Thanks for the mention of the Bucky car, I'd forgotten about that!
Link I found about it for those also interested:
http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax
> What you need to do is record the sound of a Harley motorcycle on
> a chip and play it back as you motor along
I'd rather have a quiet vehicle myself, though I did hear of a production electric vehicle someplace that has the sound of a motorcar when your driving it. (Plus we have sound laws to consider in the UK, eg. it would probably be illegal to play it too loud, or you'd need a special license, its crazy how many laws we have here, its hard to keep up!)
Nissan Electric Vehicle
The aristocrats always hated change. We have quite a few in our country. They are mostly on the left.Nanos wrote:Thanks for the mention of the Bucky car, I'd forgotten about that!
Link I found about it for those also interested:
http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax
> What you need to do is record the sound of a Harley motorcycle on
> a chip and play it back as you motor along
I'd rather have a quiet vehicle myself, though I did hear of a production electric vehicle someplace that has the sound of a motorcar when your driving it. (Plus we have sound laws to consider in the UK, eg. it would probably be illegal to play it too loud, or you'd need a special license, its crazy how many laws we have here, its hard to keep up!)
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Well no. Socialism is about stasis. You can't have 5 year plans unless everything goes according to plan.JohnSmith wrote:If they hate change, doesn't that mean they're conservative? By definition, the left welcome change...
The conservatives in America have embraced change through economics. The liberals through government programs. Economics is faster and more efficient. Less prone to bribery. And one man with an idea can change things. Government requires lots more co-operation. Which usually means bribery.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
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Mike Holmes
- Posts: 308
- Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:15 pm
Turning another interesting topic into a political diatribe? Back on topic...
Sure the Li batteries are expensive now. But we're not talking about putting 1000 camera batteries in the car to make it run (though some concepts sorta do something like this actually). The current cost are for huge batteries which have, at the moment, no use except for in cars. So the cost is not mature, and will go down.
All sportscars are toys. So, yeah, the Tesla is a toy. So is the UEV Spyder, for that matter, though it's slightly less. The Tango falls in this category as well ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango_T600 ). As will the Dodge Zeo, and other cars, should they come to production. And we won't suppose that competition for sports cars will result in lower prices (certainly doesn't for Ferrari's and Lamborghinis). But sports cars are not the only choice. Here are some others:
The Reva, available now in India and selling in substantial numbers, does not use Li batteries. By being a pretty tiny car, they manage to get it to go about 50 MPH with lead-acid batteries. It only costs a bit over $5,000. That's the other end of the spectrum from the Tesla. They say that these will soon be being sold here (if you really wanted you could import one, I suppose). http://www.revaindia.com/
Note that I'm ignoring so-called (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles) which are more or less glorified golf-carts that are governed to go only 24 MPH. I wonder how fast they can really go, however....
I'm assuming a car that can get you to work in approximately the same time as your ICE equivalent.
So are these vehicles always going to be tiny or expensive? Not neccessarily. Check out Phoenix Motorcars ( http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/ ). These guys have SUVs and SUTs that they say will be priced at $40,000. Coming soon they say.
That's near reasonable for a car of that sort. Considering the gas savings, we're almost talking economical. Not quite, no. But for somebody who would have purchased an Escalade anyhow? That's a far larger market than the Tesla.
Oh, and they're promising at ten-min charge time, from a battery from Altairnano. That's equivalent to the sci-fi promises of Eestor. The range will be 100 miles, perhaps more. Oh, and they claim more than 20,000 use cycles, too (in some cases 25,000). That's a battery life of something like 2,500,000 miles. From a company that seems to be quite legitimate; apparently these batteries are already in cars and being used. If my internet research is bad, I stand to be corrected.
The Toyota Rav-4 was somewhere in between the Reva and the Phoenix SUV, in that it was an SUV, but ran on lead-acid batteries - 24 of em. Folks who have em, love em, from what I can see. Produced from 1997-2003. Five hour charge, can go 80 miles. Existing technology. Sold for about $40,000, though replacement battery packs are hard to find, and thus command something like $25,000. Not cheap, but, again, economy of scale could fix this (including the "actual cost" of the car being more than what was charged, due to it being a project at the time).
From our friends at Mitsubisi (who I like to remind folks were responsible for the "Zero" flown by Japanese pilots in WWII), comes their MIEV. A weird little car, but I can handle weird. Specs from a test driven model:
- 80 MPH Top Speed
- charges in 7 hours with standard charger - but they're building a fast charger to get it down to less than 30 min.
- 130 mile range
The 2005 concept they've actually considered selling. It would have a range of only 90 miles or so, but the price-tag that they bandy about is only $19,000. They'll have something on the market soon, I'm betting. Leave it to the Japanese to figure out something this efficient...
More in the "coming soon" department (as in possibly for 2009), is the X500 from Miles Electric Vehicles ( http://www.milesev.com/ ). Their sedan, a pretty standard looking thing with four doors, and a trunk and everything, will go 80 MPH, with a range of 120 miles, and will have a price tag of something like $30,000 to $35,000.
Let's see, if I have to pay $300 for energy costs a year, as opposed to the maybe $1300 a year I'm paying now, after ten years of ownership, that brings the effective price of this Camry looking car down to maybe less than $25,000? Now factor in the fact that my maintainence bills will be relatively non-existent for the electric car. How much does that knock off the price-tag? Suddenly these cars are looking like they'll be viably priced.
And this is what's available in the near-term.
No, not cheap. But what product of any sort comes out with small-scale sales that doesn't go down in price with time and competition? So I see two trends. The technology is improving and the cars are becoming more feasible economically at the same time.
Again, I think the only impediment to really getting these down in price with mass sales is people's prejudices against something new. Whether conservative or not.
Mike
Sure the Li batteries are expensive now. But we're not talking about putting 1000 camera batteries in the car to make it run (though some concepts sorta do something like this actually). The current cost are for huge batteries which have, at the moment, no use except for in cars. So the cost is not mature, and will go down.
All sportscars are toys. So, yeah, the Tesla is a toy. So is the UEV Spyder, for that matter, though it's slightly less. The Tango falls in this category as well ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango_T600 ). As will the Dodge Zeo, and other cars, should they come to production. And we won't suppose that competition for sports cars will result in lower prices (certainly doesn't for Ferrari's and Lamborghinis). But sports cars are not the only choice. Here are some others:
The Reva, available now in India and selling in substantial numbers, does not use Li batteries. By being a pretty tiny car, they manage to get it to go about 50 MPH with lead-acid batteries. It only costs a bit over $5,000. That's the other end of the spectrum from the Tesla. They say that these will soon be being sold here (if you really wanted you could import one, I suppose). http://www.revaindia.com/
Note that I'm ignoring so-called (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles) which are more or less glorified golf-carts that are governed to go only 24 MPH. I wonder how fast they can really go, however....
I'm assuming a car that can get you to work in approximately the same time as your ICE equivalent.
So are these vehicles always going to be tiny or expensive? Not neccessarily. Check out Phoenix Motorcars ( http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/ ). These guys have SUVs and SUTs that they say will be priced at $40,000. Coming soon they say.
That's near reasonable for a car of that sort. Considering the gas savings, we're almost talking economical. Not quite, no. But for somebody who would have purchased an Escalade anyhow? That's a far larger market than the Tesla.
Oh, and they're promising at ten-min charge time, from a battery from Altairnano. That's equivalent to the sci-fi promises of Eestor. The range will be 100 miles, perhaps more. Oh, and they claim more than 20,000 use cycles, too (in some cases 25,000). That's a battery life of something like 2,500,000 miles. From a company that seems to be quite legitimate; apparently these batteries are already in cars and being used. If my internet research is bad, I stand to be corrected.
The Toyota Rav-4 was somewhere in between the Reva and the Phoenix SUV, in that it was an SUV, but ran on lead-acid batteries - 24 of em. Folks who have em, love em, from what I can see. Produced from 1997-2003. Five hour charge, can go 80 miles. Existing technology. Sold for about $40,000, though replacement battery packs are hard to find, and thus command something like $25,000. Not cheap, but, again, economy of scale could fix this (including the "actual cost" of the car being more than what was charged, due to it being a project at the time).
From our friends at Mitsubisi (who I like to remind folks were responsible for the "Zero" flown by Japanese pilots in WWII), comes their MIEV. A weird little car, but I can handle weird. Specs from a test driven model:
- 80 MPH Top Speed
- charges in 7 hours with standard charger - but they're building a fast charger to get it down to less than 30 min.
- 130 mile range
The 2005 concept they've actually considered selling. It would have a range of only 90 miles or so, but the price-tag that they bandy about is only $19,000. They'll have something on the market soon, I'm betting. Leave it to the Japanese to figure out something this efficient...
More in the "coming soon" department (as in possibly for 2009), is the X500 from Miles Electric Vehicles ( http://www.milesev.com/ ). Their sedan, a pretty standard looking thing with four doors, and a trunk and everything, will go 80 MPH, with a range of 120 miles, and will have a price tag of something like $30,000 to $35,000.
Let's see, if I have to pay $300 for energy costs a year, as opposed to the maybe $1300 a year I'm paying now, after ten years of ownership, that brings the effective price of this Camry looking car down to maybe less than $25,000? Now factor in the fact that my maintainence bills will be relatively non-existent for the electric car. How much does that knock off the price-tag? Suddenly these cars are looking like they'll be viably priced.
And this is what's available in the near-term.
No, not cheap. But what product of any sort comes out with small-scale sales that doesn't go down in price with time and competition? So I see two trends. The technology is improving and the cars are becoming more feasible economically at the same time.
Again, I think the only impediment to really getting these down in price with mass sales is people's prejudices against something new. Whether conservative or not.
Mike
Let us say for the sake of argument that a 100 mi auto requires 20 KWh.
Charge in 10 minutes? 120 KW peak. @ 220 V that is 550 Amp service. Just for the car. Add in another 100 Amps for normal house service plus another 50A for losses and you are up to 700 Amps.
Now consider that that would be mostly idle capacity and you are placing a lot of strain on the electric supply. Meaning a pole pig per house. Raising your fixed costs and probably putting you on some kind of demand charge service.
And a 120 KW battery charger will not be cheap either.
All of this will get done in time. Including the lowering of battery costs. However it is likely that it will not make a significant difference for 10 years and more likely 20 considering that none of these vehicles is in mass production yet and a lot of infrastructure will have to be built.
Charge in 10 minutes? 120 KW peak. @ 220 V that is 550 Amp service. Just for the car. Add in another 100 Amps for normal house service plus another 50A for losses and you are up to 700 Amps.
Now consider that that would be mostly idle capacity and you are placing a lot of strain on the electric supply. Meaning a pole pig per house. Raising your fixed costs and probably putting you on some kind of demand charge service.
And a 120 KW battery charger will not be cheap either.
All of this will get done in time. Including the lowering of battery costs. However it is likely that it will not make a significant difference for 10 years and more likely 20 considering that none of these vehicles is in mass production yet and a lot of infrastructure will have to be built.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
True. But that gets you back to the infrastructure problem.jmc wrote:If you can charge the car in ten minutes then you might not need high power supplies in every house, just a couple of flyweels in a few charging stations might be enough to serve the needs of the community.
Or the "gas station" problem. How do you charge 5 cars at once - 500 a day?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
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esotERIC D
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Mon May 05, 2008 2:42 pm
- Location: Vermont
I was wondering what people thought of a 'battery changeing station'
Lets say GM builds an electric vehicle with a battery that can easily be removed and replaced with one that has been charging for however long it takes.
The batteries should be able to be replaced in about ten minutes.
Battery quality and life can be monitored.
I guess the big catch would be that the fully charged battery should cost less than (maybe) 10 cents per mile including labor.
All with an automated stytem and a dedicated polywell??
I believe this is common practice in Nepal
Lets say GM builds an electric vehicle with a battery that can easily be removed and replaced with one that has been charging for however long it takes.
The batteries should be able to be replaced in about ten minutes.
Battery quality and life can be monitored.
I guess the big catch would be that the fully charged battery should cost less than (maybe) 10 cents per mile including labor.
All with an automated stytem and a dedicated polywell??
I believe this is common practice in Nepal
The problems are many:esotERIC D wrote:I was wondering what people thought of a 'battery changeing station'
Lets say GM builds an electric vehicle with a battery that can easily be removed and replaced with one that has been charging for however long it takes.
The batteries should be able to be replaced in about ten minutes.
Battery quality and life can be monitored.
I guess the big catch would be that the fully charged battery should cost less than (maybe) 10 cents per mile including labor.
All with an automated stytem and a dedicated polywell??
I believe this is common practice in Nepal
Labor costs in first world countries.
How much charge will the replacement battery hold?
The guy who gets a recharged replacement from a brand new car will be very happy. The guy who gets a battery that is 10 years old is not going to be a happy camper.
Then there is the inventory. If on average the batteries get recharged once a day that means doubling the battery inventory vs the number of cars.
And of course there is the wear and tear on the battery and the battery mounts.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
A dead radio battery is one thing. Being stuck on the side of the road is another.Nanos wrote:Isn't this how they used to do things years ago in the UK with batteries for radios ?
Eg. you took your existing flat battery along and swapped it for a charged one. I don't recal anyone complaining that they might have got an old battery :-)
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
> Being stuck on the side of the road is another
Thats why we have the AA and RAC road recovery services
I don't see any differences between a battery problem and some other every day issue effecting currently vehicles which cause them to break down, at least if its only a battery issue, they can just slot in a replacement and your be on your way!
My thought is that the battery swap car idea has been around decades and technically possible for the same time, its just been a lack of will to make it happen.
In the UK at least in London they are beginning to provide free public charge points for electric vehicles, currently some 500+
Which I see as an excellent solution to the issue of low range, goes to the shops and park for a few hours, all the time your car is recharging.
Thats why we have the AA and RAC road recovery services
I don't see any differences between a battery problem and some other every day issue effecting currently vehicles which cause them to break down, at least if its only a battery issue, they can just slot in a replacement and your be on your way!
My thought is that the battery swap car idea has been around decades and technically possible for the same time, its just been a lack of will to make it happen.
In the UK at least in London they are beginning to provide free public charge points for electric vehicles, currently some 500+
Which I see as an excellent solution to the issue of low range, goes to the shops and park for a few hours, all the time your car is recharging.
Frequency. Disruption of schedules.I don't see any differences between a battery problem and some other every day issue effecting currently vehicles which cause them to break down, at least if its only a battery issue, they can just slot in a replacement and your be on your way!
Suppose your daily commute is 80 miles and you get a 60 mile battery.
OK you can have a chip with a battery history attached to the battery. Now what if the charge station has no 90 mile batteries in inventory?
That also gets you into the free rider problem. The 60 mi guys wind up paying for the 80 mi guy's batteries.
I'm sure it can be worked out. It is not straight forward.
Also the extra cost of battery inventory increases the cost of what is already an expensive way to store energy. Which is why hybrids are still a very good idea. A 1 or 2 HP generator can give you limp along capability. At minimal weight and cost penalty.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
> Suppose your daily commute is 80 miles and you get a 60 mile battery.
You could make the batteries in units of 20 miles each say.
> Also the extra cost of battery inventory increases the cost of
> what is already an expensive way to store energy.
Even so, I reckon it could be a far cheaper solution overall.
It reminds me of in the UK at least, with our bottled gas supplies that its pot luck whether you get a damaged/leaky bottle or not, as they are returned and reused, and people pay a deposit on them when they first sign up to use them.
We have AA battery size already agreed upon, so we could come up with something larger for cars. (Though I have heard of several cars that runs just on AA battereries, though I'd hate to have to swap out several thousand of those if they go flat!)
You could make the batteries in units of 20 miles each say.
> Also the extra cost of battery inventory increases the cost of
> what is already an expensive way to store energy.
Even so, I reckon it could be a far cheaper solution overall.
It reminds me of in the UK at least, with our bottled gas supplies that its pot luck whether you get a damaged/leaky bottle or not, as they are returned and reused, and people pay a deposit on them when they first sign up to use them.
We have AA battery size already agreed upon, so we could come up with something larger for cars. (Though I have heard of several cars that runs just on AA battereries, though I'd hate to have to swap out several thousand of those if they go flat!)