| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 1:24:05 PM | Is there a conspiracy against electric cars? I don't mean tinfoil covert stuff, just players that don't want it to see the light (no pun intended, no really) of day.
100 years ago there were more electric cars than gas cars. Cheap oil rectified this.
During the gas crisis of the 70s when many places had $3.00 limits per person there were movements towards electric cars - in retaliation OPEC lowered the price of oil and kept it low.
In the 90s the California Air Resources Board ("CARB") mandated that by 2003 2% of all vehicle sales in California must be zero-emission vehicles. GM, Ford, Honda and Toyota all produced electric cars - for lease only, you could never buy one.
Now, electric cars aren't for everybody because of their limited range. They're only good for the 90% of the population that drive, on average 29 miles a day.
CARB was sued by the big automakers and a newly installed chairman decided to do away with this mandate. When he did there were thousands of electric cars on the road and zero fuel cell cars. Four months previous he'd be appointed to a fuel cell study group.
Bush announced a two billion dollar plan for fuel cell research. The only fuel cell car today cost one million dollars and the hydrogen fuel costs 4X the current price of gas. To say nothing of the hindenberg.
The problem with hydrogen is it requires a middleman - that is the sort of infrastructure that retail gasoline needs. It's a natural for big oil.
Electric cars don't need this. They can be recharged from the grid, or in a pinch from solar, microhydro or wind. This disintermediates big oil.
When you run the numbers running a car on electriciy works out to be about the same as getting gas for $0.60/gal.
Electric cars need no oil, transmissions, filters, far less repairs and they're quiet.
When CARB repealled it's zero emission ruling the automakers took back every electric car and crushed them. GM dropped the EV1 as it wasn't profitable as a Hummer, and within a month bought Hummer off AM.
First generation electric cars used lead acid batteries. They sucked. The EV1 used nikel metal hydride. Today the Tesla uses lithium ion which outperforms NiMh by a large margin; the Tesla has a Lotus body and suspension and is quicker than a Porsche turbo. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 1:55:36 PM | I had an electric car years ago but people kept running over my extension cord causing it to stop... | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 2:53:30 PM | the problem with electric cars is that they are not infact "zero emmissions" vehicles, and never will be while coal fired energy sources are still over-used. Skip the middle man and make a coal-fired car.
Hydro-electric power, wind, possibly solar and positively nuclear energy sources make electric cars more reasonable, even hydrogen cell if the efficience can be improved enough to become a feasible option.
In North America deisel vehicles make up about 2-3% of all on the roads yet account for upto 70% of the pollution, but you don't see any politicians jumping up and down insisting those fume spewing machines be banned. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 3:25:51 PM | electric car is impratical at this time.  Be cheeky with technology and use bio nano cells to make the car run. It can sit outside generate power a person bump the bumper it can generate power those nickel and dime ideas shoud be explored more to create a car that can generate enengy. Plugging a car in is impratical, and hydrogen technology would be good a option in the long term because modifications to a car are kept to a minimum compared to other sources. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 5:01:55 PM | Batteries are big heavy and expencive. And to top it off they only go so far and take a long time to recharge.
Hydrogen + fuel cell is better but you get to carry rocket fuel around with you instead. They should name the first ones Pintos.
Oh and you get to replace the fuel cell every so often.
Either way the cost etc of redigning the car to work around a new powerplant is nothing unless ou try to retofit it to an existing car which is cost prohibitive. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 5:20:12 PM |
Now, electric cars aren't for everybody because of their limited range. They're only good for the 90% of the population that drive, on average 29 miles a day.
I probably drive less than that on average, simply because almost everything in Chico is a convenient bicycle ride away. But when I do drive, it's usually a much longer trip.
In North America deisel vehicles make up about 2-3% of all on the roads yet account for upto 70% of the pollution, but you don't see any politicians jumping up and down insisting those fume spewing machines be banned.
Last time I read an encyclopedia about that, it said that diesel's produce less pollution than gasoline engines on a per-unit basis. So have you got a source to back you up on that info?
For those of you who mentioned the battery issue, here's an interesting article about that:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/next_carbon_free_cars_powered_by_hydrogen
Next: Carbon free cars powered by hydrogen
A new breakthrough in hydrogen storage technology could remove a key barrier to widespread uptake of non-polluting cars that produce no carbon dioxide emissions.
UK scientists have developed a compound of the element lithium which may make it practical to store enough hydrogen on-board fuel-cell-powered cars to enable them to drive over 300 miles before refuelling. Achieving this driving range is considered essential if a mass market for fuel cell cars is to develop in future years, but has not been possible using current hydrogen storage technologies.
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 6:09:15 PM | We already have an electric sports car that makes for a better penis substitute than anything out there:
http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php
http://news.com.com/Electric+sports+car+ready+to+challenge+Porsche/2100
-11389_3-6080269.html
More convenient than a gas guzzler -- better range. Severe sticker shock, at the moment -- $100k.
They take this tech and put it into a sedan or something more economical and I'm sold. I'm conceptually willing to pick up one of the sports car versions, but it's ever-so-slightly out of our financial grasp at the moment. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 8:36:23 PM | http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=36089
I don't have my original source so the numbers seem to vary. But either way diesel accounts for far more pollution and toxicity than it should.
"For the same load and engine conditions, diesel engines spew out 100 times more sooty particles than gasoline engines. As a result, diesel engines account for an estimated 26 percent of the total hazardous particulate pollution (PM10) from fuel combustion sources in our air, and 66 percent of the particulate pollution from on-road sources. Diesel engines also produce nearly 20 percent of the total nitrogen oxides (NOx) in outdoor air and 26 percent of the total NOx from on-road sources. Nitrogen oxides are a major contributor to ozone production and smog."
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/health_diesel.asp
Global warming becomes a moot point if all of the other toxins reduce the population due to severe asthma cancer etc. It is a filthy fuel, as you will find "greenhouse gases" are far from the only hazard to our environment and health.
"The California Air Resources Board has concluded that diesel soot is responsible for 70% of the state's risk of cancer from airborne toxics. In the population as a whole, studies have shown a 26% increase in mortality in people living in soot-polluted cities.
http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/cops/italladdsup.nsf/docs/BA41E551ABAF716B85256E1900665E8B?OpenDocument | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 8:57:29 PM | | Yeah...get rid of those diesels!! And then I want to see you come hook on to one of our 53 foot trailers loaded and take a load to Houston and bring back a load of beef, with an electric truck. Oh, and don't forget to invent something to run the reefer, its diesel too. It takes more to run this country than someone on a moped, or a solar powered car taking them 3 miles to work. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 9:11:08 PM | | Propane??...Gosh really??? Our forklift runs on propane brainiac. And I don't know if you know this...I would guess not, Propane goes BOOM when it catches a spark. The weight required to build safe tanks would be way to much. and where would you like us to fuel up?? I really want to see Alcohol, and Propane truck stops. Bio Diesel is probably the only answer. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 9:25:20 PM | I remember seeing a car that ran on compressed air. And ir went quite a way before needing to be "refueled". I remember that it could easily sustain 60MPH for quite some distance.
I think it was shot down because there were materials at the time could not sustain the high pressure needed to accomodate the air tank. Still a viable alternative to the problem at hand. Electricity companies still burn fossil fuels in most places. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 10:07:29 PM | Not to mention alcohol delivers more power AND burns much cleaner.
____________________loonytunz
Burns cleaner, not more power. Gas has more.
Gasoline………….18,400 BTU/lb.
· Benzol…………….17,500 BTU/lb.
· TNT (trinitrotulene)..6,500 BTU/lb.
· Ethyl Alcohol………11,500 BTU/lb.
· Methanol…………..9,500 BTU/lb.
· Nitromethane………5000 BTU/lb.
This is why we use gas.........Eazy. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 10:07:55 PM | CONSPIRACY...
Not hardly. Electric cars are not ready for prime time until batteries get substantially better, figures I've heard are that if you drove the EV-1 (GM electric) on a snowy day with heater, lights & wipers on, it would get you less than 10 (??) miles down the road.
Steam is an alternative that few are exploring, but it's pretty efficient, and as the poster above mentioned, since we have to Generate electrcity, or hydrogen for fuel cells, why not burn say... powdered coal for steam. No reason this should be more poluting than gasoline..and at this point, what come out of a well maintained tailpipe is *almost* clean enough to breath - CO2 level excepted.
Fusion for electric power, and /or development of MHD generators (magneto-hydro-dynamic generation which involves the direct conversion of kinetic energy of a flowing fluid into electricity) would make a lot of things possible. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 10:14:10 PM | Bob follow those links you will find the E85 car actually delivers more horsepower than the straight gasoline car (it actually surpasses the Bugatti Veyron).
Also I notice the values you have are based on weight? I'd have to check the specific gravity of each but you might find a difference when measured by volume, and our tanks don't hold 60 pound or kilos of fuel they hold 60 litres or X gallons  . | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/2/2007 11:06:16 PM | The power advantage with e85 is gain because of the emmission motors higher temps and better fuel management. The fuel acts as a coolant, turbo, supercharged, Higher compression ratio . More power. E85 works best at a much leaner mix (7 to 1)-. Gasoline works best rich(12-1). With an emmission or lean burn the advantage goes to e85.
Open up the E85 and put a chip in it.....GAS .
Amount of fuel in the tank wont change the BTU per lb. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 2:09:38 AM | Batteries aren't heavy any more. Lead acid is like, so 20th century. Lithium Ion (LiOn) is where it's at now, the Tesla Motors guys figured this out reasoning that laptop makers do the most resarch on batteries, not car guys. So use laptop batteries. Lots of them. It works for them.
LiOn is very fast to recharge, holds more energy than any other kind and is very light.
Some modern diesels burn so clean that in many cities the exhaust coming out is cleaner than the air going in. This is a fact, not rhetoric. Old diesls can pollute. Duh. So do old gas cars.
The most attractove point to electric cars to me is it take the oil companies out of the loop - if you live in a place that gets its 'lecto from hydro and/or nuclear - there's no carbon. If you generate your own 'lecto you drive for free with zero impact on the environment. You'll never do this with a fuel cell car. Ever.
A fuel cell car is 15 years off from whenever you ask. And you're gonna buy the fuel - hydrogen - from the same guys you buy gas from now. They'll have you by different short and curlies but they'll still have you. A fuel cell is significantly more complicated than a battery and a motor; fuel cells work, barely, in the lab. 'Lectric motors have been well understood for a very long time.
The first EV1s used lead acid and had terrible range. After two years they switched to nickle metal hydride and did a LOT better. LiOH is significantly better than NiMh.
All these other ideas are great, but they're just ideas. Electric cars actually work, have been around 100 years and by any objective standard make the most sense. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 2:21:39 AM | The only real problem with electric cars is battery life.
How far the battery will take the car between recharging.
Now, maby I'm not an engineer and maby I'm missing an important detail.
Perhaps some smart engineers out there can set me straight.
Why can't an electric car be designed with a small gasoline powered electric generator which constantly keeps the battery recharged ?
Sure, it wouldn't be totally gasoline free, but that seems to me a much better way to go than the current, insanely complex hybrid cars we see today.
It seems to me, that sort of design could get literally the equivalent of hundreds of miles to a gallon of gas. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 9:46:43 AM | | In light of the conversations about ethanol 85, we need to dispell a few myths, ethanol is only used to the 15%, while the gasoline is used in the 85%. Alcohol IS less polluting, but this is where the advantages stop unless of course you consider the fact that using it makes us independant from foreign oil. It is a myth to think alcohol is more effieceint, it isn't. It takes twice as much alcohol to accomplish the same thing as gasoline (btu wise). So if you think that because straight alcohol that now costs $2.39 a gallon is cost effective, try looking at the long term, it actually works out to $4.78 a gallon, not only that but think about the energy needed to distill it....still not cost effective. Maybe in the future it might work, if technology comes up with a cheap way to process it, but until then it remains a "patch". | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 9:49:01 AM | | Oh Nipolean, they already do make them, they are called "hybrids" | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 10:51:42 AM | Battery life is how many years the batteries last.
Battery capaciry is how long you get out of a charge, that it, how many miles you go between charges.
Hybrids don't work by being electric cars with generators to keep the batteries charged, they work by shutting off the gas engine when they can (at idle) and relying on electric power in low demand situations (crawling along in traffic). Once you hit hard acceleration the car acts the same as any other gar powered car dependent on the usual sources and infrastructure for oil.
Energy from fossil fuels is 5X as expensive as energy from the grid. To this end you never want to use it, ever.
What might make sense is a small diesel generator running on farm produced vegetable oil, like, the 5 gal pails of oil you can buy at costco which deprecates big oil and helps farmers.
Again, the point is with en electric car you have many options as a source of energy. With any other current or near-current automotive technology you have only one - the same guys that are gouging you now for fuel. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 3:20:08 PM | It is a myth to think alcohol is more effieceint, it isn't. It takes twice as much alcohol to accomplish the same thing as gasoline (btu wise). So if you think that because straight alcohol that now costs $2.39 a gallon is cost effective, try looking at the long term, it actually works out to $4.78 a gallon, not only that but think about the energy needed to distill it....still not cost effective. Maybe in the future it might work, if technology comes up with a cheap way to process it, but until then it remains a "patch".
_____________________________readyfordating
You dont know what it cost.......
We are owned by every lobby ......You have no voice
Sugar cane killed sugar beets....you have miles of farmland.......Why Lobbist
France uses beets.....best preformer per Ero.
It is no Myth that we could grow our fuel........Hemp....best.....Sugar beets......??????
Corn=Monsanto.......... | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 3:44:29 PM | Bob that is a fallacy, alcohol is less efficient in FFV's ONLY (flex-fuel vehicles).
But yes corn is far from the best source of alcohol, sugar cane was replaced as a crop in the US due to imported cane and cane products being cheaper than locally produced. Sugar beets and algae for northern climates alos product more alcohol by land use /crop yield than corn.
One nuke plant or hydro plant can provide plenty of power to distill alot of alcohol. Hybrid passenger vehicles running turbo chaged alcohol engines to charge the batteries is a completely feasible application of a very low pertoleum based form of locomotion. The price will skyrocket though as the corporations and governments will still want the same revenue whether we use 10 gallons of the stuff a day or a month. | |
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Ender
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Joined: 2/1/2004
Msg: 23 | |
| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 3:55:22 PM | Speaking as someone that actually works in the automotive industry, it really IS big oil that keeps electric cars off the market. Yes yes, so running your car off the electircal grid needs a base powerplant....well thats still more environmentally sound than burning petrol. So current technology isn't really viable for those living outside of major metro area's....well big whoop. The amount of pollution generated by metro area's is absolutely horrible. I live in the San Fransisco bay area, and judging by the number of alternative fuel vehicles I see on the road EVERY day, I'd hazard to say that there would be a pretty viable market for a full electric vehicle. Hell, you can already get them, and many people do have them. The issue is that the electric vehicles being offered are a bit silly in that they don't have any of the utility that a normal car does....IE cargo space and passenger space.
There is also the base cost of the larger lithium batteries. That is the power source used by the electric powered top fuel dragsters (yes, I said electric drag race car). They are VERY expensive to replace. In short, the customer cost for a reasonable civilian vehicle that is fully electric would end up being slightly more than a conventional car, but for people living in desnsly populated area's, its very viable. The american people just aren't willing to trade in their Hummer's for an electric car. Our society is built around status symbols. Simple as that. | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 5:34:00 PM | Thank you for your observation Ender.
Here's some number that include other biofuels:
1 gallon of kerosene or light distillate oil ... 135,000 Btu
1 gallon middle distillate or diesel fuel oil ... 138,690 Btu
1 gallon residential fuel oil ... 149,690 Btu
1 gallon of gasoline ... 125,000 Btu
1 gallon of ethanol ... 84,400 Btu
1 gallon of methanol ... 62,800 Btu
1 gallon gasohol
(10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) ... 120,900 Btu | |
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| Electric cars
Posted: 6/3/2007 6:37:48 PM |
Hybrids don't work by being electric cars with generators to keep the batteries charged, they work by shutting off the gas engine when they can (at idle) and relying on electric power in low demand situations (crawling along in traffic). Once you hit hard acceleration the car acts the same as any other gar powered car dependent on the usual sources and infrastructure for oil.
That's close, but not the complete story. My prius also generates electricity when coasting or braking, and during hard acceleration it uses BOTH the gas and electric motors. Ultimately, thoughg, it is indeed just an extremely efficient gasoline powered vehicle. It can only go a few miles on pure electric energy, and all of that electricity was the result of gasoline usage, since I can't plug it in.
I do agree that electric cars make a lot of sense, and that one of the nice aspects is that we can introduce electric cars independent of cleaning up our means of generating electricity, rather than having to develop an entirely new infrastructure system as we would need to do for hydrogen and to a lesser extent natural gas.
Lithium ion batteries do seem to hold great promise, although it's worth noting that Toyota just recently pushed back their projected date to introduce them into their hybrids, and they still haven't committed to a date for introduction of pluggable hybrids even though they have said they're working hard on producing just that.
Finally, Tesla has recently started construction on a plant to build a sedan version of their electric cars that will sell for something in the $30,000 range. Still not within the grasp of many drivers, but a whole lot closer than their $89,000 sportser is.
Electric cars are going to hit mainstream production soon, I predict. They're simply the most easily available alternative to gasoline powered vehicles, and when oil supply falls far enough behind demand there will be a big push to introduce the best practical alternative.
Dave | |
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