UK Students Build Electric Car With 248-Mile Range 192
da_how writes "A group of students and graduates at Imperial College London have built an electric car with a massive range — 248+ miles on a charge at 'reasonable' highway speeds (60 mph). They did this by filling the car to the absolute max with as many lithium iron phosphate batteries as possible — 56 kWh — and designing a very efficient direct drive powertrain, about 90% batteries-to-wheels at highway speeds. The choice of vehicle is an interesting one: it's a converted Radical SR8 — a track racing car with a speed record on the Nurburgring. Not an obvious contender for an endurance vehicle (no windscreen either!) — but then they claim it's lightweight to start with, being constructed of steel space frame and glass fiber. Also, Radical is based in the UK and provided some help and sponsorship. The students plan to drive their 'SRZero' 15,000 miles down the Pan American Highway, beginning July 8 in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and ending up in Tierra Del Fuego three month later. That's about 60 charges."
That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, that's puntastic!
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Re:That made the hair on my neck stand up.... (Score:4, Funny)
Icanhasrecharge? (Score:2)
ohm ohm ohm ohm.
Sorry
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These students could take their car...
...to the racing circuit.
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:2, Insightful)
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That's something called "proof of concept".
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:5, Insightful)
That's something called "proof of concept".
What is the 'proof of concept' here? That if you make a bigger fuel tank you'll be able to go further? Sorry, but electric cars have been around for years. You can buy your own from Tesla Motors. [teslamotors.com]
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:4, Funny)
What is the 'proof of concept' here?
90% efficient drive train and student built. Perhaps by the time the elementary school kids are building them the auto makers will finally be too ashamed to claim it just can't be done.
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We all get the concept. What we are waiting for is a practical solution.
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:5, Funny)
Some things really don't need to be proven. Sometimes, you can just apply a bit of simple logic to determine whether an idea is plausible.
Though, maybe I should propose to my boss that we experiment with my salary. If he increases it, I think I'll receive more money. But, just to be sure, we should do a proof of concept thing. Say a 50% bump just to try it out and see if it really works. If that works, we can do a 200% bump and let it run for a few years. If I'm still getting more money 5 years from now, we'll have proven the concept.
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a bad experiment.
You'd be instantly first on the list of "people to fire when we need to reduce costs" and wouldn't probably reach the fifth year, disproving the concept.
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Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:4, Insightful)
So what -does- it prove ? That if you stuff a lightweight car to the top with batteries, then you've got 50Kwh worth of energy, or an amount comparable to the energy in 1.5 gallons of gas. Sure, electric drivetrains are more efficient, so this gives the car the range of perhaps 3 gallons of gas. But at the cost of having no space for storage, and of making the car hundreds of kilos heavier.
If you stuffed a 18-wheeler with batteries, and drove it at 40mph, it'd go a fair distance too, but it wouldn't be terribly useful, the entire point of 18-wheelers is to have space for CARGO.
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It proves there are lots of people/companies willing to give students money for doing stuff that's rather useless from a scientific and practical viewpoint.
I'd like to see how they handle practical stuff like "air conditioning". If they think that's not important, then that's yet another reason why their car is not important. A college student might put up with 35C or higher temperatures on that "cool trip", most car buyers won't. A 3-4 kilowatt car air conditioner is going to hurt an EV's range a lot more
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One gallon of gasoline has 115000 BTU of usable energy. One KWH has 3413 BTU of usable energy. Thus one gallon of gasoline has 33.69KWH of energy. Therefore the 56KWH battery pack has 1.6 gallons of gasoline and can push the vehicle at 60MPH for 248 miles. That means the two engine EV car gets 155 MPG. Oh damn you're right, who'd ever want to drive something that gets 155 MPG at highway speeds! What a worthless hunk of junk! I'd rather go drive in my gas powered car that gets 150mph on the highway ... oh w
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Next record, an eighteen wheeler. Or a train, rolling on the highway with truck wheels and six hundred tons of batteries.
Thinking of electric trains and mileage records. There must be some ideas about charging the electric cars on the highway without having to stop. Something like a third rail.
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In Germany (and probably most of Europe) we use wires hung above the tracks, not a third rail.
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This is how it's done in the US too (at least in the Philadelphia area). Can't say I've ever seen a 3rd rail used at all.
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MARTA, the public transit light rail in Atlanta uses a 3rd rail.
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At grade Light Rail with a electrified third rail? Sounds like a recipe for electrocution.
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Ditto in most of Australia (although only in urban areas - longer haul/remote areas will tend to use good old fashioned diesel fuel).
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My use of "third rail" (being european myself) comes from the inability to find a better expression that said "power's in the medium rather than in the vehicle".
"wires hung above the tracks" was longer and less clear.
Possibly a better grasp of the English language would've given me a nice alternative like... (googling)... Overhead wires.
(+0: Self-informative)
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Generally speaking, light rail transit in the United States uses an overhead catenary similar to that in Europe. Heavy rail, such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in the San Francisco area and the New York City subway uses a third rail.
Re:So instead of a monster gas tank (Score:4, Funny)
I'm going to go with the mid flight refueling concept here. However, that is a bit awkward for highway driving and we'll need to stream line the process. Stay with me here....
Really, there is enough coverage across the body of the car that we can use this as a wide area positive terminal. It's really straight forward and we don't need to mess around with large complicated tubes. (Tubes are what screwed up the internet. I read it on slashdot.)
We can tie the body directly into a series of high yield capacitors as a quick staging area for the power burst. This array can connect to the charging mechanism that can safely deliver the power to the the lion batteries. (Remember where I said stay with me... keep at it).
For the final piece of the puzzle to really make it work and give it that McDonalds on the free way touch we'll need a large platform vehicle. All along the bed will be tesla coils ready to charge the next vehicle that pulls in. These charging stations can optionally be installed in toll booth or bridge locations as well.
With some simple license plate recognize we can easily bill the charge to the motorist at the end of the month.
Now, we have a practical electrical car design that will also eliminate both the homeless and bug populations.
What the article doesn't mention.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What the article doesn't mention.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Getting storage of power to be lighter is the biggest challenge. I think once you achieve that goal the next two are making it affordable, making it environmentally sound (what good is a 'green' car if the batteries aren't) and finally making it safe. Having such a lot of energy in batteries means a lot of danger in the event of a big accident.
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Really? Because, it looks like anyone in the US could get 195 3.2V 90Ah lithium iron phosphate cells for $35 100 + S&H. That seems to be about 56 kWh.
http://www.electricmotodepot.com/products/Thunder-Sky-Batteries-3.2V-90Ah.html [electricmotodepot.com]
They can be had cheaper on online auction sites. But, take that for what it's worth.
For the pedantic folks out there: I'm well aware it's not as simple to design a pack as to just slap an arbitrary bunch of cells together, thanks. I'm just pointing out the capacity.
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With the first order of 100,000 cells I'm pretty sure the providers will figure out some way to lower the price to about 10k.
All the way down? (Score:4, Informative)
15,000 miles down the Pan American Highway
They should do a little more research, as I wish them luck getting across the Darien Gap. There IS no highway from Panama to Colombia - they'll have to take the ferry like everyone else.
Re:All the way down? (Score:4, Informative)
UPDATE: 1:30 p.m. Eastern: As to the question some of you have about how the team will navigate the Darien Gap, it plans to ship the car around the gap, and they've met with ambassadors to Panama and Columbia to line up the required visas.
Seems like they wanted to take a summer trip and figured out a way to get someone else to pay for it. Not a bad deal.
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Seems like they wanted to take a summer trip and figured out a way to get someone else to pay for it. Not a bad deal.
And made the common mistake of ignoring the productivity of their work. Spending as much time in any other job would've paid the trip with less risk involved.
Yes, I know there are other benefits to their way. At the very least they can automatically beat any "I just came back from Chile" with their "I just came back from a trans-american road trip in an electric car I built with some other cool friends". We all know which one's gonna get the girl. In the pub next to the engineering faculty, of course.
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Spending as much time in any other job would've paid the trip with less risk involved.
Especially if anyone in Central/South America finds out exactly how much all those batteries are worth.
"What car, gringo? I diden see no car"
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Seems like they wanted to take a summer trip and figured out a way to get someone else to pay for it. Not a bad deal.
Haha - suckers. Someone forgot to inform them that it is, in fact, winter down here in the southern hemisphere (so only the first half of their trip will be 'summer') ;)
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Re:All the way down? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Dalton Highway, from Prudhoe Bay to Fairbanks, is unpaved. They might want a little more ground clearance than the car pictured in the article.
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Ferry routes which are part of a longer highway route as often referred to as part of the highway - "sea highways" or "virtual highways" are common terms.
248 mile range? Big deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Tesla Roadster has a 245 mile range. And basic stuff like bumpers.
The student car looks like it has about a 3 inch ground clearance. If that. That's not going to get very far on anything less than a perfect road. And they want to drive it down from Prudhoe Bay? Right.
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The big battery packs on the Tesla need active cooling so they might be okay in the north.
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The big battery packs on the Tesla need active cooling so they might be okay in the north.
Until you need to start moving again.
Most vehicles up north have block heaters which require them to be plugged in when the engine isn't running. It would not be too surprising to find a battery heater is also required.
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If only they had a battery powered heater.
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If only they had a battery powered heater.
I can only hope that comment was tongue in cheek. Obviously for short periods this is fine but there are many instances where more is simply required.
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A charger makes a pretty good heater so if they charge when stopped they should be okay.
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A charger makes a pretty good heater
And what happens when the batteries are charged after a few hours and the vehicle remains parked. No bones about it, up north you must have some type of battery heater over and above that provided by the act of charging.
As someone above pointed out, a battery powered battery heater is obviously an option but even that by itself falls dramatically short in endless scenarios.
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The big battery packs on the Tesla need active cooling so they might be okay in the north.
Until you need to start moving again.
Most vehicles up north have block heaters which require them to be plugged in when the engine isn't running. It would not be too surprising to find a battery heater is also required.
Ummm, they're doing it in the summer.
From alaska.com: Fairbanks' average high is 70 degrees in June, 72 degrees in July and 66 degrees in August.
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Tesla had so many dramas over battery power management that I wonder about the cooling in the batteries of this car from the UK. It wouldn't be nice to wreck the batteries at the end of the trip, or to have a meltdown once they hit warm weather.
my Tesla
Okay now I am envious.
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Re:248 mile range? Big deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
Where are they going to recharge?
"There are only three towns along the route: Coldfoot (population 13) at Mile 175, Wiseman (population 22) at Mile 188, and Deadhorse (25 permanent residents, 3,500-5,000 or more seasonal residents depending on oil production) at the end of the highway at Mile 414.Gas is available at the Yukon River bridge (Mile 56), as well as Coldfoot and Deadhorse."
I see a gap of 239 miles and a 4700 foot pass, no way you can get maximum milage on a pass
Re:248 mile range? Big deal. (Score:4, Informative)
248 miles is measured using the EPA test, which includes a lot of braking. On open highway alone, they'll do better. Besides, they might not get wonderful mileage in a pass, but with regenerative braking on the downhills, they won't be as affected by it as a gas powered car.
I just drove through the rockies in a second-gen Prius, and the regenerative braking seemed to do a pretty good job of smoothing out the consumption: I'd get worse consumption on the uphill and better on the downhill, and it seemed to average out to just the same as what I got on the flat; within 10% if you believe the meter in the car.
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Non-hybrids already do that too. When going uphill, the vehicle will obviously use more fuel. Going downhill, the vehicle will use less fuel due to gravity assist. Also the fuel injectors shut off when the throttle isn't pressed, thus using no fuel.
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I see a gap of 239 miles and a 4700 foot pass, no way you can get maximum milage on a pass
That might be an issue depending on the grade. It has a direct drive powertrain like most electric bike. Electric bikes are generally wound for town cruising speeds (25km) and the motors are prone to overheating and powerloss climbing steeper grades, electric bikes used in the hills are often powered at the crank to use the bike's gears. Sounds like they will have similar problems without a gearbox.
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If you watched the video in the article, the people already realize the car needs to be lifted to increase the clearance.
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The tesla roadster, when actually tested by someone other than tesla, only had a range of less than 60 miles.
Yeah, but lets be honest here, that test was 240 quarter-mile drags complete with tire burnouts. Not only did they need a charge, but they needed a new set of tires after that abuse.
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Wasn't that someone named Jeremy Clarkson?
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That was (like zx-15 said) Jeremy Clarkson, and it was a lie. The car never even ran out of juice. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/24/jeremy-clarkson-top-gear-tesla-electric-car [guardian.co.uk]
Solectria Sunrise had 370 mile/charge range (Score:4, Informative)
With
NiMH batteries
Place for 4 occupants & a trunk for luggage
Crash tested
in 1996...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solectria_Sunrise [wikipedia.org]
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These graphs might interest you: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=70 [teslamotors.com]
In particular, take a look at the range graph.
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Thanks for posting this. I had a similar thought and "why is this news?"
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pan american highway (Score:3, Informative)
down the Pan American Highway, beginning July 8 in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and ending up in Tierra Del Fuego three month later. That's about 60 charges
Heh.....it's also not connected completely (need to take a ferry for part of it), and it is dangerous. For example, on the stretch between Guatemala and El Salvador, you will frequently find highway robbers. And of course, like any highway, there are traffic jams. So....that 60 charges is going to grow. If it can find a place to charge....some of those countries have 110 volt outlets.
But whatever, don't let all this discourage them. I'd love to read their trip report.
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So....that 60 charges is going to grow. If it can find a place to charge....some of those countries have 110 volt outlets.
You mean like the US?
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With a car from the UK? 110 Volts may be a problem, but I'd be more worried about the charge time.
My shaver seems to cope okay. Say five hours driving per day leaves them 19 hours to charge the car for the next day.
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Yeah. Odd countries like the US.
Thundersky batteries- steer clear (Score:2)
How many miles??? (Score:3, Funny)
UK Students Build Electric Car With 248-Mile Range
Related Stories
Submission: UK students build electric car with 264 mile range by da_how (1822480)
264 going once, going twice? Do we have 270???
I guess it doesn't matter, because I bet those girls that would date these students if only they had a car live just one mile further away...
Boggles the mind (Score:2)
You had to go 250 miles from your home to get a date? Man, I knew geeks were hard up but that is extreme.
Or were you finished before the battery could recharge in 30 minutes and she lived 125 miles away? Try working on your staying power, maybe then you could find a girl in the same country/state.
not very impressive (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't mean to troll, and I'm sure it was a fun and great learning experience for the students. In this regard, it is a big success and kudos for the team. But as far as the technology goes, I'm not very impressed. I mean, they took at very light vehicle, filled it up with standard batteries, and made it go. There is no true innovation here, just putting pieces together. And we should not blame them for this. The breakthrough we are all waiting for is in the batteries. Until this happens, all articles about electric vehicles will be along the same lines
As for their plan trip, I hope they have a good maintenance team driving next to them. The Panamerican road is by no means a proving ground or race track. In some parts its asphalt is quite damaged. I'm not saying that it can't be driven, but they are not very suitable for such a tuned vehicle with low clearance.
I wish them best of luck!
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It's not street legal in the USA.
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impressive enough (Score:3, Informative)
I'm glad you are not impressed, as this car works less well than your homebrew electric car, but it's impressive enough.
FTA, the engineering was getting a 90% efficiency on the power transfer from battery to wheel on the highway. That it gets almost the range of a commercial effort with cash...
Take a beating (Score:2)
Muddy sections, Gravel sections, Frost Heaves, Mosquitos, Moose.
A Radical SR8, electric or not is going to have a rough time.
I look forward to hearing about the effort
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I doesn't sound like they have ever driven the Alaska Highway.
I thought we had a mosquito problem in WI, but apparently in AK they're the size of hungry raptor dinosaurs.
Could've had 400mi range in 10 minutes work (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong what these guys are doing is great, but ~270 miles range is not terribly impressive considering that's what a stock Tesla has achieved.
Ditching the wing and splitter could have yielded them 20-40% improved range at open road speed, at the small expense of the race car look. It would take a few minutes with a spanner to remove, and to put back on for parking up for a photo shoot with the local press. I hope this is what they do. Some further work with some duct tape or some more ambitious aero mods with some coroplast http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/aerocivic-how-drop-your-cd-0-31-0-a-290.html [ecomodder.com] ecomodder* style and they could have squeezed out more efficiency. The very best road vehicles approach 0.15 Cd, this would have given them a shot at 500 miles range. Lower the speed a little and they may have gone 600mi / 1000km.
I can't find Radcial SR8's aero stats anywhere but I know such track day specials have a fair bit of down force by design, so a drag coefficient above 0.50 is not uncommon. This is largely the result of the wings, air damn, and underbody design. High down force set up might be over 0.70 or more. To compare, a SUV is about 0.40, a good sedan 0.32, and a Toyota Prius 0.27, Aptera is about 0.17 these vehicles are not even designed not to generate lift let alone downforce.
* Yes I do lurk there.
give them a break (Score:2)
For sure this is not a great leap forward for science or for mankind. It's just a Big Fucking Adventure along the lines of Peking to Paris in 1907 or the round the world race the following year. You do it for the bravado. Period.
Pity we can't just say here are some crazy kids who want to travel the length of a continent in a cobbled up electric car. Instead we have to pretend there's a science and/or engineering feat involved. Sigh.
Couple of lessons they should have learned from racers of a 100+ years ago:
248 mile range? (Score:2)
That's nothing. I heard about some UK students who built an electric car that could go 400 kM! It has a 2.6 L engine. I haven't found the weight in stone yet.
60MPH is not reasonable for I-294 and CHI toll roa (Score:2)
60MPH is not reasonable for I-294 and Chicago area toll roads. Needs to be about 70 for that.
Tissue Paper and Gossamer Spiderwebs (Score:2)
Every single time I see one of these "revolutionary" new "cars", they ALL have the exact same characteristics that look like they were designed by Douglas Adams.
1. Made from some ultra-light material that has NO crash protection value whatsoever.
2. NO inside space, whatsoever.
3. NO practical applications, whatsoever.
Lemme tell you what I want to see in an electric car?
1. Must be able to carry 3 screaming kids.
2. Must be able to carry said screaming kids with 1 weeks worth of groceries in the back, 500
WHOOOSH! (Score:2)
Did everyone here miss the part about them being students? The possibility that just maybe designing, building, and road testing an electric car just MIGHT be relevant to the studies of an engineering student? It sure won't look bad on their CV when the time comes to get a job.
Impractical car is impractical (Score:2)
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no, recharge times are not really a issue. but you have to realize that you use a electric car differently then a gas powered one.
you charge it at home at night, and its full in the morning, every morning. most people could do a week on a single nights charge.
that one time a year(if that) where you have to go further then the cars range you can always borrow or rent a gas powered car (or even take the train or something)
the one thing holding electric back is purchases price. the lithium batteries are expens
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I'm still holding out hope for hydrogen fuel cells. They're clean, they're as green as your chosen electricity supply, and you can fill up your tank just as quickly as you can with petrol.
Still a long way from production line ready (not least the pesky problem of making hydrogen in large quantities at a decent price), but that's the future tech I'd be betting on.
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that one time a year(if that) where you have to go further then the cars range you can always borrow or rent a gas powered car (or even take the train or something)
You're assuming that everyone drives the way they do in the US, little short runs to work or the shops. In the UK (and particularly in rural areas), we use our cars a lot more, and tend to take far longer trips. It's not uncommon for me to drive a couple of hundred miles and then come back, within a couple of hours. I can do that on rather le
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that one time a year(if that) where you have to go further then the cars range you can always borrow or rent a gas powered car
buy one of those little cargo racks that stick on the back of SUVs etc that fit a 1 1/4 inch hitch and are just about the size of a modest gas generator, like one foot by two feet... Most people use them to strap down a beer cooler, or maybe to strap down gas and propane tanks. I'd strap down a small gas (or propane) generator.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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So?
The cars won't appear there overnight. They'll be bought gradually, and be mostly charged at night, when the grid has spare capacity. As the load grows, the places with least spare capacity left will be upgraded first. You don't have to do an "overhaul the entire US" project. And why would it need a stimulus? If people are spending more on electricity, that's where the funding for the infrastructure should come from.
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Incidentally, our grid can handle 75% of the auto population of the US already, if they do overnight charging.
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I don't see all the hype about electric vehicles. While I agree we need to move from our dependence on fossil fuels, electric vehicles simply move the pollution from the highway back to the power plant. All that energy has to come from somewhere.
There is only one way to get oil (from the ground) and several ways (some - clean & renewable) to produce electric power. Burning oil is wasteful anyway, we need oil for other things (like plastics) that we can't live without.
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So after we move away from powering cars using fossil fuels, what do you propose we power them with if not electricity?
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Charcoal? ;^) [wikipedia.org] Non-fossil and renewable!!!