Tesla semi

[tomato coupe]

That is all nice. But if the organizers of the race specify four seater car and the minimum speed of travel it will change very fast for way worse.

It's just a contest designed to challenge young engineers. They specify a minimum average speed, as well as many other parameters for the cars. If you change the parameters, such as adding 3 more seats or increasing the minimum speed, the efficiencies will change. Who cares? No one is claiming the efficiencies they attain are possible with a four door sedan.

Aerodynamic drag increses with square of speed while rolling resistance is linear. Therefore to double the speed of a vehicle you need to increase power eight times. Therefore energy consumption escalates very quicly with speed increase.
Example: Bugatti Veyron:
1.) Small two seater sports car.
2.) With low aerodynamic drag C coefficent.
3.) 1200 HP engine.
4.) It needs all the 1200 HP to reach 431.072 km/h (267.856) mph drag limited.
From that we could estimate fuel consumption 0.17 miles/gal or about 4.5 miles to run the tank dry at maximum speed. If the vehicle had 100% efficeint power train it could travel about 20 miles to run the tank dry.

Okay, a Veyron uses a lot of fuel at top speed. No surprise there. What's the point?

(And your range estimate is off -- the Veyron can go about 50 miles on one tank of fuel when traveling at top speed.)

 

[DieselBound]

It's just a contest designed to challenge young engineers. They specify a minimum average speed, as well as many other parameters for the cars. If you change the parameters, such as adding 3 more seats or increasing the minimum speed, the efficiencies will change. Who cares? No one is claiming the efficiencies they attain are possible with a four door sedan.



Okay, a Veyron uses a lot of fuel at top speed. No surprise there. What's the point?

(And your range estimate is off -- the Veyron can go about 50 miles on one tank of fuel when traveling at top speed.)

Valid question.

I'd offer that a BIG point is that of wind resistance. While many folks can understand this, most do not.

Stuff like these "challenges" are often little more than fundraising events masquerading as being "for the children/youth." Sure, they engage "youth," but it's about fishing for big investors. If a "movement" starts up then the push is to get funding from everyone, from all taxpayers: once this starts it almost never stops. And as such "investments" grow they become too big to pull the plug on should they be proven ineffective.

So, the Veyron, "challenge vehicles" AND EV Semis are all perfect examples of the wrong tool for the job (when speaking in terms of being about transportation). Each has a sexiness: we love glitz, but the world works on grunt. ALL are bad examples of scalability.

 

[tomato coupe]

Valid question.

I'd offer that a BIG point is that of wind resistance. While many folks can understand this, most do not.

I think most people do understand this, qualitatively anyway.

Stuff like these "challenges" are often little more than fundraising events masquerading as being "for the children/youth." Sure, they engage "youth," but it's about fishing for big investors. If a "movement" starts up then the push is to get funding from everyone, from all taxpayers: once this starts it almost never stops. And as such "investments" grow they become too big to pull the plug on should they be proven ineffective.

As someone who has been in academic research and supervised both undergraduate and graduate students in physics, I cannot emphasize how valuable it is to give students opportunities to do research projects. There is no substitute for the experience of building something with your own hands and testing it. That's the real purpose of contests like this. Your idea that they are about "fishing for big investors" could not be further from the truth.

 

[DieselBound]

I think most people do understand this, qualitatively anyway.



As someone who has been in academic research and supervised both undergraduate and graduate students in physics, I cannot emphasize how valuable it is to give students opportunities to do research projects. There is no substitute for the experience of building something with your own hands and testing it. That's the real purpose of contests like this. Your idea that they are about "fishing for big investors" could not be further from the truth.

Yes, there's the value you note.

One would be naive to believe that the aim of research projects isn't to come up with something marketable. One thing always leads to another. Compartmentalizing seems overly prevalent. EVERYTHING is sought for exploitation.

I've been involved in the later stages of what you claim is "further from the truth." But, when one is compartmentalized then it's pretty easy to come up with the notion that research is just for the learning experience.

"There is no substitute for the experience of building something with your own hands and testing it." KABOOM!:laughing:

 

[Redneck in training]

Great contribution!

Many just don't understand physics.

Same thing with draining the Tesla batteries. Speed UP, distance DOWN.

Regarding stuffing a big truck with batteries, isn't the purpose of the truck to transport goods? I suppose it would help reduce the hauling of crappy products (frivolous stuff ain't going to be transported due to the high[er] costs).

Most efficient transport is by ships: there has been many attempts to add wind power (sail) to them (to the future via the past!) The it's rail: and rail is run via hybrid diesel-electric. There really is nothing that provides the energy density of diesel (too bad that the limitations of IC engines couldn't be overcome).

I can transport myself plus 3,000 lbs of car 50 miles on 7.15 lbs of fuel (diesel). A tank of fuel gets me 750+ miles. But... the thread is really about transport of goods; POVs are going to be in decline (demographics [aging population], environmental and affordability). The ONLY way that we can approximate the same levels of goods movement with other-than-diesel power is with HUGE subsidies: yes, the existing fossil fuel based infrastructure is heavily subsidized; but, it also has a lot of embedded energy in it (much of the capital costs are covered- new stuff will be forced to not only compete with this fact but with the fact that we're all heavily in debt- the benefits of economies of scale aren't likely going to be coming in spades anymore).

Unless we're going to run trolley wire everywhere again (shame that nearly all the infrastructure got scrubbed) I'm not seeing electric as being able to deliver. In my more hopeful days I was an advocate for fusion energy; fusion, IMO, is the only thing that theoretically can meet the energy requirements for transport.

Li Ion batteries are not that heavy. There are ways to decrease mass of vehicle. I think cost is the main obstacle to overcome. It has to make economical sense to achieve greater dement for EV.
Personal vehicles are different story. In CA people buy EV to get access to car pool lanes (I think that is the case there). Some buy them for the thrill of acceleration. There are many reasons people buy cars that have little to do with money.
I also know few things about tankers. When fuel was cheap LNG tankers had gas turbines and run on the vapor from the transported natural gas. When cost of LNG increased many tankers were repowered to NG/diesel engines and vapor recovery (NG gas liquafaction refrigeration was added to limit losses.) Also speed of the boats was significantly decreases to so called slow cruising. I think similalrly container boats were also slowed down when fuel got expensive.
Modern cargo ships slow to the speed of the sailing clippers | Environment | The Guardian

 

[tomato coupe]

Yes, there's the value you note.

One would be naive to believe that the aim of research projects isn't to come up with something marketable. One thing always leads to another. Compartmentalizing seems overly prevalent. EVERYTHING is sought for exploitation.

I've been involved in the later stages of what you claim is "further from the truth." But, when one is compartmentalized then it's pretty easy to come up with the notion that research is just for the learning experience.

"There is no substitute for the experience of building something with your own hands and testing it." KABOOM!:laughing:

Compartmentalization? What the heck are you talking about?

 

[California]

...In CA people buy EV to get access to car pool lanes (I think that is the case there). ... There are many reasons people buy cars that have little to do with money.

Yep. My dentist charges his Volt at home and makes it most of the way down from the foothills before going to gas. But he said he won't install a charger at his office in town since the Volt to him is mostly for its carpool lane sticker.

Likewise reading an EV forum, there are reports of trade-ins that show zero miles run as EV after three years so the cars were clearly bought for that precious carpool lane sticker.

There's a wider variety of human nature out there than most of us are aware of, or could imagine. I learned that when I owned rentals .....

 

[Egon]

Anyone recall that amazing watch that Dick Tracy wore??

Or

Read Jules Verne??

 

[Egon]

An article in the recent news:
[video]https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-usa-government-science-environment/[/video]

How might this report influence transportation?

 

[houstonscott]

An article in the recent news: Video Link: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/climate-change-usa-government-science-environment/ How might this report influence transportation?

The science doesn't support that claim, and people aren't (buying) it.... So NG losses credibility.