Nissan Leaf - 100% Electric car

[BrianG]

lol, once again an innocent thread has turned political. Seems to be a recurring theme. I wonder why this type of thing seems to happening more and more lately?

Anyway, from all the posts, I think we can agree that (in no particular order):

1: We are generally moving in the right direction as far as popularizing EV's
.
2: Motor and controller technology is ready and waiting for the ideal power source.

3: Need to expand the EV market to more than just supercars and in-town runners. I honestly think this is because no company wants to jump in with both feet making their whole vehicle line-up electric until they see if it's gonna sell.

4: 100 mile range is simply not good enough. Most want more. Especially since EV's are relatively rare and finding a convenient "fill-up" station during a road trip may be difficult if not impossible at the moment.

5: Battery technology is what is holding us back.

6: Simple is better. No complex fuel cells, or other unnecessarily complicated schemes.

7: Price needs to come down.

I personally think the biggest hurdle right now is battery tech. No matter how nice everything else works, if the batteries can't meet expectations, these ideas are not gonna take off (except maybe for the niche greenie market). Once that is solved, all the other issues will be easily addressed.

Until that happens, I'd like to see an efficient solar technology used. Not to run the car off it, but to charge it between runs and to assist during running. Even if a panel array "only" puts out 1000w, that should at least extend runtime. And if you do run out of juice in the middle of nowhere, just give it several hours in the sun to get you going again.

I hear talk about cheap and flexible solar panels that can be "painted" onto panels. This would be pefect given the surface area of a vehicle's body panels. But so far, nothing is actually being done with it (that I know of anyway).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0719011151.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0320095008.htm

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bo...n/item_59.html

[zeropointbug]

Agreed Brian. On the subject of solar panels, there is so much headroom that is waiting too, with panels being between 10 - 15 % efficient. There is roughly ~1300watts per square meter on the surface of earth, so you do the math on what could be done with 100% efficiency. A couple years ago I read an article that a team of scientists have figured out how to mimic photosynthesis (99.8% efficient). So if the same process is applied to an electrical solar panel, well, wouldn't that be just grand.


I too find it strange that these unsuspecting threads keep turning political.

[georgec]

Election time, Sorry

[PBO]

Originally Posted by zeropointbug

On the subject of solar panels, there is so much headroom that is waiting too, with panels being between 10 - 15 % efficient. There is roughly ~1300watts per square meter on the surface of earth, so you do the math on what could be done with 100% efficiency. A couple years ago I read an article that a team of scientists have figured out how to mimic photosynthesis (99.8% efficient). So if the same process is applied to an electrical solar panel, well, wouldn't that be just grand.

zpb, I thought that 10-15% was entry level on panels? hasn't somebody achieved 40%+ recently?

Agree though, if 60-70% efficiency can be cost effectively achieved, the world's going solar

[lutach]

Originally Posted by PBO

zpb, I thought that 10-15% was entry level on panels? hasn't somebody achieved 40%+ recently?

Agree though, if 60-70% efficiency can be cost effectively achieved, the world's going solar

It can easily be solved if every roof top were built with solar cells, a few battery packs in the basement or a shed, a few of other free energy goodies, but they (Money hungry, greedy bastards) wouldn't be happy with empty pockets. No need for power making companies and no need to have gas runing bellow a few cities.

[zeropointbug]

Originally Posted by PBO

zpb, I thought that 10-15% was entry level on panels? hasn't somebody achieved 40%+ recently?

Agree though, if 60-70% efficiency can be cost effectively achieved, the world's going solar

Actually I think 20% is the newer typical efficiency, true, BUT, they need to be a low cost/Kw output, that is why panels efficiency vary so much, because in the end, a low output low cost panel is just as cost effective as a higher output higher cost panel. There is obviously a limit on the low end, as you run into area constraints, and would end up being MORE expensive.

Agreed as well, we need about 60-70% efficiency like you said to really get things moving with solar, and to meat energy use.