Electric Vehicles

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Profile William Rothamel
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Message 1033503 - Posted: 17 Sep 2010, 9:47:22 UTC
Last modified: 17 Sep 2010, 10:05:33 UTC

It is a travesty that the science board has languished for 6 days without a comment in any of the threads.

Lets talk about electric cars.

These would be:
Hybrids (predominately gasoline powered)
All electric -Tesla and the new Nissan Leaf
Combined-Long range (100 + miles on Battery power) and then a small engine -gasoline or diesel.


Do you think they will succeed in the near term. How about savings in transportation costs?

How much should they cost. when would you buy one.

Will the chevy volt fail ?

All aspects of advantages and disadvantages.
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Message 1033504 - Posted: 17 Sep 2010, 9:55:27 UTC
Last modified: 17 Sep 2010, 10:13:12 UTC

The Nissan Leaf has a 24.5 Kilowatt hour capacity. At ten cents a kilowatt hour and a price of $35,000 ( $25,000 after all government subsidies) would it be competitive with a small vehicle such as a Cobalt ($15,000) which would get 37 miles per gallon at a cost of say $2.65 for a gallon of regular Gasoline. Assume a range of 85 miles per charge in the wintertime and an efficiency in charging at your house of 90%.. At how many miles driven would it break even under these conditions ? Assume 120,000 BTU per gallon of gasoline and 3334 BTU per Kilowatt hour. Electric efficiency of drive motor at 85%. gasoline engine efficiency at 30%. Assume energy required overall, (acceleration, maintaining highway speed) by an equivalent electric car to be maybe 10% more due to weight of batteries.

Not all of these suppositions are necessarily relevant to the question at hand. Sorry to mix energy unit systems.

Would you buy it if it had a small turbo diesel to take over after the batteries ran down.

Are you mad enough at the Middle East and Big oil to buy one regardless of savings and at what price would you do so.

Would the electric car be better for the environment with our mix of energy production that probably wont change for the next ten years. Assume an end to end efficiency in electric power production of 45% with 80% created by combustion -50/20/10 coal/gas/ alternative.

Is there enough spare capacity at night to charge these cars right now if their were a major jump to several million of these vehicles.

Would you lobby your regulated power companies and politicians to obtain a low, night time electric rate for charging your car. Would 5 cents per kilowatt hour be feasible ?
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Message 1033514 - Posted: 17 Sep 2010, 11:25:36 UTC

I have been looking at the Teslas since that sports car came out. I was intrigued by the reported 300 mile range. That is long enough to make it practicle, and with the instant torque delivered by the electric motor(s) that thing is a real beast. I remember seeing a show on the Ellica, an 8 wheel, 8 motor car. They had packed the coils around the motors with a new way of doing it so that they could get more coils in a given area. That car looked strange, but it was easily beating a Ferrari.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliica

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Message 1033627 - Posted: 17 Sep 2010, 17:58:17 UTC
Last modified: 17 Sep 2010, 18:00:23 UTC

Electric vehicles are a great idea in theory but the devil is in the details.

If the electricity comes from a renewable source (wind, hydro-electric, tidal, solar, etc) then it has great potential to save resources and do less damage to the planet.

If the electricity comes from more conventional oil, gas or coal fired plants then the natural resource consumption and pollution has been simply moved, not alleviated.

(I intentionally leave nuclear power out of the possibilities because the benefits/risks of that is a whole other argument, and one filled with as much passion and emotion as science or technology.)
Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

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Message 1033951 - Posted: 18 Sep 2010, 9:19:45 UTC

What I would like to see is an electric car that is at least as good as a petrol/deisel car(in terms of performance) and as relitivly as easy to "refuel".
Was going to resquest a neuclear powered one but I dont want scorching in the rewsultant flame war.
Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care
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Message 1034025 - Posted: 18 Sep 2010, 14:16:36 UTC - in response to Message 1033951.  

What I would like to see is an electric car that is at least as good as a petrol/deisel car(in terms of performance) and as relitivly as easy to "refuel".
Was going to resquest a neuclear powered one but I dont want scorching in the rewsultant flame war.


As easy? Fast charge battery technology of lithium ion is there. 10 minute 80% chargers are in production. Not cheap, but for fleet vehicles possible. Plugging in a charger is not much different than plugging in a fuel nozzle.

performance.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDZOBQs60w yes. Until production drops prices a bit not practical, but the technology is certainly there.

We will obviously need to buff up the grid with as much solar/wind/tidal/etc electricity as possible in order to keep from burning more fossil fuels, but there is also technology to use a small percentage of electric vehicle battery potential to help store excess electricity until demand needs (while plugged in)
need some back.

Hybrids fall short of these potentials simply because what has been marketed is hybrids that must be fueled by fossil fuels. The plug in hybrid should eliminate this. Many people could make do with an all electric vehicle around town, and potentially have a small trailer attached for long vacation type trips with an auxilary generator. And there is no reason they could not be a rental.

The technology is here. And higher fossil fuel prices (like if BP actually had to pay for the damage they do) should help expedite them to market.

The chevy volt I believe is yet another GM attempt to show that electric vehicles fail. Will it evolve into something that will not? Possibly.
I look more towards Toyota/Tesla partnership actually producing something useful. Although I certainly can not afford the first generation ones.
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Message 1034397 - Posted: 19 Sep 2010, 8:46:29 UTC
Last modified: 19 Sep 2010, 9:28:42 UTC

Here is my specification for an electric car. Probably not practical now but I bet that Tatra, the Japanese or the Chinese could pull it off in the next five years. We could too if we should happen to pull our heads out of our collective backsides.

COST: $23,000 (US) - Unsubsidized other than $1500 tax credit
Weight: 2800 lbs (1275 kilos for you communists)
Coefficient of drag: less than .28
Occupants: Four, Occasionally 5 (Child)
Range: 120 miles (190 kilometers) on the coldest and hottest days at highway speeds of 75 Miles per hour (120 Kilometers per hour)
Recharge time: 100% in 4 hours at 220 Volts AC Power
Battery capacity 30-35 KWH
Acceleration: 0-60Mph in 10-12 seconds. (Electric and Diesel)
Auxiliary engine: 1.3 litre Turbo-charged, intercooled diesel
Mileage under fossil power. 50-60 Miles per gallon (roughly 25 kilometers per litre for youse Commies).
Primary Electical power source: Nuclear (nightime) at 5-7 cents/KWH

So: Dreamers can dream. I have scheduled in a few break-throughs here in terms of Lithium-Ion battery capabilities and manufacturing costs. Also, lower cost Nuclear plants due to mass replication of a common, proven design. These specs obviously hit the limits of what is possible now. To those who say it can't be done, I say get out of the way of those who are doing it. I also assume that we will come to the conclusion that Solar, wind, and tidal will not fit into my scheme regarding electricity cost.


The motivations are: Get off of the OIL Patch cartel for political and economic reasons.

At today's prices in the US gasoline is roughly $23.85 per million BTU. A kilowatt hour is roughly 3400BTU> Therefore we need 300 of them to get our million BTU. At ten cents a kilowatt hour we are at $30.00 per million BTU. So we have ostensibly just elimininated a Primary motivation.

All is not lost however since the energy stored in Batteries can be converted to propulsion at probably 80% efficiency which would easily be twice the efficiency of the best dielsel engine. So we go farther or get twice the value out of an electric BTU than the fossil BTU once we get it into our putative vechicle.

Five cents per kilowatt hour for nightime charging would just sweeten the deal.

Where do I send my deposit check?? --today, to dreamland-- tomorrow I bet it might just be NISSAN.

Whaddaya think mates?
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Message 1035141 - Posted: 21 Sep 2010, 5:10:35 UTC - in response to Message 1034397.  

I think your expectations are low in the case of 5 years from now.

Recharge potential today.. 80% in 10 minutes(expensive fast charger, think fueling station).
cost today: approx $45,000 USD.
Range: approx 150-180 mies per.
Full charge: 6-8 hours.(home charger, inexpensive/included)
Acceleration: far exceeds your expectations, limited for insurance reasons.
(see x1 for what is possible. with 180 mile range.. of course 100K USD puts it out of most of our reach)

This is basically where the Tesla motors are, without requiring any fossil fuels. If home chargers are set up on wind/solar, no fossil fuels required.
If not, it is going to use what is on the grid(which is slowly changing more to wind/solar)

so MOST of your expecations would be met or exceeded within 5 years. Oil/coal would go up drastically if government subsidies were removed.. which would increase the cost effectiveness of alternative energies, cause a boom in the industry, and help accelerate us out of the current recession/depression.

green collar jobs all the way around.
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Message 1035170 - Posted: 21 Sep 2010, 9:23:18 UTC
Last modified: 21 Sep 2010, 9:26:58 UTC

Soft good post.

I don't think that coal and oil are subsidized other than severance tax allowance for oil well depletion. We import a high fraction of our oil anyway. I guess that I don't see solar and wind being competitive even though the "fuel" is free and the grid is already in place.

I agree that we should be able to move to Nuclear in 5 years but probably can't because of of the way we shoot ourselves in the foot (Uncle Sam has 'no toes" so to speak.

I admit that my specs are way out there in dreamland from the current state of the technologies involved. Cost and weight of the batteries are too high right now. Roughly 15 pounds per kilowatt hour.

Here's the more fundamental question. A small car such as the Nissan Versa or the toyota Yaris can be had for maybe $11,000. It will get, say, 35 miles per gallon or around 8 cents per mile driven.

The Nissan Leaf after a huge subsidy would cost me $25,000 with the home charger hookup. It would cost me $3.00 for a full charge at ten cents a kilowatt hour. Taking a 100 mile range, that's 3 cents per mile or an advantage of 5 cents per mile over gasoline at $2.70 per gallon.

So if i drove 10,000 medium range miles per year I would have saved $500 per year on fuel costs.

That's not bad but, ignoring the time value of capital, it would take almost 30 years to pay back. At 5 cents per Kilowatt hour it would still take 21 years.

Here the assumption is that adopters of electric cars would be looking for a cheap commute and errand vehicle. Those Greenies and we who are mad at Big Oil might have other motivations.

This suggests that the electric car would have to compete with the likes of say a loaded Honda Accord or a Camry to be considered a viable alternative. To do so it would need to have the auxiliary engine to extend the range for vacation and other longer range travel. Thus it would have to be as luxurious as these other cars and have a price in the lower 20 thousands of dollars.

Mandates and $6.00 gas could make this a whole different story.
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Message 1035514 - Posted: 24 Sep 2010, 8:39:54 UTC

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Message 1035674 - Posted: 24 Sep 2010, 17:09:16 UTC - in response to Message 1035170.  

William, the 11-15K price range for the forseeable future: forget it or build your own. The introduction of electric vehicles in the 40Kish price range makes them possible, though certainly not for everyone. In the 20-25K range (not so far fetched merely with economy of scale) they can compete with such cars as the camray.. midish priced transportation.

As far as oil being subsidized, yes it is. A lot. Oil leases are sold at no where near value. Most toxic material producers are saddled with a "cradle to grave" responsibility. Oil companies are not. International laws are exploited to avoid taxation, much like other corporations. If they were forced to 100% "clean up their mess" oil/coal would not be at all competitive.
This grows on a grand scale if you were to include the cost of getting the carbon back out of the atmosphere.

Wind energy remains the cheapest to grow. Solar can not make that claim, but it is viable. I am not sold on subsidies because when ever they are wide spread the prices of solar tend to go up to absorb them.

If you travel across the USA interstate 80, you will see many very large wind farms. And many more under construction. While subsidies play a part. the kwh of wind production is the least expensive to install, and from there the cheapest to maintain, requiring no addtional fuel, lower maintenance, than any other power production. Even just in construction.. it is the hands down cheapest to install capacity.

Battery energy per pound, I can not answer. But with the regenerative braking, not nearly as much energy is used. The wrightspeed x1 having a range of 180 miles and weighing in at 1400lbs gives a good idea of what is possible. Of course the price is not at a consumer level. But more than enough performance to peak the interest of avid sports car enthusiasts.

As far as fast chargers go, those would be fleet vehicle fixtures, or at fueling stations. Consider also that remote fueling stations could provide charging potentially much more efficiently from alternative energy sources on site than having gasoline delivered via truck.

But none of this will work with a view of we must do things the way we have been doing it. We can not fix problems using the same logic that created them.

Bottom line is, we can not afford not to try to save the planet. Can we? Will we? I do not know. But electric vehicles will be one necessary piece of the puzzle.
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Message 1037959 - Posted: 1 Oct 2010, 21:01:13 UTC - in response to Message 1035674.  

Here is a link to an Op Ed piece in the New York Times from a week ago. It discusses China's recently announced investment of $15 billion to create an electric car automotive industry - and the lack of any similar investment in the US.

The piece concludes with the concept that if the Chinese are successful, America will be importing electric cars from them - to the economic detriment of the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opinion/26friedman.html

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Message 1038253 - Posted: 2 Oct 2010, 11:04:16 UTC
Last modified: 2 Oct 2010, 11:05:32 UTC

As I stated earlier; I bet that the Chinese/Japanese or Tatra of India could meet these specs of mine given mass production and further breakthroughs in Battery capability. We built this country in large part on American automobiles and cheap local fuel. Now much of our capital goes to foreign automakers and to non american fuel sources. Thus, our auto usage now is sucking us dry of our Capital.

If we don't commit to stop this, find cheap energy and return our manufacturing base we are headed for the third world in an inexorable way.

Another good rant by Daddio
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Message 1038299 - Posted: 2 Oct 2010, 13:45:41 UTC - in response to Message 1038253.  

Now much of our capital goes to foreign automakers and to non american fuel sources. Thus, our auto usage now is sucking us dry of our Capital.

If we don't commit to stop this, find cheap energy and return our manufacturing base we are headed for the third world in an inexorable way.

Another good rant by Daddio


IMO not a rant; is what is happening. I just came from a conference where ALL six/seven "keynote" economic speakers had exactly that message. And one of them specifically cited the case of Chinese electric car auto R+D versus nearly nil in the US - is why I looked up the NY Times piece cited in the previous post.




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Message 1038301 - Posted: 2 Oct 2010, 13:56:43 UTC - in response to Message 1038299.  

Here's some good news for Daddio:

Today at the Paris Motor Show 2010:

Jaguar have developed and tested a concept car "electric road car" with speed of >200 mph and range of 560 miles without recharge - because it uses an auxiliary gas turbine (designed in Britain) to recharge the battery. The car is essentially a hybrid.

The (UK) Telegraphy news article is here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motor-shows/paris-motor-show/8033781/Paris-Motor-Show-2010-Jaguar-creates-electric-supercar-with-jet-engine.html

The maybe bad news for Daddio:
Tata, the Indian car company, bought Jaguar for 1.15 bn pounds in 2008.

Says the President of Jaguar:
“The C-X75 demonstrates that Jaguar is still leading the field automotive design and technology. And will always continue to build beautiful, fast cars."
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Message 1040498 - Posted: 10 Oct 2010, 9:24:41 UTC - in response to Message 1038301.  
Last modified: 10 Oct 2010, 9:28:02 UTC

Today I went down to our local VW dealer and looked at their new 2011 Jetta that they sell for less than $16,000. It is not a stripper either although it has a rather small engine. At this price it makes it hard to commit to an electric auto. Gasoline is now $2.69 per US Gallon. At ten cents per Kilowatt-hour there is not much incentive to buy a an electric car costing around $10,000 more after a government sudsidy of $7500 dollars (i.e. the Nissan Leaf).

Perhaps wealthier shoppers for Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords will be a better target audience for the current (pun intended) offering from Nissan. The Chevy Volt will cost another $10,000 beyond the Leaf but does have a small engine to take over after the battery runs down. I predict failure for the Volt due to high cost and don't know about the Nissan Leaf --the lack of an an engine may kill it when people are stranded on a cold or hot day when heater or airconditioning pulls down the battery faster than otherwise. Here in Tennessee We probably use the climate control features of our vehicles at least 80% of the time.

So still looking for the $20,000 electric car that can go around 100 miles and then a small engine will take over; and also am waiting for a return to 5 cents per Kilowatt hour.

What do you say Kids? Can we get there in a few years or so?

Daddio
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Message 1046246 - Posted: 5 Nov 2010, 15:24:19 UTC

the refeuling time could be minutes if the electric car just changed battery packs like model cars the old ones recharged would be just like propane cyclinders,wind power is ideal as the powers not need all the time,so it stored in battery when the wind supply is right
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Message 1046251 - Posted: 5 Nov 2010, 15:50:50 UTC - in response to Message 1046246.  

the refeuling time could be minutes if the electric car just changed battery packs like model cars the old ones recharged would be just like propane cyclinders,wind power is ideal as the powers not need all the time,so it stored in battery when the wind supply is right


Changing packs is not really necessary. plugged in "at night" should allow plenty of opportunity to charge, and fast chargers (fueling station type, prohibitive cost for home use) deliver 80% charges in about 10 minutes.

Nissan Leaf is in the 30K area, (25K area after incentives) So should be competitive with other mid-range vehicles.

The Toyota/Tesla should be of interest to the sports car crowd. More cost cutting and economics of scale to follow.
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Message 1046401 - Posted: 6 Nov 2010, 1:51:52 UTC

I would love to convert my 73 Ranchero to Electric or Propane...But it would run around $4200.00 WITHOUT LABOR to go ELECTRIC OR $2900.00 for PROPANE without labor...And that is not in My budget for about 6 years and I have to have some kind of Truck to haul My heating wood.

I Desire Peace and Justice, Jim Scott (Mod-Ret.)
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