Electric Cars: The reality
 

I am all for the idea of electric cars. Obviously I understand the many benefits. So I see Chevy is pursuing the volt on schedule according to them and claiming MPG at 230. That I don't get from a pure electric car.

So what I really want to know is what is the actual cost of ownership going to be?

What will be it's distance at X average speed you will get per charge?

What will be the size of the batteries which will answer the question of how many watts to fill up the batteries?

What is the fuel burn on oil and/or coal burning plants to achieve the required wattage to recharge the batteries?

What will be the battery cycle life?

How much are new batteries going to cost?

Etcetera etcetera....

I really think this needs to be looked at deeply across the whole to determine if it really us a better alternative. Right now as great as hybrid technology is, the real cost of ownership appears to be as much and in some cases much higher than their pure gas counterparts.

Anyway just some ideas to think about.

The other factor is cost to the environment of the cars production. I had a teacher once who said he would never buy a new car no matter how efficient it was as the cost (environmentally) to produce would always out way the benefits of any efficiency gains to the environment.

I thought this was a very good point. I always wonder about those energy saver light bulbs, sure they save energy but how much more energy do they take to produce being so much more complex.

The EPA is yet to confirm the mileage, as it sound the testing stds need to be worked out.
You would think cost of ownership (minus batts) would be less as there are so many fewer parts to wear out, but time will tell. Batts are going to be the big hurdle for a while.

You would expect costs to be high initially, but come down over time as market and tech matures (true w/ any other tech.) Gas engines have been used for 100yrs, so they have a pretty good headstart.

It would be cool to go to work and back w/ never having to go to gas station. Soon enough.


Lastly, the thing about using FF in powerplants vs burning them in cars is that you can design and maintain a power plant to a high state of efficiency as the power plant is a static environment, and generators do not have to deal w/ wide ranges of operation like a gas engine does (variable rpms, weather, wear, etc etc) as well as have a better point of control for pollution equipment. Huge gains in eff just from that. The downside is loss of power over transmission lines, but that should be more than made up by the former.

Some of the #'s I've seen (in relation to our big cash for clunkers gov't stimulus subsidies program) is that the "carbon" cost of production results in about 10% of the total carbon output of the cars life (however that is defined.)

It can be worth it, but you have to get a reasonably more efficient more car, and depends also on how "used up" the car you are junking is. Someone else can figure out that inflection point....

From cradle to grave a Toyota Prius is harder on the environment than Hummer H1. I have no idea if that true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Check out DIY electric car .com and forum. They have TONS of info and a garage where you can look at other peoples rides.

Here's a specific article of the cost of electricity - http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums...ead.php?t=8293

As for mpg from an electric car, a guy who has a couple metros has the answer. Metrompg.com or ecomodder.com. His metro is supposed to get 128.8mpg. Other ev's get 115s and it probably goes down lower from there. Over 100 are the little metros and a fiero. Those a lightweight cars, but that's what you would want to convert, so I guess it works out.

With modded diesel cars you can get 65+ and apparently people are pushing 80 from little tdi's. Diesel is a great fuel; gets 30% better economy then gasoline. 50% of European cars are diesel. You can't buy a single fuel efficient car in america compared to those europeans...

ahh, here's how to convert Wh/mi to mpg - http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums...ad.php?t=14465

Yes, cost of production (to environment) is the issue. No one seems to think about this aspect of of buying a new car, majority of people think they are doing the world a favor when buying a new car with 10% better mpg and selling their 5 year old car! :neutral:

IIRC, it takes 80 barrels of oil to make the average vehicle? Now I don't know what the range is for 'average' (is it compacts to semi-tractors?), but I am not sure about that number, seems too high in my honest educated opinion.

To get to the electric car dilemma, the batteries are the number one energy sucker for production, it's basically the cheaper it is for the manufacturer to produce, the 'cleaner' it is to produce; most of the time, but not always. Like I said a few weeks ago in someones post, Europositron of Finland 'supposedly has a battery chemistry that can achieve 1300+Wh/kg of energy density... if any of you don't know what that means, an R/C lipo pack has a density of at most 150Wh/kg, that's 9 times most energy stored per kg of pack, that's unbelievable at this day in age. But the most important aspect of these batteries is that they are able to be made VERY cheap, and VERY clean. A few thousand dollars will get you 1000 miles of range in a average sized car.

As for efficiencies, for a given vehicle, an ICE (internal combustion engine) has a "well to wheels" efficiency of about 10 - 12% IIRC.

An electric car for the same X vehicle will have an efficiency of 55%.


But in the end, this is not an issue of batteries, there is an underlying issue of energy source. We NEED a different energy source than oil. Zeropoint energy baby. :neutral:

everyone can buy wind generators or solar panels and we'll all be alright... :lol:

Just figured your average ebike gets about 36wh/mi. That's about 1000mpg. Now that's clean transportation, I don't care who you are.

All of the automotive companies can do much more then what they are offering if they tried a bit harder. All of the money they have and only claims to back it up. It's just sad.

It is sad, but they have never been there to make a GOOD electric car, or a hybrid car for that matter... they had divisions make their electric cars, and make them poorly, or ugly, or just plain unappealing to the consumer in every way, then afterwards come out with a report saying that electric cars make no sense.

The number one problem for battery powered electric cars is that the battery companies, and start-up companies that have something SUREFIRE, get no funding, or at the best pennies to do a little research, then the investors (powerful companies) pull the plug on the whole thing and shelf the patents for the technologies.

I know of many technologies that IF funded, would change the way we live, for the better, and the for the better of our earth.

EEStor also has a 'uber-capacitor' storage battery that is VERY promising to electric cars advancement. 350Wh/kg IIRC, and would be MUCH cheaper than lipo/lion/life batteries. They use some sort of technique that is simple allows them to charge a ultra-capacitor to several thousands of volts, rather than the 2.5 - 2.7v for typical ultra-caps... and if anyone how caps store energy, energy is an exponential equation of voltage. Plus these things would last, and last...... and last.

Seriously, if me an Luc. (Lutach) had a few million dollars, we could develop the fastest, most convenient, most efficient electric car you could ever imagine. 0-60 times of 2.5 seconds or less, 250+mpg equivalent, quality like no other, with batteries that would last the life of the vehicle with no maintenance, except for tires. These is just NOTHING on an electric car to wear out, if built right, except for bearings, in the motor, and various locations on the car.

You think you can't have the same power/weight as your Bl Revo, or Bl truggy? Think again. :smile:

That scares me and excites me at the same time:yes:

Standing backflips anyone?

I agree. A perfect example is the GM EV-1/CARB fiasco. The west gets attacked for being capitalist and greedy, but what they don't realize is that it's a handful of people who are controlling things, the majority are at a loss (and often unaware) to do anything about it, yet they're the ones punished.

when i get enough money i am GOING to make my nissan vanette (the manette) electric.
but do it my own special way, call castle and ask them to build me a mega mamba max monster for 1000A+ @200v and order a metric F*** ton of lipo's or A123's. then an industrial sized 3 phase motor and away i go...no tranny, just straight to the tailshaft.
500hp on tap...here i come >:)
shaun

Sweet, you have a Vanette? Which year? My family's urban runabout is a 1994 Townace Super Extra, which gets about 10km/l, but that's because it's a manual and we don't thrash it. It was used by my family of 4 for our daily commute to work, school, and pretty much everything else. I've persuaded my dad to hang on to it, because in this day and age when your car squirts an extra bit of air freshener because it just detected that you let loose a strong silent one, it's nice to have something primitive to fall back to when the machines take over. The only electronic device in the van is the radio.

THe report actually had a lot of the data you were asking about. The Volt is actually a hybrid - the electric is good for about 40 miles before "a small I.C.E. motor kicks in" then it has a range of 300 miles.

I was thinking as I read it that the EPA needs to have them also publish KWH cost of ownership just like they do on appliances. It will definitly cost some bucks to charge these things every night. They gave an estimate of charging cost, but I'd need to see that in KWH to know what my cost would be. Its really just a commuter car - nothing you'd want to drive across country.

I'm interested in what "they" are going to come up with for farm tractors, semi's, and such. Maybe a micro scale version of a train diesel powered generator system???

Oh I read it, I just thought it was not very clear or forthcoming. I also put the electric only vehicle part in there because most don't know it isn't a pure electric vehicle because that's the way GM is touting it. Very misconceiving information from GM in my opinion, but no surprise.

Again the idea of solar panels and wind generators for everyone is interesting, but they have an environment impact and cost to produce. Have you ever priced putting enough solar panels on your house to power it completely? Or enough wind generators to power it completely? There are also some major environmental impacts of wind farms that many proponents don't want to admit. Not to mention the shear amount of land it would take to replace one average coal or oil burning plant with a wind power.

We seriously need to take a better look back at nuclear. It is the only real available option we have right now that can be implemented right now. It also is not the same as the nuclear of yesteryear. Does this mean we stop looking for newer and more efficient forms of energy? Of course not, but why not use what we have now until we come up with the better form. We also need to quit trying to make fuel out of our food supply, it's not efficient when considering how much land is needed for it to be a real viable option and it's driving up other costs astronomically. In 2000 you could buy 10-12 ears of corn for a dollar most days and many sales put it at up to 20 ears for a dollar. Now a sale is 2 ears for a dollar and in some states it is as high as 2 dollars for one ear. This also means the cost of all corn based products is up. This is anything made with corn flower, corn syrup, corn meal, corn starch, and so on. Check it out, corn is in everything from dog food to soda. You also have many farmers switching to corn now because they make more off the crop than other crops and in turn this is drastically reducing land used to grow other crops. This in turn is driving up the prices on all of the other crops as well. It's not sustainable and is a major underlying issue within the economic crisis right now.

I want an electric car for sure, but I want it done right and I want accurate information to the public about it. GM now being Government Motors I think the chances of them having accurate information is pretty much nonexistent.

I fully agree with you on the nuclear power. I worked at the site in Idaho about 20 years ago, and even back then they had the technology to make it safe.

I dont necessarily agree with you that the effects of using food sources for fuel is bad. For many years the govt was paying farmers to leave their fields barren due in a large part to our surplus of food. Yes, it raised your cost of food, but IMHO, its about damn time. Farmers have been getting screwed for 40 years due to the regulations and "farm programs" - I dont know any other commodity or job that pays the exact same today as it did 40 years ago. The processors and distributors of the grain(s) made all the profit, virtually eliminating the "small farmer", then these same companies bought up a vast majority of the land, and are now running the industry. We;ve been too used to low priced ag products (similar to our fuel). Speaking of fuel, a large part of your increase in price on products was also due to the fuel price spike. But watch, you'll see the price of corn, wheat, barley drop now, but you wont see a decrease in the store. Guess who's keeping the money - not the farmers....
Yes, I'm a little biased, as my family runs a "small" farm - but they were just large enough to make it.

I see your point vis a vis electric car vs hybrid. It may be more accurate to call it a plug in hybrid vs electric only, altho I would imagine 90%+ of its intended use would be all elec. This is contrasted to the prius and such that just uses a electric booster motor to the ICE. I'm not real up on all the designs, but if the ICE is solely used as a generator for back-up power, rather than direct drive, I'm not so sure its fair to call it a hybrid either. IDK.


RE: Alt fuels & Biofuels:

I agree that using food products for fuel source material is stupid, however, biofuels are still have lots of potential. What is really needed is more reasearch and investment to make cellulosic ethanol conversion inexpensive and scalable.

My bro in law is a Prof of ChemE at UMass-Amherst. His collegue actually was featured in last month's Scientic American (much to my bro's chagrin lol) as he's been working on some novel methods to breakdown cellulose for biomass conversion and has had some good sucess so far.

Layman's Cliffs on Cellulose: Cellulose is basically a hardy sugar molecule comprised of smaller digestable sugar such as sucrose (ie table sugar.) Cellulose can be broken down into its component sugars, which can easily be fermented into ethanol or other liquid fuels. The trick is breaking down cellulose in an efficient way, as well as dealing with other fibers and other cellulose-like molecules & structures that make up plant materials (obviously, as wood and plants are very durable materials.)

Using corn kernals is a cheap and half-assed way to make ethanol as the sugars are already in more digestable forms. If we can solve the latter, than a whole range of previously unusable material can be used for fuel sources, such as grass clippings, farm waste (ie corn stalks, which are just burned now, not the edible parts) paper waste, etc etc etc.
When I was an undergrad and I met my wife, we were working in a lab that was trying to do this conversion enzymatically w. various genetically engineered organisms, but was running into trouble finding suitable enzymes that were conducive to scale-up as well as not easily inhibited by various pollutants you would see in non-pure stock materials. That was a while ago, and its been really interesting to see the attention and funding that is starting to availble for this. when we were working on it, there was no money for any of this stuff, and it was very crippling. The research $ now is still a pitance compared to many other things, but its really grown in the last 5 yrs. So much that now my bro constantly chides my wife for not completing her PhD in this, and is himself thinking of moving away from his cancer research to explore this (now there is the research $ cash cow.)

Its not a pancea, I don't think any one non-petroleum source is, but there are a lot of things (nat gas, nuke, wind, solar, etc) we can do to improve our fuel sources away from foriegn oil and all the problems that come with its sole dependence.

I have a few contacts at the DOE and will soon prepare some paperwork for them to see. If I do get funds for my full size electrics cars, this is my plan: A race car, a sport car with at least 1000 mile range and a family car with a range that a few of my engineer friends are trying to get an exact number for. I already have sourced all the sppliers for the above cars.

Cool, let's get some vids of some standing back flips too!
;)

g/l :)

I'll let you test that one out :lol:.

Make an electric one of these and I'll do it.

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:surprised:

If there's a logic behind it and enough $$$$ to spare, I'll do it :lol:. It will always come down to how much $$$$$ is available.

RIGHT. And that should be proof enough for most people that, at least in the West, there is a stranglehold on new technologies.

Yes Virginia there really is a conspiracy.

Another good example of that would be the Tucker, you get squashed if you are not a "frat boy".

I'm starting to really think we need a third option, if there is one. I have no real opinion on the nuclear alternative, if it can truly be done safely and cleanly......

And I echo what ZP said about the mfr's going FAR out of their way to make the electrics as unappealing as possible. I remember seeing an electrified VW Rabbit at the Ontario Science Centre (was about 1977) and the poor thing was loaded with lead-acid batteries to the point that they encroached significantly into the passenger area, and the performance must have been absolutely pathetic. that was 30+ years ago, and I can't really say much has improved in that time. And I believe that is because of constant hindrance by third parties, to say the least.

And look at the average vehicle mileage since the 70's, we are talking about miniscule improvements in the numbers.

We need other options, and no, I'm not talking about a commercially produced Flintstone-mobile either, but yes electrics are the best stop-gap alternative at the moment IMO.

JThiessen, I am sorry if I sounded like I was coming down on farmers as that was not my intention. I am pro-farmer, it runs in my family as well.

I have no belief in any real conspiracy theory as I do not subscribe to such things. Tucker is an interesting example, but do a real study of the man (beyond the Hollywood movie) and you will see he was quite an eccentric and had ways of his own of turning people off from him. He had great ideas no doubt and the big 3 were not friendly to him, but the story is much deeper.

Finnster, thanks for your input, I really liked getting the information. I had a guy that worked for me who insisted that corn was a complete waste for making ethanol alluding to some of the things you brought up. He kept bringing up sugar beets as a much better option as the yield per acre was many fold over what corn provides. I would also like to see some long term studies of the real effects of ethanol use. I have concerns over the "it's better because it's better" line you get from many.

I just don't have high hopes in the end for GM's new volt. I think there are some better and more promising technologies out there. This is one reason am not a fan of the government bolstering GM and Chrysler up with so much money. Allowing the market to rid itself of what is old and outdated is what allows the market to truly thrive. Who knows what kind of venture could arise from the ashes of GM and provide for our future.

Of course I am just not a fan of big goverment at all, no matter which party is holding the reigns. I am for the market determining the market, not the government.

Tex wrote:

"I have no belief in any real conspiracy theory as I do not subscribe to such things."

That's fine, and I'm not asking you or anyone else to. But keep in mind a conpiracy only constitutes 2 or more parties.. is that really beyond the realm of possibility?

People have a tendency to write things off, out-of-hand, but I like the old saying "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

And I think Metallover has the right idea, this stuff has to be DIY, unless we want to wait for the next Ice Age for the mfr's to do it for us.

Anybody have the theme to X-files handy?!?!?!?:lol:

More often than not, conspiracy theories (I KNOW I spelled that wrong) are people's means of explaining things they do not, can not, or refuse to understand. I listen to NASCAR talk radio on SIRIUS, and it always amazes me how many people truely believe that NASCAR itself is manipulating the race finishes and personnell.

Tex, no offense taken in the least, and I was merely putting my opinion on that matter out there. Now that I live in the city, it always amazes me how many very smart people dont understand the ag to store process, and think farmers are out there getting rich.

The truth is out there:mdr:

Not to be a richard JT, but I'll turn that quote right around... more often than not, not believing in any conspiracy are people's means of explaining away things they do not, can not, or refuse to understand.

For the record, I'm not a UFO chaser...

But I don't engage in group-think either.

Just my opinion guys :yes:

That sounds awesome.

With my limited background in any of the above mentioned fields, the best I could come up with would be something that used the 1.21 jigawatt packs ZP talked about, and use geothermal or wave driven generation.

I feel very strongly we need to abandon the idea of 'generating' anything, and focus on harnessing what energy already exists in various forms.

Hey, if we're gonna do this, let's not do it halfassed right?:yipi:

That's the truth. I grew up with my dad having a cattle ranch as a side business of sorts. About 200-250 head usually. Being both in the city and country and different times growing up, I got doses of both sides. Early in my adult life I was a butcher for four years, it always amazed me how truly clueless people were about where their food came from. My favorite is how many people would complain about the "red water" in the meat packages and how they did not want it there. When I explained it was blood they would then proceed to ask me why we put it there. Or the old man that would always accuse us of covering up the "brown" ground beef with "red" ground beef. I and others tried to explain the oxygenation process of meat and blood turning red but it failed to make a dent.

This about sums it up- love this clip!

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hahaha lol

Let's also not forget about our other problems, such as.... did you guys know that the mere 15 largest container ships spew out as much emissions as ALL the worlds car fleet... that's almost unbelievable.

Truly unbelievable, but true.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/02/r...-equal-that-o/

But remember guys, it is YOU who is killing the planet.....

That's crazy.. those ships are massive and do run nearly non-stop however.. so I guess not unbelievable considering all the stuff they move. All that sh!t from China has to get here somehow.

It is important to note tho that they are referring to "pollutants" and not CO2. They are talking about such things as NOx and SOx. I would presume they are using cheaper heavy (highly sulphated) crude, not the light sweet crude that is used to make car fuels.

I don't know how much you want to call things conspiracies. I tend to think of things as people working toward their own self interest, and that is not always aligned with what's good for the society as a whole. Humans are not ants, and such chaotic and potentially self-destructive behavior seems endemic to our make-up. Keeps things interesting tho. ;)

There are tremendously powerful people/groups/companies that will use their vast resources to ensure the playing field is tilted to their benefit, and fear tactics, bribery, disinformation and deceit is part of a pretty basic toolkit. Trouble is sorting out everybody's BS (and everyone has some.)

Throw in the millions of other seagoing vessels which are almost totally unregulated, and it begins to not matter what we drive at all.

Seems almost hopeless.

But I still want my E car dammit!

Finnster, the mere words 'conspiracy theory' will force some people to automatically ignore whatever info the phrase is tied to, and go on their merry way.

Conditioning 101.

Hey hey hey.... I resent that comment... :lol:

On a serious note, this was a very interesting read. It will be exciting to see what vehicles will be like 10-20 years from now if funding for alternative fuel research keeps increasing.

Also, its nice to know that there are still people in the US who can disagree yet still be civil and constructive. Especially with everything that's going on in politics now days.

Dang - you Texans do everything bigger don't ya....250 head as a side business?!?!? Our ranch runs 180 head on about 6000 acres (due to the regrowth speed of the grasses, we have to rotate pastures every year), but they also do corn/wheat/barley/etc.

How about the pakers that paint the meat with the red dye to make it more attractive to buyers....Fred Meyer (Kroeger) does this - even with the certifed angus they sell.

What's your source on this? A couple weeks ago, you stated that it cruise ships.....
My take on it, if it is in fact true - you need to also realize the efficiency of that emission. Take the ship away, now how do we transport those goods? 10 747 flights? 100 smaller ships? Freight trains have the same power generation system - just on a smaller scale, but to replace those would be a 100 fold increase in semi trucks.

Does anyone know the FACT's about where hydrogen research is now? Have a link to a decent resource on it?