One Gallon – the Achilles’ Heel of Electric Cars

Red State ^ | 2-19-12 | Brookhaven

[Brookhaven]

The Chevy Volt's batteries hold the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline—one single gallon.

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.

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.

 

[Lx]

That reminds me of a friend’s V8 Vega. It twisted the unidbody and he actually had to cut the doors at the front fenders so they would open and close which meant it was soon un-drivable. It moved though.

The Kamback, I built the engine for a friends, it was a cool car. Unfortunately, it needed a windshield and the Kambacks was different than a regular Vega (how stupid is that?). He was poor as I was so we ended up putting the window (because we bought the wrong one and they didn’t have the correct one so they said) in and it hung over one side. Not a great rig bit it lasted as long as he had the car. It was like a modern version of a 55 Nomad, OK, so that’s stretching things but it was a cool car.

[Kickass Conservative]

That's because something, or someone, is rotten in D.C.

Hopefully that will be rectified in November, but my Faith in an Electorate that could propel a phony like Obama into the White House does not inspire confidence that such illustrious ignorance can be overcome.

[Lx]

I know for sure that he went at least 5 months without buying gasoline. After a year of ownership he’s more enthusiastic than ever.

Cool, a report by a regular driver. Does he plug it in every night? Did he buy the quick charge option and has he noticed an increase in his electric bills?

[Kickass Conservative]

Did he donate the $7,500 Tax Credit to Obama’s Campaign?

Just funnin ya...

[ApplegateRanch]

I never took a longish trip without my tools, gasket set, and a spare head in the back of my Vaguely-A-Car.

It sure did handle well, though...after I replaced the sour-slide with a 75 Astre 4-speed & axle; and also used the stiffer & better spring-rate Astre rear suspension.

I had 4 wrecked Vegas & Astres for parts, BUT every one of them had wrecked front ends and destroyed engines. I was never able to drop an Iron Duke into it, like I really wanted to.

[Yo-Yo]

True but won't you use that "extra gas" you save while braking by accelerating back up to speed?

Yes, of course, which is the only "advantage" a hybrid has over a regular car. In a regular car, you use gas to get up to speed, then scrub off that speed as heat in the brakes, then use more gas to get back up to speed again. So you end up using twice the gasoline.

In a hybrid you use gas equivalent energy to get up to speed, then about 10% of that energy is returned to the battery during braking. When you accelerate again you use the same gas equivalent energy to get back up to speed, but since you "recovered" 10% it only takes 90% of the energy to get back up to speed. So your "gas tank" is 10% larger.

Just don't run the heater, or the A/C, or the radio...

That having been said, the "one gallon" equivalence to the entire multihundred pound battery fiasco is a compelling image. I'm sticking with my fossil fuels thankee very much.

So am I. Very much so, thank you very much!

[nascarnation]

He’s kind of a Libertarian, but I guarantee you he claimed the $7500 tax credit, LOL. Not a political guy at all, just loves tech stuff. You know the nerdy kind who has all their home HVAC, security, lights, etc on a master computer control.

[Lx]

Mine had the slip and slide powerglide as well and put the 4 speed box in as well. It was the good 4 speed that I think was made by Borg Warner?? Not the Opel one that had the shifter sticking out of the tranny.

Carried the same tools and parts except I never carried a head because I’d had ones the were checked out by a machine shop, milled, the block milled everything was square and it still wouldn’t hold a head gasket for 2 months so I figured why bother? I think it was the block because I had one block that would hold head gaskets and one that wouldn’t and they were both sleeved so I chalked it all up to ‘tolerances’ and what they said was acceptable wasn’t really correct.

It did handle great.

I’d though about the Iron Duke but you could get performance parts for the regular Vega engine. Of course adding power to something that was so unstable was probably unwise.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Brookhaven.

[ApplegateRanch]

Mine had the water bath block, with sleeved cylinders, but without the coolant distribution tubes, so tended to eat the valve(s) on #4. Not as often as a gasket, but often enough that on longer trips I added the freshly machined head to the kit.

And, yes, it was the B-W 4 speed. Good thing I had made the conversion, too. I had to drive it about 50 miles out of the Oregon Coast Ranges over logging roads to pavement, then find an open shop, after my brakes failed: tranny & hand brake only.

[Lx]

Mine had the water bath block, with sleeved cylinders, but without the coolant distribution tubes, so tended to eat the valve(s) on #4. Not as often as a gasket, but often enough that on longer trips I added the freshly machined head to the kit.

Not a bad idea at all, especially if you'd done it a number of times as every Vega owner who was mechanically inclined to do, it didn't take forever to swap head gaskets (I always used the special Fel Pro one since it was supposed to have addressed the design flaws of the original) the only thing is the head weighed more than the block. I carried my empty block into high school auto shop and people wondered how did I suddenly get strong to be able to pick up a block, then I let them pick it up and they were less impressed...

Remember the device you had to use to get the cam out? What a nightmare. Luckily I was a military brat and the Base auto shop had the tool and they'd let me borrow it anytime I needed it so I called the shop in LA I'd bought the high compression pistons from whose name I've long forgotten and asked which stock cam was the best (I was poor) so I went to the wrecking yards which had no shortage of Vegas which should have given me a clue. I got my header there as well.

So I grabbed a couple of cams and if you had tool and the hood off and only put 4 bolts in the cam cover, you could swap cams in minutes except for the cam belt tension was set by the sliding water pump which technically meant you needed a new gasket ever time you took the belt off but nine times out of ten and if you didn't use a pound of gasket seal it didn't leak luckily since it was harder to change the water pump than the cam. So I went with the one that I felt gave me the best seat of the pants feel. Not terrible technical, I should have use a stop watch and an exact length of road but I didn't.

What has happened to our society that term tranny & hand brake only has a sexual connotation ??

[45Auto]

The Vega was good for laughs with 300 h.p. We stiffened up the rear suspension with additional coil springs and inflatable air bags in the coils. The ride was very bad; we also put in a modified turbo 350 automatic tranny with a 3500 rpm stall speed torque converter. The engine ran an Edlebrock single plane intake with a 650 cfm Holley double pumper. The dang thing would lift the front end about a foot off the ground upon takeoff if we revved the engine up with the front brakes locked. Eventually, the rear end blew up and on one run the right front upper ball joint broke clean off. Too much power and too little re-engineering. And we also cracked the windshield because of the torque which caused body flex. I figured at that point it would have cost another $10 grand to make the thing work.
About ten years later we now have built a 1972 Camaro SS with a 410 cu. in. Chevy big block. At least the Camaro is the proper platform for a 400+ h. p. engine.