is probably going to be hydrogen, we'll never run out. I've heard of people with hydrogen cars producing their own hydrogen from solar panels at their houses.
Hydrogen is a possible solution but storage in batteries is more efficent. A Rav4 Electric Vehicle uses 301 Wh/mile (EPA rating) which is an equivalent of 49 mpg. A Honda CRX converted to a fuel cell car gets the equivalent of around 12 mpg when the hydrogen is made from renewables (electrolysis of water). The battery powered car is more efficent by a factor of 4.
Current battery development in the labs in a RAV 4 Electric could propel the vehicle down the road for 600 miles. It remains to be seen if the developers can bring these batteries to production. Right now, 250 mile ranges are doable using Lithium Ion batteries.
Check with your Better Business Bureau or its overseas equivalent. There is one laser eye surgery place in our metropolitan area that should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully they are out of business by now.
Bush's Fuel Cell dream is a nightmare unless you own oil.
I read one of the abstracts on this battery at http://www2.electrochem.org/cgi-bin/abs?mtg=012&ab s=0186&type=pdf In the paper, it says that the specific capacity declines to 92% in one thousand cycles while the graph it references shows a decline to 92% in one hundred cycles. Either some one did not do a very good job proof reading their abstract or the decline stops at around 92% and stays there for another 900 cycles. If the later, then they have a really good technology going for them.
The specific energy works out to be 245Wh/kg. Which means that 2.2 lbs of battery could propel a small SUV that uses 300 Wh/mi 0.81 miles or 1100 pounds of battery could propel the car for 400 miles with the possibility of a quick recharge. This means we are getting closer to having viable electric vehicles. Cost of the battery will be the key.
The memory effect problems of nickel-cadmium batteries have been worked out.
Most people who own an EV express their electricity usage in Watthours/mile. A tZero (Miata like) electric sportscar might have a rating of 160 Watthours/mile while a small SUV like the RAV4 Electric has an EPA rating of 301 watthours/mile. Cost of electric is usually $0.05 to $0.12 per Kilowatthour. Therefore, a tZero would cost less than a penny a mile at $0.05/kWhr while the RAV4 might cost $0.04 a mile at $0.12/kWhr. After 30 mles of driving, the tZero would cost $0.24 while the RAV4 would cost $1.20. You say you pay $1.60 to go 25 miles?
Southern California Edison has been running RAV4 Electrics in their fleet. Their RAV4 electrics now have over 100,000 miles each with the same batteries and the batteries have shown **no degradation** in storage (well maybe 2%). They are using Panasonic NiMH batteries,
which speaks well of their charging algorithm and the technology in those batteries. The tZero uses 6800 Litium Ion laptop batteries hand assembled into modules. The future is not with lead acid batteries.
The tZero range is a published 250 miles but they recently recorded 302 miles at an average of 57.8 mph. The Rav4 Electric has a 'comfort' range of just over 100 miles with the old NiMH. Recent advances in battery technology can easily up those ranges by 10 and 30 percent, respectively.
I think what you will see is that as the price of batteries drop and the energy density of batteries rises, the Japanese will add more batteries to their hybrids and they will become more like electric cars. Eventually, I think you'll see plugin hybrids especially if gasoline prices rise rapidly.
An EV's heater output can be almost instanteous and is most analogous to a hair dryer. Think of the advantage of being able to hit your electric car key fob from inside the house to start the car's electric heater on a cold winter's morning. By the time you get on your boots and overcoat, walk over to your car, and find the ice scaper, the ice will be soft or melted and you can use a library card instead to clean off the remaining moisture. There can be pluses to owning an EV.
Why are the car companies arguing that people don't want to plug their cars in? We plug in our headphones, cordless drills, curling irons, credit cards into ATM machines, transformers into wall sockets, USB cables into digital cameras, etc. etc. etc. What's the big deal about one more appliance? The deal is that electrics are so simple, you won't be buying oil, timing belts, mufflers, tail pipes, valve jobs, head gaskets, spark plugs, rings, etc. nor will you be visiting your car dealer. There goes a rich profit stream...
Naw man this iz Slushdut, I don't ned no skarlarlee refarinces. Just a few more beers!!!
I could go into to some obscure part of the code with an assembler and put in a branch to call my own malicious (benevolent to just me?) code and then resave it with the original size and date. I could even call it Windows XP...
Try this link and see if they will let you be a test Guinea Pig: http://www.sta.com.au. Their dye sensitive cells are suppose to be cheaper than commercial power. They are in the testing phase.
Also try the Valence Technology Lithium Ion battery for extended up time.
If those doen't work out, I'd get a bicycle with a generator.
Eco synthesized from Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris: "The book will distract people from their most important values, encouraging unnecessary information, free interpretation of the Scriptures, insane curiosity."
That is until the spammer DOSes you from some country outside the USA.
Micropayments are one way to kill spam.
Another way is to tie the credit card Merchant Code to the spammer himself and his company. Then deny access to charge people's credit cards if he spams.
These low lifes flaunt the laws as well as good manners. The only thing they understand is lack of money. Take away their profits and they go away. Hopefully...
With the growing use of stationery fuel cells to generate power, do you think there is a disincentive to invest in new capital intensive power plants? Thus leading to lack of maintenance and building improvements. Which will lead to more and more blackouts until the fuel cell power stations take up the slack.
My city hauls its trash to the next town's landfill. That costs me money. I tried to recycle the ad paper. The recycler fellow did an "acid test" on the ad "paper" and I saw why it was not recycleable. A national "do not mail" list would also be great and save my city a chunk of tax dollars for ads that I don't read and I certainly don't respond to.
I put my name on the Direct Marketing Association's "do not mail list" many years ago. It worked on most credit card solicitations. Writing (and sending a check) to my alumni association stopped the rest.
Let's see, IBM buys AT&T and terminates SCO's license
Re:Be careful of your evidence
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 1
Two things:
One, Kyoto did not cover all green house products such as elemental carbon. This points to a fundemental flaw in the treaty.
Two, hydrogen escaping from the upcoming "hydrogen economy" infrastructure, will float up through the ozone layer. Hydrogen will combine with ozone to deplete some of the ozone and form water. Debate will ensue to try to guage the amounts and effects of the two results.
It is very short sighted to pass up renewables. The cost of photovoltaic solar panels are close to being competive with the more expensive electrical rates in the country. A decrease in cost by a factor of 2 to 3 will make them competitive with the cheapest electrical rates.
Electric cars are becoming better possiblities due to better batteries and engineering. GM's EV1 had an offical range of 125 miles, acceleration of 0 to 60 in 7.9 seconds and had a heat pump for AC and heat. AC Propulsion and Volkswagen are working on a 400 mile range electric car according to this report:
Clarkson University entered an electric car in the 2003 Tour del Sol with a reported 100 mile range and 148lbs of Lithium Ion batteries. 400 miles is certainly acheivable.
This all points to the need to have electrical power. Wind is one of those resources that can be converted to electrical power at a reasonable cost.
Other alternatives are nuclear and real conservation, neither of which have been extremely popular in this country...
Metal Nickel Hydride are being used in the Toyota Prius and the Civic Hybrid cars. Both companies warrant the battery packs for 100,000 and 80,000 miles, respectivcly. Which means that both car companies have a lot of faith in the battery packs to be charged and discharged repeatedly. Try getting a warranty like that on a set of Lead Acid Batteries. You can't. Some current battery technologies can be cycled (charged and discharged) well over a 1000 times.
The future looks brighter for Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery technology. This technology can COMPETE with current Fuel Cell technology in range and is a whole lot cheaper. It's also available today!!! It's not someone's pipe dream 20+ years down the road.
A good electric car can get about 125 miles per charge. Be charged overnight while you sleep. Use cheaper overnight electric rates. They are simpler in construction and cheaper to build. They don't have to be made out of lead acid batteries.
Check out www.evworld.com for more information and links.
I'd rather look to making something better than poo-pooing old technology.
Slashdot Mirror
If world oil production were occurring today, even the future of hybrids would be short. Gasoline and Diesel costs would soar and an all electric car refueled by the sun would look very appealing even if the range sucked. An electric would allow you to do local errands and even commute to work (if your place of employment still existed). While others wait in line for horrendously high cost fuel, you could at least drive to a local fishing hole. The oil shocks were not that long ago and should were a warning of things to come.
The crushings of the RAV4 electrics and the EV1s were the equivalent of smashing the Wright Brother's Flyer or Curtis Jennies. At least the Japanese learned and incorporated their knowledge into the hybrids. GM wasn't so wise (and still isn't). Peak Oil will be the clue...
In order to go 300 miles in a GM Sequel, the three carbon wound tanks had to be pressurized to 5 tons per square inch. If there are roughly 200 million cars on the road, that would be 600 million tanks. Can you or would you guarantee all these tanks fall within specs and that not one of them would be susceptable to slipshod manufacturing techniques, cost/corner cutting, substandard glues/resins/epoxies, Murphy's Law, etc? There have been many safety recalls on brakes, drive trains and other important automotive parts. Usually they were issued after several accident investigations pointing to a defect. In some cases, the auto industry tried to suppress the recall. I'm not so sanguine about these tanks.
These tanks are under 5 ton per square inch of pressure. The first couple can be manufactured up to specs but what about 600 million? Can they guarantee that all the tanks will not rupture due to faulty construction, dried out glues, repeated molecualr stress? Even Toyota has had recalls on their vehicles. I do not want to be near one of those tanks when it goes.
I like the idea of a hydride tank but even there it takes a fair bit of energy to get the gas in and out of the tank. Also the range sucks. I think they have gotten up to 170 miles.
Why not put the energy into something like the tZero (www.acpropulsion.com)? It can go more than 300 miles on a charge. It uses 160 wh/kg batteries. There are Lithium sulfur batteries in development that have 320 wh/kg specific energies and could propel the tZero more than 600 miles on a charge.
Why waste all that energy transporting hydrogen around in specially designed tanker trucks? Electrical outlets are everywhere and a pack can be suddivided and charged in less than an hour.
just in case...
Shouldn't all this anti -virus, -spyware, -malware, etc. software be added to the TCO for a Windows license both in cost and time?
So if I understand you correctly, your university has to have a prof who is the campus idiot. That parallels the Federal Government where out President is the Federal idiot. No President left behind.
To go 300 miles in a fuel cell Camry, Toyota used carbon wound tanks and had to presurized them to 700 bar. 700 bar is a polite way of saying 5 tons per square inch. The Camry used 3 of these tanks. There are 200 million cars on the road. Can industry build 600 million tanks so that there is not a defect that causes an explosive rupture in a hand full of tanks?
The wells to wheel efficiency of the Toyota Rav4E as measured by EPA is 301 Wh/mi which translate into an equivalent of 49 miles per gallon of gasoline. A Honda FCX (fuel cell vehicle) when hydrogen is made from renewables (electrolysis of water) is 12 miles per gallon. The battery electric car is 4 times more efficient.
The ACPropulsion tZero can travel over 300 miles on a charge and be recharged in 2.5 hours. It uses Lithium Ion batteries that have an energy capacity of 160 Wh/kg. Several batteries under development have energy capacities of 245 Wh/kg and 420 Wh/kg which, if they make it to market could give the tZero a arange of 450 and 750 miles per charge.
Solaicx has a new solar cell technology that can cut the cost of silicon solar cells to about a $1/watt. to be competive with commercial utilities you have to be about $1.50 to $2.50 a watt.
Personally, I see the Toyota developing a plug in hybrid that can be refueled from solar cells. Gasoline usage around town could go to zero.
the solution to gasoline, is probably going to be hydrogen, we'll never run out. I've heard of people with hydrogen cars producing their own hydrogen from solar panels at their houses.
Hydrogen is a possible solution but storage in batteries is more efficent. A Rav4 Electric Vehicle uses 301 Wh/mile (EPA rating) which is an equivalent of 49 mpg. A Honda CRX converted to a fuel cell car gets the equivalent of around 12 mpg when the hydrogen is made from renewables (electrolysis of water). The battery powered car is more efficent by a factor of 4.
Current battery development in the labs in a RAV 4 Electric could propel the vehicle down the road for 600 miles. It remains to be seen if the developers can bring these batteries to production. Right now, 250 mile ranges are doable using Lithium Ion batteries.
Check with your Better Business Bureau or its overseas equivalent. There is one laser eye surgery place in our metropolitan area that should be avoided at all costs. Hopefully they are out of business by now.
Bush's Fuel Cell dream is a nightmare unless you own oil.
I read one of the abstracts on this battery at http://www2.electrochem.org/cgi-bin/abs?mtg=012&ab s=0186&type=pdf In the paper, it says that the specific capacity declines to 92% in one thousand cycles while the graph it references shows a decline to 92% in one hundred cycles. Either some one did not do a very good job proof reading their abstract or the decline stops at around 92% and stays there for another 900 cycles. If the later, then they have a really good technology going for them.
The specific energy works out to be 245Wh/kg. Which means that 2.2 lbs of battery could propel a small SUV that uses 300 Wh/mi 0.81 miles or 1100 pounds of battery could propel the car for 400 miles with the possibility of a quick recharge. This means we are getting closer to having viable electric vehicles. Cost of the battery will be the key.
The memory effect problems of nickel-cadmium batteries have been worked out.
Most people who own an EV express their electricity usage in Watthours/mile. A tZero (Miata like) electric sportscar might have a rating of 160 Watthours/mile while a small SUV like the RAV4 Electric has an EPA rating of 301 watthours/mile. Cost of electric is usually $0.05 to $0.12 per Kilowatthour. Therefore, a tZero would cost less than a penny a mile at $0.05/kWhr while the RAV4 might cost $0.04 a mile at $0.12/kWhr. After 30 mles of driving, the tZero would cost $0.24 while the RAV4 would cost $1.20. You say you pay $1.60 to go 25 miles?
Southern California Edison has been running RAV4 Electrics in their fleet. Their RAV4 electrics now have over 100,000 miles each with the same batteries and the batteries have shown **no degradation** in storage (well maybe 2%). They are using Panasonic NiMH batteries, which speaks well of their charging algorithm and the technology in those batteries. The tZero uses 6800 Litium Ion laptop batteries hand assembled into modules. The future is not with lead acid batteries.
The tZero range is a published 250 miles but they recently recorded 302 miles at an average of 57.8 mph. The Rav4 Electric has a 'comfort' range of just over 100 miles with the old NiMH. Recent advances in battery technology can easily up those ranges by 10 and 30 percent, respectively.
I think what you will see is that as the price of batteries drop and the energy density of batteries rises, the Japanese will add more batteries to their hybrids and they will become more like electric cars. Eventually, I think you'll see plugin hybrids especially if gasoline prices rise rapidly.
An EV's heater output can be almost instanteous and is most analogous to a hair dryer. Think of the advantage of being able to hit your electric car key fob from inside the house to start the car's electric heater on a cold winter's morning. By the time you get on your boots and overcoat, walk over to your car, and find the ice scaper, the ice will be soft or melted and you can use a library card instead to clean off the remaining moisture. There can be pluses to owning an EV.
Why are the car companies arguing that people don't want to plug their cars in? We plug in our headphones, cordless drills, curling irons, credit cards into ATM machines, transformers into wall sockets, USB cables into digital cameras, etc. etc. etc. What's the big deal about one more appliance? The deal is that electrics are so simple, you won't be buying oil, timing belts, mufflers, tail pipes, valve jobs, head gaskets, spark plugs, rings, etc. nor will you be visiting your car dealer. There goes a rich profit stream...
Naw man this iz Slushdut, I don't ned no skarlarlee refarinces. Just a few more beers!!!
I could go into to some obscure part of the code with an assembler and put in a branch to call my own malicious (benevolent to just me?) code and then resave it with the original size and date. I could even call it Windows XP...
Problem is I'm the guy you sell them to...
Try this link and see if they will let you be a test Guinea Pig: http://www.sta.com.au. Their dye sensitive cells are suppose to be cheaper than commercial power. They are in the testing phase.
Also try the Valence Technology Lithium Ion battery for extended up time.
If those doen't work out, I'd get a bicycle with a generator.
Eco synthesized from Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris: "The book will distract people from their most important values, encouraging unnecessary information, free interpretation of the Scriptures, insane curiosity."
Hugo forsaw porn, spam, cults, and Slashdot!!!
I hope you have an enjoyable Thanskgiving.
That is until the spammer DOSes you from some country outside the USA.
Micropayments are one way to kill spam.
Another way is to tie the credit card Merchant Code to the spammer himself and his company. Then deny access to charge people's credit cards if he spams.
These low lifes flaunt the laws as well as good manners. The only thing they understand is lack of money. Take away their profits and they go away. Hopefully...
With the growing use of stationery fuel cells to generate power, do you think there is a disincentive to invest in new capital intensive power plants? Thus leading to lack of maintenance and building improvements. Which will lead to more and more blackouts until the fuel cell power stations take up the slack.
You know they'll have a way to go when they put back the pieces from a New York Deli reciept reading: "2 Kosher ham and cheese on Rye. manZlick"
And not only that, they can decypher my mother's handwriting!!!
My city hauls its trash to the next town's landfill. That costs me money. I tried to recycle the ad paper. The recycler fellow did an "acid test" on the ad "paper" and I saw why it was not recycleable. A national "do not mail" list would also be great and save my city a chunk of tax dollars for ads that I don't read and I certainly don't respond to.
I put my name on the Direct Marketing Association's "do not mail list" many years ago. It worked on most credit card solicitations. Writing (and sending a check) to my alumni association stopped the rest.
Let's see, IBM buys AT&T and terminates SCO's license
Two things:
One, Kyoto did not cover all green house products such as elemental carbon. This points to a fundemental flaw in the treaty.
Two, hydrogen escaping from the upcoming "hydrogen economy" infrastructure, will float up through the ozone layer. Hydrogen will combine with ozone to deplete some of the ozone and form water. Debate will ensue to try to guage the amounts and effects of the two results.
It is very short sighted to pass up renewables. The cost of photovoltaic solar panels are close to being competive with the more expensive electrical rates in the country. A decrease in cost by a factor of 2 to 3 will make them competitive with the cheapest electrical rates.
Electric cars are becoming better possiblities due to better batteries and engineering. GM's EV1 had an offical range of 125 miles, acceleration of 0 to 60 in 7.9 seconds and had a heat pump for AC and heat. AC Propulsion and Volkswagen are working on a 400 mile range electric car according to this report:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/ 2003rule/1202wkshp/brooks.pdf
Clarkson University entered an electric car in the 2003 Tour del Sol with a reported 100 mile range and 148lbs of Lithium Ion batteries. 400 miles is certainly acheivable.
This all points to the need to have electrical power. Wind is one of those resources that can be converted to electrical power at a reasonable cost.
Other alternatives are nuclear and real conservation, neither of which have been extremely popular in this country...
Metal Nickel Hydride are being used in the Toyota Prius and the Civic Hybrid cars. Both companies warrant the battery packs for 100,000 and 80,000 miles, respectivcly. Which means that both car companies have a lot of faith in the battery packs to be charged and discharged repeatedly. Try getting a warranty like that on a set of Lead Acid Batteries. You can't. Some current battery technologies can be cycled (charged and discharged) well over a 1000 times.
The future looks brighter for Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery technology. This technology can COMPETE with current Fuel Cell technology in range and is a whole lot cheaper. It's also available today!!! It's not someone's pipe dream 20+ years down the road.
A good electric car can get about 125 miles per charge. Be charged overnight while you sleep. Use cheaper overnight electric rates. They are simpler in construction and cheaper to build. They don't have to be made out of lead acid batteries.
Check out www.evworld.com for more information and links.
I'd rather look to making something better than poo-pooing old technology.