Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/19/2012 12:09:07 PM PST by Brookhaven
Would you buy a car that held only one gallon of gasoline? Neither would I. Yet, we've invested billions of dollars developing and promoting a car with a “gas tank” (the batteries) that only holds one gallon's worth of energy.The Chevy Volt's batteries hold the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline—one single gallon.
I've heard that new super batteries are just around the corner. All we have to do is invest enough money and they'll appear. Just like computers (in the 1950's they were the size of rooms, today they can be held in the palm of your hand), battery development is whizzing along at a blurring pace. Unfortunately, that isn't true. The development pace of batteries is nothing like that of computers.
A better analogy for battery development is radio. In the 1950's most people listened to music on AM radio. In the 1970's, FM radio became the standard for listening to music. Digital radio was introduced in the 2000's. Each of these was a step up in quality, but they weren't such a huge step that they made the old standards obsolete.
Alkaline batteries were commonly used in the 1950's, and they still are today. Plug a C, D, or AA battery into any device; odds are it's the same alkaline battery technology they were using back in the 1950's. Nickel batteries appeared in the 1970's. Lithium batteries appeared in the 1990's, and have three times the capacity of 1950's alkaline batteries. Truth is, the change in battery technology is slow, slow, slow.
The Chevy Volt battery pack weighs 435 pounds. That's what's required to store the energy found in one gallon of gasoline. If you wanted to create a Volt that had a “five gallon” energy tank, it would require at least 2,175 pounds of batteries—literally over a ton. Even if batteries suddenly became dirt cheap, the weight alone makes creating a car that holds more than a couple of gallons of energy unfeasible.
When Consumer Reports tested the Volt, they managed to get 28 miles on a full battery charge; which sounds about right for one gasoline gallon's worth of energy.
The Nissan Leaf did a little better. Consumer Reports got 68 miles out of a full charge (about two gallons worth of energy). Nissan didn't use more advanced technology than the Volt. The Leaf has a larger battery than the Volt (660 lbs. Vs 435 lbs.) and the non-battery part of the car weighs less (2,694 lbs. Vs 3,346 lbs.). Nissan just put more batteries in the car, and made the rest of the car lighter.
So, why isn't just adding more batteries and making the car lighter a solution? Look at the Tesla Roadster. It gets 211 miles on a full battery charge (that's what Tesla claimed in a lawsuit against the show Top Gear—who said they only got 55 miles per charge—so we'll go with that over the 250 plus miles Tesla claims in their advertising). 211 miles is still a great range, but how did they achieve it? They increased the battery pack to 992 pounds (557 pounds more than the Volt) and decreased the non-battery weight to 1,731 pounds (2,053 pounds less than the Volt). The Tesla Roadster is a small, small car. I'm sure it's fun as a sports car, but if ask it to do any of the mundane tasks in life (carry a family, or bring home a load groceries) it's not anywhere near to being up to the task.
The fact is, when it comes to practical vehicles, the Chevy Volt is the state of the art, best in class as far as electric vehicles go. The best electric vehicle available only holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline—one gallon.
This might still be workable, if you could refill the “electric gas tank” in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, it takes at least 8 hours to fully recharge the batteries in the Volt. A drive from Atlanta to Birmingham (about 150 miles) takes about three hours (I drive slow and like to make a couple of stops along the way). If I tried to make that trip in the Chevy Volt, it would take about 50 hours, because I would have to make five 8-hour stops to recharge the battery.
Would we be calling a car with a conventional internal combustion engine with a gas tank that only held one gallon of gasoline “the car America had to build?” Would we have spent billions of dollars developing that car? Would we be offering $7,500 tax credits to encourage consumers to purchase that car?
Yet, that is what we've done with the Chevy Volt. We've put all our money and efforts behind a car with a “gas tank” that holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. The Chevy Volt, or any other electric car, will not be the answer to our energy problems until we can equip a car with a battery pack that can hold the same energy equivalent as the gas tanks in current cars. Given the history of battery development (tripling capacity every 40 years), that will be somewhere between 120 and 160 years from now.
Buying an electric car today is the same as buying a regular car that only holds one gallon of gasoline. Building one is, well...I'll let you answer that one yourself.
Ping.
I see a world in which the Left has us all drive golf carts to the train station, we commute to central workhouses, and no one needs a vehicle with serious range. Who needs freedom?
I view all of the new electrics and hybrids as the Gremlin.Pacer, and Vega of the 1970’s.How many of those do you still see on the road?
I was talking to a guy that said that it would take 1200 pounds of lead acid batteries to equal 10 gallons of gas.
The world I see has our academic and bureaucratic masters living in the shiny city, while we labor ceaselessly below.
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‘The best electric vehicle available only holds the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline—one gallon.
‘This might still be workable, if you could refill the “electric gas tank” in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, it takes at least 8 hours to fully recharge the batteries in the Volt. A drive from Atlanta to Birmingham (about 150 miles) takes about three hours (I drive slow and like to make a couple of stops along the way). If I tried to make that trip in the Chevy Volt, it would take about 50 hours, because I would have to make five 8-hour stops to recharge the battery. ‘
This is why, in reality, “efficient cars” are NOT efficient at all. They are wasteful extravagance (without anything pretty or exciting about them).
“I’ve heard that new super batteries are just around the corner.”
Yeah, they’ve been just around the corner for 40 years.
>>“I’ve heard that new super batteries are just around the corner.”
>>Yeah, they’ve been just around the corner for 40 years.
Same thing for solar photovoltaic panels that are cost-effective vs. conventional electrical generation.
This might still be workable, if you could refill the “electric gas tank” in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, it takes at least 8 hours to fully recharge the batteries in the Volt. A drive from Atlanta to Birmingham (about 150 miles) takes about three hours (I drive slow and like to make a couple of stops along the way). If I tried to make that trip in the Chevy Volt, it would take about 50 hours, because I would have to make five 8-hour stops to recharge the battery.
The Volt has IC engine as well. As Chevy presented it, they made it sound like a diesel electric locomotive (or a Tiger tank) where the IC engine drives a generator that drives the electric motor that turns the wheels so he doesn't have to re-charge five times, it just switches to the IC engine when the batteries die (it also charges the batteries) but it still only get 28 MPG.
Chevy also pulled a fast one, if you know how a planetary gear works, if you look at the way the Volt's IC engine is connected to generator and drive train, it cheats around 70MPh and the IC engine drives the wheels directly so it's not really like a diesel electric.
There’s something I like to call “physics” and “chemistry” that puts limits on battery technology.
The used Chevy Volt market may have some unexpected problems. Buying a used Chevy Volt may also include the cost of a new battery. These batteries are warranted to 150,000 miles. That’s probably the projected lifespan of the battery. The battery replacement cost? $10,000. Ouch!
At $10,000 one could buy one hell of a lot of gasoline!
The best car I’ve had in my lifetime was a 1972 Chevy Vega GT. It taught me how to wrench on top of the fact that I was born with instinctual mechanical skills no one could touch which allowed me to go everywhere if I fixed someone’s car or motorcycle in Jr High.
It was the fastest car in school and it had the 2300CC engine in it, with modifications of course. I still had to change the head gasket at least ten times and I had a sleeved and milled block and milled head. I don’t know what genius thought it was wise to have an aluminum block and an iron head. Even using the special Fel Pro gasket it would blow a gasket but since the block was sleeved, the water didn’t destroy the aluminum-silicon stock cylinder bores.
I thought the the ‘72 was a good looking car; it looked like a small Camero if you cut the front bumper like a Z28.
And how much energy needs to be generated to charge that battery? And how is it generated?
The generally accepted range of a Volt is 375 miles (caveat’s not withstanding).
The author supposedly could drive to his destination and back on a single tank of gas, and a full charge.
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