Electric Cars - Automobile Industry

[Davo]

The automobile Industry seems to be avoiding electric vehicles and going for Hydrogen fuel powered vehicles.

Rechargeable vehicles seem to be an option. Note 2 vehicles as an example:

I can`t post URL`s yet but look under Wrightspeed X1 and teslamotors roadster.

Both vehicles with a 0-60 of 3/4 seconds and a reasonable mileage.

If independant producers are coming up with these vehicles, why not the big companies who have far more technical experience.

Not looking at this as some sort of conspiracy theory, just looking for some answers.

Interested to hear some feedback.

 

[joobz]

Electric cars are great for limiting emissions in cities, but the electricity is still coming from powerplants most likely burning coal.

However, with the loss of energy from power transmission, you kinda lose the energy savings advantage you get from electric cars.


It seems like Disel and biodisel offers the greatest advantages in resource management, but we'll see if that catches on

 

[Davo]

electric cars - power source

Coal, hydro, nuclear, solar, and natural gas are typical sources for generating electricity. Power generation plants, even coal burning ones, are inherently more efficient and less polluting than vehicles due to economies of scale and the ability to more efficiently remove pollutants from a smaller number of much larger fixed locations.

Also, an electric car is far more efficient than a gasoline car, so the amount of pollution generated by producing the electricity to drive an EV a given distance is much less than the pollution from the gasoline to drive an internal combustion car the same distance.

Above quote from tesla motors site.

Recharging cars would also take advantage of using off peak energy supplies

 

[snooziums]

However, hybrid vehicles offer the advantages of both electric and fuel power. At a stop, the engine is off, not idling. When slowing down or breaking, the generator is recharging the batteries. During acceleration, the electric motor kicks in - thus a less powerful and thus a less polluting fuel engine is needed.

Also, the vehicle never needs to be plugged in. And the alternator and starter are replaced by one unit.

There are about 10 models of hybrid vehicles being sold, and they will push electric vehicle technology since they are part electric.

 

[joobz]

true...to an extent.
But it's still a borrow from peter to pay paul situation.
I'd like to see a direct comparison of miles/carbon burnt. That'd be the only way to really show fuel efficiency of electric cars over gas engines over hybrids.

Also, batteries don't last forever. Replacement would be expensive (an issue facing many of the hybrids) Also, they are made of heavy metals, so hazardous waste is still a concern (not as green as you'd think).

the hydrogen economy is a great dream, but it's application would be near impossible to inact on any scale.

Again, I'm willing to bet disel provides the most realistic option, next to hybrid

 

[Davo]

vehicle efficiency

Electric cars are at least twice as efficient as hybrids.Hybrids are around 30% more efficient than conventional vehicles.Should get around 120 miles per gallon equivalent.

I do see hybrids pushing the electric vehicle market as people get used to electric rather than combustion systems.

Take the point of battery toxicity.Apparently All Lithium Ion batteries are classified by the federal government as non-hazardous waste and are safe for disposal in the normal municipal waste stream. I believe that parts of the battery can also be recycled. One other bonus is you wouldn`t have engine oil, clutch fluid to deal with as waste material.

I do see a problem with hydrogen economy as using electricity to generate hydrogen to convert back to electricity is not a very efficient process. Probably no more efficient than combustion just transferring the pollution source from the car to the power station.

Advise checking out the tesla motors website, answers a lot of these subjects in detail. Interested to hear your comments on the tesla roadster.

 

[trvlr2]

Tesla Motors?

From the website:
"
Zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds with a top speed of over 130 mph*. But this is not the whole story. Because it has no clutch and a very wide, flat torque curve, the acceleration of the Tesla Roadster is much more available to enjoy: just step on the accelerator and go - no matter what speed you are driving, no matter what gear you are in, the acceleration is instantaneous.

* We are currently in the midst of the important and time-consuming safety and durability testing for the Tesla Roadster. While we are confident of our numbers, this testing may require design changes that affect the final specifications."

You can't see it till 2007. Apparently it hasn't been produced as yet,maybe just prototype? Even though they claim 100 units sold-they don't mention ANY delivery.
My BS detector is going off.

 

[Daylight]

If you add $30,000 in photovoltaic cells to the roof of your house (minus $10,000 credit from fed/state), live in a mostly sunny state you’ll basically have an electric car that has free energy. Factor in about $250 you no longer need to spend on gas and that could apply towards the car payment.

What I don’t like for other methods is you are just substituting dependence on oil with another. How long before the prices on the replacement go up?

One other thing to consider, if you replace CO2 with water vapor in a city like Los Angeles, wouldn’t that increase the humidity? Increase the humidity too much and you get a hot fog. Which can’t be good. Sort of like a green house effect?

 

[fuelair]

From the website:
"
Zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds with a top speed of over 130 mph*. But this is not the whole story. Because it has no clutch and a very wide, flat torque curve, the acceleration of the Tesla Roadster is much more available to enjoy: just step on the accelerator and go - no matter what speed you are driving, no matter what gear you are in, the acceleration is instantaneous.

* We are currently in the midst of the important and time-consuming safety and durability testing for the Tesla Roadster. While we are confident of our numbers, this testing may require design changes that affect the final specifications."

You can't see it till 2007. Apparently it hasn't been produced as yet,maybe just prototype? Even though they claim 100 units sold-they don't mention ANY delivery.
My BS detector is going off.

Info in Oct. Popular Mechanics - and picture - + you get a neat article on how to make some fun devices including a potato gun (and where to get materials to make one that will launch the potato at 400mph and will shoot it 400 yards!!.)!

 

[Cuddles]

The automobile Industry seems to be avoiding electric vehicles and going for Hydrogen fuel powered vehicles.

Hydrogen powered cars are electric cars. Fuel cells are simply very efficient, clean batteries. Conventional batteries are very inefficient, heavy and have limited lifetimes, so it is not really possible to make cars with decent power, since there is simply not enough space to fit all the batteries, plus charging them would take a long time.

Fuel cells are much smaller and can be over 90% efficient, so it is fairly easy to fit enough in a car to give decent power. The main issues are with storage and distribution, which is more of a problem than natural gas since hydrogen molecules are so much smaller, and more explosive. If these problems are solved, and it seems likely they will be, electric cars will take over.

The issue of producing the hydrogen can be solved by producing it on site through solar and wind power. If every filling station had a roof of solar cells and a small wind turbine they should be able to produce enough fuel. This also raises the possibility of just storing the hydrogen and then recharging regular electric cars using in situ fuel cells, if storing hydrogen in the cars themselves turns out to be impractical. There is also the option of sending hydrogen down established natural gas pipelines so that people can refuel their cars at home, as well as power their homes from a distributed power system. One of my friends is currently working on exactly this problem.

Hybrids are pretty much pointless, since they still burn oil. They are more efficient than normal cars because their engines always run at the most efficient rate, but since we are going to run out of oil they canot be the answer. Biodiesel is controversial, since studies have shown that the power used to produce it actually causes more pollution than is saved by using it. These results are disputed though. In any case, it is unlikely to provide the whole answer, since the area needed to provide biodiesel for everyone is far larger than is actually available.

 

[The Don]

The issue of producing the hydrogen can be solved by producing it on site through solar and wind power. If every filling station had a roof of solar cells and a small wind turbine they should be able to produce enough fuel.

Energy density of gasoline, 34 MJ/litre according to this site http://www.woodgas.com/fuel_densities.htm

Assuming 100 vehicles a day, 50 litres per car, that's 170 GJ of energy requirement

Because electric vehicles are twice as efficient, but there's a cost of converting to Hydrogen, let's assume 100 GJ is required which, if we had 24 hours of generation would be 2 MW

Of course, we only have 12 hours of solar and 24 hours of wind, so that's a 1MW wind turbine and 2MW of solar cells.

A 1 MW wind turbine stands 50m tall, and has a rotor diameter of 54 m. from this site, http://www.afm.dtu.dk/wind/smep/bonus.html one in Denmark generated 1670 MWH in a year, we require 8800MWH from our wind turbine so we need 5 of them

From here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power it would seem that 1KWh per square metre per day is a good average output from solar cells. We would require 24,000 square metres of solar cells to get our 24MWH. That's quite big.

Of course this is for a tiny petrol station (5,000 l /day)

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

I love it when you talk maths!

Oil is dirty and running out rapidly, and every day we see the very human results of the hydraulic despotism that controls it. Electric vehicles in one form or another are pretty much the only way ahead at this point, unless someone somewhere knows something we dont? Be it fusion, hydrogen or anti-matter reactor driven, you or your kids will one day be driving an electric vehicle, regardless of cost effectiveness.

 

[Cuddles]

Fair enough, I don't think that idea was being considered too seriously, presumably that's why. I think the general concensus is it have a national distribution system like the gas one. This has it's own problems, but they should be solveable. In any case, I demand an anti-matter reactor in mine.

 

[Bindamel]

Electric cars are at least twice as efficient as hybrids.Hybrids are around 30% more efficient than conventional vehicles.Should get around 120 miles per gallon equivalent.

Do you have a source for the at least twice as efficient statement? Is it an average? Power generation is very different in different places, and is affected by distance and mode of transimission. Is it Nuclear, Wind, Coal, Hydro, Solar?

If you are saying that the car itself is far more efficient, well yes. It's the equivalent of separating the car into an engine and a passenger compartment with transmission. The passenger car with transmission is very efficient. The engine, not so much.

The one thing electric cars do well is control pollution. If all of the pollution is centralized at a power plant, it is much easier to regulate emissions.

I do see hybrids pushing the electric vehicle market as people get used to electric rather than combustion systems.

Absolutely, and the ebil gub'mint may have delayed the practical realization of the hybrid with its electric fleet requirements a decade ago. Once released from government mandate, more companies poured a lot more money into the hybrid market.

Take the point of battery toxicity.Apparently All Lithium Ion batteries are classified by the federal government as non-hazardous waste and are safe for disposal in the normal municipal waste stream. I believe that parts of the battery can also be recycled. One other bonus is you wouldn`t have engine oil, clutch fluid to deal with as waste material.

I have introduced myself before as someone who at least WAS deeply involved in Li-ion research (I have been away from it for 5-6 years). Just because the government says that the materials in the batteries are classed non-hazardous, it doesn't mean they are. One of the best salts for Li-ion electrolytes is LiPF₆, which hydrolyzes in moist air to form HF, which then proceeds to leach calcium from your bones, which is a bad (TM) thing.

I do see a problem with hydrogen economy as using electricity to generate hydrogen to convert back to electricity is not a very efficient process. Probably no more efficient than combustion just transferring the pollution source from the car to the power station.

Good that you recognize that hydrogen requires electricity to make the hydrogen. Too many folks jumping on the hydrogen bandwagon are thinking that hydrogen is a free energy solution. I suspect it is more efficient than current ICE technology, however. I've never researched hydrogen fuel cells, so I can't speak confidently on the issue.

Advise checking out the tesla motors website, answers a lot of these subjects in detail. Interested to hear your comments on the tesla roadster.

I'll reserve comment for release. Just as hybrids integrated themselves into society, electrics can too. I've seen a lot of failures, though, so I'm going to wait for the physical evidence of pracitical electric vehicles.

 

[Topspy]

Of course there is the problem that electric cars take hours to charge, and every few years you get smacked with a bill for thousands of dollars to replace the batteries..... hard to sell a car like that.

 

[Cuddles]

Of course there is the problem that electric cars take hours to charge, and every few years you get smacked with a bill for thousands of dollars to replace the batteries..... hard to sell a car like that.

Which is exactly why fuel cells are so good.

 

[joobz]

Diesel is really a strong alternative, you just need to our technology. The reason why diesel didn't work before was that engines were noisy and exaust was sooty

Well, times have changed.
1.)Higher quality diesels and better scrubbers in cars eliminate this dirty emission.
2.)Engine quality/technology has improved greatly, not as noisy.
3.) Pieseelectric fuel injectors have greatly increased the fuel economy, getting even more power and lower gas costs.
4.) Diesel isn't as volitile as gasoline, so not as dangerous. You could lite a cigarette standing in a puddle of diesel and not have an explosion. COuldn't do that with gas.
5.) generation of Biodiesel (cleavage/removal of glycerol from fats without creating soap) is the primary step. As a ChemE, i expect this technology to improve and become more affordable faster than solar panels are placed at weigh stations.
6.)Diesel cars last forever. (Typical engine life span is +300,000miles). You consider the waste of the gas, consider the waste of the car. It's not trivial. What's the life span of an electric car?


I'd be interested if there was attempts at doing diesel/hybrid. (I don't know if that's even possible). But you'd really get a nice/bang for your buck.

With all that said, I'd love to see us on a hydrogen type economy. But again, safety is a huge concern. Nuclear is by far the most useful energy source, but we don't use it because of safety.

 

[joobz]

Which is exactly why fuel cells are so good.

Yeah, I remember seeing a popular science where they showed if they could get pure fuel cell cars, it could completely change the way they are designed. You could have a flat chassis with all of the engine and steering, and you could place any cab on top to suit the needs of the person buying it. Really cool.

But I'm still waiting.

Also, don't forget that GM was burned by the electric car, literally. (they caught fire while charging). They pulled the entire line. It's part of the reason why they are so reluctant to go hybrid.

They are placing full stock into fuel cells (from what my bro-in-law says, he works there). Although, they will adapt designs to fit with biosource energies (like E85). That problem is just those small alochols are havoc on rubber seals. I've asked him about deisel, and he said there's no plans unless market forces push them that way.

 

[The Don]

Nuclear is by far the most useful energy source, but we don't use it because of safety.

So far nuclear has been the largest scale non-carbon producing source of energy. The arguments against it are a combination of safety (or the perception thereof) and financial (nuclear power plants are quite pricey to decomission). Speaking as one who lives on an island, the development of practical tidal generators would be of immense benefit. Other possibilities I'd consider above solar and wind would include geotherman and hydroelectric.

 

[TjW]

Which is exactly why fuel cells are so good.

Right. There you've got a car which gradually degrades in performance over hundreds of hours, and then you're presented with a bill for new membranes.