Electric Cars Continue to Make Inroads

Both mine do, one automatic, one manual.

On the automatic the difference can be 35mpg in cities, 55-65mpg on the motorway, depending on the speed.

fact is that there are indeed people fully charging their Teslas overnight (~8 hrs) from unmodified 220V home service no problem at all. "

Well for one if they made it home they did not drain it dead. But I am goin g with you were right the first time. You can't get more out of a battery t han you put into it.

But by the math I also mean the bigger picture. If everyone works days, cha rges at night that could be a problem. Right now, in warm areas people use more power to cool during the day, and the power company has a chance to re st a bit at night. Well them days are over.

And then there are areas where people do not have natural gas and heat elec trically, they would be using more power at night of course. This could qui te possibly stress the grid.

There is still the issue of generating all this power as well. The only thi ng that can do it is nuclear, and that is not quite trouble free of course. That, coupled with the EOL problems with the batteries might just cause mo re problems than it solves.

And realize another thing. The AC in this house here does not pull 16 amps. I forget the number but it worked out to about $1.20 per hour the compress or runs. Now we are talking even more every night. Twelve bucks a day is li ke $400 a month, do you spend that much on gasoline ? Some people do.

And also, if you made it home you did not run the battery completely into t he ground. But do these batteries take kindly to short cycles like that, or will it shorten their useful life ? Or, as in some other batteries is it b etter to run them all the way down, like to prevent "memory" in the old NiC ads ?

I think we're coming back to wanting two batteries in each car, and all of them standardized. That's what the oil companies did. You can go to a Shell or a BP or whatever and the gas will run your car. Make a standard whereby you back in, swipe your card and the machine changes either your #1 or #2 battery or both. Whatever residual charge is in them you get a credit. As t hey age and get closer to EOL you pay less and/or get credited less, depend ing. And of course you could insist on newer ones, that would be pretty muc h like putting high octane gasoline in your car. It might behoove you to do that before a long trip.

But those long trips, that needs some attention. People want to drive from Cleveland to Colorado. That means you need enough exchange stations in bumf uct Kansas and everywhere.

The charging for ten minutes is not going to cut it. Dammit, we got cops pu lling guns on fast food workers because their order is taking too long. We got people changing lanes 45 times a mile to get ahead. And then zapping ac ross five lanes in a matter of a few feet to get to their exit because they had to be in the "fast" lane. You think people like that are going to sit there for ten minutes ? They will be shooting each other for a place in lin e.

Yup, the only way it will work is if you have exchange stations, and people are credited for their residual charge, and that rate is calculated, and o dometer miles used in the equation to determine how much they charged it at home and count that toward the EOL calculation.

Lots of work to do. Of course ultrasickening liberals want it yesterday, bu t people who know things know it just is not happening overnight.

I know all about weight, but otherwise the system is not viable. Deal with it or walk.

Interesting. i have already stated that if you go too far with solar you wi ll be shadowing arable land. Then you can't grow food on it for one, but ev en ground cover, which does convert some CO2 to O2. This however, is not a huge amount. But then we got some desert area in the middle of the country that grows nothing anyway, except maybe a few cacti. Of course them distrib ution becomes the problem.

Nuclear generally takes bodies of water to cool, to create the temperature differential Re:thermodynamics. It still heats up the place and also will c ause more evaporation of those bodies of water. This will affect the climat e if gone too far of course.

Anything will. I used to have a Fresnel lens from an RPTV that you could c ook asphalt with, I s*it you not. Me and the other tech took it outside and proved it. But with all that heat concentrated in a spot in the middle, lo ok at the shadow cast. There is no net gain just like in anything else. Mas sive solar batteries would have some impact as well, though that might be l ess undesirable than the alternatives. But that heat would not just be enou gh to run a Stirling cycle engine, if misused it would melt the thing. I us ed to have a shitload of those lenses on tap but they're all gone now. I go t one left and it is not that big or powerful.

Maybe it is about time to just look into hydrogen. Really. regular ICEs can be modified to work with it which saves a ton of manufacturing. The only p roblem is the power required for the hydrolysis. The tanks are kind of a me ss, viability wise that is, but there are worse things. Problem is like the O2 tank on your torch, it does not go liquid like the acetylene does. That means a very high pressure, and that means dangerous. If going hydrogen, h ell you might as well change the tanks like you would batteries in an elect ric car. That way they could be inspected. And the design of the car, put i t right in the middle because if it blows you are done. Keep it as protecte d as possible. Slight possibility maybe it could go where the regular gas t ank is now. Pressure regulator, hoses, I guess there would be no need for a fuel pump. The whole ECM system should work, detect the O2 in the exhaust and adjust fuel ratio accordingly.

And that would still be electric because there is (to my knowledge) no othe r way to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in the water. The difference is t hat you eliminate many environmental concerns, but you gain a fairly danger ous vessel in your car. Well the gas tank isn't all that safe either if you think about it.

But when the tanks go bad you just melt them down and make something useful out of them, like new tanks. The quick, automated Xray shows signs of stre ss, it gets changed out. Actually that is probably easier than estimating t he life cycle of a battery, not knowing who charged it or where or anything else.

We do need something, but all electric will definitely break the bank.

I disagree. I would not like to wait.

And this charge at work, charge at the mall idea, who pays for the electric ity ? It has to apportioned somehow. They really can't afford to give it aw ay all over the place.

I think changeable, standardized batteries would be an advantage, one that could turn into a huge market advantage. Yup, now you go to the service sta tion like you used to go get gas. You back up to this thing and it switches out you battery(ies). And yes, I know it is more weight but it is more fun ction.

The car owner of course. You present a credit card or some other ID device that tells the charging point whose account it is, you take some kWh of charge, and it is accumulated on a bill.

Mine was stuck in a time warp involving Takata air bags, so it was actually a new car (208 miles) when I bought it in October. (Yes, I got a terrific deal on it.)

Well, even with 10% ethanol, I get an indicated 32 MPG in sixth gear at 65 mph on the flat.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs (Happy 2017 to all)

No doubt wind resistance *is* the culprit, the surprise was finding out that the limit was so high.

My previous car (a 1.5l Civic hatchback bought in the wake of the last oil embargo) loved going slower. 55mph was good, and I think 50mph was even better for fuel economy.

No electronics, pushed it and jumped in many times to start it when the battery was low--I sold that car much too soon...

Cheers, James Arthur

Indeed. I doubt the all-in energy / pollution cost of batteries, making & using a hybrid beats a decent gas-sipping thriftmobile, or if so, by much.

You need to get out more. Cars have been getting 40+ mpg since before we were born.

Integra.

Cheers, James Arthur

Sure fun matters. But stomping a van's accelerator isn't quite my version of it.

Grins, James

I used 144kWh last month, including the heat pump for heating. But that will rise as winter takes tighter hold.

I'm using a resistive heater in the office. That costs me ~500W x 3 hours a day, but saves me heating the whole dwelling. The desktop computer adds another 250(?)W to that, but not as much now that I've shut down Windows Update. :-)

Cheers, James Arthur

You must be west coast?

In my T100 pickup that "wall" is about 60. That's why I travel the lower speed limit roads which may have a few traffic lights, but none of the 20 mph crawling.

I'm wondering what is the difference between the very high mpg gas cars and the hybrids. Maybe we the gas cars are giving up something like legroom, etc.

Well, there you go. That is a tiny, low slung model that I would have a hard time getting into much less find comfortable to drive. You may like it a lot, but even the four door sedan will be too small for me. It's the same body as the Civic, right?

Not many, given that I sold it over twenty years ago.

I suspect I can and do haul roughly the same average number of refrigerators that you haul each month in your vehicle.

Trucks are great for hauling stuff. But I do very little of that, thus it makes more sense to rent Home Depot's truck--$19 for two hours--on the few occasions I need one.

Cheers, James Arthur

Some of your logic is painful. No, it is seldom that you run out of gas just as you drift into the gas station. Same with an electric car. We are talking about getting the job done and home chargers will do that just fine.

"Rest at night"??? What makes you think the utility company *wants* to rest at night??? That's absurd. They would *much* rather run 100%

I've never seen that listed as a problem. I believe their peak loads are summer days with the cooling load of people coming home and turning on the ovens while businesses are still cranking. To the power companies, they don't care about the rest.

Many years ago when I was a kid we had a second meter for the hot water tank. During peak hours it would cut off since you don't need to heat water constantly, just enough to keep the hot water from running out. They were storing energy in our hot water tanks in effect. We got a slightly cheaper rate for this. I'm not sure why they ended the practice.

Solar can't make electricity? What EOL problems?

What does that have to do with the EVs?

The batteries in cars prefer to be run in the 15% to 85% range. Many users program their cars to not go past the 85% point.

What problem does this solve? Are battery exchanges somehow different from charging?

Yes, I can see that when cops pull guns on fast food workers, that is a clear indication that we need to appease the people with guns. Maybe I should get one.

Battery exchanges are a bad idea. We've already listed the problems I believe.

What the f*ck does any of this have to do with conservatives vs. liberals?

I am on the other end of that. In the summer I use my truck to haul kayaks every weekend. I don't have to worry about Home Depot being open and wasting my time showing them a driver license, etc. It was one of the best things I've ever bought.

Sure, gasoline is freedom. But using more than needed doesn't increase my freedom. The less you spend on things you don't care about, the less time you need to spend working for Barack earning it (and the more time and money you have for the things you do care about).

"Economy is the art of making the most of life." --G.B. Shaw

Cheers, James Arthur

To a first order, 'high mpg' means less weight, and less windage. The Volt weighs 50% more than my car, needs 50% more power to accelerate, more raw materials to accomplish that, and has to drag all that dead weight around everywhere it goes.

The bodies aren't remotely similar. They're completely different.

But I think of the five-door Integra (they count the hatchback as a door) as over-large--I'd prefer something smaller.

The three-door Civic hatchback was a lot more practical, having decent hauling capacity when needed *and* seating four adults for the more usual uses. But I sold it to a pal for $500, who drove it another ten years then sold it again.

Cheers, James Arthur