Electric car -- A different thought

[coffeeman]

Hi all.

I read with interest all of the posters. They all seemed right to me.

I also seen something, on the news, about a ray gun or lazer gun that's being expermented with. Some kind of heat thing causes the shootee to be burned with heat but causes only pain and no damage. It's like something from scifi.

Thus, this energy thing. We all think traditional. Make a better gas car or electric car. How about cooking oil? I think someone will come up with something out of left field. Something so simple we will be saying, "Why has no one ever thought of that before?

I'm sure many are thinking "out of the box". It's a matter of time.

Cheers...Coffeeman

 

[N80]

Well, as with many great inventions, the technology already exists. All that is needed is a market for it, or a need (necessity) for it, and someone to realize how to package it properly. Consider the iPod. There was not a single new peice of technology in the original iPods. It was all just a matter of reading the market and knowing how to make the technology friendly and appealing. All of that will be needed for progress in the electric car market. Ten bucks a gallon for gas will push things along too.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

You guys are so correct. The electronic drive technology in any modern forklift is light years ahead of the automotive industry. From Electronic steering to wire guidance, someone in the auto ind. can take existing technology and assemble a real decent commuter car. Mass production would drive the cost down. Battery charging could take place at off-peak hours when you could obtain a reduced rate from the utilities. Ahh, the possibilities.

 

[MossRoad]

Electric fork lifts can run for long periods of time, but not at high speed. And their battery packs weigh, litterally, tons. Now take that forklift battery and motor and take a look at the electric drag racers. They can spin it up to run sub 10 second 1/4 miles at 150+ MPH, but can only get a couple runs before draining the battery. The sweet spot for highway speeds and maximum run times has only recently passed the 100 mile range before recharging. For a one car family, that is not acceptable because if you want to go on a trip, you cannot. For a two car family it might make sense to have one car that is vacation/long trip capable and the 2nd being a short range electric.

I have one car, an Impala, that gets driven 15 miles a day, 5 days a week.
Our second vehicle is a truck or van that gets driven 15 miles once a week.

However, both need to be capable of going on multi-hundred mile trips, depending on if we want to go out of town with good gas mileage(the car) or need to transport the entire extended family or tow the tractor on a trailer.

An electric vehicle with a range of under 500 miles would not be practicle to replace either of our current vehicles.

 

[RonMar]

Yes, but an electric with that 100 mile range, might be extended to several hunderd miles, or indefinitely, with the addition of a small efficient diesel generator. In fact, give up half that range in batteries to accomidate the generator and maintain weight. The most efficient output of this generator would be just slightly larger than the vehicles demand while cruising at highway speed on a level road. It would run at this output when commanded, with it's slight surplus recharging the batteries. This would allow you to run in that efficient diesel electric cruise mode with the battery pack providing that additional demand current for acceleration and extended hill climbs.

Automobile engines and cars in general are most efficient while cruising at steady state highway speeds(ref EPA city/highway mileage figures). But they are actually terribly inefficient because the engine is oversized for this aplication, as it needs to be large enough to accelerate the vehicle adequately and climb hills/tow loads. So at highway speed, they have all these excess moving parts(additional cylinders ect) consuming energy and burning fuel, when only a fraction of their output capacity is required for this average task. That is one reason why a geo metro gets 50 MPG. It's most efficient engine output is nearer to the demand at highway speed. Because of this it is underpowered in acceleration and hillclimbs. It is for this same reason that Semi's are pretty efficient in weight moved to fuel consumed. Again, they are not spectacular in acceleration and on hills.

I would guess that they could make a car today that gets 100 MPG at 55 MPH down the highway, but it wouldn't climb hills very well, and it would, like the locomotive, take a very long time to get to speed. Before the solar races they have nowdays, universities used to build vehicles to compete in such trials. Longest distance traveled at a given speed, on a given ammount of fuel.

Something interesting I came across last year while surfing, was a gentelman in, I believe oregon who took a VW Rabbit and converted it to electric. It was OK for local trips, but range was an issue. So he found a Rabbit Diesel and cropped just the front end drivetrain off of it and made it into a trailer that he tows behind the electric Rabbit. He has remote control cables back to the trailer, and out on the highway he starts the diesel and engages it to provide thrust at highway speed. He can either completely disengage the electric motor, or by leaving it engaged, he can use regenerative braking to trickle charge the batteries in the electric rabbit. This of course cuts down on his diesel cruise mileage, but the batteries in the rabbit are fully charged when he reaches his destination

There are a couple of ways to skin this cat, but no one has put the whole package together. Again, beter batteries would make this much easier...

 

[MossRoad]

Yes, but an electric with that 100 mile range, might be extended to several hunderd miles, or indefinitely, with the addition of a small efficient diesel generator.

They've already done that with the plug in Prius, haven't they? Gas, not diesel, but same idea. Charge the batteries on house current. It runs on batteriesc until you drain the batteries, then switches to the gas engine to drive and charge.

Indefinitely is, however, a long time.

 

[jdbower]

They've already done that with the plug in Prius, haven't they? Gas, not diesel, but same idea. Charge the batteries on house current. It runs on batteriesc until you drain the batteries, then switches to the gas engine to drive and charge.

The Prius is slightly different, the gas engine both charges the battery and provides direct drive to the wheels. I think the upcoming Chevy Volt is closer, it seems like the gas engine is just a generator (but it's only a subtle difference).

Out of curiosity, how many of you believe in electric cars enough to dump your oil furnace for an electric heater? In theory the electric will be cheaper when fuel prices reach a certain level, and that crossover point should be much lower than for cars since you don't have to worry about battery technologies. And if you'd prefer natural gas/propane for heating maybe we should look into that for cars instead of electric?

 

[RonMar]

I guess I was thinking indefinitely as long as the fuel tank was full.

I think the idea behind the plug-in prius was less gas burnt. There are some who are making conversion charger kits for existing prius vehicles. I think they were saying local commute mileages could be increased to as high as 80MPG by starting your morning commute with a fully charged battery. On longer trips the vehicle drops back to it's base cruise fuel economy. You are of course substituting electrons for gasoline, but I would rather buy electricity(produced domestically) than gasoline made from foreign oil. Now I wonder what kind of mileage you would get doing that to a diesel powered prius that already gets around 70 MPG?

 

[MikePA]

... but I would rather buy electricity(produced domestically) than gasoline made from foreign oil.

Aren't there oil and NG fired power plants?

 

[chh]

There will be have to be some major infrastructure upgrades if a plug in model electric car ever became popular. Where would all the juice come from? Peak or off peak it is still more demand. When is the last time you heard of a new Nuclear power plant? New coal powered plants are being fought tooth and nail. Wind farms, basically the same "not in my backyard story". Natural gas fired is the only other logical choice and the amount of flak they are catching over water use, pipelines and transmission lines is amazing.

Just a thought.

 

[RonMar]

Aren't there oil and NG fired power plants?

Coal and NG, both domestic products. the only place they are seriously making electricity from oil are on islands and remote locations that can't be reached by power lines from somewhere that has these resources, or other natural resources like hydro. CHH is right, electricity asa whole is our greenest distribution method, but we need more generation capacity to meet these needs, and unless they start building more plants, we are going to be paying a whole lot more for that as well...

 

[jdbower]

Coal and NG, both domestic products.

Actually, nuclear is bigger than NG these days (according to the DOE). We import a significant amount of coal from Columbia (as well as other countries, but still much less than oil.

We self-produce 40% of our oil, and for the rest we import the most from Canada (where we also get a lot of natural gas from). Mexico is #3 on the list for oil, but most people are concerned with the #2 slot (Saudi Arabia).

Uranium is disturbingly difficult to find where we get it, but it can also come from politically unsavory places as well as our own back yard (anyone who lives in an area prone to radon buildup probably has some uranium deposits underneath them). The #1 exporter is Australia, but #2 is Namibia so we span a wide range in the political stability spectrum...

Electric is nice and it would be great if we can push the tech a little further perhaps into workable fusion reactors, but as of now I wouldn't expect any cost savings. That said, I'm planning on putting up solar panels if they ever let me build my house even though they probably won't pay for themselves because I want to vote with my wallet and donate to the R&D efforts that will hopefully make them more cost effective.

 

[coffeeman]

There are a couple of ways to skin this cat, but no one has put the whole package together. Again, beter batteries would make this much easier...

Now how about this one? Lets take that electric car and put a windmill on the roof. As we drive the windmill turns a generator charging the battery. Gee, one battery charge from the plug in charger then we run forever on wind power.

Actually, as I think about it, if you only drive into the wind it might just work. However, how would you get back home?

Now why would you want to skin a poor little cat?

Cheers

Coffeeman

 

[jdbower]

Lets take that electric car and put a windmill on the roof...

They've already got a prototype which also allows for amphibious operation, presumably to take advantage of tidal energy.

 

[RonMar]

Now why would you want to skin a poor little cat?

Cheers

Coffeeman

Delicious, Nutritious, tastes just like Spotted Owl...

 

[4720 OWNER]

Turn them inside out and they make dandy mittens.

 

[wjoerob]

Have you looked at some of the posts on here under "Well, that was shocking." You guys all seem to be pretty conscienttious, with-it thinkers, at least giving some mental energy to solving the problem. But just about the time I think we're all on the same page, someone starts bragging about the gas hog they just bought, or whining about how much it costs them to fill up these days. Imagine the difference if we all just TRIED to only buy and drive what we really need. I thought we had all learned something from pouring our "hard-earned" into the pockets of the oil companies and Arab countries!

 

[MossRoad]

Have you looked at some of the posts on here under "Well, that was shocking." You guys all seem to be pretty conscienttious, with-it thinkers, at least giving some mental energy to solving the problem. But just about the time I think we're all on the same page, someone starts bragging about the gas hog they just bought, or whining about how much it costs them to fill up these days. Imagine the difference if we all just TRIED to only buy and drive what we really need. I thought we had all learned something from pouring our "hard-earned" into the pockets of the oil companies and Arab countries!

I've noticed you have made this same comment in the "Well, that was shocking" thread, as well.

In our situation, we have one car that gets decent mileage that we use every day, and a Suburban (it replaced our old van) to tow our trailer with, when needed, and as a backup vehicle should the every day driver car go down. It has nothing to do with bragging about a gas hog. It is necessary for us to have a truck that is capable of towing the trailer with the tractor on it, and having a vehicle that is large enough to take our extended family places all in one shot VS having to take two vehicles. We plan our daily trips to make the most of our mileage, eliminating back tracking and double trips. Somtimes someone has to wait a while for their ride to show up, and sometimes I bring my child back to work with me after school to avoid an extra 8 mile round trip. Four days a week our car has 4 people in it when it leaves the house and 4 people in it when it returns. So, we are very responsible with our fuel usage, in my opinion.

 

[dooleysm]

I traded in my extended cab Dakota for a Lumina sedan (17 mpg vs. 28 mpg) for my daily driver about 4 years ago. Almost 2 years ago I started carpooling (85 miles/day commute), first with 1 person, now with 2, and looking for another. When my Lumina dies (we're strictly a used vehicle family, and the Lumina has 130k miles) I'll be looking for a 4 cyl. replacement, hopefully in the 35 mpg range.

We traded my wife's S10 blazer (17 mpg) for a Venture minivan (22 mpg). It wasn't a huge gain, but we've got 2 kids and planning on more, so really about the only choice.

We have a full size chevy 4x4 that is a work/hunting truck. It gets used rarely, probably only 100 miles/month. It's paid for and the gas we do burn is offset by not paying delivery fees for various items and hauling away trash/recyclables.

I have a Cub SLT1554 for cutting our 1.3 acre yard. I burn about a gallon/cutting. Not much I can do about that, and gas will be way out of hand before that is unaffordable.

I have a Kubota L3000 that I use for bushogging, snow clearing, and a million other things. I probably only go through 30-40 gallons of diesel a year. Again, not enough to worry about unless fuel prices triple or quadruple.

Other than that, we have started rationing our trips to town and have cut way back on out of town trips (the kids had more to do with the latter than fuel prices, but the same effect).

I'm interested to know how the fuel prices are affecting others. My carpooling has really limited the financial impact of high fuel prices on our family. My wife has a short commute, so high fuel prices don't affect us on her driving very much.

How are the rest of you coping? Using less fuel or cutting back elsewhere. I think those are the only two options...

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I've got a Ford Ranger 25+ a gallon, and a Taurus, 25+ a gallon. Our driving habits haven't changed a bit. We go where we need to, take a pleasure trip once in a while. May fly to Florida instead of drive, other than that, I'll use a propane torch to start a fire now instead of gas. If gas goes to $10 a gallon, we will still drive just as we do now.