[geeks] electric cars

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:10:20 -0700
"Sheldon T. Hall" <shel at tandem.artell.net> wrote:

> Charles Shannon Hendrix writes ...
> [of the drawbacks of electric cars]
> >
> > For example, when a hurricane knocks out power for a month, I still
> > need my car.  Things like that.
> 
> Unless your local gas station has a generator, you're still screwed;

Not really.

For one thing, I can fill my car up ahead of time and gasoline doesn't
leak its charge over time.  It's also trivial to store it for
emergencies.

Also, we have the infrastructure in place to deliver gas in
emergencies, most stations now have generators, and those that don't
get them within a day or so of a major power failure.

Gasoline is the one thing I've never worried about locally.

The problem in Tidewater is usually clean water due to flooding and the
fact we all live in a gigantic swamp with a military base grafted on
top of it.  Food is probably next, though I rarely have a problem with
that.

Electricity... that's hell around here.

Fun fact: the City of Hampton installed an emergency generator in the
basement of the police station.  This is a city 8 feet above sea
levle in an area where powerful storms can push the tide 20 feet
higher than normal, or dump several inches of rain per hour.

Not only that, but during Hurricane Isabel city engineers built a
sandbag wall to keep water out of the basement, but they built it at
the bottom of the entrance ramp instead of the top.

One of the local cops told them them how to build the wall properly.

Not really surprising though... a lot of our storm drains exit below
high tide too.

> Actually, I'd like to see an electric car with enough of an on-board
> generator to charge the battery whenever it gets down to some low
> percentage of charge.  Automatic actuation, etc.  If you kept the
> battery charged off your home wallsocket, you'd rarely use the
> on-board generator, but it would be available as a range-extender,
> off-grid charger, etc.  Basically, a hacked Prius, but with more
> battery and less engine. 

That's why I said I think a hybrid might be the best overall idea.

You can use an engine specifically designed to be very low maintenance
and for powering a generator.  In fact, don't even bother tying it to
the drive train.

> FWIW, my son has a Prius, and even if you ignore the whiz-bangs like
> the GPS, it's quite something.  He gets astounding gas mileage, and
> it is not a small car.  

Hmmm... felt pretty small to me!  The 2005/2006 model is bigger though.

> It's not slow, either.

It's the opposite of the Honda hybrid, with the gas engine set
up as the auxillary power.  This is supposed to make the engine
run cleaner, and Toyota claims 10% of the emissions output of a
standard compact car (whatever that is).

The electric motor has 295 pounds of torque at 0 rpm, so it is nice
around town, and get to 60mph in 10 seconds, a big improvement over
earlier hybrids.

However... I found that going over 60mph started getting
painful, and around here you really want a car that can hit
75mph comfortably now and then.

Of course, the Prius is already better than several underpowered gas
engine cars, so its not that bad.

It's obvious that they are making the car better with each major
release too.

Some things I wonder about: 

The Prius has a continuously variable transmission, and I wonder how
reliable they are and how much they cost to fix relative to standard
automatics.

I wonder how much maintenance on the hybrid setup is in the long term.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I'm glad to see at least *something* starting to happen, whatever we
ultimately end up with.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny." --
Unknown]