Just use the cheap low power low power density 10 kW motors that have been around for decades.
If you want to scoot through intersections and accelerate to freeway speeds in seconds use compressed air for short bursts of 100 kW power.
This technology has already been proven by UPS and Peugeot.
Bret Cahill
Alot of technology people think is new has been around for some time. I hav e an old book about cars fromn about 1910 or so - "A good horseman wil usua lly make a good motorist" or something like that. In it is a description of an electric car.
It describs a complex arraingement for the accelterator usiong multiple tap s for I assume multiple windings on the motor or something like that. Fasci nating that they could do it that long ago really, but people were smart. S marter than today. No graphing calculator or any of that in math class.
The main problem with electric cars is not the motor, but the battery. That technology has advanced quite a bit but most of what is good about it come s with an environmental cost. And expense. he materials used are not cheap.
The reasons we do not have alternative energy and electric cars has very li ttle to do with any conspiracy theoris involving oil companies. "Defense" c ontractors perhaps, but oil companies are not at the root of the problem. A t the moment they are making money, but they know their days are numbered. Fact is, once a viable alternative comes up, they will be peddling that. Fo r sure.
Another thing is you will never have an electric fighter jet. Well by defin ition it wouldn't be a jet, but the fact is that it is going to be a long t ime before they can produce the power to mass/volume required for such an a pplication, as well as many others.
All electric motorsa have certain advantages over the fossil fueled engine. You don't get acid in the oil, or soot. No exhaust to worry about nor inta ke. Pretty much one moving part - the rotor, so one set of roller (or Timke n or whatever) bearings, no maintenence. Well maybe not none at all.
If things were made to last, and you are really cranking this motor, perman ent magnets can lose some of their strength, especially if there is alot of heat involved.
In fact you can eliminate the magnets altogether. Just use windings.
What REALLY pays in an electric car, if you have batteries that are somewha t forgiving when it comes to charge rates, is a scheme that uses the vehicl e's inertia to charge the battery when deceleration is called for. Of cours e there are still brakes, but just letting your foot off the "gas" pedal ch arging the battery, for example going downhill, would turn the converter.in verter around sort of and boost the voltage from the motor turned ghenerato r into enough to reverse the current through the battery. this circuitry is not all that difficult.
One advantage an electric car really has is with a propoerly designed motor there is no need for a transmoission. The torque curve starts at zero RPM. This reduces the weight for one, and makes a CVT look like stone skins and bear knives.
Even better was a concept car I read about. Not sure if they ever built it but supposedly this baby was to have a motor for each wheel. The problem wi th such a design is that for maximum benefit the motors would have to part of the unsprung weight, which is bad. Old rear wheel drive cars (supposedly ) performed better with independent rear wheel suspension. This is only par tly because off the new control they gain over the geometry, the main gain is because the differential became sprung weight rather than unsprung weigh t.
So for that scheme to yield the maximum benefit, the motors should be as li ght as possible. Lightness is good no matter where you want someting to mov e, but here it has even more importance.
So you talk of compressed air, OK, that is a possibility but you must reali ze just how much compressed air you will need. In a little shitcan sub 2 li tre engine, have any ideas how high the cylinder pressure goes during combu stion ? Let's just sat 100 PSI ain't gonna do it. Let's just say 500 PSI ai n't gonna do it. Plus, somehting has to compress that air.
There are shemes with tricky transmissions using aa flywheel for that purpo se. this adds a bunch of mechanical complexity which is not in our best int erest.
I would advcate for say small front wheel drive motors that are lightweight and enough fo cruising, and perhaps a se of heavier and ore ppowerful otor s for the rear wheels where the fact that they do not turn can be an advant age in that simple U joints rather than CV joins could be used, or maybe mo re unsprung weight in the rear would not be as much of a disadvantage.
Of ocurse now that Lockheed Martin has outdone the Tokamak by a factor of t en in size to output ratio, maybe blowing someone's doors off will take on a whole new meaning.
(yes, I was a speed freak. I mean when me, or most of one side of my family went looking for a car the first thing was up with the hood. What engine d oes it have ? How fast is it ? Later we got to whether it had like, seats. Windows. All ancillary items in our view. ;The center of the car is the eng ine, not the goddamn cupholder like these new engineers think. And those tr ick mufflers these days sound like shit. Look Man, a V8, if it is loud, is supposed to have BASS. I mean more bass than a rich wigger's Toyota with th e dB meter stuck to the dash. I want to be able to lift the pavement, and t hen throw asphalt once I punch it.
An electric car woith enought power can do that and take you to 200 MPH in seconds, IF YOU GOT THE POWER FOR IT. You can load the thing with batteries until it is a two seater with no trunk or anything, where you can't even t ake it to the store for a pack of cigarettes because they won't fit, but wh at good does thaat do you ? Then you gotta charge this mess.
And that is the other thing. Electric car does not mean free rides.Instead of paying the gas station, you will be paying the electric company, or thro wing up somehting off the grid.
Know what ? Teslas start at $70,000, maybe they should throw in a solar cha rger.
That brings up another thing, an electric car does not idle, so how to put in air conditioning ? Most people whoi live in areas where solar recharging wold be viable I think would REALLY like air conditioning.
ave an old book about cars fromn about 1910 or so - "A good horseman wil us ually make a good motorist" or something like that. In it is a description of an electric car.
aps for I assume multiple windings on the motor or something like that. Fas cinating that they could do it that long ago really, but people were smart.
Chauvinism of contemporaries.
Some prof recently said that the average citizen from ancient Greece had a better well rounded education than most people today.
In some fields precision and math are necessary.
In a lot of fields all you need to know is the effect. No calculations or graphs necessary. You can invent and write valuable patent claims based en tirely on effects.
This vastly increases the number of potential inventors.
Galileo never intended to throw the lowly empirical sciences under the bus when he discovered that physics could be exact.
I once laughed at medical science because it was so experimental. Then Ste ve Jobs blew it off and died.
I'm not quite so chauvinistic now.
Fuel cell cars are also using rare earth motors.
t comes with an environmental cost. And expense. he materials used are not cheap.
The biggest problem as far as cost is that Li-ion degrades over time making battery cost twice the cost of the grid power that'll ever pass through it .
Nano materials may be the game changer. Stanford did something with carbon nanotubes and the NTU in Singapore just announced titanium dioxide electro des.
Li-ion could be recharged in 2 minutes and last 10,000 cycles:
. . .
e. You don't get acid in the oil, or soot. No exhaust to worry about nor in take. Pretty much one moving part - the rotor, so one set of roller (or Tim ken or whatever) bearings, no maintenence. Well maybe not none at all.
anent magnets can lose some of their strength, especially if there is alot of heat involved.
I was thinking of those cheap Dayton motors used in industry with a power d ensity of 0.05 hp/lb.
hat forgiving when it comes to charge rates, is a scheme that uses the vehi cle's inertia to charge the battery when deceleration is called for.
Compressed air is cheaper more reliable, no expensive huge caps, and better as far as recycling.
. . .
lize just how much compressed air you will need. In a little shitcan sub 2 litre engine, have any ideas how high the cylinder pressure goes during com bustion ? Let's just sat 100 PSI ain't gonna do it. Let's just say 500 PSI ain't gonna do it. Plus, somehting has to compress that air.
Peugeot engineers were using a "scuba tank" and comparing the energy to get up to freeway speed to a kiwifruit.
No one eats a kiwi because he's hungry.
. . .
d of paying the gas station, you will be paying the electric company, or th rowing up somehting off the grid.
Barclays recently said it's already cheaper to be off the grid in HI and th is will be the case in the SW in 4 years.
Some American bank then went even further: Utilities have no business in p ower generation anywhere in the lower 48.
If the NTU battery turns out to work, then the market for _any_ utility pow er will collapse.
No coal, no gas and no nukes.
It's cheaper to tell the home builder to install the solar cells and batter ies and pay $15 more on your monthly mortgage than pay the utility for elec tric power.
harger.
They already offer to charge up for free in many places in California, Flor ida, etc.
t in air conditioning ?
Hopefully they'll just use a $120 a window unit.
When it burns out you go to Walmart and replace it yourself.
hink would REALLY like air conditioning.
AC is an a fortiori argument for EVs.
You sit on the freeway stuck in traffic. The only energy you use is your 1 kW Home Depot window unit.
Bret Cahill
Just hang two or three on each wheel.
That's inefficient. And heavy.
Is Peugeot still in business?
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
It's as efficient as batteries, lasts longer, can be recycled and yet is still light enough to make for low energy consumption.
UPS is.
Peugeot is
In today's EVs the big short burst of power is supplied by caps powering expensive rare earth motors.
Instead of one motor doing both high power and low power tasks a dedicated driver could be used for each task.
Since the energy is small, the kilocalories of a kiwi, compressed air doesn't require a large tank and pneumatic motors are more compact than anything in addition to being more reliable.
The French are using it for a liquid fuel vehicle with a small engine but it can be used for cheap low power electric motors as well.
Bret Cahill
Something that wasn't impossible to perdict.
Spending the $$$ wasn't too hard to perdict either.
Note they didn't eliminate neodymium altogether.
Bret Cahill
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