Previous posts about CyberTran described next-generation mass transit systems.
But nobody expects automobiles to disappear from U.S. roads in the near future. We need to get efficiency way up, fast.
The automobile equivalent of CyberTran is the ultra-light electric car. Electric cars don't have to be dull; Tesla Motors sells the Tesla roadster, a ~$100,000 electric sports car that can outrun a comparable Ferrari costing almost twice the price.
But they also don't have to be toys for the filthy rich. Solectria demonstrated the midsize four-passenger Sunrise in 1997. It traveled 216 miles from Boston to New York at normal highway speed, using only 85% of the power in a battery containing energy equivalent to less than a gallon of gas (PDF). Solectria claimed at the time it could profitably retail the car for as little as $20,000. So why did it never come to market?
The problem with a mass market car is you have to make in mass quantities. Generally, if you cannot use the full capacity of a major factory by selling at least 40,000+ units per year, a car is considered a niche product. Below that, you cannot get the full economies of automobile mass production.
Unfortunately, 1997-98 was around the time when the auto industry was going out of its way to make the case that the electric market was somewhere between insufficient and non-existent. While I think Who Killed the Electric Car? asserts more than it can prove, it makes the case beyond a reasonable doubt that the auto industry worked to destroy rather than build the electric car market. Its only escape from California's new clean-car mandates was lack of market. Solectria was a small company in any case. It probably could not have raised the capital for a factory capable of producing 40,000 cars per year. If it believed what the big players were saying (that there was no market), it had no reason to even try.
Could a car in that price range with that level of performance have sold 40,000 units a year? You are kidding, right? The Sunrise even had batteries that could have lasted around 100,000 miles, though by the end of that time their range would have been more like 125 miles. (The Ovonics NiMH batteries would have lost about half their capacity after 500 cycles -- which in a car with a 200+ mile range would have been around 100,000 miles.) At 100,000 miles a car is generally considered a beater anyway; a 125-mile range is not bad for a beater car.
An important point to understand is that it did not get this range just from the use of electricity. It also used a composite carbon-fiber/fiberglass lightweight body, shaped aerodynamically to give it low wind resistance. (Although I can't find documentation, it seems likely that it also used tires with low rolling resistance -- making it a true Hypercar, just one that ran on batteries rather than a hybrid.)
Electric cars use about 1/10 the moving parts conventional automobiles do. You don't need engines, gas tanks, or transmissions (just change the amount of electric power you feed the motor). A great many designs are out there -- some already prototypes, some easy to prototype. If the government decided to set up a public works program to design an electric AmeriCar, a tested prototype meeting all regulatory requirements is possible within a few years. (Remember, the designs are already out there. You are not starting from scratch.) Because electric cars are simpler to build than conventional ones, a factory should be able to be put in place fairly quickly. In short, we could probably be turning out mass market electric cars within five years, if we had the will.
LiOn batteries are still a bit pricey for mass market cars. (I've heard the Tesla battery pack costs around $35,000.) But modern NiMH would batteries cost about $9,000, which with a decent built-in battery management system should last 100,000 miles. Given that carbon fiber bodies these days are less expensive than steel ones, that means they really could be retailed in the $20,000-to-$30,000 price range, without subsidy.
But you wouldn't want to leave their adoption to the market. Once they were available for sale, you could subsidize ultra-efficient new cars, generating the subsidies by charging fees on less efficient new cars. Leaving aside those for whom a 200-mile range is inadequate, you could probably convert a 13th of the IC and diesel passenger fleet into pure electric cars each year. (Not to mention that LiOn and other batteries much more advanced than NiMH are likely to mature soon.)
At the same time, you would want to begin decarbonizing the grid. The simplest way at this point would be to massively increase installation of wind -- up to the ~20% it could easily support, ideally replacing most coal. You could also replace most single-cycle gas turbines with combined-cycle turbines. There are electricity conservation measures (which I'll get into in a future post) that could ensure U.S. electricity consumption would be lower, even with electricity powering transportation, than at present.
What about people for whom the 200-mile range wouldn't work -- people who drive long distances either for a living or for fun? Well, as Amory Lovins has been pointing out for decades, using a gasoline engine to drive an electric motor, putting it in an ultra-light aerodynamic body, on tires with low rolling resistance, should give you gas mileage within the 75-90 MPG range. The addition of the gasoline engine and tank reduces thermodynamic efficiency compared to an all electric HyperCar, but it is still better than a conventional one.
Is there anything we could do before true electric cars come along? There is. Hybrid cars are growing in sales, and already run off batteries to some extent. Increase that battery capacity, and add a plug so that you can charge them from the grid; upgrade the software to account for these changes. The result is PHEV (Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicle).
You can get much of the thermodynamic efficiency improvement you could get with a 100% electric car, and still have the range of a gasoline engine. You don't have the improvement you would get with a true Hypercar or electric car -- you don't have the ultra-light weight or other improvements like good aerodynamics and low rolling resistance, and you have the mass and complexity of both a larger battery and a fuel tank. But carbon (and other) emissions are half of those generated by a conventional car, and they are a minor modification of automobiles on the market now. We could build them now in our current factories. In fact, conventional hybrids have been customized into PHEVs. Obviously, gasoline powered Hypercars could also have a plug and incorporate software to let them be PHEVs as well.
Comments
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theBike45 Posted 12:41 am
17 Nov 2006
With respect to the goal of emission reduction, a "zero emission" car doesn't do a whole lot more than reduce the total amount of emissions and shift it from the tailpipe mostly to the coal powerplant smokestack. However is does localize all emissions in one place for attack. The biggest effect will be the avoidance of foreign oil and the economic benefit.
An economically viable electric car (or PHEV) will only be possible when a practical battery is available. Right now the Altair battery is the closest thing for an all-electric, since it is the only battery that can be recharged quick enough (less than 9 minutes) to make public charging stations possible. The batteries cost about the same as li ion, which means they will run about $20,000 for 50 kilowatt hour capacity (200 to 250 mile range). For a PHEV, Triangle Research's new plastic/carbon infinite lifespan and low cost (around $100 per kilowatt hour) batteries would provide what's needed to make an economically efficient PHEV vehicle. Unfortunately, these batteries cannot be recharged quickly and thus cannot make possible a practical all-electric car.
The nickel metal-hydrides hybrids are now using are no better than those used in GM's EV1, and cost almost as much as li ion batteries. GM's new "electric car" is a series hybrid, which is only a short step away from all electric - find batteries that are practical and you have an all electric car. It is their fuel cell vehicle with the fuel cell and hydrogen storage tank removed and replaced by batteries for power source (and PHEV) and a small diesel/gasoline generator motor.
Bob Lutz quoted a 25 to 30 mile plug-in range.
Plug -in hybrids, even the architecturally cleaner
series type, are inferior in design to a pure battery powered electric, but are a good second choice. Non-PHEV hybrids I consider a very poor choice - they make such a small reduction in total emissions in the real world that they cannot be considered anything other than minor players. Those who don't spend a lot of driving in stop and go situations are better off avoiding non-PHEV hybrids altogether.
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:32 am
17 Nov 2006
A bunch of fleets have now recorded NiMh batteries lasting with a slow enough rate of deterioration to document the 500 cycle claim in the real world. NiMH batteries failed in some Detroit built monsters cause they did not know to put in a decent Battery Management System.
Selectria was an experienced electric car maker, and would not have made that mistake.
As to electric car emissions - again Detroit made monsters put electric batteries into car bodies not much ligher than conventional ones. Efficient cars are made by a combination of factors - ultra-light body, electric drive (either hybrid or pure electric), aerodynamic construction, and more expensive tires that provide low rolling resistance. Even if the Sunrise had been powered completely by fossil fuel powered stations, the fuel efficiency would have been the equivalent of around 90 MPG. (Fossil fuel powered plants on average produce 36+ energy units of electricity for every 100 units of fossil fuel input - after tranmsission and thermal losses. ) Natural gas and coal are used in about equivalent amounts.In terms of carbon per BTU, oil produces about 20% emissions than natural gas, and 20% fewer emissions than coal. That makes fossil fuel in our current grid about the same carbon intensity as oil products such as gasoline. 90 mpg well to wheel from grid is about the same 90 mpg from gasoline engines However that still understates carbon saving because not all of the grid is fossil fuel driven. Around 25% comes from sources normally considered low carbon.
As to your point on the movie. I pointed out in my post that it is exaggerated. But there is little doubt that marketing for the GM EV1 (which I am not a fan of) was awful, and that the awfulness was deliberate - because lack of market was the only loophole in Zero Emission regulations.
Well designed electric cars are not zero emission vehicles but low emission vehicles - until the grid is decarbonized - at which point they will become zero emission vehicles or neary so.
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:34 am
17 Nov 2006
>In terms of carbon per BTU, oil produces about 20% emissions than natural gas, and 20% fewer emissions than coal.
should have read:
"In terms of carbon per BTU, oil produces about 20% more emissions than natural gas, and 20% fewer emissions than coal."
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:01 am
17 Nov 2006
Ford, Toyota, Honda and Nissan all test marketed electric cars and all found the same results: low consumer interest. Few people want a car that can only go a couple of hundred miles per day, regardless of the price. It would force you to own two cars, one for short trips, and one for long. They must pass a certain cost/performance curve before they will be acceptable to the public (worth buying). Thus, the technology for a viable electric car is not here yet.
Plug-in hybrids are most likely the next step. The engineers are working it. It is an urban legend that you can change a Prius into one by tweaking a few lines of code and adding a plug. The batteries have long life because they are not allowed to become deeply discharged. That would not be the case with a Plug-in which would require that the batteries be used much harder.
My guess is that the electric motor will evolve into the main drive. Most innovation will involve finding ways to feed it electricity (fuel cells using a variety of liquid fuels might take over once the charge on the batteries is used up, whatever).
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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Gar Lipow Posted 12:31 pm
17 Nov 2006
Because of fire safety, Tesla chose to many small batteries, rather using large batteries with many cells grouped together. By isolating the batteries from one another, Tesla kept is car fire safe in spite of the tendency of LiON to explode. However it lost much of the weight advantage of LiON. I don't remember the exact figure - I think their pack is 80% of the weight of a comparable NiMH pack. (A lot more than half in any case.) Obviously in a sports car that savings is still worthwhile.
Again, Tesla went for performance, not energy efficiency. For someone without capital to produce large numbers, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Start with a niche market and grow to the size where you can reach a mass market. But efficiency, and technology prices, in a performance car say nothing about choices available for a commuter or family car.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:25 pm
17 Nov 2006
To compete with standard cars, a successful electric car must:
Hold five people
Have similar range
Be cost competitive
Items one and three can be met with mass production, but without item 2, you won't have the market to mass-produce them.
Today's batteries do not allow engineers to achieve item 2, which in turn, prevents them from achieving items 1 and 3. The mass produced electric car does not exist here, Japan, China, Europe or anywhere else because the technology needed to compete on range does not yet exist.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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GRLCowan Posted 5:01 pm
17 Nov 2006
The GM EV1 nickel-metal-hydride battery pack weighed 520 kg and yielded 26.4 kWh, so its mass per kWh was 3.75 times that of AC Propulsion's Li-ion pack. That Li-ion pack in turn is ~20 times heavier than a full gasoline tank on an equal driveshaft work basis.
(The GM EV1 lead-acid battery pack weighed 594 kg --
heavier than a Tin Lizzie. One EV driver says,
"All electric vehicles in California
since the model year 1999 are NiMH
because of a state mandate.
Prior to that nearly all were lead-acid
because of an enormous difference in price".)
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure oxygen for vehicle power
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amazingdrx Posted 1:03 am
18 Nov 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/17...
Even planes powered by batteries and turbofan electric hybrid fuel cell engines. The whole system using 205 of the normal amount of fuel used in air travel.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:20 am
18 Nov 2006
Cowan,
Informative post, and says what I was trying to say, only better.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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amazingdrx Posted 2:04 am
18 Nov 2006
I think the link is somewhere on my site? Where did I put it? Back to google?
Direct fuel cell/turbine.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:i4qF05xDhPMJ:www.osti...
Capstone microturbine tested in an HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) car and bus.
http://www.microturbine.com/company/history.asp
I was extrapolating (as usual)the two technolgioes, fuel cell/microturbine and combustion microturbine HEV backup generation into one unit bio-d. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Gar Lipow Posted 7:01 am
18 Nov 2006
250 mile range
highway speeds
midsize car (holds 5)
battery life 100,000 miles.
Cost as low as $20,0000
The $14,000 cars are either used car conversions, or souped on golf-carts. In either case - not a lot of attention paid to overall efficiency.
As to LiON pack mentioned - yep, unlike the computer batteries used by the Tesla a real gain in weight and range. Price is closer to NiMH too (but not as low. I know that even ThunderSky (which are about the least expensive of LiON batteries per kWh) cost from $500 to $1000 per kWh. (The price range depends on whether you buy them direct or through a dealer. But skipping the dealer has other costs, including the risk of being stuck with defective cells.) Also we still don't have a perfect handle on fire risk. The whole reason Tesla went with heavier, more expensive batteries was fire safety. Having a lot of small cells, separated from one another, means an explosion in one cell does not set other cells or the whole car on fire.
Electric cars right now are basically made by craft methods. Some mass production, but without the full economies of scale you can get from long production runs.
LiON batteries (or possibly other types of batteries or bapacitors are the storage means of the future - for any car where cost is important. But NiMH are available today, at prices that allow us to build real electric cars - with decent ranges, decent passenger capacity, and able to maintain full highway speeds.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:55 pm
18 Nov 2006
We could build electric cars with "decent" passenger capacity that could go highway speeds at the turn of the century, nothing new there. The weak link is as I have stated twice before, this making the third time--short range due to the low energy density of today's batteries. You can't take a long trip in it. A "decent" range is one that makes it marketable. A 200 mile range would limit how many people would buy it, so mass producing it would just fill up the lots at dealerships and bankrupt the manufacturer.
The $14,000 cars are either used car conversions, or souped on golf-carts. In either case - not a lot of attention paid to overall efficiency
That wasn't my point. My point was that the Sunrise was not very different from the ones being built today--except for the batteries. Their poor performance is primarily because they use lead acid batteries to keep costs down. Let me put it another way. Someone looking for an economy car could buy a four-door Chevy Aveo that costs half as much and goes twice as far (on one tank of gas) as that Solectria. In addition, it is very unlikely that it would have had enough market to sell for the $20,000 they claimed. In theory, if you could get enough people to buy them, a Cadillac would cost $20,000. You mentioned that the batteries would only cost $9,000. You can buy a brand new four-door economy car for that.
Investors obviously think the all-electric car cannot yet compete in the free market using today's battery technology. Either you are wrong, or they are--baring of course, a global car manufacturer conspiracy theory. You are suggesting that highly competitive car manufacturers like Toyota are building hybrids instead of electric cars because they are uninformed, and I really don't think that is the case. I might buy a 200-mile range $20,000 electric car, but I'm a fruitball environmentalist who rides a nano-phosphate electric bike, not your average American citizen. To be honest with you, even I would much rather have a plug-in Prius than that Sunrise.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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amazingdrx Posted 1:26 am
19 Nov 2006
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/11/firefly...
This carbon-graphite foam lead acid battery looks good as a transitional technology between nimh and nano-tech li-ion Gar. it looks to come in around lead acid costs per kwh (killowatt hour, 6 kwh is aproximately equals one gallon of gas in mileage)with the lower weight per kwh of nimh. no quick charge though.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/06/tepco_and_fuji_.h...
It looks like Subaru will be the first company to mass produce and market a nano tech quick charge li-ion car. We'll see how mass production effects li-ion prices per kwh by then.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/10/mitsubi...
This one is really great! Li-ion nano tech plus a high efficiency onbard backup generator. Now switch to solid oxide fuel cell/microturbine generator backup Mitsubishi!! And please get those mass production lines humming!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Gar Lipow Posted 5:30 am
19 Nov 2006
Umm - ultra light aerodynamic body.
>..Someone looking for an economy car could buy a four-door Chevy Aveo that costs half as much and goes twice as far (on one tank of gas) as that Solectria.
Apples and Kumquats. The sunrise would have been more comparable to a Prius than Aveo. For one thing an electric car is reliable - fewer moving parts, less to go wrong. The carbon fiber body provides better collision protection than steel. By nature an electric car (if designed from the ground up to be one) is automatic transmission, and has power brakes. [Not strictly true - but what it feels like to the driver]. The low prices you mentioned are for stripped models, and lower quality cars.
>In addition, it is very unlikely that it would have had enough market to sell for the $20,000 they claimed. In theory, if you could get enough people to buy them, a Cadillac would cost $20,000...
40,000 volume is not exactly an out of reach goal for something comparable to the Prius. 47,000 Priuses were sold in 2004 - and their mileage improvement over comparable non-hybrids is less than 30%.
Incidentally, even if you could not get to 40,000 in sales the first year, you could probably manage a price range of $25,000 at a volume of 20,000. $25,000 happened to be the median price for new car in 1997. (Half of all new cars in 1997 sold for above that.)
>...You are suggesting that highly competitive car manufacturers like Toyota are building hybrids instead of electric cars because they are uninformed..
Toyota and Honda are after market share. They are sometimes willing to defer short term profit for longer term profit, but not to take a high risk path when a low risk one is available.
Electrics and hybrids compete for the same markets. But hybrids are an evolutionary technology; electrics a revolutionary one. In a free market, why would a big, well established company follow a high risk strategy to pursue a market that they have low risks means to compete for as effectively. They are not in business to advanced the technology but to make money. And that involves considering risk as well as reward.
This would be a perfect opportunity for a new player. But starting a car company aim from scratch aimed at a mass market is an overwhelming task. You need not only R&D, factories, but distribution and dealerships. And if the technology has been slandered, that makes it even harder.
This is where deliberate discrediting of the electric car comes in; no conspiracy is required. Initially California regulations were going to required car companies to sell electric cars. But they allowed a loophole; if there is no market there is no requirement. It is more or less instinctive for industries to resist regulations. If they are going to make a change they want to make it at their own pace, by their own choice. So every big company had one heck of incentive to make sure any electric car program they had failed. No conspiracy required.
In the absence of such requirements, they have two incentives to continue to badmouth electric cars; to make it harder for it to every provide serious competition for their inferior models, and to ensure that regulatory requirements are never revived.
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GRLCowan Posted 7:35 am
19 Nov 2006
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Expand pure oxygen around boron fire for vehicle power
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Gar Lipow Posted 9:02 am
19 Nov 2006
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:49 pm
19 Nov 2006
Let me just summarize this article from the perspective of an experienced engineer, one thoroughly familiar with carbon fiber, aerodynamic testing, and weight/cost tradeoffs. It presents as fact what is in reality conjecture. That's it. To a layman it all sounds incredible that we are not building electric cars today. But to me, it is obvious why we aren't making them yet. The rather obvious fact that no car manufacturer on planet Earth is mass-producing the equivalent of the Sunrise is the elephant in your article. You have cherry picked stuff off the internet that supports what you wish were true and made an article out of it. You can find support for anything on the internet, anything.
Umm - ultra light aerodynamic body.
The Sunrise was a concept car. Concept cars are a dime a dozen. Most cars today get wind tunnel time. In other words, part of the design process includes minor or even major modifications to improve highway mileage, but because there are thousands of styles, none of them are optimized for aerodynamics. The Sunrise was optimized for performance, not looks. Art is in the eye of the beholder, but most people will not drive an aerodynamic, yet goofy looking car. Its shape would have changed over the years to make new models to attract new customers.
The following comment from your original post is another example of the conjecture presented as every day fact:
Given that carbon fiber bodies these days are less expensive than steel ones
Ever wonder why every car does not have an "ultra light" aerodynamic body made from carbon fiber? It is all about cost. Look out your window and ask yourself why those millions of cars are made from steel. We used carbon fiber on many of the parts of the planes I helped design. We used it for a number of reasons, but lower cost was not one of them. Eliminating weight drives up cost.
The low prices you mentioned are for stripped models, and lower quality cars.
I see no indications that the Sunrise was going to be a high quality car. It was a concept car, a mockup, designed to maximize performance (without regard to produceability or cost) to attract investors. God only knows what would have rolled off the assembly lines for $20,000.
Toyota and Honda [do not want to] take a high risk path
The above comment contradicts your whole premise. You admit here that it is a high-risk path. Remember, this market was already test marketed by several of the world's leading car makers, including Toyota. High risk means that if consumers don't buy it, they lose their ass, again.
In the absence of such requirements, they have two incentives to continue to badmouth electric cars; to make it harder for it to every provide serious competition for their inferior models, and to ensure that regulatory requirements are never revived.
Call a spade a spade. This is called a theory, more specifically, a conspiracy theory. If Toyota were to stumble on cheap battery technology that allowed a four hundred mile range and a fifteen minute charge for the same price as a gasoline fuel system, they would spring that car on the world market and crush combustion car manufacturers overnight.
We are presently replacing our car designs with hybrids. I fully expect things to move fast. Everyone will have to get the latest technology, like with cell phones. We are going to replace the combustion engine one of these days and the sooner the better.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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amazingdrx Posted 1:24 am
20 Nov 2006
Will they share this technology with the world (and their competitiors)? I think they will.
With this piece of the puzzle in place, the battery, motor, control, and charging systems already developed will combine to finally retire the gas guzzler.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:45 am
20 Nov 2006
Serial hybrids. Excellent, they put an official name to them.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GRLCowan Posted 4:53 am
20 Nov 2006
I think it will be improved, not replaced. Internal combustion in pure oxygen, with an easily condensable ash, means after ash removal one still has pure oxygen.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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Jianguo Xu Posted 5:50 am
01 Dec 2006
According to the 2002 EPRI technical report titled "Comparing the benefits and impacts of hybrid electric vehicle options for compact sedan and sport utility vehicles", a compact plug-in hybrid vehicle with 60 miles of pure electric range (HEV60) needs a battery with 15.5 kWh of battery. With NiMH batteries the mass of the batteries will be about 218 kg (at 71.1 WH/kg), and the total mass is 259 kg including the pack tray, pack hardware, and thermal management system. Additionally, there will be close to 50 kg of additional electrical traction system mass. This is partly compensated with the about 80 kg reduction in engine system, 40 kg reduction in transmission system, among the others. The net result is that the mass of the compact car is increased by 172 kg from 1209 kg of the conventional vehicle to 1381 kg of the HEV60. That is equivalent to the mass of two adults. What it means is, at 71 WH/kg, the specific energy of the NiMH battery is reasonably high for making a HEV60 realistic. That explains why safety, cost, and life of the automotive battery are the key issues for the automotive batteries today.
Note if HEV60 becomes dominant, we can reduce the consumption of liquid fuel by about 85%. That means if the known oil deposits in the world are enough to run the vehicles of the world for 35-50 years with the conventional cars, they will be enough to run HEV60's for 230-330 years at the current rate of car mileage, or perhaps close to 150 years considering that more car mileage will likely be added as economy of the world grows. This does not include the potentials of obtaining liquid fuel from other sources, such as that from natural gas, coal, tar sands, oil shale, as well as bio-diesel. Therefore, the rechargeable battery technology of today should be enough to solve the transportation fuel problem of the world for the foreseeable future, as long as the battery can run the life of the vehicle without an increase in the cost of the battery per WH.
After PHEV becomes dominant, it is possible to install charging rails, or cables, or other means of passing electrical energy to vehicles from the grid along the major highways, such that the cars running on these highways can charge their batteries at the same time they draw the juice for running the vehicles from the grid. The cost of installing such a charging infrastructure is likely to be relatively small. For example, for the Lehigh valley of Eastern Pennsylvania, the cost of installing charging rails on expressway sections of I-78, I-476, US 22, Routes 33, 309, 378, 222, 145, and 611, in the 25 mile radius of Allentown, Pennsylvania,is likely to cost significantly less than that of constructing the Rte 222 bypass (an ongoing project) from the intersection with I-78 and Breinigsville, and Rte 33 extension from US 22 to I-78 (finished a few years ago). In return, the commuter and other cars and trucks will be able to eliminate the internal combustion engine, the fuel tank, the catalytic converter, the muffler, the radiator and other parts of the engine cooling system, the fuel pump and other parts of the fuel system, and the hassles associated with filling fuel and engine maintenance, including oil change and air filter change. What is needed is the wide use of vehicles with enough energy storage. A battery with 60 miles of energy storage is likely to be enough for most parts of this country, and perhaps most parts of the world, once the expressways are fitted with the charging rails or cables mentioned above. Therefore, the transition from plug-in HEV to pure electric vehicle may take place automatically once PHEV becomes dominant.
Or maybe it is not really necessary to wait for all the vehicles to become PHEVs before construction of such charging rails will take place?
Will there be other power trains that may replace battery electric in the future - in 100 years, 150 years? Possibly, but it is not of my concern. After all, not many people had expected the wide use of cell phones, flat panel displays, personal computers, internet, color TVs and air transportation 100 years ago. Along the same vein, nobody can rule out the potential that miniaturized fusion reactors or some unknown type of energy conversion and storage devices may run vehicles 150 years from now. However, one thing seems to be certain: whatever that will cause the replacement of battery electric cars should not be the exhaustion of liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Note while I explained how rechargeable battery can solve the transportation fuel problem, I by no means mean that rechargeable battery is the only solution to the problem. As a matter of fact, I believe that before the cost of rechargeable battery is low enough, and/or the battery life is long enough, and/or the society evaluates the environmental damage due to vehicle emissions highly enough, plug-in hybrid cars may not take off, while other types of fuel efficient power trains may enter and even dominate the car engine market in the near future. Such solutions may include (clean) diesel engine, lean burn engines such as that using the Plasmatron technology under development at MIT, Miller cycle engine if a low cost supercharger can be developed, and perhaps in combination with such mechanical energy storage means as compressed air, flywheel etc.
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Johan Posted 2:26 am
17 Jun 2007
the solectria above is another example of an extremely ugly car. perhaps the guys behind the car knew how to make batteries and electric engines but they seemed to forgot to have brought in any industrial designer ...
this shows most of all shows that electric cars should be built be standard car makers. they have all the knowledge except how to make electric engines and batteries. perhaps they should do like most other companies do: buy the expertise e.g. by buying a company like PML ... or Altair with their nanosafe battery : http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html
i dunno if any of these two technologies are cheap. they have been put together by the http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/ but just as Tesla their cars come with a rather hefty price tag.
btw: hypercar.com is down.
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:33 am
17 Jun 2007
Particularly Series Plugin Hybrids.
Now the problem with inwheel motors is partially cost, but also because inwheel motors have their own issues.
They create what is called an "unsprung mass"
Basically you need to do a lot of compensating to make sure that the inwheelmotors don't make the suspension really suck.
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odograph Posted 2:48 am
17 Jun 2007
The Prius is a painless option (costs less than the average new car in America) which doubles the typical owner's mpg. It should be the best-selling car here, for that reason.
What's the argument against that? That it's too small? It's a mid-size by EPA designation, and while I don't say it will fit every family, I think it will fit most.
That's a key distinction, as people pop up and say "but I have 3+ kids!"
Sure, we can argue what tech can do to move mpg even further, or how the Prius will be beat by a (insert favorite car) to be introduced in 2008 or 2010 ....
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:07 am
17 Jun 2007
Whether it be a Hybrid, Diesel, or Electric.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:25 am
17 Jun 2007
10% efficient solar panels charging up a battery vehicle will probably end up sending only 6% of the sunlight to the wheels, but that sunlight eliminates 100% of the GHG emissions that come from an ICE vehicle.
An ICE vehicle might put 14% of the chemical energy in the fuel to the wheels. But drilling, refining, transportation all uses a lot of fossil fuel. so maybe the same portion, say 6% of the original energy in the oil underground might get to the wheels.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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charlesp210 Posted 11:51 am
20 Jun 2007
The first number is that "90%" of people can't recharge them. Where does that number come from? I'd guess that more like 100% of the people who buy new cars have sufficient electrical capacity to charge a car overnight. In fact, since new car buyers are much more affluent than average, most of them probably have 240V service with 200 amps or better. After bedtime, most of that capacity is nearly idle, and in fact there is likely to be lots of surplus capacity in the grid then too.
And, in fact, we don't even need 100% of people, even new car buyers, to have a good market for a car anyway. A good solid 10% would do. Technically, 1% would make it.
The 90% number does make sense if you are requiring a "9 minute charge." But that number is itself the most questionable one. Most cars are idle 23 hours a day. So why do they need to be recharged in 9 minutes?
This sounds like a meme that would be used to unsell EV's. You go to a dealer that makes more profit on gas guzzlers, and he says "You don't want to buy that EV. It takes hours to recharge."
But if we're going to be getting into the counterselling game, look at all the advantages of an EV that a gashog can't match:
Much lower operating cost. Much lower fuel cost. Much lower maintanance cost. And the much lower fuel cost is going to become, relatively speaking, lower and lower. Who knows how much? I'd be sold on that.
Lower environmental cost now, and potentially zero carbon in the future. That future may be nearly here for some people. Already people are getting pre-paid solar panels as long as they agree to buy power at a fixed rate for 25 years. Buying an EV for them is a perfect fit. Of course, this assumes grid net metering, since the panels will be providing electricity during daytime (peak demand), and the car will be charging at way-off-peak nighttime hours. But that's a plus too for the grid itself. It's just an offset, for sure, but a particularly good one. The environmental sell might not work for everyone, but I think there are a lot of people out there who'd like to do something if it doesn't require much sacrifice.
Another interesting number is the purported 400 mile range requirement. Where does that come from? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since most people drive 50 miles a day or less. Very few people need more than a 200 mile range per day. I've had cars that didn't get much better than 250. I'll concede that the 100 mile range of the original EV-1 was inadequate. But current battery technology can easily give 200 miles, and I think it starts to get really interesting around that point. Anyway, there is a counter-sell to the (only has 200 mile range) argument. That is "you never need to go to a filling station!!!" I'd be sold on that. The main reason I like the 500+ mile range of my Prius is that I don't have to go to a filling station every week. But with an EV, I'd never have to go to a filling station.
They're just cool in a way that gas guzzlers will never be. They're quiet, accelerate without all that shifting and crap, handle stop-and-go very nicely. OK, this might not be entirely rational. But car purchases never are. I'm now on my second Prius, which IMO is the coolest thing out there. But a practical EV would be even cooler.
Better batteries are going to be useful for sure. And much work is being done. Much more should be done, since I think this is a real solution to many problems now or real soon (unlike hydrogen--probably never, grainethanol--never in the USA, otherethanols--still pretty problematical because of limited land and water: plants themselves are only 3-4% efficient at converting sun to stored energy, whereas photovoltaic is in the teens and better, and solarthermal is 30% and up).
Better batteries are good for PHEV's too. In fact, the PHEV has it all and now too. Once batteries get good enough, quite possibly many people will decide they don't need the PH. So in addition to being an ultimate solution for some people, they're also a stepping stone to better EV's.
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Rune Posted 2:50 pm
20 Jun 2007
Most of the time, people should be able to recharge over night or while parked at work during the day, so we would not need nearly as many recharge stations as we have gas stations. Mostly they would be used for long trips, so just having them along major highways should do.
The stations themselves could have a compact carousel of standardized batteries in a bay that the driver drives over. There are several ways of indexing the location of the battery module on the underside of the car, so I won't belabor the point. The driver could flip a battery release, the lift on the carousel could remove the depleted battery, a charged battery is popped into place, and the deed is done. A quick test of the remaining capacity of the replaced and new batteries determines how much the driver pays for the swap, and off he or she goes. Meanwhile, the depleted battery is trickle charged on the carousel and it is ready for use by the time it comes around again. Or, if it is at the end of its useful service life, it is recycled and replaced.
I am sure there are some issues with this, but I am not seeing anything that should stand in the way of working towards this today as a real, long term solution to the need to have the flexibility to drive a long distance sometimes without have to maintain a whole second set of engine, fuel, and refueling capabilities. So, I say, let's chuck hybrids and move to all electric vehicles.
Again, what am I missing?
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grille me Posted 11:54 pm
06 Apr 2008
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