Posted on 07/13/2010 10:26:05 PM PDT by cakid1
Mark Bush says building his own electric car has been a labor of love. He spent about $ 20,000. His car can reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour.
If you drive an electric car then you will accept some limitations just like if you drive a Miata, Hummers or many other cars. If those imitations can fit in with your life style then they will not cause you problems. If you can not accept the limitations then you need to find a different solution for your situation. Many, many people can live with limitations of electric vehicles, Miatas or Hummers.
Not within your required performance envelope. They are within the required performance envelope of millions of people. If you do not want an electric car then please feel free to not buy one.
Land Speed Record? I doubt 183 MPH is the ‘land speed record.’I think the records are much higher than that and I’m certain the vehicle was heavily modified and I doubt it can do it with it’s powerplant for more than a very short period of time, anyway. Minutes maybe. Seconds, most likely. 0 to 60 in 8 seconds, I might buy that, but I believe even a decently equipped Pontiac Fiero could do that.
You live with a claim of superiority in ideal (unreal, for most, actually) economic conditions that support your narrative. A bit of confirmation bias, methinks. I pointed out internal combustion engines in the same class that do comparably, if not better when we talk especially about Diesel in specific. If the EV1 were a marketable alternative, GM wouldn’t have called them all back and crushed them.
You fail also to take into account how much electricity demand would go up and hence the price of the electricity if a good percentage of folks owned an electric car and the negative consequences to other energy requirements that require electricity, like say, lights in your house, factories that make stuff, and heat in a good number of homes. This has happened with other alternative forms of energy. It is known that increased Ethanol usage had a negative impact on food prices and arguably caused hunger in some parts of the world, like Mexico. Those kinds of things.
Like I said, I’m not saying it couldn’t serve some useful purpose economic or otherwise for someone, somewhere. I’m just saying there is no way within the next 20 years that even a plurality of us will be driving them.
If you like it fine. Since only a few of the ugly ducklings existed, of course it catches the eye. If even 1 of 10 people had one, it would cease to be a conversation piece but if you think it made you a chick magnet, I am not one to frown on you for having self esteem.
> My electricity cost was 10 cents per kilowatt hour. This gave me an energy cost for my lead-acid EV1 of 2.6 cents per mile.
This is a bit misleading. As anybody who understands rechargeable battery technology can tell you, the major cost factor with batteries is the fairly short service life and the high replacement cost of the batteries themselves, not the cost of electricity.
The initial lead-acid battery pack for the EV1 stored 16.5KW/h and had an expected total service life of about 7000 KW/h before it would need to be replaced. Therefore, it could only store and deliver about $700 worth of electricity. I have not been able to find exact numbers on the replacement cost of the 1.5 ton battery, but it was probably over $4000. Therefore, the recurring cost of the battery replacement would probably have been about 15 cents per mile. Ouch.
The second-generation nickel-hydride battery pack for the EV1 could had a capacity over 25KW/h, and had a service life of around 24,000 KW/h, but the replacement cost of the NiMH battery would probably have been over $12,000 - so the battery cost-per-mile would still be about 14 or 15 cents.
There is a company called Ceramatec which claims to be able to deliver a sodium/sulfur battery which will have a lifetime battery cost of only 3 cents per KW/h delivered. However, the characteristics of the battery are not an ideal match for an electric car.
Personally, I believe that an electric car would be practical if it used a zinc/air fuel cell instead of a battery pack and included a small 15hp Wankel engine/generator and a 3 gallon gas tank as an emergency range-extender.
The Wankel was low on efficiency but that may not be a problem with limited use as you suggest. I always liked the Wankel.
> The Wankel was low on efficiency
Yes, early Wankel’s got poor gas mileage. However, it did improve over time. The idea here would be to allow the car to be used even in areas where there are no ‘zinc fill-up’ stations without the risk of getting stranded. A gasoline-powered range of about 100 miles lets you cross just about anywhere.
Wankel engines have the highest power/weight ratio of standard internal combustion engines, and I think I read that they could be built with internal magnets and coils to function as an integrated motor/generator.
Are they?
Where are the millions of people clamouring to buy them?
Please don't take this personally. I'm not insulting you, nor am I insulting electric cars.
I'm pointing out an objective measure of what sort of performance people actually want/need, based on what they buy. If the designers and builders of electric cars want to sell millions of cars, to be a major player in the market, that's the kind of performance they need to put on the showroom floor.
The EV1 was an interesting experiment, establishing a baseline measure of "production" electric car performance. It was also carried out more than 10 years ago. Battery technology and motor technology have improved since then, and the wide acceptance of hybrid cars will support continued improvements in both. I'd be interested in seeing how an "EV2", using 2010 rather than 1999 technology, would perform. I'm sure it would be closer to the Corolla/Civic/Focus/etc performance envelope. I think I can also predict its weaknesses.
BTW, I asked some questions in my last post. They were meant to be information-seeking, not combative. Would you please be so kind as to address them?
Yep, when the facts don't go your way, attack the messenger. Weak. FYI, I hold an MSEE from Georgia Tech. ('87) Care to share your background and education?
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