[geeks] electric cars

[Dan Duncan]

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Is it really more efficient and less polluting to have an electric car,
> when you consider the inefficiency and pollution of the power plants
> needed to power them?  What about reliability issues during power
> failures?

Is it just me, or do you also want to smack people who use the term
"zero emissions" when they talk about electric cars?  90% of the electricity
where I live comes from coal which has plenty of emissions.  The fact
that a car's tailpipe is located downtown instead of on the car doesn't
mean it doesn't emit pollution.

> Just some observations and things I've read:
>
> In most of the world, electrical power needed by electric cars will be
> generated by fossil fuels.
>
> Purely electric cars would be dependent on the power grid.
>
> The increased demand for power would mean we need more power plants, or
> at least need to increase the run times of existing facilities.

One thing electric cars can do is charge at night when demand is
otherwise low.  This may be the only way to shoehorn in the added
demand to grids that are already pushing the limit.

Didn't California mandate a certain percentage of fleet vehicles would
be electric by a certain year?  California can't even provide its
own electricity for current demands because they won't let anyone
build more power plants.

> How will power be sold for long road trips? There is no infrastructure
> at all right now.

Even if you could plug in at a truck stop, batteries take a very
long time to charge.  I've seen the idea of removable battery packs
where you would trade your depleted one for an already-charged one
but as far as I know none of the available electric cars support this
and of course there's no infrastructure for it.

Also, do you want a battery someone else had?  How old is it?  How
well has it been treated?  How many times has it been charged?

> Road trips: I really think this needs to be solved by simply having a
> hell of a lot more range.

The problem with the current crop of hybrid electric cars is that
the manufacturers seem to run screaming from the idea of a car
you have to plug in.  I guess some people are sour on electric cars?

The US model of the Toyota Prius will only let you drive on electric-only
up to something like 4mph before it starts the engine.  The Japanese version
allows something more like 35mph.  If it had a more reasonable bank of
batteries, you could drive a few miles on electric-only and have the
option of charging at home and operating as an electric car without ever
running the engine (realistically, it should start and run periodically
to keep it in good shape) while still maintaining the ability to take
it on a long trip and refuel with gasoline.  Let's face it, a cold engine
gets crap mileage and crap emissions and is not going to warm up on a 2 mile
drive to the grocery store in cold weather.  Why run the engine at all?
There are a number of Prius enthusiasts who hack theirs to do this.
They brag about 99mpg performance.

> It seems that using recent biomass fuels in a hybrid electric might be
> a better solution, at least for certain kinds of vehicles, areas, and
> usage patterns.  I don't think hydrogen is a great idea so far.

Hydrogen is a glorified battery, not a fuel.  There are supposed to be
methods on the way to produce it more efficiently, but for the most part
hydrogen is generated by electrolysis of water and of course the electricity
mostly comes from coal and thus you're really just charging the car.

It's an EFFICIENT storage battery, but it's basically a storage battery.

Running diesel cars on used french fry oil is fine when it's a few people
doing it, but there's only so much french fry oil.

Changing Technologies Anything-into-oil process is promising.

I'd really like to see hybrids where the wheels are ONLY driven by
electricity (series hybrids) because you could make them fairly modular.
Since the engine is merely a source of electricity, it could be an
engine running on gas, diesel, propane, hydrogen, french fry oil
(depending on local availability) or a large bank of batteries
or later upgraded to a fuel cell or whatever technology comes down
the road.  (Mr. Fusion, anyone?)  The electric motors could be
upgraded easily as new technology permits.  Electric motors at
the wheel would make 2wd/4wd/awd pretty simple.  Battery technology
is also improving so the battery bank could be replaced/increased/upgraded
as needed as well.  The same model of car could be sold in different
places as gas, diesel, or electric.

My favorite hybrid design was made by a company here in Colorado called
Unique Mobility.  They took a stock Humvee and pulled out the engine,
transmission, and fuel tank.  They put in a smaller engine, a smaller
fuel tank, an electric motor at each wheel, and a bunch of batteries
and maintained the same weight and range with some significant differences:
Acceleration was doubled, top speed was increased, climb angle was
increased, reliability was increased (the engine XOR the battery bank
could fail/get shot through and the vehicle still ran, and 3 of the 4
wheel motors could fail/get shot through/run over a land mine and the
vehicle still ran.  It could run a number of miles on battery alone
so when it ran out of fuel it wasn't dead in the water either.  (It also
got better mileage, thus the smaller tank)  This also allowed a
"stealth" mode where the vehicle could run virtually silent and with
very little heat signature.  I think their choice of a vehicle that
gets shit for fuel economy was actually a GOOD one because there was
so much room for improvement.

How come I can't buy any hybrids like THAT?

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# The more noise a motor or a man makes the less power is available.
#      	  -W. R. McGeary