6 Major Pre-Production Electric Vehicles Compared 486
rbgrn writes with a review of six major pre-production electric vehicles. The review offers an easy side-by-side comparison of these six cars with projected release dates of either 2008 or 2010. "With all of the hype surrounding hybrid vehicles today, I thought I'd do some research and post my findings on the next generation of fully electric and plug-in hybrids. The fully-electric EV has had a bad name in the past, mostly due to insufficient battery technology, politics, lack of performance models and other factors. Starting this year with the Tesla Roadster, the EV is going to take on a new form in the eyes of John Q Public. Quiet, efficient EVs will start to become commonplace in the next few years as major manufacturers go into production with the newest generation of vehicle sporting more powerful motors, efficient generators and the latest battery technology."
Dead batteries? (Score:4, Funny)
Mirror (Score:3, Informative)
By Robert Green on November 19, 2007 1:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)
With all of the hype surrounding hybrid vehicles today, I thought I'd do some research and post my findings on the next generation of fully electric and plug-in hybrids. The fully-electric EV has had a bad name in the past, mostly due to insufficient battery technology, politics, lack of performance models and other factors. Starting this year with the Tesla
My fear (Score:2, Insightful)
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Apples and oranges.
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Um....I think not!
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The trolls are the !@#$% idiots who watch the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" and than damn GM without having a real clue. I keep hearing people criticize GM for not releasing a car with our present LiIon battery tech.
But the truth is, said technology in it's current form is not very safe. Especially if you are enclosed in the said technology rather than just wearing it.
Say GM were to sell 20,000 vehicles. Then a few cars have their LiIon batteries ignite and people die. Can you imagine th
Re:My fear (the smell of burning cars) (Score:5, Insightful)
You can live in Fear.
Or you can be a proud patriotic American and refuse to live in Fear.
Those are the choices.
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You can live in Fear.
Or you can be a proud patriotic American and refuse to live in Fear.
Those are the choices.
Re:My fear (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't matter if you store energy in batteries or in combustable liquides, when a fuel cell full of stored energy is released in an uncontrolled manner, it will always suck.
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You say this like you expect the public reaction to be rational. One death in a LiIon fire and the batteries will be banned.
Chris Mattern
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First, I could go any number of ways with the kittens. There is the obvious humor of when kittens aren't safe [myspace.com] Or you could take another approach and kinda reverse what you said...but what about kittens strapped to 15 gallon gas tanks or even what about kittens with frickin laser beams?
The other thing is that I can belittle your comment about the obvious contradictory logic of "combustable liquids" "sucking."
Either way, I think you totally missed the point a
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Re:My fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of course, gasoline is non-flammable. Actually, for a while there was no official method to fight a car fire in a hybrid or electric vehicle, or to cut one open in a major accident. That was solved a few year ago when people started seeing all those Toyotas... Now it is just like any other car... The most dangerous part is the loose nut behind the wheel.
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Just to clarify my personal view here...I'm not afraid of vehicles fire in an EV, I'm afraid of how public opinion of EV's might unfairly change after one well-publicized EV fire.
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That's why one of the big vehicles that got overlooked in TFA, the Venture One [flytheroad.com], decided to go with them. It's an evolution of the dutch Carver [wikipedia.org], but as a slightly larger serial hy
The Aptera is cool looking (Score:4, Insightful)
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Isn't $30K about the avg price of an avg. car now? Not sure what you're bitching about....$30K isn't outrageous for a new car these days.
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It is for something with the size and utility of an economy car. Those go for $15k or less. Doubling the price for "green" is outrageous.
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You don't know much about math, do you?
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As much as I'd love for my next car to be pure electric, I also love living in the city. I'm not rich, and can't afford a place with a garage or some other dedicated parking, so gas ( or some other combustible ) is it for the time being. Of course, in 50 years I'm hoping that municipal charging stations and super-efficient solar panels ( on the roof of the car ) may alleviate this
Re:The Aptera is cool looking (Score:4, Insightful)
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http://www.calcars.org/ [calcars.org]
Hollywood in trouble? (Score:3, Funny)
How will they sell movie tickets if everyone becomes aware that cars wont explode from a couple bullets?
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Are you kidding? With all the exploding laptop batteries lately, people are going to snort at how unrealistic an electric car that doesn't explode is!
X: Hey did you see Electric Death (perpetual copyright 2020)?
Y: Yeah, but I had trouble suspending disbelief when the electric car drove over that little bump and didn't burst into a flaming ball of death.
X: I know, those Hollywood guys think you'll believe anything.
A nearby Li-Ion laptop explodes, burning X and Y beyond recognition.
Let's black this bitch out! (Score:5, Funny)
Yay! Let's all buy fully-electric cars! Together we can take the power grid down!
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lol, if we need to shape up the power grid into supporting millions of fully-electric cars, we won't look into wind mills. Either nuclear power plants or coal power plants, and considered both the current administration (there's little we can assume about the next administrations) and the mineral resources of this country, we might go for coal power plants, and suddenly that makes fully-electric cars seem much less eco-friendly (as things are they're not very eco-friendly either).
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Check out this Wired piece: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/wind.html [wired.com]
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"In October 2005, WEST signed a contract to deliver 150 megawatts, which should take roughly 50 windmills. A test turbine is scheduled to be in operation this summer; the rest should be spinning by late 2008. Another 50 or so could follow by 2010 if demand warrants."
So 2x150 MW = 300 MW in 3 years..
"At 500 megawatts, that project is bigger than WEST's, but it won't be completed for several years."
So maybe 800 MW in several years, barely enough for 200K houses. But hey only o
Google cache (Score:4, Informative)
Vectrix is a real vehicle, in production (Score:2, Informative)
And, at $11,000 or so, are not ridiculously expensive. I am seriously considering buying one when they open their LA showroom,
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Conservation still key (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention technologies like motor scooters that can get over 100 miles/gallon(depending on how you drive them) that many people refuse to use, probably for the same reason as noted above. Conservation is still the best form of alternative energy, and yet I wonder how long it is going to take before Americans realize that!
High Performance mods? (Score:2)
What's the Prius equivalent to a Holley Double Pumper [holley.com] or headers [hedman.com] and glass pack mufflers? [flopro.com]
EV and Tesla (Score:2)
I want my electric car and I want it noooooow, is that too much to ask?
Commuting electrically (Score:2)
My current commute is entirely practical to do with an electric car now. The only issue is availability of a charging point in my apartment building's garage. Here in B.C. most of our electricity comes from hydro power, so I'm not overly concerned about greenhouse gases.
The Vancouver public transit [translink.bc.ca] system has one of the larger fleets of electric trolley buses in North America. Assuming they pay more or less what I pay for electricity (they'll get a better bulk/industrial rate, but have distribution costs
Another related article (Score:2)
"Sen. Clinton's Push to Double Autos' Average Fuel Economy Is Possible but Complicated"
Magnets for attitude control? (Score:2)
$10,000 (Score:2)
I am the average car buyer who makes a middle class wage. I hav
And if you don't have a garage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, the stated mileage doesn't sound like it takes into account things like being stuck on the freeway for hours while your engine is still idling and consuming power or being stuck in downtown traffic so, while you're unlikely to be driving your full range daily, it seems just as likely that with greater urban congestion you'll be running through a lot of power while you don't manage to actually go very far making the need for frequent recharging necessary.
Likely solutions will arise, but problems seem to be significant (what about jackasses just unplugging your car if it's somehow charging on the street?) regardless. It's a shame too because the urban environment is the ideal place for an electric car where it would help reduce both air and noise pollution and where trips are generally much shorter and infrequent. I can really see a car share program being able to make excellent use of electrics, but that's about it.
Re:And if you don't have a garage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to explain which model of electric motor uses power when it is stopped?
I sure hope they don't start selling those in hard drives or my laptop battery time is going to suck!
parasitic loads (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:parasitic loads (Score:5, Interesting)
Heating is perhaps more of an issue, because waste heat on a gas-powered car is similar to the usable power output, so you've got a lot of heat spare. But assuming you use a heat-pump to do the heating, and pump waste heat from the electric motors and battery packs, then likely it won't be much different from the A/C problem. We're talking about vehicles in the 40KW continuous power output range (peak of 100KW). Assume you get 90% efficiency (which would be pretty good), then you've still got 4KW of waste heat in the motors and batteries. If you can capture say half of that using a heat-pump, you can still be toasty-warm.
Summary: not completely negligible, but probably only a few percent difference to the range.
Venture Vehicles (V1) (Score:4, Interesting)
It could just be me as that is about the only electric vehicle that I follow or care about, but I have a sneaking suspicion that TFA didn't do as much homework as they should have (I know, I know...and no I'm not new here, relatively speaking).
What, (Score:3, Interesting)
Heh, of course if I had a Tango I would bicycle to work less......
Electric Vehicles (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with cars in our cities is not that they run on petrol, gas, diesel or supergreen pie-in-the-sky imaginary fuel, it's that there are cars in our cities. Sure, if you live in the remote wilderness I might understand the need for wheels, but most of us live in urban areas or within commuting distances of them. Cars are a horribly inefficient and outdated mode of transportation, not just with energy but with space and the social ramifications that poor land usage entails.
Sure, the car was a good alternative to horses and given a choice I'd rather step in tarmac than horseshit, but that's about the only advantage the car has bought as far as I can see. It's time to remodel and redesign our cities. Higher density and better public transport. Nothing new about it, that's how cities like Paris, London and New York grew so big in the first place. Or you could look at the alternative, LA. I know where I'd rather live.
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Nice to hear, but EV's won't be feasible until the costs and reliability approach those of gas vehicles ( or when gas goes up to 10 bucks a gallon ). They also move the problem upsteam to the power plants.
I think most people on Slashdot probably understand what it will take. We need to stop subsidizing oil companies with tax dollars. We need to stop spending billions on wars to secure supplies for oil companies. We need to pass strict legislation to regulate the types of power plants that can be built based upon the real costs to the citizens. We need to legislate a date within the next decade when coal plants are required to meet emission, waste, and safety standards and stop approving new, unclean coal p
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-Jeff
Re:Cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
ALL electric and hybrid vehicles are priced way out of the reach of the typical american. Fact is the typical american makes less than $32,000.00 a year. The payment on a $24,000.00 car is insane and therefore not afforadble by the masses only by the few rich people. Most people can afford USED cars under $8000.00 some stretch to the $14,000.00 mark but not many.
the ONLY way to get this going is get subcompact efficient cars that are under $11,000.00 NEW. That is the only answer, nothing else will make a difference.
If the common man and woman cant buy the car then it will make no difference. and your other suggestions only will punish the poor and working class. The guy barely making it at a paltry $16.00 an hour will suffer huge because he HAS to drive a old low gas mileage car to work and back. The rich making $60,000 a year or more will whine about $5.50 a gallong gas but it will not affect them. The poor people which outnumber the middle class and rich 20 to 1 are who will suffer.
So your plan is to punish the poor? I like my plan. a 200% tax on all luxury cars. Rich dude has to have a Hummer H2? then he can pay for cost reduction on 5 electric cars for poor people. Want that Fararri? you get to subsidise 20 Smart fortwo's to be sold at 1/2 price to poor families.
That is the only workable answer. Otherwise it will take well over 25 years before the current hybrids and future electrics to trickle down to the poor where it will make the biggest difference. The poor kid making minimum wage will only be able to afford that prius when he can buy it for $800.00. Otherwise he will be buying that gas hog ford escort that only get's 21mpg.
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That sounds great, except that most people will be charging their cars at night. Unfortunately, I don't think that Lunar power is up to the task yet.
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During the day you SELL the electricity.
During the night you buy (CHEAP!) electricity to charge your car.
Re:Cost? energy 1/10th gas cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Some places generate and sell their own power from home or farm based wind turbines and solar cells - especially in the West.
So the cost of the energy ranges from $3 a gallon (cheap in the West) for gas to $0.30 gallon equivalent for electricity in coal states to $0.04 gallon equivalent for electricity in the Northwest.
At that point, the cost of retrofitting - which is less than $5000 if done by Honda or Toyota (which sell plug-in hybrids in Japan even if not in the US yet) or Lexus, or $15,000 if you use say one of the three conversion businesses in my county alone (King County in Washington state) - is price compatible if you commute to work nearby.
Of course, you could do what Willie Nelson is doing and go plug-in bio-diesel with your truck, or even convert a classic Cadillac to get more than 80 mpg using an efficient bio-diesel engine with plug-in hybrid electric power tuned to the make and model.
Some people talk.
Other people do.
P.S.: If you're on facebook and use the I Am Green app, there's a We Are Green Seattle [facebook.com] group you can join now. Let's beat out Vancouver BC and San Francisco CA!
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If so, Of what kind of range?
And you can get Honda or Toyaota to do plug in conversions here in the US??
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Some models have (e.g. Japan) a 5 kilometer range - this is 3 miles for the one country in the world not using metric.
Some models have (e.g. Europe) a 50 kilometer range - this is 30 miles.
Some models have up to a 250 mile range (US conversion usually around this much).
Depends on battery type, car/truck model, and who does it.
Cost depends on factors such as - in factory (Japan/Europe) - usually a lot lower in price, sometimes as simple as the new "switch" added to the dash
Where do you get your numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)
1 Gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 36.7kW-hr. This [shec-labs.com] is my reference.
1 Gallon @ $3.00 or 36.7kW-hr x $0.07/kW-hr = $2.569 A little less expensive, but not quite as cheap as you make it out to be.
Disclaimer: This comparison relies upon an assumption that the efficiency of an internal combustion engine powered car is (very) roughly equivalent to a battery charge and discharge cycle to power an electric motor of an electric car. Yes, an electric motor will be more efficient than an ICE, but you ha
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I remember when I took Power Mechanics in grade 10 and Electricity 11 12 that in fact, gasoline engines are not 100 percent efficient. Even were we to assume you have a tuned engine (not normally true of most cars on the road, and especially not for SUVs), the reality is that the average electric motor - especially a souped up real electric motor like those used in industrial applications as most of these retrofits use - will almost a
Re:Cost? energy 1/10th gas cost (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with hydro which is often overlooked is the fixed capacity of the system. Many are under the illusion that all you need to do is dam a river with a new dam and wow, free power. Often overlooked is that hydro is gravity power from falling water. That is water moving from one elevation to another. Many people have no clue as to why there is no major (or minor) hydro plants on the mighty Mississippi River. The sad fact is Chicago Illinois is at an elevation of only 700 feet. Just how many 80 foot drop dams are you going to put between the gulf and Iowa? If you put in a dam and let the water back-up.. how much land would be under water? The river is over 2,000 miles long, but most of the elevation is below 1,000 feet. There isn't much falling water in there.
http://www.42explore2.com/missriv.htm [42explore2.com]
The river does have a system of Dams and Locks, but they are for Navigation, not power generation
"Twenty-nine locks and dams on the Mississippi and eight on the Illinois replaced rapids and falls with a stairway of water for commercial and recreational traffic."
They connected it to one of the Great lakes with a canal.
"The history of navigation on the Upper Mississippi River System goes back to the 1820's, when Congress authorized construction of a canal connecting Lake Michigan and the Illinois River and also authorized removal of snags and other obstructions in several reaches of the Mississippi River."
Remember that water flows downhill. Lake Michigan is at elevation 577 feet above sea level. The canal connects to the Illinois river which than empties into the Mississippi river. Let's face it, there just isn't a lot of elevation drop in the river to supoort power generation. There is barely enough elevation drop to drain a heavy rain.
Here is some stats on a couple of the dams. Both of them have a drop of less than 20 feet. These are not suited for commercial power generation.
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA105334 [dtic.mil]
http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA104703 [dtic.mil]
Move on to the mighty Columbia, known for it's hydro. There are many dams in Oregon.
The Columbia River has the water from most of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. It enters Oregon near the Idaho border. One of the major dams is the McNary dam near Hermiston Oregon. The dam has a nominal pool level of 340 feet above sea level. That dam dumps right into the pool of the next dam which has a pool elevation of 265 feet. This stair step drop from pool to pool continues all the way down to the Boniville dam near Hood river. From there the river has very little drop all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Any more dams along there would simply flood out the powerhouse of the next dam upstream. The last dam the bonivile dam has a pool elevation of 74 feet. It discharges into the lower river near Portland Oregon. The river in Portland is at a nominal elevation of about 9 feet above sea level. That is why there are no dams on the Columbia between Portland and Astoria on the coast 80 miles away. If you put in a dam and allowed the pool to fill, all of downtown Portland would be under water.
Hydro power is cheap to produce, but there just isn't any more places with a good head of water to feed the demand for hydro power. There are a few creeks which can support some small hydro, but these are backyard projects. The environmentalists and outdoors men also resist the damming of every little stream. The lower Deschutes river is known for it's white water rafting. Damming that up would be a major legal battle.
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Most electricity is shaped. When I was a Power Engineer at Tek-Cominco in Trail, BC, we shaped the power from one of the hydro dams with additional power from other sources - hydro however does not need much shaping, as you can kick in additional generators as demand increases.
Most dams in the Pacific Northwest (hint, ever hear a song called Roll On Columbia) have very large drops. We have these things called Mountains here, specifically the Rocky Mountains. Even the dams that provide electricit
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It seems to me that this is a *huge* problem with plug-in electric vehicles. We already have issues during periods of high demand. If the power companies decide to take the cheaper short-term solution and build a bunch of coal-fired plants to meet the increased demand, we end up with a net loss in terms of the environmental cost. It's a great idea, but if the power producers aren't on board and working on new technologies in parallel, the whole
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Problem?
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I guess you could play mp3's of an engine sound with the Tesla...but just isn't gonna be the same...
I keep hearing Red Barchetta in the back of my head when I think about all this....
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Unfortunately that wouldn't be just a dedicated circuit; it'd probably be a dedicated drop, or you'd at least have to get your standard 200A service bumped to 300A. If everyone on the block gets one the power company probably isn't going to be able to provide that much power for a while
Re:Tesla (Score:4, Interesting)
A possible solution would be to make the battery easily and mechanically replaceable - a module. Drive to a service station, exchange the nearly empty battery into a fully charged one, and leave the old one to charge. That way you wouldn't need high-power electric lines everywhere.
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Re:Tesla (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously (Score:5, Funny)
The latest benchmark is from cirka 1986, I think, and claims only 2-3 times the energy of our local sun
But the warp field won't make a positive impression on those in the lane next to you, or the little old lady on the sidewalk...
Detroit will never buy in to zero mass vehicles (Score:5, Funny)
However, they are just fine with vehicles that use 2-3 times the energy of the Sun.
Write your Congressman today!
Have you ever done 0-60 in 2.5 seconds? (Score:3, Interesting)
how long until they come standard with warp drives?
It's about as close to warp drive as you're ever going to see. Even jumping out of a plane doesn't have quite the same effect where there are no objects nearby to relate your speed to.
Hell, even the initial electric vehicles like the Tesla are sub 4 seconds for acceleration.
http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/acceleration_and_torque.php [teslamotors.com]
Mwhahahahahaha... I want one...
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Mitsubishi MiEV is $24K, 2009 model (Score:5, Informative)
The skinny: based on popular I car ( selling very well in Europe ) Mitsubishi is planning to market a fully electric version. About 120 miles range, a bit better acceleration performance than gas version and same top speed. Announced pricetag: $24K.
Fully crashtested to european standards at least, performs as well as gas counterpart.
The prototypes are in fleet testing by Tokyo Electric Power Company ( TEPCO ) right now.
There is some competition from Subaru in the form of R1E and Nissan with the Mixim.
I guess the reviewer does not subscribe to ABG [autobloggreen.com] electric vehicle news.
Re:Mitsubishi MiEV is $24K, 2009 model (Score:4, Informative)
Um, how about NO or hell no ?
So how much do you pay to drive 10 000 miles with a 3 year old Camry ? With MiEV, you pay £50 [autocar.co.uk]
I guess if we discuss the price of the things, then price paid per mile is relevant.
Then, you might be surprised to hear about the little thing called "congestion charge" in a few places in the world, like London. Thats £8 saved every day when commuting to work. Guess what, MiEV would be exempt from that. It would also be able to drive in US HOV lanes.
Now, i havent driven MiEV myself, but everybody who has [autobloggreen.com] say that it performs actually better than the gas-powered counterpart. The reasons for that are: ideal weight distribution with low placed batteries, and instant torque without any gearbox available that is the inherent characteristic of eletric motors. I havent driven a Camry on track myself, but if feels kinda heavy to drive, i would not be surprised if it got its ass handed to it by something like MiEV.
If you add this all together, and throw in the fact that its a zero ( tailpipe ) emissions* vehicle, the metrics wont exactly be all around better.
* An electric vehicle powered by the electricity from coal plants is still roughly 75% cleaner per mile than modern gas engine.
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Where do you get the Hydrogen? (Score:4, Informative)
So where do you plan on getting the hydrogen? It doesn't exist naturally on earth.
Steam reformation (currently the most economic method)? Releases CO2 as one of the resulting products from the process.
Electrolysis? Where do you get electricity for this? Coal? CO2 emissions. Solar? Inefficient (as of now). Wind? "costly and unsightly" Nuclear?
The only advantage hydrogen offers is that it can be ultimately converted into mechanical energy through both internal combustion engines and fuel cells producing electricity to power electric motors(read: ELECTRIC CARS).
Just remember, with hydrogen, "the power has to come from somewhere," too.
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Actually, it does; hydrogen is mined. The quantities probably aren't enough to support its use as a major motor-vehicle fuel, though, so you have to either go to steam reformation or electrolysis to get massive quantities, which have all the problems you note.
In addition, you have distribution issues with hydrogen that are largely solved already in the case of electric vehicles.
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Electric cars make it easier to solve the problem because then the problem is one of solving electricity generation, which can be done piecemeal without disruption either to most vehicle users or new delivery systems, since the electrical grid can delivery electricity no matter what fuel is used to generate it, and electric vehicles
Re:Not a Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me summarize the legions of faults in your arguments.
Electric cars reduce, but do not eliminate, these emissions, because while they are more efficient, the power has to come from somewhere, and right now that means a power plant
No one said the energy is free. And anyone who does is just flat out stupid. Of course the energy has to come from somewhere, but approaching things in absolutes as you have eliminates the gray areas that is the whole point of this process. Yes, 1kw consumed in an electric car has to be produced somewhere. However, 1kw produced by an internal combustion engine in a single car is FAR less efficient than 1kw out of 100,000 produced in a central plant. Any centralized power production facility, based on current technology, will be more efficient than individual producers.
Solar is very inefficient
Congratulations for dismissing an entire industry based on one point. Yes, current solar cells, operating somewhere in the mid-teens efficiency wise, are inefficient converters. But they are CLEAN converters. They consume no energy in when in use, produce no by products, and do not require frequent maintenance. By those metrics, Photovoltaic cells are fantastic energy sources. There is an argument that production of the cells is 'dirty', but understand that production of a combustion engine, a nuclear power plant, or a hydroelectric dam is 'dirty' as well.
wind is costly and unsightly
You must work for the idiots on Nantucket that are fighting against the Cape Wind project. Which is more unsightly, a silent windmill on a hill, or smog and dead plants and animals everywhere? Windmills are more expensive than buying a tank of gas at the pump, but they are enormously efficient, very low maintenance, and produce clean, no by-product energy. Unsightly? Then put them somewhere you don't want to see them, like out to sea or in isolated regions. Personally I find them very attractive and fascinating - far more beautiful than a coal plant pumping garbage into the atomosphere.
Nuclear presents it's own problems
In teh grand scheme of things, nuclear power is one of the most efficient, cleanest processes for producing energy (that uses at thermal variance process - heated steam to turn a turbine) on the planet. The by-products of used fuel can be managed and dealt with, becuase the by products are KNOWN quantities. What people dont' realize is that the junk a nuclear reactor generates is not far off from the garbage a coal plant puts into the atmosphere. The difference is the nuke plant has the by products contained and controlled, while coal and oil plants just throw them into the air. "Oh well, someone elses problem."
i am more interested in hydrogen
This argument is one the Bushies and others push, without understanding the real problems. There is no hydrogen economy, and hydrogen fuel is ridiculously hard to manage in compressed or liquid form. Did you know you cant' put them in tanks? Nope, tanks corrode when you store hydrogen in them, they have to be very specific types of tanks that are ridiculously expensive and complicated. There is no infrastructure for delivering and fueling vehicles based on hydrogen, nor will there ever be one. Can you imagine the cost of replacing every gas pump with a hydrogen pump, every gasoline and oil tank with a hydrogen tank? Hydrogen is a great dream, but will never actually function until breakthroughs are made in hydrogen storage and transportation. Give up this dream and focus on what is possible now.
The number one obstacle in electric based vehicles is batteries. Full stop. And there has been so much work put into battery technology in the last 5 years, that the tiem of the electric car is here, and it's here to stay. Stop poopooing the technology that is proving itself to work (notice the fleets of priuses out there), and wishing for castles in the sky. Work with what's here and now.
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> Electric engine is less efficient (~40%) than internal combustin engine (~55%).
do you enjoy spreading FUD?
http://www.energyexperts.org/energy_solutions/res_details.cfm?resourceID=3823&keyword=cheap§or=All [energyexperts.org]
"A 250 hp standard efficiency motor has a pretty good efficiency--on the order of 94.2%"
There is also the efficiency of the battery in storing and generating electricity to consider, but this too is quite high.
Also, IC engines are more like 20% efficient, according to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Engine_Efficiency [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Coal Power... (Score:4, Insightful)
One big coal plant (with scrubbers and such) isn't necessarily any worse than hundreds of thousands of small, inefficient gasoline engines -- and infrastructure upgrades to reduce the pollution from that plant (and otherwise mitigate its effects) can be done at one time, in one place, rather than needing to upgrade hundreds of thousands of small, separately owned vehicles. (If the folks working on fusion power get that worked out, every EV is suddenly fusion-powered -- while folks with gasoline vehicles are still releasing the carbon from long-dead forests).
Coal is dirty, sure, but lots of little inefficient gasoline engines isn't necessarily any better. (Also, not everyone gets their power from coal).
Flamebait??? (Score:2)
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I'd really like a plug in car, top speed 65mph or more, 70 mile cruising range (work and back with plenty to spare). The charging time could be 12 hours.
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25 MPH (50KM/h) MAX won't cut it with me.
Chevy Volt (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, having the means to charge your vehicle in the garage (with a net savings for $35-$75 a fill-up times x number of fill-ups per year) alters the value of solar cell roofing.
Those uber-expensive solar panels on your roof that cost you an extra $200/month for the next 10 yrs, all of a sudden are not quite as costly in your budget when they eliminate $100 or more in expenditures on gasoline.
These vehicles will likely spur major growth in solar cell production.
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The nice thing about electric is that the distribution system is already in place, which puts it ahead of hydrogen as a transportation power source. Plug-in hybrids will bridge the gap when people need extended range or
No, it's not. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is roughly correct for state of the art gas-fired plants. Efficiently numbers like the above don't even make sense, though, for the large (and growing) fraction of our power mix that is nuclear, and the growing portion that is wind-powered.
Then there is attenuation loss while its delivered to the consumer.
The power grid is over 90% efficient overall. Locally generated energy (say, from PV panels on your roof) is even better in this regard.
Then it has to be stored in batteries which lose energy over time.
It's starting to sound like you're outside your area of expertise. IAAEVE (I am an electric vehicle engineer.) Are you?
Electric engine has THEORETICAL top efficiency of around 45%.
This is total BS. Are you spreading misinformation deliberately or do you actually believe this? AC Propulsion's AC-150 drive system [acpropulsion.com] is about 90% efficient over a typical driving cycle. Follow the link to a spec sheet with the detailed efficiency map. Tesla Motors' propulsion system is based heavily on ACP's, and will be roughly the same in terms of efficiency.
The theoretical efficiency of gasoline engine (which I don't remember at the moment) is 2-3 times that.
The BS is flying thick, now. I don't know what you mean by "theoretical efficiency", but it's clear that you don't, either. Gasoline engines in the real-world cars I drive are around 15-18% efficient. (Did you really think they were 3 * 45 or 135% efficient?)
So for every calory [sic] of heat we burn (and release into atmoshere) with a gasoline engine we'd get 2-3 as much work.
Somehow you managed to get your conclusion in the right ballpark, but you have it backwards. Most modern EV propulsion systems are at least 3x as efficient as gasoline cars in a real-world, fair, wells-to-wheels energy comparison, making them about equivalent to 120-140 miles per gallon. You can do your own homework on this -- it's well documented. Tesla Motors' website has some interesting whitepapers and other material on the subject that's pretty easy to understand.
These cars will just end up burning more coal and release massive amount of greenhouse gases. But hey, it's cool to be green.
Spreading FUD when you don't know what you're talking about isn't cool at all. Even from coal, EVs are substantially more efficient and clean. This. Is. Well. Documented. And coal is just part of the power mix. Electricity is the ultimate flex fuel. And EV charging is biased towards off-peak times, when baseline (e.g. nuclear) energy is a larger part of the grid mix.
Let's get our numbers right! (Score:3)
For example: "Electric engine has THEORETICAL top efficiency of around 45%."
Most electric motors are about 90% efficient.
"The theoretical efficiency of gasoline engine (which I don't remember at the moment) is 2-3 times that."
So that would make gas engines up to 135% efficient? Heh. . . AS best I can recall, the maximum for gas engines is roughly 33%. Most typical ones run about 20% efficient.
Many studies have be