Electric Car, Can Use as Much Power as Your House

Adamiscold:

I think you answered your own question in your second sentence.

If you put the blades in the dead area on the rear of the car there

is little energy there to extract because some other part of the car,

maybe the trunk lid and rear fenders have already absorbed the

energy beforehand.

All the energy on earth is still here as Yanche said but it get

degraded to a lower level and is not concentrated enough for

to be usable.All the heat we ever make by burning fuels is still

in the atmosphere but at a low level.

BigBarney

wsherrick wrote:Not to get off of the subject of electric cars too much, but; here is something to give some perspective. Here is another video from Jay Leno's garage. To me this has to be one of the neatest cars ever made. It is yet another example of the brilliance that came out of the Turn Of The Century Mind and yet another example of a sad, "what might have been.'

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/1925-doble-se ... ar/213453/

Wow, thanks for the link. I had heard about them but had no idea they were so cool.

Hey guys,

Don't be putting down good technology just because the greentards like it. I drive a 2001 Prius. Not because I think it will save the earth but because at 55 mpg it saves me $$. Hell, I even got 52 mpg while hauling 800 lbs of coal in it The hybrid idea works. I wouldn't pay the price they were asking for it when it first came out, but the price has come down to where they're not all that much more than a regular car. A used one can be a pretty good deal. I got mine a bit over a year ago, with 112K on it, for under 5K.

A pure electric still has problems as far as range, and as Fred pointed out heat in the winter, but for somebody whos commute is within the limits of their range they can be a good deal. A car the size of my Prius uses about 12 hp to maintain 60 mph. That's about 9 KW or 150 watt hours per mile. So that example someone gave of using 2,500 kWh to go 10,000 miles was perfectly reasonable. That's 250 watt hours per mile. And most parts of the country you can still get off peak power for less than $.10 per kWh.

As for bringing the power grid down, let's consider someone doing a 30 mile round trip commute. At 200 watt hours per mile it would use 200*30=6000 watt hours or 6 kWh. An electric space heater that you plug into a wall outlet draws 1500 watts. The same 1500 watts could be used to recharge the battery in about 4 hours. Hardly the kind of load that will bring down the grid. And I'll let you figure the cost of 6 kWh for your area, but I'm quite sure it will be a lot less than the gallon of gas most cars would use for 30 miles.

I think the Chevy volt is a much better idea than a pure electric, or the Prius for that matter. You can go about 40 miles in electric mode using grid power stored in batteries, and then use its gasoline engine to extend its range as far as you like. Big problems I see with it are that they are asking about 70% more than what it is worth. I know they need to pay of the engineering, but that isn't going to happen if they charge so much that they don't sell. Other problem is that after the batteries are drained it only gets 37-40 mpg. There's no reason it couldn't get half again as many mpg. There have been a lot of advances made since my Prius was made in 2001. But every time they have re-designed it they have made it bigger and more powerful while getting the same mpg rather than the same size and getting more mpg.

As far as where the power come from, I really don't care. Coal is currently the primary source of electric power and I'm good with that. I'm ok with nuclear if the cost is kept in line. Hydro is good and is where most of the local power where I live comes from. A good thing about electrics is they aren't tied to any one energy source. There are plenty of ways to make electricity, so you will always have power for your car. As for all the losses in the grid getting the power to me,... Not my problem. I just pay for what gets to me.

Enough rambling for now

Bruce

Cheetah wrote:I think the Chevy volt is a much better idea than a pure electric, or the Prius for that matter. You can go about 40 miles in electric mode using grid power stored in batteries, and then use its gasoline engine to extend its range as far as you like. Big problems I see with it are that they are asking about 70% more than what it is worth.

Bruce, excellent discussion. I like the Chevy Volt idea of a electric power train and a separate IC engine with generator -- two simple systems instead of one complex one like the Prius. And I agree the price is outrageous -- it should be way way less expensive to build and therefore to buy. The other big problem I see with the Volt is, can you trust GM to put out a quality product, or will the Volt spend half its time in the shop bleeding my bank account?

But my real wish is for an all-electric like the Nissan, if it can do the job, and if I could buy it for a reasonable price.

The Volt is every bit as complex as the Prius, and much closer to the same than the add people would like you to believe. Both have the gasoline engine and main electric motor on opposite sides of a planetary gear set. Both have a second motor/generator also attached to the planetary gear set. The big differences are that the Volt has a larger battery pack and electric motor, and can disconnect the gasoline engine when in EV mode. The battery pack in the Prius is only good for about a mile on level ground, and the electric motor is too small in many situations.

GM can build a good product. My last car was an Olds Acheiva with a 2.4L Quad Four that gave me about 30 mpg for 220K with almost no problems. I know of plenty of GM cars and trucks that have done similar. They just need to quit making the occasional lemon that gives them a bad name.

The Nissan Leaf looks like an ok deal for a second car or for someone that will never need to travel over 100 miles a day. From what I have seen it can do the job of a normal car under most circumstances. In the winter you can warm it up while still plugged in so that you don't have to drain the battery so much with the heater. Same with AC in the summer. It is a bit pricy considering it doesn't have the gasoline engine of the Prius/Volt, or the second motor/generator they both have. Then again it's not an econobox either.

Bruce

A co-worker was looking to buy a new ford escape hybrid but found they are $30,000. Batteries last 80,000-100,000 miles and cost $5,000 to $8,000 to replace. The escape gets 34mpg city and 31mpg highway. (My old '91 grandprix would get 32mpg highway). If these numbers are correct, I don't think I would put $5,000 into a vehicle with $80,000 miles on it and the trade in value would be....scrap price. Are there any harmful wastes in the old batteries for the landfill?

offcoursey wrote:... ford escape hybrid ... Batteries last 80,000-100,000 miles and cost $5,000 to $8,000 to replace ... Are there any harmful wastes in the old batteries for the landfill?

I would guess the batteries can be recycled rather than go into a landfill. I did a search on partshotline.com for a battery for a 2004 Prius (just picked that year at random) and found lots of them for $350 to $600. Taken from wrecked cars, I would assume. I don't know what the life is, in miles, for a Prius battery. If you keep a car for over 200K like I generally do, you will probably pay for batteries at some point. But if it's only $600, that's not much different in cost from replacing all four struts.

I have also seen ads for companies that will "rebuild" a battery pack. They say it is often just a few cells out of the overall pack that go bad, so replacing those is cost-effective compared to a new pack. I don't know if it is true or not ....

^^^ Now that's dedication to the cause! If you wanna really go green there's just no other way!

I'm all set with any hybrid. Can you imagine trying to figure out an electrical problem in that thing?? OBD-II is difficult enough. Then wait until you see your repair bill after you give up ...

No thanks!

Ten days ago Marty & I did our every once in a while Friday night go look at new cars jaunt. We saw the new plug in Prius (102MPGe & 53 mpg on gas) ($35,000 & $40,000 with leather) and also bumped into a live and in person Nissan Leaf all electric for $38,000.... (104 MPGe) Way too much! WAY! And, the MPGe was at 10 cents a KWH... electricity here is 17.2 cents. That makes it...well....suck!
Not that the Prius was the deal of the day LOL. I think the best deals we saw were some of the Nissan's & the Mazda. Especially the Mazda.... small cars, but small prices & super mileage with a normal gas engine.

Freddy wrote:Ten days ago Marty & I did our every once in a while Friday night go look at new cars jaunt. We saw the new plug in Prius (102MPGe & 53 mpg on gas) ($35,000 & $40,000 with leather) and also bumped into a live and in person Nissan Leaf all electric for $38,000.... (104 MPGe) Way too much! WAY! And, the MPGe was at 10 cents a KWH... electricity here is 17.2 cents. That makes it...well....suck!
Not that the Prius was the deal of the day LOL. I think the best deals we saw were some of the Nissan's & the Mazda. Especially the Mazda.... small cars, but small prices & super mileage with a normal gas engine.

I prefer the diesel TDI's - I've got three of them. My first one I bought in 2001, it's got about 250,000 miles on it at this point and averages over 50 mpg. Runs like a "real" car... It's fast, got enough power to pass on hills, no problems starting in the winter. Very well achieved technology. I haven't seen anything that comes close yet... I used to make my own biodiesel for very low cost. Don't have a place to do it now or I'd still be making it...

dj

My wife and I went to look at the Nisson Leaf , we took a white one for a test drive I had a chance to drive it for a while it was just to slow I told my wife I feel like a "White Zombie" driving this thing. She said "Oh your just an OxyMoron" Why can't someone just make a little electric car with some balls?