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To: Tarpon
I saw an engineering analysis(can’t remember where) that showed battery power, pound for pound, delivered about 1/25 the energy to the rear wheels as gasoline.

Of course batteries are heavy, and dangerous. I'd be more worried about Sodium Sulphur batteries than Lithium Ion for fire.

But so is 20 gallons of gasoline.

I'm not sure about you number, even with back of napkin.

Internal combustion is maybe 20% efficient at a fixed RPM.

just look at the radiator! It's not there to conserve heat energy!

An internal combustion car is a heater that moves.

All I'm saying is that engines are compromised when they try to make them efficient over a wide RPM band and then put a multi-stage transmission in there to match it to road speed.

Running a gasoline generator at a single RPM into a battery and back to a constant-torque high-efficiency induction motor can get you a better efficiency/performance tradeoff for most types of driving....especially if you can use nuke or natural gas turbine power to recharge it!

65 posted on 08/11/2009 7:06:37 AM PDT by sam_paine (X .................................)
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To: sam_paine
Joker canceled US nuclear power. Didn't you see him shutting down the USA nuclear fuel industry a few weeks back? Didn't approve licensing.

Most auto engines are 30+% efficient. Some of the new engine technologies bump that up as well. Like direct fuel injection and turbos.

Improving power efficiency, that's why most manufacturers are going to 6 speed autos or even CVTs to match road speed to engine efficiency better.

A heater that moves, good analogy.

If there were better batteries, the cell phone manufacturers would be all over it.

71 posted on 08/11/2009 7:13:03 AM PDT by Tarpon (The Joker's plan -- Slavery by debt so large it can never be repaid)
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