Mandate Electric Cars to save the environment.

[Single Dad]

You're aware that IC engines in cars are the least efficient use of fossil fuels right?

Why do you say that? Please justify your claim.

Because excess heat indicates inefficiency. I'm sure MM will dispute that but if you have to have a cooling system and radiator that indicates that you are dispursing HEAT which is POWER!

So becuase IC engine powered cars have radiator systems you claim that makes them have "the least efficient use of fossil fuels"? Those are your exact words. Can you provide evidence that IC engines are absolutely "the least efficient use of fossil fuels" or are you going to backpeddle away?

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Here you go buddy and you'll even notice that I didn't cherrypick a sire that echos my opinion. If we could build cars that get 100 MPH run clean and weigh more than 400 pounds(i.e. safe) then I am all for it. Even though I was highly against new drilling I would even relent on that issue(with more refinery capacity).

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Hey MM could we have valves that go directly into the cylinder? So say fi]or eaxmple the oiston is driven down and at the bottome of the sroke there is an open hole that the exhaust escapes from. The then piston then seals that point by passing it and has an intake further up the stroke and then compresses. no valves nessacery. I guess jkind of like the Wnckle Rotery but could it be modified ti work with a more conventional IC engine?

 

[Cold Fusion38]

So hit back SD any show me where I am wrong,

 

[theHawk]

The problem with electric cars isn't the effiency of the motor, its keeping the batteries charged. Having to recharge for hours after just a couple of hours driving isn't going to work for most people, especially for people that can only afford or want one car. It would make driving long distances infeasible. Simply put if electric cars were more effient, more practical, and competitively priced, they already would of replaced IC vehicles.

Hybrids are lot more practical for that purpose, which is why they are starting to sell.

 

[Single Dad]

Here you go buddy and you'll even notice that I didn't cherrypick a sire that echos my opinion. If we could build cars that get 100 MPH run clean and weigh more than 400 pounds(i.e. safe) then I am all for it. Even though I was highly against new drilling I would even relent on that issue(with more refinery capacity).

Do you mean 100 MPG? (miles per gallon)

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Yeah MPG good catch though it doesn't dispute the content of my post.

 

[DiveCon]

Hey MM could we have valves that go directly into the cylinder? So say fi]or eaxmple the oiston is driven down and at the bottome of the sroke there is an open hole that the exhaust escapes from. The then piston then seals that point by passing it and has an intake further up the stroke and then compresses. no valves nessacery. I guess jkind of like the Wnckle Rotery but could it be modified ti work with a more conventional IC engine?

you want to go back to 2 cycle style engines?
the ones that were the LEAST efficient?

 

[Single Dad]

The problem with electric cars isn't the effiency of the motor, its keeping the batteries charged. Having to recharge for hours after just a couple of hours driving isn't going to work for most people, especially for people that can only afford or want one car. It would make driving long distances infeasible. Simply put if electric cars were more effient, more practical, and competitively priced, they already would of replaced IC vehicles.

Hybrids are lot more practical for that purpose, which is why they are starting to sell.

Radical liberal environmentalists don't care if you can't get where you need to go. They want to control your life and you will just shut up and take it! You will drive your electric car and like it mister!

 

[Old Rocks]

The problem with electric cars isn't the effiency of the motor, its keeping the batteries charged. Having to recharge for hours after just a couple of hours driving isn't going to work for most people, especially for people that can only afford or want one car. It would make driving long distances infeasible. Simply put if electric cars were more effient, more practical, and competitively priced, they already would of replaced IC vehicles.

Hybrids are lot more practical for that purpose, which is why they are starting to sell.

52 kwh in 280 lbs, 5 minute recharge time.


EEStor receives patent for revolutionary electric energy storage device

Could a box full of electrons change the energy industry?

Texas-based stealth energy storage company EEStor is making news again on the blogosphere now that it has received a patent for its ground breaking capacitor that might find use in electric vehicles, utility grids or high performance portable devices.

Why is this important for the auto industry?
The key to accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles is to advance energy storage devices. Batteries and fuel cells hold electricity using chemical storage, while capacitors store energy as a charge between two plates.

Designing a low cost, high performance capacitor has been a challenge for energy innovators. But EEStor believes its material platform of barium-titanate ceramic powder (94%) mixed with PET plastic could be the right combination.

The EEStor patent reveals a 281 pound storage device with more than 30,000 plates that can hold 52 kWh of electrical energy.

The company has an agreement with electric vehicle maker Zenn and Lockheed for military applications, but has intentionally kept a low profile. Its effort to remain under the radar of media attention, has in turn created a lot of energy blogger hype.

 

[Old Rocks]

The problem with electric cars isn't the effiency of the motor, its keeping the batteries charged. Having to recharge for hours after just a couple of hours driving isn't going to work for most people, especially for people that can only afford or want one car. It would make driving long distances infeasible. Simply put if electric cars were more effient, more practical, and competitively priced, they already would of replaced IC vehicles.

Hybrids are lot more practical for that purpose, which is why they are starting to sell.

Radical liberal environmentalists don't care if you can't get where you need to go. They want to control your life and you will just shut up and take it! You will drive your electric car and like it mister!

Knownothing red neck ignoramous Conservatives only want to protect the multi-billionaires incomes.

See, two can play that stupid game, imparting zero information, and saying nothing at all.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

Like I said if you replace just ONE of your houshold cars with plug in electric we could eliminate our dependency on oil. You can keep your truck AND your boat I don't much give a shit if you do but if you replace your COMMUTER car with a plug in electric you can save money AND oil. Fully 80% of dialy commuters can use a plug in electric for their daily commute so what is your problem with that.

what if you only have one?

If you have only ONE car then FINE but MOST households have more than ONE car.

 

[Cold Fusion38]

I just don't see the HYSTERIA of not having a car that you can drive across the country. MOST people never drive more than 300 miles from home. EVER!

 

[Cold Fusion38]

I mean come on people these are ALL very weak reasons to not wnat to go PLUG IN electric.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

I just don't see the HYSTERIA of not having a car that you can drive across the country. MOST people never drive more than 300 miles from home. EVER!

Tell that to someone who escaped from hurricane Katrina in their car. I rarely use my spare tire, but when I need to use it...boy am I ever glad it's there. People can see that electrics let you get a per-mile cost that is equivalent to 70 cent per gallon gasoline, but stick with gassers (for now) because they are willing to pay an extra couple dollars per gallon for the range/fillup time abilities. If the extra cost hurts their pocketbook too much, they buy a used car.

Here is how I think things will play out, if EEStor can actually deliver on their claims (including price).

Car companies will quickly switch to pure electric drive. Meaning, 100% of the driving force is from an electric motor, like the Chevy Volt. Currently, your average car or truck has 2 or 3 optional drivetrains: V6 or V8, 4-cylinder or V6, or for pickups you can get V6/V8/diesel.

So for future cars, the drive motor is electric. For people with range anxiety (they want to go travel hundreds and hundreds of miles), they will buy their car with a gas or diesel generator onboard. (This is exactly what the Volt is. It can only go 40 miles @ city driving speeds, but it's a start.) For people without range anxiety, they save money and maintenance issues by buying a full electric with no generator. They charge up at night in their garage.

After a while, all the cars on the road will then be either full electric or hybrid. People save money by plugging in at night either way. 70 cents per gallon is always preferable to $2.50+. Pretty soon, gas station owners notice a market, and decide to exploit it. They offer fast-charge stations--more expensive than home charging, but still cheaper than gasoline. Over time, these installations become more and more common. Eventually, they are widespread enough that you can drive hundreds of miles. At this point, people begin to realize that they hardly ever use the onboard generator, and hybrid sales trail off.

Needless to say, this will take a while. The better the price/performance of supercaps/batteries, the faster it will go. The more expensive gas gets, the faster it will go. If we ever have 70's style gas shortages, with people waiting in the hot sun for hours...it will go faster still. People can dodge high gas prices by driving a cheap used car or by postponing other purchases, but there is no way to dodge a gas line.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Here is a summary of the Popular Mechanics cost-per-mile comparison, if anyone is interested.

Does anyone remember all the hype for a "hydrogen highway" just a few years ago? Like, as recently as 2003? That would have been the biggest boondoggle of all time, a colossal waste of not just money but energy. Lots of knowledgeable EV enthusiasts regard the hydrogen hype as a giant oil/gas company scam to sell more natural gas (H2 is mainly made from CNG these days).

You would have to build a whole new pipeline infrastructure, and it would have to hold hydrogen at 40,000 PSI (!) to equal the energy density of gasoline. Hydrogen is also a real bitch to stop leaking, being the smallest molecule and all. It can leak through microscopic cracks in a pipe so small you can scarcely see them with a microscope.

TOO often, discussions of alternative energy take place in an alternative universe where prices do not matter," Popular Mechanics reports.

To remedy that, the magazine set out to figure out what it would cost to drive from New York to California using seven types of fuel.

It was not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. Because there was not one automobile that could handle all types of fuel, the magazine tried to match the cars as closely as possible in size and weight. And the price it used for gasoline - $2.34 a gallon - is about 20 percent less than most people are now paying at the pump.

Still, the results in the cover article by Mike Allen are intriguing and surprising. The cheapest fuel was electricity. About one ton of coal would be needed to produce the requisite energy. Cost to drive coast to coast: $60. Using compressed natural gas would set a driver back $110. And biodiesel, made of used vegetable oil in the magazine's example, would cost $231.

Gasoline, as it turns out, figured in the middle of the pack. It would take 4.5 barrels of crude oil to produce the 91 gallons of gasoline necessary to get a Honda Civic coast to coast. The cost would be $213.

On the high end were E85/ethanol, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, at $425, and M85/methanol, 85 percent methanol and 15 percent gasoline, at $619. And then there was hydrogen. It would require 16,000 cubic feet of hydrogen to power General Motors' Hy-wire concept car: $804.

In Popular Mechanics fuel-type comparison, electricity wins
Crunching the Numbers on Alternative Fuels - Popular Mechanics

Also, another source (naturally they are a bit biased, being an electric car company)

Tesla Motors - well-to-wheel

It sounds counterintuitive, but it is actually more efficient to burn fuels in a powerplant. Yeah, you have efficiency losses with transmitting the power, when charging a battery, and then running the motor. But the power companies run turbines that are more efficient than piston engines, and you don't need a fleet of tanker trucks to make fuel deliveries.

 

[Old Rocks]

If the Q-dots deliver on the promise of super cheaply manufactured solar cells at about 40% efficiency, putting 5 kw of these on the roof of one's home would not only fuel and electric car, but also power the home, and deliver extra on the grid at the time of highest power use.

Combine that with what you have pointed out concerning the efficiencies of the power plants versus ICEs, and the electric vehicle looks like a winner as soon as we have adaquete electrical storage systems.

Another point. The present SUVs, pickups, and vans are prime candidates for retrofittining to batteries or super caps. I have a stretch 350 Ford van. It has acres of room underneath between the frame for storage of the batteries. Remove the engine, drive line, and the entrails of the third member, and the vehicle has shed over a thousand pounds. For that amount of weight, I could put in about seven of the Eestor units which would give me a range of about 700 miles.

 

[Charles Stucker]

Coming back to this for a second: You seem to equate heat with ineffeciency. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually Heat does represent lost energy. A Carnot cycle engine, the standard for IC, depends on a temperature difference. Unfortunately the input temperature for automobiles is moderately high, on an absolute scale, even when water freezes. This places a theoretical limit on the possible efficiency of a Carnot cycle combustion. Generally in any energy balance equation the "heat" term is used for lost energy, such that with
PE meaning chemical potential energy available
Q meaning energy lost to "heat"
ME meaning mechanical output energy
the standard form for an energy balance equation looks like
PE = ME + Q
Naturally this is a simplification, particularly for an automobile where s light loss occurs in transmitting the energy from the pistons to the wheels, but it does show where "heat" might bethought to equate with inefficiency, as a highly efficient engine would perforce have Q approach 0.

 

[mdn2000]

If the Q-dots deliver on the promise of super cheaply manufactured solar cells at about 40% efficiency, putting 5 kw of these on the roof of one's home would not only fuel and electric car, but also power the home, and deliver extra on the grid at the time of highest power use.

Combine that with what you have pointed out concerning the efficiencies of the power plants versus ICEs, and the electric vehicle looks like a winner as soon as we have adaquete electrical storage systems.

Another point. The present SUVs, pickups, and vans are prime candidates for retrofittining to batteries or super caps. I have a stretch 350 Ford van. It has acres of room underneath between the frame for storage of the batteries. Remove the engine, drive line, and the entrails of the third member, and the vehicle has shed over a thousand pounds. For that amount of weight, I could put in about seven of the Eestor units which would give me a range of about 700 miles.

As soon as Scotty travels back in time with the secret of unlocking the energy in Dilithium Cyrstals.......

Yep, cant wait to start throwing away car batteries with all those triple AAAs and D cells.

How big of a land fill will we need?

 

[Old Rocks]

Good lord, Mdn2000, are you intent on removing all doubt that you are an idiot?


Toyota RAV4 EV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The RAV4 EV is an all-electric version of the popular RAV4 SUV produced by Toyota. It was sold from 1997 to 2003.

The first fleet version of the RAV4 EV became available on a limited basis in 1997. In 2001 it was possible for businesses, cities or utilities to lease one or two of these cars. Toyota then actually sold or leased 328 RAV4 EVs to the general public in 2003, at which time the program was terminated despite waiting lists of prospective customers.

The RAV4 EV closely resembles the regular internal combustion engine (ICE) version - without a tailpipe - and has a governed top speed of 78 mph (~126 km/h) with a range of 100 to 120 miles (160 to 190 km). The 95 amp-hour NiMH battery pack has a capacity of 27 kWh, charges inductively and has proven to be surprisingly durable. Some RAV4 EVs have achieved over 150,000 miles (240,000 km) on the original battery pack. It was also one of the few vehicles with a single speed automatic transmission at that time.